Best Birthday Ever

So my birthday honestly got off to not the best of starts.  I went out to eat with my friends at one of my favorite bars and it was horrible. I really expect so much more from Tap House Grill.  I really have never been disappointed by them up until that point.  Everything I’ve had there thus far has ranged from really good to just okay.  This time they were out of most of the beers that I wanted to try.  Additionally, I think they served us the most horrible wings on the face of the planet.  I mean honestly for that I would have come out better going to a TGI Fridays.

Super Awesome Birthday Cake

That little blip aside I did have a totally awesome birthday cake, so I can’t really complain about things too much.  It was a San Francisco 49ers cake.  I loved it.  It had the logo on top and the names of players along the side.  I started to drive to Detroit, and along the way a small rock hit the windshield of my car giving me a little crack.  I’m all but ignoring said cracks, and eventually I will have to get the entire windshield replaced, but I just let my insurance cover the glass repair people filling in the cracks to prevent them from spreading.

Sicilian Pizza at Buddy's

When I got to Detroit we stopped for Pizza at Buddy’s.  I saw it as being listed as one of the thirty best slices of pizza in the nation so I had to give it a shot.  I was getting a little nervous about the choice as I got close to the place in what didn’t exactly seem like the best of neighborhoods.  Still the big signs that were advertising the various awards the place has gotten drew me in.

There were a few things that surprised me about the place.   One was that they had pretty good quality local craft beers on sale for only $4.50 each.  The place was very straightforward well priced and not too fancy.  Another surprise is that Buddy’s decided that Vegan people shouldn’t be allowed to starve and they offered a vegan pizza.  I decided to go for the New Yorker.  It seemed simple enough and you have to be able to nail the basics.  Though my favorite pizza topping hands down is mushrooms, I don’t really get mushrooms on pizzas from every pizzeria because it usually ends up in a bit of disappointment.

This pizza was pure bliss.  The crust was nice and crisp.  The sauce had a nice kick to it without being too herbaceous or spicy.  I was instantly a fan.  Detroit style square pizza deserves it’s own notoriety alongside the ranks of Chicago and New York style.  The great thing about the pizza was that it was that the cheese goes all the way to the edge and gets a little crispy at the edges.

The New Yorker at Buddy's Pizza

From there we went to the concert.  We probably should have stopped at the hotel first to check in but It was kind of close to 8 and the show started at 7 and I didn’t want to chance missing any of Robert’s set.  The shelter, where it was held was a small venue.  It had a decent bar.  The prices at the bar weren’t exactly as cheap as I expected them to be either.  Long Islands for $7 is nearing Chicago prices.

We got there well in time to see both opening acts.  The first one had a pretty decent sound but the most memorable thing about the band was the extremely long dreds on the lead singer.  Still they sounded alright.  The next group up was Ghost Beach.  They somehow make things work without having a bass player at all in their band.  I think it is more or less because of the strength of their synth.   The one thing about that particular performance was that the music was so loud that you couldn’t really make out the vocals that well.  That aside they did a pretty good performance.

This was my third time seeing Robert Delong.  It has been one of my weird obsessions musically.  I remembered I first heard the song Global Concepts on the radio when I was driving from Atlanta to Miami after the NFC Championship game(The one that my niners ended up winning in order to unfortunately loose in the Super Bowl on some BS calls against Baltimore but I digress).  Once I heard that song I wanted to hear more.  The track was for free on Amazon MP3, but I decided to go for the whole album with all the remixes.  I must have played that song like 30 times on the drive home.

In between sets, I went to get my face painted.  I don’t think I ever got my face painted as a kid and as soon as she started I was like man this feels weird.  I had the impulse to like scratch my face a bunch of times, but I totally didn’t want to mess up what she was doing.  Later on she said that it was one of the best she’s ever done, It was pretty cool and she was probably right.  Oh, to fill in some necessary information, Robert’s girlfriend does the face paint at the shows.  She is super creative and came up with the iconic X logo.

Later on when I finally decided to look up this character on YouTube, after a bit of random boredom, I was completely blown away.  It was one thing for me to hear this song and think it was pretty amazing.  It was another to watch him create the entire song on his own.  He is quite literally a one man band.  Since seeing that video, I’ve done everything to spread the good news about Robert Delong short of going door to door like a Jehovah’s Witness.

There was something about this performance, that was just amazing to me.  Maybe it was because it was my birthday.  Maybe because I was just a few feet away from the stage from where he was preforming, but it just turned out to be my favorite of his performances, and one of my favorite all time live performances.  It’s crazy to even watch because when you play as many instruments as he does in a show, there’s got to be a lot going through his head. 

