Special Episode: Classic TV, New Music and a Side of Pasta
2023-05-20 00:20:43
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Hi, I'm Kim Severson, a reporter on the Food Desk. People who listen to the Daily might remember me from our Thanksgiving venture into the history of bad ways to cook your turkey.
The air fryer's awesome.
Okay, but seriously, can you put a turkey in an air fryer?
A whole Turkey, No.
Well, I'm back and I have something new that I think you're going to like, Hi.
Hello, listen, we're going to make it work.
It's like jazz.
We've been working on a brand spanking new audio project here at the Times. And it's designed to help you dig into the nooks and crannies of culture you might not have explored before. Maybe listen to some new kinds of music.
She's what's next, she is what's new.
Put it on the bucket list.
Maybe pick up a new book. I just started crying while reading to my child, cook a new recipe. Well, what if I just dump some of the hot water over the basil?
MM smells great.
Just think differently about something you do every day.
You can shake things up in an instant, which is something that I think that we forget.
I'll be here for the next few Saturdays to give you a sample of what we're calling NYT shorts. These stories are short, sweet bites delivered to you direct from our critics and reporters.
Hello, my name is Jason Zinnerman.
I'm Katie Weaver, my name is Minju Park.
I'm Maya Phillips.
My name is MJ. Franklin.
I'm Manohla Dargis. You can find them on our new app, NYT Audio, which is out now.
Okay, so here we go first up. My colleague Elizabeth Vincentelli, who covers performing arts for The Times, she recently rediscovered an old childhood favorite, the television show Columbo.
I started watching Columbo with my dad. I must have been around, I want to say, 13 or 14, and we would watch TV together on weekend afternoons.
My name is Columbo, I'm a lieutenant from the police.
We both loved mysteries, and Columbo was one of our favorites.
Is there another way out of this house?
By water.
The general's got a yacht and a slip back of the house, I see.
We loved watching that show, and I sometimes wonder if it's not because he was driving a French car.
This isn't a department car, is it?
No, this is mine.
He drives a Peugeot and we had a Peugeot. It had no air conditioning and it was incredibly hot in summer and we would stick to the plastic seats. It was horribly uncomfortable.
But we had the same car as Columbo, like Total Bond, right there.
Do you ever consider getting another car?
I did not really think about Columbo for decades, until 2020, the pandemic, and I have no idea from what murky area of my brain this came. But I felt I want to watch Columbo again.
Rewatching Columbo felt like such it was like going into a warm bath.
My name is Elisabeth Finchantelli, I write for the Arts Pages and I love Columbo. I am not ashamed.
Columbo was created in late 1960s, and it's about a California detective who's played by Peter Falk. And Columbo has a very, some might say, formulaic structure. I like to think of it as tried and true. So it's not possible to spoil Columbo because each episode of Columbo always followed the same structure. We see the entire murder first.
Jimmy.
We see the whole thing and then we see the cover-up.
That's a list of some of the top men in organized crime on the West Coast. One of these men had Jim killed.
But we realize as we go along that we actually are not seeing the whole thing. The murderer has usually forgotten some key details that someone is going to bring up and that someone is Lieutenant Columbo.
Who are you? My name is Columbo, I'm a lieutenant.
Whose main attribute, I would say, is rumpled.
It feels like everything about him is rumpled, his clothes are rumpled, his hair feels rumpled, his speech feels rumpled.
Something else was in there. Oh yeah, what do you think? It was 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8..
He has this very odd slouch, he walks almost kind of hunched.
Whenever I see a pretty young girl like you doing all that smoking, I say to myself, Why does she take the chance?
Often, he smokes a cigar that you just know smells disgusting. You can just tell, Hey, wait a minute.
Cigar.
And the classic Columbo villain is rich and or powerful, whether it's like a chess master or a chef, or there's a conductor who actually is powerful and rich.
I'm fascinated by money, aren't you? Yeah, I'm fascinated by money, but what it can do, that's all, yeah.
Yeah, they think they can get whatever they want. And then this guy, this guy in his rumpled clothing, turns up and wrecks their beautiful plan. Some men, lieutenant, do not want to look like an unmade bed.
Columbo is an unconventional detective. He is such a normie detective in many ways that it becomes completely extraordinary. This guy solves a complicated case with nothing else but his brain, that's it. He turns up at the scene of the crime and he starts asking questions.
You don't mind if I ask you a personal question, do you?
No.
What'd you pay for those shoes?
I think about $60.
