Sometimes a recipe is so resilient that even major screw-ups don’t prevent it from turning out tasty.

Appropriately for a hard-scrabble land of Appalachian make-do, it’s the West Virginia recipe that proved itself a survivor. My goal was to make Perfect Pepperoni Rolls from Chickens in the Road’s recipe. Imperfections turn out to be surprisingly undaunting (and are going to contribute to a really nifty bread loaf tomorrow). So let’s celebrate with A Little Nosh’s Tastetastic Thursday, where most people’s recipes go right.

In a similar feat of lack-of-daunt, the Boston Phoenix’s pick for West Virginia, Logan Venderlic (Bandcamp) turned out to be a perfectly sensible and charming choice, giving an edge to the acoustic folk sound. So let’s dig about in the refrigerator for yeast and start with “Jerkwater Town,” which is about exactly what it says on the tin.
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Here is a brash bread that wants to be bruschetta.

Old Market Eatery (official site) in Brookings, South Dakota, offers the twin lures of New American food and live music every Friday night. So in honor of its commitment to local music, we’re going to make herb bread.

No, wait, the herb bread is in honor of Old Market Bakery’s Grown-Up Grilled Cheese. The local music featured tends to run toward the jazzy and/or “traditional pop” end that goes down easy with a smooth red wine, which is frankly not my taste. But then Jonathan and Jeremy Hegg (official site) mentioned that they’re releasing an entire album of songs about trains. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s hot, it’s luscious, and it’s on your dinner plate. Better yet, it involves cheese sauce and bacon.

It’s the Hot Brown, signature dish of Louisville, Kentucky’s Brown Hotel.

A Louisville dish called for a Louisville band. Number 42 on Reverbnation’s rock chart for the city is Thirty Spokes (official site), which characterizes itself as “roots rock” (e.g., “Americana with attitude and maybe tattoos” or possibly “Southern rock with more folk influences”).  Read the rest of this entry »

This is a banana. I don’t think it’s glad to see me.

My monthly email from Run Hundred about top workout songs turned up the gem that this month’s #1 workout song is an Elvis Presley remix. (Want the rest of the list? Subscribe here.)

Since this revelation led me into a wonderful and bizarre world of Elvis remixes and re-imaginings, it seemed appropriate to pair it with a modernized version of Elvis’ favorite nosh, the peanut-banana-bacon sandwich. Thus the banana. Slice it into coins and get ready to boogie to the King. (It’s safe to cook during the first video, which has no visuals.) Read the rest of this entry »

So terrified am I of frenching my toast that it took me two weeks after Slashfood’s feature of the croque monsieur to tackle making one.

If you’re thinking that the only sign of ham in this picture is how much the sandwich is mugging for the camera, you’d be correct. This is croque seigneur, which consists of roast beef, prawns, cotija, and onion relish on Swedish rye.

This polyglot variant on traditional French bistro food can only be done justice by music from a French-speaking polyglot region: Québec. It’s time for Loco Locass. Yes: Québecois hip-hop.
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