TWO Ballets over Christmas!

Over the holidays, I got to see not one but TWO ballet performances. How awesome is that!

The first one was when my friend and I saw the Sarasota Ballet and their "Masters of Movement" performance at the Sarasota Opera House. This was the second show of our subscription, and we both agreed we liked it better than the first one we saw. The "Masters of Movement" performance was a nice mix of class ballet and modern dance (and I usually don't care for the latter).

Image found here (photo credit: Frank Atura)

Divertimento No. 15

This first piece was choreographed by George Balanchine, a legend in the ballet world, and set to music by Mozart. It premiered in New York City in 1956, so it's been around for a long time. I totally forgot that I had seen the piece years ago at the Kennedy Center, that time performed by the New York City Ballet (read that blog post here). There is no story or plot, but rather is just meant to appreciate the "elegant and inventiveness" that is "playful, refined, and surprising" (notes from the program). I tried to watch it just to appreciate the movement of dance and the inherent fun in dancing. I really liked it!

While the video below features the Suzanne Farrell Ballet, you can get a taste of the piece:

Mozartiana

The second piece was also choreographed by Balanchine, and while the dancing is set to Tchaikovsky's Suite No. 4, that music is actually the Russian's orchestration of works by Mozart (so I guess kind of like a medley or remix?). This was also a classic piece, and the Sarasota Ballet's version featured some child dancers, too. This one felt a little less fun than the previous, but still just as beautiful.

This video was filmed in 1983 soon after Balanchine's death (he choreographed the piece in the early 80's just a few years before he died). But this is the full thing, so you can really appreciate it.

Image found here (photo credit: Frank Atura)

Jazz Calendar

Even though this was the modern dance piece, my friend and I liked it the best! It was so fun, so creative, and just very different! Sir Frank Ashton choreographed the piece in the late 1960's and based it on the nursery rhyme, "Monday's Child," creating a dance for each day of the week set to jazz music from the era. I had actually seen the Friday dance at the Sarasota Ballet's gala last year, but I didn't know that at the time! So it was cool seeing it again along with all the other "days." The music, written by Sir Richard Rodney Bennett, is so lively, and each part was exciting with all the colorful costumes. It kind of reminded me of the "sweets" featured in the Nutcracker: each one is unique but just as fun as the others.

Here is a preview video from the Sarasota Ballet so you can see the awesome costumes and some of the artwork/structures that went along with the dancing:

What a great show! The next performance from our subscription isn't until March, so I'm glad I got to see another ballet show so soon. Just a few days later, my mom and I saw the Sarasota Ballet School perform The Nutcracker (I LOVE the Nutcracker and had not seen it the past two years, so I was really looking forward to it, especially because I got to see it with my mom!). 

There were 130 students (!) in the production from multiple studios, and we were so impressed! Their ages ranged from teeny tiny girls, maybe four years old, to the Sugar Plum Fairy (played by Kerry Shannon, a new member of the Sarasota Ballet Studio Company, and she was SO good!), who is probably in her early 20's. Because there were so many dancers, they had to get creative with the roles. For example, the Arabian Coffee dance (what they called the "desert dance" for some odd reason) featured three boys and three girls (six dancers total), when usually that piece is performed by only women or is featured as a pas de deux. But it's so nice that all the students could be included. 

Along with Shannon, we also thought Violet Olson, who played Clara, and Gregory Dempsey, who played the Nutcracker prince (Nathaniel?) did a great job as well. It was nice that, because they are both teenagers, they seem age-appropriate as a couple, as opposed to the traditional Nutcracker in which Clara, a young girl, is with a grown man prince. 

Here's a little video from a few years ago. These kids are really talented!

And you can check out this article in The Sun about this year's production, too!

Recipe: Toll House Nestle's Chunky Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Cookies

My mom bought me the Toll House Nestle's "3 Books in 1" more than 10 years ago, and it's my go-to cookbook for baking cookies. Over the holidays, I knew I wanted to make peanut butter cookies, and this recipe was a no-brainer.

Ingredients

• 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 3/4 cup (1.5 sticks) butter or margarine, softened
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
• 1 large egg
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips (I probably used half a cup, whatever I already had left.)
• 1/2 cup coarsely chopped peanuts (I used peanut butter chips instead.)

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 375 F.
2. Combine flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon in a small bowl. Beat butter, both sugars, and peanut butter in a large mixing bowl until creamy. Beat in egg and vanilla extract. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Stire in morsels and peanuts.
3. Drop dough by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheets. Press down slightly to flatten into 1-inch circles.
4. Bake for 7-10 minute or until edges are set but centers are still soft. Cool on baking sheets for 4 minutes; remove to wire racks to cool completely. 

These cookies ended up being a lot bigger and more fragile than I expected. So I think I made them too big and underbaked them (for fear of having crunchy cookies, I'd rather them be too soft than too hard!). My scoop was probably bigger than a tablespoon, so that could have been the problem; our peanut butter is also very oily, so that might have made them spread more, too. Next time, I would make them smaller, and I'd make sure I saw some browning on the bottoms of all the cookies before taking them out of the oven. These still tasted delicious, but they broke apart so easily, so they didn't look as good as I would have hoped. Certainly worth trying again!

Recipe: Easy Pumpkin Pie

 

I have made many a pumpkin recipe (I love all things pumpkin!), but I wanted to try a pumpkin pie recipe that I had never made before. I found this recipe on the Cooking Classy blog, and with only six ingredients, I knew this would be a piece of cake... or pie rather ;)

Ingredients

• 1 (9-inch) refrigerated pie crust (store-bought)
• 1 (15 oz) can pumpkin puree (not pie filling)
• 1 (14 oz) can sweetened condensed milk
• 2 large eggs
• 2 1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
• 1/4 tsp salt

Directions

1. Set oven rack in lowest position of oven and heat oven to 425° F.
2. Thaw the chilled pie crust according to package directions, unroll and then fit into pie dish. Decorate edges if desired.
3. In a mixing bowl whisk together pumpkin, sweetened condensed milk (scrape in any excess from can), eggs, pumpkin pie spice, and salt until well blended.
4. Pour mixture into pie crust then wiggle to level. Set on a baking sheet. If you don't want the crust edges to get overly dark you can cover them with a ring of aluminum foil.
5. Transfer pie on baking sheet to oven and bake on lowest rack in preheated oven 15 minutes. Leave in oven, reduce temperature to 350° F and continue to bake until pie is nearly set (filling no longer jiggles when moved), about 35 to 40 minutes.
6. Transfer to a wire rack and let pie cool at least 2 hours before slicing. For a chilled pie rest 1 hour at room temperature and then 2 hours in the fridge.

Unfortunately I did not actually have any pie crusts. My sister and mom went out shopping, and they only bought ONE box of pie crusts (2 crusts each) instead of TWO boxes, and I knew I had to use two pie crusts for the apple pie later (find that recipe here). So I used a Pillsbury dough sheet instead; since that cooks a lot faster, the edges of the crust burned almost immediately. I tried to salvage it but putting aluminum foil around the edges, but the damage has been done, and then the foil ended up tearing little holes at the top surface. So this pie (like my peanut butter cookies) did not look, but at least it tasted yummy! I usually make pumpkin pie with evaporated milk instead of condensed milk, so this version was creamier and thicker. I would certainly consider this a traditional pie, great for the holiday season!