In his set, you see him go from Keyboards, to a mic to drum pads, Wii Motes, Xbox Controllers, Joysticks, Drums and more.  What really caught me off guard was when he went to the Acoustic guitar on “A Few Years”.  It is one of his deepest tracks on the album and that addition kind of gave me chills.  It’s incredible to watch him make music the way he does.  I wanted to pee pretty bad during the performance but I toughed it out.  I couldn’t miss even a moment.

Robert Delong is amazing.

After the show I went to track down my friend who had my CD in his pocket that I wanted to get signed.  He went outside to smoke and they wouldn’t let us back in, because you can’t go back inside after the show is over.  I was that version of mad where I was too overcome to be able to say anything at all.  The only thing I could manage to say to this bouncer with a handlebar mustache was “But dude it’s my birthday.”  Probably honestly sounded like a bunch of bullshit at the time, but I just wanted to get my CD signed.

Drama ensued when he walked away from the door to make it look as if he was leaving from the night and he flipped his shit when we tried to go back in.  It wasn’t as if he was standing like two feet away from us when he walked away from the door he could have easily said “I’m going to get something out of my car, don’t try to sneak in I will maybe see if I can let you in to get your CD signed after the crowd thinned out.”  After some shouting back and forth there was some rational talking and he let me in to get the CD signed.

I was so excited that I completely jumped a line of people.   In that moment I wasn’t really thinking about what all of those other people were doing there.  In that moment my excitement matched my rudeness.  I was so happy that I had the chance to get my CD signed (which has amazing artwork btdubs).

Later, we were all still standing outside all stalkerish because my friends wanted the chance to say what’s up to Robert.  Then we all just kicked it and had a drink with him.  It’s kind of cool to see that he was so down to earth.  It is crazy how humble and down to earth he is, that in a couple of hours I went from completely star struck to being like oh that’s just Robbie.  Dude was so cool he even bought us shots.

After a few hours of drinking we went climbing around through a random abandoned building what looked like it was some old theater.  Took some pretty cool pictures but It is kind of a shame that such a place is about to be demolished.  I could see how it could be pretty nice if it was remodeled.
Anyhow Here's a ton of pictures from that escapade:

We finally got to the hotel at about 3am.  They had already marked me down as a no show and were doing the nightly report, so we had about a half hour wait in order to be able to check in.  This was my second stay at the Doubletree Downtown Detroit, so I knew what to expect.  The rooms are huge and value wise, it is one of the  best deals you’d be able to score on a Doubletree.

Vineyard at Cherry Creek Winery

On the way home, I was tried of driving and we made a little stop at a little winery, simply because I got a little tired of driving.  We stopped at the Cherry Creek Winery, and tasted quite a few wines and walked around the vineyard for a  little bit.  Their wines were pretty good but the one that I found the most intersting was the Maria Sangria that had a little bit of chipotle pepper.

Anyway as a bonus I’ve decided to do a little recipe writing in here.  

Change Wings

I wanted to redeem my birthday from those shitty wings I had to start off my birthday with and make some awesome ones.  I was inspired by the night tat made a good wing to bring thigns back full circle from my totally awesome birthday experience partying with Robert Delong. I know insane that I got to party with one of my favorite artists for my birthday   Robbie ordered the wings at the bar and favorite liquor being Jameson,  I decided to bring things full circle here with named for one of my favorite tracks on the album here are Change wings. For more on my birthday go here.

Change Wings

For the wings:

Up to 5 lb chicken wings (For vegan varation use Gardien Wings)

¼ Cup flour

¼ Cup fine Corn Meal

Salt and Pepper to taste

Oil For Frying

1 Tablespoon dried Thyme

For the Sauce

½ Cup Jameson Irish Whiskey

1 Cup Butter (For a vegan variation use Earth Balance Butter Sub)

1 Cup Hot Sauce (I use Frank’s For This)

3 Cloves Chopped Garlic

2 Tablespoons Siraccha (Ease back if you don’t like wings pretty spicy)

To Cook the wings:

Season the wings as desired with salt and pepper.

Mix the flour and cornmeal together and dredge the wings in the mixture

Let the wings rest on a wire rack for about 5 minutes before adding to the oil

Preheat Oil to 350°F.

Fry until fully cooked and golden brown and cooked throughout.

Let wings rest on wire rack to get rid of excess oil  for a minute before saucing.

To Make the Sauce:

In a medium sauce pan, add the Whiskey, garlic.

Cook over medium heat until liquid is reduced in half.

Add Butter and stir until melted

Add hot sauce and stir until incorporated

Mix in the sirracha and toss wings in sauce

For frying I use the T-Fal fryer that has a integrated filter system.  It is a little large, yet convenient.  

Lollapalooza: Sunday Recap

Sunday got off to a late start as I needed the sleep after the aftershow.  There were some ironies to the day.  Despite wearing the pair of cargo shorts that had the most pockets of any day I was there I did still end up loosing my camera (more on that later).  Anyhow, we woke up in time to get there early but opted for sleeping in for a few more hours.  The first thing we wanted to see that day was Wild Nothing.  I kind of didn’t know what to expect, as I wasn’t truly a fan of Wild Nothing but they still played a good set.  Hey I’m down for listening to new music at anytime especially with a drink in hand.

