Kelvin Swaby (right) and his band, back from hunting wolves and lambs
Frontman Kelvin Swaby of funky U.K. outfit the Heavy shares his favorite Jamaican dish that his pops, Chappie, cooks frequently for breakfast. “He’s a wolf himself,” Swaby says of his dad. “But he tells me that a wolf cannot survive on chicken and lamb alone! Sometimes you gotta go home and stop picking your teeth.” With that, here’s Swaby’s cod, ackee (which is like a lychee and can be found in West Indian or Korean stores) and bacon-filled dish.
Chappie's Ackee & Saltfish
1lb of salted cod fillets
1 tin of ackee
1 onion
1/2 lb bacon
1 tomato
Black pepper
Sunflower oil
Soak the saltfish overnight. Drain and boil for 15 minutes the next day. When it's cool, pick all the bones out. Cut the bacon into little slices and fry. Chop the onion and then fry real slow with a sprinkle of black pepper when the bacon begins to brown. Boil the ackee for 10 minutes and then drain the water off. Add the ackee and saltfish to the onion and bacon. Let this simmer for 15 minutes for flavors sake.
Serve with white rice, boiled dumplings, fried dumplings or bread.
Much of Orlando indie folkies the OaKs new album, Songs For Waiting, was inspired by singer Ryan Costello’s humanitarian work in Afghanistan. And perhaps this project inspired drummer Matthew Antilock to head into the kitchen and cook up Middle Eastern fare. Watch as he, alongside his wife, make a Pakistani curry beef dish that looks seriously delicious.
It’s not easy eating well on the road, but if you’re Danny Barria from Brooklyn’s the Big Sleep that’s no biggie. The guitarist in this psych-noise noodling trio clued us in on the good, the bad and everything in between (like beef jerky!) that comes with eating on tour. And here’s a fun fact about the band: drummer Gabe Rhodes reportedly worked on a cookbook for Dom DeLuise.
Best road meal:
An Indian restaurant in San Francisco across from Bimbo’s -- the lamb korma there was perfect.
Worst road meal:
A questionable taco place in Tucson, AZ.
Favorite quickie meal in the van:
Beef jerky, all the way. No question.
Best diner food:
Fleetwood Diner in Ann Arbor, MI. I just read Black Postcards, the Dean Wareham book about Galaxie 500 and Luna, and he knocks the Hippie Hash [ed note: see recipe on Recipezaar], but I was all for it. And it happened to be the first place we went to on this tour.
Is it possible to eat healthy on the road?
Bassist Sonya Balchandani, our resident healthy eater, seems to manage -- she can find good options at places like Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s.
Convenience store gourmet ideas:
Sonya seems to go for the hardboiled eggs, yogurt and whatever fruit is available.
Top three foods to have in the van:
Slurpees, beef jerky and hot dogs
The band’s favorite cuisine:
I think the collective TBS favorite cuisine is Thai, but Indian is pretty high on the list, too.
In his first video installment for us, What Made Milwaukee Famous’ resident drummer/chef, Jeremy Burch Bruch, has produced a clip that follows him and his band of exuberant indie rockers as they find food on the road. The Austin band’s been gigging behind their second album, What Doesn’t Kills Us, and when one leg of the tour wrapped, Burch threw a cookout in their hometown. Watch as Bruch and friends whip up fancy dishes like fresh Iowan morels and mustard greens with morels. What’s the morel in this story? We had to ask Wikipedia (they’re mushrooms!), and dude just might wash them down with Mexican Coke, which, if you ask us, is the best soda this side of the border.
Williamsburg, Brooklyn: home to bands; haven for hipsters; and, hotspot for food? Yes, actually! The Jealous Girlfriends call this borough their home, and now that they’ve just released their shimmery, shoegaze-y self-titled debut, drummer Michael Fadem might have time to eat his way through Brooklyn’s hippest ‘hood—when he’s not on tour, anyway. From slurping down pizza to indulging in pork belly, here’s how Fadem says he might spend a food-filled day in Williamsburg.
Morning Coffee: Oslo (Roebling and N. 4th)
Beyond spectacular espresso drinks, Oslo has the best cup of drip coffee in the city. It's strong, complex and cheap. All you hipsters will feel right at home with Oslo's regulars: TV On the Radio, LCD Soundsystem, They Might Be Giants and Nada Surf.
