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Farro salad with roasted beets

Beets, originally uploaded by Ed Yourdon

I love farro, and I love beets. And they make a great combination!

Here's what I did the other night to make a farro salad with roasted beets, arugula, walnuts, and goat cheese.

1. Prepare beets: toss with olive oil and salt, splash of water, cover with foil, roast for 30-40 minutes until done. Then remove skins and slice into wedges.
2. Prepare farro: boil in salted water until tender (but still with a bite).
3. Toast walnuts.
4. Make a vinaigrette: combine diced shallot with red wine vinegar, lemon juice, balsamic vinegar, and a little bit of salt. Let sit for 5 minutes. Add olive oil.
5. Toss cooked farro with arugula and some of the vinaigrette.
6. Toss beets with some sliced shallots and some of the vinaigrette.
7. Combine farro, arugula, and beets, and transfer to a platter.
8. Top with toasted walnuts and crumbled goat cheese.

Easy, and delicious!

Architecture

Lovely essay from Julian Browne about (the death of) architecture (via Evan Weaver).

My son doesn't believe in the future. When he says he wants ice cream and I reply "later", he just hears "something that isn't relevant to right now". He holds this view because he is two years old and hasn't experienced enough time, or ice cream, to understand that patience and faith in your father's promises can help develop a more considered attitude to life.

Bitte Orca, Orca Bitte

Yes, so: I had high expectations, and Dirty Projectors' Bitte Orca really, seriously, is that good; by far, my favorite album this year, so far.

My favorite track keeps changing--pretty much every track has a lot to recommend it--but I'm currently stuck on "Useful Chamber", which goes from mournful synths to spoken-word breakdown to guitar chaos, and all the way round again.

Electric Relaxation

I've had this in my head over the past couple of days. So, so great.

From scratch

Homemade, from scratch, is in the air.

Ruhlman announces his BLT from Scratch challenge:

From scratch means: You grow your tomato, you grow your lettuce, you cure your own bacon or pancetta, you bake your own bread (wild yeast preferred and gets higher marks but is not required), you make your own mayo. All other embellishments, creative interpretations of the BLT welcome.

And in the June 2009 Gourmet, a burger with homemade everything: homemade buns, ketchup, mustard, and pickle relish, with a burger made from ground skirt steak.

Maxwell - "Pretty Wings"

I can't wait to hear the album.

For dinner

Who needs cookbooks, when you've got food blogs? For a delicious dinner, tonight:

• Flat iron steak and arugula salad with blue cheese and Catalina dressing (I altered the original a bit, since I prefer flat iron to skirt steak)
• Zucchini carpaccio
• Watermelon agua fresca
• Apple pie, with vanilla ice cream (I used a combination of Elise's recipe and Ruhlman's crust for his rhubarb pie)

On doing what you're good at

A great quote from Kim Gordon about the "Radiohead model" of selling records (via Idolator, who has more to say about it):

"I don't really think they did it by themselves," Gordon counters. "They did a marketing ploy by themselves and then got someone else to put it out. It seemed really community-oriented, but it wasn't catered towards their musician brothers and sisters, who don't sell as many records as them. It makes everyone else look bad for not offering their music for whatever. It was a good marketing ploy and I wish I'd thought of it! But we're not in that position either. We might not have been able to put out a record for another couple of years if we'd done it ourselves: it's a lot of work. And it takes away from the actual making music."

Butter 4.0

Sasha Frere-Jones writes about "Butter 4.0", a mixtape of nineties hip-hop by the Australian DJ Broke. I've been listening to this exclusively for the last couple of days. It's brilliant.

Some m.c.s were simply goofballs, a category that's almost defunct. DJ Broke drops in "Studda Step," a brief nineties comeback by eighties comic hero Biz Markie, who handed the crown to Ol' Dirty Bastard in the nineties. (The late ODB appears here with a personal favorite, "Hip-Hop Drunkies," an homage to drunkenness Ol' Dirty recorded with Tha Alkaholiks.) And "Butter 4.0" features Redman, who might be the poster boy for nineties rap. Redman was a skilled punch-line rapper, a type entirely absent from the 2009 charts, unless you count Eminem, who has turned into the Dane Cook of punchline rappers, delivering the goods about four per cent of the time.

Dirty Projectors - Bitte Orca

The album I'm most excited about this year, and the band I'm most excited to see live, streaming on NPR.

And, it's out for real next week; I can't wait.