We know what you’re thinking—”Dried beans? Why bother? I can just head over to any given grocery store when I want to whip up a burrito or my grandmother’s recipe for red beans + rice or that stellar gluten-free chili you so generously wrote up a while back.”

Well we thank you for the kind words, but we must persist in our urging—dried beans will defeat your canned beans hands-down every time.

Yes, true, canned beans have that last-minute convenience that’s hard-to-beat, but the work involved in preparing dried beans is really pretty trumped up, we’ve found. Dried beans have gotten a bad wrap and we’re here to fight that wrap.

The standard for dried bean prep is to soak them overnight, right? Seems daunting, but it’s not. All it really means is that it’s ideal to soak the beans for, say, 6-8 hours before your boil them. So you don’t necessarily need to figure out what you’re going to eat the next day before going to bed every night. You can carve those hours out of the middle of the day if need be. Or set them out in the morning before you head out to work, just in case you think you might want to make them when you get home. If you end up not wanting them, cover and continue to soak for a day or two in the fridge until you do.

What’s more, we’ve found that we can soak your basic kidney beans or black beans or navy beans for 3-4 hours and have them pretty much ready to boil as long as you’re alright with them breaking up a bit more, which is fine if you’re doing something like refried beans.

Regardless, once they’re soaked, you simply change out the water and boil the beans, starting high and lowering heat once you reach a boil, watching the pot to make sure you don’t boil over. How long you need after that depends on how much they’ve been soaked and—I’m told—your elevation, but we find that they’re pretty good to go after an hour or so of boiling, sometimes less, sometimes more. Then cook them as you would any canned bean and be ready for A) a much richer taste, and B) a TON less sodium (even less than the ‘low sodium’ canned varieties).

A popular outlet for dried beans in our house is refried kidney beans, seen below. You can see my text to our friend Jacob to the side there, running him through—roughly—how to make them. And I think I meant ‘cast iron pan’ not ‘desperate pan’. We have no desperate pans—all of our kitchenware is very emotionally healthy.

But, basically, after boiling the beans until soft, you pan fry a sliced brown or yellow onion or shallot with olive oil and (usually) 5 or 6 cloves of garlic on medium-high heat until it’s all caramelized. You might want to cook the onions five or so minutes before throwing in the garlic to avoid over-browning that. Then add the beans and vegetable broth if you have it; water if you don’t. We use homemade broth, which is much lower in sodium than store-bought, so just be careful how much broth you add if it’s packaged. Cook, stir, and smash the beans with a fork as the liquid is absorbed and cooks off, adding more and repeating until the beans are consistently soft and refried, lowering heat gradually as you go to avoid burning them. We don’t usually have a need to add any sweeteners—I think that was offsetting a slight smokey burn we gave the beans that night.

So give it a go, everybody. I’m betting you’ll never buy canned beans again.

Being judged by your lineage can be a frustrating thing, but it’d be potentially irresponsible of this or any other writer to introduce British singer Hollie Cook without mentioning the fact that she’s the daughter of Sex Pistol’s drummer, Paul Cook; her mother, Jeni, sang back up for Culture Club; and her godfather is Boy Geroge himself.

So, yeah. Lineage, man.

But we’re not an Ivy League school—we don’t just go on who your folks are and whether they have a building named after them nearby. We write about musicians who impress us on their own, and Hollie Cook certainly does that.

Her second full-length, Twice, came out this past spring and, in addition to Cook’s impressive vocals, it showcases what she calls a “tropical pop” sound, with reggae-like rhythms and a smoothly laid back feel.

Give her song “99” a listen and let it gently roll you into the weekend.

Cook plays KCRW’s Masquerade next Saturday along with an impressive roster of other live performers + DJs. You should go—we are. Working on our costumes right now. PS—anyone know where we might be able to find a sea foam green skirt suit?

We just had to take a moment to share a photo our friends Patrick + Amy took of this blue obsidian, which I didn’t even know was a thing.

