RetroCookGirl Does The Sweet Potato, Unplugged…Plus: More Music to Cook By
The naked sweet potato, no cinnamon, not rolled over dough and morphed into a pie. Just sprinkled with gooey oil or butter goodness for a true “take-me-back” feeling and baked or fried into tasty strips otherwise known as fries. Kids will inhale them with glee; imagine a vegetable for which kids will wait with wonder. The essence of holiday spirit, I’d say…
That reminds me…I think Ray Charles’ very last CD (the mother of all “mature” artists’ duet albums) features a version of “Sweet Potato Pie”with James Taylor, which is rich and warm and rich, thick with feeling is Diana Krall with Mr. Charles on the same effort, “Genius Loves Company”…That reminds me of a super-easy sweet potato recipe which will appear below. First, in no particular order, and only a 1/10th of a really comprehensive list of interesting music/talk to listen to…while cooking anything…
Random songs/albums from random decades, in utterly random order (as if The Geico gekko or a particularly precocious bird kept diving in and out of my ear, whispering, “Just thought of another one, ‘luv…)
- “That’s The Way I Like It” K.C. and the Sunshine Band
- Any Chris Botti on Trumpet (he’s done about nine or ten albums, the last one snagged a ton of Grammys) “To Love Again” is a particularly great jazz album.
- Barenaked Ladies (anything and everything they’ve done, because it’s clever) especially “Be My Yoko Ono”
- Lyle Lovett, especially anything on “Live in Texas” – “M-O-N-E-Y”, “She’s No Lady” and “That’s Right (You’re Not from Texas) which makes you want to own an oil well immediately and be a native
- Heartbreakingly beautiful songs, starting with Lovett: Charlie Chaplin’s “Smile” from his soundtrack of songs from movies.
- “What’d I Say” from the one and only Ray Charles
- “Dani California” Red Hot Chili Peppers
- And now for something completely different: Bill Cosby’s hysterical (from start to finish) take on all sorts of things. It’s great for keeping you going through the tedium of chopping and called: “Why Is There Air?” Comedy on audio is very intimate….and compelling.
- Anything off “Guero” by Beck
- Anything from Ben Folds
- “A Case of You” — from its own composer and lyricist Joni Mitchell or for a more jazzy and less folk feeling, a most pretty interpretation by Diana Krall – on “Live in Paris”
- “She Runs Away” (when you feel like you’re trapped in the kitchen) by Duncan Sheik
- “For What It’s Worth” – Buffalo Springfield stands the test of time
- “Body and Soul” – Billie Holiday. Blame the melancholy on the onions
- The original and still the best: Etta James (not the Jaguar commercial) doing Etta James
- Moody’s Mood, (it will elevate yours) on George Benson’s anthology album. Benson makes it timeless.
- The entire Quincy Jones Millennium Collection/Greatest Hits
- “Never Saw Blue Like That” from Shawn Colvin
- “You & Me & The Bottle Makes 3 Tonight” by Big Bad Voodoo Daddy
- “One Line” by PJ Harvey
- “Tempted” inimitably, from Squeeze
- Miles Davis: “It Never Entered My Mind”
That’s off the top of my music-loving head…more to come…with more recipes…
Until then…the sweet potato: unplugged, unadorned, straight up. (Sweet potato pies are very nice, but this is the real, simple and straightforward version: It’s Essence de Sweet Potato;Sweet Potato 1.0),.
Sweet Potato French Fries
- Keeping the skin on potatoes, wash thoroughly. Only throw out potatoes which appear damaged and really ugly;green is a strong hint that you’re hanging with a bad potato. Don’t worry, your instincts will let you know the difference; preheat oven to 375 degrees.
- Brush the oil or a thick paste of butter all over the potato (yes it really is that foolishly simple) and bake until crusted. Don’t overcook(more than an hour and 10-15 minutes)—a toothpick should be able to pierce the baked sweet potato.
- Allow to cool. With sharp, small knife, cut potato into pieces resembling French fries.
- OR cut before sweet potato is baked and in ¼ oil in frying pan, drop uncooked “pre-fries”. Gently turn the “fries” until they become crusted at each end; carefully cut into center of a few “test-fries” with a fork, to be certain that each fry will be able to hold its own.
Nothing worse than a flabby or flippy fry.
The scent should give your finished fries away; they should be somewhere between a real French Fry(white potato) and a succulent, lusty orange flavor that tastes more “peachy” than you’d imagine. A sweet touch, indeed!
