I don't know what's got into me, but sometime last week I suddenly wanted to hear some cello music. I looked at iTune and bought Bach's Suites for Solo Cello played by Yo-Yo Ma. As you can gather, I know absolutely nothing about classical music. Nothing at all. Having said that, I have always liked cello sound and I've vaguely known Yo-Yo Ma's name.
The Christmas present from my ex-husband and myself to our son was a tuner and a pair of speakers. He connects them to a mixer, TV set, Xbox, laptop, and iPod and is always listening some sort of noise. I must say I was pretty impressed with the sound quality, so one day when he's at school I approached this set of boxes and wires with caution and managed to connect my laptop to listen to my downloaded cello music.
I sat in between the two speakers, and oh...how beautiful the music was! As the title suggests it's only cello and nothing else, and it's absolutely beautiful. It feels like it purifies your soul and raises your spirit to somewhere very high. I loved the pieces so much that I uploaded them to my iPod and I'm listening to them as I'm walking down the streets. Then what happens is everything and everyone you see is beautiful and it all looks like part of a film. I'm walking in my neighbourhood in a dreamlike state. My son said, "You'll be run over by a car soon...".
Easy and delicious Spaghetti Puttanesca today. It uses a lot of ingredients which has 'U·ma·mi' in them, so be careful how much salt and pepper you use. Always taste before you eat.
Ingredients (for 1 person):
100g or thereabouts spaghetti
about 10 cherry tomatoes
2-3 anchovy fillets
1 tablespoon of capers
1 clove of garlic
a handful of black olives
some chilli flakes or half a red chilli
1 teaspoon of tomato puree
a bunch of parsley
1 tablespoon of olive oil
A thing about cooking pasta - put at least a dessertspoon of salt into about 1 litre of water for 1 portion of pasta. They say the water should be as salty as Mediterranean sea.
While you are cooking pasta, chop everything else small as below, heat about a tablespoon of olive oil in a pan and cook everything chopped apart from parsley. After about 5 minutes add tomato puree, mix everything, turn off the heat, and taste. There are a lot of salty things in the sauce, so be careful of adding more salt. Add chopped parsley, put the lid on, and leave until the pasta is ready. Drain the pasta and add to the sauce.
