Meat & Potatoes #15

More seasonally-appropriate fun and excitement...  I shared the recipes for Pinwheels and Moose Milk, and played the Fraggles scene from A Muppet Family Christmas (the whole special can be found on YouTube, starting with Part 1 here).  I also read one of my favourite Christmas stories, Apple Tree Christmas by Tinka Hakes Noble.  The musical selections were not so Christmassy, but still awesome:

1. Spoon--I Turn My Camera On
2. The Very Best--Warm Heart of Africa
3. Yo La Tengo--Periodically Double or Triple
4. Of Montreal--Hydra Fancies
5. Fleet Foxes--Sun It Rises
6. Megafaun--The Longest Day
7. Great Lake Swimmers--Your Rocky Spine
8. The Books feat. Jose Gonzales--Cello Song
9. Deep Cotton--Self!
10. Janelle Monae--Tightrope
11. Sharon Jones--How Long Do I Have To Wait For You
12. Al Green--Take Me To the River
13. Marvin Gaye--Got To Give It Up
14. Dave Rawlings Machine--To Be Young (Is to Be Sad, Is to Be High)
15. The Be Good Tanyas--The Littlest Birds
16. Josh Ritter--Good Man
17. Robin and Kermit with the Fraggles--Pass It On
18. Florence + The Machine--Addicted to Love
19. The Like--You Belong to Me
20. Belle and Sebastian--Funny Little Frog
21. John Paul Young--Love Is in the Air
22. The O-Jays--Love Train
23. TV on the Radio--Make Love All Night Long
24. Sufjan Stevens--The Henney Buggy Band
25. G. Love and Special Sauce--I-76
26. David Garza--Slave
27. Yeasayer--Tightrope

Stay Tuned...

Tonight I'm making one of my mom's classic Christmas treats, and will be sharing the recipe during the show on Sunday (and then later a few days later on the web, of course).

I have tons of killer stuff planned for Meat & Potatoes #15.

Meat & Potatoes #14

This week I read from Richard Mabey's piece, "From The Barley Bird: Notes on the Suffolk Nightingale", in the latest edition of Brick, and shared a recipe for the Swedish Saffron Bread that I make every December.  I also played lots of good music:

1. Fleet Foxes--White Winter Hymnal
2. Hank Williams--Move It On Over
3. Hank Williams, Jr--A Country Boy Can Survive
4. Hank Williams III--You're the Reason
5. Leona Williams--It's Tearing This Old Heart Out of Me
6. Heather Myles-- Playing Every Honky Tonk in Town
7. Actuality Recording--Nightingales and Bombers 1942
8. The Beatles--The Ballad of John and Yoko
9. Fleetwood Mac--You Make Lovin' Fun
10. David Bowie--Young Americans
11. Basia Bulat--In the Night
12. Angus & Julia Stone--Mango Tree
13. Sea Wolf--Middle Distance Runner
14. Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings--Inspriation Information
15. Adele--Right as Rain
16. Jean Knight--Mr Big Stuff
17. Bruce Springsteen--The Price You Pay
18. Tom Waits--Old 55
19. Cat Power--Willie
20. Melanie--Brand New Key
21. The Staple Singers--I'll Take You There
22. Arcade Fire--Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)
23. Yma Sumac--Tumpa
24. Chubby Checker--Let's Twist Again

Thanks to Andrew, Lynn, Graham, Emmy and Dawson Bear for your requests--I was happy to play them!  And thanks to the SOVA students for the nice telephone call.  I hope your exams went well, and I'll see you at your open house this Friday.

Fighting Off the Cold

My winter gear is a motley collection of old ski stuff and handknits, and most of it is pretty inadequate when the temperature really drops like it did last week.  My feet are consistently and comfortably warm--but that's because last winter I shelled out and bought a proper pair of winter boots, which are rated to -40.  I am determined to keep upgrading, and to that end I bought an absolutely hilarious but totally wonderful pair of mittens.  They are huge:

They fit overtop of the handknit-mitt-and-store-bought-liner combo that I usually rock:

They definitely reduce my hands to flippers--I have no dexterity whatsoever and can barely open doors while wearing them--but they are oh so warm.  They aren't quite the $350 hand-beaded fur beauties I saw at the TH Christmas bazaar over the weekend, but for $25 the synthetic shearling is working just fine.  Now I just need to survive another three weeks until I can go shopping outside and get myself a parka.  I really like the looks of this one...

Meat & Potatoes #13

When I first started doing a radio show three months ago, I used to imagine that I was talking to myself.  Somehow it just made it easier.  It took me a while to tell my family and friends outside of Dawson about the show, but I'm so glad I finally did.  This week I had all sorts of people tuning in from all over the place, and the telephone calls and Facebook shout-outs were so much fun.  One of my close highschool friends, Tamara, was listening in Korea!  I also thought I had a listener in Australia, but it turns out that my dear university chum Graham was listening from his hometown of Edmonton--definitely a less exotic location, but still awesome.  Other listeners were in Ottawa and on Salt Spring Island, as well as here in Dawson.

