Episodes

Episode 22: Wells Tower, Tree Drinking, Food Mags

Wells Tower/photo courtesy Farrar Straus and Giroux publishers

This week: Pushcart Prize-winning author Wells Tower gets auto erotic… we learn how to drink trees… and Rico finds out that starting a food magazine is child’s play.

Drink Recipe: “The Eiffel Tower”

On May 6th, 1889, the Eiffel Tower opened to the public – it served as the entrance to the World’s Fair in Paris. The tallest structure on Earth at the time, it still failed to impress many of France’s most famous artistes, who considered it a dark stain on the City of Light. The Tower nevertheless endured long past its original 20-year expiration date… a fact we celebrate with this summery Francophile concoction.

The Eiffel Tower, as created for the DPD by Alan Walter at Iris restaurant in the French Quarter of New Orleans, LA:

In shaker over ice add:

  • 3 oz. Lillet
  • ½ oz. chartreuse
  • ¼ oz. pine needle syrup (or substitute simple syrup infused with a green herb, like basil)
  • 1 egg white
  • Juice from ½ lemon

Shake hard until the egg white forms a froth. Strain and serve in tall, fluted, upside-down-Eiffel-Tower-esque glass. Garnish with ennui and chase with endless, endless cigarettes.

After Dinner Mint

notes on this week’s show

Wells Tower’s very first collection of stories has already earned raves from the likes of, oh, The New York Times. But as we note on this week’s show, Tower’s first gig was as the guitarist for the much-missed band Hellbender. Get your ’90s indierock nostalgia on by taking a listen here.

(Indie geeks note: Hellbender’s Harrison Haynes now drums for celebrated Brooklyn popsters Les Savy Fav.)

As mentioned in “Small Talk” — home foreclosures in drought-plagued California mean neighborhoods blighted with unsightly dead lawns. One city’s solution: paint them green. Seriously.

This week’s “Main Course” features the kids of 826LA as they tackle food writing for the first time in their 10-year-old lives. Feast on the fruits of their labor by reading the completed food edition of their newspaper “The Good Times.” And while you’re at it, learn all about the 826 National organization — established by author Dave Eggers to provide free tutoring and writing programs for kids.