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00:02:
Hi, I'm Kim Severson, a food writer with The New York Times, back once again, with more from our new series, NYT shorts.
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These are bite-sized dispatches from our reporters, editors, and critics.
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You'll be the first to know about their latest obsessions and what they see coming next.
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It's just an amazing thing to watch.
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I love it.
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I'm calling it now.
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I'm not afraid to call it now.
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It's the movie that unlocked my love for cinema.
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I am crying a little bit.
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Find them and more on our new app and white to your audio.
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It's available now to all our subscribers. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪
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First up is Abellia Herrera writes about music for the times.
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And today, she's giving us a crash course in Dembo.
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When I was a kid, I would go on these trips
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to the Dominican Republic to visit my family. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪
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we would make sure we went to the beach at some point.
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It was about two hours away from Santiago, where my family is from.
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On the way to the beach, we would often see these vans
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that were really just, you know, had huge speakers, like just covered in subwoofers.
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There would be a lot of Gasolene de Us, which, you know, these gas stations
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where a lot of these fans would just kind of park.
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And it was basically like as soon as you pulled up, you could just feel the bass.
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I would roll down the window
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and just like dance in my seat.
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That's one of the first times I really remember hearing them, though.
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Amisa Vellera and I write about music and culture.
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Growing up in Chicago, I didn't really hear them bow in the street anywhere.
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It was mostly something I listened to at home or with my brother.
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But when I moved to New York, it was everywhere and it was finally like someone gets it.
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Like I see myself here.
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And hear them bow coming out of like a bodega or coming out of people's cars,
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just like lasting on the street out of people's windows.
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Your body will uncontrollably move.
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I mean, it's definitely like the danceable, like you just can.
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You have to pop to it as soon as you hear it.
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So then Bo is all about having a good time.
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You know, a lot of the songs are about dancing or parting or doing drugs.
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And because this is a sound that comes from working class black neighborhoods outside of
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Santo Lomingo, a lot of people look down on it.
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The Dominican government censors songs that they think are explicit.
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People who are socially conservative
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really dismiss the genre as vulgar and obscene.
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Theembo is not the first genre that experiences that kind of backlash.
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I mean, any genre that comes from the street often gets that type of criticism.
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So if you dismiss theembo, you're really missing out
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on a larger and richer deep cultural history.
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It holds, you know, the history of Jamaican dance hall in it.
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It holds elements of proto-regaton from Puerto Rico, hip hop from New York, but then both
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signatures sort of style is that they crank the tempo up.
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Sometimes to like 140 beats per minute.
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It is like breakneck wrapping over it,
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a lot of repetition in the chorus,
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and that repetition is super central to the genre and it's catchin' this.
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If you're just getting into them, Bo,
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I think you absolutely need to listen to a lalfa.
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He is the king of the genre, he is the funniest one, he is the widiest one,
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and he is definitely your entry point to get into them, Bo.
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You can really hear how hard he goes and the Magage Gigo-Goo, which is his song with Bad
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Bunny from 2016.
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The title is a reference to the word the Magolo, and the Magolo is Dominican slang for someone
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who's a hater, someone who's a jealous person, and the title is this really witty word play
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in the sense that it's like expanding all the syllables of the Magolo.
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It's not just a demagoguette, it's a demagage, it's go-goo.
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That's how much of hate or this person is.
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That's how much of a jealous person they are.
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It's sort of like you encompass all of the possible syllables and vowels of the word. ["Mama Go Go Go"]
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I got to see El Alfa and to see the King of Them Bo,
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someone who really came from the street
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and brought this music that has been dismissed for so long,
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to Sal out Madison Square Garden was huge.
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I mean, you could hear like the chair shake,
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you could just hear everyone screaming the lyrics,
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you know, there were Dominican flags waving everywhere.
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I mean, it was really like a carnival.
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Like, it was so fun, it was constant movement on the stage.
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It was a great time.
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He made a lot of comments through the show
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and like in his audience banter being like,
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Who said the Dominican Republic couldn't go global, who said Dembo wouldn't make it
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as this kind of celebratory moment for the movement?
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What's the most important thing?
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You know, my reaction was just like, yes, finally, Dembo made it.
