lost/boyz.

My shoe had been missing for two days, so I haven't left the house since then. After literally looking everywhere, we found it in the garage this morning.

Last night, seared tuna on the grill, 3 minutes per side, served with that same old soy-ginger mayo I made last time and this surprisingly awesome ponzu sauce from Kikkoman, over greens. This morning: leftovers.

Tonight: homemade buffalo chicken wings and, yeah, more tuna...Pitts couldn't eat hers last night.

boyz/hood.

So, really. Not much blogging happening, a sentence which I fear is already elsewhere on this page at least once. It's difficult, we're still not sleeping through the night, Mara in particular is having an unprecedented Non-Sleep Event. Our mornings are spent trying to wake up, our afternoons are spent half-babysitting and assembling complicated toys (pictured above: solar system in progress, that's Cole and Saturn, pre-rings), and our evenings are spent grilling things, drinking red wine and taking full advantage of Netflix Instant, which is right behind in-flight Wifi on my List of Awesome Developments.

Nonetheless, we're having a nice time in spite of feeling like a copy of a copy of a copy, but none of what we're doing in the evenings is terribly photogenic. Foodwise, we're enjoying simple things that we don't have affordable/easy access to in Amsterdam: for example, big pieces of fresh salmon and tuna.

Sunday and Monday were spent picking at a real Honey Baked Ham (a gift from someone Dad works with). Tuesday night we grilled what had to be an entire salmon, and served it with dollops of poblano cream and a grilled fennel and balsamic vinegar relish, a nonintuitive but lovely combo.

Last night Mara turned the salmon leftovers into curried salmon cakes, I grilled mushrooms and peppers and threw some Manchego at them, and yes, it was all goodness, just not photographable.

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poblano cream.

1 poblano chile, roasted, peeled, seeded, deveined
1/2 cup cilantro
juice of one lime
1 cup cream cheese
salt to taste

Process. Salt to taste.

+++

got to have that green stuff.

We are rolling stone cold pimpish. And we're also grilling poblanos for salsa.

Sorry for the lack of meaningful information here, we're still struggling a bit with jet lag and scheduling difficulties. Tonight, a gigantic piece of salmon with a variety of fun and educational sauces.

collard greens + brown butter.

After a gutbusting lunch, we tried to keep it light tonight: margaritas, a gifted honey baked ham for sandwiches and picking, and these greens. This was inspired by Saveur's recipe here.

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collard greens + brown butter + ham.

5 tbsp butter
2 bunches collard greens, washed, trimmed, cut into 2-inch squares
1 cup cooked ham, diced small
juice of 1/2 lemon
1 tbsp raw sugar
1 tsp crushed red pepper
salt to taste

Saute onion and ham in butter 3-5 minutes until butter begins to brown. Add collards, stir to coat with butter mixture, and turn off heat. Add sugar, salt, lemon juice, and red pepper. Let sit 5 minutes. Reheat 1-2 minutes, adjust seasoning, and serve. My collards were done at this point, but if yours aren't I could see how another five minutes of cooking at the end wouldn't hurt. Serves 4 as a side dish.

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dick's hideaway.

What I initially thought was Hole Meats; breakfast menu shot; duck rellenos Christmas (both red and green chile sauce) + two eggs over easy, beans, potatoes; moop.

lunch at dick's.

So, if you've followed these Phoenix trips before, this won't be newsworthy or exciting, but we're having lunch at Dick's Hideaway today. I'm having red chile duck rellenos. Did you fucking hear me? I'M HAVING RED CHILE DUCK RELLENOS. FOR LUNCH.

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old days.

Festivity abounds. My dear old mother's 64th birthday has been accompanied by a scorching case of shingles. On the upside, it was also accompanied by Sierra Nevada, red beef chili, cornbread scones and red velvet cake.

non-idle hands.

Now is the time on Sprockets when we assemble all of the complicated toys and gadgets that no one else has had time for all year. LEGO spaceships, Blu-Ray players, streaming NetFlix, etc.

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arrival.

Yes. One thing I want to say about yesterday's 24-hour travel day: every airline, TSA, and airport person we interacted with was unfailingly pleasant, even the cops who took apart our luggage. Any hideous behavior we saw was 100% the work of passengers.

