No. 933 – Honestly

Performer: Zwan

Songwriter: Billy Corgan

Original Release: Mary Star of the Seas

Year: 2003

Definitive Version: None

When I knew that I was leaving the Columbus Dispatch, I stopped buying music for the most part due to my upcoming lack of disposable income. I made an exception for Zwan when it came out just before I left for Cleveland; it was as close to getting new Smashing Pumpkins music as I was going to get. Oh, let’s not mince words: It WAS Smashing Pumpkins in all but name.

Most of my day in Cleveland was built around baseball, which isn’t a bad thing as I'll relate, but between being at the library all day and then working at night at home, I didn’t do too much that wasn’t baseball-related.

The main exception was dinner. Given that every penny was precious during this time, dinner was a big thing. I cooked, and the more I would make the merrier, because I could get a week out of a couple of meals that generated lots of leftovers. One of my faves during this period was a clams tetrazzini recipe that Debbie’s friend Susie gave her years before. It’s easy, doesn’t cost much to assemble, makes a casserole sheet’s worth, lasts a long time in the fridge. I could get four dinners out of it—sometimes more if I was nursing it.

My dinner routine was to come home, change into shorts—even in the winter; the apartment was THAT warm—pour myself a glass of wine, put on a CD and get to cooking. Zwan was in heavy rotation during this time, so I’ll always associate it with the time in my life when I decided to jump out of an airplane without a parachute and see what happened.