3Dsound: Draggin' the Line

All I want for Christmas is a brick of Himalayan pink salt (and a cast iron skillet big enough to put it in)

3Dsound — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 12:10:07 GMT

Roundabout

My mother – a Jersey girl – visits the National September 11 Memorial, sees the President of Portugal and drops in on Occupy Wall Street

3Dsound — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 19:07:00 GMT

Roundabout

Halloween 2011: Lady Gaga meets Nina Hagen (not that the photos show all that)

3Dsound — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 23:56:00 GMT

Roundabout

What's for dinner: Green chili – a Colorado dish?

3Dsound — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 23:44:00 GMT

22nd in a food series
Draggin' the line

Earlier this year the Denver alternative weekly, Westwood published a restaurant review 1 and follow-up article 2 about Denver's obsession with green chili. The articles describe the surprisingly prominent place green chili holds in Colorado cooking. It was news to me. But after thinking about it, I realized I had – in fact – overlooked a series of uniquely Colorado capsaicin clues – Clues that should have alerted me to the regional importance of green chili. Here they are:

Clue 1. I myself like green chili a lot... and I live in Colorado, north of Denver.

Clue 2. I especially like and enthusiastically recommend the green chili at Los Tarascos Mexican restaurant on College Avenue in Fort Collins (despite the culinary inconvenience of the owners of Los Tarascos coming from a southern Mexican state, which is far removed from the northern Mexican states and American southwest where green chili originated).

Clue 3. My acquaintance Jaqui makes an hallucinatorily great green chili, which she learned how to cook in her hometown of Pueblo, Colorado – two hours south of Denver.

Clue 4. Pueblo is also the hometown for the Pueblo green chile, which is Pueblo's secret weapon in producing the best green chili in Colorado. At least, that's what Jaqui tells me (and which the Westwood follow-up article confirms).

Clue 5. The Pueblo green chile is also known as the mira sol chile (or mirasol chile) because the mira sol plant holds its chile fruit upright on the stem and "looking at the sun", rather than hanging down. The mira sol chile has been grown in the Pueblo area of the Arkansas River valley since at least 1910. It surely qualifies as a locally conserved and appreciated heirloom variety of Capsicum annuum.

Clue 6. According to a geographer who's affiliated with the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs – someone who's an expert on Hispanization in the U.S. – The Pueblo Chile & Frijoles Festival, which has been held in Pueblo in late September since 1994, "coincides with the Denver Broncos football season, and the Pueblo Chamber has successfully wedded these two seasonal events. Chiles are roasted and taken home to be eaten during the game in chile verde, chile rellenos, and guacamole. Fall in Pueblo, and increasingly in Colorado, means football and green chiles." 3

Clue 7. And lastly, Dr. Mike Bartolo initiated a mira sol breeding program at the Arkansas Valley Research Center in Rocky Ford, Colorado. Mike's program developed the Mosco variety of the mira sol chile, which the Colorado Agricultural Experiment Station released for commercial production in 2005.4 The Mosco variety is now grown on over 50% of the acreage that had previously been planted to older varieties of the mira sol chile.

So there you have it. Green chile peppers go back 100 years in Colorado, but green chili stew represents a more recent history – one that's benefited from a lot push from this chili's contemporary friends. Which irks some, as you can read about here.5

Green chili stew in Denver is known for its slurry consistency. Jaqui's green chili is less viscous than that and has a fuller flavor. My own green chili – which I describe below – comes from a cookbook 6 (more or less). The juniper berries are key to my chili's success, as are the freshly roasted poblano chiles – bought from the farmer's market. I'd buy mira sols, but they're not distributed this far north.

Ingredients
2 pound diced pork ($1.99 per pound, on sale)
1 large red onion, coarsely chopped
3 clove garlic, finely chopped
¾ teaspoon juniper berries, crushed in a mortar and pestle
2 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
2 cup chicken broth (2 cup water + 1 scant teaspoon of Superior Touch® brand Better Than Bouillon chicken base)
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon black pepper
2 tablespoon flour
6 roasted poblano chile ($5.00 per ¾ pound from the farmer's market)

Procedure
Sauté the onion in the olive oil in a Dutch Oven until translucent. Add the garlic and juniper berries, and continue to sauté for another minute or so. Add the pork. Cook until no longer pink, and then simmer for 10 minutes.

