Thing of the Week: "Here Come The Warm Jets", Afternoon Rose & Raspberry Tarts, Pflaumen Kuchen

LJ'S THING OF THE WEEK: "Here Come The Warm Jets" by Brian Eno

I want to wear this poncho over jean shorts and Beatle boots sitting out by a campfire around the end of October drinking a Jack Daniels & Apollinaris and eating a plate of red snapper over brown rice boringly but perfectly seasoned with salt & pepper and a squeeze of lemon. My only companion would be a big old scrappy goldenrod dog and I'd be listening to "Here Come The Warm Jets" by Brian Eno- not the whole album, just the song. 

The first two Brian Eno albums always sound so perfect at the beginning of September. Right now my three favorite songs from those two records are the ones that have the least words- "On Some Faraway Beach," "Here Come The Warm Jets," and "Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy." They all sound so peaceful and like blankets. My favorite part of "Here Come The Warm Jets" is when he sings the words "nowhere to be" over and over again; it sounds like such a wonderful nowhere, like my campfire.

LIZ'S THING OF THE WEEK: Afternoon Rose & Raspberry Tarts

(pix from here and here)

This is Figaro Cafe; it's on Vermont Ave in Los Feliz. It was on an episode of Mad Men last season, the scene where Sally bad-assed-ly orders coffee and Megan's redhead friend is her usual useless self. One time my friend Hallie was eating outside and James Franco was at the next table, sitting by himself and reading The Bible, and he told her bacon smelled good. Anyway, in the middle of the afternoon last Friday I took a little break from work and went to Skylight Books and bought Swamplandia! and then walked down to Figaro to get myself a blueberry financier. It was a gorgeously hot and sunshiney day and there were all these people sitting at the sidewalk tables, drinking cold wine and iced tea and eating croque monsieur and pomme frites and reading books and gabbing with their friends and generally being beautiful and wonderful. I was so envious! I wanted so badly to get myself a glass of rose and a raspberry tart (as seen in the bottom left corner of that photo at right), sit at an outside table and read my book and not work and be beautiful and wonderful too. Before I went freelance, I thought freelancing meant I'd get to spend so many weekday hours lazing around cafes and eating good food and not working, not a care in the world. The reality of it is that I work about 87 times more than I ever did when I slumped around an office all damn day, but I swear someday soon I'm gonna get to go to Figaro at 3:30 on a Friday afternoon and just chill with my raspberries and "see how the other half lives." I hope James Franco will be there. Maybe I'll get a lemon macaroon too.

JEN'S THING OF THE WEEK: Pflaumen Kuchen & Seltzer with Lemon

I like to make a Pflaumen Kuchen every summer and I made one at midnight last Saturday. That’s plum cake if you don’t speak German (I don’t speak German). It’s really delicious and basically, to me, an excellent coffee cake with bright magenta/purple plums on it. It’s a perfect breakfast cake. There it is on the right with a variety of other vegan cakes. I’ve also been really into seltzer this week. REALLY. With lemon, thank you.