Pancakes: Whole Wheat Pumpkin Pancakes

I don't cook. I only make pancakes and ice cream, which I guess is cooking in some form or other. Anyway, a couple weeks ago I made whole wheat pumpkin pancakes from a recipe my wife found online (http://pinchmysalt.com/2007/10/14/my-recipe-for-whole-wheat-pumpkin-pancakes/). They were awesome. I had some difficulty with them though because they were so thick. I had to add more buttermilk to the recipe at the end, which ended up almost doubling the amount of buttermilk involved. But, the thickness made them fluffier and because they were whole wheat they were more filling.

Pizza Fridays 9/19/08 & 9/26/08

Two weeks behind...Here goes:

9/19/08:

The pizza was a Greek pizza. It had chicken, artichoke hearts, roasted garlic, olive oil, feta cheese, mozzarella, black olives, and spinach. My wife started making her own dough too. The beer was Buffalo Bill's Pumpkin Ale--highly, highly recommended.
The movie was The Darjleeing Limited, a Wes Anderson film. We both liked it.

































9/26/08:

This time it was the same dough, but the pizza was heirloom tomato, fresh mozzarella, and basil. It was crunchy and juicy at the same time. It was awesome! The beer was Budweiser's American Ale, which was surprisingly really good. The movie was Sex and the City, which was great! Better than expected.

Video of the Week: Natalie Imbruglia - "Glorious"

From her singles collection aptly titled Glorious: The Singles 1997-2007

RIP Richard Wright 1943 - 2008

Keyboardist and founding member of Pink Floyd died Monday from an undisclosed form of cancer. He will be missed.

Video of the Week: Pearl Jam - "Porch (Unplugged)"

Cruisin' around YouTube and I found this gem. Who could forget this! From MTV Unplugged 1992

Music Review: Less Than Jake's GNV FLA

Less Than Jake is one of my all time favorite bands. In fact, they are #2 on my list of favorite bands, a fact that makes some people squint their eyes and tilt their head in amazement at me when I say that. After all, they are a punk/ska band who still plays and makes music long after the early 90’s when that music enjoyed some popularity. They haven’t changed much over the years, and neither has their music. What has changed (besides the line up a few times) is what is in the content of the lyrics. As they have gotten older, their songs have grown into anthems of growing up and dealing with life’s ups and downs. It used to be that the songs were much sillier. They released their 11th studio album GVN FLA on June 24th of this year, and it’s everything long time fans of LTJ have come to love (GVN FLA is a shout out to Gainesville, Florida where the band is from).

A quick history of LTJ: although the band counts literally hundreds of recordings on everything from vinyl to cassette tapes to CD’s, they only have 11 official studio albums. The first 4 were released on small punk rock labels, and then Capital Records picked them up for two albums that are considered to be their most popular, including the omnipresent Losing Streak. But when they, and ska music in general, failed to garner the public attention that Capital thought they would they were dropped. Classic punk rock label Fat Wreck Chords produced their 5th studio album (and my favorite LTJ album) Boarders and Boundaries in 2000 before Warner Bros. Music picked them up to release 3 more albums before they were dropped from a major label yet again. The latest album was released on their own label, Sleep It Off Records, which they started this year.

LTJ has always been known for their love of PEZ, (which I also share—just ask my wife about my PEZ dispenser collection!), their crazy live shows which often have themes, and the impromptu banter they engage in on stage. They are known for having a lot of fun with their music and their live shows. They never actually released the last names of the band members—they were eventually released by the media. The band was started by the drummer Vinnie, guitarist Chris, and bassist Roger while they attended the University of Florida. In 1993 they started adding horn players to the band, and have since gone through a whole host of people and instruments in the horn section. The name come from Vinnie’s family’s dog, named Jake. Story goes that he was treated better than the rest of the family, so everyone was “less than Jake.”

