The Toughest Review I've Ever Had To Write

It's tangentially related to the honeymoon, but if you're truly more interested in photos of baby elephants (and who isn't) head on over to my facebook or flickr. Devoted partner and I are now proud owners of e-readers; he, a kindle, me, a nook. This has drastically changed the way we pack for trips as we no longer need to allocate 20 or so pounds for books. Prior to leaving for Corisca, I downloaded a pantsload of books to my nook so that the beach would not be boring. Consequently, we spent precious little time doing nothing on that trip, so my nook remained full. Part of this was my fault as I chose a 700+ page tome on the Algerian war which remained only half finished upon our return.

For this trip, I didn't need to add to my selections and, furthermore, the book I really wanted to read wasn't to be released until after we left. Sadly, the author's tour was also going to coincide with the trip and I would be unable to foolishly prostrate myself at the feet of my hero (devoted partner was less upset by this as I freely admit the carnal aspect of my hero worship).

So imagine my delight when, upon finally receiving internet access, I discovered the book was available for download. Oh, joy! I would be able to read the long-awaited novel whilst on the pristine beaches of Mauritius. But satisfaction delayed is often just as sweet, so I finished up with the Algerians first. Aside: yes, it was long, but A Savage War of Peace was also really really fascinating.

The sun was shining, I was in a new bright traffic cone orange bikini, and a man was bringing drinks to my deck chair. I was ready. Umberto, I come for you and your brilliant new novel, The Prague Cemetery.

For those who are possibly unaware, I own all of his books. Even the lengthy, of interest only to doctoral students of semiotics, philosophical tomes. I have read Foucault's Pendulum no fewer than 20 times. I even own a copy in Italian, a language I neither speak nor read. I am smitten by the kind of puppy love that only makes sense when it begins in adolescence. For his last book tour, I brought him chocolates and a 10-page, quite stalkerish letter (still waiting on a reply). My smitten is unwavering.

So, I cannot even begin to explain how devastated I was that this new book...oh god this is hard...is a steaming pile of, well I won't say excrement, discarded notes from all of his actually good books. Literally. As a reader of all of his books I could actually envision him going through old notebooks from 30 years ago and gathering up the stuff that wasn't good enough then and combining it to make this mostly unreadable novel. And not unreadable due to complexity or snotty vocabulary. Unreadable in its lack of plot, lack of character development, lack of interestingness, lack lack lack! The Prague Cemetery has none of the oomph. It feels so mailed in that I briefly wondered if it was a joke. A horrible joke perpetrated at my expense (narcissism, I know). I simply don't know what happened here.

The book is about the development of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion which isn't a bad idea for a book. For the first 100 or so pages, one could almost imagine that there would be light at the end of the tunnel (that is if one were so enamoured with the author as to think he could do no wrong). The protagonist has no redeeming qualities, you don't care about him or his story, and you wonder where his mental diarrhea comes from and how it can be so uninteresting. And then it just goes on and on and on. The epitome of sound and fury signifying nothing. Furthermore, the virulent anti-semitism one would expect from a book on this subject just rang so hollow because you could tell Eco's heart wasn't in it. And, unlike Stephen Colbert, he couldn't amusingly fake opinions so radically different from his own.

Upon finishing, and I did finish, I was overwhelmed by feelings of WTF? Why did you write this book, Umberto? It didn't seem like you were interested or invested in it. It read lazily. And you're not lazy. You're meticulous and brainy. I know you're a little pissed off that a no-talent hack like Dan Brown made like he invented Templarian mysteries, but that doesn't mean you should start phoning in your own novels. I wait upon these new tomes of yours with baited breath. I mean have you seen what my other options are for reading these days? And, let's be honest, you don't have that many books left. Would you really be happy if this was the last work you left us?

I'm not going to go overboard and say this ruined our honeymoon and the reason is, it just wasn't significant enough to do anything but leave a bad taste in my mouth (which I washed out with rum). It just made me sad. After plowing through J. Maarten Troost's Life on Planet China and Too Close to the Sun, a biography of Denys Finch Hatton, I had to start on Name of the Rose just to get the taste of Prague Cemetery out of my mouth (rum-soaked though it was). I hope we can reconcile soon. A small book of your essays would help.

