Sain't Christopher

Chow

Here's what's on the menu tonight, my South of the border tribute:

Sweet Garlic and Chipoltle Mojo Prawns

Duck Adobado with Pickled Melon, Cucumber and Radishs on Red Rice

Achiote Rubbed Pork Tenderloin with Corn-Peach Salsa on ReFried Black Beans

Sea Bass Vera Cruz
(Braised with Olives, Tomatoes, Capers, Fresno Peppers, Garlic, Onions and Lime Juice)

Veggie Enchilada - Smoked Potatoes, Spinach, and Cheese

Coconut Flan with Mangoes and Blueberries

Go in Peace

Slurp

This is what I'm drinking, in lieu of E&J, while listening to Hip Hop week on Fresh Air with Terri Gross:

1999 Schweiger Cabernet Sauvignon Spring Mountain District $48
Somewhat rustic, with a mix of rich, earthy, cedary, green olive, herb, mineral and currant flavors that are intense and well-proportioned, finishing with firm tannins and an herbaceous streak. Needs time. Best from 2005 through 2013. (89 pts WS)

Ah, rustic.  Remember growing up on the farm back in the '20s?  Everything all sepia toned, white people worked hard and got ahead, minorities knew their place, and we all listened to that new contraption, the radio? Me neither.

This is a Napa cab that decided to go for a Bordeaux style, guaranteeing them not to get a 90.  That said, I am really enjoying this bottle.  It's too young, to be sure.  Another 5 years will take the edge off and this will be a drink that will stand outside and above other cab releases from the same time and for the same price.

If this wasn't California, someone would have blended this with some Merlot, cab franc or other and really had a phenomenal bottle.  I didn't spend $48 for this, it came in the wine club for half that much and if I were a little more open minded I would have tried it in time to order more- as it is, it's sold out and I have to save half this bottle and figure out how to get a steak dinner tomorrow.

Go in Peace

Straight Faced

Heard on NPR today: It's Hip-Hop week on Fresh Air with Terri Gross.

No joke, that's it.

Go in Peace

Ensconced

Sitting in the kitchen of my place on Campau, The Dragon and I would debate all the world's problems.  He was always so convinced and sincere in his beliefs that I had no choice but to use unfair tools of rhetoric to keep up.  Music, the narrow world of rock, was a common thread that we both yanked and frayed. 

While he dropped in quotes from famous artists and philosophers I would make absurd statements just to get under his skin.  Really, I'd say, there's not all that much difference between a Lou Reed song and an Air Supply song.  And this assault on his sensibility would give us another half hour, to my amusement if not his.

Out of these arguments I came up with two fully articulated opinions that I carry to this day. 

The first goes like this:  Most people cannot distinguish between like/dislike versus good/bad.  That is, if they like it- it must be good.  I'll write more about that some other time.

The one I want to go on about today is this one:  Rock is becoming a codified genre like blues or jazz before it.

I was in the basement of the Blind Pig, trying to breathe thru my nose, talking to Dave Pirner and I told him I was blown away that they did Sammy Johns' Chevy Van.  He lit up, turns out we both had the song on the same K-Tel album and had both loved it.  This was at a time when most indie bands were copying the Replacements by doing half assed covers of '70s songs at the end of the set.  Until my chat with Pirner I believed that this was an act of cheap deliberate irony- kind of the equivalent of a stand-up comic doing a fart joke.  It had never occurred to me that they really loved these songs and it was a kind of homage.  The bands of my time grew up in the 70's and more and more often the Zeppelin and Stones crept into the playlists

Many of the original Punks drifting around Detroit knocked the young bands of the late 80's for just being faster versions of bands they rebelled against the decade before.  In my ridiculous argument with the Dragon, I rationalized that cliche's would eventually become conventions and that virtuosity in the medium would become more valued than flash originality or gimmicks.  It took two years but I finally pulled it together the summer before I moved out here.

Watch me, I'm gonna name drop again.

Before he moved to NY and achieved fame on the original run of The Real World, Andre' was an eastside kid with a band that wanted to play my club.  They sucked, as all beginning bands do, but they had a hundred kids willing to drop $5 each and that was enough for me.  Several times Andre' stopped by on off nights to flatter me under the guise of getting advice.  Well, if you buy me a beer I will talk for the length of that beer- it only seems fair.  He talked about how his band wanted to draw from the whole history of rock and not just be labeled as punk or rock or whatever.  Sounded good to me.  And it sounded right.  They played a sort of non-descript, slightly r&b laced rock with the expected changes, stops and even a cowbell.  It could have been tiresome had they not been so sincere in their love of the stuff.

