What’s a Little Sugar Syrup Among Friends
This is the sort of dessert optimistically described as ‘healthy’ because it has a lot of fruit juice in it. Uh huh. It also has a lot of sugar syrup in it. Everyone know how to make sugar syrup? Equal parts sugar and water. Boil. Stir it a few times till the sugar finishes dissolving, take it off the heat, cool. Sugar syrup. Now you’re ready to make sorbet. You can just cruise your kitchen or the nearest fruit stand for anything that takes your fancy. Knock yourself out. Roughly speaking you’ll want half and half sugar syrup and fruit juice but it varies VERY VERY WIDELY depending on the sweetness of the fruit and how tart you like your sorbet. I, being an extremist, like it both very sweet and very tart: some people add water to their mixtures to moderate them a little. Feh. Or possibly Fie. What the pre-frozen solution tastes like is your guide–if you like it melted, you’ll like it icy–but before you rush to the tap, or the nearest bottle of this month’s mineral water*, remember that freezing will make the taste of the finished product a lot less powerful. The other slightly mysterious aspect of creating the perfect sorbet** is that if you’re using a sweet fruit–peaches, say–you don’t just use less sugar syrup, you add something like lemon juice. But I’m out of practise. I used to still-freeze stuff pretty often back in Maine, and I also had an old-fashioned hand-crank machine which was very cute and atmospheric and so on but was also a lot of work. Peter and I had a brief spasm of trying to learn to make sorbet after the wine sorbet we used to buy at the local deli went bust.*** I’ll be trying wine sorbet here soon. But meanwhile, I give you:
Lime Cranberry Sorbet
¾ c lime juice. I also grated the zest off one lime. I think it took eight limes: mingy little things, limes
¾ c cranberry-apple juice. Which is to say cranberry with enough apple so you can drink it. So-called cranberry juice is up the wazoo with sugar syrup equivalents
1 ½ c sugar syrup
Slosh it all around together so it’s evenly mixed, and pitch it into your ice cream maker. Mine, you have to turn it on first so the paddle is going before the juice hits the floor. I’m sure you could still-freeze it too, which only involves pouring it into an ice cube tray or trays and finding space for them, flat and level, in your freezer, and then taking them out occasionally and giving them a stir so they freeze into sorbet and not pack ice. Note however if you’re using an ice-cream maker that your sorbet will come out of the brief freezing process not knowing what hit it, and you’re better off to get it into your proper freezer immediately and keep it there for a few hours till its world stops spinning and it gets used to being a chilly solid. Which is why I made mine last night. If you eat it straight from the churn it’ll melt again with astonishing swiftness. I remember that from my old hand-crank freezer. I guess the pioneers had to eat their sorbet fast.
* * *
* I drink mineral water. But the fashion-accessory aspect gets on my single remaining nerve.
** When did we stop calling the stuff sherbet? The British have some excuse, they have a disgusting fizzy sweet called sherbet, but even my American cookbooks call it sorbet these days which makes me feel like I should be drinking tea with my little finger curled while singing^ Noel Coward.^^
^ Not exactly while. You know what I mean.
^^Now there’s a thought. Singing Noel Coward, I mean. Furthermore, he sang his own stuff and had a fairly terrible voice. I’m now collecting examples of successful performers with awful voices: additional points for successful performers with awful voices singing their own stuff. Guess why.
I played and sang There Is A Tavern in the Town for poor abused Oisin today. Well, sort of. I kept losing my place–Tavern is one of the handful of pieces I have memorised, so breaking down is a bit spectacular–and at one point started to laugh, only a trifle hysterically, and had to stop for that. I did eventually stagger all the way through it. Oisin got that bland, soothing look and used his Understanding Teacher Voice which I know is always bad news, although I daresay it’s better than a clout up longside the head. He says I can carry a tune and that all I need is to be audible. Well, yes. (Or, possibly, no.) I never had much voice and it’s gone paralytic with disuse. I realised a few days ago that the real reason I tend to revert to chest voice at the piano is so I can hear myself over the piano, even my own kindly tactful upright. It’s much worse with Oisin’s baby grand, especially if you’re frenziedly whacking at it. Out walking the dogs I have no competition and I’m standing up. How do I get myself into these things?? However it’s too late now.
