Yakety-axe

Jeez, I've wanted one of these for a long time. Maybe since I saw James Burton backing up Ricky Nelson on the Ozzie and Harriet Show. The show ran every week on television from 1952 until 1966. And at the end of each episode, Ricky would come out with his band and do a song. And in the band behind him, on the Fender Telecaster, was James Burton.

There were great guitar players back then like Chet Atkins, and Les Paul, but they were for the older folks. There was Scotty Moore, Elvis Presley's guitar player and a giant, but he played more Merle Travis-style swing-style guitar. And Chuck Berry, who wrote so much of the elementary guitar book, but he played a horn-based kind of rhythm and blues. James Burton, on the other hand, rocked. And he introduced me, and the rest of the world, to the Telecaster. Over time, the Telecaster evolved to be the sound of country music, that high mid-range, snappy kind of sound that everyone calls "twang".

And now, some fifty years later, I got me one. A Fender American Special Telecaster. Made in the USA. Gloss sunburst finish with a maple neck and Texas-style pickups.

Do I need one? No. I guess I feel that if you've wanted something for 50 years, and you can give it to yourself, you might just as well go ahead.

Now I gotta get busy and start a country band.

Stranglehold of death

Someone told me once that the word "mortgage" is from the French and means "stranglehold of death". Well, yesterday afternoon I went to my bank and withdrew money from my savings (that was paying me .5 percent) and drove over the local branch of US Bank and paid off my (5.5 percent) mortgage. In full.

So now, my little strangleholders...I own my house. Free and clear. There are now no bankers, stock brokers, debt traders, mortgage companies, real estate agents, lien holders or other low-life bloodsuckers involved in my personal business.

P.S.
I also own my car. I also have no credit card debt.

So, to you...you so-called financial wizards who brought this country to its bloody knees, you who heartlessly drove people from the homes you cheated them into buying and then put them and their children out on the street...you who traded and sold our hard-earned gains like baseball cards...you who created an unprecedented toxic environment of unemployment and deep, ink-black depression...to all of you pencil-dicks in your bad-fitting suits, tasseled cordovan loafers and stupid ties...to all of you I would like to just say, not in a nice way...

..."Go fuck yourselves."

A-1

Yesterday was my birthday. Sixty-four years old. Which inevitably brings to mind the song, and consequently curiosity regarding the answer to The Beatles in-light-of-the-current-situation-really-not-all-that-rhetorical question..."Will you still need me?/Will you still feed me?/When I'm 64?"

Well, I received sixty-plus birthday greetings from friends from all around the world via Facebook and in my e-mail box. Which really was quite special. And I was treated to a truly incredible Japanese dinner dinner and sake by Hollie, in the company of my daughter Zoe and bf Ryan, at Amu, an izakaya in Boulder. Note the mysterious, and wildly appropriate, writing that appeared magically in a bowl of soy dipping sauce. A deus ex machina comment on the day.

And then I was taken back to Hollie's house, fed champagne, the tasty ice cream roll-cake that Hollie made at my request, and showered by very cool gifts...books, folk art, cooking machinery, and more.

So, will I be needed and will I be fed when I'm 64? The answer apparently is...yes.

And now...my favorite birthday song, "Have a Good Time" by Paul Simon.

Yesterday it was my birthday,
I hung one more year on the line.
I should be depressed
'Cuz my life's a mess,
But I'm having a good time.

A wild and crazy guy

Yes. My close personal friend, Steve Martin. We chat frequently, mostly via Twitter.

He posted something the other day and I erroneously schooled him on his punctuation. I mistakenly believed that "correctly punctuated" should be hyphenated. I was then myself schooled by Hollie and some other person who's name I can't remember, and was directed to the Chicago Manual of Style for verification. I was wrong, and stand corrected.

What follows is a verbatim exchange between my close personal friend Steve Martin and myself from Twitter, the afternoon of October 21, 2010.

Steve: Today is get it right Friday! In an earlier tweet, someone pointed out that “correctly punctuated,” should have read “correctly-punctuated.”

Me: That was me. I was proven wrong, according to Chicago Manual of Style

SM: Evidently, that someone was wrong. So "get it right Thursday!" starts off with a bang!

SM: Get it right Friday to become regular feature every Thursday.