+++

Ahhh. Sleep, in a pitch-black, catless room far from garbage trucks and delivery men. Very very nice. Now? Coffee! And then I immediately set to work on doing something productive with American-sized amounts of food, for example, a kilo of smoked salmon. This will probably end up as an experimental version of the Old Faithful salmon rillettes.

+++

I usually like to start these Phoenix adventures with a survey of exciting new food developments in my parents' kitchen, and this will be no different.

The first cool thing I ran into was a cookbook by Barbara Lynch called Stir. It's an example of a way-better-than-average, thoroughly interesting cookbook that I almost put down immediately because there's something wrong with the design/layout. I can't quite put my finger on it. The recipes are also named in a way that doesn't make me want to read what they are. But once I fight my way into a recipe, it's great.

The second cool thing I ran into was the pan pictured at the top. What is it?

The third: a really excellent and proportionally ambitious raspberry muffin from Paradise Bakery.

+++

eating phoenix.

This vacation kind of caught us off guard, so we have almost no plans at all. Until now. I just want to point out a couple of things that are cheap and ungettable in our natural environment. This is a work in progress.

1) Mexican/Southwestern. I kind of hate revisiting a semi-exotic locale and then eating at the same old places, but I really do love the food at Dick's/Richardson's/Rokerij and Mara hasn't been there in forever. We also need some real tacos from somewhere, still searching for a solution that's closer than El Nopalito. More research necessary, this is Prioirty Numero Uno.

2) Southern. Lolo's Chicken and Waffles sounds like exactly the thing I would want to have after 24 hours of bussing/training/flying/driving, accompanied by a mint julep and followed by a large "marijuana cigarette", after which I would sleep for a day and a half. Sadly, none of that is going to happen: more likely a salad and a glass of red wine.

3) Vietnamese/Korean. This is something Phoenix has a good bit of and Amsterdam has almost none of (especially Vietnamese). Recs to come soon.

4) "Nice" Restaurants. I'm kind of not really into this concept at the moment, and last year's visit to Zinc Bistro was pretty disappointing, but everything about Noca looks good. Except the location, really far away.

5) Shit that's close by. This is the 2nd most important category. Sushi Ken springs to mind: super cheap and good Japanese food, a concept unheard of in Amsterdam. Though sushi is not really what I would eat here.

+++

miracle at 38,000 feet.

I don't think it's a stretch to say that in-flight Wifi is the one single positive thing that has happened to the airline industry in the last 10 years. Surely it seems even more miraculously wonderful than it is because the whole rest of the transcontinental flying experience is just a relentless marathon of ugly humanity and seriously miserable business practices.

Sorry if I sound crabby. We've been in transit for 15 hours so far, just got all of our bags thoroughly taken apart in Detroit b/c the drug-sniffing dog was interested in them and we were coming from Amsterdam, made our connecting flight by like 2 minutes, and now we have 5 more hours to go, though I must say my ass is doing better than usual (on a plane).

Ahhhh, right, that's the downside of in-flight Wifi: I get to complain about flying while it's actually happening. I'll try to stop. Let's talk again after there's been some distance between my ass and this seat.

+++

it's on.

Holiday Trip 2010 begins today, as does A Return to Blogging. So, we leave here at 8am and arrive in Phoenix at 6pm. That doesn't sound so bad, right? Oh, right: time zone change. Add eight hours. Maybe nine.

Whatever. It will be considered SUPER if we don't explode or go to jail.

+++

not drowning, waving.

Not blogging, recording.

+++

it's the little things.

Sunday's gig was nice, thank you for asking: lovely-sounding room, friendly and conscientious organizers, and a crowd made up of almost no one I knew. And, I was home by 8pm! And, I made enough money to go grocery shopping with afterwards!

Mara returneth from France, bringing all manner of tiny little jars of pates and confits: duck + armagnac, pork + green peppercorn, black cherry, plum/cumin, etc. My favorite is a jar of black fig preserves given to the band by the drummer (bassist?) of one of the tour's opening acts: he made it himself, from his own figs. Where else besides south of France does this happen?

+++

one more thing.

I roasted rutabaga tonight. And I didn't like it! Bad texture, mealy. That never happens. Anyone got rutabaga (swedes is another name) love?

Never mind...I just didn't cook it long enough.

+++

re(mis)direction.

If you're here for the food, this won't interest you. If you're here for the me: it looks like most of my writing effort is being aimed somewhere else right now, which should not be taken as any kind of death knell for VDuck. VDuck will roar back into action during our December In America adventure I'm sure. But until then, it's thundersticks or bust.

