Voted "worst song ever" in pop-music polls, Mac Arthur Park's cryptic lyrics are as sticky as "all the sweet green icing, flowing down," on that mysterious cake someone left out in the rain. Who left the cake out? If you took so long to bake it, from a recipe you'll never have again, why would you be so careless with it? The song is a perfect recipe for a one-hit wonder:
1 part confusing lyrics 1 part catchy musical hook Blend ingredients together with an inappropriately dramatic performer. Heat in oven until half-baked.
That's the basic recipe, but if you substitute a deliciously sweet and silky smooth disco diva like Donna Summer, you've got an instant crowd-pleaser.
"I know you got a sweet tooth, and I remember," so here's a Friday afternoon treat: Debbie Harry, the yummiest of punk pop-tarts, shaking and baking it back in 1979.
The whole song isn't about food, but you gotta appreciate Joey Ramone's teenage angst of settling for chicken vindaloo when he really just wants his chick. The opening scene where they're riding topless in a Gabba Gabba Hey plated pink cadillac tossing chicken bones is pretty tasty, too.
Any other Sonoma County people remember seeing The Ramones play the Phoenix Theater in Petaluma in 1981?
Update: The original video embedded in this post was a scene from the cult classic film Rock 'n' Roll High School and has since been removed from YouTube, so I swapped it for this non-video version of the song.
The movie is packed full of The Ramones and would go great with some chicken vindaloo takeout and cold beers. Here's the link if you want to get a copy of Rock 'n' Roll High School on DVD at Amazon.
In 1979, before MTV, us San Francisco Bay Area kids watched Videowest. Hungry for early punk and new wave, we were satisfied. But "that old guy" Commander Cody gave us indigestion. I swear they aired this video every week. A couple decades later, I find it pretty cheestastic!
The 2009-2010 Dungeness crab season in California started November 15th and runs to June. Friends and I were eager to drive to the coast for our first crab dinner of the season. Although you can get good fresh crab in your local grocery store, it's an expensive hit or miss. Even though it's advertised as fresh or freshly cooked, it may have already been traveling through trucks and warehouses for days. Luckily for us, we're only half an hour away from the Pacific coast, so my friend Susan and I made a food adventure out of it and procured the freshest crab available.
Our destination was the fresh fish vendor at Lucas Wharf 595 S Highway 1 Bodega Bay, CA94923. Look to the right of the Lucas Wharf Restaurant & Bar for a sign that says Lucas Wharf Fish House, although the actual name of the business is The Seafood Guys. (They told me they have a new Seafood Guys' website, but I can't find it on-line yet.)
Talk about fresh! They just hauled the crab nets up the previous afternoon, right there on the dock. The Seafood Guys sell live and cooked crabs. Here's a video clip I took of a live one.
Crabs are definitely the cutest crustacean, almost too cute to eat. And while we didn't take that live one home, we bought some crabs that were cooked that morning and waiting for us on ice.
Such a bargain, too! We bought three good-sized crabs for just $20. I don't know of a grocery store that can beat that price--another reason to buy direct from the source. Our guy Lonnie is a real sweetheart, who takes pride in his work. Rightfully so!
Lonnie told me that for Thanksgiving week, they'll be selling all the seafood needed for cioppino: sea bass, shrimp, clams, mussels, oysters, and of course, Dungeness crab. They're open 7 days a week, 10am-5pm. Crab yields are low this year, so if your heart is set on it, try to get there by early afternoon.
After our mission was accomplished, we asked him to hold our bagged crabs on ice a little bit longer so we could take a break over at the Lucas Wharf bar, where they make the best from-scratch Bloody Marys.
They make them spicy there, so I always order mine "on the mild side." There's still plenty of heat. Afterward, we grabbed a bag of potato chips at the Island Style Deli next door and sat outside, watching the kite surfers jump the waves for awhile until we were ready to head back home.
I'm more of a food pleasure seeker than a cook, and while I'm confident enough in the kitchen, there are plenty of things I've never learned how to do. One of those things is cleaning & cracking crab. I usually ask the fish market to do it at time of purchase. Our friend Jules was waiting for us to return with the whole crabs and agreed to show me how.
She begins her tutorial with a question, "Do you know what this is?" as she pops open a hinged part on the under body of the crab.
She laughed then said, "It's the crab's penis. They only allow them to catch male crabs." After Jules made a disclaimer for being a home cook and not a pro, she proceeded to take me on an anatomical journey to the center of a crab while she cleaned and cracked our dinner.
Meanwhile, Susan cracked open a bottle of Edna Valley chardonnay and prepared some sourdough toast points, sheep's milk brie, port cheddar, and olives for us to nibble on. I turned on my video capture.
So what's inside that crab and how do you get to it? What's the deal with that yellow stuff inside? Why did our friend Hiren make an advance request for us to not throw it away, but save it for her instead?
Although my first reaction upon first seeing the crab "butter" under the shell was "yuck," Hiren's arrival and enthusiasm for it made me reconsider. I like Asian food. She said 100% of all Asian people eat that part. If it's good to that many people, maybe I'll think it's good too. I tasted it.
The cold creamy goo was slightly bitter (not sweet like crab meat) and decidedly briny. There's a lingering mineral aftertaste that might put some people off, but I liked it and would eat it again.
After all three crabs were cracked, we got right down to business. Crab. Lemons. Butter. Seafood cocktail sauce. White wine. No side dishes, no nonsense, just the crab. So good! You can bet we'll be doing this again. Next time, I want to try cleaning and cracking the crab. Yum.
I finally got a chance to try out the Oster Electric Wine Opener I mentioned previously (demonstrating it on one of the misfit bottles of wine I bought.) Needing both hands for the task, I decided to video it, rather than take still photos. Will the opener pass the usability test or should it be banished to the kitchen gadget graveyard? Watch the video to see it in action. A special guest star makes an appearance, too.
The Oster 4207 has replaced my broken Rabbit corkscrew for now. It's a great gift for people that throw parties and need to open a lot of bottles. (You can open up to 30 bottles on a single charge.) Your arthritic grandparents would surely love it! Especially if they're a little hard of hearing. The only downside to this wine bottle opener is the noise, as you can hear on the video. Not a romantic sound! I think I'll keep my simple corkscrew opener for quiet moments, but the Oster will definitely get some play at my next big party.
Jaya Schillinger. Sensualist with a taste for unpretentious luxury, raw beauty, and the occasional 5-star food, wine, and spa experience, hungers for all things “yum” in Sonoma County, California.
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Sonoma Bon Vivant Living well in the land of "yum." Sensualist with a taste for unpretentious luxury, raw beauty, and the occasional 5-star food, wine, and spa experience.
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