so long, 2012!

Song



Roy Harper, Stormcock

Sixto Rodriguez, Coming From Reality

Cat Power, Sun

More (original soundtrack), "music played and composed by Pink Floyd"

Zabriskie Point (original soundtrack), v/a



Fotheringay, s/t

Grimes, Visions

Beach House, Bloom

Lynyrd Skynyrd, Street Survivors

Destroyer, "Leave Me Alone"

Futurisk, "Lonely Streets"

Divine Fits, A Thing Called Divine Fits

Neil Young, Psychedelic Pill + Yuma



Bill Fay, Life is People + The Time of the Last Persecution

The Faces, BBC TV special, 1972

The Dirty Three, Toward the Low Sun

Tim Hecker, Live at the Red Roof, Pop Montreal

Sharon Van Etten, Tramp

Fairport Convention, Bouton Rouge session, 1968

Print







Manny's Delicatessen Restaurant brochure, ca. 1970


David Grann, "The Yankee Comandante:  A Story of Love, Revolution, and Betrayal," The New Yorker, May 28, 2012






Ian Frazier, Travels in Siberia

Errol Morris, Believing is Seeing (Observations on the Mysteries of Photography)

Ariel Levy, "The Space in Between:  Naomi Wolf's Vagina:  A New Biography," The New Yorker, September 10, 2012

Henry James, Portrait of a Lady

Jon Krakauer, Into the Wild



Magnus Nilsson, Fäviken

Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast

Eleanor Clark, The Oysters of Locmariaquer

John McPhee, The Crofter and the Laird

Jill Lepore, "The Lie Factory:  How Politics Became a Business," The New Yorker, September 24, 2012



Vladimir Nabokov, Pale Fire

Jon Halliday, Sirk on Sirk

Mark Kurlansky, The Basque History of the World:  The Story of a Nation



David Jury, Graphic Design Before Graphic Designers:  The Printer as Designer and Craftsman, 1700-1914

Jessica Mitford, Hons and Rebels

Hugh Garvey (w/ Chef Andy Ricker), "Simply Thai:  A BA Cooking Primer," Bon Appétit, January 2012

Moving Images



Muhammad Ali:  The Greatest, dir. Klein

Treme, season 2

I Know Where I'm Going, dir. Powell

Searching for Sugar Man, dir. Bendjelloul

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, dir. Alfredson

Oslo, August 31, dir. Trier

Moonrise Kingdom, dir. Anderson



Stop Making Sense, dir. Demme

Blank City:  New Cinema, No Wave, New York, dir. Danhier

Museum Hours, dir. Cohen

A Separation, dir. Farhadi

Meek's Cutoff, dir. Reichardt

Monsieur Lazahr, dir. Falardeau

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, dir. Fincher



The Limits of Control, dir. Jarmusch

Ratcatcher, dir. Ramsay

Detropia, dir. Ewing & Grady

The Wire, seasons 1-5 (all over again)

Food & Drink



Green Chile Summer

Grilled Corn Summer

Hôtel Herman, Montreal, QC



Foodlab, Montreal, QC

Bao Bei, Vancouver

Toro, Boston



Zingerman's Roadhouse, Ann Arbor, MI

Revolver, Vancouver



Montreal bazaars

Santouka, Vancouver

crunchy granola



Neptune, Boston

Toshi, Vancouver



Cream-Nut peanut butter

Hudson's Hamburgers, Coeur d'Alene, ID

Boulangerie Niemand, Kamouraska, QC



summer peaches

The Farm House "Lady Jane" cheese + Les Amis du Fromage, Vancouver

Le Grand Aïoli, Alexandraplatz, Montreal, QC



Montreal food enterprise of the year:  Coq Asian

Furco, Montreal, QC



bo ssäm & ssäm bburritos

Miscellaneous



escapes to Vancouver

The Cornwallville Summer Social 2012, Cornwallville, NY

This American Life, "What Happened at Dos Erres"



Mystery Train, Gloucester, MA



summer swimming + cottage outings



Kamouraska, QC



bags by Erin Templeton

Le Creuset cookware (in black)



Cornwallville Soaps

Birdkage waxed canvas aprons

ping pong!