+++

white radish.

It's quite a challenge to use up a whole daikon when you're cooking for one. One person I mean. Luckily I was totally out of other food, so I had to improvise, and lo, behold, etc: this came out totally satisfyingly for a light snack. I was trying to think of another Japanese flavor that would've been nice here. Pickled ginger would've been my first choice but we were out. Could've gone totally wrong anyway, this was fine. Proportions are, as always, approximate.

+++

daikon, smoked mackerel, horseradish salad.

1 cup daikon, cubed smallish
200 grams smoked mackerel filets, shredded
2 tbsp prepared horseradish
apple vinegar to taste
a little stevia or sugar to taste, or an apple, cubed
optionally, 2 tbsp of sweet onion, chopped

Combine, eat immediately.

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small fry.

Last night (was it really only last night?) I did something highly unusual: I had frites. Not just any frites, but "the healthiest frites in the Netherlands", according to some kind of scientific survey/poll/test thingie.

More details as soon as I feel like parsing Googled info, but just know that the place I'm talking about is Bram Ladage at Utrecht's hideously mallish central station. Thus, neither of the places mentioned in the above video. In the four seconds of Googling I did do, I found out a couple of irrelevant but stimulating things.

For example? Well, there's a relatively new food item sweeping the nation, and it's called a frietje kapsalon that consists of frites, lamb or pork shoarma, garlic sauce, Gouda cheese, and sriracha or similar sambal. All baked/reheated like a lasagna. And then they pile lettuce on top. I would imagine this dish is also known as Imminent Naptime. It looks like this, which is not especially appetizing, and yet somehow I find myself thinking about this dish more than I would like....



+++

But back to my regular old frites. And? And? How were they. They were....salty, almost too much so, but not. Nicely crispy. Good, solid frites, worth having. Would have liked just a little better mayonnaise and actual Heinz ketchup, but....still above average. I think my favorite part was watching the guy peel and cut real potatoes at lightning fast speed and then when he got to the bottom of the pile he was working on, he yelled out "that's it", as in, they were out of potatoes, and the cashier said "Good, I'm ready to go home", and they closed up shop after another 30 minutes or so.

Now, as penance, I'm making a vegetarian version of that daikon/chicken soup I did last month, which has now been turned into a real recipe, by an actual food writer, by which I mean it now has accuracy and coherence going for it as well as deliciosity.

+++

weekly reader.

Still enjoying not doing anything, it's nice!!! This is where we played Friday.

+++

This week at the Dirk, our sale items are: Rubens apples (Mara's making apple muffins from this recipe to take on tour tomorrow); Napa cabbage (should I try kimchi?); organic pears; and leeks.

Still dealing with last week's pumpkin overload. Maybe it's time to try that smoked mackerel and pumpkin combination that Ivo mentioned here a million years ago.

+++

pumpoaf.

It is I, returneth from the swampdom of Work, hereforth and thencewith, etc. etc. etc.

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Currently roasting bargain pumpkins and enjoying the feeling of not having a looming deadline for a while. Had a wonderful post-gig meal last night of crusty bread, cheese, and charcuterie from De Avondmarkt...felt like a well-deserved treat. Now back to vegetables and fish.

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smoked pumpkin soup with rosemary and gruyere.

pumpkin
smoke
rosemary
broth
habanero
onion
salt
pepper
possibly butter
pumpkin seeds
gruyere

+++

big chicken.

This is based on this, and though we found it lacking just the tiniest bit of someting, we all ate the heck out of it, the sauce was pretty perfect and in general it gave us a warm and homey Cantonese feeling. Seems like a good template for braised chicken legs in general.

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beer-braised chicken legs with sriracha.

16 drumsticks
2 tbsp vegetable oil

1 bottle dark beer
1 cup chicken stock
1/4 cup sherry
1/2 tbsp hoisin sauce
1 tbsp soy sauce
2 tsp sugar
1/4 tsp salt

1 large onion, chopped
2 cups cremini mushrooms, sliced
2 to 3 tsp sriracha
1 clove garlic, pressed
4 scallions, chopped

Brown chicken in oil. Mix beer through salt together and pour over chicken, braise covered for 30 minutes on stove or in oven. Remove chicken, add onions, mushrooms, and garlic, plus sriracha to taste. This is your sauce, cook it down for 10 minutes or so. Put chicken back in skillet, place under hot broiler to crisp up skin, flip chicken, do other side, serve over rice or noodles, scatter with plenty of scallions. Serves 4.

