Tuesday, 31 May 2011

Cook along with Steve Albini

The producer has launched a food blog, sharing dishes he prepares for his wife. But he's not the only indie gastro geek ...

Blog: Comment Is Free cook up some other rock star recipes

Steve Albini, founder of Big Black and Shellac, producer of PJ Harvey and Nirvana, has a food blog. It's a good one, based around whatever he's recently cooked for his wife. As with his work as a musician and producer, it's a serious affair ? but not without humour. For example, it's called mariobatalivoice, after the impression he does of the noted Italian-American chef when plonking his latest dish on the dinner table.

Recently interviewed about the blog by LA Weekly, Albini said he regarded American food shows as populated by "frathouse cocksuckers with gimmick hairdos", which is much the same way he felt about mainstream US rock in the 90s. It is all the more fitting that a producer so committed to fuss-free recording also appreciates our own Fergus Henderson's equally forthright, no-frills approach to cooking.

Albini's blog is the latest crossover between the worlds of food and indie rock, discussed by the Guardian's indie professor a few months ago. And there is even more where that came from. Foals kebyoard player Edwin Congreave has opted for the Alex Kapranos route, detailing the band's on-the-road eating habits via Tour Bar Blues. Congreave becomes particularly enthusiastic when the itinerary reaches the Mecca of indie foodies: Portland, Oregon. It's a place where you will find former Shins drummer Jesse Sandoval hawking Mexican meals from one of the many food trucks for which the city is famous.

We now live in a world where the drummer from Grizzly Bear makes his own pasta and indie musicians are as likely to be interviewed by excellent food website Eater as Spin magazine. And if you want to go to extremes, there's always "dishes inspired by indie-rock albums" of Eating the Beats. As for anyone thinking this is getting silly ? you'll be pleased to know that the satirical Portlandia is a step or three ahead of you.

As the indie professor pointed out, both worlds share an interest in "authenticity". Though I'd argue that, as with music, indie foodies sometimes prize dogma over more important ideas, such as deliciousness. An overpriced, poorly executed "artisan" meal purchased in Portland, Williamsburg, or even London's Dalston, being the equivalent of an album you download because it was rated 8.3 on Pitchfork but never play because, on reflection, it's rubbish.

It's also worth paying attention to David Chang, Pavement geek and Michelin-starred chef behind New York's Momofuku, who points out that one of these professions is more like a proper job than the other. Traits required for success in the food world ? Herculean work ethic, punctuality, discipline ? are not necessarily those celebrated in musicians. So it would be a bad idea to put the newly incarcerated Pete Doherty to work in the prison kitchen ...


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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2011/may/27/steve-albini-food-blog

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Simon: 'Cheryl's had it with me'

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Simon Cowell is reported to be worried that Cheryl Cole will never speak to him again after her humiliation over the US version of The X Factor.

The talent show supremo is claimed by The Sun to have sold a source: "She's had it with me."
The Sun's source said: "He was saying, 'She's had it with me. I've hurt her and she won't forgive me for this'.

"He is really worried that she won't speak to him ever again."

We told today how Cheryl has refused to return to the UK version of The X Factor, apparently leaving Cowell's calls unanswered.

And Cowell had to endure a ribbing from Geordie Britain's Got Talent host Dec Donnelly, who asked: "Can you understand my accent?"

The crowd at the audition for BGT are claimed to have booed him when he appeared - giving him a hard time over his treatment of Cheryl.

What do you think? Is Simon Cowell really the villain here? Comment below...

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Let's hope things don't get physical between Simon and Cheryl, we don't want another celeb fight on our hands...

 

 

Source: http://celebrity.aol.co.uk/2011/05/31/simon-cowell-cheryl-cole/

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Elizabeth Taylor's Long Time Crib Officially Listed


Last week Your Mama briefly mentioned that recently deceased Dame Elizabeth Taylor's long-time Los Angeles mansion?in a particularly posh section of Bel Air?had been hoisted on the market with an asking price of $8,600,000.

At that time an interweb listing for the approximately 7,000 square foot two-story ranch was not available. Now it is.

