Kalila: The Slug and The Shell (More Metaphors)

My latest song and live video 🙂

Stop by The Central on November 29th for Fundraiser Fridays to hear me perform at 7:30!

The Slug and The Shell (More Metaphors)

One board
off my body
replace it with two more.

The years we spent
caught in
suspense,
lingers
yes, it shows.

Stuck and still
waiting
thinking of
the same things
who said it would stop?

We build
we absorb.
And wood to flesh
bury me in this house
for good.

For Good.

Snail, snail.
You wouldn’t dare leave this house!

Vanilla Matcha Kale Smoothie (A.K.A Mega-F@%king Awesome Smoothie)

The Mega-F@%king Awesome Smoothie

Although I started this blog for musicians who like food rather than health nuts and athletes, it would appear that the food I like to make is appropriate for the latter. On a whim I’ve  decided to take up Ashtanga Yoga again and since I’ve been biking downtown on a regular basis I’m noticing and increased need for protein. To top things off I’m a vegetarian (sort of) so protein is already a source of concern for me. What I’m saying is that there’s going to be a lot of protein/ smoothie posts for the next little while because I’m attempting to come up with creative solutions to combat potential deficiencies.

I actually drank some of this before taking the picture… I couldn’t wait.

Most people know by now that Kale is a super veggie. If you’ve spent anytime on the internet looking at food blogs you would have learned this by now because kale is EVERYWHERE! And truly for good reason, the stuff makes you feel like a boss. Besides being high in iron and fibre with absolutely no fat, kale is a great source of vitamin K (cancer preventing supposedly) and vitamin A ,which helps repair skins cells. To top it all off kale is high in antioxidants (stuff that prevents you from the bad stuff that hippies are always warning you about). Being ever so knowledgable of the ultimate powers kale possesses, I decided to throw in another super-hippie cancer preventing thang to create a mega-f@%king-awesome antioxidant smoothie. That supreme ingredient I’m spending way to long building up to revealing is matcha. Matcha is finely ground up green tea leaves that will provide people with an energy boost and extreme levels of antioxidants. Basically this stuff is also boss at preventing the bad stuff from giving us cancer. Combine these two with protein powder and you’ve got a great drink to have after a morning exercise. I recommend visiting your local tea shop to buy some matcha, you can also find it at various health food stores.

The song to drink with this awesome cancer preventing godly drink is Morcheeba‘s “Gimme your love” from their latest album Head Up High.

This is that Matcha stuff I’m talking about

Ingredients:

• 1 tbsp. Whey Protein Powder
• 1/2 tsp. Matcha
• Two Kale leaves (stems removed)
• 1/3 cup Almond Milk (or cows milk… or any kind of milk.)
• 1 Banana
• 1 tbsp. Agave or Maple Syrup

Directions:

1. Combine ingredients together in a high powered blender such as the Nutri Bullet.
2. Blend until completely smooth
3. Drink and enjoy!

Sources:

http://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-4408/Top-10-Health-Benefits-of-Eating-Kale.html

“Culinary One Night Stand”

There is a Museum and it exists not on a street corner of some major city but within the span of 56:41 minutes recently released by Brian Rudy + the Architects.  This past Tuesday, Hugh’s Room offered the rare opportunity to sit close to the artist and absorb an album that was over a decade in the waiting. Rudy was amazing with his unusual acoustic guitar playing that draws upon a spirit of recycling and leaves nothing to waste.  He uses the neck of the guitar to reprocess sounds that most other musicians abandon to rot in the open garbage pit of guitar playing.  The Architects were also able to capitalize on the musical angles by filling in with amazing tones and talent that touched on the Celtic.  Candide and Museum are already on the faves list while Dining Alone is a nugget for its lyrical contribution of a “culinary one night stand.” Loved it!  Previous tunes from the acclaimed Divided Man also returned. Be sure to have a listen to the Museum as it dabbles with the concept album and brings with it echoes of Pink Floyd and Nick Drake.  The evening combined for something special and here’s hoping Rudy will complete the shrimp recipe for the Starving Musicians Kitchen!

