Grand Rapids....come for the churches, stay for the Nascar and Deer Hunting.
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
P.S....
P.S.
For me it was a yellow squash sauteed in a skillet with some fresh thyme and butter, and a ribeye with some garlic and olive oil. Oh, and all of Bonnie Raitts records set to shuffle.
I'm not exactly sure when it happened, but life got busy for me a while back. I think it was several years ago, but it could have been four or five years ago...I'm not sure. I don't have kids so it wasn't the whole children thing that made life busy. I think it was a combo of things. Pool league (I shoot a wicked game of stick) combined with ballroom dance class with my better 3/4, throw in some freelance work a couple nights a week, add a splash of event du jour and all of a sudden the calendar is full. Suddenly I realized I was looking at a calendar (which I NEVER used to do) to figure out when I could get together with friends or family. (By the way, when I say I, I usually mean we, but I'm just so used to typing I that I think I'll keep doing it.).
Every once in a while though, I (not we) find myself with a little spare time on my hands. Like tonight. My better 3/4 has a latin dance class. Now before anyone says: "well why aren't you at the class with her?", let me just clarify that its a latin dance aerobics class for chicks only, so I'm exempt. Plus, I did my ballroom thing last night and I'm plum rhumba'd out. Anyhooo....I thought I would share my recipe of my evening with you.
I'll call it.....What to do with your time when your better 3/4 is at a Latin Dance Aerobics Class.
I will begin with a prerequisite: Put on your favorite music really really loud.
Now the steps.
First..... go to your local libation purveyor.
Second.... Buy some red wine.... and some vodka.
Third.... Go to the grocery store and buy a steak (or some chicken or some fish.) Also buy a veggie like broccoli or asparagus or yellow squash or whatever.
Fourth: buy a sweet potato. THIS IS A VERY IMPORTANT STEP ( the sweet potato part)
Fifth... Go home....uncork the wine....make a vodka tonic.....marinate your meat. Peel the sweet potato. Oh....and preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Have a sip of your cocktail. Turn up the music.
Sixth Take a piece of aluminum foil.... I would say one that is 2 feet long. Lay it out on the counter. Slice the sweet potato into thin slices. Have a sip of your cocktail.
Seventh Place a few dollops of butter in the center of your foil...your objective here is to make a little line of butter dollops to lay your potato slice on.
Eighth Lay your sweet potato slices on top of the butter dollops. I like to do mine like a card dealer does in vegas....ya know how they fan out the cards? thats how I like my potatoes to look. Have a sip of your cocktail.
THEN...drizzle a bit of sesame oil on top of the taters. THEN, drizzle some soy sauce on top of the taters, THEN, sprinkle some sesame seeds on top of the taters. THEN, make a little foil packet out of the whole thing. I recommend bringing the top and bottom ends together and folding down, then crimp the ends a bunch of times so the juice doesn't leak out.
Ninth Place the packet on the oven rack and bake for 45 minutes.
Meanwhile, finish your cocktail and have another while preparing your steak and vegetable.
Tenth Cook your steak ( or whatever meat you're preparing), then cook your veggie. These two steps don't matter at all. Its all about the sweet potato.
Eleventh Take your foil packet out of the oven, carefully open it, and get a whiff of the goodness that has been trying to escape that aluminum prison for the last hour. (You lost 15 minutes cause of the cocktails.)
Twelfth Pour yourself a glass of wine.
Thirteenth Eat, Drink, and be merry
Don't worry about being a member of the clean plate club...just eat all the sweet taters.
Finally....throw on some flannels and a t-shirt and call it a day.
I love this. Every year someone emails it to me, and of course, it's purported to be this years' results (kind of like the darwin awards emails you get every year claiming to be this years winners)
The deal is, you have to take a word, and add, subtract or change one letter to form a new word with a new definition.
1. Bozone (n.) The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.
2. Cashtration (n.) The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period.
3. Giraffiti (n) Vandalism spray-painted very, very high.
4. Sarchasm (n) The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.
5. Inoculatte (v) To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.
6. Hipatitis (n) Terminal coolness.
7. Osteopornosis (n) A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.)
8. Karmageddon (n) It's like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's like, a serious bummer.
9. Decafalon (n.) The grilling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.
10. Glibido (v) All talk and no action.
11. Dopeler effect (n) The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.
12. Arachnoleptic fit (n.) The frantic dance performed just after you'veaccidentally walked through a spider web.
13. Beelzebug (n.) Satan in the form of a mosquito that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.
14. Caterpallor (n.) The color you turn after finding half a grub in the fruit you're eating. And the pick of the literature:
15. Ignoranus (n): A person who's both stupid and an asshole.
I decided to try my own, and chose a word from this mornings Yahoo News Headlines. The word I chose ... obesity." I'm going to add an S to the beginning, and capitalize the first three letters, so it reads like this:
SOBesity (adj.) the disease of being both overweight, and a son-of-a-bitch.
Yeah I know it doesn't EXACTLY adhere to the rules, but I still thought it was kinda funny.
Anyone care to add to the list? Bet we could come up with some doozies.
Finally! I got tagged. I am no longer a meme virgin.