The next time we spent a night going over it, I used them as my example.  Eventually we will have bands that are cumulative in their approach.  They will keep what works, transforming cliches into conventions.

Enough gin and anything can sound good.

Which brings me to the concert Saturday night.  Luke, KC, LJR and I went to see Tom Petty at the Greek.  The opening act was The Black Crows, exactly the sort of band I imagined years ago.  They were great!  For 90 minutes they rocked their brains out to mildly appreciative response.  A shame, given that a Tom Petty audience should be exactly the sort that would love them.  Petty, for his part, played a greatest hits set with his stellar band that was rock performance at its finest. 

G-L-O-R-I-A!

Petty may have been the first of the new traditionalists (if you're going to invent a school of criticism, you need a name for it).  At the same time he hit with his first album, the NY Punk/New Wave scene was going full tilt.  In the 80's he backed up Dylan, played with the Traveling Wilburys, and constantly paid respect to the rockers before him with inside jokes or even having a sitar on the tracks.

I'll go one further.  The same night we were in the incredibly uncomfortable Greek Theater (yes, your ass hurts after wards) Green Day won 7 MTV awards.  And if Green Day doesn't qualify as New Traditionalist I'll resign my bar stool.

8/27/05 Berkeley, CA #2 Set List

LISTEN TO HER HEART
YOU DON’T KNOW HOW IT FEELS
BREAKDOWN
DON’T DO ME LIKE THAT
FREE FALLIN’
RIP IT UP
I WON’T BACK DOWN
MARY JANE
I’M CRYIN’
BAND INTRO
HANDLE WITH CARE
HONEY BEE
KNOCKIN’ ON HEAVENS DOOR
MELINDA
LEARNIN’ TO FLY
DON’T COME AROUND HERE
REFUGEE
RUNNIN’ DOWN A DREAM
------------------------------------------------------------

YOU WRECK ME
GLORIA
AMERICAN GIRL

Go in Peace

Slurp

This what I'm drinking while sorting out two milkcrates full of scribbled recipes and notes:

2002 IBY Hochacker Blaufrankisch $13
Winemaker Anton Markus Iby is known for his reds, this Zweigelt (a crossing of Blaufränkisch and another Austrian red, St. Laurent) is the Austrian equivalent of a good spicy Cotes du Rhone. Lots of berry notes and mild tannins make it a fun summer wine when paired with foods from the grill. It is light enough for picnics, too!

This is a bottle that came to me through the mid-level wine club at K & L.  It is an Austrian wine made from blaufrankisch grapes and even coming up with that bit took some time.  I have no idea what most of the description words mean and wouldn't try pronouncing them unless I was just getting better from strep thoat.  That aside, this is an interesting wine that I would like to try again later.

KT and Trixie went to Austria a few years back, afterward they would pipe up "mit schvine?" at all meals.  Pork is the popular meat there, followed by lamb, common game, fish, and rarely beef.  Pork tends to be lighter and sweeter than other meats and the farmers sensibly raise the grapes that will make a suitable wine- mostly white.

Never having had the grape before, I hoped it would be made to compliment the native dishes rather than put out in a style for the International (American) audience.  The lable is very modern so I had my doubts (reinforced by the lone term Burgenland at the bottorm- sounds like an Aryan fast food joint, no?).  Instead, I was pleasantly suprised

It is a very full bodied wine with lots of good ripe berry flavors complimented with some dark spice notes.  There is a sweetness to it that allows for higher acidity, both qualities that would make this a great wine to pair with any number of non-beef dishes.

K & L is sold out, but they are on consignement so once the new release ships we should all hit the store like senior citizen smokers at a liquor store the day social security checks arrive.

Go in Peace

Slurp

This is what I'm drinking to forget this last week:

2000 Louis Martini Cabernet Sauvignon "Monte Rosso Vineyard" Sonoma County $24
This 100% Cabernet Sauvignon spent about 22 months in a combination of new French and American oak barrels. The Wine Enthusiast gave this wine 92 points with these notes: "Martini's flagship Cab is a blockbuster. It is exceptionally ripe, with lush currant and cassis flavors that have a laser-like concentration. There's a good deal of new oak, but the massive flavors are easily able to handle it. The result is a special success for this vintage."