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haagse stuff.

Bourgeois/Bellmer in Den Haag. Two uses for cheap carrots.

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szechuan carrot pickle.

500gr carrots, julienned
1/2 cucumber, diced large
4-6 tbsp rice or apple cider vinegar
2 tbsp sesame oil
1 tsp szechuan peppercorns, pulverized
2 tbsp peanut oil
4 szechuan chiles, crushed
salt
scallions or cilantro or both

+++

roasted carrots.

500gr carrots
2 tbsp olive oil
1 clove of garlic, smashed
salt
pepper

Roast at 200C for 45 minutes, turning every so often. That's it.

+++

bargain huntaz.

Spine-tingling toast! Carrots are on sale at Dirk this week. Carrots and apples. What to do, what to do.

+++

moroccan carrot salad.

500gr carrots
3 tbsp green olives, chopped
2 tbsp almonds, toasted and chopped
juice of one lemon
2 tbsp olive oil
1 or 2 tsp harissa
pinch cumin
pinch cinnamon
salt and pepper
cilantro

Peel carrots, leaving 1/4 inch of stem attached. Cut them in half lengthwise and boil until tender in salted water with a crushed clove of garlic. Drain and cool to room temperature. Toss them with a little ground cumin, paprika, and salt, and a pinch each of cinnamon and cayenne. Toss together with lemon juice, olives, almonds, olive oil and chopped cilantro,and set aside to marinate for at least an hour before serving.

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dirty ape flavour.

We saw Attila the Stockbroker downstairs last night, wouldn't have guessed that it was my kind of thing but imagine a hard old Billy Bragg/hooligan hybrid playing a giant mandolin...how could you not be swayed.

+++

Decided to get serious about a home backup strategy, bought my first 1 terabyte hard drive, an amount of data that we used to use as a futuristic example back in the 1990s, as in "well it's not like a home user is ever going to need a terabyte of data for anything anytime soon, hahahahaha."

Of course this was before any of us had any practical experience with even a gigabyte of data, when laptops had 80MB hard drives and Windows could be installed (and reinstalled, and reinstalled, and reinstalled) from 6 floppy disks. The real engineers among us (as opposed to my "sham engineer" status) talked about Moore's Law, and how it would persist into the 21st century, and people would eventually consume terabytes of data. But it all seemed like fantasy to me, further evidence of the miraculousness of my managing to be anywhere near the bleeding edge of The Internet Revolution.

So anyway, now, at home, we're kind of trying to neaten up our hard drives so as not to back up huge random piles of useless crap, and for me that means deleting lots of pictures that don't seem to be useful for anything, or posting them here and then deleting them.

Below, tasting better than it looks: this morning's huevos rancheros amidst a pile of one-room apartment debris.

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kale frittata.

Trying to eat our way through Dirk's bargain leafy greens, this was a nice change from my standard egg repetoire. We also did it again with escarole/andijvie and that was a totally acceptable variation. Basically caramelize onions to whatever degree you prefer. Then set aside and saute the greens until tender, 6-10 minutes, then add a pressed clove of garlic, turn to low and saute for a minute or two, being careful not to burn garlic. Reincorpoate onions, salt and pepper everything, adding nutmeg and paprika if using. Add cheese, then eggs, and finish. Serves 2 to 4 people, depending.

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kale frittata with smoked goat cheese, gorgonzola, and caramelized onions.

1 small onion, chopped/sliced
1 tbsp butter or ghee

2 cups kale/boerenkool or escarole/andijvie, chopped, blanched
1 clove garlic, pressed

5 large eggs
black pepper
possibly nutmeg, and possibly 1/2 tsp smoked paprika
3-4 tbsp smoked goat cheese or possibly smoked mozzarella, grated/crumbled
1 tbsp gorgonzola, crumbled
salt to taste

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back to normal.

OK, OK, this is good...two or three days in a row of "feeling like blogging". I was getting a little worried.

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Non-food moment 1: I inadvertently bought the wrong deodorant and now I no longer smell like myself. I keep having the sensation that I'm wearing someone else's already-worn (but not stinky) shirt. Disconcerting.

