Genesee brings back memories of High School pool parties and living in North Jersey. I just asked my husband what comes to mind when he hears “cream ale” and he said “Genny!”. When he was going to tech school, he says he spent many a lunch having a Taylor ham sandwich and a Genny at the bar across the street from the…

I can attest that I was only able to convince one of my friends of the brilliance of the Ramones in 76-77. We formed a punk duo a week afterwards, her on drums and me on guitar.

European restaurants are much more casual about dining that they will let you linger over your meal and talk and eat. Its not the rush you see in US places.

Sean, a thousand kudos on this list. 1976 was such a horrendous year for an average awkward kid stuck in the suburbs of NJ, watching the entire town go gaga over the Bicentennial and just hating every insipid thing that bounced over the top forty playlist. I own most of the albums on this list and all of the early…

One of the things that was a cultural surprise when I moved from the NYC Tri-State area to Northern CA was that people regularly went to nice restaurants in shorts and T-shirts (and yes, flip flops).  My husband and I once went to a fairly nice restaurant in what would be considered “business casual” back east and…

While my husband saw this and said, hell yeah, I believe my German grandmother is doing 360s in her grave. 

We live in Santa Cruz County, which produces a good portion of the U.S strawberry crop. We usually pick about 20lbs a year and make jam, strawberry gin and sometimes salsa. From about April to October, we are swimming in the berry, to the point where when my kids were young, they pretty much were sick of eating berries…

Having worked in kitchens, I will admit that if someone asks for any form of beef well done that they are not going to get the best piece of beef that’s sitting in the fridge.  Many chefs feel that if you are going to cremate it, what’s the point. 

I would add Costello’s “Armed Forces” to the mix.  Honesty the first five for me are pretty solid.

I was taught at a young age to respect the tools of the trade aka kitchen knives. Store them properly, keep them sharp (I can still hear my mother preaching “A dull knife is more dangerous in the kitchen than a sharp one) and god yes, hand wash them.

Yup, a a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline!

I’ve been in a couple of cover bands with baby boomers. The big issue is that no one wanted to play anything that wasn’t recorded before 1985 and god forbid they even consider alternative rock. I concur with you 100%

Tomatoes are really the only exception to the rule though. I will concur that a high quality canned tomato tends to be good.

Good selection for this year (I concur on the Krautrock inclusion!) and dear god, I was old enough to remember most of the top 4o of this year and its equally bad companion year of 1974.

Any canned vegetable is a abomination.

I remember making peach cobbler over the fire with bisquick topping while camping. My sister also had a kick ass recipe for fry bread whose contents could be carried in a back pack in a ziplock bag..just add water and fry in some shortening or oil

My parents were both scout leaders, and believed that you had no right bringing anything on a camping trip you couldn’t carry in on your back. Yup, I’m with you on those basic meals. And in my youth they were usually cooked over a pit fire in one of these:

I have a bit of a fondness for the Gashadokuro. There’s times at work that snatching people who annoy me and biting off their heads for fun seems appropriate.

I’ve been trying to process this news all day long and why its hit me so hard.

I worked a job as a line person under my mother, who was the head chef. I once grabbed one of her knives to do something and forgot to put it back. Let’s say when people talk about their horror stories “working for the parents” no one can say “Well, there was this time I took one of my mom’s knives and she threatened…