Album Reviews 21/09/16

Barry Altschul’s 3Dom Factor, Long Tall Sunshine (Not Two Records)

Jazz drummer Altschul is staring down the barrel of 80 years of age in 2023. Before the great Covid rain delay, he’d been (and assuredly still is) considering wrapping up the touring period of his career, the prime of which happened during the 1960s, when he worked with such legends as Paul Bley and Chick Corea and gained some fame out of it. So we come to the fourth album of his experimental sax-bass-drums trio, following 2017’s Live In Krakow, which, like this one, finds the band noodling around with five of Altschul’s originals, again in a live setting but this time recorded in a location no one seems to remember (“somewhere in Europe,” read the liner notes). The first 19-odd minutes, encompassing two songs, are a skronk-and-rattle clinic, a sure-sounds-like-improv frontal assault that spazzes and subsides over and over, until it ends with sax guy Jon Irabagon spitting and slurping on his instrument in a display of (so some think) contempt for jazz wonks. “Irina” is a well-behaved beatnik-post-bop ballad, fit for power-guzzling gin; “Martin’s Stew” is a workout that’s terrifying in its power. Not for beginner listeners, put it that way. A

Armored Saint, Symbol of Salvation Live (Metal Blade Records)

I’m probably the least qualified music journo to be discussing this vaunted Los Angeles metal band. One of my old bandmates and I met them once and hung out on their tour bus. It was a bit awkward; there were no girls with them, and they were so bored we finally had to make an excuse to leave. Anyway, I found their music singularly unexciting, vanilla indie-metal thingamajigs falling midway between Savatage and Iron Maiden (that’s a pretty small niche, if you don’t know), so really, the most notable thing for me with regard to this record is that the band is largely the same as it’s been for 38 or so years, save for their original guitarist, who died in 1990, the year before Symbol of Salvation — the album performed live on this LP — came out. Like the other live album mentioned this week, the (European or U.S.) venue isn’t stated, but it sounds somewhat large. The songs are jaw-droppingly generic, some cookie-cutter Judas Priest here, a little Accept-ish rough-housing there. Anyway, a new Armored Saint live album, everyone. B

PLAYLIST

• The next general CD release date for most album releases is Friday, Sept. 17, so let’s dive right into the deep end of this week’s foul-smelling bushel of new music albums, starting with Moor Mother’s Black Encyclopedia Of The Air! Yes, there are albums coming out from much bigger names, but this album sounds like it might actually be interesting, unless it’s some black metal band from Finland, so let’s find out. Nope, Moor Mother’s real name is Camae Ayewa, she’s from Aberdeen, Maryland, and is one half of the Black Quantum Futurism crew, along with Rasheedah Phillips; she also helps lead the group Irreversible Entanglements. She’s a musician, poet and activist, and her last album, Circuit City (released in 2020), dealt with “housing inequality, private ownership and institutional racism.” Given all that, I assumed this new record is super cool off the bat, but for due diligence’s sake I went and listened to the teaser track, “Obsidian.” Very much intended for hyper-urban tastes, it features edgy Alabama-based rapper Pink Siifu canoodling with Ayewa, their voices drenched with Death Grips and Oz-Munchkin effects, over a glitch-noise beat. It’s cool and largely inaccessible for normies, let’s just leave it at that and continue.

• Lindsey Buckingham is of course the original genius guitarist for arena-pop superstar band Fleetwood Mac! He has created many many yuge and tremendous hits for people who don’t buy albums unless all their friends like them, but he did have a moment of ignominy in 1979, when he took over all control of the Tusk album, but no one else in the band really cared because they all hated each other anyway. The result, as we all know, was Fleetwood Mac’s worst album ever, and Buckingham has been busily making up for it ever since, even now, when he refuses to have anything else to do with the band. His new album is self-titled and features the single “I Don’t Mind,” which is pretty cool, quite the indie vibe, although it doesn’t really deliver much of a hook. His guitar emulates a mandolin, just like back when Jimmy Carter was president, in case that affects your buying decision. By the way, guess what, he was just here in the area recently, on Sept. 12, at the Music Hall in Portsmouth, so this is all a little late, but it’s his fault for going on tour before his new album was out. So tough cookies, Lindsey Buckingham, maybe work with me here next time.

