Here’s a haunting song…4 versions here, all good. I’m not sure of the origins of this one…associated with The Carter Family and also the Stanley Brothers.
Hopping Jenny
The Henry Brothers
Edward Clayborn
Meredith Axelrod
comment 0
Raven Black by Ann Cleeves
Recently we watched the first two seasons of the British television mysteries Shetland, set on the Shetland Islands. I thought the show was very good, although I found I had to be very attentive because I wasn’t used to the accents, and as well, the mix on our DVDs seems a little out of whack, with the music a little loud and dialog a little quiet, causing us to mess with the volume control a lot. I liked the setting and I very much liked the “un-Hollywoodness” of Shetland. I suppose if there were two poles for crime drama, Shetland would be on one and CSI on the other.
At some point I twigged to the fact that the show was based on specific books, by an author named Ann Cleeves, who also wrote the books the Vera series was based on (we’ve tried to watch that one, but I keep nodding off mid-episode). The fact that each episode is based on a novel reminded me of Wallander. We had watched the British Wallander series and then I went on to read the wonderful novels by the late Henning Mankell, which I thought were even better than the excellent television adaptations. As an aside, the other obvious comparison between Shetland and Wallander from a television perspective is the pervasiveness of the dramatic northern landscape.
I decided to read one of the Ann Cleeves Shetland books so I started at the beginning with Raven Black, the story of two murders several years apart – one the murder of a little girl and the second the murder of a teen-aged girl. A reclusive old man was blamed for the first – but not charged – and then blamed for the second and this time charged with the crimes. Of course he was responsible for neither of the crimes (I suppose that’s a spoiler, but it seems to me the guy everyone thought did it couldn’t possibly be the murderer).
I’m what you might call an occasional reader of mystery novels. I think the best ones are those in which the mystery is the form which the auther uses to tell a broader story. In the end, a whodunnit can only be so interesting if it is only about the crime. It has to work its way past the plot-line in some way.
Raven Black offers up a unique setting, a place with a very limited and isolated population, which has its own traditions, from knitting patterns to a Viking celebration. It is also a tourist destination, which affords the opportunity to build up characters from the Islands against those from away. As the books form a series, Ann Cleeves could build up her characters over time across several novels. It will be interesting to see how successful or ambitious she has been doing that.
Within the first book, we learn some about Shetland life, and some about the protagonist, a policeman named Jimmy Perez, but not in great depth. Cleeves does spin a good mystery tale, and for sure Raven Black is a page-turner. I enjoyed the read, but it left me wanting more – not more mysteries necessarily but more of the bigger story about life in that unique setting and what it tells us about us humans and how we interact in the world.
I’d call it a pretty good mystery, beyond the “good time-waster” label but not quite up there with Wallander, or to give an older example, Nicolas Freeling’s Van der Valk novels, which seem to me to transcend the bounderies of genre fiction. I rated this one 3 stars on Goodreads, and I’ll read the next one in the series sometime soon and report back.
The Comfort Food Diner: Baba Ganoush
As the eggplants roasted in the oven, it occurred to me to look up the meaning of the Arabic term Baba Ganoush. Wiki tells me it means “pampered papa” or “coy daddy”. As delightful as that is, I’m not making this for someone’s daddy – it’s for Tuffy P!
I would have roasted the eggplants on the bbq for maximum smokiness but it seemed a wee bit cold out there today to mess around with that. Instead I added a wee bit of smoked paprika to introduce a hint of smokiness. When Tuffy P came back from her trip to Lebanon in the fall, she introduced me to the idea of pomegranate seeds mixed in with baba ganoush – it’s a lovely touch. Before serving, I’ll drizzle it liberally with some awesome Salah’s Gold olive oil while the pitas are warming in the oven. I’ve also cut up some green and red peppers to dip and made a fruit salad, and for later a banana walnut loaf.
To make the baba ganoush, I scooped out the roasted flesh of the eggplants from the skin and mashed them with a potato masher. I squeezed in some lemon juice and added a couple generous spoons of tahini, salt to taste, a sprinkle of cayenne, and as I mentioned a wee bit of smoked paprika.
There was a time when I didn’t fancy eggplant. Go figure. Now I love it this way and also sliced thin, grilled and dressed with some wonderfully good olive oil served as a side, cut up into salads or on sandwiches.
Dinner at Planta
Last night we took the subway to Bay and Bloor for dinner at Planta to celebrate Tuffy P’s birthday, which was earlier in the week. Planta is a fairly new restaurant in the Yorkville area, in the space formerly occupied by Pangea – right on Bay, just north of Bloor on the east side (that’s here in Toronto for readers from elsewhere). As the name implies, everything on the menu is plant based – no animal products. It’s curious that they have avoided using the common words vegetarian or vegan in positioning the restaurant.
