These are election beans for three reasons:

1. They offer a nutritious meal for about $1 per serving, which is handy if you’re not in the 1%.
2. They can sit in the oven for hours while election coverage drags on; indeed, they’ll be better if Ohio is still being disputed three days later.
3. [insert beans/hot air joke of your choice here]

You’re almost dreading what I’ll propose as election music, aren’t you? Parody is offensive; seriousness is divisive. Art is… well, art’s not uncontroversial, but it’s often allusive and enticing enough to give something to chew on (other than undercooked beans, a fate we’ll try to avoid).

The Mynabirds’ (official site) jumping-off point for its sophomore album Generals (buy on iTunes) is art: notably, Richard Avedon’s photograph The Generals of the Daughters of the American Revolution. This does not mean that Generals is going to be Americana, though there’s a good deal of clapping and a few moments that have the resonance of spirituals. It’s unabashedly a pop album, not averse to some queasy electronic discord. In places, it has a beat and can be danced to. Upon reflection — Generals is what you’d get as a soundtrack if David Lynch made a war movie (and is probably the best case for why Lynch should do this). Since I’m about to go track-by-track (as a bean-counter should), people who are averse to impulse buys  may want to queue up Spotify and share a listen.

Read the rest of this entry »

For $1, you can help start a new record label.

This is Eklektic Gardens (ChipIn site with explanation, Tumblr with music and video), a project of electronic and spoken-word musician Conscious Walker (Twitter, blog, Soundcloud). $1 is the price of a lottery ticket, and I figure the odds of a serious indie musician with a network of fellow musicians being able to do something interesting are better than the odds of my winning Powerball.

An auspicious dish for launching a new business venture is Hoppin’ John, which is traditionally eaten on New Year’s Day to bring a prosperous year filled with luck. Since one of Conscious’s projects is Leave the Animals Alone (site with music links, Tumblr with animal content), it seems safest to make a vegan version of Hoppin’ John, and it seems appropriate to give it a contemporary twist or two. There will also be a sweet corn pudding.

Start as many servings as you like of dark rice according to the package instructions (I’m still working the Black Japonica) and let’s start with musing a bit on labels and checking out music samples from Conscious Walker and some of his friends. Read the rest of this entry »

A sudden urge to make tamale pie is not a source of pride. Tamale pie is among the most Americanized of pseudo-Mexican foods, with the bonus onus of lacking the hipster cred that’s been accrued by giant corporate burritos.

Your mom probably made tamale pie. Mine didn’t. Mine made the similar recipe that involved Fritos.

However, tamale pie links two ideas that had been on my plate. One is the monthly Top 10 Workout Songs from Run Hundred (site so you can vote!), which reliably includes something musically provocative. This month, the ear-catcher was a punk remix of Nicki Minaj’s mega-hit “Super Bass.” Meanwhile, Maura Johnston’s 11 Most Infuriating Trends of 2011 had called out white people revamping urban radio hits. In general, I value trend-watchers’ insights because my bent is for short, intense projects, not for longer-term absorption of the zeitgeist. This one, though… we gotta talk. Let’s start with the Nicki Minaj original. Read the rest of this entry »

This chili will clear your sinuses.

That’s kind of the point, thanks to my current bout of snuffliness.

Chili is more an event than a recipe, but my version of Tyson’s black-and-white chicken chili provides a handy excuse to talk about Switchfoot’s recent album Vice Verses. ‘Cause, you see, the theme of the album is how “every blessing comes with a set of curses,” so we have black and white, and the chili has black and white beans…

It seemed brilliant when I thought of it, ‘kay? And no, I do not have an assigned symbolism for the jalapeño. Be grateful I didn’t throw in any yams. Shall we? Read the rest of this entry »

Since I’ve been planning to explore Middle Eastern food, I was delighted to find a little falafel on my Secret Recipe Club assignment for September, This Is How We Eat.

Site owner Laura is a major olive oil afficionado, so it seems appropriate to cue up the Olive Oil Jazz Band (lots of Youtubes here) — but don’t get attached to the band, as the recipe goes lightning fast.

Also don’t expect me to say much about jazz, as I lack even the scant beginnings of a clue. I’m still trying to figure out why this jazz band appears to be in Italy. Read the rest of this entry »

At 114 degrees with crushing humidity, one starts to wistfully contemplate the cuisines of peoples of the Mediterranean crescent, who not only endured a hot climate before air conditioning, but who summoned the energy to start Western civilization. Let us hum a few bars for hummus!