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I listened to Dembo pretty much every day, whether it's on my running playlist or my cooking playlist,
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or just to get pumped up for something, and I think you should do.
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Okay, next up we're talking about food with my friend and colleague who has done a little pantry spillunking.
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And as come up with a bottle you probably already have on your shelf and which I cannot spell and nor pronounce.
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Hi, I'm Melissa Clark.
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I'm a food reporter at the New York Times,
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and I'm standing in my kitchen next to the pantry.
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In this series, we're gonna take a deep dive into the pantry.
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God, you know, did you know I have two jars of marmite?
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Why do I have two jars of marmite?
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I mean, one was the last time you actually explored everything in your pantry.
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What is this thing all the way on the back?
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If you're like me, you buy a condiment, maybe you'll use it once,
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put it in the back of your pantry, and completely forget it's even there.
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Oh, sweet and black vinegar.
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I bet you have an entire meal in there,
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just waiting for you to discover it and make it for dinner tonight.
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And opening it up and, woo, it smells so savory.
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Well, I'm gonna help you figure out
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what to do with all of those condiments in the back of your pantry,
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how to use each and every one of them to its absolute best.
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Oh, God, it's so great, I love it.
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And today, we're gonna talk about something
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That's a real pantry staple, Worcestershire sauce.
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Worcestershire sauce is absolutely essential in Caesar salads.
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You need it for your bloody Mary, but what else can it do?
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And what even is it?
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So Worcestershire sauce was developed in the 19th century.
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It was actually developed by pharmacists, pharmacists named Lee and Perens,
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in the town of No Surprise here, Worcester, in England.
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Worcestershire is made up of four main ingredients.
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So you've got anchovies which have assaltiness, they have an umami depth and a little bit of a saline fishy flavor.
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You have molasses which add sweetness.
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You have tamarind which gives a very bright fruity flavor, almost like a citrus flavor.
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And then you have barley malt vinegar which is sharp and acidic.
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And all of those were fermented together with some other seasonings.
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It was garlic and shallots, there were spices.
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And when you ferment all of these things, they blend into this just very rich, very fragrant sauce with a bold flavor.
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And it keeps for a long time too.
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So that bottle of Worcestershire in your pantry, you can still use it even if you can't remember when you bought it.
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So if you're thinking, well, where would I want to use Worcestershire?
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Think about where you'd want to use Asian fish sauce.
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Asian fish sauce has a ton of umami.
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You can just add a little bit to anything and it's going to brighten the flavors.
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It's got salt.
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It's got that depth that almost caramelized nuance.
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Worcestershire sauce accomplishes a lot of the same things.
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But it also has a little bit of sweetness and it has more acidity.
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sauce is going to be a funkier flavor. A Worcestershire sauce, it's like the whisper of an anchovy.
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It's like, mm, here I am. I'm adding this, you know, this depth of flavor, this salty umami flavor.
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And yes, there's anchovy, but you can't really taste it because it's integrated. It's part of the
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sauce, but it's there and it's doing work for you. What else can we use Worcestershire sauce for?
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Have you ever made a pot of stew or soup and you're just cooking and you're not following a
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recipe and you're tasting and you're like, oh my god, this needs something. And you
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know it needs salt, but it's not just salt. It needs something else. So in those moments,
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that's where you are going to go into your pantry and you're going to say, okay, condiments,
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who shall I choose to put into my soup pot? Because you need that extra. And Worcestershire
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is my go-to. A little bit of Worcestershire just perks up your stew. It's almost like adding
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to your soup, you know, instead of a bouillon cube, a couple of dashes of Worcestershire.
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It's adding life, it's adding flavor, it's adding verve.
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So, next time you've got your pot of whatever simmering
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and you don't know what to add, try the Worcestershire.
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It is there for you.
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You know what? I'm gonna try that.
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I have learned to never sleep on a Melissa Clark cooking tip.
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And finally, to send you off into your day, a new series called How I Hold It Together from the Well Desk.
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They started this little project during the pandemic and you might recall it was very
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hard to just get through the day.
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But the series worked.
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They got through those days and many more days and decided to just keep it going.
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So here's Deputy Editor Kate Lowenstein on how she holds it together.
