Smokin

"The smoke of the incense, together with the prayers of the saints, went up before God..." -- Revelation 8:4

"Smokin" some prayers! How about you?

Today's prayer: "Lord, let every breath I exhale be unto You a prayer, rising to the throne, like the smoke that rises from a fire."

London Jazz Festival: Sold Out and Selling Out Shows

Toumani Diabate

The London Jazz Festival has just announced their sold out and selling out shows.

The following shows have now sold out:

Toumani Diabate: Union Chapel, 11 November
Alison Krauss & Union Station: Royal Festival Hall 12, 13, 14, 15 November*
Robert Glasper: Kings Place, 17 November
Abdullah Ibrahim: Wigmore Hall, 18 November
Portico Quartet: Purcell Room 3pm + 7.45pm, 19 November

Tickets for the following shows are selling fast:

Chris Potter Masterclass: Southbank Centre, 12 November
Phronesis: Purcell Room, 16 November
Jazz at Café Society: Purcell Room, 17 November
Robert Glasper Masterclass: Southbank Centre, 19 November
Bill Frisell: Queen Elizabeth Hall, 20 November

For tickets and full listings, go to www.londonjazzfestival.org.uk

Want to eat less? Try using your non-dominant hand

Much of our eating behaviour is habitual. Many of us eat biscuits with tea, nibbles before dinner, popcorn at the cinema and so on. A new study by David Neal and his colleagues has put these habits under the microscope and shown just how entrenched they can become and how they can be broken.

One hundred and fifty-eight participants were recruited to either watch movie trailers at a cinema or music videos in a university department meeting room. In both settings they were given popcorn to eat, which was either stale or fresh. Now, some of the participants were habitual popcorn eaters at the movies, others weren't. The notable finding was that in the cinema setting the habitual popcorn eaters ate just as much of the popcorn when it was stale as when it was fresh. This they did even though they said they liked it less (just as the non-habitual popcorn eaters did), and regardless of whether they were hungry or not. Neal's team said this highlights how habits are driven by context (the cinema) and are immune to attitudes (i.e. liking) and motivation (i.e. hunger). By contrast, when in the department meeting room (not the usual setting for eating popcorn), the habitual popcorn eaters ate less of the stale popcorn and their consumption was influenced by hunger. This shows that if you escape the context that usually drives a habit then its power weakens and motives and intentions can take over.

A second study was similar to the first except this time half the participants were told to eat the popcorn with their non-dominant hand (i.e. right-handers had to eat with their left). This manipulation, which obstructs the automatic execution of a habit, had a similar effect to changing the environmental context. Habitual popcorn eaters allowed to use their dominant hand again ate just as much stale popcorn as fresh, in spite of liking it less, and regardless of their hunger levels. But those instructed to use their non-dominant hand were freed of their usual habit - they ate less of the stale popcorn and their consumption was driven more by hunger and liking.

"Habit change may ... require impeding habit activation [by contexts] or interrupting fluid habit execution," the researchers said. "Although our findings suggest that both avenues are effective, it is not always possible for dieters to avoid or alter the environments in which they typically overeat. More feasible, perhaps, is for dieters to actively disrupt the execution of the activated eating sequence by simple manipulations such as eating with the non-dominant hand and, in so doing, bring their eating under their personal control."
_________________________________

Neal, D., Wood, W., Wu, M., and Kurlander, D. (2011). The Pull of the Past: When Do Habits Persist Despite Conflict With Motives? Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin DOI: 10.1177/0146167211419863

Further reading: How to form a habit.
Seven ways to be good.

Post written by Christian Jarrett for the BPS Research Digest.

Beer Crispy Treats

This month we've collected recipes for food made with or made to pair with our fall seasonal, Autumn Maple.  Today's comes from Nomnivorous!  Read below and check out their blog for some incredibly delicious food articles!

My brother wanted to stir the chickpeas. Oh, of course he did. But in the midst of the magical father-son moment, the chickpeas went a little crazy. The molten foam splattered, my brother’s arm being the first spot of attack. It was a bad burn, and my brother was no longer curious and happy. [This is my now chef brother. Whose arms are now covered in burns and cuts after a few years in the business. Who would've guessed?]

