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Yesterday Dennis came over and we discussed some music theory stuff that I wasn’t very clear on, namely temperament, and the prevalence of non-12-tone systems, like ‘31 equal’ and whatnot. He also lent me a good book on the history of temperament, and its implementation. I’m excited about reading it, and will probably start it tonight.

Then we took a trip to the asian store, and picked up some groceries. I tried to remember exactly what was needed for the making of Pad Thai, as taught to me by our Thai friend Tom. We picked up the preserved radish, the wet tamarind, the chives, the banh pao rice noodles, the tofu, the bean sprouts, the black soy sauce and I even bought a new knife. The knife is a cute little cleaver, made in Thailand by a company called “Kiwi Brand”. We already had carrot, egg and regular soy sauce at home.

I would phrase this all in terms of a recipe, but the way Tom taught me to make Pad Thai, no measurements are really used, its all done by intuition. You start by soaking the noodles in water with some sugar and black soy sauce. No boiling, just soaking. Then you stir fry the radish with some garlic, the egg (leave this out to make it vegan), the carrot, and the tofu. Then you take a hunk of the wet tamarind, about the size of a strawberry, soak it in a small cup of water, and then filter out the pulp and seeds, saving the cloudy liquid. Then you pull the noodles out of the soaking water, throw them into the pan, add the cloudy tamarind water, some soy sauce, some sugar, and all the other ingredients. Cook for a short while, letting the noodles soak up the tamarind water. Add a bit more water if necessary, to make sure the noodles get moist enough. Add some crushed chili powder if you like it spicy! Then enjoy. I’m sure there are other recipes out there that one could follow if a little more direction is needed. The thing Tom impressed upon me however, was that for it to be real Pad Thai, you need to have the preserved radish (also called preserved turnip), the wet tamarind, and the chive. Without those things, you don’t have real Pad Thai. He shook his head at many of the Thai restaurants around here who do not use all the real ingredients, and choose to cut corners by using green onion instead of chive, and often forgoing the preserved radish entirely.

After making Pad Thai, we went down to Blueberry Hill to see Seven Nations perform. They are a Celtic rock band, whose style encompasses traditional jigs all the way to original modern rock music, and everything in between. The one thing all the songs have in excess is energy. The musicians jumped around on stage, played faster and faster, stomped their feet to the rhythm, and throughly enjoyed themselves. Their complement includes a bassist, a fiddle player, a guitar player (who plays electric guitar, acoustic guitar, and even bagpipes on a few songs), a bagpiper, and a drummer (who has both a regular drum kit, as well as some hand drums). The fiddle player dances with traditional clogs, and even has a mic on his dancing platform, so you can hear the speed of the thumping and clogging. The show was very enjoyable, and a rousing good time. They brought a lot of vigor to the music, and every song made you want to stomp your feet and clap your hands. Check them out if you ever see them in your area.

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