2/12/02
Last night, I felt like cooking more complicatedly than usual, so I made a complicated eggplant curry and some dal with cucumber and a big bowl of raita with whatever happened to be lying around. (And this reminds me: does anybody out there know how to tell before one buys it whether a large container of basmati rice is the kind that doesn't even especially need to be rinsed or whether it's the kind so permeated with talcum powder or whatever it is they use that it has to be immersed in a sieve in the middle of a high-speed natural spring for a good half-hour before it's even palatable once it's cooked? Having been burned repeatedly, I'm tempted just to stick to jasmine rice from now on, but I know I'd be missing out.) Today, I sat around and typed and ate leftovers. And Lisa brought home an Entenmann's banana cake: comfort food! Actually, their raspberry crumble-twist thing (that's not the name, I forget what the real name is) is the ultimate comfort food for me: just the right variety of textures, flavors and varieties of sweetness.
Currently listening to the brand-new album by a Certain Band I Used To Really Like, who have undergone some significant changes in the last few years and whose new stuff just depresses me. A friend said "I saw them a couple of months ago and they really surprised me--they sounded like Fairport Convention now!" Which intrigued me. But they don't.
Just saw a rather lovely obituary for This Heat's Gareth Williams: "There had been non-musicians working in rock before, notably Brian Eno in Roxy Music, but Williams was perhaps the first to take centre stage rather than merely adding colour to familiar forms." That's it: I want my next band to be entirely "non-musicians" who are willing to play instruments and perform fearlessly, or maybe non-musicians plus a really good drummer. Who's with me?