Some of you who know me well may be saying to yourselves, “Wait, didn’t you get your bachelor’s in geology?” And, yes, that is true, oddly enough, but that was also roughly one hundred million years ago—so, yes, the Mesozoic—and I don’t remember ever coming across obsidian that was anything other than the blackest of blacks.

I always loved it though, firstly because it was a cinch to identify—nothing else breaks in those conchoidal fractures quite like this volcanic glass—second because it’s just beautiful stuff. It’s produced when high silica lava cools rapidly, so theres little time for air bubbles to form in it or crystallization to occur, resulting in the dense, glassiness and super-sharp edges, used by various civilizations throughout time to create tools + weapons. Right, and members of the Night’s Watch in their battle against the White Walkers.

But, as it turns out, obsidian can sometimes have a hue other than black. According to geology.com (which, sadly, did not exist when I was in school—we only barely had the internet):

“Black is the most common color of obsidian. However, it can also be brown or green. Rarely, obsidian can be blue, red, orange or yellow. The colors are thought to be caused mainly by trace elements or inclusions.”

Thus, this awesome image our friends captured on their drive down the west coast. Thanks trace elements or inclusions!

The other day, I was pursuing the cooler section of our local fancy foods + drinks shop, The Oaks, when this beer caught my eye.

Now, from a beer-drinker’s standpoint, Belgian white ales usually fall pretty low on my list of preferred beers, but, from a designer’s point of view, how could I not buy this beer‽ Look at that cat!

Wednesday Cat ale and its adorably designed can are produced by central Japan’s YO-HO Brewing Company. YO-HO was founded in 1996 by the eco-friendly, locally minded Hoshino Resort Company in the popular mountain resort town of Karuizawa—a spot often sought out as an escape from the hustle and bustle of nearby Tokyo.

The beer itself is described as a light, sweet, and citrusy brew with a low level of carbonation but some nice, unique aromas. And, as you can see on Barnivore—the online guide to vegan libations—Wednesday Cat is, in fact vegan. YO-HO’s head of Customer Relations got right back to us when we inquired, telling us:

“The answer is yes, but the line is not vegan. We make other products in the same line and we use isinglass (fish bladder) for filtering some of the other products. Wednesday Cat itself contains water,malts, hops, orange peels and coriander seeds. We use a kind of moss for filtering it.”

So indeed—let this cat help you get through the rest of the week.

Truth be told, I personally was never a huge fudge fan. Sure, I’d partake on my yearly childhood trips to the Outer Banks in the summertime, but it was never something I craved or sought out especially.

That said, as soon as something becomes unattainable, it becomes wanted. And traditional fudge—made by heating sugar, milk, and butter—isn’t exactly vegan-friendly.

Enter NYC’s adorably named Mister Sister, vegan bakery extraordinaire and purveyors of some very fine fudge. As they put it on their Facebook page:

“We noticed it was hard to walk into the neighborhood coffee shop and consistently find a dairy & egg free treat. Extensive googling often left us frustrated and dessert-less! Mister Sister is stepping in. No treats that are vegan in your nabe? We’ve got you covered. Gluten-free options for our wheat-averse friends, of course. We’re also certified kosher pareve by the International Kosher Council under the supervision of Rabbi Zev Schwarcz. Handmade, small-batch baked goods made locally is what we specialize in. Eating well shouldn’t be hard, and we take that very seriously!”

Our friend, Erica sent us some samples a little while back and they did not disappoint. I’m not quite sure how they did, but the fudge tastes dead-on according to my childhood memories and anything but lacking in fudge’s traditional richness. And they even make a vegan marshmallow-filled S’mores version!

West coasters, our only current port of call for Mister Sister is Portland’s super-store, Food Fight. But if you happen to find yourself in New York (or Maryland), pick up some fudge! You can find a full list of vendors on MS’s site + on their Facebook page. You can also order online from the company’s Etsy page.

I’ve owned these tiny ceramic mugs since I bought them at a department store in the town of Piła (pronounced pee-wa), Poland, back when I was in the Peace Corps in 1998. They number among the very few things I brought back from Poland and the even fewer I still have to this day.

