JOE DOLCE NEWSLETTER
Home, CV, Press, Recordings, Newsletter Archive, Recipes, Contact
Friday May 1st, 2009
Amend Thy Face
'Amend Thy Face!'
William Shakespeare (Henry IV Part 1)
Hi folks,
I couldn’t have said it better. (Or maybe I did!)
THE PASSION OF THE MAD MAX
Is anyone else following the ongoing saga of Mel Gibson? His wife of 28 years is divorcing him. They have seven children together. Gibson has had a much younger Russian lover for years (Oksana Grigorieva) who is now having his baby. Normally, this would go under the category of Hollywood Gossip Trashbox, but Gibson produced and directed ‘The Last Temptation of Christ’, arguably the worst film ever made about Jesus by one of the worst practitioners of the Christian faith. This film is so inaccurate that it even violates the official 1985 criteria for the Correct Way to Present the Jews and Judaism in Preaching and Catechesis of the Roman Catholic Church set down by Vatican Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews.
http://www.jcrelations.net/en/?id=2061
Gibson is an avowed fundamentalist Catholic, who has LOUDLY espoused the virtues of his Catholic faith over all others – including that of his own wife!
“There is no salvation for those outside the Church,” Gibson replied. “I believe it.” He elaborated: “Put it this way. My wife is a saint. She’s a much better person than I am. Honestly. She’s, like, Episcopalian, Church of England. She prays, she believes in God, she knows Jesus, she believes in that stuff. And it’s just not fair if she doesn’t make it, she’s better than I am. But that is a pronouncement from the chair [ie The Pope]. I go with it.”
I think this is particularly hypocritical. He was willing to give her 500 million bucks to STAY with him (because divorce is a sin) but obviously sees nothing awry with being an unfaithful dog. I think it should be the reverse myself. If I was writing the Holy Rule Book, I would make divorce a Sacrament and dirty low-down cheating an Immortal Sin punishable by having your dick stapled to your big toe. But that’s me.
Aquila Earthquake Benefit
I’ll be joining Kavisha Mazzella, La Voce Della Luna, Andy Baylor, Gianni Marinucci, the Connies, Roberto D’Andrea, A Signora, Carmelina Di Guglielmo, and others to be confirmed, for the Aquila Earthquake Benefit, on Sunday May 24th, at the Coburg Town Hall. Laura Lattuada will be the MC. More details soon.
TOGETHER THROUGH LIFELESSNESS
“ . . for nigh on ten years Dylan's been writing songs that deal in Americana clichés . .” BBC MUSIC
Bob Dylan’s new album, Together Through Life, is out. I’m not holding my breath - what I’ve heard so far sounds curiously B-grade. (So what’s new?) According to The Guardian, nine of the ten song lyrics were co-written by Robert Hunter, known as a "non-performing member" of the Grateful Dead! The liner notes will read: All lyrics by Bob Dylan with Robert Hunter, except This Dream of You, which is lyrics and music by Bob Dylan. However, all of the album's music was written by Dylan, besides a short passage borrowed from Willie Dixon, on My Wife's Home Town. (Mein Gott! Is Bob actually crediting someone that he’s lifted lyrics from? Well, I never!) Now I am quite familiar with the Grateful Dead’s material and I have never considered them high exponents of the art of lyric writing. Wild ass jamming, yes. Poetry, no. But maybe on the next album, Bob could co-write some lyrics with Leonard Cohen. Between the two of them, assuming they could stand being together in the same room, they ought to be able to come up with a lyric worth reading. Here’s one of the few sites where you can look at all the lyrics on the new album:
http://expectingrain.com/dok/div/ttl_lyrics.pdf
An excerpt, and video clip, from one of the new songs:
Beyond Here Lies Nothin'
Oh well I love you pretty baby
You're the only love I've ever known
Just as long as you stay with me
The whole world is my throne
Beyond here lies nothin'
Nothin' we could call our own
Well I'm movin' after midnight
Down boulevards of broken cars
Don't know what I'd do without it
Without this love that we call ours
Beyond here lies nothin'
Nothin' but the moon and stars . .
(yada yada . . . .groan.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vz9OtKbBABc
Rolling Stone Review:
http://www.rollingstone.com/reviews/album/27386686/review/27534262/together_through_life
For Dylan fans, here’s a recent five page interview with him from his website. Excerpt:
Q: What do you think of the Stones?
