1. I'm sitting here listening to Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks play "How Can I Miss You if You Won't Go Away?" and thinking that Western swing is one of those styles of music that I love to listen to but that I always forget is out there.
Odd.
This bit of musical amnesia is on my mind because this morning I listened to Jeff Harrison's stellar radio program Deadish. His shows are archived for two weeks after their Thursday night (9-11) broadcast on Eugene's KEPW-FM, 97.3 at kepw.org. Today I tuned into his October 27th broadcast.
A little back story.
Recently the Bob Weir led band Wolf Bros. played at the Hult Center in Eugene.
The band included pedal steel guitar master Barry Sless, a musician Jeff has admired for decades.
Unfortunately, as the concert progressed, the band's sound was mixed in such a way that Jeff could rarely or barely hear Sless.
So, Jeff did what any sensible radio host should do: he dedicated the first hour of Deadish to Barry Sless's early 1980s Western swing band, Cowboy Jazz.
It was an hour of divine musicianship and vocals.
I loved it!
Again, I wondered: why do I so rarely listen to Western swing music when it's so blissfully enjoyable?
The second hour of Jeff's Oct. 27th program was equally, if not even more, blissful.
Because Jeff and I would be attending the Pump, Pump benefit at Portland's Alberta Rose Theater on Nov. 2 and because one of the reunited 80s/90s jam bands that played that night was Nine Days Wonder, Jeff played the one album Nine Days Wonder made, Left of Center, and, quoting a Nine Days song title, listening to this album again was a shot of love.
Bliss.
2. Since I knew Debbie and I were going to eat the rest of last night's chicken rice soup for dinner tonight, I also knew that this meant I'd need to cook something else so that Debbie would have food for her lunch on Thursday.
In addition, Patrick and Meagan will arrive from Portland on Thursday, so I decided to fix Thursday's dinner this evening and cook enough that Debbie would also have food for Thursday's lunch.
I waded into my Pinterest boards and found a link I'd saved to a list of New York Times casserole recipe and, to my delight, found a tuna casserole recipe that did not call for condensed soup.
Ahhh! Great!! For me, the sodium level of condensed soups is too much and I love tuna casserole, so I put on my big boy cooking pants and got to work.
I chopped up and sautéed onion, carrots, and celery and later added chopped mushrooms and a clove of chopped garlic. I added thyme.
While those ingredients got soft, I cooked 12 oz of elbow macaroni in the Dutch oven, and took the vegetable mixture off the burner.
I drained the macaroni and, using the Dutch oven, melted six tablespoons of unsalted butter. I added flour to the melted butter, let it cook for a little while and then slowly whisked in milk and a cup of chicken broth. This was the base for the casserole's sauce. As it began to thicken, I added 8 oz of shredded sharp cheddar cheese, two tins of tuna, Dijon mustard, the vegetables, and the macaroni.
I spray oiled two baking dishes, one bigger than the other, poured the casserole fixins into them, and topped them with crushed Town House crackers. I heated up the small casserole, about half of which would be Debbie's lunch, and I refrigerated the larger casserole and will heat it up tomorrow as dinner time draws near.
3. I ended this day of grocery shopping, cooking, and taking care of other household matters with an hour long YouTube concert. I especially enjoyed listening to, first, Anderson East and then Elle King join Daryl Hall and his studio musicians on Live from Daryl's House and their rousing performances of "She's Gone" and "Ex's and Oh's". Then I left Daryl's House and listened to two or three different live versions of Jethro Tull/Ian Anderson performing "Thick as a Brick" and "Locomotive Breath".
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