I’m not a music expert.  I don’t follow obscure up-and-coming bands.  By the time I realise I like something, the lead singer has usually died from auto-erotic asphyxiation, or has had to move back in with her parents.  I like good stuff, and I also love some absolute crap.  But even I have always known that Prince is the cat’s pajamas.  There’s no two ways about it.

I was introduced to Prince in the summer of 1984.  Dig if you will the picture of an eight year old obsessed with the unnerving possibility of nuclear war and making her Barbies perform lewd sex acts on one another.  Prince could not have come into my life at a riper, more crucial time.

He emerged in the form of “Purple Rain.”  My mother, in a fit of uncharacteristic permissiveness, told my brother he could listen to the album, so long as he kept the volume down on the song about the girl masturbating.  This was a surprising move  coming from a woman who’s entire sex-ed repertoire comprised of telling her children it was possible to get pregnant through jeans.  Alas, Prince simply had that power over people.

It’s difficult to put into words how that album made me feel.  To this day, I cannot listen to “When Doves Cry,” “The Beautiful Ones,”  or “Purple Rain” without breaking down inside.  These songs awakened me to the concept of romantic love.  Prince’s music was a complete picture of what’s learned down the bumpy road of first loves,  true loves,  really true loves…and what happens when they go away.  Thirty years later, I can tell you he was spot on.

Goodbye Prince.  You were too freaky and cool for this world.

Raspberry Parfait

• 1 cup coconut milk
• 1 cup raspberries
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 1 small and ripe banana
• pinch of salt
• 2 TBS chia seeds
• the belief that everything will be okay in the end

1. Blend the raspberries, banaba, vanilla, salt, and coconut milk in a high speed blender until smooth.
2. Add in the chia seeds and pulse until incorporated.
3. Divide into a small servings and set in the fridge overnight.
4. Top with macadamia nut butter.  It is delicious.
5. I like getting lots of raspberry and chia seeds stuck in my teeth.

*this video is so bad, it becomes perfect.  I want to have a party and hire this band to play Prince covers all night long.