Sloppy

Not too trivial to post: this is the awesome sloppy joes recipe I told some of y'all I'd link ya to. It's meaty, so sorry vegans. I used the beefbutt instead of turkey, straight-up Heinz for the tangy zingy thing, and extra habaneros. And I added black beans for extra extra protein. Yummy. Reminded me of my mom's delicious countertop-burner, one-dish, hamburger-based delights. Which leads me to ponder -- what fear of the stove motivated all those appliances that allowed you to do on formica what you'd otherwise be doing over there on the old Amana -- toast your sandwiches in the waffle grill, cook the chili on the hot plate, toast yr toast in the toaster oven....the oddest sort of consumerist deflection away from the hearth. Now I guess we do it with George Foremans and espresso machines. And microwaves. My daughter is made of microwaved frozen peas, reheated brown rice, and her favorite thing in the world, soy cheese.


On a more musical note, I was chatting with someone today about the value of writing about songs that you've actually learned by singing them. (He's interested in this one, I wrote about this one a while back, here.) For most of us in this post-mechanical age the number of sung-first songs might be few... for me mostly folk and children's songs, as one would expect. But it's truly lovely to approach a song as itself, an open line of communication, instead of as an interpretation right off the bat. Wonder what songs come into existence that are like that now. Freestyle rhymes? Worship music? What songs have you sung before you've listened to them?