READIN

Saturday, August 4th, 2007

🦋 A day well spent

This morning I finished up a woodworking project that has been sitting in my basement for a week or so -- it is an oaken bench that will go in my front yard next to the garden -- tomorrow I will take it outside and put linseed oil on it.

Bob and Greg came over in the afternoon and we played some music, including a very nice version of "House of the Rising Sun" -- I have finally persuaded Bob to play it in 4/4 time (like Dylan) instead of (I think) 6/8, like The Animals, which sounds corny to my ear, at least when done by somebody who is not The Animals.

posted evening of August 4th, 2007: Respond
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Friday, June first, 2007

🦋 Games for May

Last night I downloaded and listened to Robyn Hitchcock's Games for May concert from last week -- the first set was a recreation of Pink Floyd's Games for May concert of 40 years ago, the second set was mostly Syd Barrett's solo tunes. It blew my mind. The opening number "Matilda Mother" was a little weak and unsure, but the band quickly got it together. Nearly every song is a keeper. You can download it from archive.org -- bear in mind that the FTP download, using Filezilla or some such client, is much faster than using your browser or media player to get the songs.

My own favorite from the first set is probably "Arnold Layne" and from the second set (and the concert as a whole) the combination of "Interstellar Overdrive" and "Lucifer Sam" was just transcendentally beautiful. But -- I liked the Barrett solo tunes from the second set a lot too. "Terrapin" was great. It was really interesting listening to "Love You" and hearing Robyn and the female vocalist (who does not appear to be credited?) get their shit together after flailing for a verse or two. By the end of the song they were really in the groove. Hitchcock's between-song patter was as always, "eccentric" and "quirky", but more than that, fun and frequently insightful.

posted morning of June first, 2007: Respond
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Monday, April 9th, 2007

🦋 What a show

If you have a couple of hours free and want to listen to a Robyn Hitchcock concert, listen to this one. Highlights:

• "I Got the Hots for You" (track 4) is a great performance of a great song, and the patter leading into it (which is actually at the end of track 3) very funny. All of the inter-song patter throughout the show is great.
• "Lictus House" (track 5) knocked me over.
• Deni Bonet plays violin on the final 6 songs, she is marvelous. "Driving Aloud (Radio Storm)", the second-to-last track, particularly stands out, as does the violin part in it.

Some annoying audience noise but oh well.

posted evening of April 9th, 2007: Respond
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Sunday, April first, 2007

🦋 Live Hitchcock, Live Dead

How exciting, an archive of Robyn Hitchcock shows! At Internet Archive of course. Also there are nearly 3,000 Grateful Dead shows and studio dates, earliest from 1965.

posted afternoon of April first, 2007: Respond
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Sunday, March 11th, 2007

🦋 Home fries

A recipe I've been playing around with for a couple of months in various combinations bore fruit last night, when Ed and Nina came over for dinner. I cooked something I'm calling "home fries" for want of a better word, even though it's not particularly descriptive, and it was one of the nicest potato dishes I have ever made.

• 4 or 5 smallish yellow onions, chopped roughly
• about 1 T. fennel seed
• several cloves of garlic, minced
• one pear or apple
• 1 ½ lbs. red potatoes or Yukon gold potatoes in moderate-size dice

In a skillet, heat a couple of T. olive oil and the fennel seed. Cook the onions and garlic with salt over low heat about half an hour, adding the fruit midway through. When onions are deep golden, add the potatoes and stir to mix. Cover the skillet and allow to steam for about half an hour, until potatoes are quite soft. Stir occasionally, scraping the bottom of the skillet when you do. Serve with roast chicken.

posted evening of March 11th, 2007: Respond
➳ More posts about Food

🦋 Interval

Here is a bash script to determine the interval between two date/times. Parameters are two dates, specified using any format the date utility can recognize; if the second parameter is omitted, "now" is assumed. Output is the number of seconds between the two, followed by "d h:m:s" format.