I still remember the scene. It was the evening, because my father was home and cooking for the market. There was a giant pot of chickpeas on the back eye, simmering from dry, crunchy pellets to creamy goodness that would turn into hummus the next day. Chickpeas are easy, yet temperamental to cook. For the best flavor, simmer; don’t let them boil or they will foam and spew like a rabid dog. My mischievous baby brother, young enough to sit on my father’s shoulders, wanted to see what was happening up there, on the stove he couldn’t yet see. My dad picked him up, put him on his shoulders, and let him carefully peer at the steaming pots on the stove. [If it was a normal night, two or three things were cooking, at the least.]

This is one of the first scenes in the kitchen that I remember. I wasn’t the one curiously trying to watch my father’s bubbling cauldrons. But I remember it well. My mother, already a concerned parent, tended towards the extremes in keeping us safe, and the chickpea incident heightened her safety alert. So while my friends might have memories of helping chop onions, or stir pots, my mother kept us away from the knife block and stove eyes for the most part.

But one of the dishes I do vividly remember playing assistant on were Rice Krispies Treats. Since the kids were usually the ones begging for dessert, those were the times my mother would recruit a helper. I would measure the everything out. In our largest pot, I would add the butter and marshmallows. Mom would turn the stove on low, and I would get to stir occasionally. Once the butter and marshmallows were just melted enough, Mom would move the pot to a cool eye, and I could add the cereal. Stir, stir, stir and then, get messy! Pour the cereal mixture into a pan and squish down. Now go wash your hands and let them cool for a few minutes, my mother would shoo me out of the kitchen.

It required two dishes, three ingredients, no oven to turn on and very little cooling time for kids to nag her about, so Rice Krispies treats were one of my mother’s favorite desserts to make. And they’re absolutely one of my favorite desserts to eat. The simple, gooey, glorious delight is hard to beat. But ever since I sunk my teeth into salted brown butter crispy treats over a year ago [made by Autumn for a BK Swappers event], I’ve yearned to update the treat. What follows definitely takes more than two bowls, but I consider it a heavenly marriage of nostalgia and adulthood.

I was presented with an opportunity to develop a recipe featuring The Bruery’s Autumn Maple beer and my sweet tooth took over. When I received the two bottles of this seasonal brew, I chilled them and then took a taste. The spices were present, but thankfully the beer does not taste like pumpkin pie spice (ahem, like many autumnal beers). This California craft brewery has a keeper of a beer – it is bold and rich, but not heavy like Guinness. In-your-face dark beers sometimes overwhelm me, but there is a smooth sweetness to Autumn Maple that makes it incredibly drinkable. The spicy base had my brain spinning with dessert ideas. I wanted to stretch the beer flavor into many components, highlighting the beer in different forms but also building the layers of beer flavors across one bite. That bite would be The Bruery beer crispy treat.

Yes, I’m obsessed with making marshmallows, I will admit it to the world. They’re just so simple, but the flavors of the beer play very nicely here. The beer caramel sauce, inspired by bourbon caramel, has similar dark, spicy flavors. There is a malty, “beery-ness” to both components, but their sweetness helps balance it out. The nutty browned butter, crunchy puffed rice, and hearty dose of salt rounds out the dessert, and the dark chocolate is purely gilding the lily on my part.

Beer Crispy Treats

Each part of the final dessert can stand alone, and that is why I love this recipe. The beer marshmallows and caramel are both delicious by themselves, and the salted brown butter crispy treats are not to be missed.

For the Salted Beer Caramel Sauce

• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 tablespoons water
• 1 tablespoon light corn syrup
• 1/4 cup heavy cream
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1 teaspoon sea salt
• 1/4 cup The Bruery Autumn Maple beer

Directions

1. In a small saucepan, combine the sugar, water and corn syrup on medium heat. Bring to a low boil. Gently swirl the mixture in (do not stir), and allow it to boil until it is a deep amber color, 10 minutes.
2. Remove from the heat and carefully whisk in the cream and the butter. Return to low heat and stir until mixture is smooth. Stir in salt and beer. Return to a low boil for five minutes. Remove from heat and cool before using.