• I’ve always loved everything about Melissa Etheridge except for her music, so it’s been a slightly strained relationship, given that her job is to make good music, not make people think about heavy stuff. But because she’s kind of an activist, she does make me think about heavy stuff, so I’ll listen to the title track from her new One Way Out album, because, oh, I don’t know, just because, whatever. Say what, looks like this is an old song she never got around to recording until now. It’s got a grunge-rock edge, like, imagine if Pearl Jam wore generic T-shirts with bald eagles on them and had Melissa Etheridge as their singer, this is what it’d sound like.

• We’ll end all this horror with Local Valley, the new album from José González, whom I really only know from his time singing for mildly trip-hoppy band Zero 7. The album opener “Swing” is of course mellow and only half-there, an upbeat beach lullaby to drink pina coladas by, pretty nice escapism.

RETRO PLAYLIST

Let’s go back to 13 years ago this week, when I was still all aflutter over shoegaze heroes Raveonettes, who were releasing four free digital EPs over the course of the coming months. The one they were releasing that week included re-dos of songs like “Dead Sound” (as an 80KIDZ remix, not that a remix was necessary, because the song is fine without one), the rather sucky “Aly Walk With Me” (Nic Endo redid that one) and “Lust,” as remixed by Trentemøeller. It was a nice gesture of them, and I’ll leave it at that.

The featured albums that week included Seattle emcee Common Market’s Tobacco Road, in which emcee RA Scion “gleefully expends terawatts of energy trying to put the Seattle hip-hop scene on the map,” oddly enough by being as townie as he could, that is to say most of his callouts were in-jokes. I failed to see the need for it: “Scion, in his shoulder-shrugging Lupe Fiasco voice and baseball-card-in-the-bike-spokes flow, gives an opaque shout-out to the Virginia Tech killer, scolds his townie brethren in code, then bawls for his lost Kentucky boyhood, not necessarily in that order of sequence or importance.” Blue Scholar beat guy Sabzi was on board with this high-end but a little too ’90s record, “whittling out rinky-dink gospel/blues/jazz samples and whatnot.” If this is all new news, you didn’t miss much.

There was good news, though, in the form of goth-losers-turned-steampunk-winners Abney Park’s Lost Horizons. If we ever have geek conventions again, you’ll definitely want to check these guys out: “moderately grindy industrial with fiddle and a Loreena McKennitt chick doing the enchanted fairy thing.” Closing track “Post Apocalypse Punk” is “the most interesting slice of this pie, with its layer of steam-engine clatter and whatever other appropriate samples they could drum up.” HG Wells would wince at this noise, but it’s still a lot of fun.

If you’re in a local band, now’s a great time to let me know about your EP, your single, whatever’s on your mind. Let me know how you’re holding yourself together without being able to play shows or jam with your homies. Send a recipe for keema matar. Message me on Twitter (@esaeger) or Facebook (eric.saeger.9).

Boxes and cans

Eye-catching packaging, tasty wines

Traditionally grapes were picked, vinified, sometimes aged, and then bottled and sealed with a cork and foil or wax. The bottles were finished with simple labels identifying the vineyard or blender, grape varietals and vintage. The bottles were loaded into cardboard boxes or wooden crates and sent off to distributors for sale.

While the bulk of the wine industry still operates this way, the marketing of wine has evolved to appeal to a larger and younger market. There was a huge outcry when vintners started to put screw caps on bottles. There were claims that the screw tops would fail; they would not keep the wine from spoiling. Fact is that screw tops have replaced corks on many wines. Next came “box wine” — the wine that can be loaded onto the shelf of a refrigerator and tapped when one wants a glass of chardonnay. Then came “wine in a can.” A can is a perfect way to keep a carbonated beverage; why not make that beverage a wine?

