On harmless coffee beans, Turkish harpsichords, raw artichokes and Irish tambourines

One year of “Cooking by ear” - a February newsletter

I can’t believe it’s been one year of “Cooking by ear” on Substack.

I want to thank all 1843 of you for sticking with me through this learning curve. A special thank you to my 95 paying subscribers, I really appreciate you and I want to thank you for making all of this a little bit more feasible for me.

I have plans of improving and expanding this operation a bit, but in general, I will stick to most of the formats I have used during the past year as it seems you guys enjoy it. If you have any suggestions or ideas for things you’d like to see here, please do not hesitate to write it in the comments section here below.

January

January was dense, and it culminated with a great tour with the Silkroad ensemble in a new percussion program, have a look at this IG reel I made:

francescoturrisimusic

A post shared by @francescoturrisimusic

Previously I had a few action packed days at Your Roots Are Showing, the Irish folk music conference and showcase in Killarney. I was originally asked to speak at two panels, but I ended up staying for longer to teach a percussion workshop and to meet and play with lots of great musicians. I particularly enjoyed this very impromptu filmed session with fiddle player Jayne Pomplas, and you’d think Italian tambourine and Irish fiddle were made for each other! Did you know that the bodhran was originally a tambourine? More on that soon…

Arpeggiata style

Right now I am writing from my mother’s home in Torino, and I have been here for a couple of days before I head to Paris to join ensemble L’Arpeggiata. It’s the 25th anniversary of this legendary early music group, and I am so excited to join my old friends for two concerts on February 8th at the beautiful Salle Gaveau.

I started playing with L’Arpeggiata when I was still a student of the Royal conservatory of The Hague, and I have played with them on and off for the last 20 years!! This ensemble is well known for their interpretation of Italian 17th century music performed on original instruments, but also for their “crossover” projects mixing with other forms of traditional music and creating a very beautiful and unique sound world. Working with L’Arpeggiata has been such a formative experience over the years, and through them, I have been exposed to so much beautiful music and special musicians from all over the world.

One of my favorite projects was a collaboration with musicians from Greece, Turkey, Italy and Portugal which resulted in the album “Mediterraneo”. During these sessions I discovered how well the harpsichord blends with all these Mediterranean instruments, so much that you’d think it was regularly featured in Arabic and Turkish ensembles!

Carciofi!

I actually dropped by Torino on my way to Paris to celebrate my mother’s 80th birthday, so I had the perfect excuse to come around for a few days. Unfortunately I have been on a quite strict anti inflammatory diet for the last month, so I haven’t eaten incredibly rich food, and I have been focusing on finding delicious food that is good for my body. On the good news front it’s artichoke season in Italy, and that’s a good enough reason to enjoy this vegetable as it is something I can never find in Ireland. Here for example a classic and simple raw artichoke salad my mother made, with toasted piedmont hazelnuts, parmigiano, parsley and dressed with olive oil, lemon, salt and pepper…crunchy, light, delicious and diet friendly!

The Beans

I was also advised to cut caffeine (the sadness…), and was given the option of decaf coffee, or of a watered down very light roast high altitude grown coffee.

I visited a local roaster and got into a long chat about decaf coffee, something that seems to be the rage these days, as the technology is dramatically improving and therefore the quality of decaf beans is incomparable to even just a few years ago. After a bit of research online I discovered that one of my favorite Irish coffee roasters (cloudpicker) offers a monthly decaf coffee subscription…so I signed up to give it a try.

In early January I received my first batch and I was very surprised of how delicious it is!

It pulled pretty much exactly like regular espresso and honestly, I would have never guessed it was a decaf without previous knowledge. A friend asked me why I would drink coffee if it had no caffeine in it, and I thought about it for a while, because I wasn’t sure what to answer. I think I’ve actually never been addicted to the drug side of coffee in order to wake up, and as a matter of fact, I often used to go long stretches (especially touring in the US) where I wouldn’t drink any at all. So I now think that it’s simply because I love the complexity and flavour of a good espresso but also, because I love the ritual of weighing, grinding and dialling a shot in the morning.

Speaking of rituals, I also got some advice from a coffee expert to give pour over coffee a try, as it is a lot lighter than espresso and can be much gentler on the stomach, so it could serve as a caffeinated lighter alternative. I purchased a Hario Switch, a very simple and inexpensive Japanese contraption that is a mix between a V60 percolator and a french press. With this piece of equipment you can brew coffee in either of those ways, but you can also combine the best of both words in the same brew, making brewing much easier for a pour over beginner.

And total beginner I am as, the more I investigate this universe, the more I realise you need to turn into a little chemist to execute correctly the brewing in these styles. At the same time I have enjoyed the very different ritual of it, and am starting to develop a palate for this type of coffee, something that to me is almost more similar to tea in terms of how you consume it and flavour concentration. Here’s a little video of the final phase of a brew made with my Hario Switch using the 4:6 technique and recipe created by world brewers cup champion Tetsu Kasuya.

Coming Up

Last but not least, later this month I will perform with a brand new piano trio in Dublin’s only Jazz dedicated room “The cooler”.

The concert is organised by the Improvised Music Company and you can get your tickets here.

The band features longtime collaborator Matthew Jacobson on drums and Derek Whyte on bass, we will also have special guest American saxophonist Steve Welsh on a few numbers.

Finally you can see here all upcoming dates for the next month