Breakfast: Egg (Bedford and N. 5th)
Now that we're awake, let's eat something! Everything is good at Egg. My favorites are the Country Ham Biscuit with Fig Jam and the Eggs "Rothko" – a slice of brioche filled with an egg and Grafton Cheddar.
Lunch: Dumont Burger (Bedford and S. 1st)
Dumont has one of the top five burgers on the planet. Don't wait to try to get in for dinner — the dining room is way too small and crowded at night.
Alternatively, head to Marlowe and Sons (Broadway and Berry), a summer-lunch hang. Grab a Mufalletta or a Grilled Veggie and Goat Cheese Sandwich. Then, grab a table outside and watch the day go by.
Dinner: Kasia’s (Bedford and N. 9th)
Here’s really cheap Polish food that I’ve never been disappointed by. Start with any of the soups and then go for the Chicken Salad Club, Brisket Sandwich or the Open Faced Roasted Pork Sandwich with Gravy.
But since pizza is king in New York, my first thought for dinner is often Brick Oven Gallery (Havemeyer and N. 7th). Start with the Brooklyn "caviar" (a homemade eggplant and vegetable spread for their freshly baked bread) and move on to an Italian-style 12'' pizza made in the century-old oven that the building was built around in order to preserve it.
Or, if you’re an indie rocker having BBQ withdrawal after SXSW, try Fette Sau (Metropolitan between Havemeyer and Roebling), where you can get pulled pork shoulder, ribs, pork belly, sausage and the best beans in the world. All of their meat is organic and from local farms, and here you'll find one of the biggest bourbon collections outside of Kentucky.
After-Dinner/Post-Rehearsal Drinks: Spuyten Duyvil (Metropolitan and Havemeyer)
This spot houses one of the largest selections of foreign and micro-brewed beers by the bottle, as well as an ever-revolving selection of beers on tap. For snacks, they have a great selection of cheeses, meats and pickles.
Late-Night Snack: San Loco (Driggs and N. 4th)
San Loco is open till 4 A.M., the perfect time to get a Guaco Loco—a hard shell taco with a soft shell wrapped around it with guacamole in between—and a small bean Chili Loco. They also have a great pool table, free wifi and cheap alcohol.
New York-via-Kentucky indie-folkie Dawn Landes just released her sophomore album, the glockenspiel-happy Fireproof, and had a track featured in (omfg!) Gossip Girl. Before that, the singer was behind the boards for Ryan Adams and Joseph Arthur. And at some point, she concocted the perfect gift for mom on her May holiday—a baked Brie bonanza. Watch the charming clip in which Landes whips up this dish she’ll be making for Mother’s Day.
Here’s what you’ll need:
Wheel of Brie
1 tube of crescent rolls
1/2 cup chopped almonds
2 tbsp blackberry preserves (or any other flavor, you pick!)
1 egg white
Warmed, sliced French bread
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees (or follow instructions on the tube of crescent rolls)
2. Flatten out the cold crescent rolls with a rolling pin. Remember to use flour so the pin doesn't stick to the dough.
3. Place Brie in the middle of the flattened dough
4. Add preserves around top and sides of Brie
5. Fold up the dough around the Brie like wrapping a present
6. Brush with egg white
7. Sprinkle chopped almonds and lightly press into dough
8. Put into oven for 12-15 min or until lightly golden brown
9. Serve with warmed, sliced French bread
More Dawn Landes can be heard at her MySpace page.
Angular art-rock trio Experimental Dental School--who perhaps play around in the same kitchen sink as Deerhoof--make music that sometimes sounds like it’s been cranked out of a meat grinder: it’s gritty, messy, but still cohesive. Their Jane Doe Loves Me album is coming out next week, and you might find the band’s Shoko Horikawa celebrating this feat with burritos.
For Horikawa, a Japan native, there was a time when burritos were a novelty. Her first experiences with them were at a fast-food joint and in a dorm room, so it wasn’t until moving to San Francisco’s Mission district that she gained an appetite for the Mexican delicacy. Now residing in Portland, Horikawa’s appreciation for burritos has grown. “Before I moved up here, I didn’t expect too much from Oregon burritos,” she says. “But I was wrong. There is this really good Mexican place called Taqueria Los Gorditos. My favorite is filled with tofu, and it's so good that I can't chit chat or do anything but enjoy the great time with my burrito.”