The packaging and marketing of wine has become an industry unto itself. Several years ago, some vineyards commissioned artists to create labels for them. The label of the 2019 Navigator Sauvignon Blanc of Napa Valley (originally priced at $32.99, reduced to $14.99 at the New Hampshire Liquor & Wine Outlets) is a fine example of graphic artistry. The front label is very simple — just the wine’s name. The back of the bottle has an array of constellations, printed in white, with a sailing ship, printed in black, above blue scrolling ocean waves. This entire image is meant to be viewed through the bottle, magnified by the straw-colored wine. What a marvelous idea! The wine has a slight fruit nose, along with herbal lavender. To the mouth it is citric — a favoring lemongrass. A perfect wine to pair with seafood.

Another direction in marketing is to appeal to basic pleasures. The label of the 2018 Michael David Winery Old Vine Lodi Zinfandel (originally priced at $15.99, reduced to $12.99 at the New Hampshire Liquor & Wine Outlets) is an example of simplicity. The label refers to “Zinfandel grapes sustainably farmed in Lodi, California.” Modestly priced and presented, this wine is bold. The dark purple, opaque color and fruit-laden nose lead to notes of black raspberry, vanilla, some cinnamon and a touch of pepper. This wine is designed and marketed for a “kick-back” barbecue with friends.

Australian Thomas Angove invented boxed wine in 1965. Improved upon in 1967, with the creation of an air-tight tap welded to the plastic bag, his invention became salable. The science behind this packaging is simple; the wine is removed from the bag without adding air, thus removing the potential for oxidation of the remaining wine. The original large box containers have evolved into single-serve sizes. The Woodbridge Limited Edition Mondavi California Chardonnay (originally priced at $4.99, reduced to $3.99 at the New Hampshire Liquor & Wine Outlets) is packaged in 500 ml boxes. This results in three and a half 5-ounce servings. The packaging notes this has been proclaimed the “Official Wine of Major League Baseball.” The color is the classic gold color of a California chardonnay, with aromas of apple and pear. The nose carries through to the tongue with a toasty finish, perfect for pairing with roast chicken, eaten on a picnic.

Wine in a can? Why not? Beer has been put into cans since the mid-’30s! The House Wine Limited Edition Rosé Bubbles, 3.75 ml (originally priced at $5.99, reduced to $4.99 at the New Hampshire Liquor & Wine Outlets), was conceived in 2004 by ex-rock ’n’ roll manager and wine maker Charles Smith in Walla Walla, Washington. It is marketed as a “serious wine made by not so serious people.” The wine has a pale pink color and aromas of fresh berries with lively citric notes on the tongue. This is a light wine that can be paired with soft cheeses or enjoyed by itself on a warm afternoon.

19 Crimes 2019 Red Wine (priced at $11.99 at the New Hampshire Liquor & Wine Outlets) appears at first to be a novelty. Each bottle in the miniature four-pack is 187 ml, or a six-ounce serving. Produced in Australia by Treasury Wine Estates, it is a blend of mostly shiraz, with traces of other grapes. This is a bold red wine with a dark red color, dark cherries to the nose carrying through to the tongue, with firm tannins on the mid-palate. The packaging is novel, as it identifies the 19 crimes punishable by transportation from the U.K. to 19th-century Australia. Several criminals and their crimes are identified on the packaging!

The packaging and marketing of wine have indeed evolved with our changing world of marketing. Try some of these alternatives.

Featured photo: Courtesy photo.

De-simplifying tomatoes

You kind of knew what you were letting yourself in for in February when you started all those tomato plants.

You knew you were supposed to get Darwinian by May and cull the weaker plants, but you let yourself get attached, and yes, in retrospect, it was probably a bad idea to let the kids name them, so instead of planting the five strongest tomatoes, you got guilty about killing off Trixie and Leon, and planted all of them.

