Toby 2008 Soundbites from Cafe Drake

Land's End (2005), courtesy of www.dianakingsley.com

We're still burning up Lady Gaga's new CD, badass yet secretly insecure, all conveyed via her dissonant (but pleasant!) combo of rap bravado tempered with icy and fragmented beats, more akin to electro than crass hip hop.

New Weird America may not be shouting so loud anymore, but dammit Cafe Drake needs our alt-folk now and again; we're hollahing back at the genius of Department of Eagles. Missed their show last week but we can all savor the genius new long player . . . a soundtrack must for granola brunches and farm-to-table artisinal produce feasts.

Sweet, salty and fatty as hell? Sign us up! And put yourselves of the list of cool kids who snack without restriction. Our Tiki Mix is especially welcome accompanying that classic cocktail, the Mai Tai (see posting below).

TIKI MIX

8 very thick slices of bacon (you will need to buy slab for this) / 3 cups salted and roasted peanuts / 4 candied and dried pineapple rings, cut into small pieces / 2 T. sesame seeds / 1 T. soy sauce / 1 T. honey / lots of cayenne pepper / kosher salt

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.


2. Bake oven on a cookie sheet for 30 minutes or until crisp. Drain on paper towels.


3. Now toss bacon (torn into 1-inch pieces) with everything else except the salt.


4. Put on a clean baking sheet and bake for 20 minutes at 350 again.


5. Allow to cool and season with salt as desired.


6. Try not to snort entire serving bowl before guests arrive.

Think you can't afford French wine without a twist cap? Think again. Think along the lines of Vin de Pays de Vaucluse Petit Caprice 2007. Scored 85 points by Wine Spectator but you can score a bottle for a tenner. A mix of Grenache and Syrah, Cafe Drake likes its bold tannins with rare meats such as pan-fried flank steak or flash-roasted duck breasts.

Blasts from the past are the best! Cafe Drake cyber-reconnected with our old pal and photographer Diana Kingsley. And subsequently began drooling over her luscious large scale prints and video projects which you can check out at her cool, and appropriately named, website - http://www.dianakingsley.com/.

With our favorite month now here - Toby - Cafe Drake doesn't mind in the least roasting pork shoulder for 4 hours, or braising (humanely raised!) veal breast all afternoon, but we need something to read while these slow pokes work their magic. The stack we're plowing through now includes: Class Act: William Haines, Legendary Hollywood Decorator (a jewel box of a coffee table tome full of rare photos and blessed with equally chic book design); Faraway Places ( an obscure novella from master storyteller and wordsmith Tom Spanauer, the magician behind the life-affirming classic The Man Who Fell in Love with the Moon); Edmund White's new digest-sized biography of the infamously decadent boy genius/poet, Rimbaud and a superlative, self-proclaiming vintage cookbook The Henri Charpentier Cookbook. Monsieur C. lays claim to the invention of Crepes Suzette and peppers his spicy prose with wildly entertaining narcissistic rants.