Tales from the kitchen and reed desk of oboist/bon vivant/cityphile, Mary Riddell.
An exploration of techniques, acquired tastes, and the realm of overlap between music, food, and drink.
By now you've probably seen tons of "Best Albums of 2011" lists, but most of them are pretty similar. I know I've seen Bon Iver - Bon Iver, Helplessness Blues - Fleet Foxes, Metals - Feist, and Undun - The Roots on just about every one. I can't argue with those. But, thanks to Spotify, I did come across a new artist, Radical Face, that seems to be under the radar. Their second album, The Family Tree: The Roots came out this year, but no one seems to be talking about it. Probably, because they're not really accessible through the usual veins; its "related artist" feed on Spotify is woefully small. For whatever reason, they haven't been talked about, and I just wanted to help rectify that.
This album is supposedly the first of a trilogy of albums under The Family Tree title.
I posted a loooong time ago about a movie I really like, which few people had heard of, A Vicious Kind. The climax of the movie is reinforced by a powerful track, "Welcome Home, Son" from Radical Face's first album. This made for a really poignant impact. I looked up the band from the movie's soundtrack on Spotify and the rest is history.
One reason few people probably know about the band is because their "hits" kind of all sound the same. But with a sound so distinct, I think that's bound to happen at first. They've been related to Sufjan Stevens and Bright Eyes on Spotify, but if I had to describe them I'd call them a hybrid between Bright Eyes and Circa Survive. Like if Bright Eyes only sung about really creepy things and sounded really ghostly most of the time. Maybe that impression comes from listening to their first album which is supposedly a a concept album about a haunted house or something. Either way their sound imparts that haunted quality quite easily. So check them out! Tell your friends!
With Facebook's timely (heh) release of it's new "Timeline" feature, I've taken the opportunity to look back at my year (something facebook has never made easy). Going back even further, I came across a note I had written at the end of 2008, reflecting on the year in photos. I had completely forgotten I used to do this. I think it originated in my livejournal days. Seeing as this year was filled with travel, photos, and accomplishments I thought it would be a perfect time to revive the photo-essay tradition. These are the stories behind the food.
January
I rang in 2011 in Hawaii, and since I will be saying goodbye to 2011 in Chicago, I think my 2011 was 4 hours shorter than most. This was a pretty full year, so I think I am ok with that. I was in Hawaii on vacation with Jacob's family. We spent lots of time on the beach and eating grilled tuna sandwiches (on taro buns) from that food truck, whose wheels were permanently sunken in the mud. These were our favorite and cheapest meals in Hawaii.
February
February was a busy month. In true audition season spirit, I traveled to Houston, Cleveland (via Baltimore), Ann Arbor, and Boston. In between trips I was a part of Northwestern Symphonic Wind Ensemble's recording project rising. We recorded two concerts worth of material over two weekends. Concert Friday night, 12 hours of recording Saturday, and 12 hours of recording Sunday. Then heading right into more rehearsals for the next concert. Two weeks later...rinse and repeat. I had forgotten that in between recording weekends Chicago got hit with a huge blizzard and Northwestern cancelled classes for the first time since the 70s. Since we lost a day of rehearsal, everyone was scrambling, but I think things turned out pretty well in the end.
March
In March, with the end of recording and audition madness I found myself with lots of time on my hands and decided to stay out of trouble by starting this blog! It was one of my better ideas of the year.
April
In April, I gave my senior recital at Northwestern and I was touched to have so many friends and family in the audience.
May
On the first really warm spring day, Jacob took me on a weekday date to the Chicago Botanic Gardens. The tulips were in full bloom and it was quite the perfect day. Post-audition and post-recital meant that May was spent mostly bored and dreading the end of college...Fears which turned out not to matter, because your true friends will always be your friends no matter where you end up. Thanks to Facebook.
June
In June, I went to my first Cubs game!
...And got a degree!
Let's all relive the hilarity that was Stephen Colbert as our Commencement speaker.
July
In July, Jacob and I went to Ocean City, MD for a week's vacation with my family. Jacob brought his cimbasso and practiced on the balcony facing the bay. Here, I flew my first kite, and rode on the back of a jet ski. I was pretty much screaming in Jacob's ear the whole time.
August
Next, I moved from Chicago to Cleveland, from living with some of my best friends to living alone.
September
School started back up in September, actually probably at the end of August, and I began to get into the groove at Cleveland Institute of Music. I turned 22 amongst some cool new oboe friends, all of whom have something to teach me.
October
My fall break was spent in Chicago with Jacob. We went to my favorite restaurant, Girl & the Goat and met up with some college friends (it just happened to be Northwestern's homecoming weekend) for some beer and Big Star tacos. Jacob and I also went to the opera that weekend. I could not have been happier.
November
November was also spent in the kitchen. Jacob and I celebrated our three-year anniversary with an awesome home-cooked meal at my apartment in Cleveland. Then I got to go home for Thanksgiving for the first time since high school.
