Have you heard this?

Listen up glee club, for every Lady Gaga there is a musician out there who is actually clever, innovative, and informed; they just don't sell to the masses. Take YACHT, for example, who I saw open for LCD Soundsystem in 2007 at the 9:30 Club. He was a force, a more approachable and melodic Dan Deacon.

YACHT - Psychic City (Voodoo City)

Have you heard the band Girls? They sound like Nirvana on a bunch of Beach Boys pills. Throw in a little audioglam à la The Ronettes. Try it, you'll like it. Rich and sparse all at once, not lo-fi but - dare I say - garage bandish.

Girls - Lust For Life

If I hadn't listened to the new Gorillaz Plastic Beach so many times already, my summer jam would be this track, featuring Swedish group Little Dragon. Yes, thank you.

Gorillaz - Empire Ants (ft. Little Dragon)

i heart moms

It's Tuesday. The weekend blew by, along with Mother's Day, but it's never too late to post in honor of mothers everywhere, especially mine.

The Splendid Table, a public radio program I love, was devoted to mothers this weekend. The first segment featured cookbook author and mother Emily Franklin. As only a mother could, Emily relates her young son Daniel's disdain for peas, using the 5 Stages of Grief as a framework and sending me into fits of laughter and grave compassion for my own mother, who fielded more than her fair share of fits while raising me and my two brothers. Maybe you will recall a similar scene from your own home. Have a listen...



I'm pretty sure that my mom's salmon cakes had the same affect on me as peas do for Daniel, but on the whole, we were very well-fed. My brother Miles was known to shake and quiver in anticipation of Mom's oven-fried chicken. I also have some fairly incriminating family photos that demonstrate just how much my brother Nathan loved Mom's spaghetti and meatballs. For me, I would do cartwheels for her chicken rice pilaf. And blessed were the days when we came home from school to find fresh, buttery oatmeal cookies waiting for us.

When I moved into my first apartment, I called my mom to request her oatmeal cookie recipe and learned that they are really called Aggression cookies, because you can work out any tension or stress while kneading the dough. Maybe this explains why they were a common treat in our house. Raising three children must come with a little bit of stress, but you would never know it with our mom. Try her recipe for yourself and conjure up your own fun childhood memories...

Deanna's Aggression Cookies

1 1/2 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 cup (3 sticks) butter
3 cups oatmeal, uncooked
1 1/2 cup flour
1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda

Knead everything with your hands until no lumps of butter remain. Roll dough into small balls and place on ungreased cookie sheet. Flatten gently with a small fork.

Bake for 10-12 minutes at 350 degrees. Cool before removing from cookie sheet.


And remember... appreciate your mother everyday!

Saladboxxx/The Leaves Below

Sometime during all that snow we got in late winter, I started craving a garden. Much of my desire was wrapped up in a general craving for spring. Having tired of winter stews and root vegetables, the promise of cool salads and iced tea led me straight to seed catalogues. Normally at this time, I would have focused almost entirely on cultivating varieties of tomatoes, plus some other summer fare. This year, there were too many unknown environmental factors to confidently move forward on a strictly tomato regimen. Namely, sunlight. We moved into our house in September, just as all of the shade trees began to think about turning. Even then, I noticed the yard was heavily shaded for most of the day. Now that May is here and the trees are in full force, I can tell you that tomato plants will not live a happy life in my yard.

So with this assumption in tow, and a newfound interest in greens, I found another outlet: I built a salad table and planted lettuces in it.



The table, which I built with Sam on a Saturday morning, is portable and waist-high and features three shallow beds lined with screen for adequate drainage. I found out about this simple and practical design via the Maryland Cooperative Extension, a must-try resource for gardening information.



Now I have loads of spinach to eat.