For the Beer Marshmallows

• 2 envelopes (4 tablespoons) unflavored gelatin
• ½ cup cold, flat The Bruery Autumn Maple beer, divided
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1/4 cup light corn syrup
• 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla bean paste or extract

Directions

1. In bowl of a standing mixer or a large bowl sprinkle gelatin over ¼ cup beer, and let stand to soften.
2. In a large, heavy saucepan cook granulated sugar, corn syrup, second 1/4 cup of cold beer, and salt over low heat, stirring with a wooden spoon, until sugar is dissolved. Increase heat to moderate and boil mixture until a candy or digital thermometer registers 240°F, about 12 minutes. The beer will cause the mixture to foam, but resist stirring unless absolutely necessary. (I stirred about 3 times during the cooking, to help reduce foam.)
3. Remove pan from heat and pour sugar mixture over gelatin mixture, stirring until gelatin is dissolved. With standing or a hand-held electric mixer beat mixture on high speed until pale tan, thick and nearly tripled in volume, about six minutes if using standing mixer or about 10 minutes if using hand-held mixer. Keep the fluff in your large bowl for crispy treat making,
4. If making beer marshmallows, transfer to a greased 9” square pan. Let set up for 2-3 hours, cut and dust with powdered sugar.

For the Beer Crispy Treats

• 4 tablespoons butter
• 8 cups Rice Krispies cereal (or any puffed rice cereal)
• 1 batch beer marshmallow fluff

Directions

1. Grease a 9 x 13” pan with cooking spray or butter.
2. In a large, pale-bottomed pot, melt butter over medium heat. You want to brown the butter, for a nutty, rich flavor. The butter will foam, then turn clear gold, then finally begin to brown. Stir often, scraping up the browned bits and keeping your eyes on the pan. Once the butter starts to brown, remove from the heat. The butter has a tendency to burn quickly.
3. Pour the butter into the bowl of beer marshmallow fluff and stir to combine. At first, the butter and marshmallow doesn’t seem to want to combine. But the marshmallows will melt a little, and after a few stirs the mixture will finally come together. Add the cereal and stir quickly to combine.
4. Pour the mixture into your prepared pan and spread gently with a spatula. To press into place, I recommend using a square of parchment paper that has been greased. Use it greased side down to smooth and press the cereal into the pan.
5. Let cool for 30 minutes, to come to room temperature and harden. Using a serrated knife, cut into small squares.

To assemble the Beer Crispy Treats:

• 10 ounces dark chocolate [bark, chips, or bar]

Directions

1. If needed, chop your chocolate into ¼” squares. Put all chocolate in a heatproof (metal or glass) bowl. Set the bowl over a small pan of simmering water - so that the bowl rests on the rim of the pan. Make sure the simmering water does not touch the bottom of the bowl. This double boiler set up will melt the chocolate.
2. Stir the chocolate to help melt. Once mostly melted, take the pan and bowl off the stove. The residual heat will fully melt the chocolate. Dip the top of one treat into the melted chocolate. Place the crispy treat, chocolate side up, on a baking sheet and repeat with the rest of the crispy treat squares.
3. Once all treats are dipped in chocolate, refrigerate the treats for 20 minutes or until the chocolate has hardened. Place treats on a platter and drizzle with cooled caramel sauce. Enjoy!

For more amazing recipes, check out

Nomnivorous!

Report: Anthony Strong EP Launch

Anthony Strong

Paul Jefferies reports from Tuesday's Anthony Strong EP Launch:
I love pizza, but I love jazz even more - so was delighted to consume both last night at the AJ Strong EP launch gig at Dean Street's Pizza Express.