This new album is more of a throw back to days of old than their last release In With the Out Crowd, but not as far back as Losing Streak. In fact, they haven’t made music that sounded quite like that in a long time. I understand though, music has to evolve like everything else. This record sounds more like Boarders and Boundaries—several classic fast moving songs with great horn lines and songs about coping with life as an adult who still feels young. Out Crowd was the most Pop-Punk sounding music they have ever recorded. I still liked it, but I am a hard core fan. I think most LTJ fans are much happier with this record. LTJ always uses simple power chords and almost never has any guitar solos. They seem to go out of their way to make the music sound fun, not angry. This record is no different. The first track off the album ”City of Gainesville” is almost deceiving—it sounds very much like a low key, laid back slow roll, which is not something they are known for. But then it gets started in a fantastically abrupt way with “The State of Florida” which they talk about the recent changes in the landscape of Florida with the real estate boom. Other songs on the record talk about their frustration of getting older, something we’ve come to expect from LTJ.

I have to say overall I am really happy with this album, and I give it 4 ½ out of 5 stars. I will say that I’m almost positive that a new comer to the LTJ sound would probably rate it lower than I will, however. Keeping with my tradition, here are my top 10 LTJ songs (Disclaimer: for those who are unfamiliar with LTJ music, another thing they are known for is having crazy names for their songs that don’t really have anything necessarily to do with the lyrics in the songs):

1) Malt Liquor Tastes Better When You’ve Got Problems
2) Gainesville Rock City
3) Sleep it Off
4) How’s My Driving?
5) Lockdown
6) Johnny Quest (Thinks We’re Sellouts)
7) Welcome to the New South
8) 1989
9) Jen Doesn’t Like Me Anymore
10) History of a Boring Town

Video of the Week: Crag Hand - "Direct Connect"

From his album A Long Way From Town

I saw this video for the first time this past weekend even though it came out in 2006. It cracked me up so much, I had to share it. Enjoy!

Pizza Fridays 9/05/08

My wife has started a new weekly tradition: making pizza. This past Friday she made a chicken sausage, cherry tomato and mozzarella pizza.



The movie was No Country for Old Men--I liked it, she didn't like it so much

Sugarland

As I mentioned below in my post about Alan Jackson, I love country music. So when my wife showed up a while back with tickets for Sugarland at the LA County Fair I was stoked! Last night we went and met up with some friends at the fair, at fair food, and saw the concert. First of all, let me just say that the LA County Fair is HUGE! I thought the Orange County fair was big, but damn. We showed up and just parked in the general lot, then had to walk for what seemed like miles to get to the entrance. After meeting up with our friends I had a hot pastrami sandwich, a chocolate covered strip of bacon (not kidding), and then we went into the show which was setup inside the horse race track.

I've been into Sugarland since I heard their first single "Baby Girl" on Yahoo! Music. I bought their first CD Twice the Speed of Life after I heard the second single "Something More". (Notice the pics--this time they were actually taken by me instead of lifting them from another website!) I have to say I was quite pleased with the Sugarland performance. The two of them have such stage presence that its hard to not be drawn into the show. They are promoting their latest album Love on the Inside and they played a lot of songs from it, including a couple that I don't really care for--or didn't really care for until I saw them do it live. I love when a band can make you hear a song through their ears, because then the tracks that you may not have gotten before you start to hear totally different. Last night for me, those songs were "Joey" and "Genevieve". They of course played all their big hits and some other loved tracks from the earlier albums, including my favorite "Want To". The biggest crowd reaction came after they play "Stay"--I guess a lot of people have been cheated on!

Sugarland does a really good job of getting the crowd into the show. They are full of energy, and let's face it Jennifer Nettles is very easy on the eyes! About half way through the show they actually autographed a guitar on stage then Kristian went out into the crowd and gave it to someone. Now that is something you don't see at every concert! And the encore--the encore! They came out and played one song for the encore, but their performance of Def Leppard's "Pour Some Sugar on Me" totally rocked. Showed their age, and ours, but totally rocked. I also love how they embody the new era of country music. Notice in the pictures that they are both wearing skinny jeans, she is wearing sketchers (I think) and he is wearing a pair of Chuck Taylors. My only complaint about the show is that it was only an hour and a half long with no opening act--a typical fair show.