SM: So it's correct to say, "Chicago Manually of Style?"

Me: If correctly punctuated, yes.

SM: Am checking Tri-County Area Manual of Style. Very adamant about capitals beginning sentences, or at least being second letter.

SM: Tri-County Area Manual of Style also suggests, for clarity, inserting Arabic numerals when spelling them: Fo4ur. Fi5ve. Six6ty-Sev7en.

Thanks, Steve. Talk to you soon.

Failure is not an option

Wrong.

I made this dinner for Hollie and I the other evening that sucked. It was some magazine recipe. I clipped the recipe out and it sat around and I kept looking at it and the accompanying photograph looked so good I wanted to eat the paper. But I didn't. I cooked the recipe instead. At some expense, I might add. And in hindsight I should have eaten the fucking paper.

But, it was something new and I tried it and it failed and I will try more new recipes because what I really like about cooking is trying new things to see if I can make them, or at least learn the technique. And I don't even get flustered anymore when they don't work because I know that my local is right down the street, less than a block away. And if it's really that awful, I can chuck my efforts in the dustbin, take a short walk down to the corner and be eating a hamburger inside of twenty minutes.

But we ate the bloody mess anyway. And I was thinking later that ten years ago I might have seen what I made as a success. So my standards have risen as, to some extent, have my abilities. And if you watch competitive cooking shows, which admittedly I do, you see that anyone, on any given day can screw the pooch.

So, you know...onward.

Gadzukes! at the Jamestown Mercantile

Interesting gig. The tiny mountain town of Jamestown, Colorado is a throwback. Pot smell filled the air. Lots of big dogs wandering in and out. Abundant dreadlocks. But also well-dressed people with nice homes in the hills. It's kind of hippie/kind of 1980.

Our host, Rainbow (I don't make this stuff up, folks,) was really nice and although we were billed for most of the week as Gadzucky (wtf? Rainbow said someone asked her if we were Russian,) the sign was changed by the time we got there. It kind of seemed like no one was paying attention at the beginning, but the crowd warmed up, people danced and there was a full tip jar by the time we finished. We played pretty well despite being squeezed into a small space with a marginal PA. Got lots of nice comments from folks and invitation to come back.

By the way, the stars at night up in secluded Jamestown were worth the drive.

Le baguette

Tiring of no-knead bread, I decided to make some real bread.

Made a starter with yeast, flour and water. Let it sit for 15 hours. Made dough. Let it sit 75 minutes. Knead it for ten minutes. Let it sit for 45 minutes. Rolled out the baguettes. Slashed them with a serrated knife. Baked for 30 minutes on an oven stone in an oven pre-heated to 500 degrees, then reduced to 450.

First starter attempt. Fail. Not enough water, or maybe weak yeast. But my second try turned out fine. Nice, crispy, chewy, airy baguettes made in my new baguette oven form.

Voila. Madames et monsieurs...le baguette.

Ropa vieja

Old rags. A great cuban dish made with peppers, onions, an average cut of meat like flank steak, lots of garlic, tomatoes, capers, and spiced with cloves, cinnamon and bay leaves. The meat is cooked for hours and then shredded with two forks, thus the "old rags". Rice, beans and a couple of warm tortillas. It has a surprisingly, nutty flavor...perfect for a cool fall day.

This recipe can easily be cut in half, but I like the leftovers. here, try it yourselves.
http://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/ropa-vieja-with-capers

The raw and the cooked

Lately I've not felt like doing this blog business. But nonetheless, I have been cooking and eating, in no particular order...a veritable cornucopia of hot dogs in Chicago....polish sausage for breakfast at Ronny's in the Loop...homemade moon pies in my kitchen...paella, gazpacho, and some chocolate deal for dessert for eight on the patio...spaghetti vongole at Club Lucky in Bucktown... scallops caprese on the grill...dim sum at Star Kitchen...the tasting menu at Black Cat in Boulder, courtesy of Hollie..croque monsieur tartiflette with bechamel sauce...a food cookoff at Kusmanoff's avec a hookah pipe, and tonight, my daughter's birthday dinner at Colt & Gray.