Wild Nothing

That being said, we were able to make our way down towards the front of the stage to listen to some of these very mellow indie rock tunes.  I love the way a light electronic melody is integrated on to tracks like “A Dancing Shell”.  All in all the set was pretty fun but not very memorable at all to be honest.   Still they are a band that is now on my radar to listen to a bit more.

The next band that I wanted to see was The Mowgli’s.  Unfortunately, they were at the stage I hated the most, The BMI Stage.  This stage suffers from three problems.  First, the next closest main stage (Bud Light Stage… As if I needed another reason to hate Bud Light) was the loudest stage at the park, and you get terrible bleed over to the BMI stage.  Then, you also have to deal with the fact that it is poorly planned.   It faces Lake Michigan, and with no backdrop to the stage, you really just end up watching a bunch of shadowy figures preform more than anything.   Last, it is in a really small area.  I guess like me there were many fans of the song “San Francisco”, because the stage was completely overrun with people, as if they were zombies on a farm at the end of season two of Walking Dead.  The stage was pretty loud though, and we could still hear them preforming through the bushes on a bench next to the fountain.  Luckily Alex Clare’s set on the Bud Light stage was done ten minutes into the Mowgli’s set, because you could still hear Alex Clare clearly over the Mogwli’s.

Tegan and Sara

Then everything started to blur together as we got to the rushed part of the day.  We saw a bit of Tegan and Sara which is where I lost my camera.   I must have just been careless and completely droped it when trying to put it back into my pocket.    As we headed for lunch and I was about to take a picture of the grilled cheese I had from Brunkrow Cheese.    When I say grilled cheese, I know what you might be thinking, but this particular grilled cheese does not involve any bread at all.  It is actually a piece of cheese thrown directly on to a grill.  You get nice grill marks and a wonderful taste of crisp cheese.  I really liked the original version, because the salty cheese goes good with the sweet maple syrup.  I was not a big fan of the bacon version, as I felt like the bacon just made things a bit too salty.  It is one of those rare instances where bacon actually made something worse.

We trekked back across the park to see Alt-J.  They were one of the bands that I was most looking forward too and they also had a huge crowd.  It was almost as though they could have played a larger stage as well.  I have been a big fan of the band since I heard their single “Breezeblooks”.  They have a very interesting sound that is pretty mellow.  Their song “Fitzpleasure” is also featured in a Microsoft commercial.  After hearing most of their set and another one of my favorites “Tesselate”, we were on a mission across the park again to see DIIV.

DIIV

DIIV was playing on the smaller The Groove stage right before 2 Chainz.  They drew a pretty small crowd that got a lot bigger a lot of 2 Chainz fans when the set started to end.  Their music is pretty hypnotic.  My favorite song from them is the song How Long Have You Known which has a pretty trippy video.   You’ve got to appreciate any band that preforms while wearing alien masks.   I missed a bit of the performance because I had drunk so much by that point that I had to pee several times.  I also used the opportunity to grab a bit of food as well.

We then caught a little bit of Vampire Weekend.  I am a moderate fan of Vampire Weekend.  I loved the first two albums but the third one just fell a little short for me.  Still they are a great band, but they can’t really compete with Major Lazer.  Still I wanted to stay and see a bit of their set before running across Grant Park yet again.  We only caught a couple of their hit’s like “Holiday”, and fortunately they were at the Bud Light Stage so you could hear them most of the way across the park.  As we started to walk away they started to play the song “A-Punk” that I had to run back to hear before finally committing to leaving for real.  I really wish that they weren’t playing as the same time.

That being said nothing trumps LAZERPALOOZA.   It was a swift walk across Grant Park in order to make it over just in time to Major Lazer run the track “Original Don”.  It is a track that I can’t listen to without getting hype.    As soon as I heard it I was pushing my way through the crowd towards the front of the stage dancing.  You’ve got to really appreciate what Diplo does as a DJ  for Major Lazer, popularizing the obscure Dancehall genre and taking it main stream.  “Pon De Floor” was actually used as the beat for Beyonce’s “Run The World (Girls)”.

Knife Party

I had to cap things off with a bang, as this was decidedly a dance music night.  Knife Party was preforming and how could I turn that down.  I’m not big on Pheonix and The Cure so it was an easy choice for me.  Their most popular track “Internet Friends” boasts the iconic line “You blocked me on Facebook, and now you’re going to die.”  Those Dubstep heavy tracks was all that I wanted to finish off the weekend with a bang.

I was a little mad about loosing my camera but I overall had a good weekend.   I went to the lost and found and heard nothing from them.  Eventually I had given up hope.  That was until I found a post for my camera being found on Craigslist.  I knew that checking it was a longshot but I eventually got it in my head to check it again.

