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An occasional blog about populist politics and popular music, not necessarily at the same time. LinksLocal Links Social Media My Other Websites Music Politics Others Networking Music DatabaseArtist Search: Website SearchGoogle: Recent Reading
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Saturday, December 27, 2025 Music Week
Music: Current count 45048 [45041] rated (+7), 22 [16] unrated (+6). I made it through my 75th birthday Saturday. After my Tuesday posts of Music Week (3969 words, per wc), Loose Tabs (14825 words), and my big Notes on Everyday Life (Substack) post on Making Peace in Gaza and Beyond (5766 words) (archived here), I figured I had the whole week open to work on my birthday dinner. As you can see, I spent very little time listening to new music last week, or working on the computer in any way, shape, or form. On the other hand, it seems like I had a hard time getting going, although I wound up with a respectable effort: 13 dishes, plus 2 cakes and store-bought ice cream for dessert. At some point, I should do the research and compile a list of major birthday dinners. The idea came up around 1995-96, in Boston. After I left Contex, I occasionally had lunch with some friends there, and at some point I expressed a desire to cook for them. My birthday was coming up, so I invited them over, and made a huge phantasmagoria of Chinese dishes (17-18 if memory serves, topped the next year with more like 20-22, also Chinese), and a similar quantity of Indian the year after that. Then I think I did Turkish for my last year in Boston, and Indian again for our one year in New Jersey — probably the biggest one ever, with friends from NYC coming out to the sticks, for curries I cooked over several days on a tiny stove that looked like it was ripped out of an Airstream, more or less warmed up at the last minute. In 1999, we moved to Wichita, and I think the tradition got disrupted. But a year or two later, I got it going again. More Turkish, Spanish, Moroccan, Thai, Cuban, Russian, Greek, Korean. One year I got lazy and just made a single pot feijoada. I skipped one year when my culinary muse, Jerry Stewart, had moved to Salina, so we drove up there and went out for fried chicken at the Brookville Hotel (then in Abilene). Another, after he moved back, I was grousing about what to cook, and he talked me into just grilling hamburgers (well, beef, pork, salmon, not sure what else; some not very successful homemade buns, and lots of beans and potato sides). Another year I made my own southern fried chicken. I finally made a serious attempt at French. I never did Italian, although I cook a fair number of Italian dishes. In 2024, I had a Burmese cookbook I had bought but never opened, so I offered that as a possibility, and Laura approved. In prepping for that, I bought James Oseland's Cradle of Flavor cookbook, on Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore. I didn't need it for Burmese, but I've ordered Rijsttafel a couple times in Indonesian restaurants, and that always struck me as the exact concept behind the birthday dinners: a lot of little dishes spread out around a pile of rice. So it's long been a concept on the list, but just a bit out of reach. However, this seemed like a now of never moment, so I decided to put some time and effort into it. I started by shopping for extra cookbooks, like I did for Burmese, but actually found little that looked promising. I wound up going to the library, and picked up two slim books with a lot of pictures that proved pretty useful, two more which were mostly words and not much help, plus a Dorie Greenspan baking book — it occurred to me that I didn't have to follow convention for dessert, but could switch it up (much like how in NYC we would go to Chinatown for dinner, then cross Canal for Italian desserts). I also started to assemble a shopping list, and thought to order some items from Amazon that I feared I might not be able to find. (Kecap manis for one; turned out daun pandan wouldn't be a problem, but I never did find the daun salam, even on Amazon.) I did some preliminary shopping last Monday, going Thai Binh and Dillons. I did major shopping on Wednesday, at Lucky Market, Whole Foods, and another Dillons. I didn't have a real menu, just a bunch of vague ideas. I bought a lot of stuff, including a little bit of just about everything green. I probably wound up using a little less than half of what I bought, but my idea was: pile it all up on a table, look through the cookbooks, pick a recipe, grab what I needed, finish it, store it away (possibly to heat up later). I figured I would start on Wednesday, but didn't. I figured I'd have all day Thursday, but got nothing done, except the decision not to try to grill anything. (I have a broken gas grill, so I spent several hours trying to figure out how to fix it, but failed. I love grilled food, but don't care much to