The Medley APRIL Hello Choristers! Welcome to what has been a very soggy Spring!

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1 The Medley APRIL 2017 Dates to Remember: BRAHMS REHEARSALS: Monday, April 10 Monday, April 17 Wednesday, April 19 7:15-9:45, WAUMC Fellowship Hall *Monday, April 24: *Wednesday, April 26 7:15-9:45, WAUMC Fellowship Hall **Friday, April 28 7:00 PM, Bedford Concert Hall, UW- Parkside *Attendance by all is VERY STRONGLY encouraged this is the final week! **Attendance at DRESS REHEARSAL is required Saturday, April 29, 2017 When: 7:30 pm What: Brahms Requiem Concert Where: UW Parkside, Frances Bedford Concert Hall Sunday, April 30, 2017 When: 3:30 pm What: Brahms Requiem Concert Where: UW Parkside, Frances Bedford Concert Hall Wednesday, May 3, 2017 When: 6:30 pm What: New Member Auditions Where: WAUMC Monday, May 15, 2017 When: 7 pm What: Board Meeting Where: Toni King s home Hello Choristers! Welcome to what has been a very soggy Spring! This edition of The Medley contains some features you will NOT want to miss! Below read about Fred (B) and Ana (S2) Gerlach s upcoming move to Tampa, Florida, and in the pages that follow you will find John Nate s (B) recipe for Slutty Brownies; Jean Wesley s (S2) recipe for Rhubarb Cheese Squares; and a link Kristine Gerbitz (A2) shares to an online article about how to add an in-seam pocket to your concert dress. Our Transition: The South Beckons By Fred and Ana Gerlach We announced in Rachel Mosey s March 7 that we will be retiring from the Choristers, selling our Bay View house and moving to Tampa, Florida, sometime in the coming few months. We want now to use the splendid medium of Mary Jo s Medley to explain why. Milwaukee more precisely, the Milwaukee Choristers was where we met over 19 years ago, but our backgrounds could hardly have been more different. A year earlier, after a 40-year absence, Fred had returned to the metropolitan area where he grew up. By contrast, Ana had just arrived in the U.S. from Cuba and was in Milwaukee at the invitation of people she had met in the Friendship Force (some in Canada, others in Havana) and in the Choristers (the two groups had made a joint visit to Cuba in January 1998). For Fred, Milwaukee was a place to retire after a peripatetic life in the U.S. Foreign Service and a long stint of consulting/teaching in Germany. For Ana, Milwaukee was the start of a huge adventure, the first place she had lived and sought professional success in outside of Cuba. It is no secret that Ana s appreciation for Wisconsin winters has declined over the years. For many people, that alone would be reason enough to make a move south. But she also believes she will benefit professionally from our move. She is grateful for the opportunities membership in the Choristers and the MacDowell Club have given her for performing as a flutist; she also is very thankful for her loyal clientele in the esthetician business. But she thinks that Tampa, where there are a lot more Cubans (not too many, though!), will offer many more opportunities to perform professionally, particularly given her specialty in Cuban traditional music. What s in the move for Fred? He s a bit less sure, but he sees freedom from the responsibilities of home ownership as a positive step, and he is looking forward to more travel, starting with get-togethers with friends who have preceded him in moving to Florida. Oh, and not to forget: The flipside of more performing opportunities for Ana is more musical listening pleasure for Fred.

2 Here s a recipe from Jean Wesley (S2) that many of us enjoyed this semester: Crust 1 1/4 c. flour 1/2 c. butter 5 T powdered sugar Rhubarb Cheese Squares Filling 1 1/2 c sugar 2 eggs 1/4 tsp salt 8 oz package cream cheese, room temperature 1/4 c flour 2 c rhubarb cut into small pieces Topping 1 c brown sugar 1/2 c flour 4 T butter 1/2 c chopped nuts (I used pecans) Combine crust like for pie dough in the food processor or by hand. Press firmly into greased 9 x 13 pan. Bake 10 minutes at 350 until light brown. Cream all filling ingredients together except for the rhubarb. Stir in rhubarb and spread over baked crust. Mix topping ingredients into crumbly mixture and sprinkle on top of rhubarb. Bake at 325 for one hour. And from John Nate (B): Slutty Brownies AKA Brownies of Questionable Reputation AKA Brownies of Ill-Repute This is the simplest recipe and the easiest to make as it uses all mixes; nothing homemade... Total Time: 1 hour Yield: 16 1 package/tube chocolate chip cookie dough - Mix or refrigerated (approx 1 lb.) 16 package Oreo cookies - (Your choice of variety, single or double stuff, mint, etc.) 1 box brownie mix (plus ingredients called for on box) Preheat oven to 350 Degrees F. Grease and flour a 9x13-inch pan. Spread cookie dough in an even layer on the bottom. Buttered hands work the best here. Top with Oreos in an even layer, as many as you can fit. Mix brownie batter according to package instructions; spread over cookies. Bake for 40 to 45 minutes, or until a knife inserted into the center comes out clean. Let it cool in the pan for 15 minutes before cutting. Note that baking these beasts is a balancing act between not having the brownie in the center of the pan baked and over baking the edges.