I have no idea if these little cartoon characters pre-exist the mugs themselves or if they’re just the product of some in-house illustrator tasked with creating them but, either way, I think they’re awesome. They’re all so strut-y and happy—with the possible exception of the tiny, slightly threatening owl—it’s hard not to smile as you’re downing your morning OJ, for which I’ve almost exclusively used them over the past 16 years.

So cheers to you, tiny, inexplicable Polish cartoon mugs! Here’ sot another 16 years together!

We’ve got a long-standing tradition of suddenly becoming wildly obsessed with songs over the coarse of time. Sometimes these songs prove to be longterm favorites that stand the test of time…sometimes they’re embarrassingly Tubthumping-esque.

That’s right—we’re that old.

I have a feeling our current obsession’s a little more than a flash in the pan though.

Though I’d usually have my own particular, possibly unfair biases against any band that identifies itself with Delta blues or even the minor scale in a very general sense, throw in enough folk influences, some solid melodic hooks, good song-writing, and a harpist, and—it seems—that’s more than enough to flatten out my walls of musical snobbery.

Case in point, Montreal’s Barr Brothers and their undeniably stellar song, “Love Ain’t Enough”. I seriously can’t get enough of this song. It’s one of those melodramatic-yet-moving pieces of music that just keeps me coming back time and time again. Like a folksy “Pictures of You”.

Give it a listen below and see what you think. Your soul is dead if you don’t like this song though.

The Barr Brothers’ sophomore album from which the song came, Sleeping Operator, is out now, and available via iTunes, Amazon, and carrier pigeon. They’re on tour in Europe now, but you can also check out a pretty great live session they did on KCRW’s Morning Becomes Eclectic a few weeks back.

“Bougainvillea is a genus of thorny ornamental vines, bushes, and trees with flower-like spring leaves near its flowers…. The first European to describe these plants was Philibert Commerçon, a botanist accompanying French Navy admiral and explorer Louis Antoine de Bougainville during his voyage of circumnavigation, and first published for him by Antoine Laurent de Jussieu in 1789. It is possible that the first European to observe these plants was Jeanne Baré, Commerçon’s lover and assistant who was an expert in botany; because she was not allowed on ship as a woman, she disguised herself as a man in order to make the journey(and thus became the first woman to circumnavigate the globe).”

So, promise to lay off this soon, but we wanted to quickly share some photos from our opening weekend at MooShoes Los Angeles. The space is finally complete and we’ve got our opening day and our first event under our belt now.

If you find yourself in southern California, swing on by and say hey. We’re at 3116 Sunset in Silver Lake and open seven days a week. You can see more photos and follow along as we go on our MooShoes LA Instagram account too.

For anyone not already in know, here are all the details from the original announcement earlier this year.

And yes, we’re very much still running raven + crow studio.

A couple months back we did a piece on dynamic shifts in music—when the drums come in dramatically or the melody suddenly morphs into something totally different than before, and the song becomes this whole new animal. We called out a few of our favorite examples, one of which came from venerable Canadian pop band, Stars.

Now, used to be that the last thing you wanted to be called was ‘venerable’ if you’re trying to come across as cool in the music scene. But, these days, given how easy it is to stay a band rather than announcing some dramatic breakup, and how simple this information society has made it to record, distribute, and publicize your music, it’s become common for the 40+ set to simultaneously plan their next world tour and their pending retirement.

Stars’ forthcoming full-length, No One is Lost, is a few shy of numbering them in the teens for albums under their belts, but maintaining a musical style while still evolving your sound with the times through seven albums is a feat worth noting and one that the band’s pulled off with surprising grace.

You can give the title track to the album a listen below. It showcases their trademark exploration of melancholia through upbeat pop and anthemic choruses—that ‘dance it out’ attitude that we’ve grown to love and expect from the band.

NPR’s First Listen series allows you to stream the whole album this week prior to its release next Tuesday. Check it out.

Old is the new young!

Band photo by the excellent music + portrait photographer, Shervin Lainez.