1001: Prince: Purple Rain

Prince: Purple Rain

First Listen: At Home, Bose Lifestyle 15 Audio via Chromecast.

Second Listen: At Home, Bose Lifestyle 15 Audio via Chromecast.
Third Listen:  On HP Folio Ultrabook with Sennheiser HD-360 PRO DJ Studio Style while reading lyrics

While I am very familiar with Prince, I don’t think that I’ve listened to many of his studio recordings in their entirety.  I usually reach for the greatest hits.  That aside I had never listened to the Purple Rain Album before I did this time.  I also watched the movie which sort of changed my feeling about some of the tracks on the album as a whole.

The Music

Favorite Tracks:

-Let’s Go Crazy:  How can you not love this classic track.  It’s one of those tracks that is an instant mood changer.  You listen to this track and you’re instantly happy and ready to dance no matter your mood.  Not to mention the sick guitar solo.

-Purple Rain: Maybe it’s the experience of doing this song at karaoke and being held up on my friend’s shoulders as I horribly belted out one of the worst renditions of Purple Rain to an ironically enthusiastic crowd, that makes this song one of my favorites but I absolutely love it. 

-I Would Die 4 U: That upbeat tempo combined with that smooth execution of quickly belted out run on sentences is a combination that can’t be beat.

-When Doves Cry: Rounds out the list of songs that I’ve heard before in great fashion.

-Beautiful Ones: This song is played in an early and somewhat pivotal point in the film as Prince declares his love for Apollonia through this song.  I’m a sucker for dramatic declarations of love so there you go.

Unfavorite Tracks:

-Computer Blue: It is like the only song you get to on this album and you outright want the skip.  You don’t really do it though because the guitar in the middle is amazing but to get to that you have to torture yourself with this just plain mediocre verse.  It’s also far too long.

-Take Me With You: While I do love the lyrical simplicity of the song and I do love the drum riff that breaks out in the beginning and end of the song, I feel like the transition between that riff and the rest of the song is not as clean as I would like it to be.

Overall Listing:

1.       Prince: Purple Rain (Amazon)
2.       Stooges: Stooges (Amazon)
3.       Frank Sinatra: In The Wee Small Hours (Amazon)

The Food

So Prince is a Vegan.  Because of that I had to go with a vegan meal. I wanted to incorporate the color purple into both food and drink but quite frankly that is rather difficult to do.  I really don’t know of that many purple foods, it’s just not that easy of a color.  Grapes, red cabbage, red onion, eggplant.  Exactly four things that don’t really go together.  Although I may have not completely owned up to the challenge of making a meal that exactly goes with the album.  I did make a good vegan dish, and I did use a bit of eggplant.  For the meal I made a decadent smooth and creamy curry cauliflower soup, along with portabella mushroom steaks and sautéed eggplant.

Curry Cauliflower Soup

1 Head of cauliflower diced (you can use much of the core for this but not the green leafy part)

1 ½ Teaspoons Curry Powder

1 Can Coconut Milk

1 Cup Vegetable Stock

2 Tablespoons Coconut Oil

Salt and Pepper to taste

Sautee the cauliflower over medium heat with the curry powder, salt and pepper.

When the cauliflower starts to brown.  Deglaze with the vegetable stock and the coconut milk and cover and simmer until the cauliflower is very tender.  (If the cauliflower is not very tender, you won’t get a smooth and rich texture when you try to blend it, it will come out sort of grainy, if this happens to you though you can always take what you have in the blender, add it back to the pan and keep on cooking it for a bit before blending again.  It really isn’t that huge of an issue if you mess up)

Transfer to a blender and blend until smooth

For the sides

4 Portobello Caps

1 Medium Eggplant

1 Tablespoon Ground Cumin

1 Tablespoon Ground Coriander

Salt and Pepper to taste

1 Tablespoon Coconut Oil

Remove the stems from the mushrooms and season with the cumin, coriander and season with the salt pepper and coriander.  Cook over medium heat until browned.

Remove the top from the Eggplant and cube it.  Season with salt pepper and coriander and sauté over medium heat until tender.

The Drink

For the drink I wanted to make something purple again, but what out there is purple.  I thought about this for quite a while and then I finally came to the conclusion that well…. Hibiscus Tea is kind of purplish-red.

Hibiscus Tea Martini

3 Ounces Cold Hibiscus Tea, sweetened appropriately

1.5 Ounces Gin

Shake the two together and serve up in a chilled martini glass.