The Silver Lining: Volume 25
Musings on living the good life: food, culture, art, and products designed to inspire. Top picks from me to you, every Thursday.
Top Tracks
I’m a sucker for a great cover. There’s a whimsical joy that comes across my face the minute I hear the unique twist of a classic song. Whimsy is an accurate term describing how I felt hearing Black Pumas’ rendition of Tracy Chapman’s iconic song “Fast Car”:
The original came out in 1988, an anchor track to her multi-platinum and four-time Grammy Award-winning career. As for the Black Pumas version, the Austin-based rock duo debuted it last month as part of a two-track release. If you dig this cover, check out the live rendition they performed on Stephen Colbert’s Late Show last month!
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“International Love Affair” is the aptly named title of a cut taken from Keleketla!’s new self-titled album:
Keleketla! is a collaboration between musicians from South Africa, Nigeria, U.K., and the U.S. produced by Coldcut, an English electronic music duo composed of Matt Black and Jonathan More.
Coldcut was invited to record the album over three years in South Africa by the Keleketla Library, an arts archive, educational workshop and performance space in Johannesburg. The result is a cacophony of Afrobeat sounds including funk, reggae, hip-hop, house, acid jazz, and techno that we very much enjoyed.
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We round things out with a downtempo tune from Hector Plimmer titled “Joyfulness”:
Born and raised in South London, Hector is a designer, producer and DJ. This track features a beautiful vocal from Alexa Harley that reminded me of some of the sounds off the Alpine album A is for Alpine that came out back in 2013.
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Friendly PSA — if you’re enjoying the music, you can always follow along on the Top Tracks Spotify Playlist.
Artist Date
KCRW is partnering with UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance on a program they're calling The Sidewalk Sessions:
They’ve assembled an extraordinary roster of artists from throughout the LA area who are ready to turn your lawn or driveway into a stage for some real-time art sharing.
As the host, an artist will perform from your driveway or front lawn (practicing safe social distancing) — on a scheduled date and time, while you, your housemates, and maybe your neighbor — watch from porches, front stoops and windows. Each session is $50 — with all ticket revenue benefiting the artists.
If you’re interested in opening up your front lawn for this unique program, you can sign up here.
Barefoot Contessa Bootcamp
In our family, we’re officially in the Challah baking chapter of quarantine. It’s been a fun weekly check-in to compare our golden braided beauties on the family group text. My Dad’s last week was 10/10!
After testing a variety of recipes, my sister-in-law Becca turned us onto Joan Nathan’s My Favorite Challah iteration that’s become our go-to. Joan’s secret technique? A prescription of two egg wash paintings:
The secret to a glossy loaf is to brush with an egg wash twice, once just after braiding and then again just before baking.
If your Friday WFH schedule doesn’t allow for a multi-step challah bake every week, make this recipe which yields 2 challot. After braiding the second, throw it in a ziplock bag and freeze for future weeks!
Evan Sung for The New York Times
Table for 2
Eater shared last week that beloved Prince Street Pizza of New York’s Nolita neighborhood was opening a west coast outpost. Opening late August or September, Prince Street will bring its famed square slices to West Hollywood on Sunset Blvd.
Dom Morano, who runs the NY shop along with his father Frank Morano, is moving to LA to help get the new location up and running.
Dom credits the success of recent Prince Street Pizza pop-ups in Los Angeles (“there were four hours lines, I couldn’t believe it”) done with Lawrence Longo of Off the Menu for giving the family the final push needed to secure a space.
Famous for their square slices, Prince Street Pizza is a nice pickup for the LA ‘za scene.
Social Action
Since I moved back to Los Angeles in 2017, I’ve been a huge fan of LA Times’ yearly Food Bowl Festival, a month-long program of events across the city celebrating food, chefs, farmers, and the people they feed: you and me.
COVID has severely altered the look and feel of this year’s festival, moving all programming to remote experiences. I’m particularly excited about the Cook-A-Thon event helping raise funds for World Central Kitchen:
Pull up a chair, grab your favorite utensils, and get ready to dig into a mouth-watering food and fundraising special featuring 30 chefs and special guests from Los Angeles, and around the world all in support of our partner, World Central Kitchen. Get a sneak-peek of their kitchens, get recipe tips and advice from international food professionals and celebrity guests. Register here to get more information and a reminder to tune in.
RSVP for this free event on Eventbrite.
Social Starlettes
Thanks to Alpert for this gem of a find (click to play):
I’m melting:
Me missing concerts:
90s Nostalgia for those who remember Face Off:
MJ gonna MJ:
If you’re not watching Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, you should:
That’s it for Volume 25. 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