As is my tradition, here are my top ten Sugarland songs:

1) Want To
2) Something More
3) Baby Girl
4) Settlin'
5) Stay
6) Down in Mississippi (Up to No Good)
7) Just Might Make Me Believe
8) Stand Back Up
9) Wishing
10) All I Want to Do

Video of the Week: Death Cab for Cutie- "I Will Possess Your Heart"

From their latest album Narrow Stairs

Pancakes: New Morning Cafe Tiburon, CA

My wife and I went to Tiburon, CA this past weekend for a wedding. Where is Tiburon? A lot of people have asked me that. Tiburon is across the bay from San Francisco. In fact, you can see the city and the Golden Gate Bridge on the other side of the water when you’re there. It’s a very small, very quaint, very affluent place. In fact, there are not that many shops or restaurants, or bars there. But, if there is breakfast to be had you’d better believe me that I was going to find it. OK, my wife found it—I was just glad that I was getting my pancakes.

We ate at the New Morning Café. I’ve been to smaller places, but the crowd coming into this place to eat was much bigger than the restaurant could handle. Always a good sign, but then again there isn’t that many places to go here. Now, the first thing I get when I go to a new breakfast place is the pancakes, and I usually try to get some sort of breakfast combo which includes eggs, bacon or sausage, and sometimes potatoes. Almost all breakfast places have such a thing, and this place was no different. The breakfast combo came with 2 pancakes, an egg over easy (just they way I like it), potatoes, and your choice of meat. I usually get bacon, but they had bangers as an option which you don’t usually see, so I had to go for that. I love a good salty bangers sausage—I little Irish flare never hut anybody!

When the pancakes finally made it to the table, they were clearly very fluffy and thick and they looked great. The sausage was looking awesome, the egg was perfectly runny, and the potatoes were a little sparse, but as my wife will tell you that’s not a big deal to me. Potatoes are usually the last thing I eat off my plate. After taking a bite of the pancakes I felt like they were missing something; the pancake by itself just seemed a little bland to me. They could have used a little more sweetness I think--I would increase the amount of sugar in the batter. But all in all they were pretty good. I’ve had a lot of pancakes worse than these, that’s for sure! They weren’t bisquick-y, they weren’t flat, they weren’t mungy, they weren’t small—other than the sweetness factor, I thought they were good. The fluffiness of the pancakes worked well at soaking up the syrup, but never got saturated. The sausage was as awesome as it looked, btw! What a treat to get some bangers with your pancakes!

My wife, who is not into pancakes, got an omelet with apple and stilton cheese—which was awesome! They did have an interesting looking assortment of omelets on the menu…but I am here to talk about pancakes! Check out that strawberry jam though...that stuff was awesome! It was in a jar on the table, and I'm pretty sure that they make that stuff themselves. It had big chunks of strawberries in it too!

All in all, I would recommend the New Morning Café to anyone visiting Tiburon. It was a great breakfast experience!

Video of the Week: Less Than Jake - "Does the Lion City Still Roar?"

From their new album GVN FLA (separate post about the album still to come!)

Thinking About Punk Rock

I still have an affinity for punk rock music although I'm close to being in my 30's. There is just something so wonderful and powerful in a 45 second, super-fast power chord filled rock song. Just seems to get me moving. But, I realize that many people don't listen to punk rock and don't understand what makes the difference between a good punk rock song and a bad punk rock song. As with any other genre of music people have varying opinions about good vs. bad songs, and you will get different answers depending and who you ask. For the benefit of the unknowing, I will give my breakdown here.

Now, I'm not going to go into a diatribe about how in the 70s punk rock rose from the ashes as a backlash to disco, but to fully understand all the things that fans love about punk rock you first must understand the range that punk rock covers, and the different forms the music can take that are deemed acceptable to pass as punk rock. Punk rock can be fun or harsh, it can be silly or angry, it can even be poppy or politically charged. Punk rock can be simply guitar, bass and drums--or it can include other instruments like horns, stand up basses, keyboards, and even the violin. The one thing in common across all punk rock songs is the crunching guitar and fast tempo.

Of course, not all punk rock fans love all the forms punk rock can take, or the topics that the bands choose to sing about. Some prefer the angry and political punk rock bands because they sort of make a declaration of their unhappiness with the status quo. Others prefer the lighter pop punk sound because to them its more fun. Its these differences in each individual that determine what makes a good vs. a bad punk rock song.