I stepped into some water yesterday, I ruined mine. You don't know where I could get a pair that looks like that for around $16 or $17..
And he keeps hovering around.
You do whatever you have to do, and I'll just tag along and don't you worry about it.
And asking questions that don't seem to make much sense, say, what kind of nightlife do you have around here?
Nightlife none, no partying.
He was always looking like, Oh, um, well, what about this?
I'll tell you what I was curious about. Do you have a moment?
Well, what about that?
Is this a copy? He just thought of one thing you own this, but I'm not sure I understand.
I don't quite follow what you're saying.
Can you explain to me what's happening?
You always wear a beauty mark, only this morning you don't have one on.
I don't understand, isn't it funny how people are different now? Me? If I found my partner dead, I'd never think of opening my letters. I'm just not getting this. Can you please explain to me?
Which is, of course, the greatest trap of all. It's basically a hunting show, It really is like the most laid back hunting show ever, based entirely on talk and at the end, big reveal. He pretty much explains to them how they did it.
Columbo What the hell are you doing? Oh, just a little phone demonstration, sir, to show how a man who's already dead can appear to be alive.
The whole point of the show is not who did it, or even how they did it, because we know that it's how he's going to get them.
You know what? I found out? They actually use poisons when they make cosmetics.
And that's just the best feeling in the world.
Very good lieutenant.
It's very reassuring for the order of the world. And I get it, not everything is for everybody. Columbo is my jam, it's a lot of people's jam. People often say, Oh, the can of poo-poo, it's comfort food or it's just a sandwich.
Well, this is a really good sandwich. Oh, it is delicious, I love it.
Ok.
A sandwich might be great to eat in front of the television, but if we're talking about nostalgic TV, we have to talk about nostalgic food, too. For me, you got to go with a bowl of pasta and I know just the guy to teach you how to make it, my pal Sam.
Think of him as your dinner coach.
Tonight, you should make ham and cheese pasta with a fistful of peas.
I'm Sam Sifton, an assistant managing editor of The New York Times and the founding editor of New York Times Cooking.
Here's some comfort food of the first order. It's like, you're seven years old eating this dish, and yeah, yeah, it's ham, it's cheese, it's peas, it's pasta. But together, there's a kind of alchemy that happens that delivers you to a place of immense comfort and joy.
It's like a hug.
A lot happens in this dish all at once. And so I think the first and most important thing is to, and I hate to sound fancy, but is to set up what they call a mise en place. That is, get all the ingredients that you need to make the dish out on the counter in front of you. And there are not many of them. You have a box of shells.
What size shells? Not too big, large shells, not the huge ones.
Not like the stuffed shells kind.
The ones that are about the size of a knuckle, a little shell.
Hold a cube of ham kind.
Shells hamsteak What's a hamsteak? It's just a thick slice of ham.
I'd never bought a hamsteak before.
You can find it at the butcher, you can find it in the case at the supermarket. And you just dice that into nice little cubes. Yeah, perfect size. So you've got your shells, you've got your ham, you've got your cheese. Generally, I call for like, a good Swiss, but what does that really mean? You know what is an excellent cheese for this dish?
Good old Jarlsberg, because it melts like a dream, really easy to work with, it's available in every store, probably on the planet. And then your peas, peas, please, and for peas again, I'm going to sound like a fancy pants.
I hate myself for this sometimes, but I think you want to go with the organic frozen peas, and I got the organic kind, Why? because they're sweeter. Okay, so you have all your ingredients ready to go.
Now it's time to cook. Set a pot of salted water on a high burner and get it up to boil. That's what you're going to use to cook your pasta. The pasta is going to take what 8 to 12 minutes, so while it's in there, you want to brown your diced ham.
How to do that? Put a skillet on the stove. medium-high heat big old pat of butter. When it starts to foam, Get the ham in there, spread it out over the skillet, let it brown.
Toss it a few times, let it brown some more. Won't take forever.
Whew, one done, that's the ham.
When they start hopping out of the pans, they're done.
Third thing you have to do grate that cheese.
Doesn't have to be pretty, right?
Nope, simple stuff doesn't need to be beautiful because it's all going to melt.
This is going to be some very cheesy pasta.
And finally, you have the peas. I like myself to cook them just for a few moments in the pasta water, just before I'm going to drain the pasta.
Alright peas in.
Saves a pot, doesn't get them overcooked. And then you can take your drained pasta and peas. Put it in a big bowl with the shredded cheese, add the ham. No stealing ham, mister. Mix it all around. And then look down at this creation, look at the pink of the ham, the green vibrancy of the peas.