And, in case you are curious about translations, Horikawa’s done some sleuthing: “I found out that the word 'burrito' literally means ‘little donkey.’”
Experimental Dental School can be heard at their MySpace page.
Passover may have just, well, passed, but that doesn’t mean Brooklyn’s A BIG YES and a small no--who are readying Jesus That Looks Terrible On You for release next month--don’t have a use for that leftover matzoh. They swear by their hometown’s tap water for making Powder-Keg Matzoh Ball Soup, which goes down with a bit of a kick.
Powder-Keg Matzoh Ball Soup
Make a broth with a pot of water, rough cracked black pepper (a lot of it), salt (about 1/2 teaspoon), a few dashes of celery salt, chopped celery leaves, sliced carrots and one or two diced onions. Add about a teaspoon of dill and one or two teaspoons of bullion. Simmer gently but don't let it boil.
For the matzoh balls, beat 4 eggs, or use equivalent amount of egg replacer. Combine with 1/4 cup water, 1/4 cup vegetable oil and a little salt and pepper. Using a big fork, mix in 1/2 cup matzoh meal. Put the soon-to-be matzoh balls in the refrigerator for about 15 minutes
Add a little oil to a 2-quart pot of water and set to boil. Remove the Matzoh mix from the fridge and get your hands wet with cool water. Take small amounts (no more than a tablespoon at a time) and roll them into balls between your hands. Put the matzoh balls in a glass bowl or on a plate while you’re rolling the rest. You may have to re-roll the ones on the bottom right before you boil them. When your hands start to get sticky, just get them wet again.
Now, here's the volatile part!
Right before you drop the matzoh balls into the boiling water add a ton of chili powder. When the matzoh balls are dropped through the layer of chili powder, they take on its kicking flavor. Place them in quickly, and as soon as they’re all in, cover and turn down the heat a little. You will know they’re done when they all float, which should take about 20-25 minutes.
Lift the matzoh balls out of the water, put them in the broth and rinse out that chili powder-coated pot before it gets gross. Serve the matzoh ball soup with Challah and rice pudding. Even the goyishe will love it!
When the three female emcees in Northern State embarked upon a European tour to support Can I Keep This Pen? alongside Tegan & Sara, they brought with them a video camera and an appetite for waffles and crepes. What message can be gleaned from these New Yorkers' homemade on-the-road video? If the waffle comes from your pocket, then it probably doesn’t taste tres bon. And which wins out in the storied battle of the Belgian waffle versus the French crepe? Tune in to find out, but with either delicacy, these ladies will likely lick their plates clean.
Colour Revolt just dropped Plunder, Beg, and Curse, which teems with Southern-‘round-the-edges indie rock gems, and they’ve launched a tour behind it alongside the Breeders. That trek kicked-off in their hometown of Oxford, MS last week, where guitarist Jimmy Cajoleas revealed “the real Holy Grail of dining experiences”: the local Chevron near the town square. The place is affectionately and commonly referred to as “Chicken on a Stick,” but it doesn’t actually serve skewered meat. It does, however, dish out pizza sticks, egg rolls and something called crispitos, and it’s the spot where Oxford life convenes after hours. To see anyone from “the forty-something townies to the drunken frat boys to the indie rockers to the honors students breaking from their all-night study sessions,” Cajoles suggests heading there--it's a “true (and delicious!) cultural experience,” after all! Plus, the spot serves as a safety-checkpoint according to Wikitravel.org, which writes, “If you are too drunk to drive and have no other way home, you can almost always find a ride [there] just after the bars close.”
More Colour Revolt can be heard on their MySpace page.
Crunk-juice enthusiast-turned-oenophile Lil John is launching a wine label, the Associated Press has announced. Little Jonathan Winery is set to offer chardonnay and merlot selections, but should we expect much in the way of legs and noses on his vintages? "I'm not like an expert, so don't ask me no questions...I just like the taste," he told the AP. Still, the Atlanta-based rapper added, "this is not no ghetto Boone's Farm; this is some real wine." We're sold!
