Category: On the Road

I'm in Chicago today, seeing my baby niece. Sorry for the lack of YAWYE this week.

There's nothing like a little R&R with friends to recharge the old batteries. Doug's mom went out of town, so we moved in for the weekend bearing groceries, liquor, and bathing suits. We were laughing at what a bunch of old farts we've become -- who'd've thunk we could get so excited about hanging out at mom's house?

But what's not to love? An adorable house on the Cape, a deck festooned with pink roses, a dreamy kitchen with all the amenities, peace and quiet. You could hear and smell the sea from the woodsy neighborhood we were in. We noshed all weekend on nubbly shrimp butter toasts, Pimm's cup, and pan-fried cod. Doug baked and frosted a giant four-layer pecan spice cake with lemony cream cheese icing. It pretty much set me back about 3 weeks in exercise maintenance, but it was worth it. Oink oink.

I'd never been to Cape Cod, and being from California, I didn't really have any preconceptions of what the Cape would be like. Big houses with white decks and pebble gray shingles sit on unbelievably lush hills of grass. We were just blocks from a private beach, where mossy rocks jutted out onto a boisterous ocean and seabirds were kamikaze diving for fish.

A few highlights:

[At the McDonald's drive-thru.]

DOUG: I just need a little caffeine. I'm going to get a Diet Coke. Anyone want anything?

GANDA: No. Ooh, I want a caramel sundae if they have it.

BOX: Can I take your order?

DOUG: Hi, yeah, can I get a medium Diet Coke and a caramel sundae?

BOX: We don't have caramel, just chocolate and strawberry.

DOUG: [to me] You want?

GANDA: No.

DOUG: Okay, then, I'll just get a cone.

HEE JIN: Wait, get me a small fries.

GANDA: Make that a medium fries.

DOUG:[to BOX] And can I get a large fries?

**

The Raw Bar in Popponessett, where the steamers dipped in clarified butter were the best I've ever had; the lobster roll runneth over with scarlet, sweet lobster hunks just barely anointed with mayo; the oysters were so tantalizing and icy, I had to try one though I don't usually touch them in the summer. I asked the bronzed teenage waitress what kind of oysters they were, and she gave me this look like, "Jigga-wha?" I'll tell you what they were -- they were quivering, fresh and briny, perfect with a squeeze of lemon and a squirt of horseradishy cocktail sauce, and that's all you need to know.

**

Francis proclaimed these the best muffins he's ever had. I'm not disagreeing. The French butter gives them a crispy top and the sour cream keeps the crumb moist. I used a Barefoot Contessa Family Style recipe, which I changed just a bit to suit the ingredients we had. I should have doubled the recipe though -- I could have eaten five of those muffins myself.

Fruity Coffee Cake Muffins

5 tbsp. unsalted French butter at room temperature (I used Lescure)
3/4 c. sugar
2 large eggs
3/4 tsp. vanilla
1/2 c. sour cream
1/8 c. milk
1 1/4 c. flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1 c. blueberries
2 large strawberries, diced
1/2 ripe banana, diced

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a muffin tin or line with paper cups. Beat sugar and butter together. Add vanilla, eggs, sour cream and milk. Beat some more. In a separate bowl, sift flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together. Mix dry ingredients into wet with a light hand til smooth but not overbeaten. Fold fruit in. Scoop into muffin tin. Bake for 25-30 minutes til golden. Makes 9 muffins.

**

We spent all day Sunday chasing the shade across the backyard while drinking sangria. We nibbled on russet chips and Franwiches^TM, Francis's genius contribution to the culinary world. (I'm not sure if I'm allowed to divulge his recipe, so you'll have to use your imagination for now.) La Doug brought the clock radio out and blasted Tracy Chapman with Pavarotti, Mariah, and enough other pop fluff to chase the cardinals away. I thought, wow, if this is what Doug's mom's life is like every day, maybe I should start looking to buy a house outside the city.

Road trip tip: It never hurts to bring a loaf of bread, olives, cheeses, and a bottle of wine to enjoy when you arrive at your destination. Nobody wants to cook after a long drive, and liquor stores will be closed by the time you get there.

I'm going to the Cape tonight with La Doug, Heej and Francis, so there won't be any You Are What You Eat this week. (Heej's work, by the way, will be featured in the next issue of Blind Spot magazine.)

