the russian cure.

The math went like this:

sound check = 4pm
+ we hit the stage = 2am
+ free beer
+ piping-hot vodka and lemon shots blowtorched by a feisty Russian lass = 3.50 euro
+ roughly 6,000 random joints being passed around
+ general Rube Goldberg carnival atmosphere (an example: the second-to-last picture below is actually a combination motorcycle/espresso machine)

I have never been that fucked up onstage before. The upside: the concentration that our altered states required from us resulted in a tremendously focused hour of music. The downside: today.

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the pom recipe.

The Smart Dutch Woman is going to make pom on Monday and she wants to use my goldang recipe! Only problem is, neither of us could find the durned thing. So here it is, stolen from my eGullet foodblog.

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pom (surinamese chicken and malanga casserole).

300-400g chicken breast, leg, or thigh meat, or a mix of these
freshly grated nutmeg
salt and pepper

100g zoutvlees
150g180-200g butter
3 yellow onions, chopped
3 canned roma tomatoes, chopped
1 cup chicken broth
2 tbsp palm sugar

1 kilo pomtajer/malanga, grated
1/3 cup celery leaves, chopped fine
the juice of 2 oranges
the juice of 1 lemon
freshly grated nutmeg
salt
pepper

Soak the zoutvlees in cold water for 30 minutes or so, then rinse and dice the meat.

















Rub the chicken pieces thoroughly in a mix of equal parts salt, pepper, and freshly grated nutmeg. Here's my cute little nutmeg grater:

















Brown the chicken pieces in a sautepan, using a little of the butter to facilitate if necessary. Add the zoutvlees and saute for 5 minutes or so, then add the rest of the butter and the onions, tomatoes, chicken broth and palm sugar, and simmer until the palm sugar melts.

















Turn off the heat.

Grab your defrosted, grated pomtajer.

















Add the orange and lemon juices and the celery leaves to the pomtajer, then add all of the liquid from the chicken mixture, and stir to integrate everything.

















































Spread half of the pomtajer mixture along the bottom of a buttered baking dish, and then place a layer of the chicken mixture on top. Top with a layer of the pomtajer mixture. Dot the top with butter if you feel like it.


































Bake for 60 minutes at 175C, and then 30 minutes at 150C. After about the first 45 minutes check to see if the top is drying out. If it is, either dot some more butter on top, or if you think you've already added plenty of butter, you can mix things around in the baking pan to moisten. But when I used the full 180-200 grams of butter, everything was perfectly moist.

Serve with birambie (or similar homemade spicy pickles) either by itself or on a baguette for a broodje pom.

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I did skimp on the butter a little, about 50g less than I probably should've used...but my conscience was peering rudely over my shoulder in the kitchen and I just couldn't do it. I'll think I'll stick with my proportions so that my guilt is just ever so slightly less crushing.


















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indonesian leftovers.

Andy just got back in town and passed on his photos from the Indonesian throwdown a couple weeks back. See, it's not just Mara that gets to look ridiculous out here. Up here. Wherever this is.

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cv.

You know, someone once said that I never post any nice-looking pictures of Mara up here. Out here. Wherever we are. In my defense, here's what I have to work with:


















"I got nowhere else to go....."

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I've just crossed some sort of Geek Threshold. My first meme. This is The Omnivore's Hundred, which I filled out b/c I had 10 minutes to kill while my bulgur cooked and because it's a pretty good list...I have fond memories of most of the 75 78 items I've tried. There are some that I feel like I've tried but have no recollection of the details, like borscht and gjetost. And there are only a few things on here that I don't feel like I ever need to try again, like sea urchin and andouillette.

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile (well, alligator)
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects (it's not for a lack of source material, but I don't see this one happening)
43. Phaal (should get on this one)
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal (Big Macs, yes, but never the Meal)
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin (no desire to try this one)
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost
75. Roadkill Not as far as I know, and let's keep it that way.
76. Baijiu I think I pretty much understand how pure alcohol works at this point, this isn't a priority.
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

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a one, and a two, and a...

Just found out that the gig I thought was on 30 Sept is on 30 August. Oops! No worries...

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devil's workshop.

Did something today I haven't done in a long time: cooked a complicated dinner because it felt like the only pleasant thing I was capable of doing.

Waah. My back has been hurting for a couple weeks now, but last night's sleep was foiled by not only that but a plague of additional hostile entities: silent, thirsty mosquitoes; unsilent, mysteriously motivated cats; and this wicked, throbbing shin injury that I must have picked up during Rotterdam's post-gig shenanigans.