After Tapes ‘n Tapes amassed a bunch of blog buzz back with their last album, they signed to XL and toured all over the place. Now the tunefully gritty Minneapolis quartet is readying Walk It Off for an April 8th release, and frontman and sushi aficionado Josh Grier took a break from that to discuss eating his way through Japan on tour.
“We were all really excited when we found out that we were going to Japan because we had heard stories about how much crazier Japanese food is there than in the U.S.,” Grier says. “There were a few things that looked and tasted familiar, but there were more that didn’t.”
Grier is no stranger to bizarre bites (he ate kangaroo in Australia), but even he needed a few drinks to handle some of the cuisine. “The craziest thing I ate was Natto (ed note: check the less-than-appetizing image), which is fermented soybeans (and super healthy),” he recalls. “It has a very intense smell and taste and sticky texture, and I think I was the only one in the band who tried it—after a lot of beer and sake.”
Luckily, some of the cuisine didn’t require Grier’s inebriation, like the raw beef dish shabu shabu. “There was a pot of boiling water or broth in the middle of the table and we took razor thin slices of raw beef and dipped in the pot for a few seconds,” he explains. “After a seemingly endless supply of beef, noodles and vegetables were added to the broth, we ate it as soup.” The singer compared the experience to the scene in Lost in Translation where Bill Murray’s character eats the beef dish with Scarlett Johansson, and after Grier’s assessment of the meal, perhaps Murray would have had more success hawking shabu shabu than Suntory.
More Tapes ‘n Tapes can be heard on their MySpace page.
Jose Gonzalez arrived Stateside a few years back with a beautiful acoustic rendition of the Knife’s “Heartbeats,” which soundtracked a Sony Bravia commercial following bouncy balls as they loped down the streets of San Francisco. In that same city the other day, the Swedish singer/songwriter made a stop on his “Green” spring tour, during which he discussed eating green.
“You don’t hear too much about the impact of eating on the environment,” Gonzalez said, emoting with a bedroom-style whisper not all that unlike how he sounds when performing. “I’ve been a vegetarian for 14 years, and I have to think that cuts down on the carbon footprint left by people who eat factory-farmed meat.”
Gonzalez just wrapped up his tour behind latest album In Our Nature, during which organic and local food was featured backstage along the way. His tour rider also included biodegradable catering products and re-usable water bottles.
Doylestown, PA’s Peasant--a folkie who pens pretty bedroom ballads on his latest effort, On the Ground--has uncovered some sushi secrets. Peasant (ne Damien Derose) visited Manhattan’s Soy, one of his favorite spots in the Lower East Side, where the restaurant’s owner revealed that sushi is hardly about the rice. “When we put vinegar into the rice it becomes sushi rice,” she said. “It’s not actually about the grain, it’s about the vinegar.” Derose’s favorite choice at Soy is the spicy tuna bowl, and he’s learned what’s in that dish’s secret sauce. You’ll have to watch the video to find out!
The only thing that’s really newly seasonal this time of year, FoodNetwork.com’s lead editor has told me, is the egg. Good thing for us Pittsburgh’s Life in Bed, who showcase interlocking guitar melodrama on the just-released Passed and Presents, has shared its recipe on where best to enjoy early-spring’s best foodstuff--in a setting not all that different than the band’s name! The next time you don’t want to get out from under the covers, find someone to make you Life in Bed’s Pittsburgh-Style Breakfast in Bed Egg + Potato Omelet Sandwich.
Serves 4:
• hot sauce
• 8 slices soft Italian bread
• 6 large eggs
• 2 cups diced new potatoes
• 1/2 cup chopped onion
• 4 slices swiss cheese
• 2 cups vinaigrette coleslaw
• 1 tomato, sliced
• 2 tbsp butter
• 3 tbsp milk
• 1/4 tsp black pepper
• 1/8 tsp sea salt
• 2 tbsp chopped fresh parsley
In a large non stick skillet melt butter. Add potatoes and onions. Cook 10-15 minutes until tender, stirring occasionally. Meanwhile, beat together eggs, milk, salt, parsley and pepper. Pour over potatoes. Once eggs begin to set, fold them in half, omelet-style. When the omelet is set, move it to a cutting board and cut into 4 portions. To assemble sandwich, place omelet portion onto a slice of bread, top with Swiss cheese, coleslaw, tomato and hot sauce.