tend to the grill, so unless I have help, it can be a big distraction. So no satés, no grilled fish or chicken, no grilled eggplant, all of which would have been great, but were likely too much for me.) Friday got off to a slow start too. It was evening before I got the first pickle made, and had the pork simmering. I boiled most of the gado gado ingredients, cooked the lamb, and made a couple more pickles. I made the orange spice cake, but punted on Greenspan's Lisbon chocolate cake (I'm not good with a lot of hand whisking). I didn't get to the peanut sauce until after midnight. Saturday I got going around 11, and was slower than I used to be, but pretty methodical. I boiled the rice. I still wanted a chocolate contrast to the cake, so I settled on Ruth Reichl's flourless chocolate cake: easy, I've made it a dozen times, very intense even without any finishing. I did the preliminary braise of the ribs and chicken. I started the beef redang, which takes 3-4 hours. I realized that the lamb needed more cooking to get a similar effect, so redid it. I cooked the green beans. I finally got around to the greens. It occurred to me that the sauce I used on the greens would work even better on two packages of mushrooms I had bought for the hell of it, so I mixed up another batch and chopped and cooked them. I put the ribs into the oven, and pan-fried the chicken. I probably should have done the chicken a bit differently, to get a bit more crust. I assembled and dressed the gado gado. I started frying the rice. Guests showed up, and I got them to do a couple little things. I fried four eggs to top the rice, and cut up a cucumber for a garnish. I had a couple things to warm up (pork, green beans, maybe something else). I finally got everything out into bowls and dishes: 13 of them. Dinner was supposed to be at 6. Not sure when it was, but no later than 7. Six guests, so 8 total. The tiny kitchen was a total wreck by then. I'm pretty well equipped and stocked, for everything but space. The food pretty much lived up to expectations. The chicken could have been browner, the rendang glossier and more tender, the peanut sauce more robust (and the stuff we put it on a bit crunchier). I should have made more rice, and had I compared the recipes better could have come up with more interesting add-ins. What seemed like a lot of greens had become very little. (I should know that by now, but still I'm surprised.) I left out things (especially shrimp paste and dried shrimp; I also had a pound of shrimp thawed out for a sambal that I never got to). I don't like hot peppers, but first day I tried to experiment with much reduced quantities, and those dishes still came out pretty hot for my taste. Second day I pretty much skipped the hot peppers altogether, whereas the first day's strategy was closer to the mark (just above it, but once you started mixing things you could get a nice sharp taste). On the other hand, no one complained. I offered sambal oelek on the side, and got no takers. I had three pints of Talenti to go with the cakes: vanilla, coffee chocolate chip, and a lemon sorbet. I was thinking the latter would go with the orange spice cake, but the butter pecan would have been better. The cakes were very moist and very rich. After the guests left, I started to clean up, only to find a flood under the sink. I finally determined the faucet was leaking, and probably needed to be replaced. I've hated that faucet — an expensive Kohler with touchless controls that did the wrong thing way too often for my tasted — but it was hell to install, and wouldn't be much easier to replace. Still, I have to buy another faucet real soon. In past years, I've been known to make a second dinner combining leftovers with new dishes from unused ingredients. I have some things I should still cook up somehow, but don't see turning them into more Indonesian food. The leftover pork will probably go Chinese. I have a Thai duck dish I like a lot. I have some chicken livers I didn't find a use for, but they're good for lots of things. The frozen stuff can stay frozen until some opportunity comes along. On the other hand, cooking gives me a sense of accomplishment I get from few other things. Like writing. For more on the dinner see Facebook or better still my planning file, which I'm turning into a document, including links to all of the recipes. This meal will also probably be the subject of my next Notes on Everyday Life newsletter. That's likely to take a couple of days, as opposed to the hour or two of extemporizing in this post. This coming week will mostly be house stuff. I need to decide on a roofing contractor, and they seem to mostly be avoiding me (except for the ones I'm avoiding). I also have both big and small plumbing projects. I'm not sure I'm even up for the latter. Plus a lot of organizing, sorting, storing and/or trashing. And the Francis Davis Jazz Critics Poll is soon upon us. This is the last Monday in