Radio and Some Food

Driving on Saturday, my radio scanned to 91.9 and I stopped on West Virginia's Mountain Stage, live. I didn't even know I could hear this live in Boston. I missed Del McCoury Band last week, too bad.

After Mountain Stage is the WUMB show, Celtic Twilight which had me scurrying to write down the name Malinky--a Scottish band who did a lovely cover of "When Margaret was Eleven". Apparently they just played in Concord. I'm starting to understand that my celtic music taste definitely revolves around the more traditional, with perhaps some bluegrass or even punk influences. Never pop though. I've realized celtic pop makes my teeth hurt. It feels watered down for the masses, but that's me being a snot I guess.

Sunday morning I stumbled across WHRB, 95.3--Harvard's radio station. The Reverend Peter J. Gomes was preaching from Memorial Church, his sermon was called Beyond Anxiety and it was pretty excellent. Right before that was Blues Hangover and I got to hear some Big Mama Thornton, who I really like... and not because she and my grandmother had the same name. Or not just because.

And on a food note, I'm writing this here to help myself remember that I want to check out Brendan's Sunday Night Fried Chicken & Fish Fry at the Plough & Stars. Catfish, collards and cheese grits 5 minutes from my house? Lovely.

And from a Metafilter post, Carol Blymire has made every recipe in Thomas Kellery's French Laundry cookbook and is writing about it. This makes me think about my meal at Binkley's in Arizona (the chef/owner trained under Keller). The amuse bouche was amazing and if I had seen it spelled out would I have eaten "curried cauliflower and eggs" or "fig with plum caviar"? Probably not. But I didn't see it written, it was handed to me and I trusted and ate. I need to do that more often.