Things I Have Made With Food Found In My Kitchen at 3 A.M.: A Cookbook

I realize that Justin is the chef in the band, but that doesn't mean that I don't have some culinary skills of my own. Mine are just of a different variety. While Justin might know how to brulee something, or how an oven works, I am particularly talented at taking the meager, grab-bag assortment of food in my cupboards and creating somewhat edible concoctions. I decided that it is selfish of me to continue to keep these talents to myself, and have assembled a short - but growing! - recipe list for you equally meager and grab-bag blog readers to enjoy.

lemon-lime onion and chickpea salad

You Will Need:

-Onions
-One Can of Chickpeas
-One Lime
-Lemon Juice

1) Cut onion into big pieces and grill in saucepan. Cut lime into slices and squeeze juice into pan. Add water, cover, and steam onions until they are soft and clear (I think experts may call this caramelizing, but I'm not certain).

2) Use can opener to open chickpeas, drain. Put some of the chickpeas in a bowl. Leave the rest in the can on the counter all night so that they will be wasted by morning.

3) Add onions. Stir.

4) Add lemon juice to taste. Stir.

5) Enjoy. Leave dishes for another day.

Nutritional Value: Not bad


creamy mushroom-rice casserole

You Will Need:

-One Can Cream of Mushroom Soup
-Some milk, preferably skim, or water if the milk is no longer consumable
-White rice, instant

1) Boil the rice

2) At the same time, (this can get tricky), heat up milk and soup in a saucepan

3) When rice is ready, stir into soup

4) (Try to) Enjoy

Nutritional Value: Practically none


Guest Recipe: corn and white rice (courtesy of Joe Martinez)

You Will Need:

-One can of corn
-White Rice

1) Boil rice.

2) Stir in corn.

3) Repeat every night until payday.

Nutritional Value: Below average


three bean stew

You Will Need:

-One can green beans
-One can chickpeas
-One can red beans in sauce
-Onion

1) Slice onion and steam covered in pan until soft. Grill a bit with cooking spray first if needed. Set aside.

2) Heat up red beans in sauce in a saucepan.

3) Drain green beans and add to red beans. Stir while heating.

4) Add chickpeas and onions. Continue to heat and stir. Add some water if needed to keep thick consistency without burning.

Nutritional Value: Probably the best you'll get at 3 am when you haven't gone grocery shopping in 3 months

Keeping it Real: Brooklyn Edition

For those of you who have had the pleasure of coming into contact with either of the Martinez children, you will know that we keep it really, really, real. My brother brought this revolutionary idea into the family when he decided to stop showering daily in the 10th grade. Since then it has evolved into a mantra and occasional excuse. Trust me, this is going somewhere.

Last week we played our first outside-Albany show at Trash Bar in Brooklyn - particularly Williamsburg which, according to Wikipedia is a hub for indie music and a hipster haven. Who knew.


You can hear the tight-jean chafing all the way up here.

In the interest of keeping it real and full blog disclosure, let me say that I'm not a very hip person. In my hometown Michigan suburb, we didn't really use the term "hipster," we used the term "scene-kid." And I was neither. I had a livejournal (and now I have this blog. It seems things never really change). I listened to east-coast emo-rock and unashamedly loved The O.C. So, needless to say that even though I was wearing flats, I was not prepared for the 6-block radius around bedford and metropolitan.

I think Mitch put it best when he told Ian, "just remember, every person here is better than you." And I think I put it second best when I said "I've never seen so many walking, breathing stereotypes in my life." I think I also put it third best when I said "I'm having a hard time not laughing in people's faces." We took the scenic route while getting some pre-show pizza (which was much better than the post-show Thruway Roy Rogers) and I do mean scenic route in every punny connotation.

That's not to say that people weren't cool. The show went really well, and everyone who came out was awesome. We have another show in that area July 17 at Zebulon that I'm really looking forward to.

I promised that this was leading somewhere, and it is. So far I've been talking about Brooklyn and keeping it real. Well, to combine those two topics, I would like to say that at our show we met The Realest People in Brooklyn, aka, The Nuck Fuggets. They're an electro-comedy-esque duo that put on a show with so much energy even though everyone was sitting down (but laughing, to be fair.) Mitch and I decided to tell them that we had designated them with this title, and I hope that they received it sincerely.

so I realize that this is the first post back in a while, and while it was a little lackluster and didn't have all the biting wit that my posts usually have, I hope it was at least partially satisfactory.

p.s. Keeping it real only works if your reality doesn't completely suck.