Cabinet Fever

Here is a bonus morsel of life advice on this Friday evening: Don't ever walk away from a bread mixer on the counter that is set to high speed. As an extra bonus fun fact: that is where the name of my album Mechanical Bull came from. True story.

I was in the adjacent room, trying to think of an album title, when our bread mixer rocked itself off the counter like a mechanical bull that wasn't bolted down. While we did lose a kitchen appliance that day, at least I got an album title out of it, so it wasn't a complete loss. Incidentally, the album also kind of rocks, but it's far less likely to leap from your countertop when your back is turned.

With those final, self-destructive actions of our stand mixer, I may have perceived some bullshittery in the fact that this thing wasn't weighted properly to not jump all over the place--as in mechanical bull(shit). Yes, I like to put layers of meaning into things, even if it's just an inside joke to myself--or in this case, two. There are other layers to it as well. Even my dissertation/first book (the paperback version of which happens to be on sale now) contains some scarcely hidden jokes.

I mention this in part because I am presently making dough for calzones. It's kind of the same idea, in that once that dough starts getting slap happy, look out. It's set to medium speed right now, and I'm listening very closely with my left ear. Earlier, when I was doing the responsible thing and standing over it (i.e. following said life advice, as mentioned prior), I realized that kitchen cabinets make excellent hand drums. 

While the words "What the fuck?" were no doubt muttered by at least one of our neighbors, I was rocking out along with the tempo of the mixer, slapping my hands on particleboard cabinets... and I realized that it had a certain kind of sound that I wished I could get out of my cajones. (By that, I mean the two box drums that I built, obviously.) 

So next time you're in your kitchen, ideally with three or four other people who can keep a steady beat, you should give it a try. It's kind of like a drum circle, but without having to invite a bunch of hippies into your kitchen. I only say that because you know that there's at least one person in there who's going to throw it all off. Besides, you don't want your whole kitchen smelling like patchouli oil, not unless you want everything that you make in there to taste a little bit like naugahyde. 

(Incidentally, I have been waiting years for an occasion to use the word naugahyde without forcing it, so I'm feeling pretty accomplished right now. For what it's worth, I also have a song for which the lyric writing process began with me challenging myself to rhyme with the word schadenfreude. Once I had it, I built the rest of the song around that.)