Dylan: What do I think of them? They’re pretty much finished, aren’t they?
Q: They had a gigantic tour last year. You call that finished?
Dylan: Oh yeah, you mean Steel Wheels. I’m not saying they don’t keep going, but they need Bill [Wyman]. Without him they’re a funk band.
They’ll be the real Rolling Stones when they get Bill back.
http://www.bobdylan.com/#/conversation?page=1
(Note: And Bob Dylan will be the real Bob Dylan when we get Bob back.)
For the rest of you, here’s a little something you might find amusing:
monkey-skin pillbox hat
it’s said that an infinite number of monkeys
typing for a month, or a year
would be able to discover all the works
of William Shakespeare
i think that half that number
working from a trailer
could come up with the collected works
of Norman Mailer
and a mere cageful, at the Melbourne Zoo
would be more than willin’
to have a go, with some alphabet blocks,
at the recent songs of Dylan.
~Joe Dolce~
Then again, some of you might not. :)
FAVOURITE LETTERS OF THE WEEK
Joe,
Just a quick message to tell you how much I enjoy reading your newsletter. You are obviously a very passionate and intelligent human being! Plus a sense of humour. Rare!
Kindest, Elena
(Note: Well, thank you, Elena. I feel like the Tin Man who said, when he finally got his brain: " The sum of the square roots of any two sides of an isosceles triangle is equal to the square root of the remaining side." - which isn’t exactly correct, by the way, as what The Pythagorean Theorum actually states is this: "The square of the hypotenuse of a right triangle is equal to the sum of the squares on the other two sides". Still must have been a little rust left up there in the brain pan.)
Hi Joe,
We were recently on holiday in Merimbula and was a great surprise to see you in the newsagent at Cobargo! My 12 yr old daughter has only recently become aware of your famous song from years gone by, so we had to bite our tongues and not sing... Regards, Bronwyn
(Note: Well, Bronwyn, see the above photo for advice on a bitten tongue and regarding the song, as Shakespeare once said . . . . . . . . .)
Hey Joe
Wondering whether you might be able to give our Melanesian/Indigenous Australia Sing Sing US Tour a plug to anyone who may be interested. Its kinda special,and I don’t think too many people get to hear the West Papua story or hear Torres Strait islands, Yolngu and Papua new Guineans singing and dancing together. Appreciated mate, David Bridie
SING SING WEBSITE - http://homepage.mac.com/jaimemurcia/singsing/
Joe,
RE: High School Memories ‘God bless the U.S. and its allies against terroists [sic].!!!’
Do you think Mr. Kent is a reactionary Rethuglican? Or is he aspiring to be a Colbert sound-a-like? Hoping he's going for irony! Bill Lempke
(Note: Bill, Mr. Kent can irony my shirts anytime.)
Hi Joe,
You and that newsletter are bloody uncanny. Hope you and yours are extremely well.
"What creates value is scarcity. These days we have more digital photos that we can ever print out. But in a thousand years, our ancestors may be lucky to find one or two mementoes of their old relatives from the 21st century. Just an ordinary photograph of an ordinary person, taken in the 1800s, today looks like a precious art piece."
Just after reading the above, and running late, I drove into Pomona to a meeting at the Noosa Museum, aka Cooroora Historical Society to formulate an upcoming event. The Museum takes pride in its large historical photographic collection. As part of National Trust Heritage Week, two other photographers and I are taking part in an exhibition next month at our local gallery of "Pomona - Then and Now" featuring old photos of local buildings, landmarks and people alongside contemporary photos showing them as they are now. The motivation is that unless modern photographs are accessioned into the collection.... well, exactly what you said.
May I have permission to reproduce your very pertinent sentence in connection with the project with acknowledgement to you, of course?
Kindest regards, Robyn Jones, Kin Kin (Yes, where the floods were!)
(Note: Robyn kindly pointed out, in another email, that my reference to ‘ancestors’ should really have been ‘descendents.’ Whoops. Eh duh.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F37mep_HOxU
Hi Joe....
Checked out Hurricane Hazel (Mayor of Mississuaga) and sidetracked to the World Mayor Award (who knew? like those fancy gowns and medals ain't enough?)
Apparently Hazel is not the only fabulous Mayor in the world. But what struck me was some of the names of the finalists in recent years. Melbourne's own John So must be a tabloid newspaper headline writer's dream: "So, Now What?" or "So-So Results for Council [whatever]" or similar, I imagine...
