Thursday, May 19, 2011

Sports' Fans

Huey Lewis and the News were my first favorite band. I hopped onto their band wagon sometime around the Back to the Future Soundtrack/Fore! days and rode it for a good two years through the Small World album. In retrospect, that doesn't seem like much in the way of devotion, but when you've just barely cracked double-digits in age, giving a single artist two years on the top of your personal billboard chart is pretty significant.

Huey Lewis and the News were the first band I ever saw live in concert (Meadowbrook, 1988, Small World Tour). I don't remember the first tape that I ever purchased. I doubt it was one of Huey's, but I definitely owned all three of the aforementioned albums as well as their chart-topping 1983 album Sports. If you were never into Huey Lewis and/or the News, you might not get as much enjoyment out of this several thousand word dissection of Sports, but you will probably agree that it's the most insightful analysis of Lewis' career since American Psycho. If all of this hasn't piqued your interest because you never liked Huey Lewis and the News in particular or saxophone-heavy pop music in general, you should appreciate that the only two members of the band, past or present, that have their own Wikipedia pages are Huey Lewis, of course, and saxophonist Johnny Colla.

Sunday, May 15, 2011

Paradise By The Oven Light

I've probably been spending less time cooking since becoming a dad, but it feels like I've been doing it a lot more. That's probably because instead of cooking a couple times a week, I now cook once a week and attempt to make enough food in that one session to last four or five days.

That usually means making one big dish, though this week I did things differently and grilled some corn and chicken thighs and baked a meatloaf. I'm not entirely sure what happend, but I somehow managed to make the most delicious meatloaf I've ever made. I started with an old recipe and then deviated from it in several places due to a lack of ingredients, but the end result was much better than it would have been had I been able to cook it to spec. I'm going to attempt to transcribe what happened in the kitchen today so I can hopefully make it again.

1 lb ground turkey (dark meat)
1 lb ground beef (85/15)
1 medium onion, chopped
2 eggs
1/2 cup old fashioned oats
1/2 cup Italian style bread crumbs
1/4 cup pasta sauce (estimated)
1/8 cup chili sauce (estimated)
1-2 tbs barbecue sauce (estimated)
2 tsp Worcestershire Sauce
1/2 tbs garlic powder
2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/8 tsp Sriracha sauce (estimated)
1/2 cup ketchup

Mix everything (except the ketchup) in a bowl, put it into a loaf pan, cover it with foil, and bake at 400 degrees for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, take off the foil, reduce the heat to 350 degrees, brush the top of the loaf with the ketchup, and bake another 45-60 minutes.