WFMU's Beware of the Blog

I Was a Viking Once

I was a Viking once.  I led a ship, and I was a woman. I know it sounds crazy, because we don't hold Vikings to be suffragettes in the common sense of the word, but this was just one of the many positions of authority I supposedly held in my previous lives.  The Viking ID made the most sense to me.  I am still a major fan of Scandi Design and who doesn't love a well tailored, padded leather tunic?  I never pick up my iron spearhead without one.  But the underlying proof of my Viking past is my attachment to the sea.  Sort of like a mythical Irish silkie,  made land locked by her lover stealing her magical seal skin, I am just not myself when I get too far away from water.  In my imaginary life I live in a lighthouse, surrounded by lapping currents and crying birds.  And of course a huge Newfoundland dog, to aid in sea rescue.  A few weekends ago I lived that imaginary life, alas without the Newfie, for a mere 24 hours and it was truly magical.
     The Saugerties Lighthouse, in Saugerties NY, is one of several lighthouses on the east coast that were once made redundant, and then got a second chance as a bed and breakfast.  Built on the Hudson River in 1869, it was inhabited by a lighthouse keeper and family until 1954. That changed when the Coast Guard installed an automated light, no longer requiring a keeper, and the house fell into disrepair.  It has since been taken over by a conservancy group and fitted with two guest bedrooms.  Restored as it might have looked in the early 20th century, with a working Victrola and coal burning stove for heat, the lighthouse is indeed a century away from New York City, located only one hundred miles up the Hudson.  To add to the thrill of disengaging from modern life, you hike out about 15 minutes along a densely covered peninsula, to reach the lighthouse, and this must be done avoiding high tide, as the path is then covered in a foot of water.  You thought your last tour at Glastonbury was muddy...

After we spent our restful night at the lighthouse, under the newly installed watchful solar beam, and showered in collected rainwater held in a cistern, we ate a wonderful breakfast prepared by the innkeeper Patrick, and headed out for the Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary. A little chance and the calling of a handsome graphic made us screech to a halt at Lucky Chocolates.  Some of the best chocolates this side of Paris, I do declare (and remember I was a Viking and have traveled the high seas, so I should know).  Gorgeously handmade and exotically flavored, I loved the Earl Grey best, but don't stop there, try every flavor if you can.  A few doors down from Lucky Chocolates on route 212, is a shop entirely devoted to English food, if you are in dire need of Yorkshire tea, which it so happens I was.  Order has been restored to my universe, once again I am drinking my favorite tea, and all it took was a trip to a lighthouse on the Hudson to make it all work.
      The Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary is located 8 miles west of Woodstock.  It is a nonprofit organization that provides a home for animals who have escaped from slaughterhouses, rescued from abusive situations, or in some cases just had no where else to go, once a farm closed shop.  Their mission is education about the horrors of industrialized farming methods, but their goodwill ambassadors are such charming farm yard friends that they will have you re-thinking your last hamburger and start you on a quest to find ways to incorporate more lentils into your diet, or at least that was the effect it had on me. 
     I can't honestly imagine living in the early 19th century, where a broken bone would have most likely led to amputation, but I can yearn for a lighthouse of my own, and still dream about my idol Ida Lewis, and wonder why, at the very least,  she doesn't have a rest stop named after her.  In the meantime, regular trips to Saugerties will tide me over.

A Quick Memory Of Johnny Thunders

Johnny Thunders has been dead for 17 years now. Whoa. I had the opportunity to see Thunders live in a few different bands he was in, but my most vivid memory of him was actually less musically oriented, and more humor and food oriented, sorta. Flash back to Englander's; a club/pub/bar in Hillside NJ that held shows (The Smithereens concur that their first gig was there). It was October or November sometime in the early eighties. I could not find the date searching online & am not great at retaining exact dates so far back. Fill in your own if it makes you happy. Englander's was situated on a main street, and I was parked with friends on that street somewhat down a hill from where the club was. We were early, and Thunders was notorious for playing late, if at all, so we were hanging out in the car probably smoking weed and listening to tunes. I was sitting in the front passenger seat, and lo & behold I see a person struggling with something at the top of the hill, close to where the bar was. It was an object that was fairly large - larger than a bastketball, and they were having trouble handling it - it was obvious it was heavy. There was just a sheen of ice/frost on the sidewalk, and I could see that was making it difficult for the person we now were watching -  deal with this item.

Atomic Rooster

Whether or not Atomic Rooster's TV performance this particular day was inspired by Van Morrison's Bang Record contractual obligation sessions (hear "Want a Danish" (MP3) and read more here) is beside the point: when it's time to eat, it's simply time to eat. Clip post by Progjazzfusion.