These last few months, I've been working like a dog, practically every free minute of the day. I'm getting sort of contracted and hard, like a steroidal zit. I've also been going to the gym to try and alleviate the stress, but I think it's only concentrating my aggression. I really need this weekend to step back and take measure of my life. Clambake or bust!

Went to the December 30 re-opening of Ruen Pair on Hollywood Blvd. and I'm happy to report that the place has expanded and cleaned up real good, the servers are still sweet as pie, the "kitchenmothers" (Thai for cooks) are all the same, and the food is still TO DIE FOR. It's still my favorite Thai restaurant anywhere. Punchy tom yum goong with flecks of roasted chili and barely cooked shrimp; dry-cured and fried moo daed diew that manages to be sweet, salty, crisp, moist, and tender all at once; red fire morning glory, crisp and green, with whole yellow beans and whole thai chilies; and of course, my favorite som tam anywhere, spicy as sin, made with salted crab, not sweet, with hand sliced papaya bruised by the deftest pestle hand on this side of the Pacific. And it's so cheap -- $90 with tax and tip for 10 dishes, 4 servings of sticky rice and regular rice -- I could sit there and eat all day long if my Mae would let me. If I lived in L.A., I'd eat there once a week. At least.

Saw the owner while we were there, who extended friendly greetings to my Mae and Pau, who are regulars. "Closed for six months -- the customers have been so mad at us." Well, get back in there, people. The kitchen wants to prove that they've still got it, and believe me, they've still got it in spades. And they've got it in spades from 11am-4am EVERY SINGLE DAY. You people are so lucky.

Ruen Pair
5257 Hollywood Blvd. at Hobart Blvd. (close to Western)
Los Angeles, CA
(323) 466-0153
Cash only

I'm bored. Not channel surfing bored. Like what isn't nailed down in the kitchen is going into my mouth bored. My Mae made a massive pot of green curry with chicken and fish cakes. Like cauldron big. Like big enough to feed every resident of my Mae's home village in Thailand, plus all of their children and grandchildren. She used these huge Costco sized industrial cans of coconut milk and bamboo shoots. Except I don't think Costco has a Thai aisle. But I could be wrong.

The trouble with being bored in my house is that we only have Thai satellite TV. I can't really cook either. Despite the fact that my Mae made a huge cauldron of coconut curry, she serves it peppered with guilt-ridden commentary like, "Lots of cholesterol, so don't eat too much of the sauce" or "Only once in a while, I guess it's okay". So I can't make any of the things that seem so appealing at Christmas -- cookies, pies and the like. Also, it's 70 degrees outside, and it really doesn't feel like Christmas now that I've been spending Christmas in the colder climes. I only brought one book (Augusten Burrough's Running With Scissors) and I already finished it. And I'm here til the 31st. Seriously, what am I going to do til then?

Last night's latkes were perfection -- russet potatoes, squeeze all the moisture out, and in a latke-experienced friend's words, "Don't be chintzy with the oil." Also perfection was the Jim Lahey no-knead bread -- if you haven't tried it, you must. Luisa the Wednesday Chef has the recipe up so you don't have to pay the Times for the archived article. My personal notes: up the salt to 1 3/4 tsp., lower the water to 1 1/2 cups, if you're going to use the well-floured towel, let it be a tightly woven 1 ply, not the double layer cheesecloth that wound up stuck with 1/4 of my first attempt, a smaller casserole dish makes for a better shaped loaf. I want to experiment with flavorings next -- golden raisins and fennel, cheese bits and bobs, yuzu pepper, etc. I also want to try a silpat instead of the well-floured towel or tricky plastic wrap I used on the second attempt.

Merry Christmas to you and yours. Got any suggestions on what to do? I've run out of people to text message.

I went to a dinner with a bunch of food writers a few months ago, where I bravely posited that cheap ethnic eats in L.A. were deeper, more varied, and better than in New York. Obviously, this is a position that is often met with indignance bordering on furor. I really only said it because there was a little too much peacock talk about New York food's superiority. New York has great cheap ethnic eats, but to say it's the BEST place in the country for cheap ethnic eats isn't quite right. I'm as proud as any New Yorker, but one can't deny that L.A. has a high number of ass-kicking, undiluted, deep ethnic restaurants. Rent is cheaper, communities are more homogenous.

