Jason Derulo + Imogen Heap = SO hot right now

I'm really glad I heard this on the radio today. It's gonna make the rain so much more tolerable. I know I've hated on auto tune before but I think it really works here. You may have to watch a short ad before the video starts but it is worth waiting for.

Jason Derulo - New Music - More Music Videos

THE FUTURE

In an effort to premptively fight the winter blues I am embarking on three projects:

1. Making a winter mix for all my friends. I am borrowing the idea from my fair maiden of the North, Melanie Kowalski. Mel, I hope that's okay. You'll get one, promise!

2. Planning a big or at least significant 25th birthday for myself. Christmas babies always get screwed. Not me. Not this year, bitches!

3. Concocting a plan for making my long dreamed of epic cross country road trip a reality. I need a car and I've been brainstorming ways to get a sponsor. Most ideas revolve around food and having somekind of food blog that would be sponsor worthy, i.e. the Organic Potato Grower's Association sponsors me to travel around the country and write about good food made with organic potatoes. If you have good ideas for this kind of project, do let me know. I already started mapping out places I'd like to go on Google Maps. It is not complete yet but feel free to leave comments and suggest a stop.


View EPIC road trip in a larger map

Its Persimmon Season, Motherfuckers!

I stole that line from a great McSweeney's post on gourds.

We recently acquired a juicer in the Commune and it has been quite a treat. That and the new Lovewhip album Love Electric. The Jamaica Plain locals really own their version of the post-glam, Scissor Sisters, I-wanna-tear-my-clothes-off sound. You can listen to some of the new tracks here (I recommend "Automatic" and "Gimme That", or the more bluesy, aptly titled "Chaueffer Blues") but get the whole album if you can. It may not change your life but it is a solid booty-shaker.

But, I guess I was talking about juice. My favorite combination is by far ginger, apple, lime and carrot. Those flavors were made for each other. This week I got fancy and threw some persimmons in the mix, since they're in season and all. I find them a little too sweet but still neat and kind of exotic.

I'm liking the juicer for two big reasons:
1. drinking your vegetables is a fun alternative to steaming, roasting, boiling, etc. and
2. it's called the Juiceman Jr.
3. it's very good for using up sad-looking produce in the fridge. That saggy carrot? Wilty spinach? Bruised apple? Jump in the juicer, Baby! Then in my belly, mmm. Go vitamins, go! Fight the germs!


If juice doesn't keep the Swine Flu away, hopefully these two winter staples will.

1. Noley's Magic Sicky Face Tea- I was reluctant to share this recipe because I worry that, with knowledge of the secret ingredients, the people I make this tea for now won't need me anymore and I'll wither up and die like a grandmother with no one to dote on. Of course, when you've got the sniffles, or worse, its always better to have someone else make tea for you. And, I'll probably make it better, so don't forget me.

To start the healing, you will need:
- sliced fresh ginger (powder will get the job done but it doesn't taste as nice)
- whole cinnamon stick
- chamomile (you can get big bags of loose Cham for CHEAP at Latino grocery stores, FYI)
- 1 TBSP cayenne pepper (it's the best part, promise)

Pour hot water on all this business, leaving about an inch of room at the top of your mug. Cover and steep for 3 minutes. Fill the rest of your mug with OJ, stir, smile and enjoy. : )

2. Perfect lentils- they aren't a big deal but they are delicious.

Put dried lentils in a pot with some water and veggie stock, ideally homemade. If your veggie stock isn't very salty, salt that shit too. As the liquid reduces and the lentils start to soften, add a dab of concentrated tomato paste and a quarter cup of ketchup. We like the Nature's Promise organic variety in this household. I'm no ketchup connoisseur, but NP doesn't have high fructose corn syrup and Emily swears it's the best ketchup in the world. I recently added these lentils to a last minute shep pie. The scraped-together beauty included radishes, peppers, apples and onions with a mustard and cider vinegar sauce, topped by a carrot, potato, parsnip crust. We just threw the lentils on top after it came out of the oven and enjoyed some homemade apple sauce on the side. People were pleased.

I'm currently trying to learn more about food to fight pain and chronic illness so expect more on that soon.

The Color Men Choose When They Attack the Earth

This is a little belated, but I have a few things to say about my recent Halloween trip to Houston, where I was visiting Laura Richardson, an old partner in crime and now a PhD candidate in English Literature at Rice University. Not only did I have fun partying with a bunch of English nerd for 2.5 days, but I was pleasantly surprised by the city of Houston, especially Laura's Montrose-Westheimer neighborhood. Apparently it's known as the gay neighborhood and, like JP, gay = cool. Obvi. There were yummy eats- like the black bean burger at Ziggy's and the good breakfast Mexican food at Tacos-a-GoGo. I had some other yummy Mexican food too but the restaurant name escapes me. I especially enjoyed the peoplewatching at Anvil, a classy spot with specialty drinks and a popular stop along the annual Houston Halloween bar crawl. One guy was the karate kid, complete with a showerhead and shower curtain. In the small, crowded bar, he quickly became very annoying.


The Magritte and wooden sculpture below were from the Menil Collection, a small eclectic art gallery with unecessarily creaky floors. My favorite piece was a giant, bright yellow rectangle with a tiny stainless steel plate in the middle that read, "THE COLOR MEN CHOOSE WHEN THEY ATTACK THE EARTH." The artist is Walter de Maria. The pictures online suck and they wouldn't let me take one at the museum so I guess you'll have to see it for yourself.