SXSW: Butts, Bulls, Backpatches & BBQ

Ah, so there I was, in the land where everything has to do with meat or music, in one way or another. I had never ventured to this conference/land o' plenty festivalism before and was glad to see what all the ruckus was about! After checking in, dropping my stuff off at my friend Mer's house, and receiving my SX gear, I went to the first venue of many. I started my "holiday" as it were, at Red 7, to see the mighty EASY ACTION, yea! I caught John, Harold, Tony & Matt in the backyard/second stage of the venue before they went on & captured some of this buttiness... I mean nuttiness...OK, so it was not really a big deal, I thought it was amazing that Mr. Gold, Mr. Red and Mr. Silver all had no pantylines - these guys are pros - no doubt performing at a venue near you soon. EA vocalist John Brannon told me that he was going to be singing some Negative Approach songs later in the week with Fucked Up on the famous Congress Street "Bat" Bridge at 2am. Most of the bats are still away in warmer Mexico, but just the idea of seeing anyone play at 2am on a bridge that's famous for bat migration was pretty great.

Here Comes Peter Cottontail

When I was a kid, Easter was a lot of work. We'd get these big baskets of candy, and when you're a kid, eating candy is like your job. There'd be the chocolate bunny, which was fine--even if it wasn't actually chocolate. The standard Palmer bunny, for example (Busy Bigby, Li'l Traveller, Sunshine, etc.) lists  "chocolate" as the third or fourth ingredient, so it's really chocolate-flavored. The jelly beans were okay, too, except for the disgusting ones--always the pink ones, and sometimes the purple, sometimes the white ones: Yuck. Fruit or "spice," which were better? I think spice jelly beans were marginally better in that they had fewer gross flavors. Sometimes you'd find another kid who would trade you the disgusting pink ones for the delicious, best black ones, but you couldn't count on that.

Then there were the hideous so-called marshmallow eggs: brightly colored, with a firm sugar crust and nasty chewy white sugary stuff inside. It wasn't so much the bland, too-sweet taste that was revolting as it was the texture. And always the inexplicable Peeps. Fun to blow up in the microwave, but eating them--not so much. But if you were a kid, you had to eat it all. Did you start with the most disgusting candy first, the marshmallow eggs, and save the excellent malted-milk-ball eggs for last?  Or did you gobble all the chocolate first and work your way through the stale Peeps over the course of the following week?  After careful analysis, I worked out a complicated formula wherein I alternated the disgusting jelly bean flavors with the good ones, so that I managed to get through the nasty ones and finish up with a burst of black jelly beans, my favorites.

I was thinking over the weekend that I hadn't seen marshmallow eggs in quite some time. "Good! Now I don't have to eat them," I thought. Then I realized that I never had to eat them: I could have just thrown them away, or given them to my little sister or something. But that never occurred to me when I was little. I had my candy, and I had to eat it.

Sluggo tells me that he used to get so upset when he'd come home from school and find the Huckleberry Hound show on TV. He despised Huckleberry Hound, but it was a cartoon show and he was a kid: He had to watch it. He would sit there vibrating with rage, forced by societal expectations to endure that stupid animated dog. It was a job.

That's why it's good to be an adult. You can watch 137-episode  Korean Broadcasting System historical costume dramas and eat chocolate-covered espresso beans and go to bed with your clothes on and drink champagne and do pretty much anything you want.

Thanks for reading my blog post this time, and may God bless.

And There's Always Cap Corse

Hello, everybody. Nice seeing you again.

I was pretty sick during most of our recent fund-raising Marathon. I really can’t handle staying up all night and then going to my dayjob the next day like I used to. Stn. Mgr. Ken suggested I sleep on the floor of his office one night, and I was surprised to realize that I don’t do that kind of thing anymore. I’m a grown-up old lady now, I guess. So the only way I could get through the various shows and co-hosting slots and public singing humiliations I’d signed up for was to ingest massive amounts of cough syrup.

That’s probably why I noticed the little pamphlet at the drug store last Saturday. It’s a Parent’s Guide to Preventing Teen Cough Medicine Abuse, from the Partnership for a Drug-Free America.

Q: Where are teens finding information about cough medicine abuse.
A: There is little in current teen culture—music, movies, fashion, and entertainment—that promotes or even mentions cough medicine abuse. The one exception is the Internet. A number of disreputable web sites promote the abuse of cough medicine containing DXM.

I wanted to help, and I thought it would be good to make the FMU blog a reputable web site to promote the abuse of cough medicine. During the year he spent in a fancy, expensive, small liberal-arts college, my brother-in-law tried every cough syrup on the market and wrote up little reviews of each one, and I thought it would be nice to post those here, but he says he doesn’t have them anymore. Actually, he says he doesn’t even remember writing the reviews, and I’m not sure he remembers being in college, either.

