here's the much anticipated well overdue live music post !
Starting from the most recent, tonight I'm going to hear vanupié in belleville, don't know them at all but they seem like fun, good old fashioned crazy french music.
Last night was at the musica nuda concert. An italian duo, Ferruccio Spinetti e Petra Magoni, he on base, she on voice, many covers (nicely rearranged for the most part), some originals, some cabaret. It's a performing-singing jazz style that I have seen more and more recently. And speaking of, the opening band, Sashird Lao, a trio from Nice, a lot of fun, a mixture of jazz, rhythmic a capella, sampling, percussion, one of the two guys plays base with his voice, the other is a king of scat and the lady sings and writes egyptian songs. Check out their web site. Both groups I think are a lot more fun live than on a recording just because it is very impressive what they manage to do with very few instruments and incredible voices.
the show was at the Cabaret Sauvage, up at la Villette, perfect venue for this kind of performance, since it looks like a circus, with mirror and red velvet decorations (and they even grilled sausages outside!).
Other recent concerts have included Rilo Kiley, Wilco (excellent ! of course, and at the Bataclan, smallish venue), Bonnie Prince Billy (another one much more fun live than on record, but you gotta like that style).
On sunday it will be the New Pornographers, missed Neko Case last time she was in Paris bc I went to see one of the last Sleater Kineey concerts.... so I'm looking forward to this one, and then in october Ani di Franco, curious to see what she's been up to lately, kinda lost track in the past couple of years. The last time she had come to Paris it was for an acoustic show that was quickly sold out.
short but sweet, more soon....
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Chocolate cakes ! As decadent as possible !
ok, so I've decided that if you're going to make a chocolate cake you should just look away from all those low fat, lite option out there, just make the original thing, and try not to eat it all yourself, bring it to work, to a birthday party invite friends over, share in the decadence !
these days it seems that what is really bad for you is the processes foods, because of the different kinds of oils and additives they put in, so what is better than making it on your own, you know exactly what's in it, and how much of it, chocolate, sugar, butter, eggs and a bit of flour.
So, I've tried three different chocolate recipes recently, two come from the Zucchini and Chocolate blog, the third, and the upcoming fourth one come from a Cucina Italiana little chocolate book.
(musical aside: I'm listening to the Decembrists, Valencia on the last album, just love how it sounds so much like an REM song... it's like comfort food, know what I mean ? Every band I listen to lately has a pinch of the pixies here, a taste of REM there, some Velvet Underground tones, and even some sleater kinney accents, it's a nice feeling when your memory gets tickled !)
yes a music entry is way overdue, been to a couple of show have not reported on yet, but you can see what I've been listening to on that last.fm link on the right, I'm also trying to get lala.com setup, it claims it will let me listen to the music on my home itunes while at work...
so, back to chocolate, there are two main families of chocolate cakes, the fluffy ones and the gooye ones. For me the perfect one is somewhere in between, a rich, fluffy cake. There is the moelleux au chocolat, which is fluffy on the outside and warm and liquid on the inside, have not made that yet, mainly because you need to have individual little bakeproof ceramic cups. But then there is the Sachetorte the queen of all chocolate cakes, which I have made before, but a long time ago, and so will attempt again soon.
The danger with fluffy cakes is that when the fluffyness comes from baking soda you might get some backing soda backtaste, the best to get your cake fluffy is probably by beating the egg whites, although it is more work, it might be worth it. So to cut to the chase I have tried the "melt in your mouth chocolate cake" with a name like that, how can you resist ! That is at the gooye end of the scale, and veeeery decadent, and another recipe from the Chocolate and Zucchini blog, the aerial cake, on the fluffy end of the scale. Both got very good votes from friends and coworkers, but my favorite is something more in the middle that I made for my friend Henriette's bday party. I was looking for a cake where the dark chocolate to sugar ratio was maximized, and that was not too gooye or too baking soda-fluffy. It comes from the Cucina Italiana little book I mentioned before, but could not find it on their web site.
320 g dark chocolate (11 ounces)
160 g butter (5.5 ounces)
160 g sugar
40 g flour (a full tablespoon and a bit more)
5 eggs
preheat the oven at 175 °C, 350° F
melt the chocolate butter and sugar on top of boiling water on in the microwave on the low-med setting. Mix it well with a beater, the recipe says until it "grows" but it's a bit too thick to do any growing at this point. Beat the egg whites till stiff. When the chocolate mix has cooled down add the egg yolks while beating some more and the flour, then carefully add the egg whites.
Bake for 40 minutes.
PS chocolate cakes taste better the next day.... but you wont know unless you taste some before too :-)
So this might be the beginning of the quest for the perfect cake, or a temporary passion, although my taste for chocolate is not temporary at all.
these days it seems that what is really bad for you is the processes foods, because of the different kinds of oils and additives they put in, so what is better than making it on your own, you know exactly what's in it, and how much of it, chocolate, sugar, butter, eggs and a bit of flour.
So, I've tried three different chocolate recipes recently, two come from the Zucchini and Chocolate blog, the third, and the upcoming fourth one come from a Cucina Italiana little chocolate book.
(musical aside: I'm listening to the Decembrists, Valencia on the last album, just love how it sounds so much like an REM song... it's like comfort food, know what I mean ? Every band I listen to lately has a pinch of the pixies here, a taste of REM there, some Velvet Underground tones, and even some sleater kinney accents, it's a nice feeling when your memory gets tickled !)
yes a music entry is way overdue, been to a couple of show have not reported on yet, but you can see what I've been listening to on that last.fm link on the right, I'm also trying to get lala.com setup, it claims it will let me listen to the music on my home itunes while at work...
so, back to chocolate, there are two main families of chocolate cakes, the fluffy ones and the gooye ones. For me the perfect one is somewhere in between, a rich, fluffy cake. There is the moelleux au chocolat, which is fluffy on the outside and warm and liquid on the inside, have not made that yet, mainly because you need to have individual little bakeproof ceramic cups. But then there is the Sachetorte the queen of all chocolate cakes, which I have made before, but a long time ago, and so will attempt again soon.
The danger with fluffy cakes is that when the fluffyness comes from baking soda you might get some backing soda backtaste, the best to get your cake fluffy is probably by beating the egg whites, although it is more work, it might be worth it. So to cut to the chase I have tried the "melt in your mouth chocolate cake" with a name like that, how can you resist ! That is at the gooye end of the scale, and veeeery decadent, and another recipe from the Chocolate and Zucchini blog, the aerial cake, on the fluffy end of the scale. Both got very good votes from friends and coworkers, but my favorite is something more in the middle that I made for my friend Henriette's bday party. I was looking for a cake where the dark chocolate to sugar ratio was maximized, and that was not too gooye or too baking soda-fluffy. It comes from the Cucina Italiana little book I mentioned before, but could not find it on their web site.
320 g dark chocolate (11 ounces)
160 g butter (5.5 ounces)
160 g sugar
40 g flour (a full tablespoon and a bit more)
5 eggs
preheat the oven at 175 °C, 350° F
melt the chocolate butter and sugar on top of boiling water on in the microwave on the low-med setting. Mix it well with a beater, the recipe says until it "grows" but it's a bit too thick to do any growing at this point. Beat the egg whites till stiff. When the chocolate mix has cooled down add the egg yolks while beating some more and the flour, then carefully add the egg whites.
Bake for 40 minutes.
PS chocolate cakes taste better the next day.... but you wont know unless you taste some before too :-)
So this might be the beginning of the quest for the perfect cake, or a temporary passion, although my taste for chocolate is not temporary at all.
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