FoodFunk.ca

It’s Your Thing!

You’ve heard the tune countless times on the radio and in TV commercials among other places but rest of The Isley Brothers catalog is well worth a look.

The trio of brothers had a number of hits in the 60s and 70s with memorable tunes like “Shout!” and 1974′s sexy “That Lady”.

Around 1970 though, the funk was hard and the groove was aggressive.  Check out the track “Keep on Doing” from the 1970 album “Get Into Something”.   A killer tune that James Brown and the J.B.’s would later embellish for their searing and much-sampled “The Grunt”.

The Isley Brothers – “Keep on Doing”

For most of us in modern life, this happens several times a week.

You’re hungry, haven’t prepared anything but want to eat right away.

Sound familiar?  It’s why fast food and frozen food companies make zillions of dollars.   But since eating fast food or frozen food several times a week will eventually kill you, you really need to come up with some better options.

So here’s one for starters.   This pasta dish contains just four ingredients (okay, six if you count the water and salt for the pasta) and is ready in just a hair longer than it takes to boil the pasta.   It’s filling, absolutely delicious, and contains none of the saturated fat, chemicals and excessive salt of virtually any fast food or frozen food source.   It’s made with ingredients you almost assuredly have on hand too.  Get a wedge of parmesan or romano cheese the next time you’re in a grocery store if you don’t have one now.  It seems more expensive than the pre-grated varieties but you’ll find it actually goes a long way and the flavour is world’s better than the processed stuff anyway, so it’s really like comparing apples to oranges.  Get the good stuff and don’t look back.

This is a dish that begs for variation so have at it.  Toss in chopped tomato, olives, zucchini, pancetta or prosciutto, Italian parsley, chilies, artichoke, leek, broccoli, you name it.

Friggin’ Fast Pasta

Pasta for one, any kind

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

Several big grinds of fresh cracked black pepper

Fresh grated parmesan or romano cheese

Generously salt a large pot of water (at least three litres) with a salt (about a tablespoon or two) and bring to the boil.  Drop in your pasta and give it a stir.  After about six minutes, start to heat a fry pan over medium heat.   Add a tablespoon of the extra virgin olive oil to the pan and grind in pepper to taste.   Drain the pasta and add it to the fry pan, giving it a toss.  Grate on some parmesan cheese and toss well.  Grate and toss two or three more times before transferring the pasta to a plate.   Top with more cheese and drizzle with more extra virgin olive oil.  Drive that into your face and be exceedingly pleased it’s not a drive thru burger and fries.

Well, this week I feature me!

In preparation for applying to perform at at least one music festival this summer, I put together a demo mixtape.  It’s 25 minutes long but covers a lot of ground in old school funk, dance and hip hop.

Click here to listen! Right-click to save it on your computer.

I’ve been blasting the thing in my car all week!

Chinese noodles with spicy mixed vegetables.   This was actually what I did with leftovers from Chinese take-out.  The original dish was szechuan vegetables with shrimp so the next day, I just boiled some noodles and heated them through with the leftover vegetables.  Add a little extra oyster sauce to brighten the leftover flavour and this was a great lunch.

Simple mixed salad of red bell pepper, cucumber, cauliflower and thinly sliced mandolin.  Really just an excuse to use my mandolin slicer for the fennel.

Mixed fruits for a snack.   Oranges, kiwi and some suprisingly good long-haul strawberries.

Adding some home-made curry powder to some butter and onions for a dish of dhal (mixed lentils).   Simply magic.

Lettuce leaves stuffed with spiced pork, rice vermicelli noodles and topped with hot sriracha sauce.   My friend Dan Tanaka showed me this once and I finally got around to making it myself.  Spiced with hoisin sauce, fish sauce, fresh ginger and garlic.  A really tasty, healthy treat.

A classic lasagna, made with fresh pasta.  This timeless crowd-pleaser was served up during the Olympic Gold Medal game in Men’s hockey.  Score!

Alexandra holds a cracker with spicy red pepper jelly and goat cheese.   One of her many favourite snacks.

Scrambled eggs with chopped fresh birds eye chilies.   To get your day started properly, you need the right amount of fire.

Fresh chilies from the new Asian Dragon store on Union Street in Saint John.   They went into nearly everything I made for several days.  So, so good.

Hot dog buns fresh from the oven.  One night, we actually went out on a limb and used these in a special meal I like to call “hot dogs.”  It was quite something.

Thai noodles with basil.   Fresh egg noodles are fried with fish sauce, fresh chopped chilies, garlic, chicken stock and fresh basil for a very simple but powerful dish.  One of my “what to cook when I don’t really want to cook” meals.

Skratch Bastid!   There are loads of great DJs across this great land but none quite like Bedford, Nova Scotia-born DJ Skratch Bastid.

His jaw-dropping show covers all kinds of genres while always propelling a hook that gets people on the dance floor.   You’ll hear James Brown and Parliament, old school  Spoonie G or the latest hip hop banger, plus everything from Black Sabbath and Nirvana to Johnny Cash and 60s doo wop.   And he makes it all work.

I first saw Skratch Bastid back in around 2002 when a friend and I dropped into the Khyber Cafe in Halifax.  A youthful Skratch Bastid was on the turntables, some rappers were dropping some rhymes and break dancers were carving up the dance floor.    Years later, he was booked for a show in Saint John and I loaned my turntables for the event.   Using all original vinyl from two milk crates, he totally killed it before a packed house.  I couldn’t believe what was happening on my very own turntables!

Skratch Bastid has been back to Saint John many times since and hits the stage tonight at Evolution Night Club (75 King Street, $10 advance at Mr. Nice Guy’s Smoke Shop or $15 at the door) with DJ B BADD and Contagious T opening up.  Show starts at 10 pm.

Check out this performance from last summer, after the release of Skratch Bastid’s latest mix, titled (110 per cent).  Too bad James Brown wasn’t around to see this!

See more at www.SkratchBastid.com

Back in the mid-60s, Slyvester Stewart, a radio DJ in San Fransisco, assembled a local group of musicians and started producing some cool tunes that appealed to local youth, the heart of the burgeoning hippy scene.  It wasn’t long after he started that James Brown dropped Cold Sweat on the world and along with it, a new feeling in music that would be dubbed funk.

Sly Stone as he was known jumped on the groove right away in 1967 and started putting out his own brand of funk.  Everybody’s heard 1968′s anthemic “Dance to the Music”, probably Sly and the Family Stone’s biggest hit.   “Sing a Simple Song”, “I Want to Take You Higher” and “Stand” were not far behind.   Then in 1970, bassist Larry Graham developed his own brand of bass plucking and put it to use on the tune “Thank You Falletin Me Be Mys Elf Again.”

“Thank You Falletin Me” never made it onto an LP at the time but it did well as a single and would of course be included on later Greatest Hits LPs.   Sly and the Family Stone would put out a few more records including the fantastic LPs “There’s a Riot Going On” (1971), “Fresh” (1973) and “Small Talk”.  Sly would release a great solo effort in 1975 titled “High on You” before largely dissappearing from the scene.  He’d put out a couple more forgettable records in the late 70s and tour with Parliament Funkadelic for a bit before disappearing for good.

That is, until the last couple of years when he’s been sporadically showing up on stage with his old buddy George Clinton.   I was actually going to post the original “Thank You Falletin Me” from 1970 but then came across this funky live performance of the tune from last year.   Sly’s still a bit on the strange side but he clearly still has a great sense of solid funk.