Doesn't sound very profound does it? That's because its not. Punk rock is no different than any other form of music when it comes to why people like a certain song or not--it comes down to movement. Not movement in terms of dancing, head bobbing, etc. What I mean is that it depends on whether the song moves people internally, as with any great song. Let's use a classic rock example of a song that is universally accepted as a great song: Hey Jude by the Beatles. Why do people love that song? What is it about that song that makes it so popular? It's because it moves people--the message moves people, the rhythm moves people, the catchiness of the song moves people. It's very memorable; people tend to remember when they first heard it, and when they hear it for the first time in a long time they suddenly remember the words and they have fun singing along with it. Great punk rock songs are no different, but think about the challenge of punk rock bands to write songs considered great.

Have you ever noticed that there are a LOT of punk rock bands out there--so many that even the hardcore punk rock fans can't keep up with all the new bands. That's because, generally speaking, punk rock is easier to play than other forms of music. I mean let's face it, most punk rock songs are a series of power chords repeated at a fast pace with mid to heavy distortion adding such a bite to the music that sometimes it's hard to make out the words. Even if bands screw up, a lot of the time it isn't noticeable. And assuming bands can put together lyrics to lay over the track that sound decent, they can produce a lot of songs in a short amount of time. But despite this fact, punk rock songs have a groove to them that fans like, or don't like. The great punk rock songs have become great because they moved a lot of fans at the same time. Sounds crazy to the untrained ear, but punk rock takes a lot of talent to be good at.

That's what I love about it. In my opinion, the great punk rock bands are the ones that make so much out of so little. I use the phrase "so little" because most punk rock songs are so short that there isn't much time for them to become elaborate expressions of music. A lot of them don't have guitar solo's, a lot of them have a few lines repeated several times, and as I said above typically the music is "easy" to play. The great punk rock songs are the ones that come across your speakers with a synergy that makes them sound like they are so much more than they are. Yes, I do appreciate the rawness in the crunching guitars and the off-pitch vocals. I do get hyped up by the speed of the music. But its the idea of so much from so little that fascinates me about punk rock (its also why I love The White Stripes, but that's for another time). I will not list my favorite punk bands here--rather I will write about them as time goes on. And maybe I'll post about why I believe that some of the best song writers in music today are coming from punk rock and country.

RIP LeRoi Moore 1961 - 2008

The music world suffered a great loss on Tuesday. LeRoi Moore, the saxophonist for the Dave Matthews Band, passed away in Los Angeles from complications arising from an ATV accident. He was only 46.

LeRoi Moore 1961-2008

http://www.usatoday.com/life/people/2008-08-19-leroi-moore_N.htm?csp=34



Deepest condolences to his family and friends.

Video of the Week: Zac Brown Band - "Chicken Fried"

Live from HOB in New Orleans.

Dodgers 5, Brewers 3...Dodgers Win!

My wife and I, our friend Bill, and my brother in-law Geoff went to Dodger Stadium on Friday to see the Dodgers take on the Milwaukee Brewers. We are big LA fans and we try to come to as many games as we can--and more often than not the Dodgers lose while we are there. At first I thought it was just because of the Dodgers' poor record, but as time went on I became more and more convinced that it was our presence that was dragging them down. But Friday night all that was put to rest. The Dodgers beat the Brewers 5 to 3 and went on to carry the series winning 2 of 3 games. Manny Ramirez hit a single RBI in the 1st inning to start it off for the Dodgers, but that was 2 less runs than the Brewers had at the end of the 2nd inning. But then Casey Blake hit a 2 run home run in the 4th, Jeff Kent hit a single RBI in the 5th and Russell Martin hit a solo home run in the 8th to bring their score up to 5. Jonathan Broxton came in to close it down. Awesome! LA definitely has Manny fever. Having a big name (and a big bat) like him is good for the team, good for the fans, and good for the players. Pitches are flying and players are hitting more and more! We'll see how much Manny asks for after this season is over--it would be sweet to keep him on the team. It would be nice to seem them actually compete in the post season for a change.