And as the summer went by, you’d invested so much into each of the plants that you fell into a sunk-cost fallacy situation and you didn’t want all that work and worry to be for nothing, so here it is September, and the upshot of all this is that you are up to your eyebrows in tomatoes.

If you really wanted a simple solution to the Tomato Situation, you’d make a lot of bloody marys. They’re simple, elegant, you know you like them, and you can make them in bulk.

So clearly, simplicity is not what you’re after.

Let’s redefine what you’re really looking for: some sort of cocktail that is new and interesting. It has to use up some of these tomatoes, yes, but it also needs to be something that you can kick back with on the deck, day-drinking, but not feeling like you’re day-drinking. Remember, if you really wanted something simple you’d be bloody mary-ing it up, so realistically, you’re willing to put up with a bit of a project and some complications.

Fortunately, we’ve got you covered.

A tomato spritzer.

Yes, I know; it doesn’t sound that promising. I think you’ll be pleased with it, though. The good news is that each step gets easier.

Step 1 – Making cucumber-infused gin

Ingredients:

Cucumbers

Gin

Wash and weigh your cucumbers.

Place an equal amount, by weight, of cucumbers and gin in your blender. Don’t bother to peel the cucumbers.

Blend them on your lowest speed for a minute or two, until everything is chopped up and it looks like hot dog relish. You aren’t looking to puree it, just chop it up finely enough for the cucumbers to have a lot of surface area to interact with the gin.

Pour this slurry into a wide-mouthed jar and store it somewhere cool and dark for a week, shaking it once or twice per day. I like the laundry room in our basement, because I find myself there a couple of times per day and I can shake the jar and ask, “How ya doin’, buddy?”

After a week, strain and bottle the gin. If you’d like a very clear gin, you can run it through a coffee filter.

Step 2 – Tomato shrub

Ingredients:

128 g. roughly chopped cherry tomatoes

125 g. sugar

3½ ounces white wine vinegar

¾ ounce raspberry vinegar

1½ ounces dry vermouth

1½ ounces sweet vermouth

Over low heat, simmer the tomatoes, sugar and vinegars until the sugar is dissolved and the tomatoes have softened, about 10 minutes.

Remove from heat. Blend with a regular blender or an immersion blender.

Add the vermouths, and chill the mixture.

Strain and jar the mixture.

Step 3 – Juicing your tomatoes

Wash as many tomatoes as you want to get rid of use up.

Cut out the stem and any suspicious-looking cracks or welts. (It should be pointed out here that the objectively uglier the tomato, the juicier it is likely to be. Just sayin’.)

Throw the tomatoes into the blender. Actually throw them, if it makes you feel better.

Blitz them at any speed you like. You’ll get more juice out of them if you really go to town, but if you use a lower speed, your final juice won’t be as thick.

Strain your tomato glop.

The glop will turn into beautiful juice.

The actual cocktail – Tomato Spritzer

Ingredients:

1 ounce cucumber gin

2 ounce dry vermouth

1½ ounces fresh tomato juice

½ ounce tomato shrub

2 ounces cold prosecco

2 ounces cold, extra bubbly club soda — I like Topo Chico

Stir all ingredients over ice in a mixing glass.

Pour into tall glasses.

This cocktail has a surprising complexity. A lot of spritzers have a watered-down sweetness to them. This one is very light, but it has a savoriness that will make you raise an eyebrow as you drink it. The key to it is the cucumber gin; the background flavor of cucumbers highlights the tomato/vinegar acidity. This drink starts out a delicate pink color but after a few minutes will separate into two layers, with the tomato layer rising to the top. It is complex and a little hard to wrap your head around, and very nice to spend time with.

Much like you.

Featured photo: Photo by John Fladd.

Sweet potato biscuits

As much as the end of summer means the disappearance of long days and warm weather, it also means it’s the start of the baking season. Yes, I still enjoy cookies, homemade bread and more during the summer, but it’s so much nicer to have a toasty kitchen when it’s cooler outside.

