Savor the Flavor: Weekend Joys

I’m going to piggyback onto City Crasher’s post today about her wonderful weekend.  Like City Crasher, I had a relaxing weekend of comforting fun with friends, and though I can’t pretend to have discovered established gems of the city like she did, I do feel a great sense of pride in what I got done.

It was nothing special, to begin with.  I happen to not like curry.  Don’t shoot me, but I don’t.  I understand that curry is not so much a flavor as it is a cooking technique, and I also understand that it usually brings with it an aroma that just about knocks me from here to New Delhi.  In a very bad way.

So I went to my friend’s boyfriend’s place Friday night for a dinner party and movie-watching soiree.  Very impromptu, very cazh*, very much like this.  So we all assembled our contributive dishes, friend’s tumeric potatoes, friend’s boyfriend’s thai coconut curry chicken, my roasted winter vegetables and pretzel+Nutella+vanilla ice cream dessert, and indulged.

To say that I don’t like curry does not exclude the concept that there is probably a curry dish out there in the universe that I wouldn’t immediately implode from, the result of a tempestuous past relationship with this guy.  That said, this is the season for things to die (how joyous), and so perhaps it’s time to throw my distaste for this Indian mainstay to the fire.

I gave in, and surprisingly, loved it all.  Not surprisingly because my friends aren’t good cooks, but because I had tried so many times before and to no avail.  This time, it took.  I don’t know why.  None of the flavors or preparations were any different than I had had before.  Perhaps it was the company.  Probably. Definitely.

The next night the three of us decided to not be so spicy.  We went to a BPO concert.  I shouldn’t tell you that we three post-collegiates somehow scored student discounted tickets, so I won’t.  But suffice it to say, my ticket cost far less than a ticket to this would, if I wanted it to.  And I don’t.

How relaxing a night at the BPO is.  And let me say it again, let me shout it to the mountains, Kleinhan’s Music Hall is just so beautiful.  I’ve been going since I was a little boy, to Pops concerts and temple high holy day services and classics programs.  Saturday night we heard a program of Brahms and the Schumanns, both husband Robert and wife Clara.  Guest pianist Sa Chen was illustrious.

This is a cultural offering that transcends what we might normally think of classical music being about.  A night at the BPO can be at once exhilarating and comforting, inciting and calming.  Above all, it is therapeutic.  If you ever find yourself in need of respite and not this, go to the box office on Porter Avenue and get yourself a ticket.  You won’t be sorry.

So I suppose my weekend found myself enjoying old flavors in new ways.  I’m glad neither prompted a trip to a paper bag.  I’ll have to remember that in the future.

*how to type that? the beginning of casual? who knows, i don’t

Photo courtesy this guy.

Posted by on 10/16 at 10:13 AM