Short List

BOB'S PICKS FOR THE WEEK (with apologies to Time magazine's "Short List")

1 ALBUM Heart of My Own by Basia Bulat

I didn't even know who Bulat was. I had to look her up to find her picture for this post. But some search on eMusic led me to her, and for the past three weeks, I've been pretty much a non-stop fan of Heart of My Own, her second CD. So far, it has been impossible for me to determine favorites, each song sounding so different and having its own charms. I love the way the marching drums kick in on "Go On," the melody of the chorus on "I'm Forgetting Everyone," the way you hear a fiddle here, an autoharp or hammered dulcimer there. Tempted to call this "Americana," I can't, because she's Canadian. But you can hear something of those prairies, the wind, the less-populated landscape in these intimate, folky, but agressive, tunes. Something has gone wrong in these songs, but you can't quite tell what it is.

Basia Bulat--"Go On" (mp3)

Basia Bulat--"I'm Forgetting Everyone" (mp3)

2 BOOK Real Cajun by Donald Link

Donald Link, more than any other chef, has transformed my understanding of Louisiana cooking. There is nothing formal about the dishes and meals that you can make from Real Cajun; there are no shortcuts either. People who eat New Orleans food recognize instantly that it is some of the most flavorful food they've ever tasted, but they may not realize until they look into this book that there are very specific, manageable steps necessary to create those layers. A good cookbook shouldn't be intimidating, but it should help to make you a better cook than you were before you opened it. Real Cajun has led me to the best versions of dishes like gumbo and jambalaya that I've made.

3 FILM Beyond All Boundaries

Touted as a 4-D film experience, Beyond All Boundaries, the new 45-minute film made for the National World War II in New Orleans, actually lives up to the hype. At times bombastic, at times jingoistic, it does an incredible job of capturing the flow of the war, using a mixture of broad strokes and personal voices, newsreel footage and digital effects, ground-shaking sound and real-world props like the nose of an airplane jutting out from the screen or snow falling on the audience during the Battle of the Bulge. While waiting for the film to start, you sit outside the theater watching six adjacent video panels of black and white photographs from the time period. Very affecting.

4 OUTDOORS The Winter Garden

For years, during the colder months, the soil on my property has just been sitting there growing sickly weeds and green onions that I didn't pick the first time around. Why didn't I plant garlic cloves back in the fall that would be harvestable months later? Now is the time to put in crops that will be ready in some 60 or so days--lettuces, beans, peas, and anything else that profits from the chance to grow in cooler weather. It's also the time to put those seeds you may have saved into moist seed cups under plastic wrap, so that they can sprout and be ready for the warmer planting season.

5 DVD Intelligence

This Canadian crime series should hold strong appeal for fans of The Wire or The Shield. Vancouver crime boss Jimmy Reardon has a complicated life of family and business entanglements worthy of Tony Soprano, including serving as a police informant for Mary Spalding, director of the Vancouver Organized Crime Unit. While Spalding is not amoral like Vic Mackey, she manages a professional and private life at least as complicated as his or Reardon's. And while she doesn't rely on a "wire," she gets her intelligence by riding herd over an ever-growing stable of compromised, questionably-motivated informants. Her second-in-command, Ted Altman, is one of the great two-timing characters on television, with a smile like a jackal. One caution: the ever-twisting plot is far too complicated for the casual viewer. You can't plan to sip a glass of wine and fall asleep to this one.

Basia Bulat is available at eMusic.