I'm having dreams about being a pastry chef. And I keep buying cookbooks, for some reason. And I wish I could get better at cooking, for all my books and bookmarks. I think about it too much, and I don't do it enough.

That's all.

Sweet Home, Chicago

Please refer to me for the next four days as "The Man Who Ate Chicago". Thank you.

Bucket of steamahs

I had visions of great meals on a recent business trip to Boston. But I ended up with shitty crew meals on my film shoot, a not bad but in retrospect, average steak frites at Bistro Jo, way too expensive and not terribly well done modern Japanese at Uni in the Eliot Hotel, and a shrimp pasta dish at Legal Seafoods that featured a bed of pasta so poorly cooked that I ate only the shrimp and the lonely cherry tomatoes.

But I have this Proustian memory of the steamed clams with drawn butter that I had at the Amaro household some 40 years ago. The daughter of Portuguese-descendants, my friend the lovely Stephanie Amaro had married a jerk that I worked for. Circumstance dictated that we had dinner one evening at her parent's rambling house in Ipswich near the beach. The succulent, dug-from-the-sand-that-day Ipswich clams, steamed and served with melted butter have stuck with me lo these many years.

So I ordered them at Legal Seafood. And they were pretty good. Sitting at a small table, looking out at the indoor mall, the Hello Kitty cart, and the passing throngs of Japanese tourists and fat, fanny-packed pre-Red Sox game Bostonians wasn't quite the same as sitting around the Amaro's long, noisy, family dining-room table in Ipswich. But the clams, fatter than the delicate Ipswich clams I remember, were good--tasting of the sea with that faint sandy grittiness that means it's for real. The drawn butter, spiked with the lemon wedge that it came with, made it all work.

And Hello Kitty notwithstanding, I got a flash of that magic thing that food, like a song on the radio or a scent on the wind, can do. Which is to not only fill your belly but to transport you to another place. And another time.

Steak frites

Brasserie Jo at the Collonade Hotel on Boylston Street in Boston. Al fresco. Steak frites with red wine butter. Red Sox fans walking by. Boston Brahmins in preppy shoes. Skinny jeans guy with a guitar case. Neighborhood couples pushing strollers. One a woman with cerebral palsy. Pushing a stroller. Mooks with Lucky brand tee-shirts and cargo shorts, their girlfriends in nice dresses and impossibly high heels. Couples riding bicycles. Duckboats lined up in front of the Cheesecake Factory across the street. And me with my steak frites.

My friend Maia tells me there's a Jasper White Summer Shack down the street. I've heard of him. He supposedly does great East Coast seafood, raw bar, oysters, and stuff. So if I can ditch my clients and co-workers, I'm going to live there the next two nights. So...you know...stay tuned.

When the rain comes

Uke fest cancelled. The rain came in around 4:00pm and it rained in sheets for some time. Not the usual four minute Colorado late-afternoon summer rain, but your proverbial torrential downpour. Around 4:30 Dave MacIntyre showed up at my door.He reported that the stage was wet (a deal-breaker for me as I'm not getting up on a wet stage and holding an electrified instrument in my little hands, thank you very much) and the town was reluctant to let its PA system be set up in the rain. Nancy showed up and we spent a half an hour calling musicians and spreading the word. Oddly, everyone is available for the scheduled rain date, September 2nd.

Lyons uke fest update: Moved it to September 2nd and a good time was had by all. Got dark too fast and the Lyons Hawaiians, god bless their pointy little heads, jumped into the crowd and played their hapa swing acoustically. By all accounts and reports people liked it. I think next year just one or two groups. End of that story.

Of course, the rain stopped shortly thereafter and while the skies looked threatening, it didn't rain another drop all evening.

Lyons uke fest

This evening is the first Lyons Uke Festival. My band, Gadzukes!, together with Chris McGarry, Nine Dollar Shawl, and Rue with David Ritchey will attempt to wow the crowd with ukulele pyrotechnics. Hundreds of thousands of people are expected, so come early, bring a chair and prepare to be astonished. At the Sandstone Park stage, 6pm to 8:30. And best of all...free.

A hamburger today

A pre-rehearsal cheeseburger with my friend and First Wednesday band-mate John Goggin as Oskar Blues in Lyons. Not much to say hamburger-wise, except that I'm always proud of myself when i forego the french fries and get a side of coleslaw, which of course is only marginally healthier. but it feels healthier. And more fiber-ey. But my rumination today is on the art of rehearsal.