So, hands up anyone who knew that Benjamin Britten had done an arrangement of Little Musgrave and Lady Barnard? I turned up several references to this and began trying to hunt it down. There follows at least three different editions of ‘The Complete Folk Song Arrangements of Benjamin Britten’, all three declaring sixty-one songs. Two of them offer complete playlists . . . the lists are different, and neither of them includes Little Musgrave. Clear days on the sheet music front. And the only Britten Little Musgrave I can find is scored for tenor, baritone and bass. Well, that’s helpful. I’ve sicced Oisin on the problem, but if TBB is all I can get, TBB I’ll take, and rearrange it, gorblimey it. Which I think is what I’m about to do with Gypsy Rover. I haven’t decided yet whether to order Best Gruesome+ Irish Songs of All Time and Beyond or not, to have something to arrange from, or whether just to sit down and pick it out with one finger and go from there. The former would be the better bet if I want the result recognisable, but I’m not sure recognisable is necessary.
Meanwhile . . . Song II is really beginning to look like something. It’s almost scary. I wrote the music for the extra verse this week–I’d thought I could repeat the music for the first verse for the third but it doesn’t work, so then I got all clever. Not that I meant to, but this music writing schtick is more and more like story writing: it ain’t up to you, honey, so don’t get any ideas above your station; you do what you’re told.++ There’s now a progression from the mildly minor of the beginning to the unmitigatedly bleak of the end. More notes too. And more Strange Chords. One of the things that does make me feel like I’m not entirely wasting my time (let alone Oisin’s) is that the comments Oisin makes are usually the rational, articulate versions of things I’ve been groping toward.+++ For example, this week he wanted to talk about the tonal centre. The . . . uh? I’ve mostly stuck to whatever it is that it is–Dorian mode, more or less–but it wasn’t till this week and the third verse that it began to feel a little unvarying. Oisin suggested I might try transposing a section, and what about a little introduction or interlude? Right. Yes. And for my next trick. . . .
And speaking of entries where most of the action is in the footnotes.
+ Did you know that There Is a Tavern counts as an Irish folk song? I kind of want to say, what’s that person been drinking, but what do I know?
++ Although the poor music muse must be having a heck of a time getting through to me. She’s saying to the story muse, you think you’ve got problems. . . .
+++ See: music muse’s problems
*** And then the deli went bust
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Mmmmmm.
Actually, I did spend a little while over here wondering about the difference between sorbet and sherbet and if they were the same yummy thing… I decided it must be a Brit/Ami thing again, but then everyone said sorbet and I haven’t had it in a long time so I don’t know what they call it in the stores, either. Big internal drama. But I got it.
Not that I meant to, but this music writing schtick is more and more like story writing: it ain’t up to you, honey, so don’t get any ideas above your station; you do what you’re told.
Hee. *pats cute stories and songs with their own ideas about what they want to be when they grow up*
Remember when I said I was going to post a song a month, and then totally didn’t for June? I did it the other day if you wanted to see: http://jmeadows.livejournal.com/#asset-jmeadows-594982 (There’s a cute ferret picture, too. ;)
OOooooooh! :)
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. . . Finally went and watched ALL of it. (I got to bed at 2:30 last night. I’m not going to get to bed till 3 tonight . . . ) That’s a REALLY pretty one. Good trills. :) Also, I don’t know if the web is in a better mood or what, but the sound and pic quality of this one is much better than last time. And your pianist friend is amazing. Hey, if I ever learnt that **I’d** play it forever too. (I think maybe There Is A Tavern and I had better keep a low profile in this company. Even if I *don’t* sing. :)) Remind me to ask you some idiot YouTube questions. I get *embarrassed* confessing the depths of my lack of understanding to Blogmom sometimes. I mean, she does computer stuff for a *living.*
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Oh yay! I’m glad you like it! (And Holly’s, too. She really is a great player. She majored in music, I think, and used to teach piano. I wish I lived closer to her so she could teach ME! :D) I admit, I was a little nervous when there was minimal message yesterday, so thank you! :D I’m hoping to get the dead baby song done for July 1. Hoping.