But how about radio and TV journalists who have to read out these names whenever the Mayor does something newsworthy? I mean, John Hickenlooper of Denver is just silly, but reporting on the latest statement by Mayor Ramiaramanana of Antananarivo, Madagascar would surely require some practice (and an enviable sense of musical rhythm. Although the fact that his first name is Patrick kind of ruins it.) But my fave was the Chief Minister of Delhi. Puerile as it may be, how could you not get the giggles reading any late night news concerning the venerable Dr Dikshit.... Aloha, Justine Stewart
Joe,
lemme tell you about my first meeting with jeff buckley. january 28th 1994.
at the time i owned a cd shop that sold coffee, or a coffee shop the sold cds too.
my cousin danny halloran had brought the idea back from europe... this way way before starbucks sold cds and before borders had entered california. we called it 'discafe' from smashing disc and cafe into one word. my real job (income wise) was program director at 91X here in san diego, where i had worked since 1986. when a copy of Live at Sin-é arrived at the radio station around november 1993 i was mesmerized. at the time in san diego we had a ton of local artists that would play the coffee house circuit. steve poltz, jewel kilcher and gary jules' band called 'our town pansies' were regulars at discafe. we were also lucky enough to have charles thompson, better known as frank black of the pixies stop in one day for a cup o' joe, his wife was having her hair done nearby. he agreed to come back and do an acoustic show as well. but it was january 28th 1994 that i will never forget. i had been transfixed by Live at Sin-é since the day i had opened my mail about 3 months earlier....and when the record label asked for a date at discafe... i could not wait to see him pull it off live. i remember arriving earlier to meet jeff and make sure he got a t-shirt (ask any touring musician) and anything else he needed.
such a nice man, i thought, very pleasant and seemed super stoked to be playing the show that night. as he took the stage and started to perform, my thoughts went from 'such a nice man' to 'whoa! how in the hell does that guy do that?'
he seemed possessed while he performed, almost as if the guy i had met a few moments before had been replaced by a shamanic dancer/singer/guitar-player.
this was a few months before he recorded the first full length album but i do remember the depth of the material and his command of the art of performance.
he really did seem like he was a different human being while singing and playing.
he sold out every cd in the place that night and after the show i was very very afraid to go back into out tiny little office/dressing room to thank him for the show.
but i did... he eventually came back at we had him on the air and he played more shows in san diego with the band at smallish venues where you could really get close and intimate with his art. but on that day in january 1994 my life was changed forever. i have not experienced, since that day, a performance so amazing. here i am, some 15 years and 3 months later it still gives me the chills. michael halloran
Joe,
RE: And I Only Am Escaped Alone To Tell Thee
This newsletter hit three of my favorite people. Leonard Cohen, whose singing of Hallelujah is so different from Buckley's, but equally magical, and whom I was privileged to hear in Oakland last Monday. He came on stage like the Energizer Bunny and sang for almost four hours solid. Incredible really. One of Jeff's most memorable performances was at the Bataclan in Paris. The interaction between him and the French audience is hard to describe, but you can hear it at http://www.jeffbuckley.com/prt/prt.html (Media, Albums, Live at the Bataclan). Jeff's cover of Edit Piaf's and Marguerite Monnot's Hymne à l'amour with its minimalist, almost inaudible, guitar accompaniment, will never be equaled. As to Melville, what can one say, "Moby Dick" is a Monument to our species capturing both its grandeur and its degradation. Thanks, keep them coming. Dick
(Note: Dick, (may I call you Moby?) Buckley does a tender version of James Shelton's classic (made popular by Eartha Kitt and Nina Simone - ‘Lilac Wine’: )
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDYQkP1ZUhQ&feature=related
hi joe!
RE: And I Only Am Escaped Alone To Tell Thee
what a great newsletter...
i know quite a few middle-aged men who seem to have reverted to sexual immaturity. but, i suspect that even if this triggers some process which might allow them to live indefinitely, their wives will probably kill them. so we'll never really know...
that mahler piece is lol funny!!!!!! i am forwarding it to many musician pals!
sadly, i can't try out the whale recipe. i only have a small range and cooktop. and front door for that matter.
love, Joan Besen
(Note: Joan, here’s a smaller fish recipe this week below that should fit snugly through your cat door!)