Head of Femur, warming up to their pretend-campfire (Photo: Maggie Pedersen)
Chicago-via-Omaha melodic indie rockers Head of Femur just dropped their latest full-length, Great Plains (Greydey Records), and will begin touring behind it in May. While their tunes will work on any stage (the quartet has previously toured with bands like Architecture in Helsinki and Wilco), they’re perfect for the backyard—who wouldn’t love grilling to the resplendent saxophone and chipper double claps teeming on new track “Jetway Junior"? And these guys happen to fancy themselves grilling enthusiasts, too! The band spent much of its last tour camping between gigs and cooking over the Coleman, grilling up the “Femur Burger” (no, the recipe doesn’t require that bone in your thigh). They tossed the following ingredients in a bowl, mixed it up in no particular order, and threw it on the grill. The result? “A delicious and unique burger,” they said. With Head of Femur, you’ve got the soundtrack to and recipe for your first BBQ of the season.
Head of Femur’s burger recipe (for six) combines:
2lbs Lean Ground Beef
Worcestershire Sauce
1 diced onion
5-6 cloves of garlic (diced)
BBQ sauce (Sweet Baby Rays)
1/2 cup honey (makes everything stick together for a solid burger)
1 tbsp Italian seasoning
Salt and paper for seasoning to your liking
Pinch cumin and curry powder
More from Head of Femur can be heard on their MySpace page.
Any band that descends upon Austin for the annual all-out fest SXSW will tell you that sure, the music is nice, but the BBQ is killer. Here, Oakland’s the Matches, who just released A Band in Hope this week and have embarked upon a mega tour behind it, share with us their best in BBQ bites from Austin mainstays Stubb’s and Ironworks. If you ask drummer Matt Whalen which of the two spots he preferred, Ironworks wins in a landslide of sauce and Texas-sized sweet tea.
Here is the band at Stubb’s, where Whalen says they scarfed down “better-than-decent pulled pork with its accompanying mediocre BBQ sauce,” made better when washed down with sweet tea.
At Ironworks, the Matches overhear other SXSW-goers discussing “how awesome Vampire Weekend is” while coming to a favorable realization about the President. “We waited for a relatively short 20 minutes to get in to Ironworks, which is known as a favorite of good ol’ George W," Whalen says. "The food was so good that I ate too much and almost collapsed in a BBQ coma [ed note: there is photographic evidence of this below] while playing our second show of the day later that night. Lesson learned. George W. does know one thing: Where to get good BBQ in Austin.”
But for the vegetarians in Austin, as Rachael Ray can attest, there’re fewer options. Singer Shawn Harris tells me about his mission to “to discover if Texas BBQ is not just for the carnivores.” Was he successful? Totally! But we can’t print how happy he was about a spot called Mother’s, which is located off the beaten 6th St. path. “The menu featured Mother’s special: BBQ tofu baked in a tamari peanut marinade and topped with a house BBQ sauce served with sage mashed potatoes and black eyed peas--for less than ten dollars! Video was shot of the meal, which was later found to be mostly unusable due to a smattering of expletives throughout, such as ‘F***! This is the Sh**!’ Humans and farm animals applaud.”
The Hush Sound with pony, who samples raw food first (Photo: Matt Wignall)
Chicago’s the Hush Sound are following up their 2006 debut today with another bouncy pop confection, Goodbye Blues. And next month the keyboard-heavy quartet head out with Decaydance/Fueled By Ramen labelmates Panic At the Disco, at which point you might see siren Greta Salpeter fueling her band’s road trip on raw foods. “Food tastes the best to me when it is in its most natural state—as raw as possible,” Salpeter tells me. “It is easy to add raw foods into my diet when the recipes are simple, fast and delicious.”
So what is the singer cooking—or rather, not cooking—up? Sweets! Besides a raw banana cream pie, one of Salpeter’s favorite desserts is a chocolate smoothie concocted with an unexpected choice of fruit. “While it may seem strange to put avocado in a chocolate smoothie, the texture of a ripe one makes the smoothie incredibly creamy and rich,” she says. “Avocado takes on the flavor of whatever you blend it with, so the chocolate and nut milk are still the main tastes.”