Ask away whenever you want. I’m not the master of YouTube and sometimes we fight about actually having *sound*, but I know how to make it go. Usually. :D
No, I’m just *crazed.* Never take me personally!!! Er . . . if you know what I mean . . . :)
HOw much time do you spend practising?
To keep cheering you up – Matty Groves, Fairport Convention… with Lego?? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WysEoApJQqw&feature=related – VERY silly indeed :)
Is Souvenir still blooming? I hope she’s keeping you company; with her, your (third of a *)mare and oisin@ lesson ( thankfully not slapping you upsides the head**) I hope time is passing well, while Peter is absent.
* Which part of her is “your” third?
** Please stop this “upsides the head” business – it hurts! and it’s like “kill me” – we’re just not going to do it :)
Thank you for the sorbet guidelines – they sound good for messing around with, and if it’s gloopy it’ll be delicious anyway (I was horrified when I realised how much sugar fruit contained in its own reight, and even more so when I discovered the degree of extra sugar in a sorbet, but I still love it on a hot day)
Yes. Sugar, sugar, sugar, more sugar, and a little bit of sugar on top.
I said it was BETTER than a clout upside the head.
The NICE third. :)
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******** The NICE third. :)
That would be the whuffling sound when they see you, the moments when you don’t ride by effort but by symbiosis, the new amazement that pops up at odd moments that someone can be as lucky as this, to be just “around” a special horse… :)
Yes, exactly! :) (The whuffling noise when they see that you’re bringing *carrots.* Jenny’s DOGS eat carrots, she says because they recognise carrots are a *treat* and they don’t want the horses to get ALL the treats. :) Next time I have to bring more carrots . . . )
. . . I’m sorry, but I have my humour-challenged moments, and I OBJECT to the Lego. This is one of my favourite songs!!!
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I like the arrangement, but I feel the lyrics are especially gory (or Gorey lol) in some versions, so I really liked the lego, and FC thought it up so all blame (whispers “credit” and ducks) goes to them ;p
Well, this is the version I know. I have my occasional bloodthirsty moments I guess. (And he struck his wife right through the heart, and pinned her up to the wall.) Although it’s the ‘and bury my lady at the top for she was of noble kin’ that gets me. I want to hunt him down and kill *him.* Speaking of bloodthirsty moments. It’s the energy of the song though. I have a similar feeling about King Henry even though the story makes me *nuts*. I do my thing about it at the beginning of SUNSHINE: why does he kill his horse and his hounds and his hawks, and so *what* if she then turns into a beautiful lady? This horse and his hounds and his hawks (and maybe a few huntsmen) are still DEAD. This is supposed to be OKAY?
I read the version that cuts off her breasts and.. whoa, what a surprise! she then bleeds rather a lot.. – Does she die of exsanguination or is she further mutilated pre death??
I did gag slightly at the ” bury her on top” bit as well – her reflection of his status as owned property no doubt (goes off on own for rant… women as property… mediaeval.. chastity rules and gender… swapping father’s name for husband’s… property sold as “love”…Gaah!)
OK feeling a bit better now..
I STILL like the lego! (sorry!)
Yep. All of that. –No, I don’t go for mutilation. Cuts her BREASTS off?? WHY?? A nice clean death, I can deal with that (in a folk ballad). And she’s obviously saying the hell with it and expecting to die ‘I’d rather a kiss from dead Matty’s lips than you and your finery’.
The guys choir at my college did a collection of Britten’s stuff in TBB, and I remember our director had wanted to do full choir but couldn’t find the arrangements… you may have to transpose yourself (or make someone else do it, which is much easier in my book).
Also question re: the sorbet… do you think one could use honey instead of sugar to create the syrup? Or perhaps maple syrup? Just something to take at least one step away from refined cane sugar…
Sounds delicious, either way.
Experiment and tell us!
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I missed where people were originally helping you find sheet music (sometimes not all the comments come into my RSS reader), so I don’t know what you may or may not already know about, but I found several books that include piano arrangements of Gypsy Rover and are available through the secondhand sellers on Amazon UK.
