30 day music meme, day 3

3. A song that reminds you of summer

This is cheating a little, since it has the word "Summer" in the title, but it's one of the few songs I really do viscerally associate with that season (even though it's about the end of summer).

I wanted to post the Don Henley version,* since it has a stronger summery feeling for me, but I couldn't find anything but a live version on YouTube. Anyway, I do very much like this punk-pop cover.

The Ataris, "The Boys of Summer"

Watch on YouTube

*Shut up, everybody is allowed to like one song by the Eagles or Don Henley, and this is mine.


( List of prompts under the cut )

recipe weekend

Something I've cooked recently: It's been a hard week for me personally, not to mention the general state of the world, so I've been in the mood for comfort food. Midweek I had hamburgers, and yesterday I cooked a potato gattó, a dish from Naples that originated while the French ruled there (the name is borrowed from the French gâteau). It's very much like an Italian version of a cheese-and-potato pie.

( How I made it )

I also made some chicken stock yesterday, via the cheat I always use when I don't have a lot of bones--I simmered the bones in a quart of decent commercial chicken broth plus enough water to cover. I also added a beef bone I had in the freezer, and it contributed a much more complex flavor.

This morning, to finally do something with the chocolate in my pantry that needed using before the summer heat fully sets in, I made some thick chocolate ganache--the kind you use for truffles--and stuck it in the freezer to await inspiration and/or cravings.


Something I have concrete plans to cook in the near future: I'm going to make a meatloaf today, continuing the comfort-food theme. I've got roughly equal parts beef and pork, and I'll give it Mediterranean flavors with some smoked paprika, some chopped olives, and some oven-candied tomatoes as well as anything else I think of.

Like the gattó, this is rather wintry cooking even though it's too warm here for me to be enthusiastic about using the oven. But there will be lovely leftovers, plus it lets me use up a lot of meat from the freezer.

Also today I intend to roast the apricots I bought on sale a few days ago. The oven again, but at least the prep will be very simple--just a buttered pan and some honey drizzled over the fruit, I think.


Something I vaguely intend to cook someday: all the Mediterranean-y summery things. I need to cut down on spending, so I expect there'll be a lot of zucchini and other cheap plentiful veg, and beans and pasta.