TicketMaster sucks.  A thin excuse to drink, but after this week I would also hit the bottle because of my new sliver, the celebration of Hillary Duff debuting at #1, or as a reward for competently removing the cork.

Martini suffers from a bad name.  Is this the same Martini who used to work with that Rossi guy?  Maybe it's the Sheldon Leonard character from It's a Wonderful Life?  It just doesn't resonate in any positive way and this is a shame because there is nothing wrong with this bottle and I doubt that I'll sway those who all made faces when I suggested cracking this bottle over the last few months.  And that's how I came to be drinking this bottle tonight (not technically alone, you're here after all).

This wine only got 84 wine spectator points and if I were three glasses in instead of slowly working my way through the first, I'd go off all over again about the tyranny of the 90pt bottle again.  This bottle was originally put out there with a $50 tag and if you do the algebra of cost divided by taste equals worth I could understand some disappointment.  Replacing X with $24 and I got a different answer.

The wine is balanced, which is my key thing.  That means nothing overwhelms anything else.  Usually it is the tannins that trump all and that is probably why the fruit quality has been pushed so far forward- it's easier to up the fruit than try to balance the long complicated process.

Don't think there isn't a good amount of fruit here, just not "massive" amounts.  I am tasting nice blueberry and dark cherry flavors.  There is also spice and leather (not really, but the impression of leather) and that rounds out to a nice mouth full.  Not subtle, but just a satisfying experience all around.  I have no idea what the critic meant by "laser like concentration"- maybe it will play a cd?

Maybe we're drinking two different wines. 

Go in Peace

RF Loop

My senior year of high school I had a sticker on my notebook that read I'm So Bored With Detroit Rock Radio.  Not that I was hip enough to know where that came from or what the maker had in mind as an alternative . . . I just couldn't stand one more Seger tune.

Not that there's anything wrong with Rockin' Robert.

The disco backlash in Detroit was much more of an anti-intellectual, redneck movement than a statement of aesthetic belief.  I actually found a bulletin board post where some idiot claims that he is still proudly a member of D.R.E.A.D- Detroit Rockers Engaged in the Abolition of Disco. And like any fascist regime, there came a tyranny of narrow consensus that many willingly followed.  This meant that New Wave and Punk pretty much got swept away as well.  Instead, we got too much R.E.O. Speedwagon, sides from mediocre albums, and more Zeppelin than you could stand.  This from the city that proudly led the way in FM free form broadcasting with the old WABX Air Aces of the late 60's/early 70's.

Public Radio and college radio, a huge force everywhere else, was almost non-existent in Detroit unless you were a big fan of classical or free jazz.  In my early twenties, I wasn't.  So, when I moved to SF I thought I was in radio heaven.  Live 105 played songs from alternative bands, Jazz In Flight was an amazing show of new/old jazz, and KPOO was just frickin' weird and wonderful with its neighborhood requests mixing blues/hip hop/r&b and what not. 

Live 105 went metal within a year after I got here, Jazz in Flight got canceled and exists now as a great nonprofit but that ain't easy to listen to, and after a while you get tired of the three hour spontaneous Coltrane spotlights on KPOO.

And then I discovered NPR's local KQED (and Terri Gross) and it was all over.

Commercial radio really isn't worth mentioning except to point out that there is a huge number of people here way too self-satisfied with crap.  Exhibit A: KFOG

KFOG is really a classic rock station with delusions of eclectivity.  The ads brag about blues (3 songs at 5pm every day called The 5:01 Blues), reggae (Bob Marley and that Smoke Two Joints song that they play every Friday), acoustic (same artists unplugged on Sunday mornings) and 5 decades of rock.  All this they sum up as "World Class Rock."

Prophetess LJR has been telling me that when back in the homeland she only listens to WDET, a public station that used to lack direction in my day.  For a while I thought it was self-defense against the commercial stations which are uniformly awful (kind of the same as out here, but without the sense of irony when playing a SuperTramp song).  On my last two trips I have played almost nothing else in the cars but DET and it has been almost too good to be true.

I have always loved the variety of radio.  Back at the end of the top 40 days, CKLW could have a country song, an Motown tune, and a hard rock song one after the other and I loved that.  Niche marketing, of course, killed that.  And I've never been one to really listen to whole albums but once in a while- unlike KFOG, I don't think I have eclectic tastes, it's a short attention span for me.

As a kid I used to watch TV game shows with envy as Wink Martindale gave some lucky soul a jukebox.  Damn, that would be great to have all your favorite songs whenever you wanted or just mix them up . . . which is how I came to invent the iPod.