Since my various WFMU shows have always been drug-free zones, I decided promoting cough syrup abuse was probably not such a great idea anyway. I have always promoted drinking, though, and I was pleased to find the recipe for a fine, fine superfine cocktail. You mix Lipton Raspberry White Iced Tea with Rumpleminz Schnapps, and it’s supposed to taste exactly like Robitussin. Like you drink that stuff for the flavor. But at least the toxic ingredient is alcohol, not dextromethorphan. The drink is called a “WannaTussin,” and I swear I am not making that up.

Thanks to Flakmag.com for the nifty photo. And here is a video of Japanese schoolgirls eating Finnish salt licorice. You’d think anyone who would eat those salt plums would be all over salmiakki, but I guess not.

Thanks for reading my blog post this time, and may God bless.

Guy's a Hack--And I'm Talking About Zimmern: An Open Letter

Dear Mr. Zimmern,

Congratulations...ya blew it.  Gary Kroeger, tell him what he's won!

Three months ago or thereabouts my wife, Angie, and I noticed on TV Guide Network the words "Bizarre Foods" one night listed as next on the Travel Channel, 'bout 9-ish, Central Standard.  Hmm, wonder how 'bizarre' he's talking, we ruminated.  Yeah, we'd been heavy mackin' on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives, Guy's Big Bite and Paula Deen's Home Cooking months longer before our new discovery.  Fieri pops nations hard with the Bloody Mary Flank Steaks and Paula is, without the slightest equivocation, on a solar system-wide mission to make sure every man, woman, child and extraterrestrial on God's green earth and the planets surrounding it is administered at least a quintuple bypass.  If it kills her, we'll all cross that bridge together having pounded down the fruit (pies) of a bountiful (Southern fried chicken) harvest.  Paula Deen got game, y'aw.

But, like curious little sculps, Angie and I just had to peek behind the Bizarre Foods curtain and see what all the carrying on was about.  OK, a guy willingly chews then swallows whole balut, goose intestines on bean sprouts and nutria?  This we have to see.

It was perfect.  A perfect show for this obsessed fan of the extremely maladjusted and strange in most categories (food very much included), even if the closest I've ever come to "thoroughly disgusting" or eating outside what is raised on a farm is unagi sushi and shark.  Angie, on the other hand, would rather have given mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to a shark.  You champion the lost (if not entirely unchartered) art of culinary masochism as well as travel the earth to further champion gastronomic awareness.  It's perfect American voyeurism for Americans who believe voyeurism is a grave and unforgivable sin or otherwise.  Short of interspersing the bull decapitation archival scenes from Mondo Cane throughout for comic relief, Bizarre Foods is (I should say was) cool and just over the top enough.

Until I read your blog.  You went too far.  You went way over the top.  Would over the top two layers of the Earth's crust just about do it?  You went further over the top than you would have if you'd eaten tempura-style fresh warthog feces.  You went further past it than I would ever dreamt of having gone if the two people you targeted had actually deserved it.  They didn't.  Paula Deen and Guy Fieri are two of the most genuinely cool and hilarious people on television.  Aside from that, they are courteous and respectful; if they can't be courteous and respectful, at least tactfully civil.  They are no doubt tactfully civil enough to stop and realize when they've said too much.  Mr. Zimmern, I believe this is your stop. 

Guy Fieri "coming off like an overly rehearsed hack...", huh?  Okay, if the narration over this part of the Vietnam episode where you're attempting to goad your host into eating a snake's gall bladder isn't "overly rehearsed", I'm the current Dalai Lama.  That's not polished, Andrew...that's shining the shoe until the damn scuff comes OFF.  Those four words in parentheses about Paula Deen?  You don't even want to know what I think of you now.  Got a pencil, a brand new notebook and a couple hours to spare?

How does it feel to lose a viewer and a fan?  Your comments themselves may have been as long as it takes you to chew and swallow a maggot, but they said more than every word in my post put together.

Thank you,

Jonathan 

Marketing Genius, early 90s version

Chumpies and Homegirls Potato Chips (1992)
Hitting the shelves primarily in Philly, these chips eventually found their way to my neighborhood in Boston, where they were sold in the Bodega under my apartment. Chumpies came in Chili-Cheese and Jalapeño, and Home Girls were Sour Cream or Hot Honey BBQ. The chips themselves were pretty good, but it was the "positive message" on the bags that really sold me (click image above for a larger view, and read the words of wisdom). More details on these treats via this blogger.