December
Jacob came to my house for Christmas and we had a very happy time with my family. We shopped, we wrapped, we ate, and we canoodled.
Next stop, Chicago for New Year's Eve, a swanky night at Gilt Bar, and some New Year's resolutions. I hope everyone had a meaningful 2011. Happy New Year!
"I'll continue to climb, trying to reach the top...but no one knows where the top is."
I stumbled upon this trailer, by chance, on the Apple website and thought the title sounded cool. I think this is actually one of the best trailers I have ever seen. And it draws on the connections between music and food, which I am obviously very fascinated with. It's no coincidence that the trailer is paired with Beethoven. I read something (I think it was by Schoenberg or maybe Kandinsky, but I can't remember) which put composers in this pyramid of striving, like a caste system with Beethoven at the top. The lower tiers of composers were striving to approach Beethoven's greatness; and Beethoven was striving, but towards no goal but greatness, since he was already at the top. By pairing Jiro's story with the music of Beethoven, the filmmakers are trying to say that Jiro is to sushi as Beethoven is to music. Which is a pretty big claim, but it looks to me as if Jiro is quite the true master!
Food and music are two art forms expressed through different media. Food is just unusual in that, while music and visual art try to deny this, it is made to be consumed, literally. But like all great art, food has form (do we recognize this as a soup or a sauce? sonata or ternary?) and technique (sets of skills acquired by both professional chefs and musicians and artists).
Food and music share the odd problem of being passed on in a means very different from the original art form. For food it is the recipe, created by a chef and passed on to be recreated without the presence of the chef. And although the chef tries to be as detailed as possible, the cooks who recreate the recipe might yield a slightly different result, even if they followed all the directions. For music, it is the score: a bunch of dots on a page with no real sound. It is the musician's job to interpret the composer's directions in order to recreate the music. And just like food, the musician can follow all the directions and still yield a unique interpretation.
Ingredients are like notes, with different shapes, sizes, characters, and pitches which don't mean much on their own; but when they combine with other ingredients/notes via techniques set down by the chef/composer, they become meaningful.
This is how I celebrated finishing my papers Monday night. I had two papers due on the same day and somehow managed not to lose any sleep over them. I did, however, spend many a day in Starbucks for the only 4 days in a row that it was sunny in Cleveland.
I am starting to look fondly on the Cleveland skyline, on days when it is visible (even though it is nothing compared to Chicago). I managed to snag a picture from the parking lot behind my apartment, with the sun hitting the buildings as it went down below the ceiling of clouds. Doesn't really do it justice, but in case you were wondering what the city of Cleveland looks like...:
To accompany my fancy pumpkin/yam single beer, I got some olives to snack on. This is a truly acquired taste: one I haven't quite grown into yet, but since my dad likes them I'm sure one day I will love them too. When I was younger the only olives I would eat were at Thanksgiving; black olives that came out of a can and I ate them with lots of ranch dip, which sounds kind of gross now. I like kalamata olives in very small quantities in Greek salads, but I usually pick them out. Anyway, I enjoyed the artichoke hearts and about half of these olives before having to quit.
I am home now, which might mean less cooking, but more holiday cookie baking, best of 2011 lists, New Years resolutions, and all that good stuff.
I am once again avoiding actual work by blogging. But it's ok because they are handing out free sugar at Starbucks, so I'm in for the long haul.
I escaped dreary Cleveland for the Great White North yesterday (and by that I mean Michigan), meeting Jacob and our friend Sam in Ann Arbor to go to the London Philharmonic concert that night. It's only a three hour drive but the minute I saw the first sign for Chicago the sky was somehow a lighter gray, and a dusting of snow covered the brown, corn-less fields. It was so nice to get a taste of what December weather should be.
I got in around lunchtime and we decided on Zingerman's Deli for lunch. I had no idea this was way more than just a sandwich shop. When we walked in we were greeted by a wall of cheese on one side and stacks of bagels on the other.
All the cheese are made in Michigan and the bagels and sandwich breads are made in-house. Behind the cheeses was a wall of smoked meats: links of smoked sausages, ham hocks, slabs of bacon, and lox.
A whole shelf just for mustard...
Fancy kitchen tools...
Jars of tea and spices...
A whole wall of oils and vinegars...
I didn't know so much awesome could be packed into such a small place. They had olive oil samples on one shelf where you could dip crusty cubes of bread into several different kinds. And so, so much bacon.
The sandwich menu was organized by meat-type to help you make your decision. Everyone working there was extremely helpful and offered us lots of free samples. I settled on a pressed Cuban sandwich with pulled pork and pickles. Jacob got a corned beef reuben (pictured above). And Sam got pastrami with scallion cream cheese.
We went "Next Door" to sit down and eat and discovered a room full of chocolate, gelato, and a coffee bar serving Zingerman's roasted coffee. They seem to have a monopoly on all the products served there. Quite the business.
