Christmas Holidays

We hope this blog post finds you all in good spirits and good health this Christmas-time. The four of us have much enjoyed being together at our Brussels home over the Christmas holidays, and have made good use of the opportunity to enjoy the activities that our European capital offers in winter.


Still, we have had time for reflection... especially at this time of year, we find ourselves bombarded with images and sounds that remind us of the people we love and miss back in Canada. Rest assured that we are thinking about each of you, and when the time zones align, we try to call. We've made frequent use of video conferencing, internet telephone, and email to speak with you, and that goes a long way to make us feel connected. Maggie has posted her thoughts about some of the positives and negatives of "keeping" Christmas here; if you haven't already, have a look.

But don't fear, we haven't been moping; in between the phone calls we've also taken the opportunity to reconnect in person with our Brussels friends. We had a huge curry feast with Jonathan and Kristin and the girls last night, with sag paneer (cheese and spinach) lamb rogan josh, tandoori turkey, chicken mandalay (an old Morrisburg Curling Club favorite), channa masala (spiced chickpeas) and a good supply of lime pickle, mango chutney, pappadums and Fuller's London Pride, courtesy of J and K and their recent UK holiday. I think I gained more weight in that meal than I did with the lobster and turkey dinners combined!


On Sunday past we went over to Kiana and Brian's in the afternoon for some eggnog and nibblies. While the adults socialized, the kids were captivated (and sometimes a little freaked out) by Rankin and Bass's 1964 stop-motion classic Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. What the Yeti, Burl Ives as a talking snowman, and an elf who wants to be a dentist have to do with Christmas I don't quite get, but I suppose we are all slaves to tradition in one way or another! Here are the boys at a particularly suspenseful moment...


This evening we have been invited back to Kiana and Bryan's for a New Year's Eve celebration with the kids, which I think we'll celebrate according to Moscow time (or two hours earlier than here in Brussels). That way we can wind things up around 10:00, and still have everybody home in time to get a good night's sleep. Isn't time travel wonderful?

We need our rest because tomorrow morning we're getting on the 8:52 train from Watermael station to Glons, to have a big choucroute with Nathalie and Tschi-tschi and the rest of the Cloes clan. The train ride is almost 2 1/2 hours, but the cost is minimal; 15 Euros return for Maggie and I, and free for the kids; that's about 6% of the cost of a two-day car rental, and we want to save our pennies for other things. I've received my final lump-sum pay-out from Bell Canada and so am officially unemployed - Happy New Year! - but that's going on our mortgage, and we already did some shopping this past week, heading to IKEA to finally get ourselves a new bed frame. Until now, we've been sleeping on mattress on the floor, and so everybody is excited at the newest acquisition. It's a queen-sized one so there's more room, a necessity since it's not uncommon on a weekend morning to awaken to find a couple of extra bodies snuggled in next to you.

We're coming back on the 2nd, to tidy the house up and get ready for back-to-school. The big sales only happen twice a year in Belgium, January and July, so we're going to do some clothes shopping for everyone before we to our routine on Monday the 5th of January. Maggie also has to continue her work on report cards; she's been extremely disciplined and has been working perhaps four hours each day completing them and preparing for next term. In fact, she's gone to Waterloo this morning to prepare for this coming Monday.


We've had some fun outings as a family. On boxing day we got bundled up and went ice skating at the place Saint-Catherine; Maggie and Malcolm haven't forgotten learning to skate on Lake Skootamatta, and we had a great time en plein air underneath the anachronistic juxtaposition of an ultra-modern ferris wheel and the ancient buildings that surround the Christmas market. I was pleased to discover that I can still do back cross-cuts in both directions (thank you, power-skating) but almost fell on my tuchas several times, as the rental skates all have picks. Weird.


Glühwein, Coca-Cola and orange Fanta were enjoyed along with a fantastic hot and savory tartiflette, before we headed back to the bourse (stock exchange) to catch the bus home.


That's all for today. I've got the champagne chilling for this evening, and some chicken soup from the bones of last night's chicken is simmering on the stove. Malcolm is upstairs reading The Golden Compass, Duncan is drawing pictures of superheroes while listening to Deep Purple's Greatest Hits (Space Truckin' is his current fave) and I'm finishing my second cup of coffee and making a shopping list for this afternoon.

Wishing you a very prosperous, peaceful and Happy New Year,

Matthew, Maggie, Malcolm and Duncan

I'll have a blue.... Christmas... without you...