Joe,
You might be interested in a reading of Moby Dick. Unabridged, 19 cds, by William Hootkins. A great performance. It is a Naxos release, regards, Gay Bilson
(Note: I’ve always wanted to try a whale steak although I realize that it is slightly politically incorrect in today’s environmental climate. But speaking of politically incorrect eating, in her inspiring book, Plenty, restaurateur Gay Bilson talks about her idea of making Amiable Juyce (blood sausage) out of her own blood, for the SEVENTH SYMPOSIUM OF AUSTRALIAN GASTRONOMY, in 1993. After consulting with pathologists and lawyers, she was instructed that she would have to tell everyone in advance what they were eating or risk being sued. The gradual plan was to collect about 3 litres of her own blood and then follow the basic blood sausage recipe pattern - but only one of the five cooks in her restaurant wanted anything to do with the idea, the taboo was so strong. She shelved the idea but, in retrospect, felt she should have gone ahead with it on her own. This story - and the idea of taboos-in-cuisine – is a particular favourite subject of mine and inspired my own recipe for ‘Joey Dolce’ - for a joey kangaroo -which, so far, no butcher will have anything to do with! Gay was way ahead of her time, however, as UK artists, Beagles and Ramsay, are currently in Australia doing just what she wanted to do:
http://www.thevine.com.au/tv/entertainment/human-blood-sausage-art.aspx
Airmen Made Sausages From Their Blood
By Sophie Borland
The recipe includes onions, bacon and spices. Two German air force sergeants are facing a court martial after trying to mass produce sausages made with the blood of their comrades.
The two men, who are based at Fürstenfeldbruck, a fighter squadron headquarters, near Munich had already trialed a traditional recipe using their own blood.
But they were caught trying to recruit fellow servicemen and family members to ensure a constant flow of raw materials.
One of the soldiers posted pictures of himself on a popular German website siphoning off their blood and adding it to a recipe for the traditional Blotwurst sausage using onions, bacon, spices and breadcrumbs.
The incident only came to the attention of senior officers after one of their fellow soldiers reported the fact that he had been asked to donate some blood for the scheme.
The man is reported to have said: “I have been asked to give blood for sausage-making and I want to know if this is against regulations.”
The sergeants, aged 25 and 29 and identified only as B and G, were suspended immediately last December, the German defence ministry confirmed yesterday.
The recipe for the sausage, which apparently came from one of their grandmothers, was found in the belongings of one of the men after they were arrested.
It read: “Make sure the blood is fresh and the bacon cubes diced finely with a nice proportion of fat to lean. Do not use too many breadcrumbs but if the blood starts to curdle stir in a teaspoon of wine vinegar.”
The men are reported to have told investigating officers that they both had an “interest in cookery”.
ALTERNATIVE PERSPECTIVES ON SWINE FLU
By Dr. Joseph Mercola
(New York Times Best Selling Author, Dr. Mercola is author of The No-Grain Diet and Take Control of Your Health. He has also been featured in TIME magazine, LA Times, CNN, Fox News, ABC News with Peter Jennings, and the Today Show.)
“This is NOT the First Swine Flu Panic
My guess is that you can expect to see a lot of panic over this issue in the near future. But the key is to remain calm -- this isn't the first time the public has been warned about swine flu. The last time was in 1976, right before I entered medical school and I remember it very clearly. It resulted in the massive swine flu vaccine campaign.
Do you happen to recall the result of this massive campaign?
Within a few months, claims totaling $1.3 billion had been filed by victims who had suffered paralysis from the vaccine. The vaccine was also blamed for 25 deaths.
However, several hundred people developed crippling Guillain-Barré Syndrome after they were injected with the swine flu vaccine. Even healthy 20-year-olds ended up as paraplegics.
And the swine flu pandemic itself? It never materialized.
More People Died From the Swine Flu Vaccine than Swine Flu!
It is very difficult to forecast a pandemic, and a rash response can be extremely damaging.
As of Monday April 27, the worldwide total number of confirmed cases was 82, according to WHO, which included 40 cases in the U.S., confirmed by the Centers for Disease Control. But does that truly warrant the feverish news headlines?
To put things into perspective, malaria kills 3,000 people EVERY DAY, and it's considered "a health problem"... But of course, there are no fancy vaccines for malaria that can rake in billions of dollars in a short amount of time.
One Australian news source,3 for example, states that even a mild swine flu epidemic could lead to the deaths of 1.4 million people and would reduce economic growth by nearly $5 trillion dollars.