-Guest Blogger

Spicy Tofu Breakfast Sandwich

I’m always trying to find new ways of cooking Tofu and I will admit, most of the time it doesn’t even come close to meat… actually it never comes close to meat. What I can accomplish is making the stuff around Tofu taste incredible and spicy! I’m a huge fan of savoury breakfasts and this Spicy Tofu Breakfast Sandwich has become a new favourite of mine. Finally a breakfast without eggs! Oh and in regards to the amount of chipotle and chili powder I used in the cheese, I recommend using only 1/4 tbsp. I used about 1/2 tbsp. in mine by accident, and was surprised when it worked out. Though really it’s only because I’m a spice fiend! For those of you who don’t want a crazy amount of spice in the morning, just use the 1/4 tbsp.

As a side note, this sandwich goes great with my Ultimate Breakfast Smoothie.

Braids also goes great with this sandwich! Braids is a Canadian band from Montreal, with a Cocteau Twins influenced sound that gives me butterflies. Hopefully they will give you butterflies too!

Ingredients:

• 1 Slice of Multigrain Bread
• 1 tsp Olive Oil
• 1 avocado
• 1/3 Extra Firm Tofu
• 1/2 cup Mozerella cheese
• 1/4 Red Pepper
• 1/4 tbsp. chipotle/ chili powder
• salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Turn Broiler on.
2. On the stove heat a cast iron ridged griddle at medium heat. Cut extra firm tofu into half inch thick rectangles and place onto hot griddle, turn once tofu has grill marks.
3. Pour olive oil into a flat cast iron skillet, turn heat on medium.
4. Cut peppers and onions into long strips and toss into the flat cast iron skillet. Stir occasionally. Slice Avocado into wedges and put aside.
5. Mix Mozzarella, chipotle and chili power with salt and pepper in a small bowl.
6. Put a single piece of multigrain bread in a toaster. Toast to a very light brown.
7. Remove peppers and onions from heat once they are hot and slightly wilted. Also remove tofu once both sides have grill marks. To assemble the sandwich place toast on one of the cast iron skillets and layer tofu, onions, peppers and avocado. Carefully place spicy cheese mix on top of the layers and put into the oven for 2-3 minutes. Keep a very close eye on the sandwich, broilers have different strengths, you don’t want your sandwich to burn!

P.S I recommend eating this sandwich with a knife and fork!

The Ultimate Breakfast Smoothie

Raspberries and Banana with rolled oats and flax seed

Yesterday was my dad’s 50th Birthday and my mum had the brilliant idea of getting him a Nutri Bullet. For those of you who don’t know, a Nutri Bullet is a little piece of heaven that happened to land in an aisle at Canadian Tire. But actually, Nutri Bullet is an offshoot of the Magic Bullet, which can whip anything into a delightfully smooth concoction. Rather than being oversized, clunky and expensive like most high powered blenders like the Vitamix, the Nutri Bullet is fast, effective, light weight and not ridiculously pricey. Since the Nutri Bullet has been in my house for less than 24 hours, I cannot give a long term review on the product, but so far I’m impressed. This morning I used it for my “Ultimate Breakfast Smoothie,” which took less than 30 seconds to become fully blended together, which is an improvement from what my clunky Krups was accomplishing. Don’t get me wrong, I love my Krups blender, but only for when I need to make smoothies for a few people or a soup… and then even still, it probably won’t get much attention once I get my hands on a Bamix Immersion Blender….

Raspberries and Oats were meant to be!

As per usual, this morning was a struggle to get myself out of bed, but when I finally emerged, I had this Ultimate Breakfast Smoothie waiting for me. Okay, it wasn’t waiting for me, I had to make it, but it took barely anytime with the Nutri Bullet. I love putting rolled oats in my smoothies because they give a delicious nutty flavour and provide me with an alternative way to enjoy oats rather than through a granola mix or hot oatmeal. Try this smoothie with other seeds and grains, I encourage experimentation! Also, you can easily substitute the milk for alternatives like soy, almond or coconut milk.

