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Matthew Rowley

@mbrowley.bsky.social

2K followers 360 following 3.3K posts

Write | Lift | Travel | James Beard finalist | Past Southern Foodways Alliance board | Contributing editor, Oxford Companion to Spirits & Cocktails | 🏡 San Diego | Typos no extra charge.

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Matthew Rowley @mbrowley.bsky.social · 11h

Madder occasionally shows up in very old drinks receipts for imparting a red hue. Cochineal (the insect-derived red of cardinals’ vestments, kings’ robes, and, until vegans got wind of it, strawberry Frappuccinos) came later. Nice to see this.

Sara Charles @saracharles.bsky.social · 18h

Homegrown madder pigment. It's wonderful to create medieval pigment from something grown in your garden #bookhistory #medievalpigments #medievalsky

Madder pigment in an oyster shell

Dried madder roots in a bowl on some scales

Madder pigment being mulled on a glass slab

Madder pigment surrounded by examples of dried paint on paper and parchment

Matthew Rowley @mbrowley.bsky.social · 12h

Mexico trip coming up. Guadalajara (first time) and Oaxaca (a repeat). Checking in with friends, Instagram, etc., as I research food options, but some old timey printed matter isn’t out of place.

Stack of food books on a wooden cabinet.

Dining with the Dead

TACOPEDIA: The Taco Encyclopedia

THE FOOD OF OAXACA

Oaxaca

Oaxaca al Gusto

TACOS GDL

MERCADOS

Mexico: ACulinary Quest

Matthew Rowley @mbrowley.bsky.social · 13h

Matthew Rowley @mbrowley.bsky.social · 14h

A shameless riff on:

Matthew Rowley @mbrowley.bsky.social · 14h

My tastes are unfocused—Berlioz to Beethoven, Patsy Cline to Warren Zevon, Klangkarussell to Kygo—but not all-encompassing. Cracked a few smiles recently at kitschy Polo & Pan whose “Dorothy” pastiche shows Martin Denny/exotica/tiki bones and mid-century SciFi tomfoolery: youtu.be/hVW63Z_8deE?...

POLO & PAN - Dorothy (official video)

YouTube video by Ekler

Matthew Rowley @mbrowley.bsky.social · 14h

Matthew Rowley @mbrowley.bsky.social · 17h

I wouldn’t mind the company, but it’s a bit of a hike. Tell you what, though: here are my notes. Oven at 350°F/180°C for about an hour and fifteen minutes. I don’t bother with a bowl. Simply dump everything but the pork into a roasting tin, mix, then roll the ribs through it.

Matthew Rowley @mbrowley.bsky.social · 18h

Pork ribs, flanken-cut across the bones, then into 2-3 rib sections. Beaucoup garlic and black pepper, star anise, crushed chiles, oyster sauce, honey, salt. Oven roast. Sticky, sweet, hot, fatty. Big bowl of rice. Something green on the side, don’t know what yet.

Matthew Rowley @mbrowley.bsky.social · 18h

Matthew Rowley @mbrowley.bsky.social · 18h

The opening sets the tone with strong "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit” vibes.

Preface

In the south of County Mayo the coast road narrows between field-banks and dry-stone walls until, a mere tendril, it winds to a halt in the sands at the foot of Mweelrea Mountain.

Matthew Rowley @mbrowley.bsky.social · 18h

A turn in the weather. Wool and flannel now. Persistent damp. Grey. This morning‘s reading (with a stein of hot tea as a ward against the chill): Michael Viney’s A Year’s Turning. For 40+ years, Viney was a columnist for The Irish Times. Essays on his rural life in County Mayo, home of the Rowleys.

Hardback book on a wooden table. The cover topics five foxes in the woods. Michael Viney’s (1996/2022 reprint) A Year’s Turning. Fox illustration by Sheelyn Browne.

Matthew Rowley @mbrowley.bsky.social · 18h

I find very old recorded music illuminating in the way that reading the Bible is: I’m not going to incorporate any of that into my daily life, but it’s instrumental to revisit for a fuller, richer understanding of so much of what builds upon it. And if that includes honky tonk whorehouses, so be it.

Matthew Rowley @mbrowley.bsky.social · 18h

I don’t know, man. Fully half of the people in this house would’ve clocked the reference. Sounds like you’re batting .500 to me.

Matthew Rowley @mbrowley.bsky.social · 2d

Get you, Leon Rumbone.

Matthew Rowley @mbrowley.bsky.social · 2d

That led me directly to this, same account. I’m not sure you’re going to convince me that there isn’t a good song trying to claw its way out of the St. Louis Tickle, but I love that these old platters still exist and are accessible. Thank you for the link.

BUDDY BOLDEN'S BLUES by Jelly Roll Morton - NEW ORLEANS MEMORIES 1939

YouTube video by cdbpdx

Matthew Rowley @mbrowley.bsky.social · 2d

My appreciation of ragtime begins once Jelly Roll Morton laid his hands on it and slipped mischief into the machinery.

Matthew Rowley @mbrowley.bsky.social · 2d

Who else is going to give you Vladimir Wankoff and shoe gays before lunch? Nobody, that’s who. Just me. U whelk.

Matthew Rowley @mbrowley.bsky.social · Jul 19

The list is long of foods I would eat before necking whelk. “U whelk” or sometimes simply “Whelk” is phone idiolect my husband and I began years ago. It’s “you’re welcome” of course, but funny to us because could be read as an insult or malediction. “U whelk. U absolute, utter whelk. How COULD u?”

Matthew Rowley @mbrowley.bsky.social · 2d

Ragtime is my bête noire. It’s not something anyone’s likely to hear just out and about these days (small mercies), but I had to learn it. That off-beat disconnect between right and left hand—that incessant finger-fall of piano notes where silence feels proper—rattles every last neuron in my brain.

Matthew Rowley @mbrowley.bsky.social · 2d

I’m trying. Shakin’ that bush, boss.

Matthew Rowley @mbrowley.bsky.social · 2d

It led to a discussion about shoegaze as a musical genre. It’s not one of my go-to genres these days, but I enjoyed a load of youthful makeout sessions when such tracks played out in the background. Since make each other playlists, I made one for him. Sort of a “Here’s more of that puzzle” playlist:

open.spotify.com

Matthew Rowley @mbrowley.bsky.social · 2d

I don’t mind being one of the older geezers at a bar. As luck would have it, I hit my grey scruff years just as the notion of “daddy” took root in popular culture. Perfect timing. I don’t believe, however, that granddaddy is going to become a hot thing. So I had better develop a personality, pronto.

Matthew Rowley @mbrowley.bsky.social · 2d

The sun has not yet risen here. It rained last night and all is wet. Perfect music for this chilly morning.

Matthew Rowley @mbrowley.bsky.social · 2d

Friend of ours, 20 years younger, was excited to introduce my husband to a fresh, new band that he thought would strike a chord: Cocteau Twins.

From the 1980s. But he had to discover that music on his own. Had the rec comes the other way, I’m not sure he would’ve liked it as much.

Matthew Rowley @mbrowley.bsky.social · 2d

The mingling is good. My older friends have been dying off as I myself shift into my autumn years, but for decades, I’ve kept a blend of friends from 20s to 70s. A churning blend of new slang, old knowledge, practical advice, of expertise and enthusiasm. New and new-to-me music is core to that.

Matthew Rowley @mbrowley.bsky.social · 2d

I grew up with a house full of books, music nearly always playing, and parents born in the 1920s/1930s. I was steeped in old music. Sure, some is bad, even laughably so. One radio show was dedicated to old bad music (Bad Music Hour?). But all of it? Not by a long shot.