November weekends

When I look back upon this month, I think of the weekends: 1st, my birthday; 2nd, guests & music; 3rd, Quinnipiac & chess; 4th, Thanksgiving.

I already blogged about my birthday weekend, so will start with the 2nd weekend. My cousin and her husband were in town for a conference, so I gave them a tour of MIT and had them over for dinner. I was surprised how many stories I know about MIT, but then again I’ve lived in Boston almost as long as I’ve lived in NYC (scary!). Dinner was Uzbek lamb plov and Stollen for dessert (my cousin was in Saugus, and we told them about the German deli there). The boys were overexcited with so many guests (which included their godmother), and the presents they brought (especially a toy machine gun that makes a terrific noise).

We also saw Gidon Kremer & Kremerata Baltica in concert. Nikita was particularly taken with the beauty of Jordan Hall; he was really tired during the first half (it was a Friday), but was alert for the second half with the help of a Snickers bar. I wasn’t sure I wanted to stay for the second half because it featured mostly contemporary classical music, but I ended up enjoying the music so much that I had to track down a copy of their latest CD, De Profundis. The CD now gets a lot of playtime in the car; I particularly enjoy Arvo Pärt’s "Passacaglia" (so minimalistic, I could follow it during the performance), but wish it also included Stevan Kovacs Tickmayer’s "After Glenn Gould." We attended a concert nearly every week of November (two the second weekend), but seeing this chamber orchestra remains the highlight for me. The concert also prompted me to finally read Aaron Copland’s What to Listen for in Music, which has been sitting on my shelf for years.

Half the household was in Connecticut the 3rd weekend: I was at a conference while Nikita had a two-day chess tournament. The conference was held at Quinnipiac University, specifically the new student center – a venue so beautiful, it made me think, “Budget crisis? What budget crisis?” My panel, which featured assignments and studies of one of the classes I teach, went well. I got a lot of questions about my talk, which was about using the 1944 Avery paper to help students learn how to write scientific research papers. I also enjoyed hearing a talk from a person from Sam Houston University; we actually recognized each other from the same conference two years ago.

Nikita did reasonably well at his two-day tournament, winning three of seven games. The tournament didn’t start out well: he lost his first three games, but rallied to win the last game on the first day and two on the second – including the last game with a boy whose rating was much higher than his. His performance at the tournament reflects his performance this month: he won all four games the week before (he was so prepared, he even set out his clothes the night before and got up on his own), but then only one the week after. Igor likes to keep track of his chess rating, but really, I think it’s worse than the stock market.

Finally, Thanksgiving weekend. The holiday was at my brother’s this year, with his new wife cooking her first Thanksgiving meal. She pulled it off well: dinner was on the table by 5.15; the turkey was moist and accompanied by TONS of food. Let’s see if I could list them all: mashed potatoes (my brother’s contribution), sausage stuffing, cranberry sauce with mincemeat, cauliflower with Asiago cheese, carrots with orange, green bean casserole, cinnamon roasted sweet potatoes. My mom brought the hors d’oeuvre (mozzarella balls and sun-dried tomato) and first course (pumpkin bisque with butternut squash ravioli); I brought the pecan and apple pies for dessert.

Travel was a breeze on Thursday because we were on the road by 7.15 and arrived at my parents’ house about three hours later. So, the boys got to hang out with their grandparents while Igor and I napped. We went back to Boston that night because Igor had to work the next day. Again the drive took less then four hours (made a little longer with Nikita’s knock-knock jokes), and the boys were able to sleep because they were full and played soccer up and down the hallway with the 2 1/2-year old girl from next door.

Black Friday and Cyber Monday don’t mean much to me, but I did start planning for Christmas over the weekend. I got Nikita to write a letter to Santa, and made up my menus for Christmas eve, morning, and night. I also discovered a wonderful tradition for Advent: a Jesse tree. I had never heard of it before, but I really like how it emphasizes stories from the Bible instead of candies (or Legos). I use the devotionals and patterns from here so that the boys could color the ornaments (if you don’t want to color, there is this site; the devotionals are also a little different); I even have a jade plant that looks like a tree!

I knew the Jesse tree was needed when I asked Nikita about the meaning of Christmas, and he answered, “To get presents.” But I’m not sure how prepared I am for this crash course in religion, fielding questions such as “Where is he hiding?” (Vanya on why we can’t see God) and “Did he really come back to life?” (Nikita on Jesus). I think of myself as more spiritual than religious and Igor is very sensitive about what he considers brainwashing, so I am trying hard to distinguish between what people believe versus what we actually know. The stories, however, are having an effect on the boys. Yesterday, when I asked Ivan who’s coming, I expected him to say Nikita’s violin teacher, but he instead said, “Jesus.”

Besides books (The Faraway Tree and James and the Giant Peach for Nikita; Baby Brains and James Stevenson’s “Wainey” books for Ivan) and swimming (Nikita now enjoys kicking on his back with a board), the boys watched a bunch of DVD’s this month. I had to start Nikita on Star Wars because he needs to learn the stories behind his Lego sets. He was confused why I started with IV instead of I. I’m also not sure how much of the movie he heard because he kept asking me if people die. Both boys, however, really enjoy the Harry Potter movies. We currently have IV-VI from the library (but we haven’t seen III, my favorite); I’m not sure why since we can’t watch more than one movie a week. And Nikita is actually upset that Harry Potter VII, part I is in the theaters because it means he can’t watch it for free. What the boys can watch ad nauseum, however, are the classical music DVD’s. In particular, Ivan enjoys the Verbier Festival Piano Extravaganza, to which he conducts and plays air instruments (piano, violin, cello). Nikita’s violin teacher was able to convince Igor about delaying Ivan’s music education, but it probably won’t come too soon: Ivan recently claimed that Rostropovich didn’t play correctly.

As for me, I had so much work at the beginning of the month that I wished I could outsource it, but the neti pot and Russian sauerkraut kept me sniffle-free. I’ve also been trying out a bunch of new recipes recently, thanks to my new 2010 Cook’s Illustrated annual and Essential New York Times Cookbook. From the former, we’ve enjoyed Easier Fried Chicken (so tasty that Igor asked how hard it was to make. Thankfully, the recipe lives up to its name) and Chicago-style deep dish pizza (also very easy, but I’ll have to put less tomato sauce – which is on top of the cheese!). From the latter, I’ve tried David Eyre’s pancakes for breakfast (yummy) and revisited Cashew Butterscotch Bars for the Christmas fair at Nikita’s school. Interestingly, the recipe in the book calls for longer baking times than the recipe on the web. Cooking from the book made me lose the contrast between salt and sweet (the cashews are covered with butterscotch), but the cookies are still tasty. And I got a workout mixing butter and sugar with a rubber spatula.