Give me a break, if this doesn't sound like the outlandish cries of the pandemic bird-flu I don't know what does. Do you remember when President Bush said two million Americans would die as a result of the bird flu? (article)
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/04/29/Swine-Flu.aspx
(Thanks to Joe Creighton)
What I’m Reading This Week
Benjamin Britten – Hymn scores.
Tales of Ovid – Ted Hughes translations of some of the Metamorphoses. Hughes has an interesting way of translating. (Something that I have done before with Lorca and Goethe.) He doesn’t actually know the languages of the poems that he is translating. He gets someone to give him a literal transcript of the text of the poems and then he recreates the poem in his own words. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t.
What I’m Watching This Week
Chrysalis – with Marthe Keller. French sci-fi noir about memory manipulation. I love Marthe Keller who I haven’t seen for years since I first fell for her as the German terrorist in the brilliant film version of Thomas (Red Dragon) Harris’s book, Black Sunday, about an attack on the Superbowl.
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas – based on the novel by Irish writer John Boyne. Fable – a children’s story - centers around a simple nine-year-old German boy named Bruno who, because of his Nazi father's job, is forced to move from his home in Berlin to Poland, on site of a concentration camp. From his bedroom window, Bruno spots a fence behind which he sees men in 'striped pyjamas'. He befriends a jewish boy, Shmuel, his own age behind the fence whom he has clandestine meetings with each afternoon. “The very premise of the book - that there would be a child of Shmuel's age - is, according to critics, an unacceptable fabrication that does not reflect the reality of life in the camps." Rabbi Benjamin Blech, an outspoken critic, writes, "There were no nine-year-old Jewish boys in Auschwitz -- the Nazis immediately gassed those not old enough to work."
Jeff Buckley – filmed ‘live’ in Chicago, in 1995.
What I’m Listening to This Week
The Best of Yoshikazu Mera. Sublime Japanese counter-tenor.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0teUMNC948
Ways of Dealing With the Burdens of Life
* Accept that some days you're the pigeon,
And some days you're the statue.
* Always keep your words soft and sweet,
Just in case you have to eat them.
* Always read stuff that will make you look good
If you die in the middle of it.
* Drive carefully. It's not only cars that can be
Recalled by their maker.
* If you can't be kind,
at least have the decency to be vague.
* If you lend someone $20 and never see that person again,
It was probably worth it.
* It may be that your sole purpose in life is simply be kind to others.
* Never put both feet in your mouth at the same time,
Because then you won't have a leg to stand on.
* Nobody cares if you can't dance well.
Just get up and dance.
* Since it's the early worm that gets eaten by the bird, sleep late.
* The second mouse gets the cheese.
* Birthdays are good for you.
The more you have, the longer you live.
* You may be only one person in the world,
But you may also be the world to one person.
* Some mistakes are too much fun to only make once.
* We could learn a lot from crayons... Some are sharp, some are pretty and some are dull. Some have weird names, and all are different colors, but they all have to live in the same box.
*A truly happy person is one who can enjoy the scenery on a detour.
(thanks to dai woosnam)
Giovanna e Angiolino
Rude & Funny Italiano song!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbcvhVA66lw
(Note: from my friend Cinzia Ambrosio, who translates it for me approximately: “ it talks about how the wife cooks (lasagna), cleans, irons etc & then when she is about to rest the husband says 'what the &^%* are you doing?' so she says vaffanculo... then it talks about the hubbby & how he takes care of the farm & then when he is about to rest she says ' what r you doing, I need you to take me shopping' & he replies vaffanculo... it ends on an 'all is fair in love & war' (not said specifically but this is the gist of it.”)
RRR FM Film Buffs Podcast
Sat, 14 March 2009
“Joe Dolce reviews Goya’s Ghosts, the documentary Trumbo and Screamers 2; Ian Thompson reviews Vampyr and Eden Lake; everyone has something to say about Let The Right One In; director John Evagora and actor Steve Mouzakis are in the studio to talk about 296 Smith Street, screening as part of Flickerfest; Nick Matteo reviews Watchmen at VMax; and we finish with filmmaker Rohan Spong discussing his documentary T Is For Teacher, screening as part of the Melbourne Queer Film Festival 2009.”
