Sunday, November 30, 2014

MY HOUSE SALAD DRESSING RECIPE

Brenthoven's Restaurant has been around for many years.  One can go on line and read reviews etc.  I do not go there!  I am a very superstitious man!  Therefore I avoid the reviews and likes or dislikes!

Over the many years friends have asked for my House Salad Dressing recipe.  I am finally willing to give it out on my blog.

I know many cooks that hoard recipes as if the recipe were something made out of gold and silver!  They refuse to share a recipe with anyone.  I do have one dear chef friend and she will share a recipe IF and only IF you exchange one of your valued recipes for her cherished gem!

Cakes, Breads, Muffins, Cookies are all made from flour.  Yes, Gluten Free need Potato flour, Soy flour, Rice flour... but they begin with FLOUR!

I LOVE MAKING SOUPS!
All soups begin with a BASS NOTE.  (the word soup base is not a stupid word!)  One uses the stock of Beef, Chicken, Pork, Vegetables, Elk, Venison, fruit, and at times what ever is at hand!.

From the Bass note you add a TENOR VOICE!  That can be the MEAT, substance of the desired ingredient within the blend of soup.  Chicken, Beef etc. plus you can add vegetables and other herbs.

Tenor leads to ALTO.  She sings right under the Prima Donna Soprano!  The Alto can be certain herbs, seasonings, wine, fruit juice, fats, sugars, salt, pepper.  The list is endless.  She hold up the magic note of any soup!

ENTER THE SOPRANO!  THE PRIMA DONNA OF ALL NOTES.  Here is the magic.  I will not reveal my touch of the magic wand however, this is the touch that makes the pallet weep for joy!  This one touch brings everything into one harmonic melody of love and peace.

I cannot recall IF I wrote a blog about my closing of the season?  I made 43 GALLONS of PUMPKIN SOUP for customers.  They buy it in gallons then break it down into small amounts and freeze it.   On cold winter nights they can heat it up in a sauce pan or a crock pot.

Salad Dressings are created in the same spirit.  ALWAYS remember ALL RECIPES ARE ALTERATIONS ON ANOTHER RECIPE!

I stole my house dressing from a nice guy I met years ago at the original Nordic Inn.  Dirk Beesley.
He found it in San Francisco years ago.

The dressing is a very old "HIPPIE" dressing.  The story goes that one day someone was making poppy seed dressing and low and be hold there was not any more poppy seeds!  Thus they used Celery Seeds.  Magic.

I love cucumbers and tomatoes most of all with butter leaf and red leaf lettuces... the most tender flesh one can ever put in their mouth.  I posted the recipe on my FB for such a salad.  I said that I prefer my own dressing to the other dressings.  THEREFORE I AM WRITING THIS BLOG!

NOW FINALLY LAIDES AND ALL GOOD MEN THAT COOK:  HERE IS MY RECIPE FOR THE DRESSING.

YOU WILL NEED:

A BLENDER
HONEY 1 cup
RED WINE VINEGAR 1 cup
VEGETABLE OIL (3 cups. 2 to start with 1 to finish)
SALT 1 tsp
PEPPER1 tsp
DRY MUSTARD 1tsp
CELERY SEED OR POPPY SEEDS1 tsp

1... in a blender put 2 cup oil. red wine vinegar then add a cup of HONEY.  DO NOT PUT THE HONEY IN THE BLENDER FIRST!  It will not break down.  It must float in the vinegar  and honey.

2...Add one teaspoon of Salt, Pepper, Dry MUSTARD, and Celery Seeds.

3...Place the lid on blinder and PULSE it a few times, then let it RIP!  STOP AND ADD ONE CUP OF VEGETABLE OIL!!!  then remain blending.
The result should be a pinkish thick dressing.  Pour it into something you can SHAKE up as the dressing will separate after a few hours...

Dispose of the dressing after  two weeks.  It is still useable but, I think things should be made fresh and kept new as possible.

I am working on a cookbook.  If I live long enough I will accomplish about 1,000 things I still want to create in my life!

At my age I do not understand how some of my friends are so bored???  they awake, hit the golf course... la, la, la, the same ole, same ole, MIND YOU,  I am a very LAZY man and can never get all the things I want to achieve finalized!

I still have music I must learn and a bout 1000 books I must read and even though my body is aging... I want to visit so many places on my home planet earth.  I have a list of things beyond imagination.