We're getting ready for a quiet Christmas celebration at home. It's not terribly Christmassy-feeling weather; it's beautiful today, sunny and +10 degrees, quite a contrast with what we understand is going on in Canada right now. Maggie is out having coffee with Kiana at the cafe down the street, enjoying the sunshine and the girl time, and the boys are watching star trek (original series) on DVD for the first time... in the absence of broadcast tv, I realize I am raising them like it's 1978, although quite frankly the concept of a computer in every room, flip "communicators" and other technological advancements aren't quite as fantastic to them now as they were to me then. Still, I have to choose carefully which ones I show, and I have been watching most of the episodes with the kids; this morning it was the episode called "Amok Time" where Spock has to go back to Vulcan to meet his betrothed, goes nutzoid because it's the mating season, fights and (he thinks) kills Kirk. Actually McCoy has simulated Kirk's death with a neural tranquilizer to end the combat and save both their lives, but Duncan didn't know that and he sobbed for five minutes until the happy ending. Here's a 2'46" recap for those of you who need a refresher. While I do enjoy the Young Rascals' rendition of "Good Lovin'" this version does leave out the greatest fight music of all time.

We've found a nice big turkey for the 25th, and have reserved lobsters for the 24th; we're probably going to barbeque them. Not alive, of course; there are limits! We had raclette last night for dinner, improvising with our teflon frying pan to melt the cheese. I'm looking around for a raclette machine like the fantastic one our friends Phil and Sue have, that holds half a wheel of cheese, and heats the top layer, but so far I've had no luck yet. Malcolm went crazy for raclette but surprisingly Duncan was unimpressed; usually he's all for salty/savoury foods.

This morning Duncan made us laugh, while playing with the playmobil; the pirate meets the police officer and says "Hello, how are you?" and they exchange a quick bizou on the cheek. Nothing strange about that, that's how everybody says hello, right?


Earlier yesterday, Jonathan and the girls came over for a short play-date for the kids and coffee for the adults. Malcolm taught Lara how to play chess, and beat her; then they played checkers and she beat him. He made hot chocolate with steamed milk using our espresso/capuccino maker for the girls; baristo and bartending skills might turn out to be handy when he's older, and we are glad that both boys are eager to help out in the kitchen.

Sunday evening I went to the home of Malcolm's friend Simonas to give another guitar lesson to Simonas and his father Simonas, and the rest of our families met up afterwards for some delicious lithuanian Christmas sweets, plus Kidibul (a carbonated nonalcoholic apple juice) for the children, and a fantastic polish vodka with buffalo grass called Zubrowka for the grownups. I'm not much on vodka but this was delicious, with a mellow, delicate, almost cinnamon flavour. I remember that Bruce had a bottle back in Toronto, and we tried it then, so I know you can get it in Canada too. I might have to pick up a bottle for winter evening sipping.

We are missing our loved ones back in Canada, but will have Skype up and running over the next several days, so we have already scheduled some video conferences with my family for the 25th (what was that I was saying about Star Trek technology?!). If you haven't tried video conferencing with us yet, and have a computer with a camera, you might consider setting it up and giving it a try. Download the software for free and search for our Skype ID (mzadow).

Alternatively we are around most of the time, and are usually up until 11:00 our time (17:00 / 5:00 pm EST) and reachable at 416-406-2800.

Merry Christmas to all!

Moving the mail...

We have had a busy week so far as mail is concerned... first, we've been very pleasantly surprised to receive so many wonderful Christmas cards and letters from friends and family. We've left the composition and posting of our own pretty late, so no doubt it will once again become a "New Year" letter instead of a Christmas one. It does seem a bit like we'd be threshing old straw by writing one, since we've written frequently in our blogs, but letters are still better to give and receive than email, I think. I tried to write regularly during my stay in Ireland, and managed to write and post almost twenty letters during the month I was there (most of those were to my grandmothers, and to Maggie and the kids, in case you were feeling miffed at not receiving one). If you haven't sat down and hand-written a letter in a while, you might consider it; it necessitates a whole different kind of contemplation, one that we don't spend enough time doing in our keyboard-krazy world of email.

Secondly, some Christmas presents arrived from my parents in Belleville, already wrapped (no peeking, drat) and ready to go under the tree. The boys are excited and are counting down the days on their playmobil advent calendars. (If you haven't seen these, they make a great gift for kids). Other presents from our immediate and the extended family are in process of getting wrapped, so we'll be well-supplied with cadeaux when the 25th arrives.

