28 posts tagged “qotd”
Share a recipe for your favorite summer drink.
Lately, I've been enjoying a nightly Americano, made with equal parts Campari and sweet vermouth (I really like Vya), along with a splash of club soda and an optional slice of orange.
It's refreshing, but with a distinct bitterness, which I find I appreciate more and more nowadays.
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.
What was the best football highlight of the past week?
For me, it was going to the Raiders-Lions game last Sunday. Not so much for the game itself (though the seats were great, so it was incredible to see the action that close up) but for the spectacle of the people, the Raiders fans themselves. I thought we were getting there early (around 9:30/10am), but most of these fans must have been there for hours: they had giant RVs; they had grills that had been going since 7am, probably; and, of course, there was a lot of silver and black.
This photo doesn't really capture it, but it's all I've got.
What are your top 5 CDs/albums of 2006?
Submitted by eliz. s.
I guess I'll answer this now, although in theory, I'd like to wait until nearer to the end of the year, and I'd actually like to write something about each of these albums, &c. Well, and so, I've got 6, instead of 5. I did my best to narrow it down, but 5 is just asking too much!
What's your favorite heartbreak song?
Submitted by esta86.
Being a one-year-old regular blogger gives me the luxury of referring back to either this post or this post, both of which have some fairly good representations of heartbreak music.
But of all of them, I think Patsy Cline's "Sweet Dreams (of You)" is the undeniable winner.
Yes: that wins.
What are some of your favorite, forgotten albums that have stood the test of time?
Submitted by PeterGibbons.
The interesting part about this question is the word "forgotten"--does it mean forgotten by me, or forgotten in general? I think I'll interpret it as underappreciated albums that I really love, albums that could be underappreciated in a context as broad as the overall genre or as narrow as within the scope of the artist's own recordings.
Here's a short list just from glancing at my iTunes library:
- Black Sheep, A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing
- Bryan Ferry, Bête Noire
- Manic Street Preachers, Gold Against the Soul (see this post)
But so really, my biggest forgotten favorite must be Orange Juice [1], the late 70s/early 80s pop band from Scotland featuring Edwyn Collins (later of "A Girl Like You" mini-fame), so forgotten that their albums are pretty impossible to find. [2]
With Orange Juice, it's all about the context: imagine angry bands like the Sex Pistols riling everyone up, and fighting with them & spitting on them, and just being generally unpleasant; and then imagine a group of fey popsters playing jangly guitar indie pop, dressing all camp, and getting all sorts of shit thrown at them during their performances by aggressive punks. That was the story of Orange Juice.
But it's not the whole story, because that's just all too sad & pathetic, and Orange Juice are anything but. They were funny in their misery, took pleasure in their sadness, and sang bouncy pop gems about, well, mainly, being lovesick. But, and here's the important part: they realized the ridiculousness of it all, and so spent half the time feeling sorry for themselves, and the other half making fun of themselves for it.
Take the canonical example, "Consolation Prize," sung by a narrator stuck on a girl with terrible taste in men--she prefers men who belittle her, who "crumple up [her] face a thousand times", &c. And then meanwhile we've got your narrator, who listens to her tales of woe about her various beaus, and who knows he's better than all of them, so he does everything he can to impress her--dressing up all camp, wearing his hair in an oh-so-stylish fringe ("like Roger McGuinn")--and all he can do is make her laugh. He's the funny friend that she turns to when she's down about her love prospects, but it's oh so sad, because he's got a thing for her.
And all the while, he knows how ridiculous he must seem:
I wore my fringe like Roger McGuinn's;
I wore it hoping to impress.
So frightfully camp, it made you laugh--
Tomorrow I'll buy myself a dress.
How ludicrous!
And Edwyn sings, "I'll be your consolation prize--although, I know...", and there's this pause of a second or two, and then the song builds for about thirty seconds to the rousing (well, as rousing as Orange Juice ever get) repeated outro, "I'll never be man enough for you." And there it is: it's simple & it's funny & it's sad & it's just wonderful.
Listen to "Consolation Prize".
[1] I've written about Orange Juice before.
[2] Orange Juice's original albums are very hard to come by. Every time I'm at a record store, I drift towards the O section, looking in hope to find Orange Juice albums--"maybe they've been rereleased," I think. I'm always wrong. That said, The Glasgow School is a fantastic collection of early singles & their first album, Ostrich Churchyard.
What do you like to make or order for brunch?
Today I made a very wonderful egg scramble: 3 eggs, some chorizo, a small red potato sauteed in olive oil with rosemary, some white onion, and a small jalapeno; topped with some grated cheese, and served with toasted bread.
It was a lot of food, but oh so good.
What books are on your nightstand?
Having just finished Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age this evening [1], I've got the following books queued up next:
All books about food! I guess I'm a bit obsessed.
[1] I'm working my way backwards through Stephenson's stuff, though of course I did read the Baroque Trilogy in the proper order, as doing otherwise would've been fairly silly.
TDA started out a little bit slowly for me--which always tends to be the case more w/ fiction than non-, just because I don't really care that much about anyone in the story, and it has no grounding in reality. But and also I'm not really a fan of science fiction that much--or really, fiction in general--and so it took me about a week to get through the first 75 pages of TDA, because it suffered from some of the typical things that annoy me about science fiction, particularly the overuse of jargon-y language.
But once I told myself to just sit down and fucking read it this weekend, it turned out that I really loved it, as I figured I might. What struck me most about it is how apt its subtitle ("Or, a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer") is--said primer is one of the key items in the book, obviously, but it's also a remarkably apt description of this book, in the way that it's basically a young Victorian woman's saga wrapped up in science fiction garments. Which probably explains why I enjoyed it more than most science fiction.
What albums are in heavy rotation for you right now?
My current favorites, both old & new:
All perfect summer fare: CSS, wonderful & wicked fun (listen to "Music is My Hot, Hot Sex"); Richard Hawley, mellow & fantastic for a relaxing weekend; A Tribe Called Quest, timeless, smooth, & just incredible.
