Over the weekend, we went out to dinner and a movie (Julie & Julia — highly recommended) with Mr. & Mrs. JFJ.  It was JFJ’s birthday a few days before, so we obviously needed to do something fun and celebratory.  JFJ picked a restaurant called Zoot.  AEJ and I had never been there, but the menu sounded great, and JFJ has never steered us wrong, so Zoot it was.

Zoot’s menu has lots of fun & tasty-sounding offerings, and there were really too many to choose from on our own, so we went with the 5-course tasting menu instead. Three of us ordered the “Chef’s Tasting Menu,” and AEJ ordered the “Farmer’s Menu.” (AEJ is the furthest thing from a vegetarian, but she often finds that the vegetarian option on these big tasting menus is a little more imaginative.  Once again, in several of her courses in particular, she was right.)

Before we get to the pictures, a little disclaimer… It was really, really dark in there, and the light got worse as we ate (damn romantic mood lighting adjustments), and although I have good camera equipment, it can only do so much in the dark. I had to shoot everything at ISO 3200 or higher, and even with that, I only had frame speeds around 1/20 sec with no image stabilization, so it’s kind of a miracle that any of these shots turned out at all. That’s a testament to the Canon 5D MK II. Even still, the dim light, with a little candlelight, a little artificial light, and a little sunlight made the white balance go all over the place from picture to picture. I corrected a few, but they ain’t perfect…

Things started with an amuse bouche. This is AEJ’s — melon with strawberry on top. The others were smoked fish with strawberry. AEJ’s was prettier, but since it was too small to share, I’ll have to take her word that it was delicious.

AEJ’s first course was this: roasted peppers with squash, goat cheese, sunflower seeds, and sherry vinaigrette.

My first course was this: seared scallops with king oyster mushroom, forbidden rice (ooo laa laa, how risque), and tom kha soup. I don’t know what tom kha soup is, but I liked it. The scallops were great. Sometimes I get little grains of sand in my scallop, and there isn’t much nastier than that, but these were perfectly cleaned and very tasty.

Here’s the second course: melon and ciabatta salad with pickled shallots and blue cheese. I wasn’t too excited about the blue cheese — I’m not a fan — but if it was in there, I couldn’t find it. I think at best, it just added some tartness to the dressing. This was mega-tasty.

AEJ’s courses included this: a basil crepe with roasted peaches, La Tur cheese, saba, and a walnut butter. Holy hell, this was the best thing out of all of the courses between the two menus. Unfortunately, because it was so dark in the restaurant, this shot isn’t very sharp, but the flavors were spectacular. I’d order this alone any day.

This is the fish course: roasted snapper with celeraic brandade (I don’t know what that means), tomato confit, mantequilla olives, and herb broth. It was a very nice piece of fish, and it was cooked well. That tomato confit, in addition to being pretty, was great. I liked the juicy tomato next to the texture of the roasted fish.

And here’s the meat course: grilled NY strip with summer potato puree, marinated peppers, and garlic jus (sauce). The meat was perfect — nice and juicy.

Here’s AEJ’s dessert: lemon tart with cardamom berry coulis and whipped cream. It doesn’t look like much, but it was really good. This was the better dessert of the two.

And here is the other dessert: goat cheese panna cotta with pistachio shortbread, honey, and fresh berries. It was fine. The panna cotta was okay — not bad, not amazing — but that honey was incredible. I’d pour that honey all over everything, if you know what I’m sayin’! ZING! Or ZOOT!

I’m making some progress — some very, very slow progress — on this Trombone Concerto that I’m writing for Joseph Alessi. I’ve blogged in the past about my writing process, and the fact that I do everything on a computer. I have a good sample library, and although it can’t approach what it will eventually sound like with real people, I’m able to get a reasonable approximation of the music through the computer’s synthesized playback.

I have two different sets of trombone samples — some from the Vienna Symphonic Library, and the other from a company called Project SAM. Combined, I have what I think are some pretty convincing trombone sounds. (You can hear one of my MIDI realizations here — the currently posted recording of “Aurora Awakes.”)

I often end up writing something that’s playable on the computer, but just not possible in real life, and I make these mistakes because the samples make things sound possible when they just aren’t. The computer can play impossibly quickly, and any chord is possible on a piano or marimba or vibraphone or whatever, even if it’s not possible for a human to reach. My vibraphone samples specifically have caused problems before because the samples go up to high F#, but a real standard vibraphone only goes up to F. I wrote F#’s when I wrote the vibe part for “Mass,” but that note doesn’t exist on the instrument, so I ended up looking pretty silly at the first rehearsal.

So if anything, the problem is that I sometimes initially write something that’s humanly impossible, because the computer lets me do that, and I’m not paying close enough attention in the moment when I’m writing that passage. Well, this concerto for Joe Alessi has created the opposite problem: He can play things that the computer can’t play.

For whatever reason, all of my sampled trombones only go up to the high C above middle C. There’s a great piece in the New York Times about the “high C.” It’s the note that made Pavarotti famous, and it’s described, for a tenor vocalist, as “the absolute summit of technique.” It’s a pretty damn high note for a tenor trombone, too, so it’s not surprising that the samples — both from Project SAM and Vienna Symphonic — max out at the high C.

But this concerto isn’t for a computer, it’s for Joe Alessi, the greatest trombone player in the US, and unquestionably one of the best in the world. And he can play higher than a high C, and as I wrote about a few months back, he can do it without even warming up.

This meant I had to reprogram my trombone samples so they can play up to high F. I’ve only gone up to high Eb so far, but we ain’t done yet.

So here’s to Joe Alessi, for besting the greatest trombone samples on the market today. The computer is great and all, but even it can’t match this guy.

Robert Ponto, Director of Bands at the University of Oregon, posted a real gem on my Facebook page yesterday. Rather than share it only with the small handful of people who actually read all comments on my Facebook statuses, I got Robert’s permission to post it here, too. Imagine “A Few Good Men” meets… lord, I don’t know, but it’s brilliant. He posted it in response to my posting about judging a composition contest…

Overheard during questioning of one of the composers:

Mackey: I want the truth!

Composer: You can’t handle the truth! Son, we live in a world that 12 pitch classes. And those 12 pitch classes have to be guarded by men like me and Allen Forte. Who’s gonna do it? You? You, Mr. Mackey? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for tonality and you curse the serialist. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know: that tonality’s near death, while tragic, probably saved a lot of academic’s jobs. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves audiences from music. You don’t want the truth. Because deep down, in places you don’t talk about at parties, you want me at that matrix. You need me at that matrix.
We use words like “set theory”, “interval vectors”, “hexachordal combinatoriality”… we use these words as the backbone to a life spent defending something. You use ’em as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very tonal freedom I provide, then questions the manner in which I provide it! I’d rather you just said “thank you” and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a pitch wheel and stand a post. Either way, I don’t give a damn what you think you’re entitled to!

Mackey: Did you order the use of this all-interval row?

Composer: I did the job you sent me to do.

Mackey: Did you order the use of this all-interval row??

Composer: You’re goddamn right I did!!

And… scene.

I really don’t have much to add, other than this picture of an orchid that we have in the kitchen…

… and this picture of some cupcakes we baked the other night.

Back to work, I guess. I have some material now for the slow movement of the Trombone Concerto. I worry that it might be too pretty. Holy Major7 chords in inversion… (Just in case you thought this entry couldn’t become even more music-theory-dorkified.)