More from the Hush Sound can be heard on their MySpace page.
The New York Times’ ArtsBeat blog has posted a video of Rachael Ray’s SXSW event. The Ray-curated gig not only showcased a few bands—including her hubby’s group the Cringe, Danish duo the Raveonettes, San Francisco’s Scissors for Lefty, and Canadian groups Holy F--- and the Stills—but also some good grub. For the party, Ray cooked up what she calls “stellar sliders” (seven-layers!) and a bean-and-guacamole version of it for the veggies.
After ensuring a few showgoers got their fill of the burgers, Ray explains why she threw an event during indie rock’s biggest fest: “I married a man who has an indie band, and I’m a pretty good cook. Austin is all about good music and good food, so why not?”
Gym Class Heroes, awaiting the next episode of Everyday Italian (Photo: MySpace.com)
Emo-rappers Gym Class Heroes have taken up shop in a small Los Angeles studio to record their as-yet-untitled follow-up to 2006's As Cruel as School Children, set for release sometime this summer. Speaking with Rolling Stone, the band’s MC, Travis McCoy, says he’s fueled recording sessions on a drink he’s coined the Travalanche (a syrupy combination of merlot and Sprite) and, apparently, the Food Network.
“The band has been in the small studio, located behind a Koreatown barbershop, for a week,” Rolling Stone reports. “The big-screen TV is permanently tuned to the Food Network, with the band members hoping for a glimpse of sexy Italian host Giada De Laurentiis between takes.”
Maybe it should be no surprise the crew is composed of foodies, considering it's smash single is called “Cupid’s Chokehold / Breakfast in America” (the second half of that title comes from the Supertramp song they sample), in which McCoy gushes when his girlfriend cooks him pancakes.
More Gym Class Heroes can be heard on their MySpace page.
When it comes to Swedish food, you probably think of meatballs, Muppet chefs and the food court at IKEA. But Shout Out Louds’ bassist Ted Malmros, who is based in Stockholm, takes a break from honing his bouncy indie rock tunes to clue us in to his country’s cuisine, which involves a lot of pickled seafood. Delish? Yes!
“Many meals here are fish-based,” he tells me. “Herring, salmon and cod are all popular. And Stockholm is near the Baltic Sea, where there are a lot of white fish like perch, too.”
Malmros admits his traditional method of preparing fish makes some Americans cringe. “We salt and pickle things to preserve them. When Americans try our food, they tend to think something is wrong with it.” But his signature dish, which he compares to a layered cake—but with salmon!—actually sounds pretty great. “I make this very traditional Swedish dish that piles potatoes, eggs, milk, dill, onions and salmon that’s been cured in salt and sugar for a few days. You wrap it up with the salmon on top and bake it.”
That may sound more like a burrito than a cake, but Malmros reveals that Swedes have their own brand of burrito. Take thin flat bread, roll it with mashed potatoes, bratwurst, relish and roasted onions and you got yourself a Tummbrödrulle. I’ve been informed that it’s easier going down than it is to say.
Malmros tells me it’s very popular to eat locally and seasonally in Sweden. “Today you can get anything anytime, but people eat much more locally here than they do in the States,” he says. “In the winter, cucumbers, beets and root vegetables are popular. I make a great mash from them. The yellow beet, which is like root celery and is called ‘Swede,’ is one of the few things rich in Vitamin C this time of year. Mushroom season is in September and October, and you can find them everywhere!”
Touring through the States, Malmros says he tries to sample local cuisines everywhere he goes. “I like the South, where you can have yams and smoked meats and barbecue and okra—the stuff we never have in Sweden. And I eat a lot of sushi on the West Coast. Traveling throughout America, I love stopping at diners—they’re so cheap and there’s no diner culture in Sweden.”
See if you can spot Malmros and his band Shout Out Louds at a diner near you as they support their latest effort, Our Ill Wills, on tour. Here are the dates:
3/9, Big Cypress Indian Reservation (Pompano Beach, FL)
3/11, Joe’s Pub (New York, NY)
3/14, The Parish (Austin, TX - SXSW)
4/27, Coachella Festival (Indio, CA)
More Shout Out Louds can be heard on their MySpace page.
