Cacahuates con Chile y Limon

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Cacahuates con Chile y Limón

6 cloves garlic (either the tiny ones whole or big ones, coarsely chopped)
1 1/2 lb peanuts, unsalted and roasted, about 4 3/4 cups
3 T oil
5 whole dried chile de arbol or other small dried red chile

In a cast iron skillet on medium high heat, add oil and toast garlic pieces until golden, taking care not to burn. Remove the garlic and add the peanuts. Roast until golden, turning them over frequently to prevent scorching. Break the chiles over the nuts, add the garlic and salt, toss ingredients around until the chile gets a little toasted. Remove mixture and let cool. Taste for salt. Squirt some lime juice over and serve.

My best friend in the kitchen

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My favorite cooking aid (no, I don’t mean aide, as if I had an assistant in my kitchen!) is a hand-wound kitchen timer. I could hardly do anything without it.

My tiny kitchen can only be reached by going from my studio proper through the garage. I have to turn a couple of corners. And it’s just big enough for me to stand in.

This means that if I’m going to avoid overcooking something, I have to stand there right next to the stove (two-burner hot plate, actually) watching it. There’s not really enough room for me to even read a book. Boooring; we all know what the watched pot never does. And as soon as I walk away, of course, that’s when the broccoli becomes mush or the tortillas in the toaster oven turn to charcoal. More likely, it’s because I go back into the studio and get distracted doing something else until it’s too late.

The timer solved everything. I start something cooking, pick up the timer and set it, then carry it with me back to the studio where I can check my phone messages, fold a bit of laundry or something. Five minutes later or whatever the timer dings and I go get my perfectly steamed broccoli.

By the way, I love that it’s the low tech kind that you just twist a dial to start, not a digital one that you have to choose which buttons to push. Twisting a dial is such a no-brainer.

What is your favorite cooking implement, aid, or reference?

No economic incentive for peace?

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There’s a very insightful interview with Naomi Klein over at Democracy Now. In so many words, she says that privatism and profiteering are looting not just natural resources, but the resources created by the state – the country’s infrastructure itself. Iraq is a very clear example. Unfortunately, war itself has been privatized to the extent that it is more profitable to corporations than stability – even in the long term, she believes. There is no longer any economic incentive for peace.

What do you think? Is the world doomed by the activities of huge corporations? Can people organize and act to rein them in? What do you think Congress should do?

I love you already, Jonathan

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One of my favorite novelists, Jonathan Lethem, has made several song lyrics available for adaptation by musicians – free of charge. He’s also offering stories for film or stage adaptation for the price of one dollar. As he explains on his Web site:

I like art that comes from other art, and I like seeing my stories adapted into other forms. My writing has always been strongly sourced in other voices, and I’m a fan of adaptations, apropriations, collage, and sampling.

I recently explored some of these ideas in an essay for Harper’s Magazine. As I researched that essay I came more and more to believe that artists should ideally find ways to make material free and available for reuse. This project is a (first) attempt to make my own art practice reflect that belief.

It so happens that his latest novel, You Don’t Love Me Yet, is about a fictional indie band and includes lyric fragments. I need to get me a copy, but meanwhile I can listen to the songs based on the fragments, like “Monster Eyes.” (There are three versions by different musicians as of this writing.) Yay! Thank you Johnathan!

p.s. Oh my god, just to add to the chaotic possibilities, you can play more than one song simultaneously from the page! Crrrrazy!