I had to drive up to Logan Square to meet the person who had my camera, so I had a quick dinner at Longman and Eagle while I waited on them to show.  Longman and Eagle is tucked away in a corner of Logan Square.  It is a nice little whiskey bar that serves phenominal drinks.  Not to mention the fact that when I was looking over the menu, I really wanted to order absolutely everything.

Bone Marrow

So many things jumped out at me on the menu but I decided to go for the marrow bones.  The idea of combining bone marrow which is one of my favorite appetizers to get especially  since it is rarely on menus stuck out at me so much that I had to try it.  It didn’t disappoint but it wasn’t exactly a perfect dish.  The presentation for all is beauty, made the dish so much more difficult to eat.  The  roasted bones were standing up like little towers with the bacon shallot jam on top.  The waiter told me that most people don’t get down into the bones and get the marrow and end up eating the bacon shallot jam and proclaiming it to be the best marrow ever.  This is kind of understandable with the whole setup they give you which leads you down the road and makes the actual marrow hard to get to.

For everything the dish gains in beauty it loses in practicality.  This dish would have been perfect had those bones been cut lengthwise, and the bacon shallot jam spread evenly throughout.  All that aside, I’m really stretching to find fault in the dish because it tasted amazing.  You have a lot of fat in the bacon shallot jam and some sweetness.  Then to cut through the sweetness you get a little bright burst from the lemon zest.  You might think the sea salt would make things too salty in addition to the jam but if you use a light hand with both the salt and bacon jam, you can achieve perfection.

New York Strip

I decided to try the margarita since it was the drink of the day and it definitely was a winner for me.  It had all you wanted in a drink.  The drink was about as good as a margarita as you could have.   For my second drink I would have the Longman and Eagle Manhattan.  The Manhattan is a drink I often use to measure the quality of cocktail that a place can produce.   This particular one was right on the money.

For dinner I had the New York Strip.  The only fault I can find with this dish was that I had to rush through eating it in order to meet and get my camera.  When it first arrived, It almost seems as though there wasn’t enough steak, but it was well more than enough.  The steak was a perfect medium rare.  I loved the crispy potatoes on top of the braised ox tail.  The sauce was very hearty and a little acidic.

NAH5: Kohlrabi Salad with Pickled Mushrooms

Inspired by a trip to the farmer's market.  This was a quick and easy one.  I kind of lucked out with all of the ingredients.  The Kohlrabi was on sale for a really good price.  So were the mushrooms and I can't ever really see myself passing up a good deal on some shiitake mushrooms.  I also got really lucky as the herbs were on manager's special half off.  I sort of got the idea for the dish by combining the good experience I had with a kohlrabi salad at Girl and the Goat with the pickled mushrooms I enjoyed with carpaccio while in London.

Ingredients:
1 Bunch of Kohlrabi
1 Pint of Shitake Mushrooms
1/2 Clove of Garlic (I actually ended up mincing thee cloves and then once I came to my senses about having raw garlic I only used about 1/6th of it)
1/4 Cup Vinegar (For this I used a coconut white balsamic from Twisted olive, and it has a lot of sweetness to it.  If using say white wine vinegar, you might want to mix in a teaspoon or so of sugar)
1 Teaspoon Crushed Red Pepper
1/4 Cup Vegan Mayo
1 Tablespoon Chopped Fresh Tarragon
Zest of one Lemon
Juice of 1/2 Lemon
Salt and Pepper to taste

1. Remove the stems from the mushrooms and thinly slice them
2. Add them to a bowl with the vinegar, red pepper and very finely minced garlic Allow to marinate for at least two hours.
3. Peel and chop the kohlrabi.  Any cut will work here, I just chose to julienne because my mandoline makes pretty quick work of it.
4. Whisk the lemon juice into the mayo and toss everything together.

No Animals Harmed 4:Vegan Fettuccine Bolongese

After a trip to the farmers market, I was pretty set on what I wanted to end up cooking it was one of those times where I already had the dish mapped out in my head.  I wanted pasta.  At the market there were these great crememi mushrooms on sale for $2.50 a pint.  I had to take advantage of them for this recipe and they provide the meatiness for my meatless Bolongese sauce.  If you prefer a more classic carnivorous version, my friend Phenix has an excellent version on his blog.

