Last night we played at a place that’s near and dear to our hearts, Cafe Nola in Frederick, MD. This place infuses their own liquors to make fabulous signature cocktails (basil peppercorn vodka for bloody mary’s, apple cinnamon bourbon, strawberry lime tequila). They also have a coffee bar complete a case of amazing fresh pastries made in-house (I had a chocolate croissant, pure heaven!) and full-scale dinner menu. This year they’ve expanded their operation into a full-on farming operation to provide fresh food for the restaurant, including raised beds, chickens, & bees! I’m so happy to know these folks and watch them grow.
I have to say something about the food and hospitality of a place called the Taphouse Grill in Hampton, VA. They decorated the stage to the nines, fed and watered us to our hearts content, and even let us sleep over! I had the best tuna sashimi appetizer I’ve ever tasted, so tender it was like cutting jello with a fork. I also had their clam chowder, which was a clear broth base and had lots of lump crabmeat floating around in it. Absolutely delicious! This food has soul.
This weekend we were blessed with some amazing hospitality at a house concert in St. Petersburg, FL. Our hosts made us smoked tuna and soba noodles. The tuna was cooked on a small stove-top smoker, which is a kitchen contraption I haven’t seen before and need for myself!
Ingredients for tuna marinade:
lemon
lime
garlic
ginger
soy sauce
Marinate tuna steaks for 2 hours in mixture of above ingredients. Cook for about 10 minutes according to the smoker’s directions. When the tuna is done, cut it into bite sized cubes and add diced celery, green onion, & cucumber.
Here’s a simple spring recipe I’ve been making over and over again with arugula from my neighbor’s garden.
big bunch of arugula leaves
fresh strawberries, cut into bite-size pieces
goat cheese, crumbled
couple of drops of olive oil
couple of drops of red wine vinegar
Combine first 3 ingredients in a large bowl, add oil & vinegar to taste just before serving.
Last year in my garden I grew the most enormous, beautiful beets I had ever seen. I was so proud! After experimenting with different way of cooking them, I think roasting them in the oven is the best way to bring out their sweet, earthy flavor.
Ingredients:
beets
carrots
onions
garlic
peanut oil (or olive oil if you don’t have it)
salt
pepper
walnuts
goat cheese
Directions: Peel beets and carrots and chop them into rough, evenly sized chunks. Cut onions into equal sized large wedges. Dice garlic and toss these together in a mixing bowl with a drizzle of peanut oil, salt, & pepper. Spread them out so that they form a single layer on a baking sheet or glass casserole dish. Roast them in the oven on about 400-450 degrees (depending on your oven’s personality, mine tends to be a bit slow so I do it on 450). Start checking on them after 30 minutes. It may take up to an hour depending on your oven. The edges should get a bit charred. When the vegetables are soft to the poke of a fork, sprinkle the walnuts on top and let them cook for a minute or two until they’re just heated. Remove from the oven and cover with crumbled goat cheese. Serve to your guests and bask in the river of compliments you’re about to receive.
My next door neighbor had a fascinating volunteer squash plant in his garden this year. It’s called a tromboncino, it’s an Italian summer squash that has a shape and flavor reminiscent of butternut squash. Before I made this soup I balanced one mammoth squash on the bathroom scale and it weighed just over 5 lbs.
Ingredients:
5 lbs (uncooked) tromboncino squash or butternut squash
1-2 yellow onions
3 cubes vegetable bullion
drizzle of half & half or heavy whipping cream
olive oil
8-12″ rosemary branch
cumin
salt
black pepper
red pepper flakes
8 cloves of garlic
2 bay leaves
cilantro (garnish)
plain yogurt (garnish)
Directions:
Cut the squash into 6″ sections and split each one evenly down the middle. Place all sections cut side up in glass baking dishes. Cut onions into wedges and place in baking dish. Drizzle all vegetables with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Bake or roast in the oven at 350-400 degrees for 45 minutes to an hour. While baking, fill a stock pot with 2-3″ of water. Add vegetable bullion cubes, rosemary, bay leaves, garlic, cumin, red pepper, & the ends of the onions. Simmer on low until the squash is finished in the oven. When the squash is cooked, remove it from its shell and place it in the stock along with the roasted onions. Simmer this mixture, stirring and mashing often, for at least 15 minutes, preferably longer, to let the flavors marry. When it’s done, stir in a good drizzle of half & half or heavy whipping cream and mix thoroughly. Add salt to taste and adjust seasonings. Remember to remove woody rosemary stalks and bay leaves before blending. Ladle the chunky soup into a food processor or blender and puree. It will take several batches to get it all so have a second pot ready. When serving, add a couple of spoonfuls of plain yogurt to the center of the bowl and sprinkle with cilantro. Great with a toasted bagel!