Prepare the chicken broth. Whisk in the salt and pepper, and then add the broth to the pork. Simmer for 20-30 minutes.

Ladle a cup or more of the broth into a bowl. Whisk in the flour, and then slowly add back to the pork. Then add the chiles. Simmer for another 20-30 minutes.

I serve this chile garnished with tomato salsa and/or corn salsa and sometimes over rice.

1Lori Midson (15-Apr-11), Denver's five best green chile fixes, Westwood, Cafe Society blog, online at blogs.westword.com/cafesociety.

2Patricia Calhoun (18-Apr-11), Readers: Is the best green chile in Pueblo? Or is it just hot snot? Westwood, Cafe Society blog, online at blogs.westword.com/cafesociety.

3Terrance W. Haverluk (2000), Chile peppers and identity construction in Pueblo, Colorado. Journal for the Study of Food and Society 6:45-59.

4Michael E. Bartolo (undated), The Mosco chile pepper: Notice of release of Mosco pepper, Denver Green Chili website, online at denvergreenchili.com/moscochilepepper.aspx.

5Patricia Calhoun (27-Apr-11), Readers: There's no such thing as Colorado green chile! Westwood, Cafe Society blog, online at blogs.westword.com/cafesociety.

6Betty Crocker's Southwest Cooking (1989), Green chile stew, pages 74-75, Prentice Hall, New York.

What's for dinner?

What's for dinner: Thai spicy-sour soup with shrimp (tom yum goong), a recipe learned from the former owner of the Bankok Asian Market in Fort Collins

3Dsound — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 00:52:17 GMT

21st in a food series
Draggin' the line: Varee Dawson (undated), Tom yam goong (spicy-sour soup with shrimp), flyer available at Bangkok Asian Market [119 W. Drake Road, Fort Collins, Colorado], and online at www.bamfc.com (accessed 03-Mar-11).

My daughter is famous in our house for her tom yam goong ("soup" "spicy" "shrimp"), which is the signature dish of Thailand and which she writes about below. Here's what she has to say...

Unfortunately for this soup, it's difficult to substitute anything for the different ingredients in it. They are all needed for the depth and richness that I think the soup has. It wouldn't be tom yam goong without them.

The former owner of the Bangkok Asian Market in Fort Collins, who is now the owner of the restaurant Bangkok Kitchen (1232 W. Elizabeth Street), used to hold mini cooking lessons at the store on Saturdays. My mother and I went a few times before they stopped doing it. It was nice to see how to make everything Thai and and how it was supposed to taste. It made it a lot easier to recreate the recipes at home. This particular recipe happens to be one that was demonstrated during one of those lessons. I've made it many times because it turns out so good.

For two people, you need:

Ingredients
4 cup chicken stock
10-12 shrimp (Kroger brand easy peel raw frozen white shrimp, 2 pound bag, 31-40 count; approximately $10.00)
5 white mushroom
1 shallot
1 medium-size tomato
1-2 lime
1-foot stalk lemon grass (Cymbopogon citratus)
3 kaffir lime leaves (Citrus hystrix)
coconut milk (optional) ($1.59 per 13½-ounce can)
2 tablespoon nam pla (Thai fish sauce)
3 slice galangal (Alpinia galanga and other species)
5 sprig cilantro
2 small Thai chile
1 tablespoon nam prik pow (Thai chile paste with soybean oil)

Procedure
Start boiling the stock in a 2-quart pot.

Peel and de-vein the shrimp and set them aside. Cut the lemon grass into pieces, 3 inches long. Use the back of your knife to pound the lemon grass, just to bruise it and release the flavor. Then take your kaffir lime leaves and cut out the vein in the middle. After you have done that, you want to cut your galangal into three one-inch pieces. Set all of this to the side.

