Cookin' W/ Sharon' : Sharon and her Dap Kings on IFC's Cooking with the Band

So being related to both food, one of my very first blog posts, and one of my favorite bands I was super excited to hear that Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings would be making an appearance on IFC's new show with LES tattooed hipster chef Sam Mason  called "Cooking with the Band".  Food and music, together? Like that would ever be interesting... What type of twisted individual would ever think of syndicating a show focusing on two such disparate topics?  Well the Village Voice didn't much care for the new show, calling it "the end of reality cooking shows or the death of indie rock or both".   Really Village Voice? I mean really?  Frankly I would expect more from the Voice.  Indie rock has clearly been dead for at least a year.  And who ever said they had enough of Padma Lakshmi?

Well anyway, being a fan of the band (I know admittedly little about the guy they are cooking with, besides that I always go running past his restaurant, W-50,  on Clinton St.), I certainly enjoyed the episode although I would have preferred that Sharon or some other members of the band had shared their own recipes instead of just kinda awkwardly standing around.  I learned a few things too from the show.  For starters I never knew that drummer Homer Steinweiss has a food blog and I am definitely going to use my food processor to make a marinade out of cilantro at some point in the near future.  Anyways, my business is not in TV reviews, so my advice is to check out the article and video preview on the New York Times website.

For your enjoyment I am going to put up the song that got me hooked on Sharon Jones oh about two and a half years ago.  This song is, in my opinion the best protest song I have ever heard from this past (understatement) tumultuous decade entitled What if We Stopped Paying Taxes?  Also coincidentally I ran into my friend Evelyn who works at Human Rights Watch and gave me their new fundraising cd entitled Causes 2 produced by the record company Waxploitation (of Danger Mouse and Gnarls Barkley fame) which includes a new track by Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings, covering Bob Marley's tune It Hurts to Be Alone.  This is a great new little number.  I don't think that Sharon has the best vocal performance on this one but there is most definitely something about those horns. The thing about the Dap Kings, being a great band, is that they always pull through.  Yes, something about those horns indeed...

The Momofuku : David Chang

Meet David Chang.  I mentioned one of his many east village establishments not too long ago, Momofuku Milk Bar, with their very delicious pastries and cereal milk soft serve.  A new "it" chef, of sorts, in New York City, Chang is quite the character.   This is a great video of him getting drunk, eating korean fried chicken, and then cooking up some munchies... its as good as it sounds. If only they could find someone. in addition to Anthony Bourdain, to do this on T.V.



David Changs Pork Recipe (From video)

"A couple teaspoons of salt

Some black pepper

And a couple hours of don't fuckin' worry about it."

Roasted Pumpkin and Fingerling Potatoes with Thyme and Black Mission Figs

So this is a riff on a recipe I got from my old Harmony and Counterpoint professor Jairo Moreno, who you may remember from my roasted chicken post. He mentioned the original pumpkin free recipe in class last fall and I have been trying to make it for some time, but I must admit finding all the proper ingredients all in one trip to the grocery store is a little tricky. Even the humongous Whole Foods on Houston St. has fingerling potatoes only sporadically, and happening upon a pumpkin, especially small enough to not be eating pumpkin for the next two weeks, forget about it... Luckily if you want to whip this up in a flash you could use any gourd or small baking potato you prefer though I have to say that the fingerling potatoes have a suppleness and a certain bite size elegance hard to find in other varieties.

The original recipe I heard from Jairo didn't have the pumpkin but a few weeks ago I was invited to a pumpkin food party, and with the right pantry items on hand, I couldn't resist myself.  This is a perfect fall meal.  Hearty, rustic, and elegant this dish would be sure to impress next to your favorite roasted pheasant or quail recipe.  Come on, you know you are tempted...


Fingerling potatoes
Dried mission figs
Oolong Tea
Thyme
Olive Oil
Salt

Boil and prepare the tea in enough water to cover all the figs.  Cover the figs with hot tea and keep submerged till enough tea has been absorbed and the figs are turgid such that they will stay moist during cooking, this should take an hour or two.  Preheat oven to 400.  Put figs in baking pan w/ potatoes (cut lengthwise in half if you prefer) and drizzle with olive oil.  Add salt and thyme, then mix till seasoned evenly.   Bake at 400 till potatoes are for tender (around 45, probably more)

Bulgarian Choral Singing

So I apologize about not posting much this semester. Ever since I lost my big desk, started guitar lessons, and cancelled my Facebook (I highly recommend it, but if you don't care to thats cool too) I haven't been spending much of my free time on the computer.  Needless to say I still have been accumulating sonic and culinary goodies to share with you, my digital friends.  Now procrastinating on a Celtic music paper, I feel inspired to make a quick post.
This friday I met with my thesis advisor to talk about my project on the Old Town School and my plan for next semester.  When I got there I heard some really intriguing and entrancing music coming out of his office.  Being a scholar of post Soviet Russian and Eastern European music, Martin was just showing a fellow music major some Bulgarian choral music, and invited me in to listen.   He explained that the classically composed music I was hearing is based off of their traditional musical language but has been gaining larger recognition in the folk and art music world of late.   So I thought it would be nice to share some with you.
The singers that you hear are all trained to sing in the traditional Bulgarian style in a conservatory setting,  as opposed to the classical conservatory one would find in "the west" .  You can tell that their tone is brighter, sharper, and pure.  I am no expert on Bulgarian singing but this sound is most likely achieved maintaining their tongue much more forward in their mouths when they sing and using more of their "head voice" (though I would imagine, sufficient support from the diaphragm is needed to not ruin ones voice, head singing as its called can be quite tough on the vocal chords).  The music is marked  Also what is strange about the music, as mentioned before is the meter, this first song is  in 7/16.  This means that there are 1 + 3/4 quarter notes per measure,  which means in short pretty weird.  See if you can tap it out on your foot, its difficult. I think it should go "One, two, three; one, two, three, four" with the emphasis on both ones.  The second one sounds much more classically western, I don't really like it as much but its still good.