Actually, let us come out of the pleasant haze created by immersion in LastFM and Spotify, a combination that allows me to get music recommendations from people who like what I like (but who put a lot more time into seeking new music), try whole albums before I commit my limited budget, and listen casually to music that isn’t getting radio play locally. Or let’s start with my first LastFM discovery, which wouldn’t have been a surprise if I watched TV, but I don’t, so it was. Read the rest of this entry »

I owe some cows an apology.

For some time, I’d been intending to tackle vegetarian Mexican to accompany a recommendation of Rodrigo y Gabriela (listen). The food hadn’t been cooperating. I’d been postponing listening to the music until I had the right menu, which turned out to be a mistake, as now that I have, within half a song… I might have been outright purring. This Spanish guitar playing is so splendid that I might also have found my matts and hairballs disappearing.

In any case, I’d also not grasped that Rodrigo y Gabriela’s support for animal rights includes the right of the cow not to have its bodily fluids appropriated for human use. At the same time, the bowl enchiladas turned out rather well, and the cheese isn’t essential to the effect, so to the cows… [small voice]… I’m sorry. Shall we? Read the rest of this entry »

Saturday afternoon when one’s immersed in small containers of acrylic paint is an excellent time for comfort food.

Saturday afternoon when one’s neighbors insist on belting easy-listening hits of the 1970s with just enough syncopation (or forgotten lyrics) that one starts to relax, only to be blindsided by the lesser works of Diane Warren, calls for heavy metal.

And I don’t even like heavy metal. I also don’t much go for the big-band stylings of Frank Sinatra. So when AOL Music announced a listening party for Sin-Atra, the tribute album in which heavy metal heavy-hitters howl themselves blue in the face over Ol’ Blue Eyes’ repertoire… it was kismet. (listen). It’s just the thing to accompany chilaquiles. Read the rest of this entry »

Comfort food awaits. This is my fourth rendition (but first admission) of a recipe for turkey chili that I now can’t find, but since Googling indicates the proportions are pretty standard, I’m not going to sweat it. (Indeed, sweating it would have required being more generous with the chili powder.)

Although I’d started the chili before this tweet about chili as comfort food, it seems appropriate to pair it with the latest music from the author of the tweet, Neal Tiemann, and his bandmate Andy Skib. Performing as The Midwest Kings, they’ve release an acoustic album, The Sanctuary Live Sessions (sample here, as well as link to buy), that consists of 10 moody indie rock tracks stimulated by complex guitar notions and lyrics that make my wildest flights of metaphor sound prosaic. Most of the songs have been available in more standard rock form for a while, but I’m not going to compare standard and acoustic versions, as I’d like to think this album is more than a curiosity for existing fans. Shall we make chili? Read the rest of this entry »

How difficult is it to invent a multi-ethnic taco? A couple days back, a discussion on Freakonomics argued whether the Korean taco should have patent protection, with one of the issues being ease of taco creation versus ease of, say, drug research.

Since this taco is youthful and multi-ethnic, let’s queue up a band that fits that description, notably Young the Giant (listen), which I saw as the opener for Steel Train on Wednesday. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s time to start giving a box score on how many of my World Cup Food Challenge entries contain yams versus how many contain bananas.

Do not be misled by the lack of visible bananas. I came down with the notion of memorializing the Australia-Ghana match with giant banana jaffa cakes, using shortcake cups. When I say “kids, don’t try this at home,” I’m serious. But the survivors of the experience include a Denmark-Cameroon blackeyed pea soup and Netherlands-Japan cheesy potstickers chips, along with Dutch indie pop band The Sheer (listen), the 2004 winner of the Zilferen Harp for contributions to Dutch culture. As a break from multicultural influences, there will be no clogging in wooden shoes, nor does the band sing about windmills, tulips, or James Ensor (no, wait, he’s Belgium’s famous painter). Read the rest of this entry »

Look at those glossy boneless, skinless, featherless, characterless chicken breast strips! Could they… taste like food?

They could. They stand up against my hot sidedish variant on black-bean-and-corn salad. Since the key ingredient is lime drink and the “salad” is sultry, today’s act is Shwayze (listen), a hip-hopper so hot that the song about impulsive intercourse in uncomfortable locations is the one not labeled “explicit lyrics.” Read the rest of this entry »

Bet you never knew black-eye peas were brought to the American South by Sephardic Jewish immigrants who settled in Georgia and were accustomed to serving the dish for Rosh Hashanah. (Yes, Wikipedia and I have been playing footsie under the dining table again.) I guess this makes them “soul food” in more ways than one.

These black-eye peas are about to become a side dish in a nice Southern fish fry, and in keeping with the soul food theme, we’re going to take a listen to some of the projects co-written or produced by Tennessee’s Sal Oliveri, whose background runs heavily toward Christian pop. Read the rest of this entry »