All the best to you in 2013 (?!!), from your friends at "...an endless banquet."  Thanks for reading!

aj

p.s. And if you're wondering what our most popular post was this year, it was our "Boston Notebook (go figure!)."

Bo Knows

Speaking of wraps, I still remember our first experience of Momofuku, way back in 2006, vividly.

fig. a: Momofuku!

Like virtually everyone else, the dish that first won our hearts was David Chang's now legendary, oft-imitated steamed pork buns, with its supremely succulent braised Berkshire pork. But the dish that left a lasting impression was the ssäm.

At the time, I had the following to say about the experience:

The true revelation of our luncheon, however, was my Ssäm. I have to confess, at the time that I ordered it, I really had little idea what exactly I was ordering. The ingredients--"Berkshire pork, rice, edamame, onions, pickled shiitake, kimchi"--all sounded great to me, but I was expecting some kind of a fried rice dish, or possibly even a rice-based soup.

fig. b: Momofuku ssäm

What we got, instead, was a burrito--a clever Korean-American take on the Mexican-American classic. In general, we're a little skeptical when it comes to "fusion cuisine," but here was another instance of Chang taking chances and finding (not forcing) culinary affinities. The results were brilliant--but, then again, as huge fans of Mission-style burritos and Korean food, we were pretty much an ideal audience for Momofuku's ssäm burrito.

Chang writes about his ssäm burritos with humor and a healthy dose of self-deprecation in Lucky Peach #2. In fact, his opening line baldly states, "In 2005, I thought I had the greatest idea in the world: I was going to serve Korean burritos." And he goes on to explain the logic behind his brainchild:

It wasn't that much of a stretch of the imagination: Koreans wrap up everything. Go to a summer barbecue with enough Koreans and one of them will eat his burger wrapped in a lettuce leaf just because that's how we do it. Bossäm is a traditional dish where you sit around a big plate of pork belly (and sometimes oysters) and wrap up mouthful after mouthful in napa cabbage.

fig. c: ssäm burrito spread

But, overall, Chang's piece reads more like an attempt to restore the reputation of his poor Korean burrito (and poke fun at himself) in the aftermath of the Korean taco phenomenon: "I was such a dumbass... (A year or two later, my good friend Roy Choi started doing Korean Tacos in L.A. Now he's so successful I want to be him instead of me.)"

Now, it's easy to make your own ssäm burritos at home. Chang's Bo ssäm recipe has appeared in Momofuku (the cookbook), in Lucky Peach #1, and elsewhere (such as Sam Sifton's New York Times article on Chang's version, "The Bo Ssam Miracle"). And in Lucky Peach #2, Chang provides a complete recipe for his original ssäm burritos.

But when I finally got around to preparing Chang's Bo Ssäm at home a few weeks ago, it struck me that he had missed out on a golden opportunity. As much as I love tacos, including Korean tacos, I still love burritos enormously. And while tacos might offer more opportunities for variation and innovation, there's one category where burritos have tacos beat hands down: breakfast.

Unless you're feeding a pack of coyotes, you're probably going to have some bo ssäm and some bo ssäm fixings leftover after your next bo ssäm-athon. And you're probably going  to find yourself so ravenous for the taste of bo ssäm again, and, in all likelihood, so incredibly hungover, that you're going to want to dig in to those leftovers sooner rather than later (like, for breakfast, the very next day). Just make sure you have some nice, big flour tortillas on hand, as well as some eggs, when you do. Then you can make yourself some bo ssäm breakfast burritos, or as we like to call them...

Ssäm Bburritos

1 extra-large flour tortilla, steamed or microwaved until warm
roast pork shoulder, Bo ssäm-style, reheated
refried short-grain rice
1 egg, fried, poached, or scrambled (depending on how you like it)
kimchi
quick-pickled cucumbers
quick-pickled radishes
ginger-scallion sauce
ssäm sauce

Pile the ingredients high, but not so high that you can't actually close the burrito.

fig. d: ssäm bburrito 1

Roll and fold the burrito up tightly, and wrap with aluminum foil.

fig. e: ssäm bburrito 2

Devour.

Repeat as needed.

[we'd like to think this recipe is a Momofuku/AEB co-production, but mostly it relies on recipes from Momofuku by David Chang and Peter Meehan]

How did they turn out? Well, they tasted like "the greatest idea in the world."  The very greatest.

aj