Non-food moment 2: if you've been reading this blog regularly at all, you know that, back in the typically difficult summertime timeframe, we had a brush with somehow thinking it was a good idea to talk about personal things in a straightforward manner around here. That feeling has mostly passed, probably because the difficult summer months are over and our needle is out of the red. 

But one artifact of that whole episode is that "the line", you know, the line that if you crossed it things would be different, that line has been pushed further out, or in, as the case may be.

So, for example, now I can casually tell you that I read these two articles almost back-to-back last week that provided sudden and useful insights into my own psychological issues, more so than months of "professional help" has been able to do, and I can tell you this without really agonizing over whether or not it's TMI, because...well, it's not. 

Parental/spousal/friendal advisory: just because one of the articles has the word suicide in it and the other one is an interview with a person who may or may not have just committed suicide, this does not mean that it's time to hide the sharp objects. I promise I'm mentioning these not as a cry for help, but because they really were extremely accurate and helpful, and as you know, I like to recommend helpful things. 

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as big as my arm.

This looks pretty unassuming. But it's something I'm going to keep making until I get tired of it or I can't find daikon anymore. This sounds familiar, I know.

I guess you'd call it chicken and daikon soup/stew. Basically chicken soup with carrot and daikon as the featured vegetables. But you dress it like pho, so: scallions, cilantro, mint, and a squeeze of lime if you want, followed by the appropriate amount of sriracha. You almost don't miss pho anymore.

Now we're making Elana's pumpkin bars. Nice to be cooking with the squawker again.

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UPDATE: By popular demand, more deets on the soup. I didn't include a recipe b/c this was basically an inefficient kind of improv thing.

What I did: I made a neutral but delicious chicken soup, with 4 liters of water, a whole chicken, onions, celery, and carrots, seasoned only with salt and black pepper. Maybe there was a clove of garlic. Oh and there were definitely 4 or 5 uncut chiles in there, the ones I think of as "Szechuan chiles", about the size of your pinky, dark red, not scarily hot. When the soup was done, I took the chicken out, ate half of it, shredded the rest and put it back in the soup.

That was Day 1. Day 2, I ate it as regular chicken soup.

Day 3, I had this big fucking daikon that needed using, so I cut half of it into cubes (I pickled the rest via Momofuku's recipe), probably 3 cups' worth, and added a little water to the leftover soup and simmered this new version of the soup for about 45 minutes, until the daikon was totally soft. Oh yeah, I added four more little carrots as well.

To bring this new version up to taste I used soy sauce instead of salt, maybe 2 tbsp, you could probably use fish sauce as another interesting variation. At this point, it's ready to go, served with plenty of chopped scallions, mint, and coriander. And the sriracha bottle.

Next time I try it I'll probably add some whole aromatics to the initial broth and remove them afterwards, I'm thinking lemongrass, ginger, turmeric, or galangal would all be welcome additions.

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circular.

So, I'm reading the weekly sales flyer thingie from our local grocery store, the Dirk (that's what we affectionately call it, Dutch people never seem to do this, or do they), because, you know, times are tough, things are tough all over, etc.

So I'm standing there like a 75-year-old man reading the sales insert, and...there are maybe...75 things on sale (75 is the only exaggerated random number I'm using today). There are two fresh vegetables on sale. One is escarole. The other is pre-chopped kale in a bag.

I know what they want me to do with these, but I'm not going to. Let's think of some other ideas for these two. Otherwise it's going to be a long winter. Caldo verde and white beans + escarole spring to mind, and sound pretty good, assuming I'm allowed a tiny grating of manchego on top. 

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(the next day)

I awoke after a TERRIBLE dream, one of these performance anxiety/fear of public failure dreams that I occasionally have, but this was the worst one in a while, basically revolving around me being unable to gather all of the equipment I need to set up for our theatre piece, and the clock ticking.

They normally last about 150 dream minutes (2 x 75), but these minutes seem to go on FOREVER, with me constantly struggling to stay focused and look for the things I need, constantly fending off obstacles, while I know someone is waiting for me at the venue.

This time the obstacles were mostly friends/acquaintances showing up out of nowhere wanting to talk, like "so, hey, man...how's it been going." And I'm like: "Hey, man...(rummaging around)...ehhhhhh.....it's....ah, OK....(rummage rummage) hey, sorry, I really have to find this tiny RCA-to-1/4-inch adapter, maybe you can help look for it? Actually, there are two of them. You don't have any gaffer tape, by the way, do you? I'm also looking for a yellow balloon if you happen to see one. And a watch battery for a kitchen timer."

