Playlist: Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Carolina Chocolate Drops / Why Don't You Do Right?
White Stripes / Jolene
Black Keys / Howlin' For You
Clinic / Welcome
Four Tet / Angel Echoes
Owen Pallett / The Great Elsewhere
Archie Bronson Outfit / Run Gospel Singer
The Fall / Y.F.O.C./Slippy Floor
Vampire Weekend / Horchata
The xx / VCR
Gotan Project / La Gloria
Jonsi / Animal Arithmetic
Gil Scott-Heron / The Crutch
Beach House / 10 Mile Stereo
Sebadoh / Mind Reader
Male Bonding / Weird Feelings
CocoRosie / Lemonade
Avi Buffalo / Coaxed
School Of Seven Bells / IAmUnderNoDisguise
Kate Bush / Hounds Of Love
Fierce Creatures / Satan Is A Vampire
Racelegs / Fine Pines
Blake Jones & The Trike Shop / Your Sad Party Dress
The Suppressors / Marcus Wesson
Trumpet Solo / Hard Working Economy
Let's Wrestle / I'm In Love With Destruction
Arcade Fire / Antichrist Television Blues
Conor Oberst & The Mystic Valley Band / Big Black Nothing
Tracey Thorn / Why Does The Wind?
She & Him / Gonna Get Along Without You Now
New Pornographers / Moves
Harlem / Spray Paint
Pavement / Cut Your Hair
Shearwater / Castaways
Cold Cave / The Trees Grew Emotions And Died
Xiu Xiu / This Too Shall Pass Away (For Freddy)
Sleater-Kinney / Good Things
Elliott Smith / No Name No. 3
Horse Feathers / The Drought
Quasi / Bye Bye Blackbird
Cake / Alpha Beta Parking Lot
Apples In Stereo / C.P.U.
Cyndi Lauper / Eleven Days

Playlist: Monday, June 7, 2010

Kate Bush / Sat In Your Lap
The Greenladies / Foxxes
Black Keys / Never Gonna Give You Up
Janelle Monae feat. Saul Williams / Dance Or Die
Sleigh Bells / Tell 'Em
Sleepy Sun / Rigamaroo
Pains Of Being Pure At Heart / Say No To Love
Neverever / Coconut Shampoo
Foals / Miami
Dan Black / Symphonies
Crystal Castles / Fainting Spells
Besnard Lakes / Like The Ocean, Like The Innocent
Gorillaz feat. Mos Def & Bobby Womack / Stylo
Beach House / D.A.R.L.I.N.G.
Dirty Projectors / No Intention
Sigur Ros / Vid spilum endalaust
Local Natives / World News
Fierce Creatures / Phantom Athletes [Live in KFSR studio]
Arcade Fire / Wake Up
Broken Social Scene / All To All
Fierce Creatures / The Great White [Live in KFSR studio]
Rafter / A Frame
Darwin Deez / Bad Day
Fierce Creatures / The Brute and The Beast [Live in KFSR studio]
Smoosh / La Pump
Animal Collective / Fireworks
Radiohead / Down Is The New Up
Times New Viking / Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels) [Arcade Fire cover]
David Byrne & Brian Eno / Everything That Happens
Head Like A Kite / Let's Start It All Again
A Place To Bury Strangers / Everything Always Goes Wrong
Off With Their Heads / Drive
The National / Terrible Love
Carolina Chocolate Drops / Your Baby Ain't Sweet Like Mine
Blitzen Trapper / Destroyer Of The Void
Band Of Horses / Factory

Eating out: Jasmine Garden (Fresno, CA)

Tracy and I spent most of our weekend hanging out at home. We've thankfully found ourselves with a couple weeks off between spring and summer teaching terms. So what's the first thing we do when we've got any free time on our hands? Eat out, of course! On Saturday, we were craving something fresh so we decided to hit our favorite Vietnamese restaurant, Jasmine Garden at Shaw and Woodrow near Fresno State.


I ordered my old stand-by: the house special no.7, which is called kra-tiem prik tai. It's a Thai black pepper and garlic dish with green onions, sauteed in a brown sauce and served over a bed of romaine lettuce. This day, I ordered it with chicken and at medium hot. (I've also had it with tofu and with beef, each good.) When you tell the folks at Jasmine Garden that you want medium hot, I've found that most of their dishes aren't very hot. But with this particular dish, because of the combo of pepper and garlic, a medium hot order will set your mouth on fire for a while.


Tracy ordered the C2 chicken pho, a hearty noodle soup that's pronounced kind of like "fuh" and is served with rice noodles, broth, and a selection of the diner's fresh ingredients. Here, Jasmine Garden offered Tracy a bunch of possible additional fixin's for her pho including mint, basil, bean sprouts, jalapeño peppers, and lemon. The broth included lettuce, green onion, pearl onion, and tons of slow-cooked spices.