Case in point: my mom took my uncle, aunt and me to Baimon Restaurant in Rowland Heights, a mere 5 minute drive from our house. It's not in a notable neighborhood; it's not the kind of restaurant that will ever get a Saveur profile. The dish to order is the rad nah. Wide, soft rice noodle ribbons or fine rice vermicelli are pan fried with dark, sweet soy sauce. The noodles are topped with a small pond of thin, cornstarch slurry-thickened gravy with earthy whole bean sauce, emerald green, bittersweet Chinese broccoli sliced on the bias, and your choice of meat.

Rad nah is not a flashy dish. It seems simple enough. There are probably less than 10 ingredients in the whole dish -- not very many for a Thai dish. There are no spicy, colorful fireworks like there are in a good papaya salad. The level of difficulty in composition isn't as obvious as it is in hor mok, an elegantly banana leaf-wrapped, steamed fish curry.

Good examples can be found, but great examples are few and far between. I still remember the rad nah we used to get from the pak soi, which means "mouth of the road", where we turned in to go to my uncle's house in Thailand. The sauce was the perfect viscosity and salinity, the noodles soft and gently, sweetly charred in places, the Chinese broccoli crisp and bright.

Baimon's rad nah matches the excellence of the one from my romantic memories of the stand at the pak soi, which no longer exists. Yeah, it's that good. As my uncle said, digging in with concentration and gusto, it's "one of the best." He liked it so much, he ate it three times in the week that he spent in La Puente. We covered the table with four gravy filled platters of rad nah and pretty much cleaned our plates, which is really saying something considering my aunt, uncle and mom's dwindling appetites. Can't vouch for anything else on the menu, but I probably won't ever order anything but the rad nah anyway.

Baimon Restaurant
1741 Fullerton Rd.
Rowland Heights, CA
(626) 964-6851

Okay, maybe the heart of rock n roll isn't in Cleveland, but the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame is. But we didn't play there, we played at the House of Blues in Cleveland, which was pretty nice as far as venues go. They fed us lunch, dinner, and after show snack. I felt like they were fattening us up so they could make us all into soup at the end of the night.

The show was great. Josh Radin is actually from Cleveland, so the crowd was very attentive and receptive. Miho and I sang on a tune with Jim Bianco, which was really fun. Apparently, he's usually accompanied by burlesque dancers. We're no Pussycat Dolls, but we added estrogenic flavor.

I'm pretty exhausted. We're in the day room, getting ready to get back to the bus. The hail's coming down sporadically like rock salt. Can't believe it's almost over! Last show happens on my birthday. In Cincinnati.

Conversation between me and Miho:

GANDA: We're going to be in Cincinnati for my birthday. What are we going to do, eat Cincinnati chili over spaghetti?

MIHO: NO, Ganda. No beans on your birthday!

Great gig tonight in Indianapolis at the Music Mill. I think that's what it's called. Ate dinner from the venue restaurant which was not horrible but ultimately not satisfying. I need some rice and some papaya salad or something. Every night I cram food into my gullet because my palate is so sad. I'm tired of backstage cold cuts on white bread with yellow mustard.

Things I am missing while I am on the road:

1. My bed. Deb from the Weepies, who's in the bunk opposite mine, nearly got kicked in the head this morning by a sleepy Jim Bianco. Accidentally, of course. I put my earplugs in every night, and every morning the earplugs are smushed like little flesh colored turds underneath my pillow. I think I'm pulling them out at night. But now that I'm in the dark bunk cabin, I don't have to wear the blindfold anymore. Also, I miss my little bathroom.

2. Rice. Actually, all ethnic food, but I'm really missing rice. I'm really not a bread person. I always ask people what they would choose for their top three starches. I would choose rice, pasta/noodles, and potatoes. Though now, I might actually say oatmeal instead of potatoes. Oatmeal has been super happy making on this tour, I have to say. And if semolina pasta and rice noodles count as two different things, then they would be my #2 & #3. But rice for sure is number one. And we don't have rice on our backstage rider. Maybe we should.

3. My New York friends. I wish they were all on the tour with me.

4. Privacy. You're in the bus, you're in the green room, you're on the stage...the only time you're alone is in the venue shower, and then there's a line behind you so you better hurry up. Also, washed my hair with the bar soap my best friend Donna gave us in Chicago. Bar soap -- not the same as shampoo.