Everyone else: if a die-hard fangirl like me can find nothing good to say about this book, you should probably leave it on the shelf.

NookBook

So this was a good gift. My colornook is pretty much everything I could have hoped for. It enables my lazy by allowing me to surf the internet from the couch. It stores pdfs. I hear someday soon it might play video once the flash thing is sorted out. But the unexpected, though not to anyone else who bought it, bonus is that you can read books on it.

In my mind I am still the 16-year-old with dreams of high-minded academia; the girl who, frankly, didn't take nearly enough pictures of Kenya so that she'd still have enough for Italy not realizing that she'd probably get back to Italy far sooner than she'd get back to Kenya; the girl who thought she'd write on an old typewriter and one day make the move from paper to vellum. Which doesn't jibe at all with the reality of someone who has been on the forward side of computing pretty much from day 1.

Still there was that lingering prejudice that books must be paper; the reader must be tangibly invested in their smell; real reading is an experience that cannot be captured by the impersonal screen. Blah blah, blah blah blah blah.

Lies. All of it. Lies.

It's not like I haven't done the bulk of my non-book reading on the computer for some time now. I cannot remember the last time I bought a copy of The New York Times. Reading on a screen is the norm for everything but books. Which, as you know, take up a disruptive amount of space at our house.

But the prejudice persisted. I bought my first e-book because it was a book I knew I wasn't going to need to own in the flesh, Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale. And then proceeded to read it in about a day and a half. Ooh how much fun is it to flick your finger and turn the page. While I was reading, I bought the old standby, a book I own in several different materials and languages, the always-present and frequently-read Foucault's Pendulum. But even then I could say I bought it because I already had the real version.

And then I needed a new book. I went to my reading list, selected an available title, downloaded, and read. Then I picked a book Devoted Partner wanted to read. And now I see the genius.

A lot of the books I read aren't keepers. I have a very long reading list and a lot of what I read disappoints me. And then I have the book. Lying around. Waiting to be donated, recycled, given away, etc. Yes, everyone who is about to pipe in with the novel idea of the library, I understand how one works and that I could borrow the book in question, but I don't know until I've read it whether or not I'll want to own it forever and borrowing it, reading it, liking it, buying it, seems rather a lot of coming and going - not to mention the library fees that will pile up during my indecision/laziness.

With color nook I get my instant gratification and, since there's internet on the thing as well, if I read a book I simply must fondle, I can immediately purchase it.

So now I'm changing my tune: bring on the chip in my skull, I'm ready.

Fellini It Isn't

For someone who has, in her life, taken great pains to appear smarter and more cultured than you, the evolution of taste takes its toll. The truth is, on any given evening, I would prefer to watch Dune than The Seventh Seal. In fact, on any given evening, I would prefer to watch Dune over most other things. I have a Dune problem. I'm going to attempt to not cast my lower-brow tastes in any kind of hipsterish rejection of the highbrow and merely say that after an adolescence of total modernist immersion with some Renaissance epic poetry thrown in for good measure, I'm ok with the fact that I can't stand the New Yorker and generally won't even read it on the toilet.

We saw the movie Red over the weekend and I loved it. Now my love of ensemble action-esque movies is nothing new. I have been a Poseidon Adventure, Towering Inferno, Murder on the Orient Express, etc. fan for many years. Little pleased me more than the original Ocean's Eleven simply because I hoped it was the start of more 70's-era ensembles of silliness. Red, which is decidedly lowbrow was a delightful romp with all the attendant irony I look for in such things. Also, Helen Mirren has a sick body. Sick.

But it dawned on me that maybe I have ever so little less to prove by my choice of media consumption. After all, as devoted partner notes, my humor tends towards the eight-year-olds never so apparently as when I'm watching Family Guy and laughing at doodie jokes. When I reach for a book to reread, it's true that it's frequently Foucault's Pendulum, but the others that get reread often are American Psycho and Tim Cahill's Road Fever. So it's not all semiotics and fancy words. I have tried, and disliked, many of the new guard of intellectuals, leading me to believe that what I'm looking for has changed, not merely that the new guard of intellectuals is a bloviating morass of mediocrity (see how I used really snooty words there?).