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I told my husband that I was doing a story called how I hold it together.
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And of course he said, how about the first line is,
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I don't, which is funny because it's true.
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We have two young children, our apartment's always a mess.
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Things are very chaotic in my life.
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But, you know, I have coping skills
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and I've been a health editor for a long time,
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so I have a little perspective on which of those coping skills
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might be useful for other people to hear.
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So here's how I kind of hold it together.
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I feel like there are not a lot of good breakfast foods out there.
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Personally, that's my hot take.
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And I have decided that I'm going to start eating non-brechfast foods
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for breakfast most of the time, and it has lots of advantages.
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One, you can eat your leftovers from the night before, which is very fast and easy.
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Sometimes standing and sometimes with the refrigerator door still open.
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Two, it keeps me satisfied for much longer than a bowl of cereal.
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I think spaghetti makes a great breakfast.
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Delicious, spicy, fish and cabbage soup.
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I ate this leftover fried calzone for breakfast the other day.
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It was not good cold.
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It was pretty soggy.
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But it kept me full for a while.
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So my hips and back often feel very tight and achy, especially after I've been sitting for a while.
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And there's a spot really right on the side of my hip that's just always kind of tight and tender.
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So something I find really useful is lying down on the floor.
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Sometimes it's just lying down on the floor that feels good.
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But then also lying on a trigger point ball, which is a like four inch ball that's hard and smooth.
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And I put the ball on a yoga mat.
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I get down on top of the ball kind of on my side so that the ball is right under my right hip.
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And at first it's really tight and tense and it hurts.
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But then I do a few deep breaths and I stay there a little longer and I feel the not release.
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It feels like a massage where someone's going really, really deep.
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And if I stay on it for long enough, the pain kind of goes away.
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So when I am finding myself having really overwhelmingly negative thoughts, like sweeping
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thoughts, like I never see my aging parents enough and my kids eat no vegetables.
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And I'm so late on every story I'm working on, these sort of like over generalizations
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about how poorly I'm doing in life.
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I've recently become able to notice when I'm doing that and think to myself, you know, what's going on?
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Are you especially tired today?
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And usually that is the case.
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And on those days, I say, okay, today you're an unreliable narrator and you're not going to take yourself too seriously.
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And these thoughts are, we're going to just sort of hang them up and reconsider them later
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because they're being heavily influenced by how tired you feel today.
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Not trying to have a conversation with myself about why it's not true or, you know, certainly
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trying to stop the spiraling thoughts about how it is true.
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And just being like, all right, these are the thoughts we're having today.
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Let's move on.
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So there was this day last September when my toddler dropped my phone on the playground and it completely broke.
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I could not use it at all and I really couldn't believe how sort of free and untethered that feeling was.
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So I took a tip from my friend Tom and bought a lock box that has no overrides, which
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means you put it in, you set the time that you want to leave your phone in there and then
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you cannot get it out, which is a little bit terrifying, but it has allowed me to feel much more present.
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You don't have that feeling of needing to check something constantly and I can read a book
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or sit with my toddler who's doing something maybe not super engaging and doing it for 10 minutes even feels really good.
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I'm Kate Lowenstein and here's how I hold it together.
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I lie on a trigger point ball.
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I grant myself unreliable, narrator days.
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I eat dinner for breakfast.
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I put my phone in a lock box.
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My son definitely did take the lock box and lock it for two and a half days.
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My phone was not in it at the time, but it made me realize, you know, that it could go wrong.
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Well, our Saturdays together have come to a close.
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I hope you'll find more NYT shorts on our new app, NYT Audio.
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It's available for free to all of our subscribers.
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Download it at NYtimes.com slash audio app.
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This episode was produced by Tina Antillini, Elissa Dudley, Sarah Curtis, and Tracy Mumford.
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Edited by Wendy Dorr and Lynn Levy, engineered by Rowan Nemistow, Corey Shruppell, Daniel
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Ferrell, and Sophia Landman.
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Special thanks to Paula Schumann and Sam Dolnick.
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I'm Kim Severson.
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Thanks for spending these past few Saturdays with me.
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And download the app.
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You're gonna like it.
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I'll see you when I see you.
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