James Brown Cookeez (1994)
Around 1994, HEAVY cookies started showing up in stores. Not actually created by the Godfather of Soul himself, but adorned with his funky image, these chalky little delights came in French Vanilla, Coconut, Chocolate Chip Feel Goodeez, and most intriguingly, Banana Peanut Butter Creameez. Supposedly on the way were Sweet Potato and Watermelon. We can thank a retired Navy engineer for helping these get into the world, and while they are no longer in stores,  you can see a bag in person at Atlanta's own Soul Food Museum.

Thirsty Dog (1995)
"Until now, there were no beverages designed to meet the discriminating taste buds of our companions from the animal kingdom. . . Isn't it high time you looked your Cat or dog in the eye and said, 'Let's have a drink...of ThirstyDog! or ThirstyCat! ' We tested ThirstyDog! (crispy beef) and ThirstyCat! (tangy fish) over 15,000 times to find just the right combination of flavor, aroma, and most important to everyone who loves their pet, vitamins and minerals. And then we tested ThirstyDog! and ThirstyCat! against -ugh!- tap water. Faithful Fidos and Finicky Felines everywhere overwhelmingly preferred the taste of ThirstyDog! and ThirstyCat!"

Fast Cars, Large Supermarkets: Meringues and Old Supermarkets

I imagine for most of us, the first real experience we had with the modern world of chain stores was the local supermarket.  And depending on how isolated your  hometown was from the cosmopolitan world of multiple market offerings, when you discovered another market, very different from the one you grew up with, you were stunned, disappointed, perhaps awed, or maybe none of the above.  Were you one of those children who ate only white food?  Maybe the culture of the aisles of offerings was not something you can summon from your childhood.  I think because food is such a primal link, I can still 'see' the visual differences between the markets of my childhood, and can remember feeling disappointed when a chain would expire and another would take its' place.  Even in today's real estate marketplace, one of the largest physical aches a neighborhood can feel is the loss of a large grocery store that no retailer feels the need to scoop up, leaving an empty totem surrounded by prairie-like concrete expanse.
     I lament the loss of uniqueness in the marketplace.  It feels like today's modus operandi is to make all stores look alike.   This copycat method is so uninteresting to me.  It has a numbing effect, driving me to avoid this experience however I can.  One of the pleasures of a vacation is stumbling upon the local, wacky leftover store from days gone by and taking advantage of the unusual offerings, sort of like going shopping in a foreign country and buying food in an unintelligible tongue. 
     I had an online flirtation with Fresh Direct, the new virtual supermarket whose huge trucks might be clogging an intersection in your NY metropolitan neighborhood as you read this, and I am not won over.  As much as I lament the loss of the visually arresting supermarket moment, I am not ready for the search by sub-heading, postage stamp photo approach.  I want to spend less time in front of my computer, not more.  Not that I want that time to go out and shoot an elk for dinner, but I want to see the food, and perhaps be prompted by the sight of something I have never bought before.  That is the siren experience of your local green market, colors and smells command your attention, tightening their grip around your wallet as you try to eek past.
     As much as I am waxing on about  an old-time religious supermarket vision, we all know that supermarkets did some things awfully, and have irreparably affected our vision of this food forever and ever.    I enter supermarket exhibit #1:  Meringues.  I always thought they were colored cardboard puffs, until I made my own, rather unconventional ones.  Last week I supported the WFMU fund raising, phone-answering troops with some of these, and heard hurrahs all around. 

Chocolate Almond Pecan Meringues

Preheat oven to 250 degrees F.  Line 2 baking pans with parchment paper.  I now use a pan with a slight rim, or else be careful when pulling these from the oven, the parchment paper has a tendency to slide off...Bake the meringues for 2&1/2 - 3 hours without opening the oven.  Then turn off the oven, and leave them in there for at least 15 minutes.  Cool completely before removing from pan.  Meringues will turn out softer or firmer, depending on the humidity (it's nearly impossible to beat egg whites when it is drenching out).  Store them in an airtight tin lined with wax paper.

6 egg whites (separate them when they are fresh out of the fridge, then let them come to room temp before beating)
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
3 Tablespoons of super quality cocoa
1/3 cup of almond meal
3/4 teaspoon vanilla
3/4 cup chocolate chips
1/3 cup chopped pecans

1. Sift together : powdered sugar, cocoa, salt.  Add almond meal to bowl     and mix well.

2.Beat together the egg whites and vanilla at high speed until they form stiff peaks.  Fold in sugar-nut meal mixture followed by chocolate chips and pecans.