So today I was just barely functional, but there were some projects in store for us. One positive, constructive project, and one destructive project. The positive one is pictured above in an unfinished state: new shelves in the kitchen (hopefully the first of several planned kitchen modifications). They're really more integrated than they look. If you know Mara's work, you'll agree that none of the following facts are surprising: 1) the materials used are scraps from the backyard, costing zero; 2) the entire project was finished in two hours; 3) I had nothing at all to do with it.

My contribution to the team's achievements came in the form of Complicated and Sloppy-Looking Southwestern Cooking.






















In 20th-century menuspeak this would be something like Red Chile-Pesto Shrimp with Fresh-Roasted Red Peppers, Guacamole and Black Bean-Goat Cheese Huarache Quesadilla (Which You Can Almost See Underneath Everything Else) Plus Chive Oil. Etc. Today it is called Ancho Shrimp with Goat Cheese Huarache.

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Really just a lot of sub-recipes: an ancho chile sauce with (subtle) cinnamon and marjoram, a basil-pine nut pesto (which was already lurking in the fridge), a black bean and roasted garlic puree, and a chive oil. And a guacamole, which I bought, and which (though expensive) is real guacamole, from De Avondmarkt.

Pesto sounds like a fusion-y bit of overkill in a Southwestern context, but it's really not: basil and pine nuts are perfect complements to the main players here...but they do work best when they don't dominate the proceedings, and when combined with the earthy notes of the darker dried chiles like ancho (not pasilla as described here earlier...in my weakened condition I'd forgotten about the West Coast predilection for calling things pasilla that ain't).

With that in mind, I would call this successful because it tasted simple...if I'd been served this in a restaurant I would've said "Hmmm, darn tasty, but I could cook that." And in fact I'd be totally correct, which is rare for me. Today's recipe was based on several things out of a new cookbook sent to me by my lovely parents, Richard Sandoval's Modern Mexican Cooking.

The first of these several things was a huarache, which I somehow hadn't realized had become a easily findable edible in America these days (more info here and here, still looking for a postable recipe). But: when I went to make some masa for my possible huarache, I discovered that (cue foreboding music that introduces our destructive project for the day)...

...our pantry moth problem is out of control. You can read about other unfortunate victims' tales of woe on the eGullet Pantry Moths thread, but it suffices to say that we threw out just about every dry good we had at home, with the exception of the newest shipment of chiles and Mexican herbs from Phoenix. These went into the freezer. This process of retaliation and, yes, destruction made it look like we were just moving in instead of moving someone else out...






















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uploads.

This was my way-too-early lunch in Rotterdam on Friday, at Bazar. Yes, it looks like enough food for three people, but it was mostly lettuce, honest. Those are falafel in the back, and chicken wings in front. Everything was good, I'd go back if there was one of these in Amsterdam. Oh, wait: there is.

Here's our version of "Song 3" from the other night, with extra reverb added by me. It's certainly probably not awesome, but it's also just about the first time we ever played it like this all the way through. Is it really 10 minutes long? We were quite worried that our entire set was going to clock in at around 8 minutes.

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food, water.

Pretty sure this is a Vegetarian Duck first: live foodblogging from a DJ gig. Don't even ask.

Below, we have some sort of vegetarian wrap; an artichoke tapenade topped with a blueberry (!); and some roe with a lemon creme fraiche and a sprig of lavender? And prosecco. Lots and lots of prosecco. More up-to-the-minute action as it occurs. UPDATE: I missed the vitello tonnato, manicotti (maybe?), and something else warm that looked delicious. I did snag some lovely cured ham, maybe Parma? All thanks to Casa Catering.

The actual content of the event that I'm being lighthearted about here is substantial: the social politics of water governance. I've watched a couple of very compelling speakers talk about the difficulties and unexpected conflicts in areas of true water scarcity. It's (as you might imagine) a situation whose complexity is entirely outside the scope of this site, but I'll try to put some links up here that concisely outline the story.

To sum: we take clean, useful drinking water for granted....and (duh) we should maybe not do that. I heard many interesting things this evening, the latest of which rang true: that our own disconnection from our local water systems (not understanding how our own water becomes useful and gets into our homes) impedes us from truly understanding and empathizing with cultures who aren't as fortunately situated as we are.

All this said? This is no environment for a DJ. I am having serious Corporate America flashbacks.

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the ex in ethiopia.

Jace had a nice post about The Ex today, and that led me to this: this video is four years old, and it's a quite really rough version of a Mahmoud Ahmed song I think, but you have to see the dancing that starts at the 2:30 mark and continues to the end. I'm so doing this at the next show I go to.

If you're wondering what the crowd is cheering about every 10 seconds or so, it's the lyrics.

Another good one, maybe this is a Tlahoun Gessesse song:



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goin' to the chapel, and...

Actually we already done went to the chapel. And we played the Louvin Brothers, rather raucously. Don't know what Ira and Charlie would've thought of it, but from my point of view it wasn't a disaster. Most people that I talked to afterwards said "I really liked the third song", and that makes sense because I think it's our favorite too.

