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.

PDX3/4

So I know I know this vacation was a couple of months ago, but when you work 60+ hours a week for a couple of months straight, you can slip behind a bit. Anyway if you just want to check out the pictures and don't feel like reading all the way through, here's a quick couple paragraph summary.

Horsetail Falls

Had hotel breakfast. Saw three cool waterfalls while foolishly hiked without pretty much anything necessary like water or a warm coat. Meet the self-proclaimed greatest rapper I’ll ever meet. Had some kickass lemongrass chicken with brown rice. Almost missed the underground tour again. Learned so much about Shanghaiing. Saw an ironic Scientology ad. Had a wheatgrass shot. Vegan dinner, that definitely looked like it wasn’t vegan. Talked to an environmentalist. I browsed through a big ass bookstore. Drunk some craft beer. Had the craziest ice cream flavors ever. Got tricked into going to another vegan place.  More hotel breakfast. Found out roses don’t bloom in the winter time. Supported the gluten free lifestyle by getting a coffee, took the Portland Arial Tram. Found out the mansion was closed for renovations. Saw some kickass art. Drunk some craft beer. Saw a really huge waterfall this time. Drove down to Hood River. Had a lot of craft beer. Got full service gas. Packed bags and left Portland.

On this day we finally took advantage of the hotel’s breakfast. I went ahead and upgraded to the full buffet and to my surprise they had my favorite thing on the buffet. Eggs benedict. I know as well as just about anyone that you can’t keep eggs benedict perfect in buffet form, but still this was a great effort that you couldn’t complain about. Runny yolk, solid hollandaise. My big complaint would be that I wish I would have known that it was there before I filled my plate with other stuff.

After breakfast, we drove out to the trial to do a little bit of hiking. Our trail started at Horsetail Falls. I have to say I made a couple of mistakes in going on this hike. One, was my jacket wasn’t thick enough. While I was fine walking throughout the streets of Portland, I was slightly chilly walking throughout the hills along the trail. The next mistake was not bringing my spare camera battery the Sony DSC-RX100 is my camera of choice and it is a great almost bit of a hybrid camera. It has an incredible zoom and the megapixels are so crazy that I have to downscale nearly all of my photos before uploading to many websites. I have to learn a bit on how to use some more but I’m looking forward to playing with it a lot. It is pricey, but I went with it at the suggestion of MKBHD. I also got a really cool case for it on Amazon. People always think the case is much more expensive than it actually is. But I digress.

Underground Tour

Anyway the breathtaking views and the moderate steepness of the hike sort of takes your mind off of how cold you might be. I took a lot of great pictures along the way and a walk as such really reminds you if how great nature can be. We took a ride back into town to get some more things like spare battery for my camera. We then made our way out to the food carts. We were waiting for food at Mai Pho, when we were greeted to a performance from the self-proclaimed greatest rapper I’ve ever meet Smar-T Jones. He had a pretty good flow and it killed a bit of time while we waited for food. I ended up buying his CD, which I still haven’t played at all, because who listens to CDs. It’s the inconvenience of loading a disc into something with none of the nostalgia of needle to vinyl. It was a cool experience and he had a physical bitcoin which was kind of cool.

Vegan Fast Food

When we finally dug into our food, I had the lemongrass chicken with brown rice and it was awesome. That lady is sick with the lemongrass. It’s been quite some time since I had a meal that good but it was great. It was so bright and had a uniquely complex spice to it. As we sat down to eat in the park, there were a startling number of piegons that almost made me feel nervous and they sporadically flew around in cirlces. I almost felt it a scene from the Hitchock classic Birds would soon erupt.

We finally made our way along the Portland Underground Tour. Don’t be decieved by the name, as I was. Though it clearly says it on the website, most of the tour is above ground. You do a fair bit of walking and get to know tons about the history of Portland. The gritty stories of Shanghaiing was something that I didn’t even know existed. Everything about the history makes everything make sense about how Portland is such a weird city today.

I was feeling a little bit drained, from the early wake up and hiking so I decided it would be good to stop at Kure and grab a wheatgrass shot. I don’t know what it is about wheatgrass juice but after a little bit of it I’m ready to run through walls. The taste is one that most people don’t enjoy but I fancy it quite a bit. I really more or less got drawn into the place because of the proximity to my hotel and also it’s modern look.

I wasn’t starving but was still a bit hungry so we stopped to eat a Veggie Grill right next door. Being in the city PETA hailed as being one of the best cities for vegans. It shows very much as nearly every place has vegan and vegetarian options. Veggie Grill was a pretty solid place to grab a bite as it was like your upscale version of fast food but vegan. Think vegan version of Red Robin or Fuddruckers. I ended up staring at the menu for quite some time as the menu has quite a bit of variety, before just picking out the Santa Fe Chickin’.