3. Drop by tablespoon onto prepared baking trays. Bake as above.

Freeform Fries

A piece in the New York Times over the weekend about some Canadians harvesting maple syrup got me thinking about my cookbooks, specifically Au Pied de Cochon: The Album—it even has a radio ready name!—since author Martin Picard was featured in the syrup article.  My favorite cookbook on a shelf of favorite cookbooks.  (If you’re curious, the rest of the shelf includes the fat Bittman, the Molly Stevens hit-parade All About Braising, new-South mashup Frank Stitt's Southern Table, the textbook-like On Food and Cooking, the food porn of Thomas Keller, etc.).    Chef/owner of the venerable Montreal restaurant, Martin Picard DIY'd this thing into existence, self-publishing and recruiting his able staff to contribute text and photographs, beautiful and hilarious illustrations, and recipe transcriptions.  (Vegetarians, walk away.)  The food in the book is deliriously rich and hearty, including stuffed pigfeet, foie gras pizza, venison tartar, blood sausage, and plenty of duck and pork fat. It’s stunning to look at and page through, and while the recipes are somewhat intimidating, even to a fairly adventurous home cook, (i.e. "Using a saw, cut the top of the piglet skulls to remove the brains"..) the experience gleaned from reading and gazing at the pictures is enlightening.  The restaurant and Martin Picard excel at adventure, while maintaining a deep root system in comfort food, local cuisine and the freshest ingredients possible.  The pages (and accompanying DVD) tell the story of a culture spun by creativity, friendship, philosophy, fresh products, atmosphere, good wine, transcendental food.

The restaurant's signature dish, Poutine Foie Gras (above), is a twist on ultimate regular-dude beer food: gravy cheese fries.  A riff on the ubiquitous Québécois staple, poutine (gravy fries with cheese curds), this version is topped with a perfectly seared lobe of local foie gras. It’s a simple touch, turning something familiar into something exotic, taking foie gras, a potentially intimidating ingredient, and introducing it in a casual way.  Freeform food.   

A Personal Struggle (with Parenthetical Phrases and Italics)

A Buddhist and a Satanist walk into a bar (let's call it a juice bar, as serious Buddhists avoid all intoxicants, and both characters in this non-joke represent me, a non-drinker.)  They would both very much like a drink (though the Buddhist has eliminated all desire, he is nonetheless very thirsty; the Satanist, for his own, believes only in savoring the enjoyment of the here and now, the material life—the only one he knows exists for sure.)  The line at the juice bar, however, is impossibly long, the service is slow, and actually getting a drink might take a half hour or longer.

The Satanist says, "with the force of my will, I will my make my desire manifest; the drink shall come unto me, for I will it to be so."  Of course, nothing happens.  The Buddhist, seeing* the interconnectedness of all things, and being possessed of great compassion for all beings, resolves to wait patiently (though he knows he must soon leave to go to his Right Occupation.)

Still, the wait is long and ultimately both the Satanist and the Buddhist must leave empty-handed and dry of throat.  The Satanist curses the herd, and years later dies embittered and penniless.  The Buddhist, in time, loses everyone that he loves, grieves appropriately, but does not suffer deeply as he has long ago eliminated attachment from his mind and understands the impermanence of all things.  He too eventually dies, knowing that a drink perhaps awaits him upon rebirth into the causal continuum.

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*Author Steve Hagen must own all italicized variations of the word "see," as they appear in his book Buddhism Plain and Simple over 205 times.  (This is not to say that I didn't benefit from reading it; I've only failed thus far to "see.")

What have U done 4 me lately? cool links

It's post-New Year.  Grey days abound and  young hearts turn to contemplation of the wonders that St. Valentine's Day can bring.  But at WFMU the signs of affection between a listener and his or her radio flow freely 365.  We beg and plead for your monetary consideration during our annual fundraising baccaunal (starting Feb 24!),  but YOU - kind listener - you tend our creative fires all the long year, in any way you can.  In October, Listener Dale was kind enough to share a found scientific drawing, explaining the body parts of a lamb with 4-H panache.

     In November my life was permanently altered, thanks to Listener Lou, as I now know more than any average Swiss person about how to make cheese.  Lou had hipped me to an artisanal cheese fest happening in Morris County NJ at Valley Shepherd Creamery I noticed that they offered cheese making classes, and before you could say "Julia Child likes butter" I had signed up.   An eight hour class taught by a supremely chatty and in the know cheesemaker, with a little cheese-aging cave time of 60 plus days, produced my very own fab hard cheese from a mix of sheep and cow milk raised locally in Morris County.  Eran, our cheese guide, shared secrets and lessons he has learned in his years of sheep rearing and cheese making.  Not the least of which is that real estate seems to be on the top of any cheese makers lists of unique ingredients.  Valley Shepard wants to make more cheese, but that would require more sheep and that would mean more land for these lovelies to graze contentedly.  You see what I mean.

