The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Sounds, scenery, scents
Celebrate summer with dinner at Tuesday-evening Arboretum lawn concerts
The evening was sublime. Not long ago, we all thought summer would never come. But now it’s here, and evenings can be magic if you know where to look.
It was a Tuesday in July at the Holden Arboretum, and people were assembling with their lawn chairs on the grassy area where the Sounds of Summer concert series takes place. They eyed the track of the late day sun before choosing where to establish seating, most seeking spots that would be in the shade before twilight time. It was a cloudless, blue-sky day.
Blooming bushes, including giant hydrangea, surrounded the audience members, many of whom were clad in shorts and sun hats.
By 6:15 p.m., the six-person crew from the Chefs for Hire catering company was busily cooking and assembling meals beneath the sun-shade tarp to serve early arrivals. Those in the know had chosen seating spots by then, allowing them to eat and then enjoy the music unencumbered by food. Some brought picnics while others mulled the menu, which is different each week.
The wines and beers, served under another shady spot, included reds, whites and a lovely Rhone rosé plus a half-dozen craft beers and the Northeast Ohio standby favorite, Great Lakes Brewing Co.’s Dortmunder Gold. They’re priced about $5. Visitors may not bring their own alcoholic beverages on the arboretum grounds.
Arboretum admission is $5 on concert nights but free for members.
John Zivko, owner of Euclidbased Chefs for Hire, has gotten to know the garden concert crowd, and he tries to match the food served each concert evening with the music being played. “It’s not always easy,” he said. On this night, Moustache Yourself, a gypsy jazz quartet, was about to take the impromptu grass stage for a 90-minute concert.
“There are no rules in gypsy jazz,” explained guitarist Brent Hamker, introducing the quartet that included guitars, clarinet and saxophone plus an acoustic bass.
“It’s a style made famous in France by Django Reinhardt in the 1930s.”
It was strangely familiar to me. But then I realized I’d loved gypsy jazz two summers ago when I heard it at the Marciac Jazz Festival in France, near Toulouse. See that story at bit.ly/2zDJbGo.
Soon, audience members were tapping their toes to exotic but familiar melodies with an infectious rhythm.
Meanwhile, Zivko was busy flipping swordfish fillets and chunks of pork tenderloin on the propane grill to the rear of the food tent.
“I know this is a fish crowd,” he said. “Fish always is a best seller.”
The handwritten menu near the service area, where a line already had formed, listed a grilled pork tenderloin with pineapple salsa ($9) and a swordfish fillet with lemon-chive aioli over rice and red beans ($9) as the evening’s protein entrees. Also being served was a popular salad trio of Asian noodle, five bean and redskin potato salad ($8) plus a cheese plate with grapes ($7), vegetable crudité with hummus and pita ($6) and cherry pie with vanilla
John Zivko, owner of Euclid-based Chefs for Hire, has gotten to know the garden concert crowd, and he tries to match the food served each concert evening with the music being played.
ice cream ($5).
“I serve salmon every other week,” Zivko said.
Zivko’s Chefs for Hire also services the cooler inside the arboretum’s Visitor Center, where sandwiches and other picnic fixings are available for purchase.
He was trained at the Loretta Paganini School of Cooking in and her International Culinary Arts & Sciences Institute, both in Chester Township, and said Paganini was helpful with advice and references when he began Chefs for Hire in 1999.
Remaining concerts, all of which begin at 7 p.m., are The Next Nolan, a folk-bluegrass group with banjos, acoustic guitars and vocals, on July 24; a violin-and-guitar duo from the Cleveland Institute of Music on July 31; and bassoon with woodwinds on Aug. 7.