The Weekly Croissant: Art Hoe Roundup

Book + Drink Pairing / May December / Bluegrass Duets

Happy New Year Art Hoes!

I hope this January is giving you lots of time to hibernate with a good book or show or movie or record. I’ve been at home more than usual these past weeks, and I am remembering what a joy it is to have empty time wherein I can lose myself completely in the depths of some story or another. Here are a few things I’ve been enjoying lately:

A Book and Drink Pairing:

The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love by Oscar Hijuelos + Daquiri

I can highly recommend this novel, which is about Mambo musicians from Cuba who immigrate to New York in pursuit of fame and mostly women. Nashville’s own Ann Patchett wrote the forward of this edition, and she says “Reading The Mambo Kings…more than three decades later has pushed the worlds for which the Castillo brothers longed that much farther away, and added layers that they never would have imagined…Reading it now, I’m struck by the disappearance of sex in literary fiction these days, as sex was the constant obsession of the Mambo Kings, their recreational pastime and soulful pursuit. How had I so clearly remembered all of their music and forgotten all of their sex?”

I love this quote, and I have to agree, this book is more about sex than music, but that is not a complaint! I very rarely read books about music because I find that a lot of “music books” really take the sexiness out of music for me. Well, not this one! I also love how uninhibited and honest the discussions of sex are, it is refreshing to read a male author being real about the way women were thought of by these characters, messed up as it is.

Reading about Cuba and Cuban music got me in the mood to drink a Daquiri… a cocktail that George is very good at making. I asked him to teach me how to make one so that I could enjoy some ambiance with the setting of my book. Full disclosure because of our recent travels this drink was made with Puerto Rican rum rather than Cuban rum, but c’mon it still did the trick!

Daquiri Recipe according to George Jackson

-Put cute cocktail glass in the freezer to prepare

-full shaker with ice cubes

-Pour in 2 oz rum, 1 oz fresh lime juice, 3/4 oz simple syrup

-shake shake shake, shake it like a Polaroid picture

-Pour through strainer into cold glass

-enjoy!

It was very satisfying to read this book and *taste* the setting at the same time, and I am now inspired to try this with other books. If you aren’t drinking, I’m sure this would work with mocktails or food as well. As for me, well I like the feeling of getting a little tipsy while slipping slowly into another world.

Movie: May December (on Netflix)

Inspired by the true story of Mary Kay Letourneau, a teacher who slept with her 12 year old student and eventually went on to marry him after serving a prison sentence for statutory rape, I thought this movie was phenomenal. Rather than exploring the primary harm doing, when “Joe” is a child, the movie takes place years later when the two are married and sending their three children off to college. Even more interesting, the movie incorporates an actress who will be playing “Gracie” in a movie about the scandal, so it’s quite meta. This format allows for an exploration of how the affair affects both parties and their families over time, and how long these psychological traumas can take to fully unravel. Highly recommend!

Music: Jim Lauderdale & Roland White

A New Years Eve jam introduced me to the song “(Stone Must Be the) Walls Built Around Your Heart”, written by Don Reno, Red Smiley, and Buddie Smith. I have been enjoying checking out the various versions and worked up a version myself with Lillie Mae, who I will be on tour with this month. This song reminds me how good Bluegrass Duets are — here is the original version by Reno and Smiley

And another version that inspired me:

by Jim Lauderdale and Roland White. I used to see Roland at the fiddle house jams in Nashville before he passed away in 2022, and it was cool to fall in love with this recording of him in his musical heyday.

Drop me a comment and LMK what art hoe content I’ve missed lately!

Yours in Pastry,

Rachel