     Listener Charles from Manhattan asked me if I was a Francophile.  In some parts of the bush those could be fighting words, but for me that sentence is music to my ears.  He passed along a link to a wonderful French web site that invites visiting musicians to participate in a small music video of spontaneous co-creation.  Sometimes it is shot on the move, sometimes it is shot abroad, but it is always enchanting and so very nouveau vague in spirit.

Charles Wilp's Afri-Cola

Last week I saw the Monks Documentary Transatlantic Feedback (link) at the Goethe Institute. The movie is a bit on the long side (as most of these kind of pics tend to be) but still tons of great footage - including pristine versions of those Monks clips you find on youtube (link)

The movie also dives into some of the strange German Ad culture of the time, I never realized just how much of an art project the Monks actually were. One of the greatest German Ad-men of all time was Charles Wilp, who makes an appearance in the film as well Wilp is the man behind the whacked out campaign for Afri-cola. Now, after watching this commercial (link)  I couldn't help but think this was some art thing - not a real  ad for a real product. But Afri-Cola is a indeed a real German sof'drink - it even has Nazi links (link).

Charles Wilp made a bunch of these amazing ads - some of them are on youtube (link1) (link2) (link3), they have already made runs around the internets (link) and Wilp, who died in 2005, has a website as well (link) 

The McDonald's Commercial That Didn't Quite Make The Superbowl

YouTube link (check out "related videos" if you want more).

Viewers Digest

Incredibly, everything you see in this image can be found in the kitchen. Photographer Carl Warner has painstakingly incorporated all kinds of food into a series of still lifes.

 

 

 

 

He says his 'Foodscapes' were partly inspired by healthy eating campaigns. But they have not persuaded his own children to step up to the recommended five-a-day allowance.

The Forest of Dean or the Forest of Greens? The road is paved with cumin, bread mountain off in the distance, peas hang from broccoli trees and cauliflower clouds adorn the heavens.

The Best Street Meat in Town

Photos taken today at John Soup Kitchen (sic), a popular lunchtime destination for WFMU's hungry office staff and daytime DJs. Located on the corner of Montgomery and Hudson Streets in Jersey City. Scott, Liz, Marcus, and I strongly recommend the chicken over rice with salad. Extra hot sauce, please.

Just Keep Adding: Diary of a Pumpkin Stone Soup

      
     I finally finished reading the wonderful Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver, and am slightly dedicated to the idea of trying to eat seasonally and locally. The slightly part was due to the fact that here it was January and I hadn't put up any vegetables or fruits from a massive summer of gardening like Barbara and her family had done, and I was unfortunately living in Hudson County, NJ, where the only locally grown crop is new housing construction and graft.
     But high on the idea that I could at least eat seasonally, I spied a 5 Lb. pumpkin that has been sitting on my kitchen window ledge since late August.  It was just starting to show signs of fatigue as I sliced it open and began the long journey towards a delicious soup (whereas DJ Icepack was convinced I had promised pumpkin pie for dinner...).  I bake my pumpkins with apple juice or cider, cinnamon, and honey to give a little sweet flavor,  but that does add to the prep time.  Cook a larger pumpkin and the extra can be packed up into smaller servings and frozen, to make the next soup or pie a lot faster.
     I found a gorgeous looking recipe in The Greens Cookbook for Basque pumpkin and white bean soup, so I quick soaked some beans (cover dry beans in water and bring to a boil, shut off and soak for at least an hour), and popped the pumpkin in the oven to cook.  We wanted to roast the pumpkin seeds to eat later, so instead of making a soup stock from the seeds and stringy bits of the pumpkin (!!!-and not the band...), as Deborah Madison asked us to do, I shortcut to a box of vegetable stock.  So at this point I am making far too many dishes for a girl with no dishwasher, as the pumpkin is cooking in the oven, beans are simmering on the stove and stock is gurgling in the back.
     Once the pumpkin is tender I add the required one pound to the stock  and half an hour later, the beans.  I taste this 3 hour DJ mix and I am horrified that the pumpkin tastes so very untasty.  Not one to give up, I retire this soup for the night and hope that tomorrow it will be flavor-flav and dinner will go on.  But just in case, I grab a 2Lb. bag of roasted pumpkin from the freezer, for a potential pumpkin emergency the following day.
     Day 2: AAACK!  no way is this soup edible, seasonal or not. I quickly mash up the defrosted 2 Lbs of Pumpkin and throw it in.  The magical blender stick makes a delightful puree of the previously forsaken orange-ish mash, I sautee some mustard greens, cook a cup of red quinoa and add all of this with a few cranks of dried red pepper and NOW we are talking soup.  Grab some chunky bread and a chunky red.
     Motto of this story:  Don't let a dull meal beat you down.  Show that pot who is boss, and never leave home without your magical blender stick. 