Beautiful, melting ivory color of the cheese.
So much oozy cheese.
And finally, those glistening shells holding, if you're lucky, a single pea or a single piece of ham in it.
Pasta.
You're sitting pretty, you're like a child wrapped up in a blankie, eating delicious food, more ham.
Yeah, look, there's more ham there.
You got to eat the pasta too, honey, not just the ham.
And it tastes like childhood and happiness.
Yeah, yum.
Delicious, delicious, okay. Next up some tunes. Every week, our brilliant music team combs through dozens of new songs, so you don't have to. Here is this week's playlist.
I'm John Perelis, the chief pop music critic of The New York Times. With some new music to enjoy this weekend, we've got the latest release from a pop superstar, The Return of a post-punk legend, some music to move your feet and more.
Ed Sheeran has a new album out. it's called Subtract. It's produced by Aaron Dessner from The National, who's probably better known now as the co-producer of Taylor Swift's albums Folklore and Evermore.
Sadness always finds an end. This track, called Borderline, is in the same introspective zone as those swift albums, and it's about facing some dark moments and trying to move on.
And every chapter has an end.
Last year, Sheeran lost his best friend, Jamal Edwards. Edwards got Sheeran onto YouTube and was crucial to getting his career started. All the way through the song, you can hear Sheeran trying to pay his respects and hold on to find his balance between sorrow and survival.
That's Ed Sheeran with Borderline.
This next track is Para Mover los Pies by Daimey Arrocena. The title of the song translates as to Move your feet, but the song isn't just about dancing, it's actually a song of exile.
Daimey Arrocena grew up in Cuba, steeped in Afro-Cuban traditions, but she got over it. She ran away from the island. Four years ago, she found her way to Puerto Rico, which has its own Afro-Caribbean culture.
In the lyric to this song, Arrocena bluntly denounces Cuba's dictatorship, and she urges Cubans to fight for your freedom so that Cuba and Puerto Rico dance again.
That was Daimey Arrocena with para mover los pies.
Theodora Laird, from London, has stripped her performing name down to Feo F-e-e-o.
This new song, Iris, unfolds more like a soliloquy than a song, as if it's extrapolating from the jazziest impulses of Joni Mitchell. There was a time when we braided our hair and dreamed of Atlantis. The lyrics are like a conversation with a long-time, far-away friend. The song is a very complex composition, bouncing off its baseline, but it feels spontaneous, like anything can happen.
Maybe I could run away someplace new to see.
I'm young, I could start again and get lost in shades of blue and green.
That was Iris by Feo.
Back in 1979, New York's lower East side was dirty, smelly and threatening, but rents were cheap and artists took advantage. There was a lot of creativity. Downtown Bush Tetras formed in 1979, and they completely distilled that vibe tough, funky, down-to-earth, trusting no one.
Now, the two surviving founders of the band, guitarist Pat Place and singer Cynthia Slay, have revved up bush tetras again, with Steve Shelley from Sonic Youth on drums.
This song, Things I put together, is scrappy and funky and self-aware. The song insists that building things is important, even if they don't last. Here's Things I Put Together by Bush Tetras.
I put my stamp on it.
I went into the kitchen, took some fizzy water, I took it for my daughter.
That's what I mean, I'm loud.
Finally, let's listen to one of my all-time favorite instruments, the steel drum. It's percussive, but it can sustain melodies. If you ever have a chance to go hear a Trinidadian steel drum orchestra live, go for it. Recordings just do not capture that sonic joy.
But here's an avant-garde, analytical approach to the steel drum. Olaf Dreyer was half of the Knife, the electronic group from Sweden. He and a fellow electronic musician, Mount Sims, have collaborated on an album built from realistic and electronically tweaked steel drum sounds.
Hybrid Fruit is an 8-minute instrumental that holds a steady pace but keeps changing.
It's minimalist and systematic, but it feels oh-so-human.
That was hybrid fruit by Olaf Dreyer and Mount Sims. I'm John Perelis, thanks for listening.
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This episode was produced by Tina Antolini, Elissa Dudley and Crystal Duhaime. It was edited by Wendy Doerr and engineered by Rowan Nemesto, Corey Schreppel, Daniel Farrell and Sophia Landman. Special thanks to Paula Schumann and Sam Dolnik, thanks for listening and I'll meet you back here Saturday.
I'm certainly not as good looking as Michael Barbaro, but you can't tell that on radio.
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