Let’s kick off fall baking with a multi-purpose recipe: sweet potato biscuits. Not only is this a fairly simple recipe to use, these biscuits work well at various times of day. Lazing around the house on a weekend morning? These biscuits make a great part of an indulgent brunch. Want to serve warm bread with soup or stew? This is the recipe you need.

These biscuits are pretty easy to make, especially if you already have cooked sweet potato ready. Please note that while you need to mash the sweet potato, a few small lumps are fine. In fact, they add a nice burst of flavor and a little texture to the final product.

Welcome back, baking season!

Michele Pesula Kuegler has been thinking about food her entire life. Since 2007, the New Hampshire native has been sharing these food thoughts and recipes at her blog, Think Tasty. Visit thinktasty.com to find more of her recipes.

Sweet potato biscuits
Makes 10

1 cup cooked, mashed sweet potato
3/4 cup buttermilk
2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
2 Tablespoons granulated sugar
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
In a small bowl, stir together the sweet potato and 1/4 cup milk.
In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt.
Add the butter to the flour mixture, and blend with a pastry blender, two forks, or your fingers until the butter is the size of peas.
Add the sweet potato mixture, folding to combine.
Add the remaining milk a little at a time until the dough is combined but not moist. (You may not need to use all of the milk.)
Sprinkle a work surface with flour.
Place the dough on the lightly floured work surface.
Using floured hands, pat it into a rectangle about 3/4″ thick.
Fold the dough into thirds (like you’re folding a letter); turn the dough 90 degrees and fold it in thirds again.
Sprinkle a little flour over the dough, and roll with a floured rolling pin until the dough is a 3/4″ thick rectangle again.
Cut into 10 to 12 rectangles.
Place the biscuits on the prepared baking sheet, and bake until light golden brown and firm to the touch, about 20 minutes.
Serve warm.

*Buttermilk can be replaced with a combination of 1 Tablespoon lemon juice and enough milk to equal 3/4 cup. Allow to stand at room temperature for a couple minutes before using in the recipe.

Photo: Sweet potato biscuits. Photo by Michele Pesula Kuegler.

In the kitchen with Jessica Radloff

Jessica Radloff of Wilton is the owner of Granite State Cakes (find her on Facebook and Instagram @granitestatecakes), a homestead business offering custom cakes and cookies for all occasions. Her inspiration for founding Granite State Cakes began when she made a cake for her firstborn son’s first birthday and friends and family started asking if she could make cakes for them. Children’s birthday parties are among what she most commonly receives requests to make custom cakes or cookies for, but Radloff has also fulfilled orders for occasions like baby showers and weddings.

What is your must-have kitchen item?

A bench scraper. It just really helps you get super-clean edges on the cake and make it look nice and clean.

What would you have for your last meal?

Tacos. We used to live in Londonderry and we would frequent the B’s Tacos truck. Their shrimp tacos are my favorite thing ever.

What is your favorite local restaurant?

I love B’s Tacos, but there’s also a place I love in Londonderry called Bangkok Thai. They have the most delicious basil fried rice. My mother-in-law lives in Londonderry, so we still do visit there often.

What celebrity do you wish could try one of your cakes?

Anthony Bourdain, just because he was so real and genuine.

What is your personal favorite custom cake that you’ve ever done?

I don’t even think it was near Halloween, but I did a cake that looked like a brain. … It was just a really clean white cake, with another cake on top of it and raspberry preserves. It looked gruesomely awesome in a super-clean way. [It was] probably one of the most fun and realistic cakes I’ve ever made.

What is the biggest food trend in New Hampshire right now?

I think food trucks are really big right now. One of my dreams is to have a truck. I would do both sweet and savory options if I could.

What is your favorite thing to cook at home?

I think tacos are my favorite things to make. I like to do shredded pork tacos with my own hard taco shell.