Mr Strong served up a well rounded helping of jazz standards, performed with aplomb. Eloquent musicianship and some fine AJ Strong arrangements rendered the familiar exciting and the not so well know as intriguing. However, the highlights for me were Strong's solo piano and voice interlude (especially the exquisite 'I'm Through With Love" and a duet performing a truly Jazz version of L.O.V.E with erudite bassist Tom Farmer.

Although I felt myself wanting a little more 'soul' on occasion this was overall a technically superb performance with some very great musical moments.

pizzaexpresslive.co.uk 

Charles Lloyd and Maria Farantouri

A new ECM album features Charles Lloyd 's stellar quartet (with Jason Moran, Reuben Rogers and Eric Harland) , performing live with the Greek singer Maria Farantouri at the ancient theatre of Herodes Atticus, downhill from the Parthenon in Athens. This promotional trailer gives a good feel of the album.

Treasure

"He said to them, "Therefore every teacher of the law who has been instructed about the kingdom of heaven is like the owner of a house who brings out of his storeroom new treasures as well as old." -- Matthew 13:52

My husband and I are cleaning out the basement -- a task that energizes me but drains him. However, yesterday he came upon a childhood Disney book that his mom read to him when he was young. Too young to read, he said he remembered memorizing the words in the book and then he'd "read" them back to her. I asked him if the book was old, smelly, and crumbling after all these years and he replied yes. I then asked, "what did you do with it?" He replied, "I put it with my treasures."

I had to smile when we got to Bible study last night and our pastor explained the scripture passage in Matthew 13:52 in terms of finding a treasure in your basement that you had forgotten about and how when found it brought great joy to its owner. It's just like God to supply the example before the lesson!

Emma Smith at Boisdale Canary Wharf

One day, it shouldn't be long, maybe only be three to five years from now, Emma Smith will ( I dream, I hope, I wish...) be singing in supper clubs to audiences which will appreciate her, and her singing. Diners in the Oak Room at the Algonquin in New York, in the Regatta Bar of the Charles Hotel in Boston, in Yoshi's in Oakland, in Demetriou's Jazz Alley in Seattle... will recognize, understand and like what they hear, and will greet her with loud applause.

Because Emma Smith has the heritage, and is developing the skills to ascend to these temples of the art, and to conquer them. American audiences will hear a singer who has absorbed Billie, Ella, Ernestine Anderson, looks the part, carries the phrase, inhabits the song and communicates it to the manner born.

But back to reality. Boisdale Canary Wharf is a different proposition from these venues. While I salute the management of Boisdale CW for loving and supporting the music, the sound from the stage last night was swamped by the ambient thrum of diners loudly tucking into their one pound (in weight) steaks. Emma Smith was making heroic efforts to connect with those of us who had come along to listen to the music, but found herself working against insuperable odds.

Even the the humble craft of reviewing felt like an extreme sport at this noise level. I found my mind was getting inhabited by less and less rational and constructive thoughts: as a waiter brought in yet another tray of the vast steaks, I was starting to plan a Boisdale celebration of the centenary next May of the birth of Georg Borgstrom. (he of "it takes 2400 gallons of water to make a pound of steak" fame). Thinking that to spend too much time with such thoughts was unhealthy, I baled out at the intermission.

Emma Smith has clearly progressed and gained in confidence in the past couple of years. But these are early days: she has only just passed the half-way mark in the Royal Academy's jazz course. She had an excellent trio who knew the arrangements well, and landed every time on the dime - Matt Robinson, nimble and expressive on the Boisdale's electronic grand piano, Tim Thornton supportive and strong on bass, and Andy Ball crisp, clear and inventive on drums. A highlight of the first set was an up tempo, hard-swung but touching (I'm Afraid) The Masquerade is Over.

It will be fascinating to hear the radio version of this performance, or rather act of heroism, in JazzFM's Discovery Show next Tuesday evening.

Going down in the lift I overheard the line, spoken in typical Wall Street grey-hair white-shoe monotone drawl: "the real oppor-tooonities are in emerging markets. We need to re-visit that" No mate. The real opportunities were right there in front of your nose. And you've just talked right through them.

