pumpkinstrokemarrow

Friday last to the Wigmore Hall to hear the Pacifica Quartet and Menahem Pressler do Shostakovich: quartets 7 & 8 followed by the piano quintet. I had known the quintet for a long time, but mugged up on the quartets beforehand, all three works handily residing on the one disc from Melodiya via EMI. As it turned out the quartets were really good but I found the transition to the quintet after the interval difficult and it took a while to settle into it.

It also turned out to be something of a testimonial occasion for Pressler who, it seems, has been doing sterling work for the Wigmore Hall for more than 50 years, although, oddly, we have not come across him before. Now 87 and still going strong - certainly a good deal stronger than I expect to be if I ever make it that far. On the strength of this we got an encore in the form of the slow movement of the Brahmns quintet. A slight gasp of anticipation from the audience when he announced this item and no transition problems for me. All in all a memorable occasion.

Having recently used our thermometer from Zeal's of Wigmore Street (see 12th of February) during the making of blackberry and apple jam, kept an eye out but we did not spot the place, either there or in Wimpole Street. Turn to Google who denies all knowledge of such an outfit - so I wonder where I got the idea from - but he does admit to a thermometer manufacturer of that name in Merton, a good deal nearer Epsom than Wigmore Street. I dare say one of the chemists - perhaps John Bell & Croyden - would sell one a thermometer from Zeal's but that is not quite the same thing.

Our thermometer has been delisted, perhaps because less people are doing this sort of cooking these days. Perhaps because dipping a brass implement into one's jam is a health and safety hazard. However, on closer inspection I decide that the thing is probably a confectioner's thermometer rather than a jam maker's thermometer. It also told me that the jam I was making boiled at the boiling point of water where I had expected it to boil at some rather higher temperature considering all the sugar in the stuff. And the thermometer alleges that you have to get up to around 350F to get caramel. But the jam did set, whatever the thermometer was telling me.