From Hell To Breakfast: Musical Review With Recipe. Alison Krauss and the Cox Family, and Trout Almondine
Thursday, June 10, 2010 at 10:33AM | by Otter 
Cox Family: Musical Medicine for your Sentimental Moods. Newcomers to the blog will not know that my mother is struggling with Stage Four adenocarcinoma. "Murderous cancer," in English.
I was sitting with her yesterday and going over the spreadsheets and charts and reports and endless instructions for medication and dietary requirements and checklists that tell her how awful she feels.
"I feel awful," she summed up.
But she's not a quitter, and got up and walked to the end of the hall and back a couple of times, crawled back into bed and closed her eyes.
The UPS guy rang the bell loudly eight times in succession, leaving a package.
Some more Christians came with their endless supply of food and love, and stayed a long time, and prayed and talked to her with the cheerfulness that goes down a lot easier when you come bearing banana muffins and sweet potato pie.
My sister read (in a glorious book I haven't read about cooking for cancer patients) that bananas and sweet potatoes, the two things mom seems able to eat, are quite the thing for cancer patients. Mom's too sensitive to take much flavor now, but somebody produced a sweet potatoe and carrot purée of some sort that makes a soup she can take.
Well, of course, my sister prayed for more bananas and sweet potatoes, and of course the constant stream of Christians bringing food supplied it without being told. These things happen. Love does some freaky shit.
So mom nibbles away at a banana muffin and we talk with shocking casualness about death and loss, and how long it takes to have fun again without feeling like there's someone missing.
She knows I'm the family pessimist, so she talks to me about this stuff and lets the optimists deal with the stacks of sheets for treatments and diets and things designed to keep her alive for... how long? For what purpose? None of us want to think about chemotherapy. She's too weak for it right now, and we know what it does, or can do, even to the strong.
But we sit and Time stands up, and sits down, and shuffles around the room, and looks at us thoughtfully, and sits down again.
Time wears our clothes now.
Mom dips a saltine into her orange soup and gives me a wry look.
Here's the woman who dished up a killer Trout Almondine for us a year ago.
Driving home, my daughter, who is prone to a supernatural cheerfulness, takes charge of the iPod and gives us a strong dose of Big Country and Culture Club and a few rounds of "Safety Dance."
Which is fun, but which doesn't suit my mood. I want something I can listen to and bellow like a bull.
Alison Krauss and Union Station. Nice Urban Name. Harlan County Meets Urban Sophistication
Relief comes from my new addiction: Alison Krauss and The Cox Family, and the albums I Know Who Holds Tomorrow and Just When We're Thinking It's Over, on which Krauss and her band Union Station guest.
Alison Krauss of course gets my adoration for her work with Robert Plant on Raising Sand (review here).
This is more bluegrassy stuff, sentimental but bluesy with a swaggering acoustic guitar bed over plaintive dobros and mandolin. (If you can't tell by now when Jerry Douglas is playing dobro, you have a tin ear. He is a god.)
There's something about this team of the Cox's and Krauss and her band that have threatened to keep bluegrass alive and interesting. It's melodic, clever, musically sophisticated and inventive, and still very much folk music.
If you like a lot of irony, this might underwhelm you: I can make it to the grave without hearing "Who's Going To Pay For This Broken Heart" again, and yes, there are some throwaways in here.
The writing and performances are witty but Appalachian music is like Appalachian cooking, straightforward and heartwarming rather than self-expressive.
Or more accurately, the self-expression in this kind of music comes from the way in which you can play within the rules. For some reason, bluegrass has always seemed to me like a Shakespearean thing: tightly regulated structures, and a flurry of color within the lines, a frailing banjo, a cutting dobro, a quick-weaving mandolin.
It's intended to target your sentiment, and it's the genius of the team-work between the Cox's and Alison Krauss's savvy bunch of studio cats that they deepen the sentiment by giving these albums a more witty feel. They understand, "Hey, we're a bunch of people doing bluegrass in a hip-hop-and-house world. Now watch this."
The playlist then is two albums on shuffle.
While it's playing, take six trout, split and de-bone them. Wash them in lemon juice and water while the Cox Family sings "That's the Way Love Is."