And, as is a case I have heard from other recovering, or semi-recovering, self-satisfied asshats, I'd rather read good non-fiction these days than mediocre fiction. Philip Roth, a shining example of self-satisfied asshattery, has become more of a punchline than a good read. After all, I know of no one other than Philip Roth as interested in Philip Roth's erectile dysfunction. Now, I'm not yet at the point where I salivate over the newest biography of a nineteenth century politician, but I don't discount the possibility that that time may come.

As for film, or shall I say movies, I never much went in for the idea of film as art and I'd much rather laugh at a movie than feel consternation at one. Again, a good documentary would serve me better than a mediocre thought experiment.

Now, I'm not over the hump yet. I will still disdain the bottom of the barrel with full voice. You need not worry about seeing me thumbing through Danielle Steele or any of the author's who have ads on the subways, nor will you catch me waiting in line for Jackass 3 or a Rob Schneider movie (were another to ever be made), but I'm just no longer interested in subjecting myself to what is cast as High Art for the sake of having experienced High Art. I've experienced a buttload of High Art and it's taught me that not all of it is actually good (I'm looking at you, D.H. Lawrence, you pitiable hack).

Devoted partner, on the other hand, is not off the hook for his choice of reading material, and frankly neither are you if I catch you reading a book about Vampires that wasn't written by Bram Stoker.

Ooooh. A good book.

Whilst in Portland, the DuYos lent me a book. Now there needs to be some background to this. Once upon a time, JDuYo and I read most of the same books, eating up Auster and Delillo like any pretentious 15-year-old should. True, we occasionally disagreed, but for the most part, we were content to read and read alike. Then something happened: college. Maybe it started before college, but we were too busy to notice.

But on trips home during those four years, he kept talking about things like John Cheever and I kept talking about Gabriel Garcia Marquez. We both confessed to having tried the other's choice and having been mercilessly bored. Quelle horreur. When we roomed together after college, things got no better, for now we were set in our ways. Of 50 books read, perhaps 3 were in common, and we both just accepted that our tastes had irrevocably diverged. We tried not to make too too much fun of the other's preferences. That was difficult. Literary preference is only one rung down from sports team preference.

So eventually, we simply stopped recommending books to one another. After all, just because we didn't like the same books didn't mean we couldn't be friends. We should just avoid antagonizing one another with our tastes. Every once in a while we would hit upon something we both liked (though if I'm being honest, I can't remember the last one) and we could more often agree on what we didn't like - especially when it was the execrable work of former heroes.

But the book I was handed in Portland was handed over with a ringing endorsement and since I'll read anything, there was not reason not to begin David Beniof's City of Thieves.

Let's start off by saying I really liked this book. Thanks DuYos! And I'll tell you why. I think one of the points of divergence in our literary tastes has to do with protagonists and intent. My gauge is that JDuYo finds character to be kingly - even when said character is a middle class middle-aged white dude with no major problems. If the writer can capture the character brilliantly, it doesn't much matter if the character in question isn't that brilliant. I, on the other hand, thanks to a semester of Roth & Updike, no longer give a crap about the problems of the average white man. See also: Fight Club. I simply don't care. To me it's all so much blahblahblah. Now, in fairness, give me the average Indian man and I care. It doesn't make sense. It's just that the average Indian man is different - I don't know him - whereas I know the average 50-year old American or Brit.

My reading leans heavily towards the non-American or British author, excepting Colonial writers, because I'm reading to learn something I didn't know before. This doesn't always happen, but it's what I'm striving for.

Now Benioff is an American. A New Yorker. An easy mark to write Rothdike books. Yet he chose, for this story, the Siege of Leningrad among which to set his bildungsroman. Very well, I'm at least initially sold. I know less about the Siege of Leningrad than I know about Philip Roth's testicles ergo interest. And the story was good. And the characters believable not only for who they were but for who they were in the context of Russian characters. Benioff did a great job writing as if he was a Russian author. And as a great lover of Russian authors, that too held my interest. The book wasn't too long, something our young American writers are excelling at these days - it's fine if you're writing something like War & Peace, but a 600 page novel about how you can't finish your novel is really really really shite.

So I recommend the book wholeheartedly. And I'm ready for my own next recommendation!

Come Ye, All Bandwagons, That I May Jump Upon Thee

So, after merely two postings, I've already been taken to task for excessive engagement babble. Ok. I can take direction.

