RECIPE #4: Amish Friendship Bread

Whoo-ee! I'm all tuckered out, and I'm not just referring to Mr. Carlson. Two straight nights of partying with rock stars will do that to you. Not that these folks have the shitty attitude or financial portfolio the term might imply, but my weekend of hanging out and getting crunk with members of Atheist, Thurisaz, Martyr, Saturnus, Benedictum, Twelfth Gate, Ion Vein, Eden's Fall and others was pretty much one of those rock n' roll benders most folks can only imagine. I ache, and my aging stomach is very angry with me. I'll get to some cogent coverage of Chicago Powerfest 2007 as soon as I recover. Meanwhile, here's a review of last weekend's Stooges show and a look at this month's cooking endeavor.

Most people have heard of Amish Friendship Bread, even if they've never tried it. The process is kind of bizarre, but not difficult by any means. Traditionally, you receive a starter batch from someone you know. You work from there, and by the end you have three starter batches to hand out yourself. My own adventure began when I received a resealable freezer bag from a friend at work. It contained a mass of what looked like either rancid custard or a sample of Kenny Rogers' liposuction. As I discovered from the accompanying instructions, the starter contains flour, sugar, milk and some amount of active yeast that's been living in such batches for who knows how long. The note detailed all the steps, a ten-day process in total.

For five days, you do absolutely nothing with your starter except "mash in bag" once a day. It's good stress relief, and it keeps the yeast happily fermenting the sugar. A few days in, I came home to a bag that had puffed up with carbon dioxide and made the vicinity smell like a damn brewery, so I assumed it was working. On day five, you add a cup each of sugar, milk and flour, then continue the old "mash in bag" bit until you get to day ten, releasing the air from the bag so it doesn't pop and spill the bubbling sack of spookshow pus all over your nice, clean table.

Now you can actually make your bread, but first, you have to get some starter batches ready for your unsuspecting pals. You add yet another cup each of flour, sugar and milk, after which the instructions simply say, "stir." Since the instructions also advise not to use metal spoons or equipment (as well as to only use glazed ceramic or plastic bowls), I opted to go the trusty "mash in bag" route for this. You then meaure out three cups of the gunk, open three fresh resealable freezer bags and pour a cup into each of them. My starter batch conveniently had the inception date written on it, so I extended this courtesy for my hand-out bags. After photocopying the recipe, I handed off two and kept one for myself in order to run through the process a second time.

What's left in your bag is the base of your batter. To this, you add 3 eggs, 2 cups of flour, 1 cup of sugar, 1 cup of oil, 1/2 cup of milk, 2 teaspoons of cinnamon, 1 and 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder, 1 teaspoon of vanilla, 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda, 1/2 teaspoon of salt and one 5.1 oz. box of instant vanilla pudding. I mixed this with a rubber spatula, and it got thick very quickly. Next, the recipe says to grease 2 bread pans. In lieu of lard or Crisco, I sprayed some Pam in them and rubbed it over the entire inside surface, crossing my fingers that this would be sufficient (it was). The final step is to mix 1/2 cup of sugar with 2 teaspoons of cinnamon, 3/4 of which you sprinkle into the pans before adding the batter, the rest going on top of the batter just before baking. I had some of that coarser 100% cane sugar stuff left from February's bread pudding, and I saved it for this last step, understanding that the cinnamon-sugar sprinkle would form a little crust on the outside of the bread. You bake those puppies for an hour at 325 degrees, and you have your final delicacy.

While the inclusion of packaged pudding mix makes me doubt this tradition came entirely from the Amish, the bread you end up with is AWESOME. It's more like a cross between a huge muffin and coffee cake than something on which you'd make your favorite tunafish and Vegemite sandwich, and it's one of those foods that tastes like it takes much more effort than it actually requires. There are so many variations on the bread, you could really keep doing this forever. Since I have another starter batch that's maturing on Tuesday, I'm preparing to substitute chocolate pudding and add some almonds to the cinnamon/sugar sprinkle this time, which I'm sure will rock. Meanwhile, good luck to Christina and Bill on their own batches...