Get the first behind-the-scenes glimpse from Be Your Own Pet’s new video! These Nashville punks, who got their start around they same time they got their driver licenses, are prepping the deliriously fun video for “Food Fight!” off their upcoming sophomore album, Get Awkward. Judging by the splatters, the food here hits as hard and fast as the music, and it might be as raw, too. And though it’s unclear whether any of the thrashers in this quartet--which is led by fearless growler Jemina Pearl--are still in their teens, the band nods to that demo with clips like the one we see here, reminding us of what we hoped to accomplish at least once in our high school cafeterias.
Roll up your sleeves and go behind the scenes at Be Your Own Pet’s video for “Food Fight!” Just push play!
Maya Ford: “Eat my rugelach and enjoy life” / (Photo: Neil Zlozower)
The Donnas, who will hit the road starting tomorrow to tour alongside the Hives, aren’t all freewheeling fun like the ’70-inspired rock they play might have you think. Sure, the cover for their latest album, Bitchin’, features a leather-pants-held-up-by-rhinestone-studded-belt-clad ass, and singer Brett Anderson sings lines like "I'm gonna party till the day I die,” but behind the glam are some baked goods. Just ask bassist Maya Ford, who crafted a rugelach recipe one lonely holiday. "The first time I made rugelach was for my friends on Valentine’s Day because I didn't have a date,” she tells me. “Now I make it when I wanna bribe someone into liking me."
Maya Ford’s Rugelach
Dough:
2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
1 cup or 2 sticks unsalted butter
1 (8 oz) package of cream cheese
1/2 teaspoon salt (if you feel like it)
Filling:
1/2 cup your favorite jam or jelly (blackberry or raspberry with seeds, or apricot are good choices. Strawberry rhubarb is also amazing. If you can get some homemade jam, I recommend that.)
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1 teaspoon grated lemon rind
Chocolate chips, toffee chips, peanut butter chips, Reese’s Pieces, etc.
Cinnamon sugar
1 egg beaten with 1 teaspoon water
1. Make sure butter and cream cheese are at room temperature and then proceed to smash them together. Slowly mix in flour and salt. Smoosh dough into a ball and freeze for two hours or refrigerate overnight.
2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
3. Cut cold dough into six pieces and form six balls. Roll each ball of dough out into 9 inch circles about 1/8 of an inch thick. Mix together jam, nuts, and lemon rind. Spread a thin layer of filling over dough and cut into 10 pizza-shaped slices.
4. If you want to make chocolate rugelach, just cover the dough in chocolate chips or get experimental and use some toffee or your favorite candy. I used Nutella the other day and it was pretty awesome.
5. Sprinkle on a little cinnamon and sugar.
6. Starting with the pizza crust roll up the slice and create a crescent. Do the same with the rest of the sweet pizza.
7. Carefully move sweet and juicy crescents onto a cookie sheet. Brush each one with egg wash using a pastry brush. Bake for 12-15 minutes until they are golden brown. Don't burn 'em or you will cry. Cool on wire racks or a plate.
8. Eat warm with your friends at a big party with loud music or put them in a nice little box and give them to a cute boy you wanna impress. They last for about a week. It's always good to have some extras around the house because they are great bargaining tools. Try trading them for chores--like, "Hey, I'll give you this last piece of rugelach if you take out the trash"--it usually works. It's also good for making people think you're magical and then they’ll worship you. That is, if you make them right.
Apparently, Anthony Bourdain is a fan of Morcheeba, London-based purveyors of down-beat cybernetic pop that coolly works its way through moody atmospherics. The trip-hopsters have just dropped their new full-length (via iTunes; the album will be in stores Feb. 19), Dive Deep, and marked the release by appearing on Bourdain’s No Reservations.
How did the collaboration come about? “We were big fans of Tony's when he came to a local bookshop for a signing. We approached him to meet us for dinner and hang out,” the band’s Paul Godrey tells me. “We got to talking about doing a spoken word track, as his voice is perfect with its natural rhythm and deep resonance. Sometime later he called to say he was in London and that he was ready to lay his new lyrics down.”