Ingredients:
1/2 Large Sweet Onion Diced

3 Celery Stalks Diced

3 Medium Carrots Diced

2 Bay Leaves

3 Cloves Garlic Minced

4 oz Tomato Paste

1/4 Bottle Dry White Wine

1- 15 oz can San Marzano Tomatoes

1 Pint Cremini Mushrooms Finely Diced

1/8 cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil

1 Tablespoon Fresh Oregano

3 Tablespoons Fresh Basil

1. Season the onion, celery, garlic, bay leaves and carrots and sweat over medium low heat in the extra virgin olive oil until the onions are translucent and the veggies are soft. Stir frequently so the veggies don't caramelize.
2. Add in the tomato paste and stir until it coats the veggies and is fragrant.  Add in the finely diced mushrooms
3. Deglaze the pan using the white wine, and allow to reduce until you have a thick sauce.
4. Add in the tomatoes and mash them into the sauce and mash them a bit using a potato masher.
5. Add In diced fresh herbs.  If using dried herbs you want to use a third of the amount and add them in during the sweat.
6. Serve over pasta.

Lollapalooza: Saturday Recap

NOTE: I lost my camera on Sunday... So if all of my pictures look like they are the drawings of a six year old kid then I will have you know that that six year old kid is me.   You know what they say when life gives you Lemons:

You throw those lemons at a douche.

I'm no artist and I definitely couldn't do something as cool as this:

I woke up early enough in the morning to brace the continental breakfast offered since my room was on the Executive level of the Palmer House Hilton.  It was pretty much a circus but I still escaped with a cup of coffee, some pancakes and a banana.  Shortly thereafter, I was headed down for day two.  I was there well before the first band even started playing.  For the second time I was way early.

Completely Accurate Interpretation of Bright Light Social Hour

I got there early because from listening online I kind of fell in love with The Bright Light Social Hour.  They sound a lot like The Black Keys.  To tell the truth It has been a long time since I've heard Guitar and especially bass playing that good.  They were really fun to listen to, but they could have easily called themselves, The Beards and Excessively Long Hair Band.  Pretty easy to remember when you consider their appearance.  Jokes aside I love the bluesy melodies on songs like "Detroit".   My favorite song on their debut album has absolutely no lyrics and is called "Rhubarb Jam".


After they went off I had plenty of time before the next band that I wanted to see.   All of the bands on Saturday's Groove Stage got pushed back because of Azelia Banks not preforming.  We decided it would be a good time to get some food.  Of course the Triple Truffle Fries from Frank's 'N' Dawgs were involved again.  This time I also had a sampling of cheeseburgers from both M Burger and Edzo's.  Putting the burgers head to head I would have to give the clear advantage to M Burger.  Their burgers were made a lot closer to when they were served and the burger's from Edzo's sat in a hot box for a bit.

The cheeseburger from the M Burger follows a simple recipe, cheese, lettuce, pickles and sauce.  The sauce is sort of one of those mayo based sauces that kind of a weird (in a good way) cross between McDonald's special sauce and Thousand Island.  The burger itself, is one that most closely resembles In N Out's burger, Damn tasty and without a trip southwest.  As for Edzo's burger, the cheese on that burger tasted better, but my burger was sligthly dry and the patty was coming apart a little.  There was also a little bit of overwhelming amount of pepperonchini on the burger.

The next band  we saw was Family of the Year.  I couldn't be more indifferent about this band at all.  They were just incredibly mediocre.  So much so that I still can't decide whether that experience of listening to them was good or bad.  It was simply forgettable.  The only reason why I even remember seeing them is because we really wanted to see St. Lucia.  Had I realized the timing, we probably would have gotten


St. Lucia has a really mellow electronic sound going on.  I love the strong bass line on "September", and I;m totally not being partial to that song because I was born in September.  There music really is interestingly stays very cool and mellow despite being uptempo on many tracks. It's like Coldplay and Afrojack got together and made this amazing sublime and sexy dubstep free baby. You can't help but sing along and get involved with the incredibly catchy chorus on "We Got It Wrong".


Next we had a pretty brisk walk to the other side of Grant Park to see Local Natives.  I like this band despite being wildly unfamiliar with their music.  Funny enough they played the only two songs I really know soon after they arrived to start watching them.  I think that their song "Airplanes" I think suffered from that classic problem of me hearing it on the radio and not being able to get my phone out to shazaam it fast enough.  That catchy chorus sounds so good against the folk melody.  The song that followed was "Heavy Feet", which probably has one of the weirdest and seemingly unrelated video I've seen in a long time.  They are a a great band that has mastered those three part harmonies.
 
Continuing with the trend of walking a ton, we headed over to catch a little bit of Unknown Mortal Orchestra while catching a bite to eat. Puffs of Doom, offered something interesting that I had to try by this point.  I was a little saddened by it overall because the basic premise of the place is to create a basic choux pastry and fill it with something.  I didn't know what to expect when I ordered the bacon macaroni and cheese puff, but I also don't know why you would take a something as starchy as macaroni and stuff it inside of a choux pastry.  Other than that Unknown Mortal Orchestra was a pretty mellow band and I can't really judge them since I only heard about 15 minutes of their set.  They did get added to a long list of bands that I want to explore later and I do actually like their song "So Good At Being In Trouble" quite a bit.



