The PopCulteer
September 22 , 2017
Several weeks ago I wrote about the fate of The Bakery, Charleston’s music and arts incubator space that’s located in the building that used to house the Purity Bread Factory. The loss of a major tenant and the need for vital repairs had left them in dire financial straits, with a possiblity of them having to close their doors by the end of the year.
Now we have some great news. All of the small spaces that were available to rent have been snapped up. Just this week it was announced a non-profit has been formed to convert the space formerly occupied by Children’s Theatre of Charleston into an all-ages venue, eventually with a capacity of 500 audience members.
This is fantastic news because it not only guarantees that the building is rented nearly at full capacity, but it fills two voids in the Charleston music scene: We don’t have a reliable all-ages venue, and we don’t have a mid-size venue for touring acts that are too big for a local bar, but too small for The Clay Center or Municipal Auditorium.
Kudos to Chris Ojeda, Dennis Strom, Wesley Eary and Jason (Roadblock) Robinson for stepping up and forming The Charleston Music & Arts Collective, a non-profit to finance the venue, which will be called “The Bakery.” If you want to chip in and help support Charleston’s music scene, you can visit a crowdfunding page they’ve set up at IndieGoGo/Generosity. Rewards for your donations include admission to an upcoming concert by Byzantine, a compilation CD of musical acts that record or rehease at The Bakery, a T Shirt, or several levels of custom-created art with your name that will adorn the walls of The Bakery.
This is a great way and a great time to step up and support the local scene.
The Air Fryer
Last week I promised that I would write about my new Air Fryer. The problem is that I’ve been producing radio and writing PopCult and magazine articles about stuff all week, and it’s hard for me to muster the enthusiasm that my nifty new kitchen gadget deserves. This thing looks like some sort of space-pod from a science fiction movie, and it cooks your food with a torrent of super-heated air, sort of like a convection oven on crack. For me, it’s perfectly duplicated the effect of deep-frying, without the added calories and mess of using cooking oil. And clean up is a snap, since every part that comes in contact with food is non-stick.
To make it brief, about a month ago I impulse-bought an Air Fryer at Kohl’s after reading about them on Facebook and finding myself with a ton of discount coupons. I picked up the Power XL Air Fryer, which is apparently the one they sell on infomercials on TV.
It’s a spectacular machine. Mine works perfectly. I’ve seen some online reviews of air fryers that trash them and say that they don’t cook evenly or quick enough. Those reviews are of other brands.
I’ve used my Power XL Air Fryer on a variety of frozen foods (chicken tenders, fish filets, french fries, pizza rolls, pretzels, cheddar biscuits, etc.) and it’s handled each one perfectly. These items cook up with way less oil (none, in many cases), and way fewer calories. I’ve also used mine on sweet corn and I intended to experiment with all sorts of other fresh foods.
I’ll let you know how it turns out.
Show Of The Week
I don’t really have time to compile Stuff To Do for you this week, so be sure to hit the Gazette-Mail interactive calendar to see what’s going on. But I do want to plug this cool showing that’s happening tomorrow evening…
And that is it for this week. Check PopCult for all of our regular features, and be sure to check out The AIR, which I’ve been plugging the crap out of this week because we’ve started our NEW FALL SEASON. All week long not only have we been bringing you brand-new episodes of all of your favorite shows, but we’ve also been paying tribute to the famous TV Guide Magazine Fall Preview covers from years past. You can see them just by scrolling down the main PopCult page. You can hear encore plays of all of this week’s new music programs Saturday, starting at 7 AM on The AIR.
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