Chef Tom – Food Fusion and The Silk Road Ensemble

Not to be confused with CON-fusion. Some ultra-PC folks wax expert about cultural appropriation. Well, the one place where that construct has no business being, is in the kitchen. Every dish you cook has had multiple influences from multiple cultures. Even if I were relegated to only cooking white boy food from Northern California (eeew), there would be zero recipes that I could cook that hadn’t originated from someplace OTHER than my own neighborhood. Even my own neighborhood evolved from countless cultures other than my own.

Fusion is the result of natural evolution, IMHO. The world is one big magical soup. The parable of Stone Soup makes my point. Without the generous influence from the other cultures around us, life would be unbearably dull. 

Pat Blythe – Survivors Ball, Taxi Chain, Jeff G and The Four Heads, Photos …and Music!

I’m so deep in the rabbit hole with the reorganization of photos I lose all track of time. I come up for air when the need for coffee arises or when my stomach thinks my throat’s been cut and I haven’t eaten since my morning banana. Then there’s those moments when you know you’re forgetting something….but what? It’ll come to me…. It’s slowly dawning on me just how many photos I’ve taken or moments I’ve captured and the sheer number of bands and artists I’ve seen and heard!!  I look at the collection trying to figure out how I could possibly have packed so much living and incredible music into such a short period of time. It’s been a dramatically life-altering and exhilarating four years.