Next up was The National.  While I am only vaguely familar with the band, I think by this point I have had almost enough of the the very mellow somber bands.  The funny part is that every band worth seeing was pretty mellow and somber.  I mean it's still kind of shocking to me to look at their wikipedia page and see that they've been around for fourteen years.  Their sound is incredibly relaxing and borderline melancholy.


Next up I had to catch a little bit of Blondfire.  I love Erica's voice.  It's high pitched in a way that you think would be annoying but is totally not.  Those nasally tones brightened up my day quite a bit.  I only got to see half of their set because I wanted to catch the Lumineers, but hearing her play Waves was enough to satisfy my day.  Still I wish I would have gotten to hear them play Where The Kids Are which is probably my favorite song by them.


Once again we were rushing across the park to catch The Lumineers.  I have no idea why music is trending towards a folk sound and a dubstep sound.  When I first heard the song "Ho Hey", I was suckered in to listening to their music.  You can't help but like that song because the tune is incredibly catchy.  You know a song has a good chorus when you're ready to sing along with it along the first time you hear the song.  They have a good happy energy about them and even came out into the crowd to play a couple of songs.  I only heard the echoes of sad yet very encouraging breakup song "Stubborn Love" because I wanted to beat the crowd and grab food before running across the park for The Postal Service.


This was kind of historic.  The second to last performance ever by The Postal Service.  I had been looking forward to this for a while.  The Postal Service is kind of like the McRib of music.  It's awesome and made up of mostly artificial sounds but the overall popularity of it is based somewhat on the fact that it's so incredibly rare.  Like making an album and disappearing for a decade rare.  I was impressed.  Very impressed, as soon as you heard them start to play "The District Sleeps Alone Tonight" you are transported to a place of musical bliss.

Laura Burhenn of The Postal Service

In hindsight it does seem like a little dickish to start a show saying "It's been a long time Chicago" yeah a decade is pretty long time.  It seemed like he was kind of rubbing the crowd's nose in the fact that this was one of their last performances.  That doesn't matter because "Tattered Line of String" makes up for that.

Then came the after show.  I had to battle traffic relentlessly, via the backseat of a taxi cab.  I couldn't wait because I really wanted to see Robert Delong.  I've been addicted to his music since the first time I heard his first single "Global Concepts".   It's incredible to watch him preform, and you think there would be more than just him but no it's just one dude being awesome.  He played a couple of new songs in his set, but I was slightly disappointed that I didn't hear him do "Change" which is one of my favorite songs on the album.  It starts out with him just singing the word change and the beat and words get more complex as the song goes on.  Very clever.


I got to meet Robert Delong and take a picture with him and he was a cool dude which is one of the main reasons I'm mad I lost my camera.

Then there was the Matt and Kim performance   I've got to say I was completely caught off guard by how good they were.  Let me say, it would likely be impossible to recreate the absolute fun these guys have on stage.  From the moment they start you're like yeah I want to drink and party with these guys. They are the literal life of the party.  I must say that up until I saw them live, many of the songs that I've heard from them on the radio I would instantly switch the channel the moment I heard it.  I recognized a few of the songs like "Let's Go" and "Daylight".

Me and Robert Delong
I'm really good at drawing myself

What's crazy is it takes seeing them live to truly do their music justice.  I just don't think it translates well over the radio. Their overly happy music and simple choruses seems like it's a bit of a shtick, but once you see them you're like oh that's really them, and that's really cool.  They have an amazing energy and with one performance they transformed me into a pretty dedicated fan of their music.

I mean you have to appreciate a band so fun that they will do this:

But seriously.... Even that video doesn't do the band justice.  You just have to go out and see them.  They are pretty much a band for everybody (or at least everyone that enjoys some really popular music) as they integrate lots of popular hip hop songs throughout their performance.  

Lollapalooza 2013: Friday Recap

Lollapalooza is my favorite summer music festival.   Not only from a music standpoint, but the food is awesome every time I’ve been there.  You can attribute this to Master Chef Judge and winner of two Michelin stars Graham Elliott being the culinary director for the event.  He is a really nice guy as well and offered everybody free popcorn last year after the festival got rained out for a little bit.  It was one of the few moments of my life of where I was truly star struck.

The Neighbourhood

Before the gates opened, I used Parkwhiz in order to get parking downtown for the entire weekend for just $33.  When you consider that the hotel charges upwards of $70 per night, that savings is tremendous.    The parking was a little bit of a walk though, just a quarter of a mile.   After parking though I would have breakfast at Harold’s Chicken.  It had been a long time since I had Harold’s and I had been longing for a quarter dark with mild sauce.  This location took a while to get the food ready, but it was worth the wait in order to get that crispy fried chicken with that sweet tangy sauce on top.

