The Silver Lining: Volume 13
Musings on living the good life: food, culture, art, and products designed to inspire. Top picks from me to you, every Thursday.
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Now, on to lucky Volume 13 — the Bar Mitzvah of newsletter editions.
Top Track(s)
The music selects seem to be resonating based on feedback the last few weeks — thank you!
As a reminder, I consolidate each week’s Top Tracks into this Spotify playlist; bookmark this playlist for new tunes refreshed each week:
Let’s dive into this week’s picks —
First, we celebrate the life of Tony Allen, who passed away last week at 79, with the aptly titled track “Celebrate” off his 2009 album Secret Agent:
I love the brass sound on this cut, which stems from the solo chapter of his career. Before that, his musical life started working with musician Fela on the band Africa 70, which merged West African styles with American jazz and funk. RIP Tony.
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Next up is a Moon Boots remix of the Local Natives track titled “Tap Dancer”:
I’m a huge fan of everything and anything Moon Boots — including the hit “I Want Your Attention” from his debut album. Moon Boots hails from Brooklyn, studied music composition at Princeton, and just finished a headlining tour across North America and London in support of his sophomore album Bimini Road. Nice life, dude!
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We wrap week 13 with a brand new track that just dropped from duo Two Another titled “Stronger”:
Two Another — perhaps best known for their hit “Keeping Me Under” — met while living in Australia, and now split time between Amsterdam and Stockholm. They are are musically inspired by Motown, 90s electronica, dance, and hip hop. Good vibes, indeed.
Artist Date - c/o Julia Cameron
Let’s play a little word association game this week. What’s the first thing that comes to mind when I say: The U.S. Library of Congress?
Here are some fun facts about the Library:
The Library was founded in 1800, making it the oldest federal cultural institution in the nation.
The Library's Prints and Photographs Division contains more than 17 million visual images. More than 1.2 million images are accessible on the Prints and Photographs online catalog at www.loc.gov/pictures (Reader beware: you could get lost in that archive for hours!)
The Library holds the most comprehensive collection of American music in the world totaling more than 22 million items including 8.1 million pieces of sheet music.
The list goes on — but I wanted mainly to call your attention to the LOC’s upcoming Citizen DJ project:
Citizen DJ is a project by Brian Foo currently under development during his time as an Innovator-in-Residence at the Library of Congress. It invites the public to make hip hop music using the Library’s public audio and moving image collections.
Citizen DJ includes six vast collections of audio files — literally thousands of hours of recordings with no copyright restrictions — they're all free to sample, download and share. Can’t wait to see some of the work that comes out of this.
Barefoot Contessa Bootcamp
It’s HOT out there. As such, I’ve been craving all the summer things — BBQ’d corn on the cobb, cold beer, watermelon — to name just a few.
I’m also reminded of this delicious and refreshing Vietnamese Cucumber Salad I first came across in Samin Nosrat’s Salt Fat Acid Heat cookbook.
Samin Nosrat’s Vietnamese Cucumber Salad. You’re gonna love it.
This salad hits all the right notes — the refreshing combo of cucumber, cilantro, and mint; the crunch of the toasted peanuts; the umami of the fish sauce; the heat of the jalapeños.
It’s very easy to throw together quickly, can be a great compliment to hearty proteins you’re grilling on the BBQ, and is easily transportable for your next socially-distanced picnic.
Editor’s note: Try to make this a bit ahead of time. It’s that much refreshing chilled in the fridge. Bon Appetit!
SKU of the Week
Everyone’s baking up a storm in quarantine, and one thing I’ve noticed in my own home kitchen are these 5 lb bags of flour are notorious for leaking.
So I did a quick search on Amazon for restaurant-grade food storage to store and keep all my dry ingredients fresh. Not going to lie — part of the reason I love these is my love of restaurant grade equipment in general. There’s something really satisfying about having the same gear the pros use!
Thesee 6 qt Rubbermaid containers are keeping my flour under lock and key.
Table for 2
HT to my buddy Andrew for sharing this exciting update from the team behind Gjusta, Gjelina, and MTN: Introducing Valle, a Oaxacan inspired pop-up in the current MTN space on Abbot Kinney.
The location's doors opened Wednesday with a selection of tacos, small plates, ceviche, braised and grilled meats for takeout all created by Gjelina Group Chefs Juan Hernandez and Pedro Aquino. After 12 years with the team, Hernandez and Aquino, both of whom grew up in Oaxaca, are ready for their moment in the sun.
The menu looks fantastic — can’t wait to check it out!
Oaxacan-inspired Birria de res beef tacos at Valle.
Social Action
There is a significant shortage of COVID-19 related relief items. Currently, the Flexport.org Fund exclusively focuses on supporting the sourcing and transport of supplies related to the coronavirus pandemic. By helping to cover the logistics costs, you’re enabling supplies worth thousands of dollars to reach people in need.
Please consider joining me in donating to Flexport.org’s Frontline Responders Fund.
Donations go toward the Flexport.org Fund, managed by their grant-making partner CAF America, and are used to cover the cost of transportation for organizations responding to the crisis.
Social Starlette(s)
A great week across the socials —
I too, am missing Spring in Europe:
Good boy! (click through to play)
I love following Sophie Minchilli, she leads food tours in Italy with her Mom and focusses a lot of her feed on the Italian octogenarians content that warms my heart:
I’m taking Ross & crew in 7:
And finally — curious how many folks remember watching Kurt Loder anchor the news on MTV?
That’s it for Volume 13. New issues of The Silver Lining drop weekly on Thursdays.
Comments, questions, tips?
Send a letter to the editor –– Scott Silver:
scott@thesilverlining.la / @thesilverlining.la