Southern Central Rain (I’m Sorry)

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…last week was Dexys’ turn and this week it is time for REM. The occasion,  the re-release – on its 25th anniversary – of Document, the last of the run of albums they made with IRS before defecting to Warners and the $ where they were never quite the same. All things grow up and REM lost their innocence with that move. Before that each album had been like the shedding of another layer of skin.

Murmer started off bathed in mystery, an opaque set of songs, difficult to pin down, like music seeping out of the bunker, odd hollered words hinting at an emotion before lying back down in the sonic murk. Reckoning carried on the theme but with more clarity, Harbourcoat was a clarion call. Tales of the Reconstruction was a step back into the mystery of Murmer although the bright sheen Can’t Get There From Here was a fore-shadowing of things to come.

After that the drums got louder and you had a band that knew it wouldn’t take much to take them over the edge, out of the niche within college rock, but they continued to hold back. Amidst some of the brashness of Its The End Of the World As We Know it and One I Love there was still room for mystery with Kings of Birds

I saw REM in concert 8 or 9 times over the years that they released those five albums. They were some of the best concerts I’ve been to. A combination of a band that I loved at the cusp of being great. The best time to see a band.

I saw them play at The Milton Keynes Bowl supporting U2. The Ramones were also playing along with Spear of Destiny and The Faith Brothers. I am still slightly proud of the fact we walked out as U2 took to the stage.

At about the same time they played The Summer Ball at Warwick University. The evening started with Jonathan Richman. I can’t remember what time REM came on stage. I stood near the front and somewhere I have a grainy photo of Michael Stipe in a hat. They played an old Creeedance Clearwater Revival song Have You Seen the Rain and it was one of my best evenings.

This is the set list for that evening.

After REM played Green on Red were on stage. They had driven down from Leeds that evening and didn’t start until early in the morning. Pete Buck joined them on stage to play along with the encore including a cover of Sympathy for the Devil. Dan Peters thrust the microphone into the crowd and we sang along to the OO OOS.

The re-release of Document comes with a extra disc of a live show they played in Utrecht in September 1987. It finishes with a version of So. Central Rain which I think I may have somewhere else on the back of a 12 inch single. It is just Pete Buck on guitar behind Michael Stipe singing. Mike Mills comes in on harmonies towards the end. For the coda he sings I come to you defences down with the trust of a child. I wish I had been there.

The tomatoes from the greenhouse

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At the cheese/food fair two weeks ago I had planned some oven baked Gubbeen. In anticipation I had sliced a Baby Gubbeen in half so that it made two smalls wheels. Onto the open side of the bottom half I scattered a squashed clove of garlic, some chopped herbs from the garden and a scattering of salt and pepper. I then put the top half back on and placed the cheese into a small terracotta bowl and wrapped it in foil.

I found it a few hours after everybody had gone on the side uncooked. In the great rush of people I had forgotten about it. So it went into the fridge until lunchtime today.

We had two loaves from the Bread Circle waiting to be eaten and a handful of red tomatoes from the greenhouse.

The cheese went into the hot oven for twenty minutes. I sliced up the bread and quartered the tomotoes.
When I took the cheese out of the oven and took off the foil the familiar smell of the farmyard rose up. The cheese bubbled and steamed in its red bowl.

I toasted the bread and we dipped knives into the melted cheese. The taste of the tart tomatoes cut through the rich cheese. A good early autumnal lunch.

The Kernel Brewery

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There is an inevitable frustration in making a 24 hour trip down to London for work. Trapped in a taxi from Euston to the hotel the whole buzz of the city passes by unheeded-I could be travelling anywhere.
We ate in a branch of Byrons tucked on the first floor of a mostly closed chopping precinct on Cheapside alongside St Pauls. Although the setting was soulless it was difficult to fault the food – posh burgers and chips. The chips, the mark of any half decent restaurant were properly hot from their fat, crisp with a good bite. The burger was layered with onion and tomato, medium rare, as I had asked. Last time I had been there it came with a bourbon flavoured dressing. That did not seem to be on the menu but the great fat gerkin slice on the side of the plate made up for that.
There was a short menu of craft beers and I had a couple of bottles of The Kernel Pale Ale – good depth of flavour and finish and pleasantly cloudy. I have never heard of The Kernel beer but a quick squint at their website would indicate they are worth investigating

http://www.thekernelbrewery.com/index.html

The website then led me onto beer online which could be dangerous in the lead up to Christmas

http://www.beermerchants.com/
After Byrons we struggled to find a pub that was open at 10.00 on a Monday evening evetualy stumbling across The Centre Page on Knightrider Street. We were the only people in there apart from the east European bar staff sat round a table polishing up culterey before serving us another pint. There was a Dvid Hasselhoff shrine in the corner and a note of the number of times he had visited. I should of had my camera.

There was more frustration the next day in the rush to get back to Liverpool there was no time to find somewhere half decent to eat so it was an expensive ham sandwich, crisps and a bottle of Coke on the train.

Sunday Meatballs

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Having in mind my last post there is almost room here for a Dexys themed pun but for the moment I’ll leave it. We have a greenhouse filled with tomatoes most of which are green so on Saturday it was back to the grocers to get some plum tomatoes to make a good sauce. I then cut along Whetstone Lane to New Ferry and Edges for a couple of pounds of minced pork. The big advantage of a trip to Edges on Saturday morning to get your fresh meat is the opportunity to pick up some of their bacon for breakfast on Sunday.
Sunday didn’t blow quite as hard as was threatened but it was still a day for being inside and getting jobs done. In my case standing at the top of a tall ladder in the bedroom to paint around the wardrobe. Periodically I broke off to make myself another cup of coffee and move onto another stage in the slow making of our late lunch.
I started with the tomato sauce – chopped onions and garlic in olive oil and left to cook gently for half an hour. 

 I threw in a few sage leaves from the bush outside the back door.

It was then back upstairs for another half hour of painting before adding the tomatoes. I had bought a bag of English Toms for 69p and and handful of Plum tomatoes. 

These were duly quartered and thrown in the pan and left to stew for quarter of an hour. The pan was then seasoned with a few slices of dried red chilli, salt and pepper.

I added a couple of tins of chopped tomatoes and a pinch of sugar and then left it for an hour.

Whilst all that was cooking down I made the meatballs. The minced pork went into a bowl together with a good couple of handfuls of fine breadcrumbs, more chopped red chilli, some roasted and ground fennel seeds and a good seasoning of salt and pepper. The hands then went in squeezing the mixture between my fingers until all the seasonings were well amalgamated.

A couple of eggs were then added to the mix and I did some more squeezing and then shaped the mixture in twenty golf ball sized lumps which were placed onto a greased baking tray. The tomato sauce still needed some cooking so I went back upstairs and finished painting around the wardrobe.

The tomato sauce was put through a fine sieve and I added some basil and left it to keep bubbling away. The sheet of meatballs went into a hot oven for twenty five minutes. I turned them once about halfway through.

The meatballs then went into a shallow pan into which I poured about half of the tomato sauce. They poached in that whilst I made a pan of spaghetti.

There was one small lettuce left in the veg patch so we had that as well together with the two red tomatoes I had been able to find in the greenhouse dressed with olive oil, salt and balsamic vinegar. 

The recipe for the meatballs came from the Polpo cookbook. There will be enough left tomorrow night although I won’t be here. The kids will finish them off.

Mid Sunday night now – listening to The Unthanks.