Music

Arcade Fire Reflektor Tour

I have been a die hard fan of “Arcade Fire” ever since they came out with their album, “Funeral” in 2004. Ten years later, they are still on the scene since in 2011 they won a Grammy and have blown up surpassing any mediocre one hit wonder, trendy indie rock band and have been certifiably recognized for their true indie rock talent.  I have to say though, they were going strong for a while with SOLID albums like; “Funeral, “Neon Bible” and “the Suburbs” but this last album “Reflektor”, has only about a few good songs while the others are just fillers for the abum. It’s not solid and although it breaks my heart that they weren’t able to meet my expectations of their genius musically gifted past, they were still able to put on a badass show!

Seeing them play live yet again was worth all of those surcharges on ticketmaster as well as rip-off stubhub. It’s a BIG band of people, with two drummers (one’s the lead singers wife) and various instruments that keep you going. This tour specifically had a cool mirrored man reflecting light off of him and back onto the crowd. There was also a DJ playing on the sound stage across from the band and during the show Regine Chassagne (Win Butler’s wife) surprised the crowd appearing on the small stage giving people who have crappy seats a chance to see the performance up close.

It turned into a huge dance party that continued past Arcade Fire’s performance.

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Style

40 Different Fruits Tree Design

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This is a rendering of a single tree that bears 40 different fruits! The idea is genius and the artist, Sam Van Aken came up with it. He began by integrating two different species of plants, then three, then four and so on until he figured out a way to have 40 different fruits on the same tree.

Sounds like magic but it’s really just science. About 14 of these trees are planted across the country. Each with their own varieties of fruits such as peaches, apricots, plums, cherries and more.

In 2008, Van Aken used a technology called chip grafting. Growing up in Pennsylvania on a farm, he was mystified by grafting. Although he was quite skeptical about the whole process, he realized that the tree actually grows and becomes a multiple fruit tree.

Pretty amazing, right?!?

 

Taste

Banana Bread

BananaBread

Super simple! Whenever your bananas start going bad, grab ’em and mush them!

Prep:

4 bananas mashed

1/3 melted butter

1 egg

3/4 cup of sugar

1 1/2 cup flour

1tsp baking soda

1tsp baking powder

1tsp salt

Directions:

Turn oven onto 350 degrees. Grease your pan with oil and flour (it makes a great paste). In a large bowl, add all the ingredients listed above in prep and blend. Pop it in the oven for about 25-30minutes, stick a wood tooth pic and check to see if it’s ready. So delicious, so simple!

Taste

Dutch Oven Chicken

Wine&OrangeChicken

A friends fiance, Sarit just gave me this recipe and it turned out so good, my husband wants me to make it again this week. Tastes better than it looks!

Prep: 

1 yellow onion

2 red potatoes

2 medium summer squash

cumin

paprika

Salt & Pepper

4 Chicken legs

5 cloves of garlic

2 oranges

white wine

Vegetable Oil

Directions: 

Turn on your oven to 375 degrees. Put your sliced onion in your oven dutch pot with some vegetable oil & sautee with a bit of cumin (depends on how much you like cumin). Spice your chicken with salt & pepper as well as paprika. Then dear in the 4 chicken legs and cook each side but don’t over dry. Then gently add 2 cups of white wine, followed by 2 freshly squeezed oranges (add some pulp). Next mince 5 cloves of garlic and add them to the pot. Then cut the red potatoes into semi small pieces as well as your squash and put into the pot. Add an extra touch of salt and crushed pepper on top. Put the top on the pot and put in oven for 2 hours. Make sure to remove the cover for the last half an hour.