It's incredible how quickly this first year has gone. From lump to person.
It's incredible how quickly this first year has gone. From lump to person.
Share a recipe for your favorite summer drink.
In addition to Nicole Atkins...
My album of the week: Nicole Atkins's Neptune City, which has accompanied me all of this week on my various commutes to work. I love it all--it's like listening to ABBA and the Pretenders at the same time, or something.
I have a lot of favorites, though the one I keep coming back to today is "Neptune City" itself.
It's the maudlin in me, I guess; the ones that clings to nostalgia: "Maybe if I paid attention / I could learn to love the landscape I was born to." Anyway, it's a gorgeous song, as is the album.
]]>Anthony Bourdain, in a wonderful rant about the Food Network:
]]>There's last year's Great Hope, Guy Fieri, who reminds me of the "Poochie" character in the classic Simpson's episode where it is decided that Itchy and Scratchy need a "hip, in-your-face, pro-active" new sidekick to bring in a younger demographic.
And, as a final something for 2007: Wu-Tang Clan's "Campfire" (listen), track one from 8 Diagrams.
A very sobering and (dare-I-say) mature kung-fu sample; an incredibly spooky sample of the Persuasions' cover of Curtis Mayfield's "Gypsy Woman"; and an absolutely killer verse from Method Man to get it started.
Not a bad start to an album that's growing on me very quickly.
]]>Favorite books:
Some of these were published in 2006, but when reading I'm always behind by at least a year, I figure--so I think it's safe to say that these were my favorite books that I read in 2007 (hey, they all start with "M"!):
The following twelve songs are my personal favorites for 2007: they're the songs I most enjoyed and that, out of sheer narcissism, I suppose I'd classify as "best", whatever that means. More than anything else, they're the songs I'd like to listen to most, right now.
Some notes:
In alphabetical (essentially unordered) order:
I love this quote (among others) from a 1996 interview with David Foster Wallace:
And I know that when I started this book I wanted--I had very vague and not very ambitious...ambitions, and one was I wanted to do something really sad. I'd done comedy before, I wanted to do just something really sad and I wanted to do something about what was sad about America.
Which "this book", i.e. Infinite Jest, definitely is, i.e. sad, and which reminds me--again--that I really want to re-read it. One of these days, I guess.
(via Jason and Daring Fireball)
What's your favorite thing to drink when it's cold outside?
Over the last couple of weeks, I've really been enjoying an occasional Red Hook cocktail, which I first read about on the Cocktail Chronicles, and then again on gumbopages.com (which is also where I found the sazerac recipe I'm most fond of).
It's rye-based, so a perfect warming drink for a chilly fall evening. Yum!
]]>The Red Hook Cocktail
(by Enzo Errico, Milk & Honey, New York City)2 ounces rye whiskey
1/2 ounce Punt e Mes
1/2 ounce maraschinoCombine with ice in a mixing glass and stir for at least 30 seconds. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass.
Audio: What's your favorite carol or holiday song?
Without a doubt: Price's "Another Lonely Christmas".
I must admit that I'm still a little thrown by the pokeno & banana daiquiris, but that said, this is my #1 when it comes to Christmas songs.