A Del Lords loss and Truffled Brie Pasta
Because sometimes with death one turns to food
I was saddened, although not surprised, to hear of the death of Scott Kempner. I knew he’d had early onset Alzheimer’s for some time. Given that I know how searingly painful Alzheimer’s can be for a family, I hope his family has some relief, despite the pain of his loss.
I can’t begin to tell you how many hours I spent listening to the Del Lords, much less the Dictators, oh, and the Brandos too. I never saw the Dictators in their earliest incarnation but did catch them post Wild Kingdom at Avalon in Chicago. DAMN it was a great show. Sadly, and honestly, just crazy hard to believe, I never saw the Del Lords (that’s part of the reason why I fangirled all over Eric Ambel when I met him a few years back).
When Ernie and I lived in Ypsilanti our apartment was the second floor of an old house. Our living room had a small closet and that’s where our stereo was, sitting on top of a couple of crates of records. Sometimes, when Ernie was at work at the record store, I would pull the old blue beanbag we had into that closet and curl up with records. That’s what comes to mind when I think of the Del Lords….buried in that little closet with their music just reverberating in my head.
Right now I’m sniffing away from this stupid cold, Ernie is puzzling in the dining room and we’re listening to Frontier Days and it just blows me away how incredibly solid and true and freaking powerful it is. We’re singing along to every word.
RIP Scott.
Last night I was feeling a bit better so didn’t need the scrambled eggs and toast treatment. We had a bit of the truffled brie that Boo had brought over last week leftover. Ernie, who has been doing a lot of the cooking of late, used it to make a spectacular truffled brie pasta with peas. Lord I love him.
He diced up the brie (rind included) and set it aside while he cooked some gluten free spaghetti. He put a bit of olive oil and butter in a pan, tossed in a few handfuls of frozen peas and let them warm up. Then he added the drained pasta to the pan along with the diced brie. Some salt and pepper and that was it. Normally I’d be advocating for red pepper flakes or anchovy paste but I didn’t want to hide the delicate brie with that hint of earthiness. It was perfect. Yeah, we should have had a green salad with it but our greens were looking quite suspicious.
I’m making this post public to all but don’t forget, if you want full access to them all it’ll be $5 a month to subscribe. I am SO grateful to those that have. Thank you, thank you, thank you….and much love to all you free subscribers too!
Late fall in the yard. These plants gave all summer long and just keep giving it their all.
Onward.