05 Feb 2025

Lard & Olive Oil Soap

Lard & Olive Oil Soap

This simple lard and olive oil soap recipe (3:1 ratio) creates a rich, moisturizing bar perfect for everyday use. Made with rendered lard, olive oil, and optional essential oils, it’s a traditional, skin-friendly soap that’s easy to craft at home.

Ingredients
  

  • 12 oz Rendered Lard
  • 4 oz Olive Oil
  • 6 oz Distilled Water
  • 2.4 oz Lye
  • 0.5 - 1 oz Essential Oils (optional)
  • 1 Bunch of Herbs of your Choice (optional)

Instructions
 

  • Prepare: Wear safety gear (gloves, goggles). Weigh ingredients.
  • Lye Solution: Using a heat resistant bowl, slowly add lye to water (never the other way around). The chemical reaction will cause the mixture to heat up rapidly. Stir until the lye is dissolved. Cool to 100°F-120°F.
  • Melt Lard: Heat the lard on the stove until melted, then cool to 100°F-120°F.
  • Mix Oils: Combine melted lard and olive oil in a heat resistant bowl.
  • Add Lye: Slowly pour lye solution into oils. Using a hand mixer or immersion blender stir until “trace” (a custard-like consistency that leaves a trail when mixing).
  • Add Essential Oils: Stir in essential oils if desired.
  • Mold: Pour mixture into the mold, smoothing the top.
  • Cure: Cover, let set for 24–48 hours. Remove from mold, cut into bars. Cure for 4-6 weeks before use.
05 Feb 2025

Rendering Lard In a Crock Pot

Rendering Lard In a Crock Pot

This simple crock pot lard rendering recipe transforms fresh pig fat into smooth, creamy lard, perfect for cooking and baking. By slowly cooking the fat on low heat, you’ll achieve a clean, mild-flavored lard with crispy cracklings left behind. It’s an easy, hands-off method that requires minimal ingredients and yields a versatile, shelf-stable fat for your kitchen.

Ingredients
  

  • Fresh pig fat (leaf lard, back fat, or belly fat) - thawed if frozen
  • Water (optional, to prevent burning)

Instructions
 

  • Prepare the Fat: Cut the fat into 1-2 inch pieces.
  • Add to Crock Pot: Place fat in the crock pot. Optionally, add 1/4 cup water to prevent burning.
  • Cook on Low: Set the crock pot to low and cook for 4-8 hours, stirring occasionally.
  • Render: Continue cooking until fat is fully melted, leaving crispy cracklings behind.
  • Strain: Strain the liquid lard through a fine mesh strainer or cheesecloth into a container, discarding the cracklings.
  • Cool and Store: Let lard cool, then store in airtight containers in the fridge or freezer.
07 Jan 2025

The Aeolian Pipe Organ Program

Program for The Aeolian Pipe Organ: An Evening of Education and Entertainment

Welcome to Greenacres

Grand chœur dialogué
Eugène Gigout
(1844–1925)

 

Peer Gynt Suite:
I. Morning Mood
IV. In the Hall of the Mountain King
Edvard Grieg
(1843–1907)
mvt. 1 arr. Edwin Lemare
mvt. 4 arr. Christopher Holman

 

Berceuse, Op. 31, No. 19
Louis Vierne
(1870–1937)

 

Suite from Carmen
Georges Bizet
(1838–1875)
arr. Edwin Lemare

 

The Swan from The Carnival of the Animals
Camille Saint-Saëns
(1835–1921)
arr. Alexandre Guilmant

 

The Battle of Trenton
I. Introduction
II. Washington’s March
III. Crossing the Delaware
IV. Trumpets Sound the Charge — Attack
V. The Hessians Surrender
VI. Articles of Confederation Signed
VII. Grief of the Americans
VIII. Yankee Doodle — Quick Step for the Band
IX. Trumpets of Victory — General Rejoicing
James Hewitt
(1770–1827)
Bio of Christopher Holman
Christopher Holman has performed worldwide as a conductor, organist, and chamber musician, and is a scholar of music history and performance practice. Christopher holds the Doctor of Philosophy Degree in Music from the University of Oxford in England, where he was Lecturer of Organ History at the University’s Betts Centre for Organ Studies, Tutor of counterpoint and fugue at New College, and directed the Choir of Exeter College, the first American to direct a major collegiate choir in the University’s nearly 1000-year history. Previously he was a Frank Huntington Beebe Fellow at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Basel, Switzerland. During his five years in Europe, Christopher performed extensively in over a dozen countries on many of the most significant historic organs in the world. He presently serves as Director of Music at St. Gertrude Church (Roman Catholic, Dominican Order) in Madeira, Cincinnati.

 

Since winning the Albert Schweitzer Competition, Christopher has conducted and presented organ concerts in esteemed venues such as St Paul’s and Westminster Cathedrals in London, Thomaskirche in Leipzig, Germany (Bach and Mendelssohn’s church), and the two oldest organs in the world in Valère, Switzerland and Rysum, Germany. He has been a featured solo guest artist at the London Handel Festival, the Bergen International Organ Festival in Norway, the Festival Internacional de Órgano y Música Antigua in Oaxaca, Mexico, and the Boulder Bach Festival in Colorado. His performances have been featured on BBC Radio 3, German national television, and Swiss National Radio and Television, and he has curated and directed artistic projects in collaboration with the UNESCO World Heritage Centre, Shakespearian actors from London’s West End, and numerous museums of historical instruments across Europe.

 

As an academic, Christopher has given lectures at the University of Oxford, Université Sorbonne in Paris, the Eastman School of Music, Trinity College Dublin, and multiple national conventions of the American Guild of Organists and the Royal Musical Association (UK). He has presented and performed at foremost international conferences, and his research on performance practice has been published in leading peer-reviewed journals of musicology. He also founded and was Editor of the online journal Vox Humana. Christopher’s primary organ teachers were Robert Bates at the University of Houston and Dana Robinson at the University of Illinois.