The Best of Irish Music
Table of contents for same
Alll American Folk v. 1
Table of contents–GR is second-to-last in v. 1
The Good Times Songbook
TOC
Hmmm. I had done a cursory look for Musgrave before and gave up, but I just went back to it and found Eighty English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians (TOC here). I’m not sure what they mean by “principally unaccompanied” though…? There are seven others that include the ballad, but only two of them (#4 and #8) are for sale on Amazon…for 50-125 pounds.
I hope this helps, and doubly hope I haven’t messed up any of the html in this comment. :D
I’d forgotten all about Amazon’s used-books system . . . and I don’t think it had registered with me they do sheet music at all. Thank you!
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The Best includes who threw the overalls in Mrs Murphy’s chowder, which I was half hoping was a fever dream from my adolescence. :) Might have to try to order it for *that.* And ‘principally unaccompanied’ probably unfortunately means you get the melody line and that’s it. Of course I can now write my OWN accompaniment, but it would be nice not to have to . . . THANKS.
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Looking in the recipe book for my ice cream maker confirms my sense that *sherbets* are made with fruit and milk, and *sorbets* are made with fruit and sugar syrup. This is also the way I remember the various commercial sherbets of my youth. I will pass along a sorbet recipe that sounds good but that I haven’t tried yet because we are still waiting for *ripe* plums. This is from the latest issue of Bon Appetit.
Plum Sorbet with Black-Current Liqueur
Makes 4 cups sorbet
1 cup sugar
1 cup water
1 1/2 pounds ripe purple plums, pitted and wuartered
1/4 cup creme de cassis
Stir sugar and water in small saucepan over medium heat until sugar completely dissolves. Boil until syrup is reduced to a generous cup, about 6 minutes. Chill the syrup until cold.
Puree the plums in food processor, blender, etc. until smooth. Put the puree through a medium-mesh strainer set over a 4-cup measuring cup, pressing on solids to extract as much pulp as possible. Stir the chilled syrup and creme de cassis into the strained puree. Transfer the mixture to your ice cream maker and process according to manufacturer’s instructions. Transfer the finished sorbet to a freezer container and freeze until firm, at least two hours.
And here is a recipe for reduced sugar ice cream, which I make probably more often than I should:
Vanilla Ice Cream (makes 6 cups, the max for my Cuisinart machine)
1 cup whole milk, cold
2 cups heavy cream, cold
1/2 cup sugar
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
Whisk all ingredients together and transfer the mixture to the ice cream machine. Process according to manufacturer’s instructions. Transfer to a freezer container to firm up. (Consistency will be VERY SOFT when finished; it will need two hours or more in the freezer.)
Some variations:
Cinnamon: combine 1 tablespoon cinnamon with the sugar before mixing. 1 teaspoon vanilla optional.
Peppermint: substitute 1 teaspoon peppermint extract for vanilla.
Orange Creamsicle: use 1teaspoon vanilla and 1 teaspoon orange extract.
“There Is a Tavern” doesn’t SOUND like an Irish folk song. Maybe it exists in some sort of Celtic ur-version.
I think they’re using ‘Irish folk song’ at its most comprehensive: ie the things people sing in their cups with heavy Irish accents, true or false.
I haven’t seen plums yet either.
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I’ve always had a soft spot for Noel Coward and his songs. If, however, you are compiling a list of successful performers with not-so-fantastic voices, you would have to add Rex Harrison, rumbling his way through My Fair Lady, Fred Astaire, who with a very slight instrument managed to find the phrasing in the songs he sang so well he was one of the favoured singers for Cole Porter, the Gershwins and Irving Berlin.
I hope that the mineral water you drink is in a glass bottle, or that you keep your plastic bottles away from all sunlight and below 18 degrees centigrade. There is no polymerisation reaction that goes to much beyond 60% (in the best of conditions) and a lot of the toxic monomers of the remaining 40% get trapped in the web of the plastic that is extruded. Heat and light make the plastic web expand and the a certain amount of the (I repeat toxic) monomers leach into the precious water you are drinking in the deluded impression that you are doing yourself a favour. (You in the general impersonal sense – not you in particular Robin). This won’t kill you off if you are having an odd bit of mineral water here and there, but will do you little good if you are only consuming mineral water.