I have a bad habit of being among the last to read that book you just must read. Some of this has to do with my dislike of lugging hardcovers unless said hardcovers were penned by Umberto Eco or Milan Kundera, some of it has to do with what I call the New York Magazine Effect. If New York Magazine writes about the hot new place, it was always the general wisdom that the place was no longer hot. Similarly, if everyone is fawning over a book, I have suspicions as to the greatness of said book - I'm looking at you, The Corrections. Some of it is due to my well-documented snobbishness.

But I've been having some rough luck with books of late. Yes, the past two "modernist experiments" should have been a red flag from the beginning, and picking items willy-nilly from one's wishlist that one doesn't remember putting on there to begin with is possibly foolhardy, but I've felt roundly disappointed by most everything I've read lately.

Which is why, with beach time looming, I recently relented and bought the book everyone can't shut up about.

It went quickly enough that in the same weekend I bought the sequel and then, this past Friday night, bought the final book.

And here's what I can say: these books tell a good story and they tell it without the preponderance of cliche, bad writing, and grammatical errors that usually are part and parcel of the book everyone can't shut up about. In some ways, they're like Harry Potter for grownups: you don't need to expend tons of brain power, but you're happily distracted for the several hours it takes to read it. And in my world, if I can't find anything bad to say about a book (ok, fine, I knew whodunit in the first book very early on, but I'm not sure it was supposed to be much of a surprise), that's going to be good enough for me. Because I have a lot of bad things to say about a great many books (do not read Atmospheric Disturbances unless you are feeling especially masochistic).

The One Reason I'm Sad We Never Lived In Brooklyn

Last night something unusual happened: I was double-booked. Now I am not an event-attender. Most evenings find me cooking something, knitting something, and staring aimlessly at the magic picture producing box in the living room. I'm trying to be better about that. Yet, the when it rains adage has been proving quite true recently as I will also be double-booked on Saturday. But we're talking about last night.

The evening started (and ended too soon) at an event for Aidan on the Upper East Side. Held in a model apartment in a new condo, it was a terrific event, very well attended, and filled with the kinds of people I may have enjoyed talking to more had time permitted. Also, like an idiot, I left my copy of Aidan's book at home, preventing me from getting it signed (I hope when next I see her she might be kind enough to overlook my hasty exit from her event and sign my book anyway). As penance for skipping out, I just purchased the book of the other speaker, Jes Gordon. Nog and Noggin' will never look the same.

And while I was predictably out of place as nearly the only woman without kids/a JD/a horking huge fingerrock, I found myself perfectly ably to nod politely at discussions about school admissions and apartment hunting. It was the only room I've been in for a long time where, when I told people I lived in Greenwich, I got supportive looks as opposed to giggles (for the record, I'm still a giggler about it).

After a quick cab ride to Grand Central where I met devoted partner, we were off to Brooklyn for Clay's photo show. At Habana Outpost in Fort Greene. AKA my new favorite place that I will be making lots of excuses to visit again. It was a great turnout with a couple of college friends not glimpsed in person in many years, and a high school and college friend. Wives were met. The vibe was decidedly less intimidating even though the room was no less filled with successful professionals and handsome people. Maybe it was the Cuban sandwich. Billed as the best Cuban sandwich in NY, it does not disappoint. And I didn't even order one. Devoted partner, in fairness, asked me if I wanted anything and I demurred only to devour, with little shame, half of the sandwich he ordered. (If I'm being honest, I could eat one right now.)

And Clay's photos looked great. Yeah, I stalk him on flickr and see the photos that accompany his blog posts, but there is, indeed, something different about seeing the photos printed and on a wall. They seem somehow more real and therefore more impressive - and I though his photos were pretty damn good as mere pixels on my screen.

But when we ended up on the 12:25am train headed home, having missed the preceding train by about 30 seconds (you know what is not interesting at night? Grand Central), I realized I was zonked. We had the Amy over to the house for part of the weekend, an event at which a stunning amount of alcohol was consumed, and until we leave next Friday, we are wall-to-wall booked. I know a lot of people live entire lives like this, but boy are we ever out of practice.

At least I made time to floss.