Friday, November 28, 2014

Narek Hakhnazaryan CELLIST EXTRODINAIRE

For the first time in all my many years attending the NZSO concerts at Town Hall in the city of Dunedin, I was able to attend the LAST concert of the Orchestra's winter season.  For 22 years I have been able to attend the OPENING CONCERT in April because the seasons are upside down here at the bottom of the planet.  Fall time is around Easter and then winter in July, August etc. The winter season in the Northern hemisphere begins November and December...  2014 is the first time I have ever been in New Zealand in November thus I was able to attend the final concert for the season.

I have composed blogs about the many concerts I have attended over years.  From NYC, Europe, and Down Under.  I love Symphony Orchestra Music!
To hear a Symphony "tuning" is magic to my life!
All the dissonance melting into a perfect pitch.  It makes me think that just IF?  all of mankind with  it's religions, politics, prejudices, confusion could come together as ONE perfect Vibe...  but then we come to question:  WHO WILL BE THE PRINCIPAL VIOLINIST THE OBOE and FLUTE player THAT SETS THE TONE for bringing us all into ONE KEY.  ONE NOTE...?

Being a pianist I am blessed to have a cosmic palate of color and sound at my finger tips when ever the urge comes over me to place my hands upon the keyboard and allow my fingers to improvise.  Let them wander into all kinds of IDEAS.  Enter the music's world hidden deep within the secret places of my mind.  Of course I love recreating sound from the monumental musical creations the great composers have given us.  There are times when my fumbling mind 'cleanses' itself of some ugly debris floating around inside the brain by something as simple as muddling my way through a Bach Fugue!

Last night I had the amazing privilege of watching and hearing a young man perform on a wonderful instrument, the cello.  To me the Cello is like a human voice.  I have a priceless DVD of Rostropovich and Richter performing together at the Royal Albert Hall in London years ago!  I have all the recordings of YoYo Ma.

NAREK HAKHNAZARYAN'S PERFORMANCE CAUSED ME TO NEARLY LEAP OUT OF MY SEAT AND STAND DURING HIS PERFORMANCE WITH THE SYMPHONY!

He performed Tchaikovsky's Variations on a Rococo Theme.  Mind you, I am not a lover of this particular work however, I could not believe what my eyes and ears were hearing and my heart was feeling!

Narek was applauded with the clapping of hands in unison as well as pounding feet!  He came back for many curtain calls and finally played a most amazing encore.  Nothing from the standard repitore he performed an Armenian Lament!!!  A lament is sorrow, sadness, longing.  (the most viewed piece  of my recordings on youtube is The Laments of the Maiden and the Nightingale.)

Narek was born in Yerevan, Armenia.  Therefore he chose a Armenian melody for his encore and developed it's wailing of sorrow and tears into something beyond imagination.
HE USED HIS OWN VOICE in a haunting duet of the main melody.  He drew magic from his instrument which were celestial.
His glissandos stretched to the limit of one's heart strings!  Some of the variations sounded like a Jimmy Hendrix crazy jazz improvisation.  His body movements matched the music perfectly.  Narek is one of the great cellists of the times.  (thank the heavens he is only 25 years old!  Long may he live and keep giving his music to this planet.)

A friend I attended the concert with commented after the encore,  "I think this young man SLEEPS with his cello.  He loves his instrument that expresses all he feels.  He has found his voice."

I have always envied guitar players, violinists, cellists and other instruments people can carry   everywhere they wander...  I simply do not have the strength to lift a grand piano into my pickup and drive up the canyon, find a quiet place by the river and make music.

I love the way Christopher Parkening can walk on a stage carrying his guitar by it's neck, seat himself in a chair and then ever so tenderly and with love place the girl of his instrument on his thigh, caress it close to his solar plexus, heart and lungs.

The piano is my first and will be my last love affair.  It is shaped like a sacred harp.
David of the Old Testament played the harp, flute and could dance.  The harp is the instrument of ANGELS so I was once told.  Who's  to know?

If you are ever presented with the gift of having this young cellist grace your area do purchase a ticket and hear and see something gorgeous.  I am so happy I was able to be in Town Hall last night and saturate my being with such music!

Monday, November 24, 2014

The ultimate joy of NO TIME FRAMES!!

From Memorial Day weekend until the end of September I awaken every day round 6 AM.  I fall asleep between 11:30 PM and midnight.

