Seafood Gumbo (Silver Palate's "The New Basics")

This is a simple dish to prepare, but the plentitude of seafood used makes it very impressive (and a bit expensive.) It's been a hit at a few Christmas parties (where I double or triple the recipe.)

Seafood Gumbo

8 ounces kielbasa or Cajun sausage, cut into 1-inch slices
1/3 cup olive oil
1 pound okra, stems removed
2 cups diced onions
4 cloves garlic, finely minced
1 cup coarsely chopped red bell pepper
5 cups chicken stock
1 cup coarsely chopped green bell pepper
1 teaspoon ground cumin
3 cups chopped plum tomatoes,
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper slightly crushed
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 bay leaf
1 pound large shrimp, peeled and deveined
12 ounces sea scallops
12 ounces Maine cooked lobster meat
8 ounces lump U.S. crabmeat, cartilage removed
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley

In a large pot or Dutch oven, saute the sausage over medium heat until brown, about 15 minutes. Remove it from the pot and set aside.

Add half the oil to the pot. Then add the okra and cook over medium heat until slightly soft, about 15 minutes. Add the remaining oil, onions, bell peppers, and garlic. Stir, and cook another 10 minutes.

Add the chicken stock, tomatoes, cumin, cayenne, salt, black pepper and bay leaf. Simmer, uncovered, for 30 minutes.

Add the shrimp and scallops to the gumbo and simmer another 5 minutes. Then add the lobster, crabmeat, and parsley, adjust the seasonings, and heat through, 2 to 3 minutes. Serve immediately.

System of a Down

This is a metal group that both of my sons (Josh and Sam) have been enjoying. They stand out from a lot of the metal that my son, Sam, is into - maybe it's the humor of their lyrics, or the fact that everyone in this Southern California based band is ethnically Armenian - and that certainly flavors their sound.

Don't get me wrong - while there's some alternative sounding moments, this is contemporary metal which is a lot harder than the metal of the 80's. (Some of the other metal bands Sam is listening to - Fear Factory, Disturbed, Stone Sour and Stratovarius.)

For more on System of a Down, here are links to iTunes, Amazon, and AllMusicGuide. 

Short Ribs With Coffee And Chilies (Mark Bittman)

I've cooked this one a few times now, twice for large dinner parties - always gets a great reaction. I can never find the pasilla chiles locally (I substituted some dried 'california' chiles) and the only chipotles I can find are the canned ones. But it still tasted great!

Short Ribs With Coffee and Chilies

Published: February 13, 2008 (original recipe here)

Time: At least 3 hours

1 tablespoon oil
4 large or 8 small short ribs
Salt and pepper
1 large onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 dried pasilla chili, stemmed, seeded and minced
1 dried chipotle chili, stemmed, seeded and minced
1 cup dry red wine
1 cup strong coffee.

1. In a heavy pot that can later be covered, drizzle oil. Over medium
heat, brown ribs well, adjusting heat as necessary to get a dark
crust. Take your time, and season with salt and pepper as they cook.
Remove them to a plate and turn heat to low.

2. In same pot, cook onions, garlic and chilies, stirring
occasionally, until onions are soft, about 15 minutes. Add wine and
coffee and reduce over high heat by about half. Return ribs to pot,
cover, and cook over low heat (or in a 300-degree oven) for 2 to 3
hours. Cook until very tender — beyond when meat falls off the bone —
turning every hour or so. Taste and adjust seasoning and serve.

Yield: 4 to 8 servings.

lyrics, Debussy, Kandinsky and throbbing

I saw a theatrical piece tonight that didn't work. A piece done on a symphonic scale with beautiful music and orchestrations, but it just washed over me.

The problem was that the characters kept singing what they were feeling - and nothing happened, They didn't 'move' through an emotional process - they just stood there and THROBBED at me. And the music, as beautiful as it was, did not move me because the context of the music's emotions had not been established.

Claude Monet's SunriseBut now I start to wonder - all the non-theatrical music I'm moved by - am I creating the emotional context in my own mind? Or hearing one that the composer is implying in his music?

When I listen to Debussy's "La Mer", I hear more than his capturing the physicality of the sea - I hear his thrill at the feel of ocean spray on his face, his delight at the lighting shimmering on the waves. It's his emotional reaction that causes him to write more than just shimmer and movement - his delight emerges as harmony and melody.

I recently caught the Kandinsky show at the Guggenheim (stick with me for a moment ...) I chose to see the show backwards - and I'm glad I did - I started at the top with the final works and worked my way doKandinsky - Composition VIII - 1923wn. As a result, instead of the exhibition being a biography, it became an analysis of what he was striving for by examining where he came from (as opposed to what he turned to next.) So I wasn't aware of his roots in Russian folk art till the end. I noticed his similarity to Chagall only incidentally through some similar use of color before reaching the end and seeing how they both really started in the same place. But mostly I got to enjoy Kandinsky's use of abstraction without looking for what was being abstracted. That only became an issue as I worked my way backwards.

As a result, the later works seemed to float - geometric elements seemed to float on top of color blotches - black line markings appeared to be improvised comments on the shapes of color below. One painting seemed to be pulled away from the viewer as it fell away into a black field behind it.

Kandinsky - Composition V - 1911But in each painting, there was a context for the abstractions - there seemed to be a dialog between colors, shapes and lines. The dialog was sometimes violent, sometimes serene. But never silent. Each painting was a universe with it's own rules.

It is so hard to look for that kind of process in words, when they're being sung. It is so easy to be swept up in the feeling when there's music present, and leave behind the thought that triggered the feeling. Lyrics appear to us in real time - we need to move with the mind's process, even if it's the million thoughts one has in a few seconds.

Perhaps it is best not to delineate the feelings, but just present the thought process and let the audience 'throb' itself, without doing it for them. Music is such a strong emotional language, it can over-color those thoughts very quickly. Perhaps music should be like Kandinsky's color blotches - coloring the sharp black lines above, while being cut themselves into pieces that fall away.