Chicken Tikka Masala and Bummers Eve, Broken Prayer, Sleater-Kinney, and Andrew Thomson

I got this recipe from Epicurious and it turned out really great! What IS Chicken Tikka Masala? Its history is foggy. There's a legend that it was invented in Scotland and involved Campbell's Tomato Soup. Or it evolved from Murgh Makhani (Butter Chicken). Either way, it was created in the UK but has Indian origins, in so far as the spices involved. All I know is I wanted to make something like the CTM I've had at Indian restaurants in the U.S. and this definitely fit the bill. I have had supposedly "English-style" CTM at a British restaurant and it was gross but I can't speak to what it's actually like in London.

I hope the cardamom added a lot of flavor because not only did I have trouble finding it at the store, I don't have a mortar and pestle for crushing them so I just did my best using the back of a knife. I'm not used to working that hard for such tiny little seeds!  All the other spices were easy to find and I'm sure I'll use them again. Oh and I used ghee for the first time; what took me so long? Something that will make everything buttery without burning up in the pan? Sign me up! Also, fatty style, I think the creamier the CTM, the better so we putt he full amount of cream while some of the recipe reviews cut the cream in half. No thanks! With all the cream it came out the perfect shade of orange I desired! A+

We went in hard this week; it was a two day affair and we were able to listen to a lot of music over the course of making our CTM. The first day we made the marinade for the chicken and listened to the Bummers Eve. Before I even heard the music, I was pretty much on board because their name and album art are great. The music itself is upbeat, fun and a silly which is also up my alley. The vibe reminds me of Tweens (previously featured in the Shrimp and Grits post) and it turns out they are both from Cincinnati so I guess there's a cool scene going on there. I've always dismissed Cincinnati for the very dumb reason that they are known for chili and I have an irrational need as a Texan to hold our chili above all others. I'm an idiot! B+            

The second day of Records and Recipes was actually Tapes and Recipes because we have finally broken down and started buying cassettes. Tapes are making a comeback because they are cheap to make a novel to the youth who did not grow up having to deal with them. We didn't have a tape player but I recently found my old Cricket doll and she has a a tape player built into her back; the sound is not great and her eyes very creepily go back and forth while she plays. So Matt bought a cheapie cassette adapter to save the music to his computer.

Sleater-Kinney is one of my all-time favorite bands and they released a cassette with 2 live tracks on one side and 2 songs that I thought were unreleased but it appears they were bonus tracks on the No Cities to Love vinyl (which I have but I honestly only listened to it once and then went back to Spotify and hadn't realized I was missing out on two songs!) "Heavy When I Need It" is a really cool song; doesn't sound like a traditional S-K song to me because it's all Carrie vocals but it's groovy all the same."The Fog and the Filthy Air" is a little more classic S-K both structurally and more Corin-focused. A

Making his second appearance on R&R, the other tape we heard was "Honesty is a Confidence Problem" by Drew Thomson (the guy from Single Mothers I gushed about before in the Meatloaf post.) It was released in 2013 but only recently discovered by me. It's 4 acoustic songs, all of which feature that lyrical specificity I love about his music. It sounds to me that Bad Catholics is about an abortion (or maybe a miscarriage) and could really give Ben Folds' Brick a run for its money for "pretty songs by guys about not having a baby." All 4 songs are great - "Bus Pass" gives me that very Canadian geography I love, "Wrong Girls" gives me that asshole vibe he has perfected with Single Mothers, and "Shore" delivers on the thing where he's always using his own name in songs: "Drew, It's time to sober up, man, or we're all gonna leave." A

We also listened to a record Matt had ordered by Broken Prayer. I liked it a lot; very angry punk but with synths and the guy's voice is excellent in its desperate-sounding-ness. Also, personally, I like punk with lyrics that a)I can hear/understand b)are thoughtful or funny. Broken Prayer seems to be going for thoughtful and I dig it. Also, the songs are short with only one clocking in at 3 minutes. Beautiful. Also, they are from Chicago, much like Mystique Summers Madison from RuPaul's Drag Race; pictured below, in her most famous scene.  A