Miami: The Book Reviews (still haven't uploaded photos)

While we wait (patiently) for my editing and uploading, I can still talk about the lovely several days we spent in Miami. Sort of. I'll confess, we didn't do much. I mean devoted partner did quite a bit as he was there for work and so was working for two days but I not so much. The two places I had meant to go to? Not so much. What I did do for two days was tan and read (possibly a little too much sun, but it is now a perfect shade of bronze so no one's the wiser). Since I became over-infatuated with the knitting, my 100-meter dash reading habit has suffered. Also I've been kind of disappointed with nearly everything I've been reading. But I packed six books for the trip and thank god we didn't spend Saturday on the beach or I would have run out. As summer is on our doorstep and many of you might similarly take to the beach with a book, I thought I might give you my opinions.

Life After Yes. Aidan's book arrived prior to the cab to the airport meaning I was able to open her book bright and early Wednesday morning in my chaise. By 10:45am, Aidan's book was done (honestly, would it have killed you to have written another 300 pages? :smiles:). I will admit, rather shamefacedly, that I was anticipating more girlishness in the book than there was. And while I enjoyed the day at the beach those years ago when I read Bridget Jones' Diary, I don't traditionally pick those books off the shelf. Aidan's book was touching and feminine without trying too hard to land the chick-lit vote, which for someone who doesn't vote that way, was terrific. Her protagonist was aware of her flaws and her lapses toward cliche and that made her so much more human and easy to relate to, even as she was rich and pretty. The story traces a relationship through the unexpectedly rocky times post-engagement as the protagonist, Quinn, wonders if she's making the right decisions about anything. Woven throughout the story are memories of her father who died in the Twin Towers but the book doesn't seek to capitalize on boo-hoo 9/11 hokum like SO MANY OTHER BOOKS DID (I'm looking at you, Don DeLillo). So I now feel confident, nepotismessness aside, in recommending Life After Yes as excellent summer reading that even snobbish bitches like me who look at the girlbook table with disdain can guiltlessly enjoy.

Rough Music: Blair, Bombs, Baghdad, London, Terror. And of course, one must follow any enjoyable fiction with a short tome on British politics. I'll be honest: unless you're REALLY interested in British politics, you might want to skip this. As much as it pains me to say (and you have no idea how it pains me), this book, for me, suffered as Umberto Eco's "Turning Back the Clock" did (which was a lot about Italian and European politics). Interesting? Yes. But completely time-specific and, frankly, if you ever glance at a foreign newspaper or political blog, you're pretty much already familiar with what's happening. I call this a pass.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. I think I'm pretty much the last one on the bus here, so forgive me if you read this book when it first came out. It had been on my list and I just hadn't gotten around to it. Quite pleased, however, that I finally did. Ostensibly merely the story of a lonely Dominican kid in New Jersey, Diaz does a rather brilliant job of capturing the legacy of the Dominican Republic in the 20th century while peppering his prose with more old school sci-fi references than I am comfortable admitting I understood. While I got the feeling that Diaz is no Mario Vargas Llosa fan, I would offer a double feature that starts withThe Feast of the Goat: A Novel. But then again, I'm a fan of double features (as anyone who has ever caught me doing a Poseidon Adventure/Towering Inferno thing will doubtless vouch). I found the character development in the book, and not just that of the protagonist, to be the highlight, and reminded myself how frequently I am disappointed reading half-formed characters, but the story, as pedestrian as it could have been (oh, right, coming of age story blah blah) was fast-paced and polytropeic (I have made up this word).

A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes from My Kitchen Table. I have been reading Molly Wizenberg's blog, Orangette (see sidebar) for many years, and when I started subscribing to Bon Appetit, I was happy to see she was gainfully employed writing a column. I owe a debt of gratitude to so many of the food bloggers who made the internet a far tastier place and so I have frequently "thanked" them by buying their books. This one was different, though. In the place of a glossy picture book of recipes, this was a reading book. Each recipe boasted a story at times sweet, at other times a trifle forced, but the formers outweighed the latters (and have compelled me, at least theoretically, to a pledge of more salads this summer). The stories follow Molly from her Oklahoma home to her Seattle adulthood and along the way she loses her father to cancer and finds a husband while spending a jealousy-inducing amount of time in Paris. The recipes are from the heart and simple enough for timid cooks and I estimate that at least 50% of them will be made by me sooner rather than later.