It's my contention that there is no such thing as a bad rehearsal. Even if many of the players retain only 5% of what we learn, we're 5% farther along than we were before we started. My First Wednesday band is definitely making progress. We learn songs more quickly. We hardly ever argue about arrangements, chord changes, etc. We freely pass on advice, tips, etc. to the other players. (My only concern is that I'm too bossy, but i guess i figure that someone has to step up be bossy and it might just as well be me, since I lead the band on-stage anyway.)

Last night we learned two of Dave's songs ("Up On Cripple Creek" and "Down To Seeds & Stems Again,") one of Josh's (Robert Cray's Phone Booth) and went over some of the ones we had issues with. All in all, it was satisfying. More satisfying than the cheeseburger with cole slaw.

Tastes like chicken

Because it was chicken. Grilled bone-in breast with garlic rub, corn on the cob, new potatoes. Zzzzzz. I told you I was going to record what I ate.

Regarding the image to left, I once got a birthday card with this cowboy and rooster on the front. Inside it read, "This man has a big cock."

Le fish

We caught a bunch. That's Peter on the right. He likes those grey sleeveless t-shirts. Me, I'm a white t-shirt kind of a guy. That's me on the left.

Small world

It's got me thinking. Not that's it's any big news or anything, but these days the world is pretty freaking small. It's those darn Internets.

My lovely daughter Zoe, of whom I think the world, has a blog. It's very fun, very much about vintage fashion (but lots of other stuff, too). She's part of a community of mostly women who blog and post images of their vintage fashion finds and how they wear them. In a matter of weeks (well, a month or so by now,) her blog has gone from a handful of people (me, my girl Hollie, Zoe's man Ryan, and some others,) to hundreds of followers.

And Zoe mentioned my blog on her blog, and now people have visited my blog from her blog. Like this lovely girl SecondSkin, who left some great comments about what I'm doing and how she's trying to get her dad to blog. Next thing you know, he'll be blogging, and we'll all be reading and digging what he has to say.

My conclusion? I don't have one, except that this makes me happy. Happy that I'm writing. Happy that Zoe is writing. And Hollie is inspired to start back up. And that SecondSkin is writing, and working on her dad to write. Why? Because I guess I believe that writing is a good thing. And it's a good thing to share what we do with other people.

I grew up in an era where we wrote things on paper and put a stamp on them. And I'm only somewhat nostalgic for that whole business. I like these Internets.

Fishing in the rain

Not making dinner at home tonight. Off to fish the north fork of the St. Vrain River for the first time this year with my friend, Peter. And then we will likely grab a bit of dinner out afterward.

It's only the second time I've been fishing this season. Peter and I fished the Big Thompson River just below the dam, east of Rocky Mountain National Park, in later June, but the spring run-off was still in full force, and that, combined with wily fish that have seen it all, we ended up skunked.

The St. Vrain, here in town, was good to us last year. One magical evening this past summer we fished until it was so dark we couldn't see our hands in front of our faces. It was literally a "fish-every-cast" evening. That spot has since been fenced and posted. But Peter rents a house from one of the fellows who owns that stretch of property along the river and we are alleged to have fishing rights. "Well see," said the blind man.

Update: and now it's raining, so worst case...dinner.

Royale with cheese

I had a rehearsal in Denver last night so i ate on the run. A #1 combo from Burger King. Why, I can't really tell you. I know this food sucks. That's it's the kind of corporate fast-food garbage that is killing people. And is everything I hate about the global food industry.

But I'm in late. I'm hungry. It's cheap. And, inexplicably, the shit tastes good.

But the rush of the salty fries, the mayonnaise-ey hamburger, the tingle in the back of the throat from the sugary soda does not outweigh the waves of guilt that wash through my brain. And the extra layer of fat that gets added my already disgusting waistline.

Picnic

Hollie and I had a wonderful picnic Saturday evening on the University of Colorado campus before seeing Shakespeare's "Measure for Measure". I had nothing to do with it. Hollie made delicious pineapple-lavender coolers, pimento cheese spread finger sandwiches, and panko-fried chicken. All Hollie. Idea. Tickets. Picnic. That's my girl.