And they're like, "Yeah...I can help you look, no problem....so, I just got back from London...and I ran into Gavin...do you know Gavin? He was that guy from the thing that what's-his-name set up over at, uh...um...the place, that place called, ah...fuck, with that asshole bartender! Jesus, that guy was a douche..."

Meanwhile, I'm (rummage rummage)ing and can't find ANYTHING, hindered dramatically by the sloth-like speed at which I'm moving. In my versions of these dreams, the 2 x 75 minutes in question typically span from just before the time we're supposed to be soundchecking to just past the time we're supposed to go onstage, normally ending with me miraculously only having half my gear and still not being at the venue yet.

So I woke up panicked and exhausted and realized we didn't have any milk for coffee, and I thought again about the kale. And I had a vision of a frittata, one with a kale-almond pesto, caramelized onions, and a little roquefort. I wish the cosmos would find a less traumatic way to tell me these things.

UPDATE: I made caldo verde for breakfast, minus sausage. It was totally delicious: lots of garlic and a pow! of smoked paprika being the kickers.

commence relaxation period.

It remains sad but true that I have not one iota of interest in blogging at the moment. Why ees thees? We just don't know. I am the complex organism. 


Mara is back from her Brief Test Thrust with the band this week, having made a quick dip through Luxembourg and France, and apparently it was all a smashing success, so she leaves again tomorrow for a UK jaunt that includes Leamington, London, Manchester, Glasgow, Cardiff, Bristol, and Nottingham. 


I myself am enjoying a couple of days off after a couple of weeks of semi-intense sonic development that, hey, resulted in two very different but pretty satisfying shows. So I'm cooking a bit: roasting a chicken this very minute, and before that I made some red sauce for I don't know what, and started the days' cooking adventures by braising a big old honker of a daikon in dashi for a kind of soup. I always buy daikon whenever the Maroc/Turk (I've given up keeping track) has one because it's versatile and healthy and very cost-effective (one the size of your arm for a little more than a euro).


After I braised my daikon (euphemism alert), I picked up Momofuku to see what Mr. Chang does to his daikon, and it turns out we do the same thing (I imagine this is also euphemistically correct, generally speaking).


Fascinating story, I know. What else is happening, Peter. We just watched the first half of Mad Men Season Two, I must say it seems a bit scattered in terms of its atttention span and pacing, but maybe that'll change. 


OK, well, yeah! You know sometimes you call a friend and they don't have anything to say and don't really sound like they want to talk? I mean, I hear that this kind of thing happens. It's a bit like that. 

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get it off me.

I'm pretty sure this is the kind of status update I don't need to give, but in the absence of any other status changes, it's like this: Still spending days in the always-entertaining rehearsals for the thing we call Hardly, which plays at Bellevue in November. We're simultaneously trying to remember how it works and then improve it without breaking  it, which is a delicate operation.

Beyond that? Nothing much, other than gaining weight. Looking forward to upcoming days at home and not eating like an idiot.

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lost, found.

Above: sunset Monday night on the way to check out Theater Bellevue.

Nothing happening here, getting ready for gigs and trying desperately to reconnect with MFSDxiv. I think I've finally gotten over my "I must eat as much bread as possible to make up for the bread I didn't eat this summer" phase. It was great while it lasted, this phase.

Oh yeah, those stolen recordings? Found. Guy who got robbed found his machine for sale online, bought it back, memory card was still inside with recordings on it. Don't have any more info regarding the obvious question: did the guy bring the cops with him when he went to buy it back?

Probably not, because he's a fellow immigrant, and we like to have as little contact with the authorities as possible. I was just imagining what kind of revenge I might personally go for, and I came up with "bringing a live beehive with me to throw at the thief", which if you know me is almost the least likely scenario in the world (I hate bees).

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honourable mention.

Dinner at Marius last night, preceded by a drink at De Gouden Real and followed by Zattes in front of the fireplace in our backyard under the sushi tent.

+++

inception.

Finally went to see Inception yesterday at Studio K in the Oost, and I must recommend the entire experience. I think it was the loudest yet best-sounding movie I've ever seen, and looked amazing too. Go to Studio K.