Make up a mixture of flour and cornmeal. Your call on the proportions. Be inventive like a mandolin player told, "Take us home, here, baby." Salt and pepper can be used, or a very light helping of Tony Chachere's Creole seasoning. This is a dish that relies on delicacy, so salt and pepper will probably be a little better.
Dip them in milk (no skim milk, dear friends, this is not the time to think about your heart, for it might break) and then in a mixture of flour and cornmeal.
While listening to "Will There Be Any Stars?" and wishing to God you could play fiddle like that, heat some oil in your grandmother's black cast-iron skillet.
{A word about oil. One of the most difficult things about cooking well is understanding heat and heat management. Vegetable oil is probably your most forgiving option here as far as heat goes. But it really is worth your time to invest in a couple of pounds of practice-butter, learn to clarify it in a saucepan (by melting it, allowing it to stand, letting the milk solids settle to the bottom, and skimming off the milk fat on top and using it for oil). Try sauteeing a bit of onion or two to get the hang of it. Learn when it starts to burn, when it starts to spit, when it's hot enough to cook a piece of fish. You should do the same with olive oil, which is preferrable to vegetable oil but which can be temperamental over heat. Most of all with olive oil, learn how to heat it up to but not past the point that it smokes.}
Sautée the trout for about six minutes per side over a medium high heat, turning carefully and keeping a close eye on it. You want it to be a delicate golden brown, and the fish should flake easily but not be dried out. (I know: cooking fish really well can be tricky. Takes practice.) Keep it warm by putting it on a covered dish in a warm oven.
Put on "In the Palm of Your Hand," but do not become confused and put hot fish in the palm of your hand. Pour yourself a glass of a cold pinot grigio.
In another pan, melt a half cup of butter and sautée almond slivers (you can buy these in your supermarket) for three or four minutes.
Pour the butter and almonds over the fish.
Serve with Spinach Madeline, warm french bread, and the wine of your choice: we're not snobbish. I like pinot grigios inordinately and unwarrantedly: trout almondine's got a delicate flavor and I think a red wine really is what you want to knock the flavor up against your palate. There are no rules, just taste.
Eat with people you love, and hang on to them as long as you can. There may come a day when there's nothing but a memory of oil and butter and trout and the feeling that good food is love.
Reader Comments (7)
We saw/heard AK+US as part of the DOWN FROM THE MOUNTAIN tour (following O Brother, Where Art Thou - and including many of the people who are on the DVD of the same) in Dallas, and then a year later saw AK+US featuring Jerry Douglas in Fort Worth. Ended up buying all her albums in the meantime, including the first Cox Family one, as well as Raising Sand and Dan Tyminski's album and the DVD of their performance at Ryman Auditorium. When she gets to heaven, I suspect Alison's job will be to teach the angels how to sing. :)
Yeah, that was a heck of a tour. I'm a big T-Bone Burnett freak, and the two of them are a near perfect storm.
Robert Plant makes it a perfect storm.
Caught her at New Orleans Jazz Fest with Robert Plant who's all long curly auburn hair and black linen shirt. When they started doing "When The Levee Breaks," all those New Orleanians were transfixed, and suddenly the sky opened up and poured on us, and we were standing there all high as a kite on music and god (by whatever name). Plant makes them do two extra choruses because he can feel the vibe. T-Bone just stands there with a Gretsch and grins.
Awesome.
Mmm.... Here's to bananas, sweet potatoes, Jerry Douglas, butter, Appalachia, pinot grigio, mandolins, and living in the moment.
5-stars for the trout, Otter. Made it last night. It was fabulous.
Awesome, Klomp! What'd you use for oil? And wine?
I used a combo of olive oil and butter in my cast iron skillet. I haven't the patience to clarify, but the butter is less tempermental when mixed with olive oil and I don't mind a little of the browned butter fat flavor. The best part is definitely the sauted almonds. I could eat spoonfuls of those. Enjoyed it with a lovely Oregon Pinot Gris, King Estate, a green salad with rice wine vinegarette and homemade Rosemary and Roasted Garlic bread. It was lovely.
You guys are killing me. Going to have to try this.