Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Last.fm and Spinach Pasta

The latest news from Last.fm says that users who are in countries other than USA, UK and Germany will have to subscribe for €3.00 per month for listening to Last.fm Radio. I am not too happy about this, generally because I have discovered a whole bunch of new bands and musicians with Last.fm, even with the very limited selection of songs the service has. In fact lets make an experiment. Go to http://www.last.fm/listen and waste one of your 30 trail plays by typing "Hot Action Cop". I bet "Fever The Flava" will start in few seconds. It is a cool song, but gets a bit old after ten times in the same day. Now €3.00 is not really that much in some countries but the again in some it might be, and the selectiveness is just plain not cool. Being bought up in half country, half zoo one might think that I should have grown immune to any discrimination coming my way, but somehow this bothers me.
Now so far this post has been somewhat informative, but not really helpful. But instead of geeky advices on how to get streaming music now when last.fm has gone all sour, I will tell you what else you can do with €3.00. How about a nice spinach and cream pasta.*


Preheat the oven to 200ºC (473 K). Boil some pasta, preferably whole wheat pasta for this one, in a big bowl. Throw about 150 gr of spinach into a sauce pan and drizzle it with olive oil. Add just a bit of garlic and salt. When the spinach is soft, but still bright green add some white cheese or alternatively some feta cheese. After a minute of stirring, add some cream. As soon as the cream gets homogeneous, reduce the heat to very low and let it simmer. The pasta should be done by now, so drain it and mix it with the creamy sauce. Add some freshly grounded pepper and grated parmesan. Put it in the oven for 20 minutes. Bon appétit!

*Note that the quantities and costs are per serving. The total cost of the meal may vary with to electricity prices and hence country.