But don't order any food before the movie unless you're there really really really early. We ordered a piece of cheese with a red onion compote, and within a half hour it still hadn't shown up so we left without it.

After the movie instead of not eating a piece of cheese with red onion compote, we went to Langendijk for a hamburger that our own Klary Koopmans had recommended as being "not bad at all".

We had some beers and split the burger: totally delicious, we wished we'd each had our own instead of splitting one. As a caveat, they were not exactly like your standard American cheeseburger: bun was crusty instead of soft, meat was highly seasoned, there was a garlic mayo on the side, mature Gouda under the patty, no ketchup bottle on the table, etc. But very good nonetheless. Next time we should really combine it with a trip to their next door neighbor:

+++

My last post was cryptic to the point where I got a couple of emails about shit not making sense, so I shall elaborate:

1) Gig recordings: I had a gig Monday, a pretty good one we all agreed, considering we'd never played together or talked much about what we were going to do. I think what cursed us was when O.J. came up to me after and said "sounds like you guys got a nice demo now". Mere hours later, the guy who did the recording had his bag stolen on the train to Den Haag, recorder inside, recordings still on it.

2) Sgrafitto Putti and Spider Ptomaine were aliases that Mara and I used for a few years after the Stein Club Orthographic Meet (spelling bee) in 1996 or 1997.

3) Mara is also The Brown One (although sometimes I am referred to as The Brown Man). She is most probably going on tour with The Ex as their Merch Monkey for a few weeks in England, Scotland, Wales, and France. Aside from the wonderful bonding experiences that can develop on long van rides through Europe, this also means cash flow, and...we poor, so fingers crossed.

speechless.

I just found out that the recordings of last night's gig were stolen. WTF.

+++

Above: the view from our window.  I wish this picture had sound so you could hear the drumming and ululating that was going on. 

Still not blogging, obvs. Still in the grip of unusual angstlessness. Maybe it's this new hash I'm smoking. But maybe it's other stuff!

There is a whirlwind of activity ahead for Sgraffito + Ptomaine (our buddy-cop movie aliases) : I'm working on preparing for these gigs and other stuff, and it looks like the brown one is heading on the road for fun and adventure (and, crucially, cold hard cash) with Ze Ex.

i and i heart silsi.

Not much blogging going on, it's true. Usually that means something not so good, but it's not like that this time. Not sure what it is, maybe the actual vacations we had this summer? Spending money we didn't have? Or maybe it's an unusual amount of upcoming gigs? I don't know, but whatever: my mood is proving uncharacteristically resilient and chilled out.

Below: I meant to include this with the tej post but I was too hungover to think straight. This is Emma's silsi recipe, transcribed by her in Ethiopia and translated and healthified a tiny bit by me (oil reduction). Even though we haven't officially tested this recipe, Emma has made a couple of mindblowing versions of it when we've been over there for parties, so yeah. It should work.

And here's Emma:

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silsi.

1.5 kg onions
a bunch of garlic, at least 1 head

sunflower oil (this is the way they do it in Ethiopia, but olive oil is also fine)
small can tomato puree
1 to 2 healthy tbsp berbere, maybe more

1/2 tsp rosemary, minced

a pan with a thick bottom

1 tbsp lemon juice

salt to taste

Peel the onions and process them to a fine dice in a food processor. Peel garlic and add to onions, giving them a couple of pulses in the processor. Caramelize the onion garlic mixture in a good bit of oil, for at least an hour. When onion mixture is soft and golden-brown, add the berbere, tomato puree, and a bit of minced rosemary. Simmer for at least 30 minutes, making sure it doesn't burn. When it's done, stir in a tbsp of lemon juice. Serve with injera.

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this is heartily an innovation.

Above: somewhere high above sea level in Sardinia.

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Made something out of leftovers tonight that unexpectedly smelled and tasted exactly like pepperoni pizza, and well...I'm pretty sure that's enough reason for me to want to make it again. I think I'd totally even serve this to a guest, probably over a short pasta like penne, and I'd betcha they'd be scratching their heads while they finished their plates. Hilly and/or Noodle, you should make this.

UPDATE: I just finished another batch, and its pepperoni pizzaness is still strange and wonderful, and completely the result of the green olives as far as I can determine. I can already tell I'm going to keep making this until I'm sick of it. At least as long as the Dirk has 75-cent fennel.

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roasted fennel gratin with tomato, almonds, green olives, smoked cheese.