This was the first year I’ve ever made it when the gates were opening.  The traffic on the way to Chicago was much less than I expected, and the drive there which I expected to take like an hour and a half only took like thirty minutes.  This was fine though and it gave me a chance to exchange my wristband since the one I had wouldn’t scan as well as do some walking around.

Triple Truffle Fries

The first band I saw was The Neighbourhood.  I honestly thought this band was British for the longest time.  Yeah I know they don’t sound British at all, but they spell “Neighbourhood” with a “u” so I thought has to be a British band.  Not true though.  This was also a very hard choice to end up seeing them as I really wanted to see Robert Delong, but I have tickets to the after show featuring Robert Delong on Saturday night, so it was more prudent choice to see The Neighbourhood.

They definitely didn’t disappoint at all, getting the festival off to a great start, as lead vocalist Jesse Rutherford swooned his way through verse after verse.  My appreciation for the band only grew more after seeing them live.  They are a pretty mellow alternative rock band that often uses mellowed out beats the likes of which you could easily see being used in a song like Ice Cube's Today "Was a Good Day".  It is a welcomed backdrop to lyrics that range from the romantic and mellow “Sweater Weather” to the darker and more introspective tracks like “Afraid” and “W.D.Y.W.F.M.?”

Atlas Genius

A note on drinking at Lollapalooza.  The cheapest legitimate way to drink there is to buy bottles of wine for $25.  The next stop was to pick up a bottle of a Chardonnay, which was just slightly oaky and buttery, but not too much.  Thorny Rose does all of the wine for Lollapalooza.  If you have a pocket flask though and you were to fill that with spiced rum, it is the perfect combination with Sweet Leaf's Citrus Tea.  By perfection combination I do mean perfect as you get the vanilla notes of the rum blending in and playing off of the citrus notes of the tea.

Next up was San Cisco.  They’re a cool Australian band and you’ve gotta appreciate any band that has a female drummer.  Female drummers are awesome.  They were clearly in that band that has that one song you know category when I saw them.  Their song “Awkward” is so bright and cheeky and has this irresistibly light and bright pop vibe.   You can’t help but indulge yourself in that a little bit.  The band in general is kind of dorky and super hipster, which is fine with me.  The performance was pretty good and I will be checking out more of their music later on though.

The best French Fries I’ve ever had in my entire life.  Yes they were here at Lollapalooza.  I get them multiple times every year at least once or twice a day.  The Triple Truffle Fries from Franks ‘N’ Dawgs are absolutely so good out of this world incredibly freaking awesome worth killing and dying for.  Undeniably the undisputed king of Fries.  They are light a crisp waffle fries that are airy and perfectly salted and the truffle makes everything slightly earthy and delicious.

Then we quickly headed over to see Icona Pop.  Of course I went to indulge in the amazing guilty pleasure of their summer anthem “I Don’t Care”.  What I don’t understand about this song is that I should hate it, but it just works.  As soon as you hear that beat with that Swedish duo aggressively singing those lyrics at you, you can’t help but get excited.  The crowd went absolutely crazy as soon as they started that song, ending their set more impressively than a well-executed Ultra combo in Killer Instinct.

Atlas Genius is one of those sneaky good bands.  When looking through the schedule I was like man that band sounds familiar.  Then I went online to listen to some of their songs and it was like man I know all of those songs.  Their most popular song has to be "If So".  I love the upbeat melodies of this band that is in many of their songs like "Trojans".  Keith Jeffery balances out those higher pitched upbeat chords with his intriguing mellow and somewhat raspy voice.  Really a great band with an album well worth buying.

Crystal Castles

Next up in the bands that your friend drags you to category was Crystal Castles.  They have a very interesting electronic type of sound that isn’t too upbeat and plays off of the high pitched vocals of the female lead singer.  It was a very intriguing performance to say the least, but by that time we had shared three bottles of wine already so I wasn’t the most coherent.

Along the way, Samsung had this promotion to switch out your battery on my phone for a fresh one.  I have a lot of spares off of Amazon for events as such, but it was still convenient to use the one they were giving away.  As an extra bonus they gave meal coupons to Grahamwhich.  I’ve got to say I was a little bit disappointed with my lobster corn dog this year as it tasted as though it had been sitting under a heat lamp for a while and the lobster was definitely overcooked.  I would have asked for my money back on it if I paid anything more than free.

Next up was one of my favorites of the day Imagine Dragons.  I first started listening to Imagine Dragons with the release of their upbeat and poppy ballad “It’s Time”.  Though I first saw the song when it was performed on Glee, I quickly became a fan of the band more for their musical diversity more than anything.  The band goes from that folky twang of the banjo on “It’s Time”, to a little bit of Dubstep on “Radioactive”.

Soooo Many people....