While you’re making this tasty smoothie, have a listen to Dr. Dog! Great morning music to make you wake up!

Ingredients:

• 1 Banana
• A handful of Raspberries (5-7)
• 1/2 cup Rolled Oats
• 1 tbsp. Flax Seeds Optional: 1 tbsp. Chia Seeds
• 1/3 cup Milk or Almond Milk or Coconut Milk or Soy
• 1 tbsp. Protein Powder
• Optional: Maple Syrup

Directions:

1. Toss berries, banana, oats, flax, milk, protein powder and optional maple syrup into blender or Nutri Bullet

2. Blend until smooth. Drink and Enjoy!

P.S It’s super easy to make smoothies…

Nutri Bullet

Spiced Red Rice Pudding

Red Rice Pudding

I’m pretty excited about this healthy dessert because for the most part I tend to crave the opposite. Red rice is great for getting Omega-6 and Omega-3 fatty acids and it’s also surprisingly high in protein, iron and potassium. I used to absolutely hate red rice, or at least I’m still stuck in an adolescent phase of despising any rice other than white rice. But I noticed a bag of red rice in my cupboard and decided that today I would be an adult and eat my healthy rice!  I made it with some tofu and vegetables (recipe in the making), but still had a hard time choking down the healthy. That’s when my mum mentioned that when she was living in the Philippines with my dad, they used to eat red rice pudding all the time. It was apparently their favourite dessert for a while. So I decided to try make my own vegan-ized red rice pudding!

Delicious

Ingredients:

1 cup Red Rice

1 ½ cup water

½ cup Almond Milk

1 very ripe Banana

1 tsp. cinnamon

½ tsp nutmeg

1 tsp. maple syrup (Or any other kind of sweetener)

Optional: Medjool Dates

Directions:

1. Rinse red rice and drain. Add to a pot with water and bring to a boil with the lid on. Remove lid and reduce heat to medium-low. Stir occasionally and cook for 20-30 minutes until rice is puffy.
2. Mash one banana while you wait for rice to cook.
3. Bring temperature up to medium-high and pour almond milk, spices and banana in with rice.
4. Cook for 10 minutes, until pudding is thick like oatmeal. Stir as needed. (While pudding is cooking you can toss in a few pitted medjool dates for an extra sweet treat!)
5. Remove from heat, pour into a bowl and drizzle maple syrup. Add a bit more spice if you’d like and enjoy!

White Chocolate Key Lime Pie

I love key lime pie… this is happening soon.

Dear Man Man, A Confession

Dear Man Man,

I have a confession. I snuck into your concert at the Horseshoe Tavern. But it was only because your tickets were sold out! I bought your albums… does that help? FORGIVE ME.

-Kalila (a.k.a A Starving Musician)

Okay I needed to that off my chest. I’m normally a very complacent human being, I obey the rules, I pay the full TTC fare. The most badass thing I’ve ever done is sneak food in a tampon box into Canada’s Wonderland and a bag of chips, which I duct taped to the inside of my leg under my dress, into a movie theatre. (I’m passionately against inflated prices for food and I really, really like chips.) Last Friday was an exception to my obedient lifestyle, I needed to go to Man Man and the very fact that the show was sold out further reinforced my desire to break the rules.

Man Man is a band of multi-instrumentalists from Philadelphia who play music written by the lyricist and freakazoid pianist Honus Honus. The first thing you need to know about Man Man is that they sound the way Tom Waits, Beirut and Metallica would sound if they had a creepy/hairy baby that performs in dingy bars. By the way, I say that with pure love and admiration. Man Man is obviously it’s own band and has created their own style and it’s pretty awesome.

