Wednesday, November 28, 2012
If I'm not mistaken, federal law requires that every article about a successful collaboration must begin with a list of legendary duets/duos from music or sports. You know: Sonny and Cher, Simon and Garfunkel, Stockton and Malone, Gretzky and Kurri. You get the idea.
In that vein, when I think of the great Hop-Pickle collaboration between the Brooklyn Brine Co. and Dogfish Head Brewery, I think of some of the great side projects from already-established musicians. Temple of the Dog automatically comes to mind, though Pearl Jam hadn't even released their first record before that collaboration with the guys from Soundgarden. There are also several comparable examples from fairly recent vintage.
The Hop-Pickle collaboration reminds me most of successful teamings of some unique musicians, like David Bowie joining Queen for "Under Pressure" or (on a lesser scale, of course) M. Ward and Zooey Deschanel combining for their She & Him albums. Each had blazed a distinct trail on their own before these collaborations, yet after hearing the results of such teamwork you'd have thought they were born to play together--a phrase you could easily apply to Brooklyn Brine and Dogfish Head.
Enough music for now. We need to talk pickles.
Friday, November 16, 2012
So it's kind of fun to promote a "beer" (more on the quotation marks later) that airs commercials like this:
And has its own double-decker tour bus:
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
Last week in my "white whales" post, I mentioned my love of Malaysian food and beef rendang, specifically. As I said then, Malaysian cuisine is a brilliant fusion of native Malay, Indian, Chinese, and Thai culinary inspirations (among others!). If you know the dishes of those countries, then you can only imagine how strong the flavors are when merged in one cuisine. No, this is not food for the meek, for those who don't want things vibrantly spiced up.
It is the location of Malaysia--its proximity to those countries listed above and its usefulness as a trading hub--that enabled the spices and culinary influences of so many places to end up concentrated in this one location. Just watch the Singapore episode of No Reservations and tell me there's any other place on earth that could compete as a culinary destination.
Okay, I'm hungry now. Always does the trick.
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
|We're all cursed with our obsessions.|
I'll begin by mentioning that there have been a lot of great little discoveries, some of which I've written about--fried chicken and pizza, for instance--and some of which I've neglected to mention. I've become totally accustomed to having some really solid Asian markets right in town. I live in a place where I can get pretty good xiao long bao (at Ala Shanghai). There's no shortage of quality Indian restaurants in the area which serve up some satisfying buffet lunches.
I don't doubt that if I keep searching, keep digging, keep eating in and around Albany, I'll have a lot more positive posts to throw out there. But...