A fair number of reviewers on Yelp and similar sites give Jasmine Garden a bad rap because their food is apparently more pan-Asian than it is pure Vietnamese. The owners, reportedly, are Hmong. But to me, that's Fresno--a place where flavors and influences come together in unusual (and very American) ways. Hardcore pho enthusiasts in town would point to the central Fresno area roughly bounded by Clinton Avenue to the north, Fresno Street to the west, Olive Avenue to the south, and Chestnut Avenue to the east, where there are at least eight pho restaurants, as the best options to find the classic Vietnamese soup. But Tracy and I love the comfort of Jasmine Garden.

Jasmine Garden
2633 E. Shaw Ave., Fresno, CA 93710

Playlist: Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Architecture In Helsinki / That Beep
Sonic Youth / Sacred Trixter
The National / Bloodbuzz Ohio
Gil Scott-Heron / New York Is Killing Me
M.I.A. / Born Free
The Sea-Ders / Thanks A Lot
Broken Bells / Mongrel Heart
Black Keys / Next Girl
Beck / Lost Cause
Kid Mud / Modesto [Beck cover]
Earlimart / We Drink On The Job
Unnatural Helpers / Claim It Mine
Nirvana / Blew
The Dutchess and The Duke / Reservoir Park
Scout Niblett / Lucy Lucifer
John Parish & Polly Jean Harvey / That Was My Veil
Delta Spirit / Bushwick Blues
Wheels Of Fortune / Give It All Back
Colin Meloy / Pregnant For The Last Time [Morrissey cover]
Dr. Dog / Jackie Wants A Black Eye
Cat Power / Wonderwall [Oasis cover]
Archie Bronson Outfit / Run Gospel Singer
Gotan Project / El Mensajero
JJ / My Life
Pavement / Spit On A Stranger
Neutral Milk Hotel / Now I'm Going Down
Elliott Smith / Drive All Over Town
Black Tambourine / Lazy Heart
Fay Wrays / Broken Wings
Dylan Tidyman-Jones / Usulut
Blake Jones & The Trike Shop / Out & Free & Faraway
The Suppressors / Real Rock
Royksopp feat. Robyn / The Girl And The Robot
Kleerup feat. Robyn / With Every Heartbeat
Health / We Are Water
Pissed Jeans / False Jesii Part 2
Ryan G. Tallman / Hatchet Job
Aphex Twin / Flim
Mountain Goats / No, I Can't
Hoppi Potti / Fox Lox
Dan Black / U + Me =
A Place To Bury Strangers / Ego Death
Head Like A Kite / We're Always On The Wrong Side Of Sunrise
Grandaddy / I'm In Love With No One
Ted Leo & The Pharmacists / Where Was My Brain?
She & Him / Over It Over Again
The Blow / Let's Play Boys Chase Girls

Eating out: Teazer World Tea Market (Fresno, CA)

For a long time I've had a hypothesis that a person's tea or coffee order had some kind of unintended deeper meaning, a sort of predictor of the drinker's personality. Earlier this week, my wife Tracy and I had a chance to meet up with a trio of friends at the Teazer World Tea Market in downtown Fresno. Since it was the Memorial Day holiday, it turned out to be an unusually quiet afternoon at the normally bustling Galleria center, on Capitol between N and O streets. It was the perfect opportunity to not only enjoy some good company but also to get back into the swing of observation and test my theory.


Our friend Marcus wasn't quite sure what to order, overwhelmed a bit with Teazer's impressive tea selection. With input from Tracy and the bartender, he picked an elephant chai, which is a vanilla chai drink lightly spiced with cardamom, cinnamon, and cloves. Marcus, who is a graduate nursing student at Fresno State, was kind and gregarious enough to share a sip of his drink for anyone at the table who wanted one. Someone said that Marcus's drink was the best at Teazer.


Tracy ordered her usual: the razmatazz, a black tea drink with raspberry, key lime, and lemongrass. I also ordered my usual: the limey, a black tea drink with lots of key limes. Tracy and I do love to try new local places to eat out all the time, but we also tend to stick to our comfort orders when we return to those places. I think I've ordered the limey every single time I've been to Teazer, in fact, even though they offer more than 200 teas.


Our friend Reaz told the bartender that he wanted a drink that was more like a dessert. The result: the monk's blend, a black tea drink infused with vanilla and grenadine. Reaz, who teaches journalism at Fresno State and is also a classical music composer and short-story writer, powered down his drink efficiently, a clear nod of approval to our hosts at Teazer in his first ever visit.


Our friend Susan ordered a tangerine dream, a drink known for its tang and vigor. Susan, who teaches journalism at Fresno State while also knitting, spinning, and researching social media, perhaps summed up the day best with her response to my question of how she picked her drink. "I wanted something cool and refreshing on a hot summer's day." While her thought initially reminded me of an old Nestea Plunge commercial, I later realized that my afternoon of observations made a lot of sense.

Teazer World Tea Market
2405 Capitol Street, Fresno, CA 93721