Man Man just released their latest album, “On Oni Pond” in September, not surprisingly the album is rich with wit, puns and musical genius.  I’m also really glad I snuck into their concert because it was an experience I will never forget. The entire band was crazy enthusiastic creating a high-energy atmosphere that even got a non-dancer like myself to break out the moves. The crowd went especially crazy when Man Man came on for their encore playing some of their old hits from Six Demon Bag. To conclude, if you haven’t started listening to Man Man, you probably should, these guys are great and are likely going to keep impressing. Buy their albums here or go to a CD store you lazy shmo.

Great performers, great composers, greatness all around!

The Dodos:

Great performers, great composers, greatness all around!

The Dodo’s released their sixth album, Carrier in August. The Dodo’s never disappoint and although this album has a darker, more ambient sound to it than their previous albums, I had it on repeat for a couple of weeks. This has been the case with every Dodo’s album I’ve listened to, I’m a fan.  This is the first time I’ve seen the Dodos live and I couldn’t be happier with the experience. The Dodos are incredibly engaging with their audience, their live performance was as good if not better than their recordings and at the end of the show, I got to geek out and talk with them. The nice thing about being a fan of musicians that play in small venues is that you get opportunities to meet your idols.

What turned out to be especially exciting is that Meric Long, the lead singer of The Dodos is totally into cooking! There was another girl talking to him and she actually gave him a cookbook the last time The Dodos were touring in Canada. After hearing this I immediately launched into telling Meric my Starving Musician’s Kitchen idea (which is a secret until I decide to write a post about it…). This led to Meric telling me about his favourite chicken recipe. It turns out Meric used to work in restaurants in San Francisco before going into the music industry!  I’m still waiting for a facebook message with a chicken recipe, but I’ll survive if it never comes, the experience in itself was all I needed!

In addition to finally seeing The Dodos live, I also met Joe Haege, the lead singer from 31knots. Joe has been touring with The Dodos playing the guitar and he recently released a solo album under the name Vin Blanc/ White Wine called “In Every way but One.” A quick Joe Haege google search reveals that he is “the creepiest guy in Portland…” and I have to admit, “In Every Way but One” reinforces this idea, but also shows that Joe Haege has some serious talent. I’m thoroughly enjoying this album and I highly recommend checking it out! Click here to read my post, which likens Joe’s album to celery.

Here’s a Dodos video for a song off their latest album. Do you like it? Yes? Awesome, buy an album!

Joe Haege’s Latest Album is a bit like Celery

For those of you who don’t know, Joe Haege is the lead from 31Knots and currently a solo musician under the name Vin Blanc/ White Wine.  Joe has also worked with bands such as Tu Fawning and Menomena. I’m not going to give you a whole history of Joe’s career you can look into that by following a wiki link (come on, I’m too lazy to copy that stuff). What I would like to talk about is Joe’s latest album, “In Every Way but One,” which he gave me when I met him a few weeks ago at a Dodos concert in Toronto.

First of all, I had no idea he would be touring with The Dodos, second of all I was kind of thrilled. After the show I awkwardly approached Joe to confirm that he was in fact the lead from 31Knots. We talked for a little while about his music and the odd coincidence that I, a fan of 31Knots, would know about the Portland band. That’s when Joe announced that he wanted to get his solo album for me. When Logan Kroeber, the drummer from The Dodo‘s heard that Joe was giving me his latest album he said something along the lines of, “oh no you’re going to ruin her innocence!”

At the time I didn’t really get what he meant. I TOTALLY DO NOW. And it’s great. Phooey to innocence. If lost innocence means exposure to good art that’s fine with me. On the inside of CD cover of “In Every Way but One” Joe talks about his struggle in the music industry in terms of gaining recognition and his coming to terms with the reality of his career. This album is a product of Joe coming to terms with his frustrations and accepting his passion for music and I think it’s a thoroughly enjoyable and honest piece of work. This album reminds me of an Aldous Huxley quote I once saw on the internet, “I’m afraid of losing my obscurity, genuineness only thrives in the dark, like celery.” On that note, “In Every Way but One” is a lot like celery, it grew in the darkness of obscurity and it’s pretty great. This album is also calorie free… it might even help you lose a couple calories. (Terrible pun.) You can listen/buy his album by clicking here.