So I have to be honest I’ve never heard of New Order.  To be honest I could have done without hearing about them.  Another one in that bands you’re dragged to category, New Order, just reminds me of everything that was wrong with music in the 80’s.   It’s just music which is so in between that it ends up being unpleasant.  Musically they are like one of those movies that tried to use a special effect that is a bit before their time.  Nothing bad about that, it’s just the nostalgia effect is lost on me since I am unfamiliar with their music.

The day finished up with Nine Inch Nails.  This is the band I had honestly been looking the most forward too.  It got off to a bad start for me simply because the more drunk I get the more I tend to use my watch over my phone for time.  My watch was set an hour slow.  So I missed the first 15 minutes of NIN.  There were two problems I had with this show, one was that they performed too many songs of their new material.  It made their set seem like more of a reflective art project than the hard rock they are known for.  The experienced was also worsened by the fact that the screens weren’t working and you could barely see anything.  It was still a good performance by them especially hearing songs like “Hurt” and “Head Like a Hole” but I think I had unattainably high expectations for that performance.

No Animals Harmed 3: Zucchini "Bacon" Cheeseburgers and Ginger Sesame Ice Cream

So I was celebrating a Birthday.  Nothing screams out birthday food to me more than a bacon cheeseburger.  Kind of hard to do that for your vegetarian friend’s birthday though.  This proved to be not as big of a challenge that I originally thought as I found pretty good alternatives to the real deal.  For the burger I went with Gardien's Beefless Burger patty.  As far as veggie burger patties go, I pass on Morningstar use Monsanto products.   There is probably no corporation on

earth I hate more than Monsanto but I digress.  This Gardien burger isn’t my favorite veggie burger though, that title would have to go to Light Life’s burger, but vegans should steer clear of that one.

For the bacon I’m a big fan of Tepeh bacon.  I actually think that tempeh bacon rivals the taste of regular bacon.  OK I take it back, it doesn’t rival, but offers a satisfying alternative to regular bacon that seems to be the more justifiable choice to eat when you consider the calorie savings.  This time I wanted to try out Light Life's Smart Bacon.  The method is so simple I’m going to abandon that typical format of ingredients and such and just go straight to the burger making.

One of the guy’s at work is growing way too much zucchini in his garden to eat.  They made the perfect compliment for this burger.  For it I cut the massively overlarge zucchini into large round, that ended up being as big as my burger patty.  I brushed them with a mushroom sage infused olive oil and seasoned each side with kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper.   I’m lucky to have a specialty olive oil shop that is not too far from me.  Twisted Olive carries tons of good ones, and this one went well for the burger.  Then I just threw everything on the grill.  Yeah I know it is summer so I should be grilling outside… but the city of Romeoville has this stupid rule that says you can only have a gas grill in an apartment.  Some genius thinks that coals are much more dangerous than propane tanks.  Anyhow my grill of choice is Cuisinart GR-4N 5-in-1 Griddler.  Vegan cheese is hard to melt, so I make a little dome using a metal bowl and some hot water,  to let the steam melt the cheese.

In about ten minutes I was taking everything off of the grill and brushing my freshly toasted buns with a little bit of vegan mayo.  While we’re on the subject of mayo, I just want to throw this out there.  Fresh made mayo > Vegan Mayo > Store bought Mayo > Miracle Whip.  Yeah, personal opinion but vegan store bought mayo tastes much better to me than store bought brands made with real eggs.

For the ice cream I decided to get a little creative.  I had been wanting to try this for a while.  A long time ago, I had some Haagen Dazs Coconut Sesame Brittle Ice Cream which is now discontinued sadly.  I wanted to do an ice cream that lived up to that.  I made a pretty good vegan version that used coconut milk, and had the spice of candied ginger throughout. 

Ingredients:

• ½ Gallon Unsweetened Coconut Milk
• ½ Cup Candied Ginger
• 1 Teaspoon freshly grated ginger
• ¼ Cup Coconut Oil
• 2 Tablespoons Sesame Oil
• ½ Cup Brown sugar (As a warning though, I’m not a huge sweets fan so this ice cream is just barely sweet, if you like sweet desserts, you should go for a whole cup)
• 3 Tablespoons Arrowroot Powder.

 

1. Combine all the ingredients in a stock pot reserving 1 cup of the Coconut milk, the arrowroot powder and the candied ginger.  Simmer over medium heat for 20 minutes
2. Whisk together the arrowroot powder with the reserved coconut milk.
3. Stir the two mixtures together and let thicken.
4. Strain and chill the ice cream base until fully chilled in the refrigerator.
5. Throw it in your ice cream maker using manufacturer’s instructions, adding the candied ginger halfway through.  My ice cream maker is Cuisinart ICE-30BC Pure Indulgence 2-Quart Ice Cream Maker.

A note on the arrowroot powder,  I could have gotten it at Whole Foods, but I totally didn't feel like driving so I just ordered off of Amazon.  It is versatile and can be used to thicken pretty much anything and used like cornstarch.