Direct download & Podcast:
http://rrrfm.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=443884
The Eh Duh! Awards
After stopping for drinks at an illegal bar, a Zimbabwean bus driver found that the 20 mental patients he was supposed to be transporting from Harare to Bulawayo had escaped. Not wanting to admit his incompetence, the driver went to a nearby bus stop and offered everyone waiting there a free ride. He then delivered the passengers to the mental hospital, telling the staff that the patients were very excitable and prone to bizarre fantasies. The deception wasn't discovered for 3 days.
***
A man walked into a Louisiana Circle-K, put a $20 bill on the counter, and asked for change. When the clerk opened the cash drawer, the man pulled a gun and asked for all the cash in the register, which the clerk promptly provided. The man took the cash from the clerk and fled, leaving the $20 bill on the counter. The total amount of cash he got from the drawer... $15.. [If someone points a gun at you and gives you money, is a crime committed?]
(thanks to John E. Jacobs)
~ FAMOUS DOLCES OF THE WORLD ~
Danilo Dolci
Anti-Mafia Activist
Danilo Dolci (1924 – 1997) was a social activist, sociologist, popular educator and poet.
He is best known for his opposition against poverty, social exclusion and the Mafia on Sicily and is considered to be one of the protagonists of the non-violence movement in Italy. He became known as the "Gandhi of Sicily". In the 1950s and 1960s, Dolci published a series of books (notably, in their English translations, To Feed the Hungry, 1955, and Waste, 1960) that stunned the outside world with their emotional force and the detail with which he depicted the desperate conditions of the Sicilian countryside and the power of the Mafia. Dolci became almost a cult hero-figure in Northern Europe and the United States. Young people idolised him and committees were formed to raise funds for his work. In 1958 he was awarded the Lenin Peace Prize, despite being an explicit non-Communist. He was twice nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), which in 1947 received the
Nobel Peace Prize along with the British Friends Service Council, now called Quaker Peace and Social Witness, on behalf of all Quakers worldwide. Among those who publicly voiced support for his efforts were Carlo Levi, Erich Fromm, Bertrand Russell, Jean Piaget, Aldous Huxley, Jean-Paul Sartre and Ernst Bloch. (Wikipedia)
RECIPE
LONG PIG
“in Samoa and Tonga, human [meat] was known as ‘long pig,’
for their long torsos and porky taste.” Chromosome 8
Porky taste. I can dig it. At least we don’t taste like chicken.
In the years I have been cooking, I think I have come up with about four unusual dishes – combining the traditional with the innovative - that I am particularly proud of:
1. Kangaroo Braicole (winner of the Hepburn Springs Swiss-Italian Festival pasta sauce contest - open division.)
2. Joey Dolce (which must remain theoretical at this stage as it is near-on impossible, and still politically incorrect, to eat a joey kangaroo. Can’t understand why: we eat baby everything else. Using an emu egg, this dish incorporates both of the Australian National Crest animals. )
3. Persimmon Pie (first prepared at the Wintermoon Folk Festival, with Queensland persimmons, between sets.)
4. Baccala alla Vagina Dentata
I haven’t published the baccala recipe since 2003 so I thought I’d bring it to your attention again. I’ve been adding sweet potato lately which I haven’t seen before. Not for children, the prudish or the faint hearted!
(Baccala, including bones and skin, made with red cherry chilli peppers, green Sicilian olives and orange sweet potato.)
I’ve given it this name because the three bright colours make it beautiful to look at but eating it can be deadly if you are not careful - like walking on a dangerous and narrow goat path in the Sicilian hills. (Or lying with a dangerous and narrow goat herder’s wife.) One wrong step to left or right (ie. the red chillies or the tiny fish bones) and you’ll be sleeping with the fishes.
Ingredients:
1 large section of baccala, including skin on, and bones, soaked in three changes of water, a day in advance (or 2-3 days if particularly salty.)
20 bright green Sicilian olives
half cup of hot Cericci Red Cherry Peppers (or red jalapeno peppers)
2 medium red onions, cut into wedges
2 cloves of garlic, roughly cut
four medium potatoes, peeled and cut into long quarters
1 sweet potato, peeled and cut into long quarters
2 whole fresh tomatoes, roughly chopped
1 fresh sprig of oregano
freshly ground black pepper
half cup of water
olive oil
flour for dredging
Method:
Soak the baccala overnight, changing the water three times, to remove salt. You do not want your baccala too salty.
Pat dry with paper towels and set aside.
Cut into 2 inch pieces.
Dredge in the flour.