Planta has a somewhat relaxed atmosphere, with formica tables and painted wood floors (as well as wonderfully high ceilings). Though the atmosphere is not super-fancy, the prices are on the upscale side. Dinner for two with tax and a good tip, one dessert and just 2 beer, was $125. It’s very busy – I made a reservation 5 days in advance and couldn’t get my desired seating time. Service is top rate. The most important thing, though, is the food – and it is splendid.
We ate very well and in fact ordered more food than we needed. They have a delightfully creative and very international menu and we really wanted to sample a variety of dishes.
The star of the show for me was an appetizer – fried kimchi dumplings with a wonderful dipping sauce. A lot of flavours were happening in that dish and it was a joy to eat. We also tried the Thai cabbage slaw with peanut and miso dressing and fried tofu. This dish was very mild compared to the dumplings but complex and tasty. Truffle fries – fries with parmesan and truffle mayo were outrageously good.
Tuffy P had the Habibi salad, which featured cauliflower cous-cous, split pea fritters, lentils, parsley, mint, coriander, currants, sumac, za’atar, and tahini dressing. I had the Italian job pizza: tomato sauce, cashew mozzarella, farro, fennel sausage. Delicious.
I skipped dessert, having had more than my fill. Tuffy P tried the chocolate terrarium – called that because it looked remarkably like a terrarium – very clever dessert design. Tuffy said it was surprisingly light and super-delicious.
We really enjoyed the food and the great service. The menu has it’s share of pleasant surprises. We saw some people around us eating the “burgers” with queso, mushroom bacon, pickles, tomatillo mayo, and served with spiced fries. They looked excellent. Another way to go at Planta would be to order up more of the small plates and sample a bigger variety, rather than a main.
I’m a meat-eater, and when Tuffy P suggested this place I wasn’t sure how much I would enjoy it. However, I didn’t miss meat at dinner at all. It was a delightful dinner and a fun experience and I’m looking forward to going back.
Free Books
There are some excellent titles available for free in right now in the 27th Street Book Box. These include a collection of stories by songster Steve Earle, called Doghouse Roses and the new biography of one of Mr. Earle’s pals, Guy Clark, called Withour Getting Killed or Caught – and many more.
The book box is located on lower Twenty Seventh Street in Long Branch Ontario, in front of #15. Anyone is welcome to help themselves to any of the books. If you want to add to the selections, you’re also welcome to drop off a book or two you think others might enjoy.
Paintings on paper
I’ve started working on some tempera paintings on paper. I’m thinking of these as kind of big sketch book drawings – fast, awkward, lumpy. No idea where they will take me.
Scrubby
At the end of 2015, I read many articles about all the music stars who passed in 2016. Today I’d like to salute one more performer who was very very well known within his own musical world, but his passing did not get a mention among the bigger international stars.
Who was Scrubby Seweryniak? He was a singer and chemnizer concertina player, and along with drummer Larry Trojak, he led a band from Buffalo New York that might have been the greatest polka band ever – The Dynatones.
I highly recommend the CD, Vintage Dynatones for those of you who want to explore a different musical world, one populated with the most fantastic polkas, obereks and waltzes. The singing is in both English and Polish, but I don’t think of this as Polish music so much as Polish-American music. I love the swirling concertina melodies, the bellows-shaking, the driving polka beat and the wonderful horns.
Scrubby Sewernyniak passed on July 22, 2015 from cancer. He was just 68. Mr. Seweryniak was inducted into the polka hall of fame (yep, there is one!) in 1994. Below I’ve shared an introduction to Dynatones material. Enjoy.
The Comfort Food Diner: Serious Soup
Tuffy P asked me to make what she referred to as “one of your soups” this week, so today I made a super-hearty minestrone.
This is serious soup. It includes onions, Swiss chard, pasta, red beans, chick peas, tomatoes, celery, garlic, and a mix of herbs including oregano, rosemary, thyme and basil. I’m going to grate a little good quality cheese to sprinkle on top, because….well, you might as well include the kitchen sink in something like this. I also bought a loaf of crusty Italian bread to serve with it.
A hearty soup might just make winter worthwhile.
The Producer – the new Lazy Allen Story is up
The 16th installment of The Lazy Allen Stories is now online. It’s called The Producer. In this story, The New Polka Kings get a recording contract. The Big Time is just around the corner.
These stories are told by Lazy Allen, a seemingly washed up polka bellows-shaker, making ends meet working in a bottling plant. I hope you enjoy them.
If you haven’t read any of these, but you want to take the plunge, there is a menu at the top of the page, set up in the order the stories were published. If you read them and you think they’re the greatest thing since sliced bread, and you want to find a way to support this project, visit my Patreon page. Of course these stories will continue to be available for free for your reading pleasure at my story site.
Banjo Practice: Buckin’ Dun
Here’s a tune that is called Buckin’ Dun in some places and Bob-tailed Mule in others. Take your pick. I learned it at the last Midwest Banjo Camp from Cathy Barton Para. Cathy knows an amazing variety of tunes and she’s a wonderful teacher.
This tune is loads of fun to play.
27th Street 