All the houses surrounding the museum, the adjacent Rothko Chapel and the surrounding park are owned by the Menil endowment and are painted gray to match the museum. Laura, Lucy (the beast) and I spent some quality time hanging out in the park, playing frisbee and singing songs. It never gets colder than 50 degrees in Houston and, as a result, there are palm trees and the big gnarly trees you only see in other Southern cities like Savannah, New Orleans and Mobile. They might be Southern Live Oaks but I'm not sure.





Enjoying the warmth and sunshine in my hangover daze on Saturday morning, I almost forgot we were in Texas. Then we walked past Planned Parenthood. Six PP volunteers in flourescent yellow jackets were hanging out and chatting, presumably keeping tabs on the 40+ anti-abortion activists that lined both sides of the street in front of the clinic. Most of the protesters were young girls in pink shirts. It looked a lot like a sorority volunteer event. I suppose it could have been. Yay Texas!

Gem of the Week

Introducing Justin Townes Earle. The son of folk legend Steve Earle, his middle name comes from his dad's buddy, another legend, Townes Van Zandt. Justin's stuff is definitely country, but he's more old school and soulful than what is now thought of as the Nashville Sound. Think Hank Williams more than Brad Paisley (who makes me want to vomit in my mouth a little). Fans of Cory Branan and Ryan Adams circa Heartbreaker will like Justin, especially his song "Who Am I to Say" off The Good Life, "Yuma" and the title track off Midnight at the Movies. I'd like to go barhopping in Nashville with this guy and bring a pocketful of jukebox money. He's got Television's Marquee Moon listed as his first influence on MySpace. Nice!

Justin plays the Paradise in Boston on Monday, November 9th.

Shoutout to MAPS

Mass Powershift (MAPS) pulled off a flashmob dance (which included "Call on Me" and other legendary dance party jams) at Government Center in downtown Boston yesterday.

They officially kick off their campaign this Sunday with their first sleep out, part of an effort to get the Massachussetts legislature on board with 100% renewable energy for the state in 10 years, before Copenhagen! Yes, they are sleeping outside, every sunday, from now until December 7th. No one ever said saving the world was easy.

See pics from the dance and read more about the campaign here.

Untitled

Last weekend I went apple picking with Annie and Sam in Natick. There I acquired four different varieties of Nature's toothbrush. They were so tasty! Post adventure I was perusing Papa Googs (Google) to learn more about different kinds of apples and was sad to learn than Googling "apples" just brings up pages of crap about iphones and mac books. Thank God I eventually found AllAboutApples.com. It includes information on all apply varieties grown in the U.S., including several with neat names like Swiss Limbertwig and Xavier De Bavay. It also made me wonder if the Yellow Transparent apple is in fact transparent. How crazy would that be? That's how exciting my life has been lately.

Last night I made some pesto and spaghetti sauce to freeze for the winter. As much as I like to cook, I'm also a big lazy ass. I've been known to eat Chef Boyardee beeferoni straight from the can, cold. This way I can put in some effort now and lazily enjoy good homemade stuff later.

Project number one was pesto ice cubes. What would you need to them? Basil, pine nuts, garlic, olive oil, parmesan (optional), a food processor or blender and an ice tray. At first, I didn't drizzle extra olive oil on top and I realized the frozen pesto blocks wouldn't come out of the tray. I defrosted and tried again but it'd be best if you drizzled with olive oil the first time.

Project number two was a variation of my signature spaghetti sauce. Ususally I do the mire poux thing and use lots of red pepper flakes but I forgot both last night, hence the "variation". Emily and Veronica were still really excited about it so I am including the recipe here:

1 big or two tiny onions, sautee in butter (F olive oil!)
2 sausages, taken out of their casings (my favorites are sweet or spicy italian chicken sausage)
garlic, half a bulb (with the way I chow garlic I better have a healthy ticker)
1 green pepper
italian seasoning (oregano is most important)
1 bay leaf
fresh basil
1/2 glass of red wine
1/2 a beer
large can of stewed tomatoes
fresh tomatoes
1 can of tomato paste
water

Sautee onions first, then add sausage and Italian seasoning, then the wine. Let that hang out for awhile, then add everything else. Cook that baby down for at least an hour and presto! It smells so good in your kitchen people think you're a good cook. I let it hang out in the fridge overnight and then pureed it in the blender this morning. Let me know when you want to come over for spaghetti!

And here are some songs for you to enjoy this weekend.

Wyatt introduced me to Grooveshark. It's somewhere between Pandora and imeem but I like it better than both of them. I'm going to start using it for sharing songs on here but let me know if it doesn't work for you.

1. "Vegetables" by the Beach Boys, Off Smiley Smile
Thanks K Momma for finding my new theme song, with its chomping and random water sounds. "I love you most of all, my favorite vegetable..." Smiley Smile was considered a failure when it came out in the 60's but clearly it worked for some folks, namely Panda Bear. When I listen to this album I totally understand where Animal Collective and Panda Bear's solo stuff came from.

2. "Ego" (Remix) by Beyonce, featuring Kanye West
This song is so dirty but so awesome.

3. "Stadiums and Shrines II" by Sunset Rubdown
An oldy but goody off of Shut Up I Am Dreaming, the guitar in this song is so triumphant. Singing loudly along with Spencer Krug is always fun but this one in particular is a solid pick me up.

I'll leave you with this killer beard picture of the Beach Boys.