All these lucky folks got to listen to:

1. Beirut--Scenic World

2. Paul Simon--Graceland

3. Wilco--The Late Greats

4. Valery Gore--Strange Way

5. The Tragically Hip--Fireworks

6. Modest Mouse--People as Places as People

7. Angela McCluskey--It's Been Done

8. Jefferson Airplane--Today

9. Bobbie Gentry--Ode to Bille Joe

10. J.J. Cale--Cocaine

11. Cat Power--The Devil's Daughter

12. Bonnie 'Prince' Billy--Wolf Among Wolves

13. Calexico--All Systems Red

14. The White Stripes--Do

15. TV on the Radio--Poppy

16. The Hold Steady--Atlantic City

17. Final Fantasy--The CN Tower Belongs to the Dead

18. Sufjans Stevens--Casimir Pulaski Day

19. The Beta Band--Alleged

20. Human Highway--What World

21. Cake--Love You Madly

22. Scissor Sisters--Lights

23. The Juan Maclean--Dance With Me

24. The Jackson 5--ABC (Salaam Remy Krunk-a-Delic Party Mix)

25. Sister Carol East--Dread Natty Congo

26. Tom Waits--Heigh Ho

I also decided to set the record straight about shortbread.  Forget adding Skor bits.  Forget adding Earl Grey tea leaves.  And please (please for the love of all that is good in this world) no maple, and certainly no bacon.  While the shortbread shennanigans of my fellow radio hosts Ben and Brendan, the Kings of Dawson City, have been quite amusing to taste, there really isn't a shortbread recipe out there that can beat my Mom's utterly classic version.  Shortbread is merely butter and sugar held together by a bit of flour--a melt-in-your-mouth delight that needs nothing else.

Here are my mother's rather terse directions:

1 cup butter

1/2 cup icing sugar

2 cups flour

Cream butter and sugar

Add flour gradually

Knead 2 minutes

Roll to 1/2 inch

Bake 300 – 325 until light brown

My guess is that in between the rolling and baking, you're going to want to cut your shortbread out into pretty shapes, and using parchment paper on your cookie sheet would help prevent sticking.  In retrospect, I'm wishing that I had pressed Mom for a few more details.  Considering that she has made these (in great quantities) every Christmas for my entire life, the process has surely become a matter of instinct.

Happy baking and happy listening!

Chill Day

It's really winter up here now--yesterday and today temperatures have been around the -40 mark.  Thursday is usually laundry, but my normally infalliable 1988 Toyota Tercel station wagon, the Inconvenience, ain't goin' nowheres today.  The car was plugged in for about two and a half hours, and still no luck--just lots of noises that didn't sound like they were doing anyone any good.  I'm quite surprised; last winter I never had any trouble with the Inconvenience.  Although last winter using the car was much more optional, as I was living in a room in the hotel where I worked, and everything I could possibly need with the exception of groceries was right down the hall.  Now that I am in an adorable little cabin, I am forced out of the house much more often.  The laundromat--and my boyfriend's house--are both about ten minutes out of town, so the car is getting pressed into use much more often.  I am already planning to walk out to my boyfriend's house more often (about 45 minutes on a packed-down but not plowed trail along the highway) and suspect that I should begin being prepared to hike out to the laundromat with my big packsack instead of driving.  It looks like the boyfriend will be coming to my rescue this week.  He got his car started and, provided the transmission wants to go, I'll be able to use his old beast to run out to the laundromat and back.  As much as I hate driving his car, there is no way I can survive without laundry.  My work clothes are a mess.

This morning I met with friends for breakfast and ran some errands (well-bundled up, I assure you), and meant to head out to take care of the laundry and visit Ben in the early afternoon.  When the lack of ignition derailed those plans, I got sucked into the vortex of the couch and started internetting.  Ignoring, of course, all the chores I could do around the house.  In the process of my lookin' and clickin', I found a couple of blogs I like.  Aesthetic Outburst, Door Sixteen and The Vintage Cabin have been great eye-candy on a bleak day.  They've actually almost guilted me into working on all the things around my place that need doing--but only almost.  I am still basking in the glory of a finished project:

It's not exciting to look at but hopefully will help keep the heating bill down.  I covered the back door (currently unused), as well as the bedroom and bathroom windows with sheets of pink styrofoam insulation (which is, yes, almost the same colour as my towels; they used to be a lovely smoky purple when I bought them almost ten years ago, but in the interval have faded and I doubt I will replace them until they are worn to shreds).  The door definitely needed to be covered, and as the curtains on the windows were never so much as shifted out of the way, covering the windows as well just seemed logical.  I may cut a peep-hole into the bedroom window if it gets claustrophobic-feeling, but for now I don't mind.  There is this consolation, at least:

The Magical Mystery Plant has put out new blooms (again!), and is a welcome touch of life and colour.  I have no idea what this plant is, but it seems to be thriving under my lacksadaisical care.

Meat & Potatoes #12

No recipe this week, but I did read the opening 'Fog' passage from Charles Dickens' Bleak House, and played a few tunes:

1. TV on the Radio--Wear You Out
2. Ghostkeeper--Mr. No Show
3. Valery Gore--Worried Head
4. Modest Mouse--Paper Thin Walls
5. Belle and Sebastian--Act of the Apostle, Pt. 2
6. Arcade Fire--Wasted Hours
7. Maximum Balloon & David Byrne--Apartment Wrestling
8. Joe Cocker--Bird on the Wire
9. Roy Orbison--Life Fades Away
10. Luke Doucet--Take You Home
11. Howlin' Wolf--Sittin' On Top of the World
12. Joe Simon--Drowning in the Sea of Love
13. Otis Redding--(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay
14. Otis Rush--All Your Love (I Miss Loving)
15. Sunparlour Players--Bless This City
16. Joel Plasket--Natural Disaster
17. Carolyn Mark--Fireworks
18. Paul Simon--Learn How to Fall
19. Dave Rawlings Machine--It's Too Easy
20. Wilco--Was I in Your Dreams?
21. Royal Wood--Juliet
22. Iron & Wine--House By the Sea
23. Belle Orchestre--Dark Lights
24. Devendra Banhart--Body Breaks
25. Orillia Opry--Lucky Wind
26. Talking Heads--Home (Naive Melody)