Listing information for the 1.27 acre estate reveals that the gated driveway sweeps past a guard house?manned by Israeli security personnel according to an article in the June 2011 issue of Vanity Fair?to a stone-paved motor court where, in one of the listing photos, the late Miz Taylor's big ol' Maybach can be see parked in front of the front-facing garage.

Inside the large but architecturally modest mansion violet-eyed Miz Taylor lived in cozy but billionaire-style splendor surrounded by antique Aubusson rugs, a lifetime of showbiz memorabilia and a blue chip art collection that includes works by impressionist mac-daddies like Van Gogh, Modigliani, Pissarro and Manet. Miz Taylor's family?a hodgepodge quartet of children from three of her seven husbands, 10 grandchildren and a handful of great-grandchildren?oft gathered for holidays and family events at the sprawling manse that includes a living room with fireplace and beamed ceiling, dining room, and additional sitting room, a galley-style country kitchen and home office converted from what was once a screening room.

There are two family bedrooms with garden access on the main floor, plus a master suite and staff quarters. The second floor has two more smaller family bedrooms plus Miz Taylor's private boo-dwar, comprised of bedroom with sitting area wrapped in lavender fabric, a private bathroom and an adjacent dressing room/beauty salon where Miz Taylor's devoted cadre of mostly gay minions would do her up pretty for her increasingly rare public appearances and occasional trips to gay watering holes like The Abbey in West Hollywood.

The perfectly groomed grounds and terraced gardens include a sparkly mosaic tile-lined swimming pool, small greenhouse for orchid cultivation, rose gardens, more gardens filled with gardenias, lilies of the valley and birds of paradise, a koi pod with waterfall and a secret bamboo jungle.

listing photos: Teles Properties

Source: http://realestalker.blogspot.com/2011/05/elizabeth-taylors-long-time-crib.html

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Readers recommend: songs about birthdays

Apparently, some bloke called Bob turned 70 this week. In honour, tell us your best songs about the passing of another year

I had considered asking for "Bob Dylan songs" this week because, as you may have noticed, it was the great man's birthday on Tuesday. But after Richard Williams beat me to it, I plumped instead for birthdays.

Birthdays are great when you're a kid. Even better than Christmas, in some ways. You get to be a year older! When you're actually old, less so. My great-grandmother lived until she was 103, which must have been interesting for her, but all her peers were long gone. So birthdays can be bittersweet.

What do songwriters make of it? Birthday parties provide work for plenty of musicians, but what about songs themselves?

Leave your suggestions below.

The toolbox:

* Listen to others' suggestions and add yours to a collaborative Spotify playlist.
* Previously on Readers Recommend.
* Guide to "donds", "zedded" and other strange words used by some of the RR regulars (courtesy of the Marconium).
* The Marconium (blog containing a wealth of data on RR, including the songs that are "zedded").
* The 'Spill (blog for the RR community).

Please do:

* Post your nominations before midday on Tuesday if you wish them to be considered.
* Write a few lines advocating the merits of your choices.

But please don't:

* Post more than one third of the lyrics of any song.
* Dump lists of nominations. If you must post more than two or three at once, please attempt to justify your choices.


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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2011/may/27/readers-recommend-birthday-songs

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Kafka's Monkey ? review

Young Vic, London

If Kathryn Hunter's performance as ape-turned-variety-performer Red Peter were merely physically impressive, it would be startling enough. From the moment she lopes on to the stage, every muscle works to convey a creature trapped between two states of being. Her eyebrows scrunch, her arms twist uncomfortably, her toes turn in. When she flexes her crooked fingers to shake hands with a member of the audience, the flickering movement is suggestive of flick knives and magic tricks. When she shuffles across the stage in gasp-inducing splits, it's clear she isn't built like you or I.

But Hunter is as agile intellectually as she is physically, her quick wits proving useful early in the show when the audience grow strangely obstreperous ? arguing audibly, mobile phones firing off ? allowing her to continue unfazed. Colin Teevan's crisp rendering of Kafka's short story A Report to an Academy, subtly layers comedy, satire and direct censure of human nature, and Hunter dances between them so nimbly that the audience is caught off-guard by the violence that emerges from the midst of laughter. Buried beneath the amusing burlesque of theatre life is an allegory of colonialism that is profoundly disturbing.

