Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Why a girl can't marry a CD is beyond me

I'm not going to be the first one to say this. In fact, what I'm going to say is nothing revolutionary. It's practically pedestrian, but I'm going to say it anyway. You need the new Grizzly Bear CD, Veckatimest. Really. You need it.

I resisted Grizzly Bear for forever. I'm a resister. It's part of what I do. Take Facebook, for example. I don't have an account. I'm the girl at the concert who will not clap or wave her hands or shout just because some people on stage tell me to; they have to make me want to. I can be a bit of a contrarian. It is childish, yes, and it has made me miss out on good stuff. Then again, I'm never the girl asking herself why she wasted those hours reading that crappy book or seeing that crappy movie that had all the hype. Sadly, though, the second everyone starts buzzing about something is the second I'm going to start pretending it doesn't exist. That happened with Grizzly Bear. Back when Yellow House came out, it was buzz, buzz, buzz, and I ignored it.

What made me decide to give Grizzly Bear a serious try was NPR. Yeah, NPR. I love that stuff. I've got the All Songs Considered podcast, among others, and I check out it every once in a while. I tend to store up a lot of them and then knock out 3 or 4 episodes in a Saturday afternoon. Well, on a semi-recent broadcast, which I've since deleted so don't ask me which one, they played a live Grizzly Bear track recorded at SXSW. It was stunningly gorgeous. I may even have cried a little. After that, I resolved to download the entire album from iTunes (because I only rock the legal stuff or what my friends give me from their own collections) once it became available. Unfortunately, my iTunes was acting up and wouldn't let me download anything until just last week, so I didn't get the album till then despite it's being out for nearly a month.

No exaggeration, I have listened to it multiple times everyday since I got it. I am madly in love with this CD, the entire thing. I keep finding new favorite tracks. It is simply gorgeous. Now, I'm not a music critic; I just know what I like. I cannot talk about chord progressions or production values, but I can say that this album gets inside of you. I wake up hearing it in my brain. The lyrics are simple and bare, often seeming to be sketches of lyrics more than fully formed stories or even ideas, but the way the lyrics are sung imbues them with meanings that the words on the page don't have all by themselves.

The point is that I'm having an intense and madly passionate love affair with this CD, but since it is a CD, I don't mind sharing the object of my love with anyone and everyone. If you are looking to buy just one new CD, get this one. As was the case with Arcade Fire, my stubbornness nearly caused me to miss the bandwagon on one of those too rare occasions where it is actually worth jumping on.

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Rice Pudding Update

Well, I've tasted the rice pudding as has my friend Dr. Freud. (I wonder if she'd like that I've named her Dr. Freud...) We both concur. It's yummy. The only thing that I might've done differently was use more cardamom.

Should you decide you want to make the cardamom-rosewater version, you want to add 2 tsp. of rosewater when you add the vanilla at the end. A lot of the recipes I checked out online used significantly more. Some of them had more rice, but still. I think 2 tsp. is plenty. Oddly, the rosewater makes it seem a lot sweeter. Maybe that isn't so odd. I don't know. At any rate, I think I used only 1 tsp. of cardamom, but I'd use more if I were you. I did use some cinnamon as well because I'm a sucker for it. It added up to about ½ tsp. You could use more of that, too, if you wanted to.

Finally, a note on the brown rice. It didn't affect the taste too much, though I did add 2 tblsp. extra sugar to the orginal recipe, but I did notice that the rice grains weren't soft as with other rice once the pudding cooled. You really do bite them and chew on them. If that isn't something you mind, brown rice is healthier. It might be the only healthy thing about this dish, as a matter of fact. However, next time, I think I'll try to use white rice. Then again, this is made from rice leftovers, so it'll probably be made from whatever is in the fridge.

Monday, June 22, 2009

Food Exchanges & Leftover Rice (Pudding)

One of my many passions is cooking, especially baking. I was doing that little thing baking for a local cafe. Unfortunately, that lasted all of a week before the owner totally flaked on me. She replaced me with a man. To be fair, he probably gave her lower prices than I could since he's a professional chef and has access to wholesale and buying in all kinds of bulk, but the whole experience was awful. It definitely soured me on the cafe owner and, sadly, the cafe. I don't buy any food there anymore as my own silent form of protest. I don't care if it is yummy. I'm not eating it!

However, tonight I was making some rice pudding, and as I was doing it, I decided to call up a friend of mine. I'll call her Dr. Freud. Anyway, I didn't want to eat all the rice pudding myself. I like it okay, but making it was mostly a way to use up leftover rice and to play around with the rosewater I bought a little while ago. When I called up the good doctor, she informed me that she was making lemon coriander lentil soup, and so we decided to trade.

That got me thinking. (It takes so little.) How cool would it be if there were a group where people could come and trade homemade stuff? I love me some cupcakes, for example, and I could probably eat a dozen on my own, but I really don't want to. There is such a think as too much of a good thing. That goes for zucchini muffins and rice krispie treats and even veggie chili. After a week of eating zucchini and pepper gratin for at least one meal a day, I don't want to see it again for sometime, you know?

If only there were somewhere to meet, a group that got together once a week to trade stuff they'd made. People could show up with the food in ziploc containers or what-have-you, bring along a list of ingredients (so people with food allergies wouldn't accidentally end up in the hospital), and then the trading could begin. I'm going to talk to the Doc about this and see what she thinks. It could start out just as just her and me, and then we could grow it. I really like this plan. Aside from adding some variety to my lunch, it would have the bonus of creating a sense of community.

Anyway, enough of my musings, here's my basic rice pudding recipe. In this recipe the rice is already cooked, so it is a good way to use up leftovers. You only need a cup and half of rice. I created it as a way to use up some extra coconut rice I'd made. My man at the time insisted we needed the entire recipe of the rice. I thought we should half it. I was right. I guess that is what I get for listening to the guy whose most complicated dish was scrambled eggs.

The recipe makes about 4 servings. Tonight, I made it for the first time with brown rice, and I threw in two extra tablespoons of sugar. If the rosewater and cardamom I also threw in ends up being tasty, I'll add that variation. I used a lot less of both than some other recipes I've seen.

Shana’s Creamy Rice Pudding

1½ cups cooked rice (plain or coconut rice)
1 egg
6 Tbsp. sugar
1 cup heavy cream
1¾ cups milk
1 tsp. vanilla extract
cinnamon to taste (skip this if using coconut rice)

1. In medium sauce pan, whisk egg. Add remaining ingredients, except vanilla and cinnamon, and whisk thoroughly. Let this mixture stand for 5 minutes.
2. While stirring constantly, cook mixture on medium heat for 40-50 minutes until it thickens.
3. Remove from heat. Add vanilla and cinnamon (if using) and stir to mix. Ladle the pudding into desert cups and allow to cool for 20 minutes.
4. Chill pudding in the refrigerator until you are ready to eat it.