I'm not mentioning the name of it because it's weirdly unGooglable, as in there must be legal reasons why more versions of it aren't online, if you catch my drift. Regardless, here's the Louvin Brothers' version of "Song 3" if you're curious.

Now, onto another music project for a couple of days (thankfully not requiring any guitar playing...I easily played more guitar last month than I've played in the last 5 years...my hands hate me at the moment), off to Rotterdam to "perform" it, and then...then, we might see some real blogging here and there. Well, at least here.

One thing I wish I'd had time to post about was a week or two of excellent food gifts from friends. Don't know what was going on, but everyone we knew seemed to be cooking up a storm and sending some of the results our way. Cream scones, eggplant parm, banana bread, blackberry pie, pasta alla puttanesca, a real boterkoek from a Dutch mamma....all of these made their way into our kitchen (and stomachs) over the last couple weeks, and it was nice nice nice. Thanks for the grub, everyone (sorry, I'm so tired at the moment that this upcoming exclamation point is 100% feigned enthusiasm)!

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indonesian throwdown.

You may already know this, but...there are a bunch of boring-ass blogs out there. I just clicked around for like 30 minutes wearing an unbudgeable "impress me" scowl.

This experience leads me to believe that this blog is also probably quite boring-ass as well. In fact, I know it is. Look, what's that above, just there? Cubed tilapia and kaffir lime leaves. Big whoop. What's just below us? Andy and Valentina wrapping an unappetizing-looking (but totally delicious) squid, coconut, lemongrass, etc. mixture in banana leaves for steaming.

Bah....whatever. This is the Internet, baby. I done seen that shit already. Then there's the completed version of Mara's always-chompable saté lilit, the only food-on-a-stick in town with no stick. But this too is deja vu, no?

Finally, we have four or five lovely bitches (I mean this in the non-misogynist, appreciative sense...as in, "them there's some fine-ass lovely-headed bitches.") shakin' all manner of thing on the dance floor to the sounds of Gal Costa while fluorescent blue dragonflies hover over their heads. Bah. "Seen it," you say. I know, I know.

Tell me about it...it's a cold world out there. Sometimes I think I'm getting a little frosty myself.

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meet the melonheads.

halloween 1996.

In 1996, this look was still ironic. People didn't actually look like this in real life again yet.






















Now the question is, when will people start non-ironically dressing like Sheep Fucking Man here?

UPDATE: Mara has pointed out that the subtleties of this costume were obviously lost on me. The actual name of this costume was "Ewe Fucking Farmer". Get it? That's a pun.

You know what though: I don't care. He'll always be Sheep Fucking Man to me.






















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ancho shrimp quesadillas.

You can't see the shrimp or ancho-ness in this photo, but they're both there. Recipe to come. Wellll, it's not much of a recipe: puree some softened ancho peppers with a little more than 1 tbsp of walnut oil per pepper. Saute this puree on low for about 10-15 minutes until the uncooked flavor goes away.

Then you take one-a them 250 gram packages of those tiny pink shrimp from a few posts ago, and add to them 2 or 3 tbsp of the aforementioned ancho paste, 1 pressed garlic clove, and a squirt of lime. Marinate for a few hours, and then chuck those suckers into a quesadilla or two.

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batting cleanup.

my rebuttal is a space shuttle ready for take off.

I have been skating on the proverbial thin ice for most of this summer, healthwise. Everything's OK, but yeah, there is a fine line being walked. Or skated, whatever... metaphor, shmetaphor. As the last couple of Augusts have been yawning black chasms of anti-health, our current status can still be considered "significant progress", but I'm going to have to go ahead and predict that my only hope for ending this summer with an overall smiley face on my report card is to have the Healthiest August Ever.

But: the Starship Healthy August needs fuel. And it ain't no m*therf**$kin' dilithium crystals neither. Naw. See, this here Spaceship of Sparkling Inner Cleanliness runs on....pork!

Dass right. In order to have a Healthy August, we gots to have us one last Poke Fish Celebrayshun. Or: chicken in the shape of a poke fish. Celebration.































Don't worry, I'm not talking about anything gluttonous. Just a little sausage tasting. A couple bites. Two. Three, tops.

The surprising thing was that this bloedworst was just about as good as what I had at Kwakoe. Maybe they all come from Milan. Cooking instructions are simple: heat a pot of water with a couple of cloves, 10 or so allspice berries, and a couple of bay leaves. Add the sausage and simmer on low for an hour or so. Don't let it boil. Then you're done.

The fa tjeong is for tomorrow night, some kind of stir-fry/sauté with green beans. Also with some kind of ancho shrimp quesadilla based on this idea.

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