Hey, anyone want to make Amish Friendship Bread? This is the only pyramid scheme I've ever heard of that actually delivers. I'll have three starters available Tuesday night, so let me know. Finally, you need to buy this piece of brilliance right now:

What's wrong with this country

Now I totally understand why the terrorists hate us. We have it all, and don't even appreciate it.

First of all, shame on all of you who haven't seen "Grindhouse." I know there are a lot of you. While more Americans opted to pay for the pleasure of watching "Are We Done Yet?" last weekend, you can rest assured that the rest of the world will love "Grindhouse." First of all, you get two entire movies plus intermission entertainment for your ticket price, and the features are dissimilar enough to make you feel as if it's not all the same thing for 3 hours and eleven minutes. Believe me, there are people who consider such a thing an inconvenience, very likely the same people who bitch when they're paying $9+ to see a movie that lasts less than 90 minutes. At the nearly-empty Saturday night screening I attended, people actually got up and left after "Planet Terror"... they didn't even stay for the Tarantino movie! This is the kind of public we're dealing with, all in a hurry to get back to their kids and their workouts and their liquor cabinets and their boring goddamned lives. Nincompoops, each of them.

Then there's the content. "Grindhouse" has bad-ass women, bad-ass music, bad-ass cars, bad-ass fake trailers and bad-ass head wreckings. As a longtime afficionado of the stuff it's meant to evoke, I can say that although they took some liberties as professional modern filmmakers, both Rodriguez and Tarantino did an excellent job. Personally, I liked "Planet Terror" better because it's an out-of-control '80s gore flick, down to the droning synth score and melting faces (the shot quoting Romero's undervalued "Day of the Dead" cinched it). Yet, I can see how someone might prefer Tarantino's character-driven '70s hybrid of California hippie, car chase and stalker pictures, as "Death Proof" isn't nearly as goopy. Neither is a perfect flick, but both are riveting for different reasons, and I liked that Rodriguez's kinetic entry came before Tarantino's slow-building one. The cast is uniformly fine, packed with genre favorites who all seem to understand what they're doing here. Everything, from the individual films to the fake trailers and inserts, was conceived with considerable knowledge of classic drive-in/grindhouse conventions, as well as what makes them appealing to people like myself so many years later.

Your local mall cinema can never again replicate the brazen hyperbole of the advertising, the eagerness to revel in taboos, the raucous individuality unfiltered by corporate machinery, the lure of garish sights and sounds respectable moviegoers can only dream about seeing when they pay to see Hollywood horror or action or nudie pictures. Characters in "Grindhouse" fought in the current Iraq war and send text messages, yet everyone's heart is clearly in that bygone era. It is our own greed and addiction to technological fads that led our drive-ins to become golf courses and our fleabag movie theaters to be converted into yuppie lofts. If it were a runaway box office success, "Grindhouse" could have struck a cultural blow for the righteous, but everybody stayed home and colored eggs. If you want to see "Grindhouse" but are waiting for the DVDs like it's "Failure to Launch" or some other useless sitcom shit, you don't deserve to see it at all. You make baby terrorists smile.

In an increasingly rare situation for tours these days, I saw two metal bands I really love on the same bill last week. The Haunted and Dark Tranquillity, perhaps Gothenburg's best modern representatives, are wrapping up their tour of the States this weekend. It was a strong pairing and the Chicago stop was a great show, no thanks to the venue. It occured at Metro, which, for you out-of-towners, is located down the street from Wrigley Field and is one of Chicago's most legendary rock clubs. Every local garage band aspires to play there, and the list of now-famous acts that have stood on its stage while their star rose is endless. When big names deign to play smaller shows in an attempt to "connect with the fans," their Chicago stop is often Metro (note the recent solo appearance by Chris Cornell, the upcoming solo appearances by Ben Gibbard or next month's sole Midwest show for those greedy Emperor bastards). When I was in college and loving living in the city, Metro was the place to be. Now, it's a big pain in the ass.