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2 bulbs fennel, sliced 1/4-inch thick

2 cloves garlic, crushed

olive oil
a little salt

1 cup all-purpose homemade tomato sauce aka red sauce

1/2 cup smoked goat cheese, diced small
1 cup mozzarella, torn to fucking shreds

1/2 cup or more almonds, toasted, coarsely chopped (I do almost a cup)

1/2 cup or more green olives, coarsely chopped

1 tbsp lemon zest, minced

pecorino or manchego, grated

black pepper, ground

salt, shaken


Combine fennel, garlic, and oil and roast uncovered in a 190C oven for 45 minutes to an hour, stirring every 15 minutes or so. You're looking for soft and caramelized.

Combine roasted fennel mixture with next 5 ingredients, stir to incorporate thoroughly. Taste for salt and pepper. Then, yeah, put this mixture back in the roasting pan, add a dusting or more of grated pecorino or manchego on top and bake for another 15 minutes or until the cheese is melted. Like I said, this would be great with penne or another short pasta, but we just ate it out of the pan.

UPDATE: This is totally great with penne or another short pasta.

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all work and no play makes jack a dull boy.

This is tej. Emma made it for the CD release party at Fenan this week. She made a lot of it. After a lot of tej, a bara and a Coke is the breakfast you want the next day.

















After that, you're better, but still all you're really equipped to do is take pictures of your cat looking at baby pictures of herself.

super duper weenie.

This is not a weenie at all, it's lamb kefta. Made by me, and very delicious, I would like to do this again.

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BYOHS.

Back on MFSDxiv. Which was actually THE most successful diet I've ever undertaken. I lost more than a few kilos. Didn't look totally gross and blobby at the beach. Felt good. Now wearing clothes that haven't fit for years, thus validating my having kept them around. Learned how to use some new ingredients, made some pretty tasty food. So I'm back on for a couple months. Exceptions would be upcoming dinners at Fenan Klein Afrika and Marius.

Critical Success Factors: 0) no alcohol 1) no sugar 2) no grains 3) no eating after 9pm 4) daily exercise. Go me.

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Another Critical Success Factor would be 5) developing a homemade jerk seasoning recipe that didn't have any sugar in it. Tonight, just getting back into MFSDxiv, I marinated some Cheap Dirk Fish in Walkerswood jerk (2 tbsp Walkerswood to 2 tbsp olive oil to 600gr Alaskan wild salmon, do NOT add any additional salt) and broiled for 20 minutes. A little too long, but this fish isn't good enough to eat underdone.

I ended up with a completely doable Jerk Product that was enjoyable as it was, but would've been way more enjoyable if I knew that it was completely in line with MFSDxiv.

So I try to recreate from scratch.

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skeletons.

This is a lament.

It's awkward and more than a little depressing when what seems like a very natural friendship goes badly awry.

Let's say you get to know someone over the course of a few years: you're good buddies, maybe not hanging out constantly but seeing each other at least a few times a month, and when you do you're always honestly happy to see each other, and you have fun very easily...it's obvious that you really like each other, and this in itself feels like a rare and real thing.

Then, something unexpectedly important comes between the two of you, and everything changes quickly, maybe even violently. Unpleasant things are said, in public. To the extent where you can't (or at least shouldn't) be in the same room with each other, and you quickly enter a mode where you decide which social outings to attend based on whether or not this person will be around.

WTF happened? This being uncharted territory, many, many hours are spent at home analyzing the situation without any kind of peaceful state being reached. After several months, it's at least finally possible to attend the same event as long as you don't really acknowledge each other's presence. This stupidly goes on for months.

Time heals all wounds, they say. After a couple of years, the monumental issue that divided you has become a completely boring and accepted fact of life. At some point someone apologizes sincerely for the strife, and a deluge of reciprocal apologies follows. You even begin to tentatively experiment with social interaction.

And yet...you never really recover. It's never like it was. It's OK, you can talk, maybe even laugh a little together, but it's all way too careful, tragically superficial. You never even come close to re-establishing that unguarded, playful thing you had together.

Probably the least satisfying resolution to this situation would be that the person in question dies without the two of you ever even almost getting there. Which, yeah, just happened. There are many sides to her story that are immeasurably more tragic than this one, but this is really the only side of it that I myself can tell anymore, and I wish it weren't like that but it is.

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