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This is way cool; if you disagree, I pity you.
The year after this gig in Tokyo he fell out of a hotel window in Amsterdam and died.
Recipe taken from Nigella Christmas by Queen of Gastroporn Nigella Lawson (Chatto & Windus, £25)
This involves a simple, but amply satisfying procedure. In advance, as soon as you get your bird home, remove any trussing, take out the giblets and stash them separately in the fridge. Before putting the turkey in the fridge, wash the inside of the bird with cold running water. Drain well and blot dry with kitchen towels.
The important thing is that you take your bird out of the fridge a good hour before you want to start cooking it, so that it’s at room temperature before you begin. Preheat the oven to 200°C.
Now comes the bosomy bit. You take your turkey and, using your fingers, wiggle some space between the skin and breast of the bird, being careful not to tear the skin. (Mind you, turkey skin is so tough, you’d probably need talons to rupture it.) Into this space you’ve made, squeeze good sausage meat, or the contents of your favourite butcher’s sausages (900g of either should be enough for a 5.5kg turkey), pushing, pressing and coaxing so that it covers the whole breast.
Then, from on top of the skin, mould it a little with your hand so that the breast is voluptuously but smoothly bulging. Secure the flaps of skin over the cavity with a metal skewer so that the sausage meat doesn’t escape during cooking.
The skin really crisps up as this turkey roasts, and the sausage meat, which drips down into the breast as it cooks, keeps the meat from drying out. To ensure the turkey doesn’t brown too rapidly, cover it loosely with a sheet of buttered foil until halfway through the cooking time about 2 hours 40 minutes total for a 5.5kg bird with its sausagey faux-bosom). You could then dispense with the chipolatas (or stuffing if you can live without it), so this is a good way of cutting down on dishes to prepare, without making huge sacrifices.
Motörhead’s singer on the best tour diets, American cheese and food fights.
(Source: Observer)
My mother made this upside-down cake that went horribly wrong. I made her make it again and again, for years, because I liked it so much. It never worked, yet it always worked, if you get my drift.
I don’t eat vegetables. I eat potatoes and green beans and that’s it. I don’t care if you eat 200 artichokes, you still won’t last through a tour. Mushy peas, I like. Brussels sprouts, foul. I won’t eat anything with onions in whatsoever, I hate them – me and Ringo Starr have that in common.
When I lived in Heaton Moor Lane in Stockport in the early 60s there’d be 35 other people living in the same room, so it was kind of cramped. The basic diet consisted of creamed rice. Punch two holes in the can with an old beer-bottle opener and you can suck the Ambrosia out, no problem.
I developed a taste for cold food. I couldn’t afford room service so I started stealing food uneaten left out on trays. Cold spaghetti, cold chips, cold steak. Cold pizza is a perfect breakfast, with lots of salt.
Girls used to steal food to feed us, out of their parents’ fridges and from stores. I knew one bird who could steal a box of cereal from a shop while only wearing a tiny mini-skirt and T-shirt. Where Phyllis hid the cornflakes I’ll never know.
I was in the Rockin’ Vicars, which was the first British band to tour behind the Iron Curtain. A lot of photos were taken of us next to milk churns. We had dinner – some terrible borscht – with President Tito [in Yugoslavia], but I was down under the table and don’t think he was particularly impressed.
Living in LA makes it so much easier to get food. I can have a full meal with two waiters and a table, brought to my door. Or order pre-cooked bacon strips, shipped to me in a polystyrene container of dry ice from Omaha Steaks. Yet I can’t buy boil-in-a-bag fish with parsley sauce, and there’s no proper Heinz baked beans, they’re in a different sauce. But mainly it’s the cheeses I object to.
My rider is a few biscuits, a few cakes, a meat plate, a cheese plate, some cigs, some JDs. I must say, I’m not completely fixated on Jack Daniel’s – it’s just that it’s the one with the best distribution system worldwide. At one point I mainly drank Southern Comfort mixed with Special Brew. What was I thinking?
If a bus driver says “You will not make a mess on this bus,” that’s tempting fate, isn’t it? I love food fights.
I once judged a spaghetti-eating contest, with Sam Fox. I just said ‘”Him first, him second and him third'”. They were gross, faces buried in huge bowls, covered in marinara sauce, I couldn’t tell one from the other.
I make a very good steak. I’ve never worn an apron – it’s beyond all reason. I prefer a completely splatter-free diver’s outfit in the kitchen.
Motorhead’s new single, Born to Lose, was released Monday on EMI.
One does not usually associate Italy in the last century with the symphony as a musical form. Ottorino Respighi wrote an early, derivative (although sumptuous) Sinfonia Drammatica but towering figures of Italian music like Goffredo Petrassi and Luigi Dallapiccola did not write symphonies. (Petrassi did compose a very fine – if increasingly unbearable to listen to, I find – series of eight concertos for orchestra). Obviously a guy with a lot of time on his hands.
I invested some years ago in the Marco Polo set of Gian Francesco Malipiero’s eleven numbered symphonies and five other named sinfonias played by the Moscow Symphony Orchestra conducted by the late Antonio de Almeida. These are fascinating compositions, rightly acclaimed by the leading Malipiero expert John Waterhouse. Whilst applauding Marco Polo and de Almeida’s enterprise however, I cannot but feel that the performances are not much better than “run-throughs” by the Moscow players. These works need much better performances to reveal their real depth. I would though certainly encourage others to give these symphonies a try! Anyone else know the recordings?
I am also intrigued to hear the single symphony composed by Ildebrando Pizzetti which, I have read, is a fine work. Alfredo Casella wrote two early symphonies (apparently influenced by Mahler) and a third symphony at the beginning of World War II but none of these is currently available – Casella’s music is only slowly beginning to be played much again after his very high pre-war reputation was damaged by his association with Mussolini’s Fascist regime.
CPO did record a couple of symphonies by Franco Alfano – primarily another composer of dull Italian operas – but I would certainly not rate these as masterpieces.
Many do tend to think of Italy – at least before the Berio, Nono, Maderna era – as a country of opera. It is worth taking some time perhaps to explore those composers who also wrote symphonic music.
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