Marshmallow cutout sugar cookies
From the kitchen of Jessica Radloff of Granite State Cakes

1 cup butter
150 grams (or about 1 cup) powdered sugar
75 grams (or about ½ cup) brown sugar, packed
1 egg
450 grams (or about 3½ cups) flour
1 teaspoon cornstarch
1 teaspoon almond extract
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 teaspoons marshmallow flavoring

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Cream butter with sifted powdered sugar and brown sugar until well-combined and mixture is slightly fluffy. Add egg and mix again until well-combined. Sift flour and cornstarch, and add half at a time to prevent a flour dust cloud. Once mixture is nicely combined, add vanilla, almond extract and marshmallow flavoring. Chill dough for about 30 minutes and roll out to about ¼-inch thickness. Cut and chill cutout cookies for about 5 to 10 minutes before baking on parchment paper until just golden around the edges and the tops no longer look shiny. Decorate with royal icing (optional).

Featured photo: Jessica Radloff. Courtesy photo.

Wood-fired deliciousness

OakCraft Pizza opens in Nashua

A new eatery in Nashua is inviting you to build your own wood-fired pizzas, featuring fresh dough, quality cheeses and house sauces cooked in an imported Italian oven.

OakCraft Pizza, which opened Sept. 13 in the Amherst Street Village Center, also has a selection of specialty pies to choose from, as well as starters, salads and several local craft beer options. It’s owned by Hollis native Rick Carvalho and his wife, Taylor, who took over the former Cold Stone Creamery space and began renovating it earlier this year.

Carvalho, whose family formerly owned franchises for four Dunkin’ Donuts stores across Nashua, said pizza making started out as a passion project for him a few years ago. In the spring of 2019, he went on to enroll in an intensive course in Staten Island, New York, where he learned how to make and serve pizzas in a restaurant setting.

OakCraft Pizza’s fast-casual concept, he said, can be compared to that of Chipotle, with completely customizable options on an assembly line before your pizza reaches the end. It’s then ready to be cooked in a Forza Forni wood-fired oven, which came overseas from Italy.

“You pick your sauce, your cheese and your toppings, and we take it from there. The oven cooks your pizza at close to 800 degrees in about three minutes, give or take,” Carvalho said. “So we throw it in our oven and in the time that you’re getting your drinks, it’s probably coming out and you’re good to go. … We really wanted to bring quality to the concept. We have fresh homemade sauces, fresh homemade dough every day, and we’re just trying to make the best.”

Diners start with either regular or gluten-free crusts, and while you can load it up pretty much however you’d like, there are some specialty options if you’re having a hard time deciding. There is the Old World Margherita, featuring fresh basil, mozzarella cheese and red sauce; or the Sunny Side, a breakfast-style pizza with bacon pieces, farm eggs and Parmesan.

“My personal favorite is our Vodka Pie. It’s a vodka sauce that’s made in house, with prosciutto, mushroom, fresh basil, peas and a really good mozzarella,” Carvalho said. “We think our crust is awesome. It has a really good crunch that’s just doughy enough but not soggy. It’s baked right on the stone, so you don’t get that spongy undercarriage.”

Other featured menu offerings include a rotating selection of salads, also with customizable options; starters, like meatballs with red sauce and shaved Parmesan cheese; and sweeter items, like hand-filled whoopie pies that can be rolled in toppings like sprinkles and Oreo cookie crumbles. Wines and local craft beer options are available too.

Online ordering will be implemented through OakCraft Pizza’s website. Carvalho said he also hopes to begin offering third-party delivery services within a radius of a few miles.

OakCraft Pizza

Where: 2 Cellu Dr., Suite 111, Nashua
Hours: Sunday through Wednesday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., and Thursday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.
More info: Visit oakcraftpizza.com, follow them on Facebook and Instagram @oakcraftpizza or call 521-8452

Featured photo: Old World Margherita pizza, with fresh basil, mozzarella cheese and house red sauce. Photo by Matt Ingersoll.

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