Since getting back I've been streaming DET almost non-stop.  Let's do a comparison, shall we?

10 Song Set from WDET's Liz Copeland

Ry Cooder- Muy Fifi
Neil Young- The Painter
Turin Brakes- Fishing For a Dream
Wynton Marsalis- Green Chimneys
Slicker- God Bless This Mess, This Test We Pass
Stooges- Down on the Street (original album)
Stooges- Fun House (take 3)
Brian Eno- How Many Worlds?
Cowboy Junkies- One
Terence Blanchard- The Source

And now from KFOG-

Rob Thomas- Streetcorner Symphony
Melissa Etheridge- Refugee
The Beatles- Revolution
Mike Doughty- Looking at the World
Wallflowers- Beautiful Side of Rebel, Sweetheart
Chris Isaak- Somebody's Crying
Led Zeppelin- Kashmir
DJ Harry- All My Life
Queen- Under Pressure
Doobie Brothers- Listen to the Music

Now, I'm not knocking the KFOG lineup (especially not the Queen song, I love that: dum-dum-dum-da-da-dum-dum SNAP!) I'm just saying that it I will take a pass because this is all too familiar.

Just to put things in balance, here's a photo of LJR and The Boon standing next to the sign telling us the Detroit Institute of Arts is closed for repair.

Go in Peace

Linky

What happens when you don't get everything done on your to-do list before you die.

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My favorite quote in this story about high-school cheerleaders who are too provocative: "It's not like cheerleaders are trying to get attention that way."  C'mon, getting attention that way is why you're a cheerleader and not studying interpretive dance.

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Here's a perk for all you Six Feet Under under fans.  There website has obituaries for all the remaining major characters.  I'll be borrowing LJR's box sets just as soon as I buy a TV.

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I lifted this directly from Kottke.org:
Astronomers have determined the precise location and time that Ansel Adams took a famous photograph of the moon in Yosemite National Park and are going to attempt to recreate the shot in September. The same forensic team has previously determined when Van Gogh painted "White House at Night".

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Whereas this I lifted from Miss Bridget: a blog post about the collective effort to humiliate the guy from Creed on a faux booty call.

Go in Peace

Slurp

This is what we drank (a small part of what we drank) on Friday at Kiernan's in Dearborn:

1994 Markham Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley
This seductive wine not only grows on you with each sip, it's a tremendous value, too. Its core of ripe, rich currant and black cherry flavors unfolds into a supple, polished texture, and the flavors are pure, focused and linger long on the finish--a most encouraging sign. Best after 2000. (92pts WS This wine was picked as one of that year's top ten releases)

There's a whole 'nother story about this night, but as far the wine is concerned it went like this: 

Kiernan's is a legendary steak house in Dearborn, MI.  Prodigals LJR and I were to join db and his lovely wife Karen for dinner there Friday.  Great, I thought as I packed up the wine bag for my trip, I've just the wine for a steak dinner, one I'd gotten earlier this year and been holding for the right dinner and the right people. 

We started out with cocktails and all was well (except for the martinis, which were call). After the next round more people started showing up and we ended up being a group of eight.  I haven't seen Matt Sage Esq. in 15 years and it was great that he showed; the same with Mike who brought his gal Susan, one of LJR's dearest friends.  It became clear that we weren't having dinner and I'd already had the bottle popped, so we poured.

Oh. My. Socks.

This was a great, great wine.  Deep, complex, perfectly balanced . . . this was the real deal.  The only reason I didn't take back everyone else's glass- I've got one more bottle in the lockup.  Really, it was a moment that wine drinkers (and those who remember the Lowenbrau commercials) expect but rarely get- the perfect time to share something special wtih the best people.

Go in Peace

Chow

And here's what was on the menu tonight:

Chilled Cauliflower Vichysoisse with Fresh Summer Truffles

Black Mission Figs on Summer Greens
Crumbled Point Reyes Blue Cheese, Balsamic Syrup

Portabella Wellington with Roasted Tomato Sauce, Sauteed Asparagus
(Vegetarian Option- Inside Portbella Mushroom, Spinach, Mushroom Duxelles, and Tomato Confit)

Seared Ahi Tuna with Tomato Relish
on Roasted Potatoes and Chinese Long Beans

Peach Tart Tartan, Tahitian Vanilla Bean Ice Cream
Sweet Roasted Peach Compote

Go in Peace