It’s spring, honestly almost summer, and one of the things that screams warm weather to me here in Brooklyn is NYC Pop Fest! Pop Fest has been happening here for a number of years, and I’ve gotten to see some amazing acts…including Tullycraft, Go Sailor, Allo Darlin’, Pants Yell!, Betty and The Werewolves, (the almighty) BOAT, and I even got to dance to Japan’s Caucus covering a Rocketship song!  While I haven’t been able to attend every event it’s something that I look forward to every May.

Carol Catherine

This year NYC Pop Fest brings Saturday Looks Good to Me (SLGTM) back to Brooklyn to headline a show on Friday May 18th at the Knitting Factory.  I have a long history with this band…from listening All Your Summer Songs on those hot August nights working at 52.5 Records in Charleston, SC to the endless love that The Great Pumpkin gave the genius that is Fred Thomas’s other project City Center over the past couple years.  I’ve always thought Fred Thomas was surrounded by a magical group of people, and Pop Fest this year continues to prove that…Carol Catherine of SLGTM has graced the Great Pumpkin with her presence to offer us a recipe…a first for this blog!

In addition to Carol’s talents as a musician she also writes the wonderful food blog Eating Sweet! Whether you are looking for a vegetarian pho recipe, thoughts on healthy eating, or just a little look into someone else life Eating Sweet is a blog that you should be following.  It’s extremely exciting to find other people who share both music and food as their passions, and I’m so happy to feature Carol here.

Below you will find a little bit about Carol, and her recipe for vegan chocolate chip banana bread.  After the recipe find out more about NYC Pop Fest and Saturday Looks Good to Me!

————————–

Greetings. This is Carol Catherine, of Saturday Looks Good To Me, with a special post to satisfy all your NYC Popfest cravings. Not only am I the lead singer of a pretty cool band (by any standards), but also an almost-30-year-old unemployed former teacher with a degree in German Literature (that sounds impressive, right?). In between rocking out with SLGTM, obsessing over The Hunger Games, playing DrawSomething, and “preparing” for grad school (by reading The Hunger Games), I run a little home-cooking blog called Eating Sweet. When Tom asked me to contribute to his own (awesome) blog in honor of the upcoming festivities, I knew I needed to somehow tie it into what I was already doing. So I thought maybe I could do a SLGTM-themed recipe post. Et voila!

.

I like to think of myself as a scientist in the spirit of Oswald Avery, who said: “Disappointment is my daily bread; I thrive on it.” Oswald Avery probably would have made a really good home cook, since both disappointment and bread factor heavily into daily cuisine. While we’re on the subject, can we just talk about how continually disappointing bread can be? Why are the loaves so big? Why don’t we have recipes that bake enough bread for two people, or package things more responsibly (like in half-loaves)? Why aren’t more breads chocolate-studded or shaped like adorable animals? These are just some of the serious, deep questions we in SLGTM ask ourselves daily.

bread

torn bread

Back to the topic at hand: stale bread. Half loaves shrunken and huddled in the back corner of our freezer, crusty with frozen condensation and neglect. Heels of baguettes ignored in the fruit basket (why?), their soft white innards hardened and stricken with (one can only assume) a deep and pervading sense of loneliness and ennui. Bear with me here. This melancholy is very like that which torments the lonely teenager, longing for that hopeful first interaction with her crush, or wishing he could take back the break-up and start all over again. Fred Thomas, our beloved songwriter and fearless leader, has an incredible way of taking this melancholy and weaving it into his lyrics, while building a pop melody and rhythm around it that inspires irreverent dancing, heartfelt giggling, headbanging, and all the other indoor sports associated with happy tunes.

chocolate

bananas

Personal bias aside, that’s pretty impressive, and beautiful, and resourceful. Take something “bad” and make it good again. So in this spirit, and because it has the same number of words as the band name, I chose vegan banana chocolate bread pudding as the dish to represent our band. Using overripe bananas (also an everyday occurrence up in here), stale bread, and soymilk, I pulled a Fred Thomas and made a sweet, delicious dish of warm bread puddin’.  The finished product, like true love or your favorite record, was anything but disappointing.

...

Vegan Banana-Chocolate Chip-Bread Pudding

(Adapted from Mark Bittman.)

Get your spoons ready. Don’t bother with bowls to serve this from—you’re gonna want to eat it right out of the pan.

Ingredients:
3 cups soymilk
⅓ cup sugar
Pinch salt
8 thick slices day-old bread, or 12 slices stale white sandwich bread
2 ripe bananas
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Equipment:
An 8-inch square baking dish, greased
A small saucepan
A small bowl

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Pour the milk and sugar into your small saucepan over low heat, stirring occasionally, until the sugar dissolves and the milk is warm but not hot. Tear or slice your bread into bite-sized pieces.
2. Mash one of the bananas and slice the other. Stir the mashed banana into the warm milk until it’s lumpy but fairly well combined. Put the bread chunks into your greased baking dish and pour the banana-milk mixture over the top. Let the bread soak for a few minutes, making sure all the pieces are moistened. Gently fold in the chocolate chips and sliced banana.
3. Bake for 30 to 45 minutes or until the top is golden brown, the chips are melty, your kitchen smells like absolute heaven and all of the milk has been absorbed. Serve warm or at room temperature with non-dairy coconut gelato or your favorite chocolate sauce.

vegan chocolate chip banana bread

———————————

Saturday Look Good To Me is setting out on a tour this month, and Polyvinyl records just re-issued Saturday Look Good to Me’s classic All Your Summer Songs on white vinyl for record store day!  Stream that album here:

SLGTM hinted to me that there are lots of new tunes headed our way…unfortunately they are not ready for our ears in a recorded version yet.  But you may get to hear them if you are able to catch them on the road! And they will almost most definitely be playing this little number live:

With that said….

Saturday Looks Good To Me will be headlining day two of NYC Pop Fest this year, and here are all the details:

FRIDAY, MAY 18TH @ KNITTING FACTORY BROOKLYN

AFTERPARTY at CAMEO GALLERY (93 North 6th Street) MONDO NYC – INDIEPOP SPECIAL! (12-4am) FREE for Friday Ticketholders, and Festival Pass Holders.