What's for dinner at your house?? (Patreon)

Well hi!!

This easy relaxed holiday was just what I needed. By next year I'll be craving stuffing since I skipped it this year and went with...

Chicken n dumplins!

When you think about it, almost every traditional Thanksgiving flavor is all in that one recipe. Well, besides the cranberries. 

So I snacked on this Wesleydale Cranberry cheese and crackers with some white wine while chopping veggies and constructing my layered meal in a pot.

I learned to make this from my Grandma Drew (Mom's Mom) in upstate NY when I was there for the whole Summer at age 19 squeaking away on violin, taking lessons from Judy Hyman, and wondering if I'd ever be able to play one solid tune and have it actually sound good at all. 

My desire to play violin was like a heavy rock in my stomach. That's the feeling I get now when think of completing The Ceiling Fan Song!! Lemme just remind you quickly that you are the reason this song is in production!

I probably couldn't have justified the time and money expense right now otherwise. 

You're top 5 on my gratitude list this holiday week and always as we together stay the course despite some of the delays and road bumps I've hit in the last couple months.

At the beginning of that Summer my Mom drove up there with me. Twas a long road trip from Texas to New York in my beige 1992 Subaru Legacy Wagon, 5 speed.  Well, long to me at that time.

Later on with E Muzeki we had traversed the country, rubber on pavement, so many times, a couple thousand miles or more became like nothing. We once drove from a gig in Houston to Philly to Holly Michigan, and back to another gig in San Antonio three days later, straight without stopping literally just to drop someone off at their house and pick up some items we left at a Ren Faire. 

(The reason we left things at the faire was another story including two friends who were stranded in Michigan at the end of the season with a broken truck, a 5,000 pound 1980s era travel trailer, 4 cats and a monkey, but I'll save that one for another time.....)

Anyway, back to my Summer with my Grandparents.

I needed to find a teacher. 

My San Antonio teacher, a first chair in the symphony, told me some references from Ithaca College. He expressly told me to tell them that he had only been teaching me  for 6 months, because otherwise he would be too embarrassed to take ownership of how bad I was! 

They didn't call me back ha!

Luckily Mom had a friend from Highschool named Chris Reuning. He was son of a luthier and fixed up the violin she found in Uncle Bill's farm house. 

She showed it to me once when I was a little kid and she played a couple chirping notes with the bow. I tried a few times and this breathy scratchy nothingness came out and I shook my head in complete confusion at that thing. Never trusted it. Placed it back in the musty smelling rickety wood case that was lined on the inside with flowery wall paper.

And that's where it would stay in the darkness for almost 15 years, until I decided to be an Irish fiddler there at the end of high school. At that point it needed a lot of repair again, and it never did play really well. 

Anyway, her friend Chris went on to be a renowned strings dealer. I heard he sold a real Strad to Yoyo Ma.

He agreed to lunch, so we met down on The Commons for a sandwich the very week we rolled in to town.

Ithaca is set at the tip of one of the finger lakes which are, just like they sound, long skinny water ways cut by glaciers with steep hills on either side riddled with gorges and stunning scenery. Treat your eyes to a quick Google image search.

My Grandparents farm was on West Hill so it was a bit of a windy trek to get down into town. Even more of a trek to get back up to the colleges nested in East Hill, so I was a little worried about the cost of gas and violin lessons.

I had $200 total to my name. 

I'd be looking for a job for sure, but wanted to spend most of my time practicing and learning from my Grandparents how to grow and preserve all your own fruits and veggies.

I have some funny stories about my jobs too, but I'll spare you the details, unless you ask. 

(Also took singing lessons, but got frustrated and wouldn't sing again until Oscar came along! DEFINITELY didn't sing for other people until YOU came along and we started this Patreon.)

LONG STORY SHORT. 

Chris Reuning gave me a name, Judy Hyman. He said she has a classical background but plays old time fiddle.

PERFECT!!

I call her up. She charges $60 per lesson which was a lot for me. But she tells me she teaches in an old farm house on West Hill.

I showed my Grandpa on the map. He exclaims,

"Oh the white farm house on Enfield road?? I walked past that house every day on my way to school from age 5!"

It was right around the corner in other words. I planned to bicycle over with my violin case on my back.

...until I met the very large dog who also lived on Enfield road. 

My Grampa Otis taught me how to tie up rows of sweet peas, keep cauliflower from turning green, grow white asparagus, keep the racoons out of the corn, birds out of the blueberries, and beetles off the raspberries by removing them each one by one by hand every day. 

My Grandma June taught me the best strawberry jam, these chicken and dumplins and how to have the best time ever sitting on the porch snapping beans. 

I hope you are having a great weekend yourself and find some ways to make the time go slow. 

All this talk of food, my tummy is growling, so I just decided to go and heat up some leftovers.

Happy Thanksgiving weekend!!

xoxo,
Jenny