Extracurricular activites

In graduate school, I decided that there was time enough for me to have one, but only one, hobby, and that hobby was cooking. Now that I'm done with graduate school, I can mainly keep a forty-hour work week. As a result of all my newly-found free time, I find myself taking up new hobbies. Last spring I started taking dance classes. (I find it hard to describe what kind of Indian dance it is: click here if you want to see an example.) I need to practice a lot at home to keep up and, if I want, I could take these classes for a decade or so and still be learning new stuff. So it's a challenge.

Dance classes aren't held during the summer, though, because the instructor and lots of the students visit India during summer vacation. With all that free time on my hands, I decided to join a choir. Like the case of the dance class, I've taken on more than I realized. When I heard I needed to audition, I wasn't too worried. But at the audition the woman who went before me sounded like an opera singer. This turned out to be not too far from the truth, as most of the singers majored in music, and some of them are paid opera singers. I was told that my voice is rusty (so true! I haven't sung in ten years) but that I had potential. The very first night we sang Bach in five parts and we sightsang pieces in Hebrew. I've sung in choirs like this before; choirs that hire soloists and sing with orchestras, but the caliber of these singers is astounding. Quite frankly, I can tell that I am one of the worst singers there, but I'm choosing to see this as an opportunity to learn lots, and fast.

In the meantime, something that I'm good at: Bienenstich Kuchen. This translates as bee sting cake, but I don't know the story behind the name. It's plain, eggy cake topped with lots of almonds and filled with vanilla cream. This is officially a kuchen, but I haven't figured out the difference between a Kuchen and a Torte.