Ice Cream

The “chickin’” is made from vegetable protein which is fried and topped with some guac and a spicy vegan mayo. I have to admit the sandwich is one of those that makes you think that you can live without meat. The fries were particularly tasty as well. Combine that with the beer from Deschutes and you’ve got a winner. Powell City Books was the next stop. It is a massive bookstore. It’s really like a Barnes and Noble on crack with a huge used section. You could really get lost in the place and we spent about an hour browsing through the place. We even made a stop up to look at the rare book section, which had some really old books. I think if it can’t be found in this store it hasn’t been written.

More Ice Cream

I’d been wanting to try the local beer scene though, so the next stop was Cascade Brewing. We ended up getting the soup of the day to snack on while we were there and tried a few of the beers. The place have a comfy feel because the design of it all. All of the tables are made from barrels. I kind of have mixed feelings about this because it makes all of the tables high tops which I am not a huge fan of. It looks good though.

I liked two of the three beers that I tried there, I wasn’t really expecting to like the third though since it was a sour. The Oblique Black and White Coffee Stout ended up being my favorite. It was one of the better stouts that I tasted on my trip to Portland. The Defroster Winter Ale was the other beer that I liked. It had a nice spice to it that wasn’t overwhelming and was perfect for Portland’s 50 degreeish winter. The Vine was the one beer that I didn’t like. It was just a little too sour for my taste, but I typically don’t like sours so I was not surprised.

After this it was dessert time. One place that I knew I couldn’t pass up on while I was in Portland was Salt and Straw. They make all kinds of creative ice creams. I’m usually not a dessert guy but the variety of flavors that they have easily wins you over. There were lots of flavors to try so we ended up going with a couple of the samplers. As for flavor selection, I would have to say that one of my favorites was the olive oil ice cream. DMC said it tastes like nothing but I thought it was pretty savory and the olive oil notes come through clearly. Next up would have to be the lavender ice cream. I wasn’t expecting to like this one as much as I did but the floral notes of it really shine through but not in a perfumey overwhelming way. It was just light and creamy. Finishing with the bronze was the salted caramel. It was odds on favorite going into this little competition. I did love the combination of salty and sweet that is a classic. Caramel ice cream is one of my favorites and a sure fire way to make me happy when I'm in a bad mood, even though I loved this ice cream I still loved the other two more. I attribute that u to the fact that I don't have much of a sweet tooth and both were just off sweet.

Jamaican Bowl

The Elvis was great as well, combining peanut butter, bacon, jelly and banana. I think the king had a real winner in this combination. If you like complex you'd like the universe, but it wasn't my favorite. It had too much going on and I wasn't as much of a fan though it was still good. Oddly enough it was Dylan's favorite.   We also had the strawberry balsamic which combined sweetness and tartness to give you this good tangy aspect that goes well with the creamy texture.

The Hereafter

Afterwards, we didn't know where to go but I got tricked by Dylan into going to yet another vegan joint.   I can't complain because Sweet Hereafter was a solid place. I have to say, fear not carnivores, their Jamaican bowl is delicious affordable and is satisfying to even this omnivore. We were stuffed by the time we got here but the Jamaican bowl was talked up so much and I do have to admit that it is the best incarnation of Tofu that I have ever experienced.

While you sit back and enjoy the sounds of mellowed out new wave electro music you can enjoy great food and drinks as well. The Hereafter is served in a mason jar and gets lots of points for presentation for me but it was honestly not my favorite. I did however really enjoy the Long and Short of It. That drink was a little sweet but had a really nice strong kick to it.

From Portland Aerial Tram

The next morning we had our first stop at the rose garden. It was kind of silly of us to go because if you didn’t know roses don’t bloom in the winter time. We essentially fought the bulk of Portland’s traffic, a mere 15 minute delay for absolutely no reason. Now we were at a bit of a loss for what to do next so after driving in circles for a bit, we stopped at Tula Gluten Free Bakery.   It was more of a stop to gather our bearing, empty our bladders and decide what to do next. I am however a sucker for coffee, and I love trying out local coffee to figure out which one is the best. This place didn’t have too bad of a brew, but it wasn’t at the top of the list.

We had to drive by the site of one of our favorite sketches on Portlandia. The feminist bookstore In Other Words is hilariously Women and Women First. We had to take a drive by just to get a picture of it to say we were there. It was still closed so it was just a drive by stop.