Next you want to take your mushrooms and cut them into quarters, and put into the stock. Then finally chop your shallot, and mix it in as well. You only want this to cook until the mushrooms are almost halfway done. Take your tomato and cut it into medium-small slices. Mix it in with the mushrooms and shallots. You do not want the tomato to get mushy so almost immediately add in the lemon grass, kaffir lime leaves and galangal. Let all of this cook together for about two to three minutes.

Coarsely chop your cilantro and toss it and the shrimp in at the same time. While the shrimp are cooking, a foam will appear on the top of the soup. You do not want this. Skim off the foam while the shrimp simmer until they are fully cooked. If coconut milk is desired, add and stir.

Put fish sauce and one lime's juice into the bowls you will serve the soup in. Crush the chiles, and add them to the bowl. Also add nam prik pow to the bowl. Ladle the soup into bowls and serve.

What's for dinner?

What's for dinner: Heirloom tomato salsa – Roasted tomato salsa – Cherry tomato salsa

3Dsound — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 23:21:40 GMT

2nd in a food series (updated & bumped up)
Draggin' the line

Heirloom tomatoes are open-pollinated varieties that have been grown somewhere for 50 years or longer. Yet the varieties remain true-to-type – although when we talk about an heirloom variety, true-to-type doesn't necessarily mean that all of the fruit look the same. Open pollination confers upon heirlooms greater genetic variation – and less uniformity in appearance – than what we see in a commercial hybrid variety. The genetic variation in heirlooms represents an agricultural resource and the biodiversity resulting from many generations of cultivation. In heirloom tomatoes we see a testament to the popular choices, selections, preferences and needs of tomato growers and consumers who have enjoyed tomatoes around the world.

Also, heirlooms taste better than any other tomato you can buy at the grocery store. Despite my respect for biodiversity, as far as I'm concerned, heirlooms only exist to satisfy the tastes of those who don't grow their own garden but still want a real tomato (1) in season, and (2) out-of-season. I fall into both of those categories. For better or worse (which I say because heirlooms aren't cheap), I feel lucky heirlooms have appeared again at my local Whole Foods Market.

I'm making heirloom tomato salsa tonight, to go with pork tamales from the Mexican market and the last of my leftover rice and black beans. Crumbling feta cheese over the top will make it all taste just right.

Ingredients
1 medium-large organic heirloom tomato (approximately ¾ pound, at $4.99 per pound), chopped
1 tablespoon lime juice (from concentrate, $2.19 per 15 ounce bottle)
½ teaspoon salt
1 jalapeño chile ($0.24 from King's Sooper), finely diced
several tablespoons fresh cilantro ($2.49 per bunch), chopped

Procedure
Put lime juice into a bowl. Mix in salt. Add jalapeño and then tomato and cilantro. Stir well, and set aside while you prepare the rest of your meal.

Originally posted on Sunday, April 6, 2008.

UPDATE, Saturday, July 19, 2008—Roasted tomato salsa: Here's a variation on tomato salsa – this one made special by roasting the tomatoes, jalapeños, onion and garlic. It's not a salsa for using heirloom tomatoes. Instead, use the hydroponic tomatoes that come from the grocery store (or use your own homegrown, if you've got them).

Here in Northern Colorado, hydroponic tomatoes come from the Honeyacre Produce Company, which is located in Wiggins, Colorado – 70 miles east of here, out on the shortgrass steppe. I'm pretty sure Honeyacre grows its tomatoes with this salsa in mind.

Ingredients
2 medium tomato (approximately 1 pound, at $3.99 per pound)
1 jalapeño chile ($0.45 from Whole Foods)
½ medium-size red onion, cut in half ($1.99 per bag of five onions)
3 garlic clove, unpeeled ($0.69 per head)
¼-½ cup fresh cilantro, chopped ($2.49 per bunch)
1 tablespoon lime juice (from concentrate, $2.19 per 15 ounce bottle)
½ teaspoon salt

Procedure
Place the tomatoes, jalapeño, onion and garlic onto a sheet of aluminum foil. Broil the vegetables in the oven until they're blistered and blackened. Then flip them over, and broil them on the other side. When done, put the roasted tomatoes into a bowl to collect the juice and allow to cool. Put the roasted jalapeño into an airtight plastic container to steam. Put the roasted onion into the bowl of a food processor. Also press the roasted garlic into the bowel of the food processor. (If the garlic is overcooked, do what you can, and then press a fresh garlic clove into the food processor.)