Jazz FM Discovery Show at Boisdale is supported by Aberdeen Asset Management

Book Review: Esi Edugyan - Half Blood Blues

Esi Edugyan - Half Blood Blues
(Serpent's Tail, 345pp., £10.99. Book Review by Chris Parker)

First, the good news: a book with jazz musicians as its central characters, set at a time when the music came closest to being popular worldwide, and informed by what appears to be genuine love of and respect for said music, has been shortlisted for the most prestigious prize in the English-speaking literary world: the Booker.

Now the bad news: both as a novel per se, and (particularly) as a representation of jazz and the musicians who play it, it's extremely disappointing.

Purely as a novel, Half Blood Blues fails on numerous levels: it's derivative (the plot, hinging on betrayal and invasion, is oddly reminiscent of Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner with occasional flashes of Irène Nemirovsky's Suite Française), formulaic (demotic first-person narrative written from an 'older/wiser' perspective) and simplistic (all shades of morality bleached out by the ghastly glare of Nazism); it also fails to individualise any of its characters, all of whom are unrelievedly 'flat' in the Forsterian sense, and it has no narrative 'pull', since the most interesting event in it takes place right at the beginning.

In short, if you're after thoughtful reflection on war and its effects, with special reference to Franco-German hostility, read any of Storm Jameson's novels on the subject rather than this somewhat superficial yarn.

As far as the representation of jazz and its practitioners is concerned, Edugyan's novel also disappoints. Of course, fiction writers (or film makers for that matter) are under no obligation whatsoever to present jazz musicians in a favourable light; what they are obliged to do, however, is to present them in as nuanced and subtle a manner as possible. This Edugyan signally fails to do: the 'half-blood' (German-Senegalese) trumpet prodigy at the centre of the book is simply a cipher, given little dialogue with which to express his feelings about being raised as a mixed-race child in an increasingly hostile atmosphere as the Third Reich replaces the Weimar Republic; the novel's eightysomething narrator is self-confessedly 'unreliable' and unsympathetic, so fails to engage the reader's interest, let alone sympathy; his old friend and bandmate Chip is guess what? a hard-drinking ex-junkie with a nasty line in locker-room humour.

One incident will suffice to illustrate the paucity of imagination, the reliance on unpleasant cliché and stereotyping that characterise the novel: the narrator concludes one passage of reminiscence with the words 'The jazz life. I was hooked.' So what constitutes 'the jazz life' for him? Sneaking into a jazz club in his early teens, watching his friend Chip play drums, being introduced to two women who turn out to be prostitutes, then running away from the brothel to which they take him without paying for the sexual initiation he undergoes there.

All this would not matter so much were it not for the fact that Half Blood Blues is an opportunity missed: anyone who's read anything on the subject of the Nazis and their attitude to what they termed entartete Musik (there is a short Bibliography in the back of Edugyan's book, but one of the most revealing works on the subject, Mike Zwerin's La Tristesse de Saint Louis is not mentioned) will undoubtedly be mystified as to just how such a fascinating subject falls so flat in these pages. And as a final insult, the central character's name is misspelled on the book's cover.

serpentstail.com

Water

"And if you give even a cup of cold water to one of the least of my followers, you will surely be rewarded." -- Matthew 10:42, NLT

Today I thank God for water. It's at my disposal with just a turn of the faucet. I can bathe in hot water or drink a glass of cold water without much effort. This day I choose to "give a cup of cold water to the least of these."

Progress on my Ice Skating Challenge (with video!)

Wondering how my progress went with my Nicolekiss is all in adidas challenge?

Well I've recorded a video!! (read on)

Before that, here's a recap of the outfit I've picked out for my second day of ice skating lessons.


Or click on the link above to go to the post with all my camwhore photos of the outfit


And I know it's pointless (since I'm ice skating) but I just have to show off my brand new adidas pink and black sports shoe; I have another exact pair but silver in base color.




You would be able to see it if you follow my Twitter account. I used it to climb Mount Cook!!


