Eat 'em Up, Yum!

I recently acquired an electric griddle.  This is possibly the greatest appliance since the toaster.  A marvel of culinary engineering, it sits atop the kitchen appliance hierarchy.  Basically, I've been making a staggering amount of pancakes.

Grilled cheese is my favorite thing to make and to eat, and I'm quite good at it.  Now with the addition of my griddle, I have an easy way to make them en masse.  I found this great website devoted to the art of grilling cheese... The Grilled Cheese Academy.  So, I've been busy with recipes, making some of theirs, and creating some of my own.  The following are mine.  Not sure if you could call them truly unique... but I don't really care.

I use BeefSteak deli style hearty rye bread.  It makes lousy toast, but great grilled cheese.  The slices are a little longer, and firmer than normal supermarket sliced bread.

The Gorilla Cheese:

• two slices deli-sliced ham (as thick or thin as you like)
• two slices deli-sliced pepperoni
• one slice cheddar
• one slice swiss

I don't butter anything, the griddle is "non-stick", the non-existant buttering is probably a healthy choice.  On this sandwich, it probably doesn't matter, because the ham and pepperoni will kill you anyway.

RICOLA!

• two slices Swiss
• Onion (a few thin slices browned ahead of time)
• Spinach (a few leaves wilted on the grill)

The name is kind of dumb.  I can't be clever all the time.  The spinach idea I stole from the Grilled Cheese Academy.  The different tastes of the three ingredients go well together.  I found if I cut the onion and don't break it into rings, I get a wheel of onion that is easy to flip on the griddle and sits in the sandwich much like a slice of tomato.

Tom Is Awesome:

• one slice Swiss
• one slice deli-sliced ham
• one slice cheddar
• one slice tomato

My favorite.

Dead as a Doornail

The Crocodiles

Sleep Forever

2010, Fat Possum

produced by James Ford

I bought this used. Amazon is a great place to buy music on the cheap, especially if you like a hard physical copy of the album, and not just digital files. I discovered The Crocodiles on another blog. This is my hipster purchase of the year. Not only has no one heard of them, but the sound is very indie and drone and pretty much reminds me of the Cure, and The Jesus and Mary Chain. They are classified as "noise pop" and "lo-fi", whatever that means, generally music genre classification is bogus anyway. Pitchfork gives it a 6.8. I'm going to put my scarf on now and ride my bicycle to buy a soy latte.

That's Some Funky Body Paint

A Tribe Called Quest

Midnight Marauders

1993, Jive

produced by Large Professor

Ali Shaheed Muhammad - DJ

Phife Dawg - MC

Q-Tip - MC

• Award Tour/ The Chase part 2
• Oh My God/ Lyrics to Go
• Electric Relaxation/ Midnight

This was a purchase after my friend in high school wouldn't stop talking about Q-tip. This is the kind of hip hop I like. Intelligent, laid back, clever, with a swagger and bounce that is missing from pop rap dance and party tracks. Q-tip is also featured on a Beastie Boys track on Ill Communication, which is awesome. The hip hop style of the '90s is definitely a centerpiece to this album, complete with intros and outros reminiscent of television bumpers. This is the follow up to their Low End Theory album. The best era for hip hop in my opinion was the early to mid '90s, and this album is a great example. The cover art not only displays the same stylized figure that was on Low End Theory, but is also an homage to who the Tribe considered Hip Hop legends and revolutionaries. The full illustration is below, and this page from Wikipedia lists all of the artists and producers featured.  

Too Drunk to be a Dancing Nancy

Dave Matthews Band

Under the Table and Dreaming

1994, RCA

produced by Steve Lilywhite

Dave Matthews - guitars, vocals

Stephan Lessard - bass

Carter Beauford - drums

LeRoi Moore - saxophones, flute

Boyd Tinsley - violin

singles-

• What Would You Say/ Recently
• Satellite/ Christmas Song
• Ants Marching
• Typical Situation/ What Would You Say
• Jimi Thing/ All Along the Watchtower/ Christmas Song

Dave Matthews definitely earned a bad reputation mostly because of his fan base... and his drinking. If it were drinking alone, Eddie Vedder would also be seen as an asshole. The people that attempt to discredit this band as being elitist and too popular, and over-played, or whatever, are probably the same people that contributed to the '90s backlash to Hootie and the Blowfish. This just proves that people are stupid when it comes to music. As if Justin Bieber wasn't enough proof.

Sometimes bands are unique and talented enough to warrant fame, even if it is given to them by hordes of drunk college kids whose parents paid for school. This is Dave's band's first album. They had an EP called Recently, but this was their actual full-length debut. They put jazz and big band back into rock in a way that few had done since the Grateful Dead, and it was refreshing. The tracks are sing-a-long friendly, and musically well put together. This is a great debut, and you can't take that away from them. No matter how much you hate them now.

No One is Going to Kill Me Softly

The Fugees

The Score

1996, Ruffhouse

produced by Jerry Duplessis

Wyclef Jean

Lauryn Hill

Pras Michel

John Forte

singles-

• Fu Gee La
• Killing Me Softly
• Ready or Not
• No Woman No Cry

I don't own much rap stuff, most of the hip hop I own came out between 1986 and 1999. Apparently, to pop culture, this is the music of the ancients. This particular ancient album could be the best hip hop album of all time.  

Up until I heard this, I was not a fan of anything rap. Basically, my only exposure up until this album had been early Snoop, the I Like Big Butts song and popcorn rappers like Vanilla Ice and Kris Kross. None of which was appealing, and even the Run DMC/Aerosmith collaboration was pretty silly.  

I gave this album a chance though and it opened a huge door into a genre of music that I had previously dismissed. This is not just beats and rhymes and sexual lyrics and bravado. Wyclef Jean shows his brilliance, and Lauryn Hill has an amazing voice, and proves how clever and talented she is, despite being a woman in a male dominated genre (at the time). There is melody, intelligent banter, well constructed music, and definite homages to other older and well respected genres including reggae, the blues, and rock. I ate this up.