I’m about to make dinner, but after discovering “On The Town” on Spotify this morning I found myself Googling the show (it’s one of Leonard Bernstein’s first musicals) and reading about Lea Delaria’s scene-stealing performance of the song “I Can Cook Too” in the 1998 revival. There it is above and I liked it so much, I had to share it here. Also: I think it’d make a swell theme song for a cooking show.
Back in the old days of my blog, I used to write Thursday Night Dinner Songs. Those files went missing, I got older and more self-conscious, and the days of food related songs on my blog were over. But tonight I Tweeted that I wanted to write a country song called: “Waiter, Don’t Take My Plate Away” (because so many servers take our plates away before we’re finished) and was surprised to see it get ReTweeted many, many times. So then I thought: “What if I actually write it?” I sat down at the piano, took out a notepad, and created the song you can hear up above. A few notes: (1) sorry that you can see up my nostrils; (2) sorry that I turn blue every few seconds; (3) yes, it sounds like Dolly Parton’s “Why’d You Come In Here Looking Like That?”; and (4) I know I’m not a great singer, which is why I’d love for you to record your own version of the song….
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We were walking to dinner in a large group when the parade began to pass. I’d heard of jazz funerals, where the friends and family of the recently deceased march through the streets with music and dancing, a celebration of life in the face of death. This wasn’t that. This was a wedding parade; with a band and parasols and white handkerchiefs being waved. Here, I shot a video.
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Thanks everyone for indulging me/us this Music Week. In case you weren’t able to watch the videos–or, in case you loved them so much you want to put those songs on your iPod (please let me know if you do: I know a good therapist)–here are all four tracks in mp3 form. Have a great weekend!
The Malted Milk Ice-Cream Song
[Click to listen to the songs online. Right-click to download to your desktop, import to your iTunes, and enjoy these songs on repeat every day for the rest of your life…]
One of the joys of living New York is that you can be reading Florence Fabricant’s column in the New York Times about a new frozen yogurt place in Park Slope and then realize that to get there you need only walk out your door and over a few blocks. And that’s exactly what I did after reading about Öko which, apparently, means “eco” in Hungarian. What does “eco” mean in English? Regardless, here’s what I brought back:
That’s just plain frozen yogurt (there was only plain or wild berry) with kiwi and a gooseberry on top. I’d never had a gooseberry and I immediately heard Veruca Salt’s voice: “The gooseberries taste like gooseberries, the snozberries taste like snozberries!” In fact, this gooseberry was like nature’s version of one of those gummy sour balls, except not gummy. It had a wonderful surprising squirt of sour.
And as for the yogurt, the richness and complex flavors took me by surprise. This is some serious frozen yogurt–the Harvard graduate to TCBY’s community college drop-out–and I couldn’t get enough. And with the kiwi it felt like a healthy snack, but was it? Lisa tells me that unless it says low fat, it’s probably still fattening. So I guess I can’t eat it three times a day. Perhaps this video, the last video of music week, will set the record straight.
Music week continues today with falafel! Not only does falafel have three bouncy, musical syllables but it’s also a food I’ve never attempted to make at home. I recruited my friends Lisa and Ricky who are not only game falafel makers but also wonderful musicians and singers (they sing the song at the end of the post). We used Joan Nathan’s recipe which you can read here on Epicurious. Here are Lisa and Ricky rolling our falafel in flour:
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News flash: The Sopranos had its last episode Sunday night. Did you see it? We did. In fact, we were all so engrossed that when this lasagna (from “Molto Italiano”) came out of the oven–a lasagna that I spent a few hours making, and spent a good amount of money on–we decided to wait until the episode was over before we ate it:
And as everyone bit in, instead of singing its praises everyone said: “What kind of ending was that?” Or: “Did the cable cut out?” Or: “Worst series finale ever!” (However, after much discussion half of us came around and decided we liked it. The ending, that is.)
Meanwhile, the merits of my lasagna remained unsung. So today I present to you this lasagna song which pays homage to a lasagna that, in my opinion, was worth singing about. You can find the recipe online here, though I cheated and used dry pasta. (I was going to make the lasagna from scratch, but didn’t have enough time.) The results were still tremendous. Harmonicas, however, are optional.
Welcome to Music Week! Every post this week (except for the one below) will feature a song penned and performed by yours truly (and maybe a few special guests). To start out the week, I thought long and hard about what would inspire me musically. And then I remembered this:
That is the tub of David Lebovitz’s malted milk ice cream that I made two weeks ago from his book The Perfect Scoop. It vanished in two days. I caught Diana eating it for breakfast, and Craig eating it in the middle of the afternoon. I told David I wanted to write a song about it and he confessed that it’s his favorite recipe in his cookbook. I agree (and I’ve only tried three!) What follows, then, is the song that it inspired and, after the jump, the lyrics and the recipe. Enjoy!
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