-Christa
There is a serious lack of breakfast restaurants in Knoxville, TN. This is not due to a lack of breakfast eaters. We would LOVE to have a place like Sadie Katz Deli in Burlington, VT in our hometown. It’s a classic little Jewish deli in an old 1950s diner that serves breakfast all day (important for musicians & folks in the service industry – we do not keep “normal” hours). Every meal comes with a complimentary plate of pickles. Some of these are your average salty pickle, the other half are called “half sours,” which means they’ve been in brine half the time and are therefore brighter green, fresher, and crunchier. These are my favorite. I could eat a whole plateful of them, even for breakfast. $5.50 will get you 2 eggs any style, a meat item of your choice (bacon bacon bacon), toast or an english muffin, and a latke (potato pancake). And the previously mentioned endless supply of pickles. It was delicious. As we were leaving I mentioned to our server, “I wish you’d open one of these in Tennessee,” to which he replied, “Tennessee, is that where you’re from? First you’re gonna have to get some Jews down there.” Ha! It reminded us of another Jewish deli we visited in NYC called Katz Deli (famous for being the site of the orgasm scene in the movie “When Harry Met Sally”). The two businesses are not related but they have the same name and the same pickles. Go figure.
Dear Knoxville restaurant entrepeneurs, please read: we need a breakfast diner in downtown Knoxville. Preferably one that is open until 3-4am. That is our dream. Thank you.
-Christa
Last night before our show in NYC we found a little place with delicious cheap middle eastern food. It was called Mamoun’s Falafel, in the East Village on St. Marks St. We got falafel sandwiches, baba ganouj, and a couple of orders of grape leaves all for $16! The grape leaves were nice and tender, the baba was pleasantly tangy and wonderful. We are definitely going to hit up again before we leave the city.
Speaking of which, we’ll be playing a massive cobill tonight in NYC at 92YTribeca with Sxip Shirey, The Two Man Gentlemen Band, Miss Tess and the Bon Ton Parade, The Hot Seats, The New Familiars. Our time slot is 9:20pm. Good times!
This is my roommate Rita’s recipe for perfect shortbread. She made this on my birthday for brunch and it was a huge hit. It goes great with coffee or tea, day or night. Rita and her business partner Josh (who used to be one of the “Jons” on upright bass), just opened a brand new shop in north Knoxville called the Parlor. It’s located in a hundred year old general store with a deli on the ground floor and a musical instrument store on the second floor, complete with studios for music instructors to teach lessons. Here is a little treat Rita might be cooking up at the Parlor (in her own words).
Ingredients:
1/2 cup of brown sugar
sticks butter
4T cornstarch
1.5 c. flour
1t. vanilla
Directions:
“Preheat oven to 325. Put 9″ tart pan with removeable bottom into freezer. Cut cold butter into small pieces, and blend in food processor with sugar until creamed and light. Add vanilla, cornstarch, and flour and pulse just until dough comes together. Remove tart pan from freezer and press dough into it, adding flour as needed to make the dough manageable. Bake 20 minutes until light golden brown, remove and cool on wire rack. While still warm, cut into wedges.”
Tonight I went over to Kevin’s & Julie’s house to make a batch of fresh kim chi. Kevin & Julie are the owners of my favorite letterpress business, Yee Haw Industries. Kim chi is a spicy Korean pickle dish that gets its magical zing by fermentation. It’s best to do this in a group because chopping the ingredients takes forever! You can use a food processor to save time but the texture is better if you do it by hand. Get a large food-safe bucket with a tight lid to mix and store the mixture.
Ingredients:
several heads of napa cabbage (however much will fit in your bucket)
several daikons (half as much volume as cabbage)
garlic (lots)
ginger (also lots)
green onions (equal proportion to the daikon)
cayenne pepper flakes (lots)
salt (equal proportion to cayenne)
2 cans of anchovies
Directions:
Mince the garlic and the ginger. Cut the green onions into thirds and sliver them thinly. Cut the napa cabbage into 1-2″ chunks. Peel the daikons, cut them into rounds about 1/3 of an inch wide, then cut each round into 4 equal quarters. Mince the anchovies, saving the juice. Combine all ingredients in a bucket. Put on a rubber glove if you’ve got one and mix thoroughly, turning and twisting the mixture to coat everything and crush the cabbage. There are no wet ingredients in this recipe (other than the little bit of anchovy oil) but the salt will draw a surprising amount of water out of the cabbage. Cover this aromatic mixture with the lid and let it sit at room temperature for 2-3 days, mixing every day if possible. After this time your kim chi is ready. Transfer it from the bucket into canning jars, reused pickle jars, or anything from your recycling bin with a tight-fitting lid (make sure it’s clean, of course). Refrigerate and share extra jars with anyone who loves spicy food and pickles.
-Christa