Chocolate and Russian music

It was the perfect kind of chilly afternoon to go to the symphony at Benaroya Hall. After we parked the car, we stopped at Fran's Chocolates and had two bowls of the best cocoa in the world, with a complimentary dark truffle and a side of whipped cream. Yikes! Chocolate overload-- check out Fran's website for some real eye candy. The Obamas' are partial to the smoked salt caramels. Sweet John bought me a box of caramels and nuts. OK, I'll share.

Later, there was another kind of eye candy on the stage, when the handsome young Greek Leonidas Kavakos played the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto at Benaroya Hall.

Here's a quote from the Seattle Times review:
"Kavakos ranks among the greatest instrumentalists of our time. Equipped with a formidable technique, the charismatic Greek drew from his 1782 Guadagnini violin a tone at once pure, warm and voluminous, seeming to sail effortlessly through the richest orchestral textures. Within the past three years, he has given us superlative performances of Bartók's Second Violin Concerto and Shostakovich's late, great sonata for the instrument. Now it is heartening to find him equally at home in a standard romantic concerto that is too often treated as a mere vehicle for technical display. While throwing off the virtuoso passage work with thrilling brilliance, he yet fully realized all the elegance and nobility he has said he finds in the piece."