Pittock Mansion

From there we rode the Portland Aerial Tram. I was expecting the tram to not arrive back at the same place so I guess I was expecting more than what it was. You only need tickets on the way up and not on the way down. I paid for three hours of parking not realizing the trip to the top and back down with a little bit of time at the top to take pictures can all be done in under 45 minutes. I didn’t lose out much since parking in Portland is so cheap anyway.

Inside Art Museum

Thinking that the Aerial Tram thing was going to take much longer we didn’t have anything else planned out so we looked up Pittock Mansion. Unfortunately, it was closed for repairs so we didn’t get to go inside but we did get a good view of the area because it is on top of a very tall hill. Not good planing on our part since it was also right next to the Rose Garden. That’s something to keep in mind if you ever plan a trip to Portland in the summer.

Next up was the Portland Art Museum.   I paid for so much parking time over at the Tram that I still had a couple of hours left as we got to the art museum. I decided to chance it and just leave my parking receipt from the tram on the dash. The museum is rather large and has a variety of art ranging to classic to contemporary, even sculptures and photographs. It took quite a while to look at everything.

From there we went to Hair of The Dog Brewery. It was well into lunchtime and I had to satisfy my desire to go to some of Portland’s breweries. I ended up having the Reuben sandwich. Overall the menu of the place was rather pedestrian, but it gets the job done and the beers were quite good. I ended up getting a flight of four beers and though all of them were quite tasty, I have to say that Adam was my standout favorite and well worth the trip there.

Multnomah Falls

Full Sail Brewing

Following our visit to the brewery, we embarked on what was this time a much more focused and prepared approached to seeing some nature. It wasn’t too much walking as we got to see Multnomah Falls. It is a rather massive waterfall, probably the biggest one that I have ever seen. Many of the bridges in the area were closed for repairs, so we were still able to get some good pictures, but hiking around the area was totally off limits.

We did continue driving on towards the Hood River. Along the way we made a couple of detours off the expressway to take some photos. Realistically, a few days isn’t nearly enough to soak in all of the beauty that is on display in the area.   There wasn’t much to do at the Hood River, seeing as how it was far to cold to go swimming or anything. So with that in mind we continued the brewery tour a bit. Full Sail Brewing Company had awesome food and beer to boot. The great thing about it was between the two of us we were able to get a couple of flights that would allow us to sample all fifteen of the beers they had on tap.

Hummus Plate

Along with the beer we ended up getting the Hummus plate to snack on. The plate came with tons of fresh veggies. The cucumber was sliced a bit too thin for my taste as it made it difficult dip in with the hummus. There were also olives, tomatoes, feta and artichokes. It was probably one of the best hummus plates I’ve had (save my own).

Of all the beers we tried there, I have to say there wasn’t a bad one in the bunch. My favorite among all of them was the Bourbon aged barleywine. I mean to a certain degree it’s hard to screw up when you’re aging in bourbon barrels, but this barleywine pulls off that rich strong malty flavor and wraps it up with a lot of finesse as opposed to many of the barley wines I have tasted in the past. Also their IPA was one of those that I liked very much as sometimes IPAs can be very much overhopped.

Relics of finished beer

Since we were a bit of the ways away from civilization, we decided to go ahead and take in the stars for a bit. Being in a place that suffers from a lot of light pollution, you rarely get to see how amazing it is to see all the stars in the sky. It was quite chilly though so after a few minutes, we hopped back in the car and turned in early for our fight to San Francisco in the morning.

Year of the Horse

Near finished product

So I know I’m a couple of weeks late on this blog post, but I’ve been super busy trust me.  I didn’t want to watch the Super Bowl this year, so instead, I went to a party hosted by my friend Lian.  I couldn’t bear to watch this year because of the Seahawks making it to the Super Bowl.  In my head I knew that they would win, but I didn’t want to admit that to even myself.

Action Shot

DOUBLE THE ACTION

Taking Photos of photo takers

This party was perfect though, since it would be mostly Super Bowl free.  We did end up watching the halftime show though.  I decided to play along with the theme and ended up making a vegetarian dumpling.  I was secretly hoping that someone would make one with pork, but I didn’t want to be that guy, so I just made a mushroom leek dumpling.

Anyway my dumpling kicked ass.  All of the other fillings people made were really good too, except for that kimchi one.  I absolutely hate kimchi, and I don’t know how anyone can eat it.  The smell of it makes me sick.

I also wanted to make a cocktail, because I’m good at it and I already had something in mind.  I did a test run the night before just to make sure and it ended up tasting great so everyone got the benefit.

