“Music is your own experience, your thoughts, your wisdom. If you don’t live it, it won’t come out of your horn. They teach you that music has boundaries. But, man, there’s no boundary line to art.”
- Charley Parker
One of my favorite parts of Thanksgiving is the tradition of the meal. It makes menu planning simple but also allows for some creative wiggle room. We’ve all heard about the crazy ways you can prepare a turkey – deep fried, basted, smoked, stuffed with numerous other fowl – and seen the many great things you can do with pumpkin. There is a true sense of success when you offer up a new take on a “standard” dish that is so well received it is requested the next year.
I especially love that opportunities for improvisation continue the day after the big feast when you open your fridge to face all the leftovers. This year, for work, I had to actually create leftover recipes before the big day so I made small simple batches of roasted turkey breast, sweet potato casserole and pumpkin bread just so I could then re-imagine them as other dishes. After a few false starts (pumpkin bread sausage cakes were a little hockey puckish) I struck on a winning combo with this sandwich recipe and can now say after having finished my second batch of the salad mixture that I may have my first day-after-Thanksgiving traditional dish. Continue Reading →
The Everybodyfields - Lonely Anywhere from Live & Breathing on Vimeo.
The Everybodyfields are one of those bands that I fell in love with right as they were breaking up which is a pain all avid music lovers are familiar with; finding yourself wrapped up in a new “favorite” band only it’s got the tinge of regret knowing that you’ll never get to see them live. While the members Jill Andrews and Sam Quinn have both gone on to fruitful solo careers but it’s just not the same as the wonderful dance Jill’s voice does with Sam’s guitar. This morning Live & Breathing (a really fabulous blog you should check out) posted a video of The Everybodyfields from their archives. “Lonely Anywhere” is incredibly heartbreaking but and comes from such an honest place it has earned a permanent spot on my “a good cry” playlist. This performance in the studio of their friends at Live & Breathing is a very tender performance and a great way to introduce yourself to an often overlooked group.
Cloud is the new “the” and sometimes it’s difficult to keep all of the new cloud bands straight so I was a little slow on listening to the stuff from Cloud Control. At some point over the last few weeks their new album Bliss Release come up and more than once I found myself checking on the source of what I was listening to. CC isn’t making anything really wild music but they’re well invested in playing cool retro neo-surf pop. It’s breezy with a fair touch of charming lyrics. The male-female harmonies tend towards the homey sweet end of the spectrum but not in an annoying way, it actually end up being rather soothing. Bliss Release is the first release for the Australian group and it’s definitely a strong showing out of the gate.
[MP3] Gold Canary
Miami’s Another New Republic (aka ANR) snuck up on me. They’re another group that initially I didn’t give enough of a listen to but stuck on my “to review” playlist long enough that they slowly began to grow into my consciousness. Now that I’ve given their newest album Stay Kids a few listens straight through I am embarrassed it took me this long. They call their music “apocalyptic synth-pop” which certainly touches on the weight of the material – this isn’t all fluffy dance music (although they have their moments) – it’s smart lyrics delivered with a well chosen variation of synths, drums and effects to lend the right mood. On the second trip through Stay Kids I definitely felt the comprehensive ebb and flow that it the mark of a well curated album. Now I just need to make sure to catch them the next time they pass through town.
[MP3] New Armor
All cooking demonstration videos should be this beautiful. Tiger In A Jar capture the essential grace and art of a kitchen session in her food videos. We may not all be this smooth in our baking endeavors but it’s something to aspire to.
For a while now I have been working on my butternut squash soup recipe. I am a sucker for a nice bowl of butternut squash soup and have tasted a fair number of them; curried, sesame, coconut…But there is one bowl in particular that I am particularly fond of. It’s the version served seasonally at Supper, one of my favorite neighborhood restaurants. The flavor is delicate, spices melting into the creaminess of the squash; showing off their attention to the little things, they add a schmear of cinnamon marshmallow on the lip of the bowl which is the perfect extra note. I have been trying to replicate this recipe for the last year and a half – trying cream and nutmeg, rosemary, yogurt, vermouth but never managed to get it right. Finally, last weekend I decided to strip it down, undo some of the over thinking I had done about the spices and go with the essential flavor of the squash. I added some sweet potatoes for body and a little sweetness and a touch of sage and, huzzah! The glorious soup that resulted was as close to Supper’s version as I think I’m going to get. Even if it isn’t the exact same it is still damn good.
Philly’s Work Drugs sent across their newest single “Blue Steel,” from their pending release Aurora Lies, and I must admit I really needed the breezy boost this morning. Plus, the video is remixed footage from one of the greatest 80′s movies of all time Mannequin (fun fact: the song “We Built This City” by Starship is prominently featured in the film and became one of my favorite songs as a kid).
[MP3] Blue Steel
As anyone who has read more than a few posts here can tell you there is one person who is responsible for my love of music; my mother. So I am incredibly excited to announce that she is going to begin to contribute some of her wonderful musical musings to TWIAPC. To kick things off she’s got a little something to say about Gram Parsons – which will give you a pretty good idea of the kind of conversations that happened around our dinner table as a kid. Read on!
The beauty of shuffling through your music library is that wham! right in the middle of washing dishes you are hit with Gram Parsons singing “Won’t you scratch my itch sweet Annie Rich…” Continue Reading →
I am coming up on my 1 anniversary of eating meat and I feel I’ve only recently started to warm up to the real art of cooking meat. Letting my mind wander back to the many super tasty meals my mom mande for us when I was a kid I’ve been venturing beyond chicken and turkey into the world of pork, sausage and beef. One meal I’ve been particularly hankering for is pork chops and applesauce. I have fond memories of my mom’s nicely caramelized chops with a hint of rosemary always served with applesauce on the side. It was something she always made in the fall which is probably why it’s on my mind. Continue Reading →
This video is pure awesome. Totally the kind of smile pushing tune and simple visual that I needed today. Makes me even more excited about The Black Keys’ new album El Camino due to drop December 6th.
