food and music obsessions

[insaneneko]

I was listening to an interview of a Spanish chef on The Splendid Table and just about died when he described a dish called Arroz Cubano (Cuban rice) that apparently everyone in Spain has grown up with. Fried egg+rice+tomato sauce (and at times banana?) sounds heavenly. Will try to figure out kind of rice to use. I doubt the medium grain rice we have in the house would be right...

I also am so going to try making Panna Cotta after reading David Lobovitz's blog post on it. It looks so easy! I just need to get my butt to a store and buy cream and gelatin. Though I have a feeling I may already have gelatin it may be buried somewhere...I also have a huge bottle of homemade vanilla extract I really want to test (you just stick vanilla beans into a bottle filled with vodka or rum and let it sit for a while--minimum 6 weeks, probably).

I also want to eat Cowboy Steak with Chimichurri Sauce because I love chimichurri sauce. Love. I...just don't want to make it myself. ^^;

I am currently completely obsessed with "Famous Blue Raincoat" by Leonard Cohen after listening to an interview on Fresh Air--he is putting on concerts after having all his money stolen by his manager while he was in a Buddhist monastery! I love the original (check it out here) but I am also looking for awesome covers. I am so glad you can hear samples on Amazon and on iTunes. I still haven't decided on whether to buy CDs or mp3s, and if I go with mp3s whether to go with Amazon or iTunes. I've been too traumatized by successive hard drive crashes to not expect another one--and even now I'm still lazy about backing up. XD; On the other hand, CDs take up space and can get really heavy. What to do, what to do.

Comments

[worldserpent.livejournal.com]

Panna cotta is a super, super easy dessert to make. Goes well also if you have some berries.

[insaneneko.livejournal.com]

I have all the ingredients, I just need to be home to make it. :P

[leviosa8.livejournal.com]

I had Japanese kids prepare that rice in a couple of cooking lessons. One with adults too. The mixture between the tomato sauce, the rice, the fried egg (with olive oil!) and the fried banana (sweet) felt like something from another galaxy to them. But it is really easy to prepare, and I like it a lot!

[insaneneko.livejournal.com]

So regular medium grain rice made in a rice cooker will work? That'd be soooo nice...

[leviosa8.livejournal.com]

We always used the Japanese rice you'd use for gohan. In Spain we boil it, because it's a different variety (and we don't usually have rice cookers...), but I think it's much better the one you cook in a rice cooker and that stays together. We make different forms with the rice depending on the glass or cup. It's like an okosama lunch of sorts. :D

[sansei555.livejournal.com]

Can't vouch for any of them, but wikipedia has a list of cover versions of Famous Blue Raincoat:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famous_Blue_Raincoat

[insaneneko.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[sansei555.livejournal.com]

You might have seen this article if you live in the San Francisco Bay Area. It was such a coincidence that it ran on Sunday. The writer listed what he thought were the best covers of Leonard Cohen songs (Cohen will be playing in the area this week). Among them:

Lloyd Cole, "Famous Blue Raincoat"

It seems sly to pick a singer who spent large swathes of his career trying to emulate Cohen, but what are you going to do? Cole takes all of his knowledge and applies it to a simple, acoustic reading of the song that is every bit as moving as the original.

Where to find it: Various artists, "Rare on Air, Vol. 2" (1995)s Blue Raincoat"