Skin the tomatoes (core them if you feel like it), and add them to the food processor, along with any juice. Skin and de-seed the jalapeño; cut into ½-inch strips, and add to the food processor. Add the cilantro, lime juice and salt.

Process until smooth but not liquid. Taste, and correct the seasonings. Usually I end up adding more cilantro, lime juice and salt. Let the flavors blend at room temperature while you finish preparing your meal.

Thursday night I served this salsa with guacamole, long grain brown rice (4 cups for $1.50, on sale), homemade black beans and hamburgers.

UPDATE, Friday, October 21, 2011—Cherry tomato salsa: The end is near for getting fresh produce from the farmer's market. Even so, last Sunday at the farmer's market on Harmony one of the growers offered a spectacular variety of cherry tomatoes – which made me grateful for summer. The grower offered two varieties of yellow cherries, one variety of orange cherries, and one variety each of a small and a large red cherry. I bought a pint of the large red cherries.

The thing I do with cherry tomatoes – salsa-wise – is to make a salsa that lets the tomatoes shine on their own. I make a cooling salsa that showcases the tomatoes and omits any heat from a chile. My recipe is described below. It complements the green chili and stuffed ancho chiles that we make – both of which I'll eventually talk about on this blog.

Ingredients
1 pint cherry tomato ($3 per pint from the farmer's market)
1 shallot, finely chopped ($2 for eight shallots from the farmer's market)
2 tablespoon chopped chive
2-3 tablespoon chopped cilantro or Italian parsley
¼ teaspoon salt
1 splash lime juice (from concentrate, $2.19 per 15 ounce bottle)

Procedure
Cut the tomatoes in half lengthwise. Mix them with the other ingredients, and let the flavors mingle at room temperature before serving.

What's for dinner? — New World crop

Tuesday, 1 pm―Colorado-BW Insurance Agency in the Colorado light

3Dsound — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 16:19:07 GMT

My love affair with Colorado light

{ speech } The Elizabeth Warren quote every American needs to hear

3Dsound — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 17:02:00 GMT

Election 2012
"You built a factory out there? Good for you... Pay forward for the next kid who comes along": Elizabeth Warren on debt crisis, fair taxation [video "taken and put together by an audience member not affiliated with the Warren Exploratory Committee"] (uploaded 18-Sep-11), Elizabeth Warren "Talking Tour" [Elizabeth Warren, United States candidate for the Senate from Massachusetts], LiveSmartVideo's Channel, online at www.youtube.com [video htX2usfqMEs] (accessed 22-Sep-11).

Election 2012 ― Liberalism

{ photochop image } Make Wall Street pay for destroying America: Occupy Wall Street

3Dsound — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 23:50:00 GMT

Red, white and blue

Why regional music matters

3Dsound — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 12:57:00 GMT

Pop music
A bunch of yahoos? •John P. McLaughlan (25-Aug-11), Slashing Grammys is 'racist,' declares Carlos Santana, The Province [Vancouver, BC] ["The Province newspaper has been a vital part of the community since 1898. It has special responsibilities to the community and its people"] (accessed 30-Aug-11). •Recording Academy (09-Apr-11), Restructuring of categories across all genres brings total number of categories to be recognized at the 54th annual Grammy Awards in 2012 to 78; all fields remain intact [press release], online at www.grammy.org (accessed 30-Aug-11). •Recording Academy (undated), Full category list [side-by-side comparison of the Grammy Award categories included in the 53rd and 54th Grammy Awards], online at www.grammy.org (accessed 30-Aug-11).

Earlier this year the Recording Academy cut 31 categories of music from the Grammy Awards. The eliminated categories include Hawaiian music, Latin jazz, Native American music, polka and Zydeco-Cajun, all of which are known by their regional identities. And by their ethnic audiences. Carlos Santana has called out the racism contained in the Academy's decision and said, "You can't eliminate black gospel music or Hawaiian music or American Indian music or Latin jazz music because all this music represents what United States is: a social experiment."