Atmospheric Disturbances: A Novel. More often than not, a book will show up in my Amazon box and I have no idea how it got there. Sure, I remember ordering it, I just don't remember how I decided to order it. This was one of those books. When I read the back cover (man's wife comes home and is decidedly a double of his real wife and he must launch a search to find her aided by a psychotic who thinks he controls the weather) I was intrigued. I was thinking Operation Shylock meets something. Sadly, by chapter 6 or 7 (and these are those short 2-3 page chapters) I knew how it was going to end and the getting to the ending part was neither particularly interesting, nor particularly facile writing. This was an author trying too hard. I would also say that a 34-year old woman author writing a 50-something male protagonist was something that was mostly unsuccessful. The protagonist was far more unintentional Philip Roth satire than I'm sure was intended. I think it's very difficult to write from the perspective of the opposite sex and few (frankly I can think of none at the moment, but I'm giving the benefit of the doubt) examples that have worked. You may feel free to skip this one.

So that's what I read on my mini-break. If you have read anything of even relative merit recently, please let me know - we leave for Nicaragua in less than three weeks!

Benvenido, Sloth

Once upon a time I would have thought you were out of your mind if you had suggested to me that good times can be had whilst doing nothing. A vacation was touring cathedrals of Spain, castles of Germany, the Great Wall. Anything less was sort of a waste.

Devoted partner saw things differently. On our grand tour of Europe he continually beseeched me (besought me?) to find us a scrap of sand, if only for a day or two, to break up the monotony of Giottos and portculli. Turns out he was right. Beaching becomes me. I don't know why it took me so long to realize. After all, I can recall sunbathing ad nauseam at summer camp (with baby oil) and enjoying that. I just always though beach vacations were a cop out. Until I took one.

Now I have difficulty summoning up the energy for a museum or a walking tour of anything other than the pool. Well, not really, but let's just say I now appreciate the value of a stack of books, a cold beverage, and sweet sweet ultraviolet.

Which is why I invited myself on devoted partner's business conference in Miami over the next two days. I assured him I would be plenty happy alone, with my books, and my drinks, by the pool while he did whatever it is people do at conferences (I hear murmurings of powerpoint). This useless blathering is my way of excusing my sunny absence for the next few days. True, we'll have the computer and, conceivably I could write something, but I make no promises.

Now I am just hoping that the UPS man, armed with Life After Yes arrives before my cab to the airport.

Ciao.

On Not Being Disappointed With Dinner

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Originally uploaded by reallyct

I cry "Uncle!" Thomas Keller, for all of his persnickety OCD, has won my heart once and for all, and while I climb on the bandwagon rather late, I like to think I do so because I have permitted myself to be skeptical before jumping. It is true, I have only ever eaten at the Bouchon in Las Vegas, but I own three of the man's cookbooks and I am here to say:

I have yet to make something bad from any of them.

Now, it is true, the cake in the photograph was my creation, not his, but I didn't manage to photograph anything else we ate Tuesday night because I was in the kitchen making it. The entire main course of Hebrewpalooza 2010 was from Keller's Ad Hoc at Home and, if I may be so immodest, it was all delicious.

This is the fourth iteration of Hebrewpalooza chez nous and the years have experienced varying degrees of success: Year 1's rack of lamb - utter fail; some people didn't get their food until others had long since finished. Years 2 and 3 tried to arrest that problem by featuring braised and stewed meats that do not have time sensitive components. But stew is kinda unfestive and I wanted to do something different this year. Originally I was going to roast chickens until I realized that roasting multiple chickens sounded time-complicated especially if I wanted people to eat warm food. So I paged through the book (which had already been used for a weeknight chicken paillard that won high marks and a cod which, if I could bring myself to enjoy fish, would have been excellent as well) and hit upon duck breast.

Cool. I like duck. In fact, duck is one of my favorites. Yet, somehow, I had never made duck breast before. I very ambitiously (and using Keller's recipe from his Bouchon cookbook) tries my hand at confit, but I had never gotten around to making duck breast. So, a week before the guests arrived I bought two duck breasts and tried them out.

