Food Tastes Good

The aisles of my local beautifully disorganized used bookstore disgorged something truly fabulous and strange into my waiting hands a week ago. It's perhaps the oddest, and certainly the most amusing cookbook I've ever set my food-writing-loving eyes on. What is this culinary wonder, you ask? Well, my friends, it just so happens to be a collection of recipes sollicited from prominent indie rockers.

It's called (ahem) I LIKE FOOD, FOOD TASTES GOOD

It's fascinating to see what some of these bands cook and eat ... or don't. The highly predictable (Pork Loin with Poblano Chiles from the oh-so-Portland-trendy Decemberists or They Might Be Giants' "Countrypolitan," which involves pomegranate juice) trades twos with the "... what??"-inducing. Death Cab for Cutie's "Peanut Butter and Veggie Sausage Sandwiches" spring to mind. ("Shouldn't be tasty, but it is," says their singer.) And who on earth would have predicted that the Violent Femmes, in all their rough-around-the-edges glory, would be cooking wild boar ragú?

The dishes themselves are amusing enough, but the recipe instructions are frequently (though not always - it's like a treasure hunt) written in a sort of odd email vernacular that's half recipe, half manifesto, half insight into what famous-ish musicians do when they're not on stage. "the honey will not want to mate with the lime at first, but it will." "Make some jasmine rice, why don't you?" "When the lentils are officially finished cooking, put on side 1 of the Beatles' Revolver LP."

Devandra Barnhart, though, is the one who takes the cake ... or the fried bananas, as it were. His ingredients list for "my favorite recipe for AFRICANITAS RICAS you shall require!" includes "many bananas! two eggggs!! SOUR CREAM!!! HONEY!" And this instructions passage cracks me up:

"STIRRRR!!!!!! leave the bowl alone and go get another bowl, crush the graham crackers into a fine fine powder! like sand!
SIR
LAWRENCE
OF ARABIA!!!!!!!
put it in bowl number two!"

Not to be outdone, from Jonathan Richardson of the Early Day Miners (who, I'll admit, I've never heard of), a cocktail comprised of ice, sake, and root beer. Says its creator, "it's about half and half as far as drinkability." He calls it the Karate Kid, and I'm planning on taking his word for it (shudder), but if anyone else wants to take the challenge ...

Look out, Julia Child. The rockers are a-comin' for your tiara.