In a large fry pan, with a good lid, fry the fish a few minutes in olive oil until slightly golden. Crunchy bits are good.
Remove fish from pan and set aside in a bowl to catch the oil.
Brown the red onion wedges in the pan.
Add the potatoes and brown.
Add the remaining ingredients and scrape the bottom of the pan to loosen all the browned bits.
Place the fish on top, pour the oil that has drained off the fish over the top and cover.
Bring to boil, reduce heat and cook over very low flame for about half an hour.
About half way through the cooking, uncover, and give everything a gentle toss, trying not to disturb the fish too much.
Return the cover and finish cooking.
To serve, place on a serving dish and scatter some fresh parsley.
Serve with a green salad. For 2-3.
You have to eat this dish slowly otherwise you will choke on the bones but this forces you to savour the flavour and intensifies the experience. Much like you know what . . . .
Ode to a Baccala
after Dylan Thomas
The fat that through the green frog fries the fish
Simmers my salt cod;
No salmon-stream sucking swim up,
But to sleep, to whit, to dream, 'neath a salt sea sand,
And I am dumb to tell the dumb dumbwaiter
That at my tablecloth goes the same crooked carp.
O Baccala swimming a Dreamfed Dead Sea Swamp,
Mouth of salt, fish-knifed and filleted
Free of Gnostic scale,
Gutted like a fishy Infidel
Caught red-finned with mermaid porn,
Fish-buried in a barrel's belly
No Ahab needle to bug-pin and winnow
The Great White Minnow
But to lay four score and seven league asunder
A salty sarcophogas to slumber.
Three apple-dappled days o' fresh winter's weather water
And it doth suffer a salt-change
Into something chewy and strange,
Of its bones is choking made,
And I alone live to suck the tail.
Call me Ishmael.
Roll me in cornmael.
Allahhhhh . . .
Bacallahhhhhhhh . . .
Forsooth!
Or for Dante!
Al dente!
To the tooth!
~ Joe Dolce ~
Newsletter Archive and Recipe Index
COMMENTS AND WHATNOT
“Do They Know It's Christmas? (1983 version) is a little known 1983 charity song written by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure specifically for celebrity supergroup Band Aid to raise money for the starving millions in Wales. The record was released on November 29th 1983 in time to vie for the coveted Christmas Number One slot. Reaching No 176 in the UK singles chart, the song was the precursor to 1984's Do They Know It's Christmas?, which featured the more famous version of Band Aid. The writing of the song became a headache for both men. Geldof and Ure tried in vain to find words to rhyme with Welsh place names such as 'Aberystwyth' and Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch. A heated debate also arose over some of Ure's lyrics as Geldof rightly pointed out that "there probably would be snow in Pontypridd this Christmastime - especially on the more hilly areas!" The line was eventually discarded, but was adapted for the 1984 version. Geldof also played a prank on Ure saying that the charity song could be a cover version of Joe Dolce's Shaddap Your Face. Ure's response wasn't recorded.” wikipedia
'Sherbet? Leo Sayer? Joe ‘freakin' Dolce? Why haven't these guys been nailed for crimes against humanity already?' Derek, SMH
"... I'd rather be Joe Dolce than Coldplay any day of the week..." Mr. H "the-rocker.co.ukTOP 100 REVIEWER
"... Great artists like Lennon, Bowie and Joe Dolce were really against explaining the meaning behind their art...." The Jimmy Nicols Triple J Unearthed
‘TELSTRA investors yesterday took the Joe Dolce "itsa-notsa-bad" line and marked up the ailing stock by 14c, or 4 per cent.’ Tim Boreham, The Australian
“GRAVITATIONAL FORCES - The cover [version] that reviewers most recognize as a choice pick to match [Robert Earl] Keen and his career outside of mainstream music is Joe Dolce's "Hall of Fame". Keen sings:
‘My Home ain't in the hall of fame
You can go there you won't find my name
And my songs don't belong on top forty radio
I'll keep the old back forty for my home.’ wikipedia
Joe Dolce CD, 'The Wind Cries Mary,' chosen as ALBUM OF THE YEAR by 97.1 FM, 3MDR Radio, Melbourne!
Listen to some excerpts via the link below:
Joe Dolce Electronic Press Kit
THE FINAL HURRAH
Retrospect
Two behavioural psychologists make love.
After, one says to the other, "That was good for you. Was it good for me?"
(thanks to cinzia ambrosio)