They were good, even as they were a trifle overcooked. They were good enough and frankly simple enough to prepare, that I decided we would have duck for everyone. So I searched for some side dishes to go with my duck. Being the feast of You Can't Eat Anything, many delightful side dishes were ruled out, but I settled on the Rainbow chard with wine soaked raisins and pine nuts (no one ever said Keller wasn't, frequently, a trifle precious) and garlic potato puree. So I had to make a couple of adjustments to keep with the spirit of the holiday, and this necessitated exchanging butter and cream in the potato recipe for delightful, super nutritious, duck fat. Come on everyone, say it with me: "mmmmmm....duck fat."

I am frequently super judgmental when it comes to my cooking because most of the time I know I could have done better, but this time, I am safe in saying I did well enough. While there was certainly room for improvement (I'm looking at you duck breast that for some strange reason didn't cook through while some of your brethren were a touch past medium rare even though I moved you throughout the pan during cooking so you would be evenly done), I may have been more pleased about the complete package than I have been at any other meal.

And while Keller can be a little fussy, this book is really really accessible. And I fought myself on whether or not to buy it, thinking I already had his two other books, what did I really need with this one. No. I needed this book and if you like cooking you might need it too.

Too Purple

I've been resisting going with this idea because of the potential to piss people I actually like off, but this month's National Geographic rekindled my concern. But first, some self-effacing preamble.

As a lass, I had dreams of the stage. Some of which I experimented with on small, school-sized stages. Except there was a small problem which became more obvious with the passing years: I wasn't any good. I was a pretty crap actress. Mostly because I wasn't acting. I was saying the lines, properly inflected, properly emotive, but as I, Yelena, would say them. Instead of getting into the character's head, I let the character get into mine: this is what Yelena would do if in this situation - who cares what Juliet or Blanche or Antigone would do? Obviously this was a major fail. So I stopped acting because I realized it wasn't in my makeup.

But now we get into trickier waters. For a time, I wrote. In high school, in college, and a little bit beyond. But I ran into a similar problem. I just wasn't any good at fabricating a tone that wasn't my own. What this meant was a) whether set in ancient Sumer or a diner in Queens, the people sounded the same; b) when I deviated from my own tone, the piece sucked; and c) the best pieces I wrote were stream of consciousness ones where the voice clearly belonged to me. Now, I've read my Wikipedia, and sadly I cannot blame this on Narcissistic Personality Disorder which, I am loathe to admit, I do not have, but using a voice not my own results in inauthentic sounding prose.

And yet, I know writers, my friends among them, who are able to fabricate not only characters and situations, but voices. So this is a personal fail.

Or is it?

You see, this month, National Geographic asked a famous author, Barbara Kingsolver, to pen a piece on water (the theme of the issue). I am a cover-to-cover National Geographic reader - I love the magazine - and I stopped reading this piece after the third paragraph. Want to know why? Because this wasn't her fiction (which I have tried and which is not bad), this was essentially an opinion piece, and I couldn't believe in any way shape or form that, in normal conversation, Barbara Kingsolver would say that 'water is the briny broth of life.' Cause real people don't talk like that. And in that moment, I didn't like the author, I didn't like National Geographic's editors for not saying, "come on, Babs, get real," and I didn't like that those kinds of clever turns of phrase are considered deep and meaningful. Take away the word 'briny' and it becomes better; take away the word 'broth' as well (and the of and the) and you have what the author MEANT TO SAY: Water is Life! Which, let's face it, is, kind of duh. Also, it makes me think of Dune.

I did not like Hemingway when we first met, but I am seriously considering giving him another shot simply because here is a man who is not so slutty about his adjectives. There is a difference, to my mind, between 'it was a humid day' and 'all day long she had humid thoughts.' Note to the latter: no she didn't! People don't have humid thoughts. No sane person has ever said to herself, "gee, my thoughts are humid right now," so I take exception to having to read the line in print.

I'm reconsidering how I evaluate books in this light and am concerned about rereading some of my favorites if, in fact, my tastes have changed over the years. Now maybe part of this is my discomfort with the discipline of crafting words as opposed to merely typing them (and I have a notorious laxity vis a vis editing - in case you couldn't tell), but I doubt it's the whole story. I think maybe I'm just becoming less comfortable with all manner of bullshit and the briny broth of life was the last (brittle) straw.

Yet, I will acknowledge the following: it is possible that while Barbara Kingsolver's shtick is stupid and unnecessary adjectives that purport to make simple statements sound profound, my shtick is vocally not having a shtick.

It's possible.