October, so I've opened a November archive, but I haven't indexed October yet or added the Music Weeks. I've made some minor edits to last week's Rubén Reinaldo review, as some of my writing was rather muddled. Grade remains unchanged. Besides, gives me a second image to go against the long intro. Reading Illan Pappé's Israel on the Brink and the Eight Revolutions That Could Lead to Decolonization and Coexistence has me thinking even more about future socio-political engineering schemes there. I find it easy to see similar fractions forming in Israel's credibility, but I would be very surprised to see changes develop along the lines he sketches out. I think the best case scenario is Israel discards Gaza, turning it over to the UN, which only partially reconstructs it, as most of the pre-2023 population go into exile. Israel then annexes the rest of the occupied territories, braving a not very effective BDS movement, which combined with lessening demographic pressures from Palestinian emigration starts in the 10-20 year time frame to soften up a bit, eventually landing on one of the binational schemes floating about (probably the worst one they can find). Until now I've done my best to ignore binational schemes, as Israel is nowhere near willing to accept one (nor are most Palestinians interested in offering one, although that may just be because there's no point selling yourself short when you can't sell yourself at all). But now they got me thinking about such schemes, and sure, I could write about that if anyone cared. But there's no evidence of that being true. I just did a Google of "tom hull making peace in gaza and beyond," and 9 of the first 10 listings are to my own pieces/tweets/etc. And the 10th is a Facebook post from Tim Scott that has nothing whatsoever to do with my piece. (It is mostly a retweet of Donald Trump, above which Scott — yes, that Tim Scott — writes "Thanks to President Trump's bold and determined leadership, we're seeing a historic opportunity for lasting peace.") There are more Israel books in the wind, but the only question that matters is whether there is some schism in Israeli politics that will see some common bond with Palestinian voters as worth pursuing. Dahlia Scheindlin is the only writer I'm aware of who is working on this sort of thing, but her latest book came out in 2023 (The Crooked Timber of Democracy in Israel), which is almost an eon ago. New records reviewed this week: Lily Allen: West End Girl (2025, BMG): British singer-songwriter, fifth studio album since 2007, 7 years since number four, a stretch of time covering a marriage and a divorce, so easy subject matter, which she handles adroitly. Music doesn't have quite the same zip as the earlier albums. B+(***) [sp] Call Super: A Rhythm Protects One (2025, Dekmantel): British electronica producer Joseph Richmond-Seaton, Discogs lists four albums since 2014, more EPs/singles, and a half dozen DJ mixes, where this one is slotted. B+(**) [sp] The Expert: Vivid Visions (2025, Rucksack): Irish hip-hop producer Cian Galvin, Discogs credits him with a half-dozen albums since 2015, most cuts here have featured guests, including AJ Suede, Blu, Stik Figa, ShrapKnel, Defcee, and Buck 65. B+(**) [sp] Rochelle Jordan: Through the Wall (2025, Empire): Dance-pop singer-songwriter, born in UK, grew up in Toronto, fifth album since 2011. Previous one was pretty good, with this one just much more, enough for 2-LP: 17 songs, 59:58. A- [sp] Killah Priest & Purpose: Abraxas 2 (2025, Proverbs): Rapper Walter Reed, from Brooklyn, 1998 debut was well regarded (Heavy Mental), had one more album chart in 2000, plus a couple dozen more since that I hadn't noticed. B+(*) [sp] Maria Somerville: Luster (2025, 4AD): Dream pop singer-songwriter from Ireland, previous releases back to 2018 but this is first on a real label. Hazy, bordering on shoegaze. B+(*) [sp] Chris Williams: Odu: Vibrations II (2025, AKP): Trumpet player, "(84)" at Discogs, also plays synth, and this could be taken as ambient or deep listening, aside from the horns, which include spots for Kalia Vandever (trombone) and Patrick Shiroishi (sax), both with effects. B+(**) [sp] Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries: None Old music: None Grade (or other) changes: Rubén Reinaldo: Fusión Olívica (2024 [2025], Free Code Jazz): Spanish guitarist, Bandcamp page has "Reinaldo" in quotes and shows last name as Bańa, I'm not finding anything on Discogs but he has a previous duo album on Bandcamp. Backed by organ (Antonio López "Monano"), bass (Gustavo Hernán), and drums (David Failde). He bravely defied Trump and sent me vinyl, but I buried it under some pile until it came to the top of my unplayed list. Fits loosely in the soul jazz idiom, but a bit fancier, with the bass adding a resonance that organ alone could never quite deliver. A- [lp] Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:
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