Day: November 14, 2007

They’re Coming!

I just got the weekly newsletter from the Red Devil Lounge, announcing that Black 47 is booked.  Unfortunately, the gig isn’t until March, but tickets go on sale this weekend.

Black 47 is a political Irish-American band from New York that I have loved since the nineties.   I have even read the singer’s memoir, “Green Suede Shoes”.

The thing is, I’ve never actually seen them live.   I had intended to go out to New York a day early for my business trip so that I could catch their weekly gig, until I found out how expensive a hotel room in Manhattan could be on a Saturday night.    I had every intention of going to see them last time they were in SF, but no one was interested in going with me, and so I caved and went to Pier 23 instead.

This time I’m going.   Even if I have to go alone.

I’m excited.

What Do Okie-fied Vegetarian Brits Eat for Lunch

When I was in England this last spring, visiting with family and spending a few days in London, the greatest thing I discovered was their jacket potatoes.   This is popular pub faire.   It’s a baked potato stuffed with something.   The thing that makes it unusual, to American standards, is what they stuff it with.   This isn’t your butter, sour cream, cheese, bacon bits, and chives potato that you would come across at a steakhouse.   In the pubs we visited, they stuffed their spuds with things like beans, coleslaw, and tuna salad (which they just call tuna and mayonnaise and has sweetcorn).    I just loved them.

So, I’ve made a few jacket potatoes since I’ve been back.     The other night, I made one for dinner, and had enough left over to bring for lunch today.   The thing is, I’m trying to take the pesco out of of my pesco-vegetarianism, so I wasn’t down for the tuna and the coleslaw isn’t quite the same here as it is in England.    I decided to try to add something from the other side of my family to this Brit dish.   The other side of my family are Okies from Bakersfield.   There’s this salad that one of the aunties used to make that is essentially like potato salad, only substitute sweet peas for the potatoes.   It’s scrumptious.

So, the Okie-fied Vegetarian Brit is having a Sweet Pea Salad Jacket Potato.