With every detail, Hunter's narration of Red Peter's capture, imprisonment and slow acquisition of humanity becomes a stronger indictment of our savagery, selfishness and careless disregard for the value of life. And her performance is rich with echoes of indictments past. Gazing at a sailor drinking rum, she is like Oliver Twist, helplessly innocent; garbling her way to language, she recalls Frankenstein's monster.

Behind Hunter is projected a large-scale photograph of an ape whose expression is eloquent with curiosity and compassion. In the silent moment when Hunter gazes at her face, you appreciate how much Red Peter has lost by assimilating with men.

Rating: 4/5


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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2011/may/31/kafka-monkey-young-vic-review

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Ellen Degeneres Confirms Rumors, Lists Beverly Hills Compound


SELLERS: Ellen Degeneres and Portia de Rossi-Degeneres
LOCATION: Beverly Hills, CA
PRICE: Rumored to be $49,000,000 and $60,000,000
SIZE: Big

YOUR MAMAS NOTES:

Way back in mid-February 2011 Your Mama relayed the brewing real estate rumor that comedienne and chat show tycoon Ellen Degeneres and her equestrian-minded wife Portia de Rossi-Degeneres wanted to unload the Beverly Hills, CA compound they spent years and many tens of millions putting together and customizing. In the summer of 2008 the a-list scissor sisters hitched their lesbian wagons in a small but perfectly orchestrated ceremony in the backyard of this here house.

By the end of April 2011, the whispers and rumors of Miz Degeneres's desire to unload her large estate in Bev Hills became deafening and just now, at the end of May, the property was semi-officially put on the open market. A listing does not (as of today) appear in the MLS or an any of the other real estate listing aggregators like Redfin and Trulia but one did pop up on the website of listing agent Kurt Rappaport of the illustrious Westside Estate Agency. That listing shows the price for Miz D's digs as "available upon request."

Several sources have shimmied (alleged) asking prices our way over the last few months but one particularly well-placed informant snitched and swears to Your Mama that the asking price(s) being bandied about Beverly Hills are $49,000,000 for the the main house?plus separate guest and staff quarters and extensive grounds?and $60,000,000 for the entire kit and caboodle that includes the main house?plus separate guest and staff quarters and extensive grounds?and the two additional houses on adjacent parcels that Miz Degeneres and Missus de Rossi-Degeneres also purchased to further secure and preserve their privacy.

The center piece of the compound, which she bought in early 2007 from Will & Grace co-creator Max Mutchnick for $29,000,000, includes an approximately 9,000 square foot main house with extensive outdoor living areas plus a detached guest house. Your Mama understands from several little birdies who have visited the property for one reason or another that the main house includes a kick-ass master suite with extensive dressing area and three more guest/family bedrooms each with en suite facility and private nudity-encouraging sunbathing terrace plus a kick-ass master suite.

The detached guest house has two en suite bedrooms plus living/dining and kitchen. Additional space under the swimming pool?yes, children, under the swimming pool?includes high-tech fitness/body torture chamber, a well-appointed one-bedroom staff suite and underground garage space for 8 or 10 of Miz Degeneres's many Porsches, as opposed to her lone Portia who, we imagine, parks in the house and not the garage. Access to the areas under the swimming pool are by way of an all but hidden staircase behind the all-wood pool cabana.

The following January (2008), the privacy-seeking pair paid Beverly Hills real estate �ber-agent Jade Mills $8,500,000 for an undistinguished house just across a cramped and shared driveway. Miz Mills owned buy did not occupy the premises. Soon after closing on Miz Mill's rental residence, Miz Degeneres got behind the wheel of a bulldozer herself and knocked the damn house down to make way for expanded grounds now done up like an honest-to-goodness private park with meandering pond and soothing canyon views.