3 Here s a very nice note we received from former Choristers Lyle and Faith Rhodes: Ladies: Ever since I saw Kristine Gerbitz s (A2) secret in-seam pocket in her concert dress, I have dreamed of having a pocket just like hers!! And now my dream is closer to coming true because Kristine recently shared with me a link to a site that shows us how to do it!!!! Follow this link to create your own pocketful of dreams (and other sundries):

4 Homemade Slutty Brownies For the brownie layer 10 tablespoons unsalted butter cups white sugar 3 4 cup cocoa powder 1 2 teaspoon salt 2 teaspoons vanilla extract 2 large eggs 1 2 cup all-purpose flour For the chocolate chip cookie layer 1 stick unsalted butter (at room temp) 1 4 cup brown sugar 3 4 cup white sugar 1 egg teaspoons vanilla extract cups all-purpose flour 1 2 teaspoon salt 1 2 teaspoon baking soda 1 2 teaspoon baking powder 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips For the Oreo layer 1 package Oreo cookies 1. Preheat oven to 350 Degrees F. 2. Grease and flour a 9x13-inch pan. 3. Brownie batter: In a medium sauce pan, melt the butter over medium-high heat. Once melted, add the sugar and cocoa powder. Stir to combine and remove from the heat. Add the salt, vanilla and eggs to the batter and then whisk until combined. In a separate bowl, sift the flour and then slowly incorporate the flour into the batter until it's all mixed. Set the batter aside. 4. Cookie dough: In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugars with a hand mixer. Add the eggs one at a time and then the vanilla, scraping down the sides of the mixing bowl as you go. Add the flour, salt, baking soda and baking powder and mix on low until incorporated. Fold in the chocolate chips and then set aside. 5. Spread cookie dough in an even layer on the bottom. Buttered hands work the best here. 6. Cover cookie dough with a layer of Oreo cookies. Do not overlap cookies. 7. Pour the brownie batter on top of the Oreo layer and gently spread to even out the layer, 8. Bake for up to 50 minutes. Test with a knife to see if the center is done. It's OK if the knife has some brownie on it. It's easy to overbake the cookie layer if left in the oven too long. 9. Let them rest for several hours before cutting. 10. Serve warm or cooled Even Sluttier Slutty Brownies!! For the ultimate in decadence, caramel is added as a layer and on top. You can use a heated jar of Dulce de leche but I find this hard to come by. I use the following: 1/2 stick unsalted butter 1/4 can sweetened condensed milk 1/2 package Kraft caramels - unwrapped. 1. Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat. 2. Add the sweetened condensed milk and caramels. (careful to not splash the hot butter) 3. Stir constantly until the caramels are just melted. 4. Drizzle about 1/3 of this mixture over the Oreo cookies before adding the brownie batter 5. When you bring the brownies out the oven after baking, note the consistency of the remaining caramel. If you think it is soft enough, add a teaspoon of water, gently reheat, and drizzle over the baked brownies. If the caramel is too hard, add a bit more water. If the caramel is too soft, do not add any water. Use care to not bring the caramel to too high of a temperature of to cook it too long while reheating. The higher the temperature and longer you cook it the harder it will become when it cools. When I had the caramel re-melted, I placed a freezer Ziploc (you need a strong one) into a measuring cup and poured the caramel into it. Snip off a bit of one corner and USING HOT PADS (melted caramel oddly is hot) use it like a piping bag to drizzle the caramel on top. Immediately sprinkle with some coarse sea or coarse kosher salt. You could also simply spread the caramel on top. If people complain that it does not look as nice tell them to make their own brownies. Also, adjustments to the above baking times would need to be adjusted for dark pans, glass pans, and pans of a different size.

5 HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHORISTERS! January Mary Jo Malone 4 Emily French 5 Keralyn Bolliger 6 Penny Hargarten 9 Kathy Keleher 14 Lynnae Ortiz 14 Jean Grainger 18 Deborah Bernhardt 19 Zach Rendall 19 Marilyn Harrower 23 Chris Krzyston 25 Alissa Moore 27 February Morris Srinivasan 13 Rick Armstrong 27 Kirsten O Quinn 27 March Laurie Knapp 1 Stephanie Haeussler 3 Suzanne Clegg 8 Debra Kelm 8 Robin Sadler 11 Ken Smith 15 Paige Konitzer 20 Caitlin Schaffer 26 Katie Immel 29 April Rachel Mosey 6 Serena Clardie 11 Toni King 11 Peggy Welden 14 May Carrie Arrouet 27 Caroline Gomez Tom 28 Sandy Hook 28 June Jim Schacht 1 Pat Black 3 Angela Sarozek 10 John Emanuel 17 Daniel Kaminski 18 Cornelia Beilke 19 Janelle Dougherty 26 July Jeff Hosler 4 Joe Brickman 11 Norm Wahn 19 Elleny Christopoulos 22 Julia Weinberg 26 August Jim Halverson 6 Greg Davidson 6 Fred Gerlach 9 Erin Booher 12 Jean Wesley 12 John Nate 16 Michelle Klasen 26 Ashley Grainger 29 Dan Heidemann 29 Jeanne Tyszka 30 Kathy Estlund 31 May Katie Weinberg 2 Stephanie Nichols 7 Jessica Sosnoski 8 Kristin Lehmann 14 Jean Jankovich 16 The Medley is the online newsletter of the Milwaukee Choristers Chief Editor, Joker, Artistic Director and Vibrationist: Mary Jo Malone, themalones@tds.net ALL IDEAS, ARTICLES, JOKES AND SELF PROMOTIONAL MATERIALS ENTHUSIASTICALLY CONSIDERED!