chrishires.com

Sorry folks. Seems like I do this every year.

Sweetwater is my favorite restaraunt in Williamsburg. I was turned on to it by Mark Cucco and his girlfriend Lisa. Mark is my good friend Leslie’s brother, and basically the all around model for intellectual, only slightly pretentious, very likeable white men in their mid-twenties. Sweetwater is a fairly small eatery that has a great menu composed of mostly New American and French fare. They have a great charcuterie plate, which is basically a cutting board with different meats and cheeses on it. You can mix and match them, and if you’re on a date it’s good to order this as an appetizer because:

1) Your date will be impressed with your ability to pronounce the word “charcuterie”
2) This is a nice little conversation starter. “Oh man, this weird smoked meat goes really great with the white cheese,” “Oh, let me try.” “Are these olives or grapes?” (They’re olives). You can go back and forth trying to out combo the other person, and you don’t have to deal with “so, what do you do? Do you like living in Park Slope?” type bullshit.

The menu is loaded with several nightly specials, as well as regular favorites. The white truffle gnocci is toe-curling good. The bronzed chicken breast is served on a bed of goat cheese mashed potatoes, and is also a very excellent choice. Add a couple Kronenberg Lagers to the mix, and now you know why I love this restaraunt so much.

Because sometimes you want to just talk about stuff, or maybe rant on a politician. But at this point, you’d have to start a whole new blog for that shit, and that is like, so not going to happen.

This morning when that Field track came on my iPod, I knew it was going to be a minimal techno Friday. Two tracks to check for: “Turbo Dreams” and “Jet.” Orchestra of Bubbles is as much of a pop album as it is a techno album. Ellen Alien and Apparat really managed to bring in the best of both worlds, and if you like music that’s made with computers… well you probably already own this. But! In case you don’t own it, and you do infact like music made with computers, go out and buy it. You’ll like it.

I was alerted to this track a couple months ago, since then I’ve realised that I’m sleeping on Kompakt Records and everything in Germany. “Over The Ice” is kind of a trip, it makes me want to drive a car really fast down a two lane country road.

The Field – Over The Ice

These are standard issue in the winter time, but still very nice when lounging around the house in all climates.

Schnipper is this little nerdy dude with glasses that I always see at The Rub, and sometimes walking down Metropolitan Ave. He puts out a zine called Schnippers, each issue contains 26 pictures of a record next to his face, one for each letter of the alphabet, and then a little story that tells you why Schnipper likes this record. It’s fantastic. This month someone actually got their act together, and they’ve given Schnipper an installation at The Apartment on Crosby St., which will run from March 2nd to March 31st. There’s a reception tomorrow night (Friday, 3/2), from 7-9. You should go and check it out. Plus, I’ll be there, and I haven’t seen you in forever so it will be a good opportunity for us to catch up.

In addition to all of this, Schnipper is also doing a podcast this month, which features him telling a story about a record followed by a song from the record. This will go for 26 days, A-Z and you can download the podcasts here.