The play was interesting. A sort of tragic-comedy with the Duke assuming the disguise of a friar, a bed trick where females are swapped in the dark, and retribution for the bad guy.

Funny that on the way out, as we were leaving the balcony, I looked down to see our fellow food group members, and my co-worker, Jason Kusmanoff, with his wife Ashley, leaving on the main floor. And carrying a cooler. Turned out they had gone to the same play and had a picnic beforehand.

Hollie made baked eggs Sunday morning using black tomatoes from her garden. Delicious and relaxing. Reading the Sunday NY Times on her deck.

Honey-glazed Asian pork tenderloin

This turned out quite good. I'm a savory kind of guy when it comes to my entrees, and typically don't like sweet except for dessert. But on Friday, Hollie and I demolished a one pound pork tenderloin cooked with a honey-five spice-rice vinegar and hoisin sauce marinade.

An interesting technique, the recipe called for cooking the tenderloin for 20 minutes in a 400 degree oven on a wire rack over a roasting pan with an inch of water, and then basting it while it cooked on a stove top grill pan for another 20 minutes.

I grilled some vegetables as a side and made a roasted garlic dressing for the salad We ate al fresco, even though it's too damn hot to be outside. But it was nice. Orange supremes, fresh strawberries and mint with agave and a squeeze of lime for dessert.

Apparently...

Apparently, I suck as bad at playing golf as I do making sushi.

Actually, I may play golf slightly better. I played yesterday at Sunset in Longmont with Peter Maves and Jon Snyder. I flailed early on, but at one point did par two holes in a row and bogeyed most of the rest. So I guess that is, in fact, better than my sushi rolls.

In keeping with my attempt to record what I ate, I had corned beef and cabbage at the Irish pub, O'Shay's in downtown Longmont.

And tonight Hollie and I are eating at a new Chinese place in Boulder, Zoe Ma MA (?).

Time flies when you're having a good time.

Jeez. I just looked and saw that my last post on this blog was in the winter of 2006. Since then, the top ten, in some sort of order:




1. My daughter moved back.
2. I found Hollie.
3. I released a sort of critically-acclaimed CD
4. My company moved to Denver.
5. I've almost paid off my house.
6. I've been to Nicaragua three times.
7. My daughter became a style icon.
8. I'm four years closer to retiring.
9. We elected a Democrat. A black one, at that.
10. I bought three ukuleles, one amp, and one guitar.

Sushi fail.

An attempt at sushi rolls ended up like most of my attempts at sushi rolls. Lame.

Possibly I didn't let the rice cool long enough. Possibly the rice sucked in the first place and cool or not, would result in failure. The rice was too glutinous, too sweet, and thick. This produces a fatter, not particularly appetizing roll. Maybe I need a class. For sure I need a bottle of rice seasoning.

It was edible (with overdose of soy sauce and fake wasabi,) but only barely. Sigh.

Louie Blue-ey

Truly one of the greatest musicians who ever lived. This, my friends, is Louie Armstrong's kitchen.

Why I'm starting to write about food again

Today, in the New York Times there was an article about a woman who started a diary in 1998 about what she ate for dinner every day. I'm looking for a book topic and I'm stumped, so I'm going to borrow her idea and start writing about what i make for dinner and hopefully, about food in general again. Maybe something will come to me.

(I've bailed on my stagiaire.org website and i'm going back to my first blog (bad_guitar) as a kind of fresh start.)

I bought my umpteen-thousandth cookbook the other day--yet another Asian cookbook--and it told me (they do talk to me. In fact there's a book...What the Cookbook Told Me To Make,) to make sushi. (By the way, a book about cookbooks is also high on my list. I certainly have enough of them to be at least more of an expert than most people.)

I had thrown out my sushi rice during an infestation of pantry moths a year or so ago, so I drove to Boulder for a bag at the Asian market. Some young kid was behind the counter instead of the Wicked Witch of the East who usually is there. A sour, middle-aged Asian woman, she's not had a nice word for me in 15 years of shopping there. So a good omen for my sushi, which I need, since I've never been all that good at it.

So tonight, I'll try to make sushi and hopefully start posting more consistently about what i cook--and why.