 #!/bin/bash
 
 if [ $# -eq 0 ]
 then
         echo Usage: `basename $0` \ \[\\ default \"now\"\] >&2
         exit -1
 fi
 
 start=`date +%s -d "$1"`
 if [ $# -eq 1 ]
 then
         fin=`date +%s`
 else
         fin=`date +%s -d "$2"`
 fi
 
 res=`expr $fin - $start`
 if [ $res -lt 0 ]
 then
         res=`expr 0 - $res`
 fi
 
 echo $res sec
 d=`expr $res / 86400`
 t=`expr $res % 86400`
 h=`expr $t / 3600`
 ms=`expr $t % 3600`
 m=`expr $ms / 60`
 s=`expr $ms % 60`
 if [ $d -gt 0 ]
 then
         echo -n $d day
         if [ $d -gt 1 ]
         then
                 echo -n s
         fi
         echo  -n \
 fi
 if [ $t -gt 0 ]
 then
         echo -n $h\:
         if [ $m -lt 10 ]
         then
                 echo -n 0
         fi
         echo -n $m
         if [ $s -gt 0 ]
         then
                 echo -n \:
                 if [ $s -lt 10 ]
                 then
                         echo -n 0
                 fi
                 echo -n $s
         fi
 fi
 echo
  

posted evening of March 11th, 2007: Respond
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Wednesday, March 7th, 2007

🦋 Trout and cabbage

I wouldn't have thought of this combination off the top of my head or anything; but that's what was in the fridge. And it came out pretty tasty.

• 1 yellow onion cut in thin slices
• Several cloves of garlic chopped fine
• About ¼ head red cabbage, chopped thin
• 2 filets trout

Cook the onion and garlic with olive oil and salt in a skillet over medium-low heat, until the onion is golden. Add the cabbage and continue cooking about 5 or 10 more minutes, until the cabbage is soft and hot through. Remove to a bowl, put some more olive oil in the pan, and cook the trout. I served this with soup and some goat cheese. I think, though I did not do this, that you could make a pretty good sauce by deglazing the skillet with beer and cooking the beer for a minute or two.

posted evening of March 7th, 2007: Respond
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Sunday, February 18th, 2007

🦋 Tasty sauce

Sylvia and I were shopping yesterday and we thought dinner tonight would be pork chops with sautéed onions and mushrooms. When we were going downstairs to start making dinner (Sylvia learned how to clean and cut mushrooms, which she did very well), Ellen mentioned there was some applesauce in the fridge that would be good with the chops -- and I had an idea. The end result, an easy sauce that is very tasty with pork chops:

• 2 onions, chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, chopped roughly
• 1 lb. mushrooms, in bite-size chunks (roughly cut in quarters)
• 1 apple, chopped
• 2 tangerines

Cook the onions and garlic in about a Tbsp. oil over a low flame for about 20 min. Longer would probably work fine, too. Add the mushrooms and apple, stir, and squeeze in the tangerine juice. Stir, cover, and let steam for about 15 min., while the chops are cooking. Everything should be soft. Spoon over the chops with a little yogurt or sour cream.

posted evening of February 18th, 2007: Respond

Tuesday, January 23rd, 2007

🦋 Pasta and fish

Here is a really tasty dish that I cooked for dinner last night, that I don't really have a name for.

• 3/4 lb. codfish, cut into bite-size pieces
• Pasta -- I used farfalle but I think any noodle would do.
• 1 green bell pepper, cut into pieces
• Butter and flour for roux

Steam the codfish. This takes very little time, like 2 or 3 minutes once the water is boiling. While you are doing that you can saute the bell peppers and start the pasta boiling. Take the peppers out of the pan and make a roux. (Remember to season the roux! I forgot, and salted everything after it was cooked, which was a mistake.) Thin the roux with white wine and/or the codfish-flavored water from the steamer. When the pasta is ready, add the fish and peppers to the sauce and toss it all together; then put that on the noodles and serve.

posted evening of January 23rd, 2007: Respond

Monday, January 15th, 2007

🦋 Fried Catfish Stew

Dinner tonight was popular with the family.

• 4 medium-size yellow onions, chopped
• A few carrots, chopped
• 6 smallish red potatoes, diced
• 2 heads of broccoli, cut into florets
• Canola oil
• Cheap white wine
• 3 filets of catfish
• Flour, salt, pepper

The stew

Fry the salted onions in a tablespoon of oil, in a stew pot. Add the carrots and potatoes. When everything is sizzling and wet, pour in some wine, lower the heat and cover. Cook over low heat about 20 or 30 minutes, stirring occasionally; toward the end when the potatoes are starting to soften up, add the broccoli. (I added it too soon and it got a little overcooked.)

The fish

While the stew is simmering, heat some oil in a skillet and mix flour with salt and pepper on a plate. Dredge the filets (you may want to cut them in half for easier handling). When the oil is hot, start frying the fish -- you will need to do it in shifts. Drain the cooked filets on a paper towel.

When everything is ready, cut up or tear up the fried fish and toss it in with the vegetables, and serve.

posted evening of January 15th, 2007: Respond

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