Top Ten Songs of 2009 - Evening Recap Images: Courses 3-5

Course number three was based off of Atlas Sound's "Walkabout." There was just something so innocent and so nostalgic about the song. I swear it could be played during an episode of Happy Days and no one would notice. Ok...well maybe they would. The minute I heard this song I knew I needed to do a milkshake.  And even though milkshakes aren't actually something that I have a strong childhood connection to, they seem to represent America's collective memory of it's youth. They are the ultimate "good 'ol days" food. A burger seemed a pretty great companion to the milkshake and I'll jump at the chance to put anything in a steam bun. 

Ashley had come up with a pretty great idea for this next course but unfortunatley I couldn't pull off some of the logistics. I'll keep her ideas under my hat for the time being and try to use them in a future dinner. In any case, I had wanted to do a cocktail for one of my dishes, and this seemed a pretty fitting song to do it for. From what little Ash and I could make out, the song used the idea of weather as a metaphor...for what I don't know. So I decided to do a bit of a thunderstorm in a glass sort of thing. I wanted to make something that you'd make on a rainy day to remind you of Spring. The drink ended up being a bit of a mash-up of a Whiskey Sour and a Ramos Ginn Fizz. Tyler also put the rest of the dry ice out on the table for added effect.

So course five was the first course that necessitated cutlery. This course was based off of "Knotty Pine" by Dirty Projectors and David Byrne. I chose to make a dish that utilized very simple ingredients, pork tenderloin and potatoes, but prepared them in a new and interesting way without loosing what makes these ingredients familiar. The combination of the Dirty Projectors and David Byrne is basically the fusion of something I know so well (Talking Heads) and something I'm still getting to know (dp's). The song really captures the strengths of all the artists playing on it. And it's the first new David Byrne song that I've heard in a LONG while where he really sounded like his old 77 self. SO a dish filled with familiar things in an unfamiliar setting seemed fitting. 

Up next: Courses 6-10


All photos be Laurel's!