Transportation Is a Big Responsibility

This is the signature dish of Chiang Mai, a rich coconut curry served over egg noodles, although I’m sure it would be delicious over any kind of noodles or rice. It’s a bit unusual, because other than from a bit of red curry paste, it doesn’t have the usual Thai mix of sweet/salty/sour/hot; in fact, there’s only salt and sour in the curry itself, with the hot (and more sour) being supplied by the garnishes.

Ingredients:

• 3 x 13.5 oz. cans coconut milk
• 1 Tbsp. red curry paste
• 1 tsp. ground turmeric
• 1 lb. chicken (prefer thighs to breast), boned and cut into bite-size pieces
• 1 Tbsp. fish sauce
• 1 Tbsp. light soy
• 1 Tbsp. dark soy
• 2 Tbsp. lime juice

For garnishes:

• 3 Tbsp. vegetable oil
• 2 Tbsp. coarsely ground (or any) chili pepper
• 1/2 C. pickled cabbage or other preserved green vegetable (soak and drain if it’s salty)
• 1/2 C. coarsely cut shallot
• 1 lime, cut lengthwise into 6 wedges
• 1 pound Chinese-style egg noodles, cooked to desired doneness and drained
• 1/2 C. sliced scallion

Method:

Open the coconut milk:

Scrape off the coconut cream (the thick white part) into a large saucepan or wok:

You should get around 3/4 to 1-1/4 C.:

Over medium heat, bring the coconut milk to the boil, then cook, stirring occasionally, for about 7-8 minutes. Depending on how much fat there is in the coconut creme, one of two things will happen: (1) tiny pools of fat will appear on the surface of the cream, at which point stop cooking it, or (2) it will just dry out, in which case stop when it gets dryish (you may need to add a bit of the coconut milk if it gets too dry, like this):

Stir in the turmeric and the red curry paste to dissolve. Continue to stir and cook for a couple of minutes, until you can smell the curry paste:

Add the chicken and stir for about 2 minutes. Increase the heat and add the coconut milk, fish sauce and both soy sauces. Stir well, then cook at a medium boil for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from the heat and stir in the lime juice. Taste and adjust seasoning.

Make the chili oil: Heat the oil and chili powder in a small skillet over low heat (be careful, it burns easily) for 3 minutes:

Prepare the rest of the garnishes:

In each bowl, place noodles and top with the curry and scallions:

Serve with garnishes:

Yum!

-R

PS Pretty pretty lettuces from my back patio:

-R

16 August 1980.

Side One (mono):

1. Martha and the Muffins – About Insomnia
2. The Deceits (from Washington DC) – Nobody’s Robot
3. Tuxedomoon – What Us
4. Flowers – After Dark
5. Ultravox – New Europeans
6. Joy Division – Love Will Tear Us Apart
7. Dexy’s Midnight Runners – Thanksfully Living in Yorkshire It Doesn’t Apply
8. Iggy Pop – New Values
9. Magazine – Give Me Everything

Side Two (mono):

1. PiL – The Suit
2. John Otway – The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
3. X – Soul Kitchen
4. The Distractions – It Doesn’t Bother Me
5. The Jags – Back of My Hand
6. The Chords – Maybe Tomorrow
7. Siouxsie and the Banshees – Paradise Place
8. The Flesheaters – Suicide Saddle
9. The Angelic Upstarts – Listen to the Steps

Enjoy!

-R

Side One:

1. Fun Boy Three – The Lunatics Have Taken Over the Asylum
2. The Teardrop Explodes – Colours Fly Away
3. The Jam – Absolute Beginners
4. New Order – Procession
5. Soft Cell – Bedsitter
6. The Cramps – Save It
7. (from 29 November 1981)
8. B-Movie – Mole
9. Simple Minds – Sweat in Bullet
10. Silent Types – Upset
11. Depeche Mode – Puppets
12. Madness – Sign of the Times
13. Dept. S – Is Vic There?
14. David Byrne – My Hands Fall Through the Cracks

Side Two:

1. The Vapors – Spiders (21 February 1981)
2. (from 11 July 1981)
3. 4 Be 2 – Frustration
4. The Adolescents – I Hate Children
5. Kate Bush – Sat in Your Lap
6. The Go-Go’s – Can’t Walk in Your Sleep if You Can’t Get to Sleep
7. The Defectors – Confrontation
8. Snot Attack – Animal Sex
9. —–
10. Pauline Murray & the Invisible Girls – Drummer Boy
11. Delta 5 – Try
12. Elvis Costello – Pay It Back (different mix)
13. Elvis Costello – Neat Neat Neat
14. Holly & the Italians – Miles Away
15. Scott Popper – Death by Phone
16. (from 4 January 1981)
17. The Fire Engines – Get Up and Use Me
18. Bush Tetra – Snakes Crawl
19. Eno – 7 Deadly Finns
20. The Fleshtones – Girl from Baltimore

Enjoy!

-R

They’re virtually, or one might argue, completely unknown, and yet the influence of The Onion Brothers on New American Comedy can barely be described.

Marty Scorsese paid tribute to their comic genius in several of his films, most transparently in this clip from “The King of Comedy” (1982): here “Is that cork?”

Like Lenny Bruce, whose subjective and anti-authoritarianistic comedy led to his being constrained to small venues where his truth couldn’t ignite a social revolution, likewise the Onion Brothers only performed in the Ukrainian Working Men’s Club.

It’s funny. If you take the number of people who claim to have been at the Velvet Underground’s first performance, then add the number of people who claim to have been at the Sex Pistol’s last show, you could still count on the fingers of one hand the number of people at the Onion Brothers’ show.

The climax of the show was sensational, the audience’s reaction breathless. Onion Brother Karl, whose already pendulous man-breasts would serve him better in his (her) later showbiz career, entered stage right, juggling three large onions, in lederhosen (Karl, not the onions), under a spotlight. When he got to stage center, he grabbed one in his mouth, the other two in his hands, then showed them to the audience, one by one. Written on each, in barely legible black Magic Marker, were the following: “#1: Setup”. “#2: Diversion”. “#3: Punch Line.”

The curtain closed and the audience, stunned into silence by their glimpse into the future of comedy, drifted away without clapping, most of them towards the open bar.

There’s precious little documentation of the show — no film, no audio — and the few blurry Polaroids taken from the audience were later burned by the third Onion Brother, who jokingly claimed, “we’re just trying to forget that it happened.”

And yet, their influence can hardly be ignored. It’s most obvious in the work of such cutting-edge comedians as George from “Seinfeld,” whose character tries to impress a girl with “home-baked” cookies, which he bought from a bakery, an obvious reference to the Onion Brothers most famous tagline “My girlfriend has ENORMOUS sacks of flour”, and Ellen DeGeneres, who in a cooking segment when asked to chop two onions, infamously said, “If you think I’m crying now, wait till you see what I do to his brother.”

-R

Side One:

Side Two:

Enjoy!

-R

Various live tracks from TV/radio recorded in the UK in the 1990s.

Side One:

1. The Lemonheads – It’s a Shame About Ray (No Stilettos 22/7/93)
2. Evan Dando – Confetti/Big Gay Heart (Naked City 23/7/93)
3. Suede – Still Live (Naked City 20/8/93)
4. Carter USM – Lean on Me I Won’t Fall Over (Naked City 20/8/92)
5. Nirvana – We Wish You a Merry Christmas (RuPaul’s Christmas Ball 21/12/93)
6. PJ Harvey – Naked Cousin/Wang Dang Doodle (Later with Jools Holland rerun 8/1/93)
7. PJ Harvey – Dress (The Late Show rerun 14/12/93)
8. Suede – The Drowners (The Late Show rerun 14/12/93)
9. Morrissey – You’re the One for Me, Fatty (The Late Show rerun 14/12/93)
10. The Fall – DIY Meat/Spencer/Beatle Bones & Smoking Stones (Peel session 18/8/96)
11. Pavement – Date with Ikea/Fin (Peel session 9/97)

Side Two:

1. Pavement – Grave Architecture/The Classical (Peel session 9/97)

Enjoy!

-R