Some random notes from the night: The foul pole we are posing with was one row in front of us on the 1st base side, I ate 2 Dodger Dogs, some nachos w/carnitas , 1/2 a bag of peanuts, and I had 2 beers. Bill is a huge Yankees fan and he showed up to the stadium in full NY gear.

Turley's Red Velvet

Last night my wife and I busted out a couple bottles of Red Velvet zinfandel we purchased last time we were at the Turley winery in Paso Robles, CA. For those unfamiliar with Turley they specialize in zinfandels and the wines they produce are very robust, very rich in color and flavor--and at prices starting at around $50 and up they are not cheap. That is, except for the Red Velvet which is their version of a table wine and comes with a price tag of $10. To put it simply, this is the best $10 bottle of wine I've ever had. Is it as rich and robust as other Turley wines--no, not even close. But, compared to other wines you can purchase for $10 it certainly is. So when you compare this bottle to comparably priced bottles the Red Velvet offers the complexity that great zinfandels have with the ease of an everyday wine. Other bottles around $10 can leave you wanting for more--more taste, more complexity, more everything. That's the worst. Few things are as bad as drinking an inexpensive bottle of wine and wishing you'd have spent a little more to get something you would have enjoyed more. Red Velvet doesn't have that effect. When drinking it you are fully aware of what the wine lacks that puts the price tag at $10, but are never left feeling unsatisfied like you are drinking any old standard cheap wine. Rather, Red Velvet satisfies the palate and makes you look forward to that next glass. I'm not sure if they sell this in stores--you can check with your local speciality wine store. You can also try to contact Turley to see if you can order it at turleywinecellars.com, or you can take a trip to Paso Robles and buy some directly (which is my recommendation--you won't be disappointed!).

Alan Jackson!

I write this blog from Long Beach, CA (which is evident from the top of this blog) but like a lot of people in California, I'm a transplant. I'm originally from Wyoming, and as you can imagine I was raised on country music. Now, I love all types of music and I'm sure to post about it all eventually, but country music is in my blood and I love it to this day. So when I saw that Alan Jackson, a living country music legend, was coming to the Orange County Fair on July 26th I was all over it. I was not disappointed either! I went with my wife and her parents, and some friends of ours. Even though she is from California originally, she also grew up with country music which is very convenient when it comes to country concerts.

The Zac Brown Band opened up the show. Like Jackson, they are from Georgia. I guess I'd describe their music as a mix of country and southern rock. Alternative county without being so far removed from country that they can't find an audience. Think Cross Canadian Ragweed (which I also love) but a little more country. They were so good I bought all 3 Cd's they were selling at the booth. It was probably the biggest crowd I've seen actually come in for the opening act. Their radio single "Chicken Fried" is really everything a country music fan would want in such a crowd pleasing song. Definitely worth checking out at zacbrownband.com.

Alan Jackson, much like George Strait (another living country music legend), basically comes out, stands there and sings--and it's awesome. The sign of a great musician! His new album Good Time is flying up the country charts and currently sits at number 4, and despite promoting the new album he only played the 2 singles from it. With a body of work like his, it's almost hard to make a set list because there are so many fan favorites to choose from. He played a solid mix of his more up beat and rocking songs, with a few slower ones sprinkled in, including my favorite Alan Jackson song "Remember When". So, as hard as it is to boil down his catalogue of songs to just 10, in my traditional fashion, here are my top 10 favorite Alan Jackson songs:

1) Remember When
2) Blues Man
3) Livin' on Love
4) Chasin' That Neon Rainbow
5) Here in the Real World
6) Someday
7) Drive (for Daddy Gene)
8) Don't Rock the Jukebox
9) Gone Country
10) Small Town Southern Man

Welcome! (and an explanation)

Pancakes and Wine?! Together? I know that's what some of you must be thinking. While I'm sure that they would go well together, with the right varietal, that is not what this blog is all about. This blog is about all of my favorite things, and my thoughts about them. Everything from pancakes to wine to ice cream to music--I will speak about them all here. Why would anyone care to read this you might ask? Frankly, I don't know. I hope the posts are interesting to some people!