This was my first weekend in Boston in a couple weeks. It's always exciting to be home and I really packed a lot in.
After an awesome dinner of butternut squash tacos in front of the US Open Men's Semi Final, courtesy of my girl K-Momma, I joined my buddy Taylor for a show by Neutral Uke Hotel.
Members of local bands Golden Bloom and the Motion Sick came together to play all of Neutral Milk Hotel's In The Aeroplane Over the Sea, with ukuleles. It was a close second to Norm Moghtaderi's extrememly passionate solo guitar rendition of the album. Norm sings "Oh Comely" like nobody else I know. That said, Golden Bloom's Shawn Fogel nailed the Jeff Mangum singing style (which is not an easy feat) and there was something really endearing about the group's lo-fi setup of dueling ukuleles, melodica, drum kit, euphonium and trumpet. The small crowd at Berklee's Club 939 sang every word, clapped and stomped their feet together as one loving unit of love for all that is that eccentric, epic album.
Here's a taste of the Neutral Uke Hotel sound, in the style of the Blogotheque takeaway shows:
After that show, we went to Inman Square to get our dance on with the Nephrok! Allstars at Atwood's. Frontman Nephtaliem McCrary and his band delivered solid funk with original songs carefully placed between covers of the Meters, Sly and the Family Stone, the Pointer Sisters and other funk-you-up classics. The second set was all P-funk covers, in honor of two original band members who recently passed: Garry Shider and Phelps "Catfish" Collin. The latter legendary funk guitarist played with Parliament-Funkadelic and James Brown's J.B.'s alongside his brother Bootsy Collins.
Phelps Collins playing with James Brown in 1971. Rolling Stone, 2010.Today, I peeled myself out of bed to go to Day 2 of the Life Is Good music festival just outside Boston in Canton, MA.
Trombone Shorty: So hot right now.
There was something a little weird about being at a family-friendly festival sponsored by a clothing company but it worked and in some ways it was much more pleasant than the usual hippie-tacular festie vibe. I think people feel weird about doing hard drugs near kids.
This is what I find myself eating for dinner almost every night: veggie slop over pasta or lettuce.
Dear readers, please help me come up with something new. If it's something I can still make in one pot you get bonus points.
This is a Mexican Hat flower. Grew it myself. No big deal.
This week Wyatt plays with critically acclaimed NOMO. Go Macrotones!
My standard one pot (and one skillet) meal is a balsamic mushroom risotto. Great for winter months. I make the risotto as usual, except I saute the onions in a little bit of balsamic before I add the rice (long enough to boil off most the vinegar, but leave that sweet deliciousness). While the rice cooks, I saute mushrooms in butter followed by balsamic, then chicken broth for a sweet ragout. Depending on the season I'll add some sort of savory green veggie with the shrooms (I throw on veggies after the balsamic has boiled down a bit with the chicken broth): Asparagus in spring, green beans in the fall. You can also do snap peas, maybe zucchini (haven't tried it, could be weird with balsamic?) Although the idea of cooking all this stuff separately from the rice is so that you can control the texture of the veggies and let them stand on their own, I mix the veggies with the rice in one big pot at the end. Enjoy.
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