Soundtrack, played over and over, while stumbling down this pumpkin strewn road: Bearded Ladies, various artists compilation of gothy-folky ladies on B Music, put together by Jane Weaver.

One More Reason to Rack Up Airplay for Sal Masi's Untouchables

Surely all you carnivores out there who have stood on that infamous South Philly corner have had to make that crucial decision at one point in your lives: do I eat at Pat's or Geno's. Both establishments have brought forth so many vivid memories of my past: sitting on a neon-lit outdoor bench at 3AM in February after a Butthole Surfers concert gnawing a steak before the Cheez Whiz freezes, looking up at Cher-in-assless-pants autographed glossies while in line (I think it may have said "If I Could Turn Back Time, I'd Eat a Pat's Steak Daily") having one's guts give you an urgent "how do you do" while heading home on the turnpike at 4AM 30 miles from the next exit. Ah, yes. Well, thanks to Geno's proprietors, the choice of between where some will have their cheese steak has gotten a whole lot easier. Or perhaps if Hispanic, there's no choice to begin with? Notable quotes from owner Joey Vento at a Harrisburg rally: “[Illegal Hispanics] are killing, like, 25 of us a day … molesting about eight children a day … All we’re getting is drug dealers and murderers”...“These illegal invaders … are not the kind of immigrants our grandparents were … They knew to be successful in America, you have to speak English.”  His advice to immigrants with children:
“You come here pop a baby, pick it up and take it back to Mexico." In defense, Pat's has been known to be completely discriminatory even if you do speak English, as a customer uttering anything besides "one with" or "one without" can instantly get you publicly dunce-i-fied, humiliated, and sent back to the line. And I don't see any public hearings in those poor souls' defense. Perhaps Pat's should change their ordering lingo to include "pop a baby"? ”Real Audio: Sal Masi's Untouchables' "Pat's Steaks".

Janitor From Mars' Top 10 of 2007

The Janitor From Mars checks in with his list (in alphabetical order):

Burmese Cafe (RIP)

 

Mark Ladner / Del Posto

Nike Dunk Mid Pro SB (Black / Light Graphite) "Grip Tape"

 

Ohio State 14 | Michigan 3

Reigning Champ by CYC

 

Uniqlo Vintage Chinos

West Ham 3 | Spurs 4

==========================

+ three interpretations of animal skins:

Nike Court Force Premium (White/Black-Medium Grey) Atmos "Elephant" (laces by Starks)

Puma Clyde (Black / Metallic Gold) "Solebox"

 

 

Vans Chukka Boot LX (Black / Lime Fizz) 3 Feet High - "Huf"

365 Days #345 - The Money Maker (mp3s)

MP3:
01. Come, Come, Come to the Fair (0:27)
02. Enjoy Our Dairy Products (0:28)
03. The Finest Dairy Products (0:30)
04. There's Fun in Your Feet (0:30)
05. A Fountain Pen with Purple Ink (0:29)
06. Many Items Made of Plastic (0:28)
07. We Even Bless You If You Sneeze (0:30)
08. My Favorite Department Store (0:31)
09. Our Diaper Service (0:29)
10. We Serve Your Baby and You (0:30)
11. It's Discount Priced (0:28)
12. Down, Down, Down (0:31)
13. All at Discount Savings (0:29)
14. At Your Discount Store (0:30)
15. Be There Early on Dollar Day (0:31)
16. Dollar Day Is on Its Way (0:30)
17. Dollar Day Is Here Again (0:29)
18. Shop Downtown (0:26)
19. A Downtown Shopping Spree (0:32)
20. Curtains and Draperies (0:33)
21. Your Private Dining Room (0:31)
22. Serves You Right in the Car (0:26)
23. Drive-In Movie (0:30)
24. Your Complete Drug Store (0:27)
25. Since I Found a New Machine (0:32)
26. Get Dressed Up for Easter Day (0:25)
27. Get Ready for the Easter Parade (0:32)
28. Here's Where to Start Your Easter Parade (0:29)
29. Step Into Easter (0:29)
30. The Latest Easter Ware (0:29)
31. locked groove (0:30)

Presented here is a 1963 generic commercial jingle album The Money Maker. Not many words are needed to describe this... it simply speaks for itself.

- Contributed by: Perry Amberson

Image: Record

Media: LP
Album: The Money Maker
Label: CRC (Commercial Recording Corporation)
Catalog: 103A/B
Date: 1963

Some Thanksgiving Thoughts from Joe Frank

Thanksgiving is by far my least favorite holiday. The weather is always crappy, the subways and trains necessary for me to get to my family are packed to the gills with horrible people, and the food is wildly overrated. (Liz Berg and I agree: We'd take authentic Mexican with homemade mole sauce over turkey and stuffing in a heartbeat). Yep, there's nothing quite like honoring the first "settlers" of our great nation like waking up at the crack of dawn to put yourself through all of the above horrors, and then have to do it again on the way home that night, only now you're semi-drunk, full of food you didn't want to eat in the first place, and still mulling over the stupid argument you had with your father about the Iraq war. Oh yeah, and if you're like me, you have to get up for work the next morning. This New Yorker cover by Chris Ware (left) sums up the malaise pretty efficiently, I think.