In June of 2008 the property mad pair paid another $5,000,000 to purchase a third contiguous property, this one with a down-at-the-heels 1 bedroom and 3 bathroom house with canyon views. One month later they splashed out another $5,500,000 to acquire yet another adjacent property, this one a 4 bedroom and 4 bathroom house perched on a hillside at the back of the house. Apparently, we've been told, the residents had some sort of visual access to the property that irked Miz Degeneres and Missus de Rossi-Degeneres to the tune of five and a half million George Washingtons.

If Your Mama works the beads on our bejeweled abacus and add up all the many above-mentioned purchase prices we conclude that Miz Degeneres and her wife spent $48,000,000 (or thereabouts) to create their own private Idaho in the heart of Beverly Hills only to decide a few years later that they no longer want to live there. How y'all like them apples? Such, as we well know, are the fickle real estate ways of rich and famous folks.

The recent sale of high society matron Iris Cantor's La Belle Vie in Bel Air for forty million?in cash?and the rumored $35,000,000+ allegedly-soon-to-be-sale of Jennifer Aniston's Ohana?her contemporary mansion in Beverly Hills listed at $42,000,0000?surely have Miz Degeneres and Missus de Rossi-Degeneres salivating with real estate hope and desire. But, let's be honest, mon freres. The forty million clams Miz Cantor hoovered up is a long way from the 49 and 60 million Miz Degeneres is widely whispered to want for her super-luxe and carefully-crafted estate.

Although plagued by a famous and incurable case of The Real Estate Fickle, it must also soothe Miz Degeneres's nervous pocketbook to recognize that she has a fairly good and profitable track record of buying and selling high-priced and high-maintenance houses. She bought and sold several ranches in the Santa Ynez Valley at tidy profits and in early 2006 she paid $15,750,000 for an historic house in Montecito, CA that she turned around and sold in November 2007 to Google CEO Eric Schmidt for $20,000,000.

Anyone care to wager their real estate reputation on what amount the property might actually sell? Your Mama will attempt no such folly, but those of the children who might should know that according the Bev Hills real estate insiders the property has attracted a fair amount of attention amongst the sort of folks who can afford and might be willing to cough up considerable cookies for a substantial estate in one of the better zip codes in Los Angeles.

In addition to their maxi-posh but no-longer-wanted compound in Beverly Hills Miz Degeneres and Missus de Rossi-Degeneres also own a small apartment in Beverly Hills?acquired in late 2010 for $835,000, presumably for staff or family?and an extensive equestrian complex in the scenic boondocks outside Westlake Village, CA they snatched up in late 2009 for about ten million buckaroonies.

listing photos: Westside Estate Agency

Source: http://realestalker.blogspot.com/2011/05/ellen-degeneres-confirms-rumors-lists.html

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Are Dannii and Kris on the rocks?

Filed under:

Dannii Minogue marriage troublesPA

It's been a rough couple of weeks for Dannii Minogue - not only has she been ousted from quit The X Factor but now there are rumours that her relationship is on the rocks.

Dannii and boyfriend Kris Smith recently hinted that all was not well in a series of tweets and friends of the couple say they have been rowing of late.

Last week Dannii tweeted: "Never chase love. If it isn't given freely by another person, it's not worth having."

She later added: "Forgiving someone does not mean forgetting what they did. It simply means letting go of the hurt."

Meanwhile 32-year-old Kris only added to speculation that there's trouble in paradise, writing: "You don't know what you've got til it's gone."

Hmm... doesn't sound good, does it? Still, the pair later removed the tweets and moved on to discussing baby Ethan's first birthday plans.

But a friend of the couple told the News of the World that Dannii's "heavy workload" is at the root of their problems and that Kris has put pressure on her to spend more time at home.

A source told the paper: "Dannii is not happy about having to choose between work and family, and they have been arguing about this recently."

Happily, Kris just might get his wish because the friend added: "She has made a decision to put the relationship first by refusing to commute between Australia and Britain for The X Factor."

Much as we'll miss Dannii on this year's talent show, there are some things more important than reality TV.

What do you think? Was Dannii's decision to leave The X Factor the right one? Leave a comment below...

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We hope Kris and Dannii succeed where these celeb couples failed...

 

 

Source: http://celebrity.aol.co.uk/2011/05/29/dannii-minogue-marriage-troubles/

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