Here's why I think Santana's right and why regional music matters:

When Selena died in 1997, Tejano music – which is a regional music from Texas – got talked about everywhere, in large part because Selena had been winning Grammys, but her career had been cut short while she was at her height. Her premature death and its resulting publicity caused Tejano music to become lodged in the ears of millions (whether they wanted it to be or not). Selena's Grammys gave her the credibility for that to happen.

On other fronts, here in Colorado, the Denver jazz station KUVO got its start when Flo Hernandez-Ramos started thinking in the early 1980s about what Latinos wanted in their listener-supported radio station. It turns out they told her they wanted jazz. Flo's tastes ran towards Tejano and other Latino styles from New Mexico and Colorado (which is what she programmed on her long-running and completely listenable show, Cancion Mexicana), but Flo's station branched beyond that, which was pretty savvy of her and which resulted in the current KUVO – one of the greatest stations programming jazz and Latin jazz in the US.

My point is that regional musics engage variegated audiences and exert impacts beyond their core listenership. Thinking otherwise is racist and implies you think 'no one cares about this music except a bunch of "yahoos"'. Grammy awards combat that by being the universally recognized benchmark of success for everyone.

Slashing Grammys is 'Racist,' Declares Carlos Santana
Mexican-born guitar superstar Carlos Santana has declared the decision by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences to slash the number of Grammy Awards it distributes from 109 to 78 to be racially motivated.

Among the 31 categories either collapsed together or eliminated entirely are Hawaiian, Native American and Cajun-Zydeco, which will all merge as regional roots, while contemporary and traditional blues are now just blues. Latin music categories were especially hard-hit, going from seven categories to four, with Latin jazz dropped entirely.

"Why do they cut only this music? Why not other music," asked Santana who performs at Vancouver's Rogers Arena Aug. 27.

"I think they're racist. Period. I do. First of all we have so many categories of Country & Western. Country & Western people have seven to nine to 10 (awards) shows a year and you seldom see Negroes or Latin people. You can't eliminate black gospel music or Hawaiian music or American Indian music or Latin jazz music because all this music represents what United States is: a social experiment.

"They didn't even tell other members, only certain people voted, overnight. A lot of people didn't know this had passed. Quincy Jones didn't know, Herbie Hancock didn't know."

The sweeping changes were announced by NARAS CEO/president Neil Portnow April 6.

"Every year, we diligently examine our awards structure to develop an overall guiding vision and ensure that it remains a balanced and viable process," he said at the time. "After careful and extensive review and analysis of all categories and fields, it was objectively determined that our Grammy categories be restructured to the continued competition and prestige of the highest and only peer-recognized award in music. Our Board of Trustees continues to demonstrate its dedication to keeping The Recording Academy a pertinent and responsive organization in our dynamic music community."

Other category changes include merging best male and best female vocal pop performance into best pop solo performance. Similarly, best R&B performance by duo or group with vocals will compete with best female, best male (R&B) and best urban/alternative in a new best, overall R&B performance. Many of the changes will not be especially notable to the general public as only about a dozen awards are ever given on the televised show. The 54th Grammy Awards will air Feb. 12, 2012 from the Staples Center in Los Angeles.

Meanwhile, last week Latin jazz musicians Bobby Sanabria, Mark Levine, Ben Lapidus and Eugene Marlow filed a class-action lawsuit against NARAS for eliminating the Latin jazz category and thereby "devaluing" the genre.

The academy's return statement said it "believes this frivolous lawsuit is without merit and we fully expect to prevail".

The first Grammy Awards were given in May, 1959 for 1958 releases and there were 28 categories that year. Quincy Jones is the most nominated (79) and has won a near record 27 Grammys. Since he first emerged on the wider music scene with his electrifying performance at Woodstock in 1969, Santana has won 10 Grammys.

"I'm not afraid if they don't invite me again," he says, "but I'm not afraid to say that it's basically racist. Ignorant and racist."

Many thanks to CC (aka Cookie) and her Facebook page for letting me know about this.

Pop music