Four Jobs: Graphic Designer, Tech-crew at the Aspen Music Festival, Interviewer at the Institute for Social Research (most bizarre question I had to ask? Would you say you abuse your spouse a) once a week b) once a month c) less that once a month or d) more than once a week?) and bartender.
Four Movies I Could Watch Over and Over: Blue Velvet, Reservoir Dogs, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Run Lola Run
Four Places I have Lived: A. White Plains New York, Ann Arbor Michigan, Ypsilanti Michigan, Grand Rapids Michigan.
Four TV Shows I Would Love to Watch: A. The Daily Show, Jeopoardy, Northern Exposure, Twin Peaks.
Four Places I have been on Vacation: Tuscany, Aspen, Bahamas, Toronto
Four Websites You Visit Daily: Zilla, Pokerroom, Yahoo, Huntington Bank
Four of My Favorite Foods: Steak, conch fritters, pesto, zagnut bars
Four Places I would Rather Be: Massage table, Pool table, Dinner table, Bed
Four Albums I Cannot Live Without: A. Steely Dan - AJA, Miles Davis - Kinda Blue, The Band - The Last Waltz, Talking Heads - Fear of Music
This saturday I turn the big 42. Friday and Saturday I will be attending the Ann Arbor Folk Festival. I can't wait to hear some Dieselbilly! I'm stoked. Plus, the "Wayne Gretsky of the ukelele" is playing.
Check out this incredible 2 night line-up!
Jan 27th, 7 p.m. Tonight's headliner is the Robert Cray Band. Cray is a popular, multiple Grammy-winning singer-songwriter and guitarist whose soulful mix of R&B, blues, and rock played a major role in the 90s resurgence of roots music, especially blues.
Also appearing: Iris DeMent, a huge local favorite making her first Ann Arbor appearance in more than 3 years, is a country-folk singer-songwriter who writes simple, affectingly homespun lyrics about lust, forgiveness, heaven, home, and other fundamentals, and she sings in a warbling, pure soprano that soars and dives with a captivatingly unforced emotional authority.
The Greencards is an acclaimed Austin-based Australian acoustic bluegrass trio.
Catie Curtis is a singer-songwriter from Maine, known for her expansive, soaring vocals and percussive guitar style, who writes engaging, down-to-earth songs about the pleasures and tragedies of ordinary life.
Blanche is a Detroit country-punk band led by the husband-and-wife duo of Dan and Tracee Miller.
Bill Kirchen and Too Much Fun is a band from Washington, D.C., led by Ann Arbor native and former Commander Cody guitarist Kirchen, that plays a rowdy mix of rockabilly, honky-tonk, blues, swing, and truck-driving songs that critics have dubbed "dieselbilly."
Ray Bonneville is a blues and country-rock guitarist and harmonica player from Montreal known for his raspy, laid-back vocals.
James Hill is a young Canadian ukulele virtuoso - "the Wayne Gretsky of ukulele" - whose repertoire ranges from traditional Hawaiian music to bluegrass, jazz, and classical music.
Emcee is Cheryl Wheeler, a versatile veteran singer--songwriter known for her hauntingly pure voice, biting sense of humor, and alternately poignant and whimsical songs about human relationships and everyday life. Hill Auditorium.
Jan 28th 6 p.m. Tonight's headliner is Lyle Lovett (see review), a Texas singer-songwriter who has established himself as one of the most inventive and original voices in country music since Willie Nelson. His lyrics are distinguished by their emotionally powerful down-home imagery, acidic epigrammatic wit, and subversively ironic playfulness, and his music and song forms draw imaginatively on several traditions, from jump blues, western swing, honky-tonk, and country waltzes to folk balladry and hipster jazz. He performs tonight with a trio.
Also appearing: Jonatha Brooke is a Boston-based singer-songwriter known for her quirkily sophisticated, fiercely unconventional pop-folk and her compellingly eccentric guitar playing.
The Holmes Brothers is an acclaimed Long Island band that plays churchy, emotionally charged gospel-oriented blues, at once down-home gritty and uptown silky, and often sung in close, tense 3-part harmonies.
Don White is a veteran singer-songwriter from Lynn, Massachusetts, who writes sharp-witted songs about everyday life that blend pathos, humor, and biting satire.
Wade & Julia Mainer are a legendary old-time mountain gospel husband-and-wife duo from the Blue Ridge Mountains who have lived in Michigan since 1953.
Adrienne Young & Little Sadie is a band led by Young, an up-and-coming young roots music singer--songwriter whose knack for writing songs that seem at once newly minted and weathered has provoked comparisons to Gillian Welch.
Caroline Herring is a highly regarded Mississippi-bred, Austin-based country-folk singer-songwriter known for her luminous, strikingly expressive vocals and her vividly etched songs about the everyday lives of people in the contemporary South.
James Hill is a young Canadian ukulele virtuoso - "the Wayne Gretsky of ukulele" - whose repertoire ranges from traditional Hawaiian music to bluegrass, jazz, and classical music.
Annie Capps is a local singer-songwriter and electric guitarist who writes jazz-tinged folk-rock songs with a strong personal flavor. She is accompanied by her husband, guitarist Rod Capps.
Name: Jonathan Home: Grand Rapids, Michigan, United States About Me: Just a guy who trying to eek out a living as a graphic designer in SW Michigan. See my complete profile
Name: Jonathan