Lastly, a purchase that I made on ebay finally arrived. We were given an art nouveau candelabra a few years ago by Bruce, who found it in an auction in Victoria, but it is back in our house in Canada. It looks like this:


Maggie and I were talking, because we used this piece most evenings for dinner in Toronto, and missed it here, so rather than shipping it over I did some searching around for a similar design, and found this complementary one, which arrived in excellent condition, from an antique collector in Arizona, of all places:


So we are feeling very proper and fancy AND illuminated at the table now. What's even better is that last night, while Maggie was sitting at the table, I had the golden opportunity to stand in the kitchen, hand our new acquisition to Malcolm and say those famous words...




"Take this candelabra over to mother, Malcolm."

If you don't recognize those words, then you need to look here:



It's amazing. "Wideo Wabbit" incorporates classical music, Groucho Marx, on-camera smoking, same-sex kissing, mockery of domestic violence, at least one deliberate assault with a pastry, electrical shocks, high explosives, massacres by native americans, cross-dressing, speech impediments... 1953 really was the GOOD OLD DAYS, wasn't it?

"Wideo Wabbit" also deals with candelabras, and auditions, and both topics were part of my day yesterday. I already explained about the former; for the latter I went to the Theatre Royal de la Monnaie, or the Brussels Opera house, and met up with an agent who was in town to see the evening performance of Rusalka. He had heard me in Ireland, and it was a lot of fun to sing for him. Unlike most auditions we actually had almost an hour together, which was a luxury, and I feel good about how I sang, and what we discussed. More on this later... in other musical news, there are a number of projects shaping up, but nothing finalized, so I don't want to say more for the moment.

Now it's off to drop my bio/cv/photo/cover letter in the mail, to yet another director... gotta run before I miss the last mail pickup!

p.s. As always, don't forget to pay a visit to Maggie's blog, and please feel free to comment on anything I've written here. M.

Hello central?

That little green light on this little cigarette-pack-sized box is a sign that 416-206-2800 is up and running again, thanks to a replacement unit from Bell, 45 minutes on hold with the "Bell Digital Voice Lite Help Desk" and my dad, who had to host a conference call so I could get the number reprogrammed (Ontario-Quebec 800-numbers don't work from overseas).

Now accepting local calls from Toronto!

getting ready for Christmas

Here we are at the bus stop on the way to the Christmas spectacle at the Maison Communale this past weekend. There was a nice magic show...


... and a visit from Santa Claus...


...and then Malcolm and I went out and found a Christmas tree, brought it home and set it up in the corner near our dining room table...


...and decorated it. The Christmas cards are hanging out on a string, the tree is set up, we've received the stockings in the mail from our tenants in Toronto, so that's most of what we need to get ready for the 25th of December. I've bought quite a few presents already, and the boys are getting theirs arranged for Maggie and I.


This afternoon I'm doing some coaching and then I audition later this week, so I hope that goes well.

It's been a party weekend for sure. We had Kiana and Bryan over for a Belgian style dinner of roast pheasant, and then Maggie and went to the St. John's International School Christmas dinner, which was held in a beautiful hotel in Waterloo. Later that night, we joined two Canadian Christmas parties by internet: the Zadow family party (at my Aunt and Uncle's in Mississauga) and Bruce's annual Christmas party in our neighborhood, so we aren't feeling too much out of the loop over here.

We hope your Christmas preparations are proceeding well... only 10 days to go...

Wednesday update

We're only two weeks now until Christmas eve, so the pressure is on - particularly from Duncan - for us to get a tree. I've been looking around, and there are lots of places to get them and bring them home by foot, which is what I really prefer. On foot delivery is a little tradition that started in Christmas of 1996 in Sharbot Lake, Ontario, our first house, and we bought the tree that Christmas, and for the next two years from a vacant lot just across the highway, maybe 100 metres from our door. I remember Maggie and I carrying it together down our snowy street, and how excited we were to get it home and decorated.

In Toronto, we did the same, picking up a tree from the Leslieville Loblaws (with the help of a Radio Flyer) a few times, and also once from the lot at the Pape No-Frills, although we did break with tradition on at least two years to get the $15 IKEA trees, which came with a $15 gift certificate for IKEA, so they were essentially free. I think we'll return to the older tradition this year, and we have a good chance of beating the proximity record, as Eve (the florist across the street) is selling trees (see below). I could also go to the GB, which is only half a kilometer or so away.


We went down to the Bourse weekend before last to do a Christmas Market visit, ate some frites, drank some glühwein and shopped for ornaments. Last weekend we got the boys some snowpants, so maybe this weekend we'll go back to Place Ste. Catherine and go skating. We didn't bring our skates but you can rent them there, and it's an outdoor rink, which is the best.

