Music Review - November

Hope Sandoval

Have you ever had a dream where you are swimming underwater and then you realize you can't get to the surface in time, so after some brief moments of panic you surrender yourself to fate and breathe-in, only to discover, in a suffusion of pleasure, that you are able to breathe water.

Hope Sandoval's voice has the same effect on me: I want to resist, but can't and soon I discover I don't need to. Don't want to. The waves are lapping, darkly above me. I'm drowning, but her merciful mermaid song soothes me. Her voice bends and sways like the murky light making it down through the waves. It is eerily beautiful, like far-off whale song.

The dream, I am happy to announce, continues with "Through the Devil Softly" the latest release by Hope Sandoval & The Warm Inventions.

Disclaimer: I am reviewing Hope Sandoval here, not the album, which I have yet to hear. My faith in her is so near absolute that I feel safe in recommending the album, though I have not heard it.

Interestingly, after writing my review, I went to Amazon and read some reviews of the album, only to find my words echoed:

it will just grab your soul and refuse to give it back...

So beautiful. Haunting, mysterious, heartbreaking, dreamy.

Red Cracked Bolete

Months ago, Jamey became interested in collecting wild mushrooms. This is due at least in part to his love of eating mushrooms.

As a Botany major, I took it as a point of personal pride to figure out how we could do this safely.

After some research I decided on a book. Then, when I went to Powell's to get it, I found a Powell's Staff recommendation to be even better than the one I had found online.

It's called Mushrooming Without Fear, and so far has proven effective, as we have tasted 2 mushrooms we never had tasted before, and we haven't become sick on either occasion!

We've had the book since early September, but early attempts to locate mushrooms in the wild failed.

Our first success was a week or two after our first attempt, when Arthur spotted some puffball mushrooms in the lawn at Lewisville Park. We didn't eat those, but followed the advice of the book to harvest once without eating, just to gain practice at identification.

Then a week ago we found some large puffballs in our own lawn. We sampled those after frying them in butter. It was thumbs up all the way around. (Note, we're not counting Heidi when it comes to discussions of mushroom consumption.)

One of the more sweeping restrictions advised in our guidebook is the avoidance of all mushrooms with gills. This turns out to be a majority of mushrooms.

Defying the odds, yesterday I spotted a cluster of meaty looking 'shrooms and sure enough, they had pores, not gills. Out came the book. After carefully reading the identification cues, we determined that these were Red Cracked Bolete.

Due to the very distinctive features of this mushroom: blue bruising on the bright yellow pores, red tint showing when the cap is damaged, etc..., we felt confident in moving forward with the taste-test.

Jamey gobbled the first batch, again, with vigorous approval. The next morning, Arthur tried some in his omelet and found them satisfying.

So, we have learned something new. Added to our culinary repertoire and had fun in the process.

More Homemade Loaves

I'm still infatuated with the look of these no-knead loaves.