I open my restaurant for breakfast at 8:00 AM.  I try to be inside the kitchen by 7:00 AM depending on my prep work.  I do most of my prep for the day and night from making soup, to plum sauce in the early morning.
Breakfast can be insane or not much of anything, depending on the time of year and how many rooms have been rented.
Lunch begins at 11:30 AM until 1:30 PM.  THERE IS A VERY SERIOUS REASON FOR MY CLOSING FROM 1:30 PM until 6:00 PM.
I become terribly exhausted and have to lay down.  Yep, I am a wimp and need to rest.  If I don't things can become scattered from HELL TO BREAKFAST...

I have never been a person that bounds out of bed at first light, smiling from ear to ear, full of energy and eagerness to begin a new and wonderful day.

As a little boy in grade school I struggled simply getting myself to the corner of the street, in the early morning where the yellow school bus collected a group of students waiting for the ride to school.  At times I would fall asleep during class.
Many days I walked from school home.  I loved being outside.  The open sky, sounds, things growing in fields of sugar beets, alfalfa, corn, beans the list was endless.  Most of all I loved looking west toward the Great Salt Lake and Antelope Island.

I do not simply fall asleep like other people.  I have dear friends and family I have shared hotel rooms with on trips abroad and I am amazed how they can simply brush their teeth, wash the face, put on the night clothes, crawl into bed and within minutes they are SOUND, I MEAN SOUND ASLEEP!!

I will still be laying in my bed reading, staring at the ceiling, listening to music, watching a movie... and then the "sandman" gently sprinkles stardust on my eye lids and I drift off.  I DREAM A LOT!
I dream in COLOR and SOUND.  I FEEL AND SENSE every dynamic in a dream.  I can sense smells, cold, hot, wet, dry, pain, ecstasy, as well as boredom in a dream state of mind.  It is a form of synesthsia.   (where one can see color when they hear sound, taste words etc..... look it up)

I arrived in NZ on Dec. the 5th 2014!!!  today marks 20 days I have been living with  no routine or time zone as far as work, obligations, dead lines...  I am still a human being I do have Dr. Appointments, Dentist, appointments and I practice piano, walk, day dream and read buckets of books.  HOWEVER!  I am not worried about when I sleep and when I awake!

Every night I dream.  My dreams waken me and not all of them are pleasant dreams.  They can involve events, people, places and situations I have experienced but, they are usually altered in some interesting way.

I once years ago kept a dream journal... I will admit it did not tell me anything amazing however, it did tell me how DIFFERENT the dream state can be  about a certain person or event compared to  the actual situation I'd recall in reality?  OR IS THE DREAM REALITY REAL and  REALITY AS WE KNOW IT A DREAM???

Who really cares?  I love being able to sleep when I am tired and be awake when I am awake!

Last night I went to bed a 10:30 PM and woke up round 3:00 AM.  I got out of bed... opened my I PAD to the book I am reading, nibbled on some cheese and olives... finally my eyes began to droop and I descended to the bedroom.  Crawled into my warm bed and floated into wild dreams!

I did awaken at 6:00 AM looked at the sunrise, started my morning coffee and studied my musical score of Debussy's Reflections on the Water... (music is kind of like blue prints of beautiful things one cannot put into words or colors.  I seem to find more meaning within a musical written score than sometimes hearing the sounds!  The horizontal and Vertical energy of music in written form.  I made two soft boiled eggs on toast, drank the coffee and around 8:00 AM went back to bed till 9:00 AM!

I was considered years ago as having serious mental disorders.  Thank GOD or who EVER they may be, they were and still are enlightened doctors...

20 years ago I was diagnosed with NARCOLEPSY.  There is a medication which is extremely expensive but OH MY GOD it works.  I only take it when I am working and when I drive for long hours.  I once drove off the freeway in Utah and was booked for DRUNKEN DRIVING!  No alcohol was in my blood......... they said I was on something else?  NOT.  I paid a $300.00 fine for something NO ONE seemed to understand or know about.

My Doctor in the 70's put me on Dexedrine.  OMG, I would go back on them this moment.  I have never ever accomplished so many things.  I WAS A WIRED UP GENIUS.  Talk about an issue.  Five years later I went through all the withdrawals of the drug alone... me and Judy Garland?

I have no idea why I chose to write about this?  Maybe some one that reads this blog has a similar problem but, IF you can live to 68 years as I have, and have a fantastic neurologist you may simply have a better life.