Back to learning to ice skate.




Can you spot me in the photo?! I'm so colorful it's impossible not to. I love colorful clothing. ^^


This is my coach, Carmen.




She's really nice and am really patient with me even though when I'm obviously the worst 20s something student she ever had. I have like the worst balance for any form of sports. T_T




Btw do you realize she's wearing an adidas jacket?

Do you know that all ice skating coaches wear adidas jackets by default, because it's sponsored. OMG JELES! What a coincidence too! I swear I did not know this when I was signing up for the lessons.




There I go sidetracking again. @_@

Anyway I learnt a lot of moves and tricks to ice skating, not that one needs if one is already good at ice skating. It's just really useful for late learners like me to pick up the sport.



the kid was mocking me with her lightning speed. T_T


One thing after all these, I never knew ice skating could be so tiring. @_@




And the thing is, the moment my feet gets tired, I can't, even with all my might, skate properly. I will be tipping over at every glide/turn/slide, because it's using muscles I don't normally use when I walk, sleep and eat.


"Do I really need to skate more? I'm so so so so so so exhausted." Pleading at carmen the coach.


Here's a video on my progress, I also edited out the tricks and tips so that it becomes a tutorial for those who wish to pick up ice skating, take up an adidas challenge like I do.




I know I know. I'm still pretty shit. Will I really be able to finish my challenge? It's almost a month now and my aim was to achieve "passable" within a month! o.O

Am I setting myself too high a challenge? OMG kill me.

Still got one more week left. Will be TRYING MY BEST!

Provision

"For your Father knows what you need before you ask Him." -- Matthew 6:8

Have you ever received a bonus or an unexpected gift of money and the very next day your car breaks down or the washing machine quits? Most of us would look at that extra money as money we can spend in whatever way we want, but I challenge you to think about it in a different way. Your Father knows what you need in advance and He has an uncanny way of sending the provision before the precipitating event. God also uses His children to get blessings to others. The next time you receive an unexpected windfall, stop and give thanks, and then ask God where the need is.

Autumn Maple/Cinnamon Israeli Cous Cous with Napoleon of Sweet Potatoes and Maple/Brown Sugar Mascarpone

This month we've collected recipes for food made with or made to pair with our fall seasonal, Autumn Maple.  Today's comes from Happy Home Blog! Read below and check out their blog for some incredibly delicious food articles!

For the Cous Cous
2 cups Israeli cous cous
2 ½ cups Autumn Maple beer
½ cup vegetable stock
1 tsp cinnamon

For the Sweet Potatoes
2 large sweet potatoes, in ¼ slices lengthwise
2 tbsp brown sugar
2 tbsp butter

For the Mascarpone
¼ cup mascarpone
2 tsp ginger powder
1 tbsp brown sugar

For the Autumn Maple Sauce
2 cups Autumn Maple beer
¼ cup maple syrup
¼ cup brown sugar

1. Preheat oven to 400*F
2. Begin by bringing 2 ½ cups Autumn maple beer and ½ cup veggie stock to a boil.
3. Add your cous cous and simmer, 8-10 minutes or until tender.
4. Stir in cinnamon, and set aside, covered to retain heat.
5. Butter a baking sheet and lay slices of sweet potato on the sheet
6. Sprinkle with brown sugar and pats of butter.  Bake in the 400* oven until soft, about 10 minutes.
7. In a separate bowl, cream together mascarpone, ginger, and brown sugar.  Transfer to a piping bag.
8. In a medium-sized saucepan, heat 2 cups Autumn maple beer, ¼ cup maple syrup, and ¼ cup brown sugar.  Boil until reduced by half; watch to ensure the pot does not boil over.
9. To assemble: Lay down a bed of Autumn Maple cous cous.  Place 1 slice of candied sweet potato, then pipe a line of mascarpone.  Alternate sweet potato and mascarpone for several layers.  Place Autumn Maple sauce in a separate ramekin for dipping.  Enjoy!

For more amazing recipes, check out

Happy Home Blog!