Things I will miss about the road:

1. Making music and listening to live music every night. Music every night, man. That is the life. Getting to listen to the Weepies every night. I would never get tired of listening to Deb and Steve. I love setting up the little computer interface every night and breaking it all down at the end of the night. I love singing every night -- doesn't matter if there are 10 people or 1000 people in the audience -- it's just great to be singing with friends every night.

2. Seeing new towns every day. Stopping at truck stops in the middle of nowhere. Getting out of the bus and hoofing it around, getting to know the 1 mile radius around the venue and bus very intimately. Looking around for yoga classes every day.

3. Making new friends in every city. One of the greatest things about this tour is that the artists join the tour and leave the tour regularly. Jim Bianco and Tim Jones just joined us, Matt Costa and Charlotte Martin are gone, Miho and I will be vacating our bunks in Cincinnati (on my birthday), so we've gotten to meet lots and lots of people. It's really like rolling summer camp.

I would like to take this opportunity to dispell the groupie myth. I have to say that women really just throw themselves at male musicians; they have absolutely no shame. They sneak backstage, drunk, wearing heels, with full war paint on, giggling and draping themselves sensuously over furniture. In fact, I hear there was a recent conjugal visit by a female fan in the tour bus while we were in the hotel. But male fans -- not so much. Not that I could really hit that, but, you know, I sometimes wonder what it'd be like to have the option.

Best thing heard tonight, as told to Cary Brothers:
FAN: [With an Indiana drawl] Oh my gosh, it's such a great night! I just love the music! And the girl who's singing right now, she's great! I never thought I'd like Japanese music.

A really tough gig tonight in Louisville. We're staying on the bus in the parking lot of the venue tonight. We'll pull out for Indianapolis in the morning. To wash those gig blues away, I went to another room in the venue and showed them how karaoke is done. Totally exciting to have all the Kentucky locals hootin and hollerin over my Axl Rose impersonation.

By the way, catered dinner at the Phoenix Hill Tavern is bad, bad news. Canned potatoes and green beans, cold, tasteless chicken breast that might as well have been cooked in the microwave. Maybe that's why the gig sucked. I know you would never underestimate the power of a good meal. I'm going to get in bed and get excited about breakfast.

We have two days off in Louisville because of the cancelled Lansing gig. It seems to be a fantastic town to be stranded in. Lots of cute business establishments set up in big houses, a health food store with fresh carrot juice, and lots of yoga studios. We decide to have very healthy vegetarian food at Zen Garden for dinner. It's a ways away from the hotel, so we call a cab. When we come downstairs for it, a cab is already pulling away with other passengers. The driver, a rastafari wearing a big white cap, rolls the dark windows down. There is a tri-color Ethiopia air freshener hanging from the rearview mirror.

CAB DRIVER: Where are you going, mon?

GANDA: 2240 Frankfort Ave.

CAB DRIVER: If you want to get in, I take you there after I drop these folks off.

Miho and I climb into the back of the minivan cab behind a couple who look like they're about to go line dancing.

MIHO: Nice music.

CAB DRIVER: You like my music?! [He turns the music up til the bass buzzes and makes the minivan vibrate.] You been to Jamaica, mon?

MIHO: Irie!

CAB DRIVER: Sista! IRIEEEEEEEEE!! [He laughs with delight.]

The white-haired gentleman, Gary, is a corrective color specialist at a hair salon called Let Yourself Glow, according to his business card; he and his date Kelly are from Cincinnati, and are just in town to party for the weekend. We ask them for some restaurant recs in Cincinnati, where we'll be on my birthday.

GARY: [To the cab driver] What's your name, Rasta?

CAB DRIVER: I lost me slave name a long time ago. Me name is Ras now.

GARY: Where are you from?

RAS: From Jamaica and Mississippi, but mostly Jamaica. I got a house down dere, mon.

Gary and Kelly get dropped off at their sushi restaurant. Ras beckons us to come sit up near the front.

RAS: Where are you from?

[simultaneously]

MIHO: Brooklyn!
GANDA: Brooklyn!

RAS: Oh, Brooklyn in da house! FIRE! [But it sounds more like FAI-yaaaaa!]

We arrive at Zen Garden. Ras gives us his phone number so we can call when we're done. After dinner, we call, and he rolls up with his beige minivan again, the bass still buzzing through the dark tinted windows.

MIHO: Irie!

We talk congas, music, touring, Louisville history, vegetarianism. He says he's going to come see the show tomorrow; he also says he'll come to Brooklyn with his congas and his reggae band. We love Ras.