The result is “Lisa,” an ode to a female line cook in the notoriously male-dominated culinary world, and it’s delivered in the dryly didactic manner to be expected from Bourdain. The song’s titular heroine can hold her own as well as Bourdain can apparently take stake in the music world. “He nailed it in a take or two,” Godfrey gushes. “When we played it back to him we were all buzzing with excitement.”
More Morcheeba can be heard on their MySpace page.
In the current issue of the New Yorker, Rebecca Mead profiles 26-year-old composer/conductor Nico Muhly, a Columbia/Julliard-educated musician whose works have been commissioned by American Symphony Orchestra, the Juilliard Orchestra, the Boston University Tanglewood Institute Orchestra, the Boston Pops and New York’s Saint Thomas Church. Additionally, he has collaborated with Icelandic chanteuse Björk, alt-country charmer Bonnie “Prince” Billy and cabaret crooner Antony (of Antony and the Johnsons), among others. Where does some of his inspiration come from? Why cooking, of course.
“Muhly learned to cook as a child, and he finds the alchemy of the kitchen consonant with the composer’s art,” Mead writes. She begins her piece following Muhly through his Manhattan neighborhood, searching for Bolognese sauce ingredients from different purveyors of fresh meat. Later, she watches as he chops garlic for the sauce in his sixth-floor Chinatown apartment, and they discuss how his prolific output of pieces is frowned upon in the classical music world. “It’s like, bad, or too popular, to produce a lot, but you learn such a lot by listening to a piece and, literally, not being able to stop it,” he says. “It feels to me more like food, in that sense. People need to eat. You may as well make them something to eat.”
Feed on this: Muhly’s video for “It Goes without Saying,” from 2006’s Speaks Volumes (Bedroom)
While holed up in a studio just outside of Seattle recording his band's fifth full-length, the lovely Lucky, Nada Surf’s bassist Daniel Lorca made dinner each and every night. “They were mostly complex pasta dishes,” singer-guitarist Matthew Caws, revealed. "And they were awesome." Here, Lorca shares one of the (non-pasta) meals he made during the recording sessions--maybe more such feasts will fuel the Brooklyn trio on its tour, which was kicked off in its home borough last night.
Thai Fusion Mussels by Daniel Lorca
In a large heavy stock pot, start with a couple of tablespoons of peanut oil and butter. Once the butter has melted add two cups of chopped shallots and stir until golden.
Add two or three very thinly sliced stalks of lemongrass and several tablespoons of green curry paste, stir until it starts browning, then add two cups of dry vermouth and several tablespoons of palm sugar (or regular). Stir until sugar is dissolved and the sauce has thickened a bit, then add one or two cans of Thai coconut milk. Once it all comes to a boil, add thickly sliced carrots and red or green peppers, and the clean mussels, then cover the pot. Once steam starts to escape, stir the mussels to coat them evenly, cover again and cook for about 3 minutes, remove lid, add copious quantities of fresh Thai basil, stir again and serve, making sure you get to the large amounts of broth at the bottom of the pot.
Way back in 2006, Barack Obama joked on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” that if he announced his bid for Presidency, he’d do so on Food Network. That got us thinking: Is Obama -- and the rest of the frontrunning hopefuls, for that matter -- a foodie? So today, on the eve of Super Tuesday, we did the most American of things and hit the Gore-created interwebs for more on the candidates’ cuisines of choice.
Turns out Hillary Clinton doesn’t know her way around the kitchen as well as she does around the Senate floor. Listed under the "Interests" section of her MySpace page, Hill writes, “I’m a lousy cook, but I make pretty good soft scrambled eggs.” Tyler Florence has just the recipe for her!
We couldn’t find what Barack Obama likes to cook, but Wiki Answers reveals his favorite restaurant is a pizzeria in his home state. If the Illinois Senator did actually announce his run for top office on Food Network, we’d like to imagine he did so through mouthfuls of Emeril’s Chicago Style Italian Sausage Deep Dish Pizza.
John McCain fuels his campaign trail on nothing but doughnuts, according to the Chicago Tribune. While this might upset the normal tummy, McCain is a former POW and might be able to stomach anything. For his next trick, he’ll consume one doughnut for every delegate he earns!
Clearly the candidates don’t have that much in common when it comes to food, among other things, but they’ll be out tomorrow encouraging you to take that bite out of the primaries by voting.