I have got to get up to my kitchen here in NZ and create dinner.  I have a neighbor coming in for dinner at 7:00 PM.  God only knows I do drink wine when I cook and sometimes I even remember to put some in the food!!!



Thursday, November 13, 2014

The eve of turning 68 years old...

On November 14th 1946 northern Utah was experiencing a serious blizzard.  Temps had dropped far below the point of zero.  Many roads were hidden under deep snow.  I was still living inside the safe and loving warmth of my mother's body.  Suddenly I wanted to be BORN!

My very young father drove my very young mother into the city of Ogden, Utah to the Dee Memorial Hospital.  They were having a FIRST experience in their lives and so was I!!!  The gift and blessing of a new life.  Their lives would never be the same.  They would become PARENTS.  I would become the first born son.  A drama unfolded that no one in this dimension would believe possible.

In October of this year I was in NYC taking the LIRR to Huntington NY on Long Island.  Two young black women were sitting across the isle from me.

Trains haunt me.  Ever since I was a baby I awoke and went to sleep hearing train whistles and then the rumble and throbbing accents of train cars rolling along rails.  There was the Union Pacific, the Southern Pacific, the D&RG trains... they all converged in Ogden.   The Ogden train station was a huge station...  it was at the west bottom of a very famous street in the western United States:  25th Street.  Because of my life with trains I love to take trains when I am in the east.

I have intense hearing.  When I was drafted in High School the Viet Nam war was a big issue.  I drove my 55 Fairlane Ford to Fort Douglas in SLC.  Had all the tests... tons of young men walking around in tidy whites and chilled inside those strange brick building...  At one point I was pulled out of the line and sent to an office where three officers were seated around a mental desk.  I thought something was terribly wrong.  The very and I mean very cocky little man asked me if I could hear  any sound when he turned a dial on a box that resembled a radio which did radiate a high pitched bleep type irritating pulses.

I answered YES.  He then sneered and asked IF I could HEAR ANOTHER SOUND...  which I could hear.  It was a buzzing sound mixed with some kind of static.  My answer was YES.  They  then put head phones on my ears.  I had great head phones at home.  I could listen to symphonies late at night and not bother my sleeping family with the music...  I waited for the what ever they were going to set off inside my head.  A very Erie foreign type language whispered mystically  and reached high and low tones...  they removed the head set and asked me what I heard.  I tried to explain it the best I could.  I was then taken to a different room and told to stay there until another officer interviewed me.

It seemed I have some kind of amazing hearing ability where  I could decipher decibels of sound in ways most people are not aware of.  Because of this "gift"  I was of value to the army.

Back to the train ride to Long Island.  I heard every word of these two young woman's conversation.
The one heavy set girl was crying and yammering on about her boyfriend and her other boyfriend and the things she needed in her life to make her happy...

I was stunned and amazed at the comment her friend said:  "GIRL! LIFE IS NOT ABOUT HAVING THINGS TO ENJOY LIFE IT'S ABOUT ENJOYING LIFE WITH THE THINGS YOU ALREADY HAVE!  YOU SHUT UP AND TELL ME ALL ABOUT THE THINGS YOU ALREADY HAVE THAT ARE PRECIOUS AND BEAUTIFUL IN YOUR LIFE!

Whooooeee!!!    If I had been much younger I would have said AMEN SISTA to that beautiful black girl.  She was spot on.

I have had a most stressful and honestly terrible year.  Loosing my mother and father within 6 months of each other was not a joy for me.  I honestly fell totally apart when my dad crossed over!  He had been my ROCK.

He knew all of my weakest parts.  He also knew my hidden secrets.
He loved me unconditionally as did my mother however, a son respects his mother in a different way. A son tries to save her from pain and disappointment.  My dad could handle everything I did and all the things I achieved and my mistakes.  As sons we follow the ALPHA MALE IMAGE.  My dad was my alpha male.

My 68th Birthday is November 15th.  My parent's wedding anniversary is November 16th...  they were inseparable for nearly 70 years.  That is one hell of a long time to endure the endless company of one person.  I thank my lucky stars for my choosing them for my parents this time around and I'm sure they were willing to accept and learn the lessons they had to learn from being the passage for my existence.

I am so thankful to be able to ENJOY my life at the present moment with what I have inside and outside of who I am.  I hope to compose a new birthday song for myself.  One of gratitude and most of all the miracle that I have honestly survived to see my 68th.