I will now get off my high horse (ruefully acknowledging that this is the only kind of horse I ever ride) and say that though Cranberry juice doesn’t really appeal to me, you have certainly turned me on to the joys of home made sorbets… Research (and hopefully results) will be reported in these pages shortly **cheeky grin**
Yes, *especially* Fred Astaire. And don’t forget Gene Kelly.
I worry about how the mineral water in plastic bottles has been kept BEFORE it comes to me. Yes, I know what you’re talking about. I buy glass bottles when I can, but they’re harder and harder to find–and also you have to worry about hte *water’s* provenance.
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*** And then the deli went bust
Serves them right!
This gave me a good giggle:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOv-2HzNPaA
LOL! Yes!
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I’m firmly against eating anything that ends with an “erry”, just as a matter of pure taste, so I wasn’t sure what to substitute instead of the cranberry juice. But then I hit upon the idea of putting in banana nectar, which I’ll probably need to thin down with some water or put in a wee bit less simple syrup. But from past experience, banana and lime go together divinely. =)
The ice cream maker is chilling away in the freezer, so I’ll have results to report in approximately 36 hours…
I just wanted to second the sherbet involves milk, sorbet does not distinction. At least, that’s what I’ve been told.
well, i went looking for places that sell the Ciao Bella gelato (which i mentioned a blog entry ago and mistakenly called blueberry cabernet – it was actually BLACKberry – although that makes it better, actually), and it turns out that Amazon.com carries 22 flavors. i don’t know if they’ll actually ship them to england, but they’re available by mail here in the US.
best!
Wait a minute . . . *ice cream* by MAIL? From AMAZON? . . . I’ve fallen into a reality warp. . . .
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Yes, you can get Ben & Jerry’s direct from the company as well. I considered it for about half a second because none of the stores around here carry Chubby Hubby (“Fudge-Covered Peanut Butter-Filled Pretzels in Vanilla Malt Ice Cream Rippled with Fudge & Peanut Butter”), but you have to buy six pints at a time for $54.95, with includes shipping with dry ice in a styrofoam cooler.
What a good thing I don’t eat ice cream any more . . .
“Although the poor music muse must be having a heck of a time getting through to me. She’s saying to the story muse, you think you’ve got problems. . . .”
—– This gave me the most entertaining mental image….
Your sorbet musings reminded me of this absolutely delightful champagne sorbet I had in Ireland a little over a year ago at Ballynahinch. It was so light with just the very teeniest hint of mint…a dainty sorbet, if you will.
I’ve never made any kind of sorbet myself, so I had to look for someone else’s recipe to share. I make no guarantees that it will taste as good as that one, but if anyone’s interested:
http://www.elise.com/recipes/archives/006230champagne_sorbet.php
Then there’s this one (which includes a sort of meringueing process that I don’t understand): http://www.chefdecuisine.com/dessert/sorbet/CHAMPAGNE_SORBET.asp
Of course, it may just be a matter of sloshing champagne and sugar syrup around in a bowl and then freezing the heck out of it.
I will DEFINITELY try this. Thank you!
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*****So, hands up anyone who knew that Benjamin Britten had done an arrangement of Little Musgrave and Lady Barnard? … And the only Britten Little Musgrave I can find is scored for tenor, baritone and bass.*****
Me me me me me me me!! And the only one of which I’m aware is the one for men’s chorus. Our men’s glee club sang it when I was an undergrad. If I recall correctly, it was TTBB, but it WAS well over half my life ago — pushing two-thirds…
*****There’s now a progression from the mildly minor of the beginning to the unmitigatedly bleak of the end. More notes too. And more Strange Chords. One of the things that does make me feel like I’m not entirely wasting my time (let alone Oisin’s) is that the comments Oisin makes are usually the rational, articulate versions of things I’ve been groping toward.+++ For example, this week he wanted to talk about the tonal centre. The . . . uh? I’ve mostly stuck to whatever it is that it is–Dorian mode, more or less–but it wasn’t till this week and the third verse that it began to feel a little unvarying. Oisin suggested I might try transposing a section, and what about a little introduction or interlude? Right. Yes. And for my next trick. . . .*****
Sounds like it’s going very well! Brava!
Judith