Mushroom-Leek Dumplings

8 ounces cremini mushrooms

8 ounces silken tofu

1 large leek stalk, cleaned and chopped, woody ends removed

1 stalk lemongrass

⅓ Cup tamari

Living the High Life

⅛ Pound Daikon radish cubed

About 30 snow peas julienned

1 tablespoon sesame oil

1 tablespoon sriracha

1 tablespoon coconut oil

Method:

1. Brown the mushrooms and leeks in the coconut.  Bruise the lemongrass stalk and add it to the mushroom leek mixture while cooking.  

2. Deglaze with the soy sauce and simmer for 10 minutes over low heat

3.  Remove the lemongrass and add it to the food processor with the tofu, puree until smooth.

4.  Mix in the radish and snow peas for a little crunch and you’re ready to start filling your dumplings.

Pro tip: Fry your dumplings and when you add liquid to finish cooking the dumplings use vegetable stock to steam rather than water.  It makes a huge difference in taste.

Lychee Drink Thing

So I couldn’t come up with a name.   Hey it’s tasty and that’s all that matters.  I did get sold on a vita mix when I was here, since the one they had there made great drinks even though it was a little bit older model.  Anyway to make a pitcher of this frozen goodness, this is how you do it.

Ingredients:

2 Sprigs Rosemary leaves removed from woody stems

2 cans lychees, drained and frozen

Ready to be cooked

½ Cup Gin

½ Cup Green Tea Vodka

½ Cup Ginger Liqueur

Juice of one Lemon

8 oz. Coconut Water

3 tablespoons reserved syrup from lychees

Blend all ingredients until smooth.

NAH6: A Foodie Dice Challenge Edition. Curried Bean Cakes

With the second roll of the dice, I chose to use the vegetarian protein and I ended up with:

Beans

Rice

Cabbage

Curry

Dill

Hot Peppers

Roast/Bake

 The hardest part of this was the roast bake thing, and the dill element.  Dill is an herb that I rarely use.  There is something about these dice that makes me much more creative.  Curry is an herb that I do use a lot though.  Then all of a sudden everything just sort of clicked together.

 

I knew that the roasted element would have to be the cabbage straight away.  I couldn’t think of any way of roasting the beans at all.  I decided to make a panko crusted bean cake with basamati brown rice.  It would go alongside curry roasted cabbage.  With the dill I made a pickled fennel, raddish , pimento and finger chilies.  To tie everything together I had a sweet coconut sirracha sauce.

It winded up pretty well balanced.  You had the spiciness and depth of the entire dish, lots of richness.  You had all sorts of great textures going on, the crispness of the bean cake along with the soft roasted cabbage.  The rich creamy sauce went well and countered perfectly with the pickled vegetables.  I’ve got to say these foodie dice have reinvigorated my desire to cook.

I wish I would have though plating through more though because this doesn't really do the dish justice.

Ingredients:

For the pickled vegetables:

One Fennel Bulb

4 Pimento Peppers

3 Finger Peppers

½ Bunch Fennel

1 Teaspoon sliced fresh ginger

1 Bunch Raddish

2 Cups Vinegar

½ Cup Sugar

Juice of one Lime

1/2 Bunch Fresh Dill

Two star Anise Pods

For The Bean Cakes:

2 Cups cooked white beans drained

½ Cup Flour

2 Tablespoons sweet Curry Powder

¼ Cup Panko

Coconut Oil for frying

1 Cup Cooked Basamati Brown Rice

For the Coconut Sirracha Sauce:

1 Can whole fat coconut Milk

Zest of one lime

1 Tablespoon Siraccha

For the Cabbage:

1 Head Cabbage

3 Tablespoons Extra Virgin Olive Oil

1 Tablespoon Curry Powder

1 Teaspoon Cumin

1 Teaspoon Coriander

Method:

For the sauce:

Refrigerate a can of Coconut Milk for around 8 hours or overnight.  DO NOT SHAKE

Scoop off the cream from the top half of the can leaving the rest of the clear liquid behind

Whisk the sirracha and lime zest together with the removed coconut cream.

For the Bean Cakes:

Add cooked beans to blender and pulse until finely ground

Transfer mixture to bowl and add in all remaining ingredients except Panko and stir until combined.

Season the mixture with salt and pepper

Form into round cakes and coat both sides with panko

Cook both sides over medium heat until browned

For the Cabbage:

Cut the cabbage into large wedges.

Combine all ingredients and mix until coated.  Season with salt and pepper.

Roast at 375F for 45 minutes

For the Pickled Vegetables:

Over Medium Heat, dissolve the sugar over medium heat

Add all of the thinly sliced vegetables to the mix along with the lime juice and cover and let sit for at least two hours.