Monday night I attended my friend's (my older sister's godmother's daughter...what a mouthful) senior recital where she and five other graduating seniors of the music department put together a seamless performance of solos, duets and other collabs, and in the end, even parodied a Taiwanese talk show.
My high school didn't have the tradition of holding senior recitals. There were end of the year performances where a few groups recognized the seniors in front of the audience and others that rewarded plastic plaques during the class period, but seniors didn't get the spotlight chance to perform as my friend did that Monday night. It made me a bit nostalgic. The only solos I've performed since beginning high school were for auditions or CM exams. My private teacher didn't gather all her students for a recital of any sort either.
I'm not an avid violinist anymore. Though I do pick up the wooden instrument and run through my twelve major scales from time to time, I always set it back down after about fifteen minutes or so with no willpower to even finger through an etude. But as I watched my friend perform her solo that night, watched her bow articulating vigorously into the strings, her fingers quivering amidst a vibrato, chords reverberating in the auditorium...my hands itched to play.
For a while I had thought music escaped me, that ever since I stopped taking private lessons, that my musical career ended right then and there. And for a while I accepted that. My tone worsened, my fingers slowed, my vibrato weakened--my violin chops seemed to vanish into thin air. For a while I was afraid to open up my case, afraid of hearing the awful tone, of feeling my bow wobble on the strings and afraid of left arm tensing up at futile attempts for a powerful vibrato. Why bother when I won't improve anymore? I feared losing my connection with music, but at the same time believed I had already lost the feel for it. And for months I held onto that belief every time I stared at my instrument case, unwilling to open it--more unwilling to accept that I was no longer the player I used to be.
Tuesday night I unpacked my violin from its dusty case and tuned it for the first time in months. After a run-through of scales, I start with an etude I learned about three years ago. Rusty. Weird squeaking. Why is my string crossing so awful? A bit discouraged but I persevered anyway; and after a few more repetitions at slower tempos, my fingers began to adjust accordingly to their placement on the strings. My right hand re-familiarized with the curves of the bow, my arm moved fluidly with each stroke, and by some miracle, my tone quality sounded...not bad.
Imagine my surprise (and happiness) that I haven't lost my musical side completely after all! I breezed through another learned etude, and though I did lose some chops, that's nothing that more practice can't bring back. At least I got over that whole uncertainty and fear of facing my violin :)
When I scrolled through my tabbed bookmarks and came upon this recipe for panda cookies, I was afraid I'd met my new match, just as I did years ago when I attempted checkerboard cookies (which, by the way, I have now conquered). The few months prior our move to Taiwan I had already stopped baking completely, and only recently have I begun baking a few loaves of bread, nothing too demanding. But since I wanted to bake treats to give my friend after her recital, I decided to go with these albeit challenging, make-it-or-break-it panda cookies.
Don't let the assembling portion of these cookies daunt you. Personally I think the bodies are completely optional, cause a panda head speaks for itself. Either way you'll have tasty cute cookies as a result anyway :)
Panda Cookies
adapted from Hungry at Midnight
yields about 2 dozen (I only made 1 dozen though cause my panda log was pretty small and I didn't feel like making another one, so I used cookie cutters on the rest of the dough!)
Ingredients:
120 grams butter (about 8 tbs)
50 grams granulated sugar (about than 3 1/3 tbs)
1 egg yolk
90 grams cake flour (about 6 tbs)
80 grams cake flour (about 5 1/3 tbs) + 10 grams cocoa powder (about 2/3 tbs)
1/4 tsp Earl Grey tea leaves, ground into powder (optional)
Directions:
- Preheat the oven to 350° F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper, a silicone mat, or a lightly greased piece of foil.
- Prepare two medium bowls. In one bowl, beat the butter and sugar together until creamy.
- Add in the egg yolk and mix. Then divide the mixture as evenly as you can and place half of it in the other bowl.
- Add the cake flour to one bowl and mix. The consistency should thicken and you should be able to handle the dough without it sticking to your fingers.
- In the other bowl, add in the cake flour and cocoa powder and mix until you get the same workable consistency. If desired, add in the Earl Grey tea powder too and combine.
- Assemble the panda (for step-by-step instructions with pictures, go to http://cookpad.com/recipe/989950. I know the instructions are in Japanese but the pictures should help! You basically roll out a bunch of logs, stick them together and the dough will soften, connect and shape itself so don't worry about the gaps when you first start assembling the logs).
- After making the panda, freeze the log for about 30 minutes so it will be easier to slice.
- With a very sharp knife, cut the panda log into 1/4-inch thick slices.
- Place the pandas on the baking tray and bake for about 8 to 10 minutes or until slightly crisp.
- Remove and let cool. Be VERY careful if you're going to move the cookies to a cooling rack because the pandas are quite crumbly and fragile. But other than that, enjoy your panda cookies! :)
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