I have posted many photos of where I live in NZ.  I have posted many photos of where I live in WY.
I must always be where there are mountains, water and open sky.  They radiate a certain energy I thrive on and I belong to mountains and rivers. Mountains and rivers haunt me!

My one wish for every person is: the confirmation that you must become what you are!  You must face the inevitable within yourself.  After all, it is the only thing that can save you.  Many prophets, sages etc.  say they know... they know nothing more than I or you do.  I know that THEY don't know and they know they DON'T know... life is a beautiful mystery ... a dream ...   Happy birthday to all my Scorpios.


Monday, November 10, 2014

Brent Johnston Piano Rags performance

Blasts from the Past...???

In 1982 I helped write a musical review titled A SONG FOR YOU...  Sam Collett Jr. was my agent and he was a master mind at organizing and compiling musicians that were able to work together in performance or in settings of solo performance...

Much work and endless time went into this musical creation, A SONG FOR YOU.

Wolverine Canyon, was a band from Firth Idaho.  Young men that could MAKE and INSTILL their own original music as well as country standards.  They won the country western competition in Nashville plus had very popular 45 recording on juke boxes through out WY. ID, Dakotas, Utah... I at the time also had a 45 on juke boxes.
One side played "Evergreen" by Barbara Streisend and the flip side was "Help Me Make it through the Night", by Sammie Smith.
Claudia Nicholas had toured with the USO.  She did two trips to Viet Nam, the Meditarainiam  and Eroupe with me.  She has a voice much like Petula Clrake's.   (Don't Sleep in the Subway Darling, Don't Sleep in the Falling Rain...)    To this very day Claudia and I are dear friends.  Collett died and Wolverine Canyon Band fell apart... (always the break down of an ensemble)  Kind of like marriages.

So many other people have GONE due to simply living life's destiny.   I'm still here!

I watched the video with anxious anticipation...  I was 35-36 when this was filmed.  I had forgotten so many details that went into this show.  I had a seamstress that made all of my performance costumes...  she was a keen woman regarding trends and fashion.  She could do exactly what my Grandma Keller could do.  Look at a piece of clothing and with a pencil reproduce it into a pattern and create it.

I was my own musical arranger.  I had been the arranger and musical director for one of the earths most precious voices... Ricky Tanner.  If you have never heard this boy's voice do a google search for Ricky Tanner.

I had a mother that knew how to sell a performance.    When I won my first competion my mother had drilled me how and when to smile, when to make an entrance... when to bow.  She knew the best side of my face, the way light effects shadow and light...  she taught me to NEVER, EVER think I had failed.
If I made a mistake she only forgave it and always told me:  "You will never know the RIGHT NOTES till you hit the wrong notes.

In 1980 I suffered serious loss in my life.  Mabel Lythgoe was my landlady and died.  I met her in a serious rain storm... 620 28th Street, Ogden Utah became a crashing house for musicians, lost souls and most of all she was my secretary, accountant, passage into so many secret mysteries.  

My Grandma Johnston passed away... she was with me from the day I was born.  She believed in me.  She never, ever did anything untoward me except drowned me in unconditional love.  The stories that woman told me are magic.  She could see the invisible world... the list is endless...  1982 gave me hope and courage to reach into my future.

Transitions are painful yet so amazingly full of energy and hope.

I made many mistakes in my youth according to religion, philosophy, everything society frames as normal and perfect.  I have learned a very important fact the last 25 years:  THERE IS NOTHING CALLED PERFECTION...  I will write a blog about that one day.  NO ONE AND NOTHING IS PERFECT... everything keeps changing... evolving... vibrating, expanding, and most of all becoming beautiful and right.

I'm off to the Dorothy Brown Cinema... It is a great place in Arrowtown.  Go on line and look it up.

I am finally in my beloved NZ.  I am at peace and feeling so much better PHYSICALLY AND MENTALLY.   To be released from all the media and brain trips in THE USA.

I love the country I live in but, I fear the media is a breeder of hate and fear!

 WE ARE ALL MUSIC THAT IS PLAYED BY OUR DESTINY.  EVERYONE HAS A 'KEY' WHETHER THEY KNOW HOW TO DECIPHER IT OR NOT; IN ANY CASE WE CAN BE HAPPY ONLY WHEN OUR BEING IS IN HARMONY WITH THE NOTE THAT EXPRESSES IT.

Now that I have figured out how to post a blog once again thank you to my engineer and star seed child... I can write again.