What else is new... oh yes, it's time for the cuisine portion of our show. It was paella this past Sunday. We had this for the first time at James and Christine Gilmore's, and were blown away, so this was my first attempt at the dish, and the flavours were spectacular... it's a keeper.


Classic Paella

• 375 ml (1 1/2 cups) dry white wine, divided (1 cup + 1/2 cup)
• 625 ml (2 1/2 cups) chicken broth, divided (2 cups +1/2 cup)
• pinch saffron threads
• 300 ml (1 1/4 cups) long grain rice
• 30 ml (2 tbsp) olive oil
• 250 ml (1 cup) finely chopped red onion
• 2 minced garlic cloves
• 250 g (8 oz) diced skinless, boneless chicken breast
• 250 g (8 oz) sliced chorizo sausage
• 500 g (1 lb) fresh mussels
• 500 g (1 lb) 10 to 12 peeled and deveined shrimp
• 125 ml ( 1/2 cup) chopped roasted red pepper
• 125 ml ( 1/2 cup) chopped Roma tomatoes
• 50 ml ( 1/4 cup) chopped fresh parsley
• 15 ml (1 tbsp) chopped fresh thyme

In a large saucepan, bring 250 ml (1 cup) white wine and 500 ml (2 cups) chicken broth to boil over medium high heat. Add saffron threads; simmer 2 to 3 minutes. Stir in rice. Bring to boil; cover, turn heat to minimum and let stand without opening the lid for 15 minutes.


Meanwhile, in a large deep skillet, heat oil over medium high heat, add onion and cook until translucent, about 5 minutes. Stir in garlic and cook 1 minute. Add chicken and sausage, stirring often until browned and chicken is cooked through. Transfer to plate. In same skillet, pour in remaining 125 ml ( 1/2 cup) of wine and 125 ml ( 1/2 cup) of broth. Bring to boil over medium high heat. Add mussels, cover and cook until mussels have opened, 3 to 5 minutes. Transfer to plate, discarding any unopened mussels. Reserve remaining liquid.

Add saffron rice to remaining cooking liquid; stir in cooked chicken and sausage mixture, shrimp, peppers and tomatoes. Cover and cook until shrimp is cooked through, about 5 minutes.

Sprinkle with parsley and thyme. Garnish with mussels. Serve with a Spanish rioja or a the rest of the dry white wine.

* * *

My audition in Ghent went well, I got some good feedback from the agent, and she wants to hear me sing again in January. Meanwhile I'm getting ready for another audition around the 17th of December, and I'm planning to coach that in the next couple days. The rest is as usual, emails to companies and phone calls, it's challenging to keep it going but I'm sticking with it. I'm also keeping in touch with Canadian conductors to try to keep things rolling back in the motherland.


I finished the mirror repair (see above) and I think it looks good; there is some scuffing from where I scraped the flaking silver off the back of the old bevelled glass but it is a vast improvement, and still looks like an antique. Now all that's left is some slight work on the bottom part of the frame that was slightly water damaged. I'll try some dark wax first and see what that looks like before I start sanding and ruin the old finish.


Saint Nicholas was good to the boys (here's Duncan leaving out something for him and a carrot for his donkey). The boys each got dark chocolate Saint Nicholas(es) and chocolate coins from Leonidas, homemade speculoos (ginger cookies) from the corner bakery, and some Cote d'Or "chocotoff" chocolate toffees. Malcolm got a magnetic chessboard (he beat me the first game we played) and a Marvel Essentials X-men #3 anthology. Duncan got a paint-by numbers set with four pictures of dragons and Marvel Essentials Iron Man #1. They were quiet as lambs that morning... ahhhh, domestic tranquility!


Our Toronto phone (416-406-2800) was on the blink, but has been fixed thanks to my dad's help; it should be set up here in Brussels again in a few weeks, and you can reach us on that number again. As it is you can call and leave a message, and it will get emailed to us; or you can reach us directly at 011 32 2 675 7444.

Cheers!

A taste of Ireland

Well, wasn't that nice! Our friend Jonathan stopped off at the British store to pick up some special (American) Thanksgiving items, and Maggie snagged some old cheddar and a couple of pints of Cork-made Murphy's stout, my preferred drink while I was there - It's smooth, like - along with a box of Shreddies for her and the kids. Speaking of Cork, I found out a funny co-incidence; our telephone number in Brussels is a new one this year, and a couple of days ago I idly put it through the site www.phonespell.org, to see if the numbers spelled anything. Guess what? (0)2 675 74 44 spells "cork's gig". What are the odds, I wonder?