Call me a crank (everyone else does), but I know I'm not alone when I say that Thanksgiving celebrations need a radical re-thinking. The holiday's problems can be approached from many directions -- the boring food, the travel headaches, the dubious history of the pilgrims, the fact that zillions of Americans use it as an excuse to pay lip-service to "the less fortunate" (but don't actually do anything to assist them), and dare we all forget that it gives the green light for every crappy radio station to start dropping Christmas music into rotation. Sorry Thanksgiving lovers, but there's really no argument to be had here; I've already carried out an extended internal dialog with myself and figured this all out while you were daydreaming about giblet gravy. What we need now is for someone more adept than I to put it all into real perspective. Someone with a knack for a gripping narrative. Someone with vocal timbre so arresting so as to freeze you in your tracks. And most important of all, someone for whom atmospheric trip-hop background music isn't so much a hobby as it is a lifestyle. Ladies and gentlemen, please give it up for Joe Frank and an excerpt from his incredible Thanksgiving treatise entitled "Pilgrim".

Streaming MP3 [Listen]
Streaming Real Audio [Listen]

More on Joe Frank here.

365 Days #290 - S.H. Speaks in Tongues and Buys a Coke (mp3s)

MP3:
S.H. Speaks in Tongues and Buys a Coke (7:17)

Here's another of my treasured radio memories. As the 19-year-old low man on the totem pole at WPID Radio—a 1000-watt AM station in a tiny Alabama town—it was often my lot in life to be stuck with the all-day Sunday shift. And though the station's format was country music Monday through Friday, on Sunday it was wall-to-wall Jesus. From local sunrise to local sunset WPID broadcast an assortment of live remote church services, pre-recorded religious programs, gospel music, and live-in-the-studio preachers.

S.H. was one of the latter, a diminutive fire-and-brimstone breathing, tongue-speaking man on a mission. While most of our live preachers would bring friends or family members along to help with their broadcasts, S.H. was a lone wolf. He would arrive a few minutes before air time, give me $35.00 in cash for his half-hour program, and make his way to our tiny studio. At 4:30 PM I'd introduce him, and he'd be off and running.

This day's message had to do with how the "Bride of Christ" shouldn't orta not be livin' right or something along those lines. About twenty-five minutes into the program he started speaking in tongues, and I had the foresight to hit the "Record" button on one of our ancient Teac reel-to-reel machines and catch the remainder of the show on tape. Since the studio mike was routed through the tape recorder, I also caught the audio from the studio after the broadcast ended. Listen in glorious 192 kbps dual mono as S.H. asks how much those Cokes are, and then buys himself one!

If you're a cut-to-the-chase type, you can find the tongue-speaking at 0:25 and 3:43 and the Coke-buying at 6:32.

- Contributed by: Perry Amberson

Image: Piedmont, Alabama

Media: Live Religious Broadcast
Station: WPID Radio, Piedmont, Alabama
Date: 1981

Video Truffles: Baaastard!

I think this clip will start us off in the right frame of mind for this week's random video finds.

On a lighter note, how about an iconic phrase: "Hey, good looking, we'll be back to pick you up later."

But wait, there's more. How about a bevy of classic Ronco clips. I don't know about you, but I always wanted a Record Vacuum so I could destroy my record collection.

Finally, a band gayer than the Village People: Holland's Bearforce 1. Bald chubbies unite!

(found via Motwon blog Fullundie - really)

In the news this month: A Russian woman has adopted 130 cats - and they swarm like salmon heading upstream. Amazing.

Get the full story here.

More video finds after the jump!

2:40 Distractions: Michael Jackson, King of Beers, R.I.P.

No, not that Michael Jackson; and not that King of Beers.  British journalist Michael Jackson, pictured here, is credited with giving beer a level of credibility that resulted in, among other things, the microbrew movement and the international availability of Good Beer.  He has died, aged 65.

While his writing was often hokey and persnickety (at the same time!), still one had to admit he was usually right on.  And seriously, if it weren't for Michael Jackson, we'd be stuck drinking that other King of Beers, alas still alive and well.

Links: obit; his homepage

Thanks for the headsup, Jeff Moore

Skin Disease Or Supper (6)?

Jump the flip to find out. 
Don't jump the flip if you don't want to find out.