Every time I've gone there in recent memory, something has irked me, and last Wednesday's show had all of it. First, it's standard practice for venues to screw metal fans because we're all ignorant reprobates. The most glaring example - practiced all over town and rarely replicated at non-metal shows - is making the first band on the bill start playing as soon as the doors are opened, so that by the time the last people in line are inside they've missed an entire set. Metro is even shadier. In this instance, the announced door time was 6 p.m., the announced start time 6:30. The first act on the four-band bill reportedly went on at 6:15. I say "reportedly" because I was naturally stuck in traffic, then looking for parking, which has gotten worse around that area over the years. By the time I entered at exactly 7:10, I'd missed half of the bands. Granted, I came for the co-headliners, but that was weak. I go to a lot of shows specifically to see the opening bands, but I will avoid doing so at Metro from now on. Especially if it's a metal show... as if they book many good ones there, anyway.

Now, a big trend among the more corporate music venues in Chicago has been to ban smoking. The entire city goes smoke-free in January of next year, but real "rock n' roll" spots like Metro and House of Blues did away with it well beforehand. As a smoker, this is inconvenient to me, but I have no problem going outside in shitty weather for my habit. It's not everyone else's fault that I smoke, and they shouldn't be forced to be stuck in a room with me when I am. However, I have a major problem with places that won't even let you leave to smoke, such as, oh, real "rock n' roll" spots like Metro and House of Blues. (For the time being, Metro will let you smoke in a closed-off area of the adjacent Smart Bar, but what time they open it is completely random from show to show.) If I'm paying money to see a concert and choosing to miss part of it in order to indulge my naughty habit, what business is it of theirs? What, they can't control the influx of people coming and going? With all that cash and staff, I find that hard to believe. If one doorman at a little joint like Beat Kitchen or the Empty Bottle can handle a capacity crowd going in and out with the help of futuristic technology known as the "hand stamp," surely these rich fucks can afford the same.

This being an all-ages show, the curfew was 10 p.m., but memories of Metro in happier times tell me that all-ages headliners usually play until about 9:58, then come back for their encore and finish by about 10 or 10:15. At this particular show, The Haunted left the stage and the house lights came up at 9:55. When the fuck did Metro become stringent about the curfew? So, they started the show earlier than the announced time, only gave the openers a pittance of stage time, wouldn't let anyone smoke until they felt like it and kicked everybody out early. Other complaints: You can be the only one drinking at an all-ages show and the waitresses will still ignore you. If you want beer, it will cost you $6 a pop, more if you believe in tipping, a buck less if you believe in paying $5 for carbonated piss. The bathrooms are a clusterfuck. If Metro's sold out and you leave your spot to hit the clusterfuck bathrooms because you've been drinking $5 carbonated piss, you have little chance of actually seeing anything when you get back because they pack that place to the doors. Man, I used to love Metro... either I was naïve, or it has really started to suck. I suppose when they're at a really cool club, patrons will put up with any old shit, but I'm too old to find being treated like cattle attractive. I should have seen this tour in Milwaukee.

A radio host made an offensive remark? That this shocks anyone in 2007 completely blows my mind. I have never listened to Don Imus in my life. You could have told me he was syndicated in Chicago and I would have believed you. Unless you count NPR, I avoid talk radio like the stentorian, headache-inducing plague that it is. However, prior to this recent incident, what I did know about the guy is that he looks like a mummy and that he's a professional cage-rattler. Like many of his ilk, he made the big bucks precisely because he raised listeners' eyebrows. Does anyone really think Imus called those girls what he did out of true hate or even true ignorance? Furthermore, do news outlets really think that repeating his comment fifty times a day in the context of "analysis" somehow makes them better than him? Because he didn't swear or even use a word deemed non-broadcast-friendly, all this fucking circus has done is cement the phrase "nappy headed hos" in every American's mind. (<-- Look, I just helped their cause!) I predict Imus will get a job on satellite radio within six months. In other recent news, some guy no one's ever heard of knocked up a talentless but healthily-bosomed addict who was considered a washed-up joke half a decade ago, and Kurt Vonnegut died. Which one did you hear more about? Fuck a pile of shit on the floor, do I loathe the mass media.

Here are some things I wrote about metal lately - reviews of the new Type O Negative and Chimaira CDs and my full interview with Paul Kuhr of Novembers Doom. Have a sparkling weekend!