I had a good audition in Ghent on the weekend, starting with the Rossini Figaro aria for the first time, and I followed it up with the Messiah recit+aria thus saith the Lord / but who may abide the day of His coming? and I'm pleased with how it came across. I've asked the agent to give me some feedback, so I'll call her today. I'm also planning on coaching my audition arias soon, in advance of my next audition here in Brussels in a couple of weeks. Next is to try to find some more auditions, hopefully during the same period or early in January.

Yesterday Duncan and I went to a specialist to see about both his recurrent colds+ear infections and my recurrent sinusitis. Normally a cold doesn't affect my voice but sinusitis interferes with head resonance and sensation (a technical necessity), causes fatigue and eventually can irritate the throat. Unlike some people for whom a cold or sinusitis is an annoyance, for opera singers it can be a major roadblock to practicing, to auditioning well, and hence, to getting paid! Obviously it's something one has to try everything to prevent.

It looks like Duncan will be having his tonsils and adenoids out in early march. No tubes in his ears, though; the doctor indicated that he's too young for something like that, and explained that putting tubes in at too early an age has a risk of leaving holes in the eardrum. In my case, the doctor prescribed a number of things, some to prevent sinusitis and some to help deal with it if it recurrs. I'm also going to have a sinus scan at the hospital to see if there is something predisposing me to recurrent sinusitis. Having a sniffly little kid around all the time, and living in a damp climate like Belgium probably doesn't help matters!

The boys are excited each morning to open the next box on their advent calendars. Duncan is re-doing the pirate one from last year, and Malcolm is doing the police one. It gets them out of bed in the morning, that's for sure, and I prefer these to the chocolate advent calendars, which usually have rather waxy, poor quality chocolate. The boys don't really need any extra sweets in the morning given that their usual breakfast cereal is a mix of two versions of rice/wheat flakes with either curls of dark belgian chocolate or dried raspberries (and this is the "diet" cereal). They will also get some nice goodies in their shoe on the 6th of December, the feast of St. Nicholas, which falls on a Saturday this year. The boys are lucky as there will likely be a visit from St. Nicholas and Santa Claus. Don't ask about the theological implications... I think it's all Martin Luther's fault.


It's a miserable day here as you can see above, in a distinctly un-promising week of weather. I will be heading out later this afternoon to pick up a piece of 3mm mirror from the Brico, which I ordered yesterday...

... to use in this antique beveled glass mirror that I found being thrown out around the corner. It has some de-silvering (see photo) and it's simplest to scrape off the old silver and apply a thin flat mirror to the back. New beveled mirrors cost a lot, and re-silvering is bound to be expensive and troublesome, so I hope this method will work. Other than that I think it's a cocooning day. Probably I'll make a run for the grocery in a few minutes and start some sort of slow-simmering stew, maybe this provencale carbonade:

PROVENCAL BEEF STEW (serves six)

• 
1 ½ pounds boneless beef chuck
• 8 tiny new potatoes (red ones are best)
• 1 pound small carrots with tops, peeled and trimmed, or one 16-ounce package peeled baby carrots
• 1 large onion, cut into wedges
• ½ cup pitted green or ripe olives
• 1 cup beef broth (Knorr is best)
• 1 tablespoon quick-cooking tapioca
• 1 teaspoon dried herbes de Provence, crushed
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• ¼ teaspoon cracked black pepper
  
• 4 to 6 cloves garlic, minced
• ¼ cup dry red wine
  
• Snipped fresh parsley (optional)
• Capers (optional) 


Trim fat from meat; cut meat into 2-inch pieces and set aside. Remove a narrow strip of peel from circumference of each new potato. In a 3 ½ or 4-quart slow cooker* place potatoes, carrots, onion, and olives; add meat. In a small bowl combine beef broth, tapioca, herbes de Provence, salt, pepper, and garlic. Pour over mixture in cooker.

Cover and cook on low-heat setting for 10 to 12 hours or on high-heat setting for 4 to 5 hours. Stir in wine. Cover and cook for 30 minutes more. If desired, sprinkle each serving with parsley and capers.

Nutrition per serving: 198 cal., 5 g total fat (2 g sat. fat), 54 mg cholesterol, 308 mgs sodium, 16 g carbohydrates., 3 g fibre, 20 g protein.

*I don't have a slow cooker; instead I use an enameled cast iron dutch oven with a lid, and a wire diffuser over a very low flame. Probably 4 hours is more than enough, just try to keep it as low as you can, and test the meat after 3 hours or so.

Bon appetit!