fotofono

Seijiro Murayama
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Various factors happened to be aligned quite interestingly last month, somehow giving me a sense of urgency about organizing this Fotofono event, the last of 2010.
Patrick McGinley (a.k.a. murmer) from Framework was stopping by in NY while on his way to New England (Tartu, Estonia, is the place he currently calls home). Percussionist Seijiro Murayama was visiting from Paris for just a few days. And in those same days Keiko Uenishi (o.blaat) was going to celebrate her birthday, giving us a nice pretext for a party.
I decided to call up Ben Owen and ask him if he was into helping me to assemble the lineup for a couple of sets, in the well established tradition of the New York Phonographers. Such guidelines are simple — each participant presents a 10-minute selection of field recordings, segueing into the next one for cycles of about 50 minutes-one hour.
As a matter of fact, such standard form tends to be quite open to individual interpretation, becoming an open ground for various experimental approaches. For example, on this particular occasion, Patrick McGinley and Richard Garet decided to share their individual time slots, improvising together for 20 minutes instead of playing separate sets of 10 minutes each. o.blaat performed with feedback generated in the studio, capturing and manipulating it in real time. Daniel Neumann played selections culled from recordings made by Patrick Franke (who was not present).

As usual, the FF evening began around the dinner table – so, I have decided to take on Patrick’s joke and use recipes to complement and give context to the music posted here. I have collected most of them below, as told by their contributors. Somehow it seems like a nice and fitting way to wrap up this wonderful year at Fotofono.

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Civyiu Kkliu, Anne Guthrie, Eric Laska, Patrick McGinley/Richard Garet [51 min. 27 sec.].
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Seijiro Murayama [43 min. 00 sec.].
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Daniel Neumann (presenting recordings by Patrick Franke), o.blaat, Richard Kamerman, Gill Arno, Ben Owen [56 min. 52 sec.]

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Download zipped files: ogg [494.4 MB]; 320 kbps mp3 [330.8 MB].

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Happy birthday, Keiko!
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And now… cooking session!

The bread [Theres]

This recipe is probably not new to many of you but anyway here it comes:
In the evening mix:
3 cups bread flour
1 1/4 tsp salt
1/4 dry yeast (more in cold weather) or 20g fresh yeast
1 1/3 cups cool water

The dough will look very moist and sticky. No need to knead it, just let it raise overnight and during the day.
In the early afternoon shape the bread and place on a towel dusted with flour and let raise for 2 more hours.
Heat oven to 450F and place cast iron pot in it. When oven is heated take the pot out and invert the dough into it.
Bake in the pot for 30 min and then remove the lid. Bake for about 15 minutes more.
Let the bread cool on a rack.
Enjoy

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Minestrone Partigiano, vegetarian version. [Gill]

There is not one single right way to go about it. What’s really important is to keep track of what each ingredient will add to the whole, and also about how long each ingredient will take to cook so as not to end up with mushy peas, or hard beans, etc.

I prefer using dry beans – cannellini and borlotti, but lima and pinto beans will work just as fine. Dry beans need to be soaked separately for 24 hours or maybe more, and in the meanwhile the water changed two or three times.
Beans bring protein substance, flavor and starch, which makes the soup dense. Potatoes will also add density and also some chunky bites, but their flavor is a bit dull. Garlic, onion, celery, turnip, pumpkin and any other available vegetables may bring more depth to the soup’s flavor. It is not as much a matter of the more the better, as one of personal taste. Something that I always use in this kind of soup is carrots and sweet peas, which add sweetness and color. To increase the flavor and protein content sometimes I add a few pieces of Parmesan crust to the simmering soup. Kids in northern Italy call them ‘crostoloni’, and to find a crostolone in their own dish makes them happy.

Spices are important too. Some people have an almost spiritual relationship to them. For this soup I would carefully mix a very finely ground blend of coriander seed, bay leaves, pepper corn, rosemary, basil, nutmeg and an almost undetectable hint of cinnamon and cloves.

I like to have everything ready and chopped beforehand so once the soup is on the fire I can just check it every now and then, keep adding ingredients and adjusting the stove fire as the soup keeps gently simmering for several hours. If the broth is not quite dense when I believe that everything is perfectly cooked, I just take out a cup of beans with a slotted spoon, mash them with a fork and add them back to the pot.

Salt is traditionally added towards the end.
Commonly used finishing touches: grated Parmesan, and a little bit of some good olive oil, added to each dish according to individual taste.

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carne mechada [Richard Garet]

buy a big chunk of beef brisket.
boil it for long time until it is fully cooked and it is tender
remove from heat and let it become room temperature, and separate it by treads.

in a separate pan sáte one full head (or two) of chopped garlic with olive oil.
when the garlic starts to get golden add a big red onion either chopped or in thin rings cut in half.
after the onions gets cooked and lose their water and before they get fully soft add a crushed tomato from a mid-to-big can (something like 2 full pints of it).
then cook on low fire.

additionally, add some cumin, a touch of curry, salt, and two soup spoons of raw sugar.
basically it should look and feel like there is more sauce than meat.
then put the meat in the sauce and make sure that it’s well mixed together.
as for the wine: uruguayan red wine.
i don’t remember the name though.

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baked potatoes [Ben]

kinda too simple to mention- cut, boil, roast with olive oil salt and pepper.

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Super easy Shugiku (edible chrysanthemum leaves) Salad [Keiko]
– too easy! I’m ashamed to write as a ‘recipe’! ;p

Get:
1 bunch of Shungiku (avail from Sunrise Mart, JAS Mart, etc.  – Japanese supermarkets)
1 box of tofu (medium firm or whatever the firmness you’d prefer…) – better to be dried on paper towel if you have time (for 10 min?!)
bits of Yuzu pepper paste (green pepper version & red pepper version is avail. I used the green pepper one. – also avail from the above-mentioned Japanese supermarkets, or order online like this.
bits of Ponzu shoyu (yuzu shoyu), that is traditionally using bonito extracts in it, but the one I used is not w/ bonito, but w/ yeast extracts – pre-made bottles avail (also from the Japanese supermarkets above) & this one looks good (but never get one called ‘Aji-pon’ from Kikkoman! MSG in it.). Gluten-free version (but not w/ yuzu, it’s w/ lemon juice).

direction:
– Wash & rince the Shungiku bunch.
– Cut the clean Shungiku in 1 inch length & put aside.
– Cut the tofu in small & thin cubes (cut in half of the height, then cut in 4th of the short-side, and finally slice approx less than 1/2 in thickness of the long-side.
– mix above ingredients together. (never mind if some of the tofu would break.)
– sprinkle the Ponzu shoyu (start w/ small amount, and wait ’til you’d mix the next ingredients before adding more.)
– add fingertip-size of Yuzu pepper paste (one again, start w/ small amount. It’s very spicy!)
– Keep adjusting the balance of Ponzu & Yuzu pepper paste. It’s also recommended to leave the marinaded salad for approx 10 min to soak up the flavor before serving.

That’s it!!
It’s best to make your own home-made Ponzu but a bottle purchased from market works just fine!
Enjoy!!!

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Ok – So now I hope that everyone will be able to make their own FF events at home ; )

Final acknowledgments – recorded by Billy Gomberg, Eric Laska and Gill Arno at Fotofono, November 30 2010. Mastered by Gill Arno.
Thanks to everyone for their great contributions of one sort or another, and a special thank you to Billy Gomberg for invaluable recording help. Thanks also to Ricky Laska for handling the recorder during the last set.
Happy 2011, folks!