Process Stories

Janelle asked me over the weekend how I come up with what I write. It was an interesting time to get that question considering that I have been mulling over tone and voice and things of that nature recently. I have never been much of a blog follower. Oh, sure, I have a whole bunch of cooking blogs, but on the whole, I didn't read for style, only for content. Finding out that so many people I know are writing has made me take more time to read.

I'm not going to go through a long, drawn-out, introspective post because, what I said to Janelle, I'll say to you: I pretty much write this on the fly. I'll be in the bathroom, or on the train, or waiting in line for something, and an idea will crop up. When I get in front of a computer, I write it down, check for spelling and grammar errors, add a link or a photo, and bam. That's it. Not to say that I don't think anyone who takes the time to read what I have to write doesn't deserve a more well-though-out process, but sadly, I'm much better with off the cuff than with premeditation.

Sometimes, though, an idea will come to me and I won't remember to use it on a certain day. Frequently, it can be a timeless idea so I can just use it on a day when inspiration doesn't hit me while I brush my teeth.

Today is one of those days.

Once upon a time, I worked for an educational non-profit. Among the things I have retained from my tenure there was a report on how, at the time, there was not a single large bookstore in the borough of the Bronx, and how that had an impact on the educational opportunities for children living in the Bronx. I just thought it was inconceivable. After all, I grew up directly across the street from a sizable bookstore - didn't everyone?

Devoted partner once lamented the loss of a bookstore on Greenwich Avenue, a mom and pop kind of place that found itself redundant in the wake of Amazon.com. I couldn't believe there weren't other bookstores, a big Barnes & Noble on the Post Road. After all, the residents of Greenwich had to read. Even though I do the bulk of my book shopping on line, there are plenty of times I want to go into a store to buy things. And Manhattan boasts an astonishing number of bookstores, big and small.

But devoted partner was right. From White Plains to Stamford is a desert of general interest book stores. There is a Waldenbooks in White Plains, but that's going to be small, like the Border's Express, now shuttered, was on Greenwich Avenue.

Recently, we went into the Borders in Stamford, a store that has been around as long as devoted partner and I have been together, and in which we have passed many a moment. Devoted partner needed a book, I didn't, so I looked for the table up front where the "Books You Should Be Reading" display would be. Confession: half the time, I like those displays because I've read their contents; the other half, I like finding something I hadn't yet read.

But this Borders didn't have that table.

I asked devoted partner about its absence and he said, quite assuredly, that only places like New York, where reading au courant fiction was considered a virtue, kept displays like that. Everywhere else, they weren't a revenue enhancer.

This floored me. Mostly because, contrary to my stereotypes, I haven't met a whole host of vacant people since moving. Sure, in the supermarket I can cast a sideways glance at the clueless, but most of the people, dare I say it, look like me. Which means I think they read books and probably like to be recommended books. Not so, claims devoted partner. My new neighbors read mass-market paperback fiction to the exclusion of other fare.

This seems a patently unfair generalization.

So, I'm going to try something different. I'm going to try being the optimist. Fairfield Countians, tell me your recent reads; complain with me that your local bookstore either a) doesn't exist or b) doesn't have that "Books You Should Be Reading" display. I know you're out there. Be not thou shy. Reading, while fundamental, can also be cool, and there must be something you're reading that is neither Nelson DeMille nor a story about teenage vampires.

And I want to know. Because I just finished a book on a recommendation and need another.

The Brows: High and Low

High

Upon discovering that Cablevision had royally plucked me yet again by going haywire during prime DVR time, I ended up watching something unusual: a movie based on a book I loved that I liked. I'm always suspicious when a good book gets turned into a movie because the movie is almost always mediocre and strips away all that was good or charming or challenging about a book (I have the adaptation of Jose Saramago's Blindness in my queue but I'm frankly scared to watch it). But I should have been less wary from the start. You see, Americans did not make this film. Given the population of functional illiterates in my homeland (a homeland I would fight and die for so that my fellow countrymen could continue not reading), it is difficult to take a great work of fiction and render it appropriately on the screen, unless the great work of fiction in question has somehow managed to incorporate flying robots, bared bosoms, and end of days type explosions. I think Hemingway has a book like that.

So the book, I Served the King of England which I suggest you read, and prior to watching the movie, is by Czech author Bohumil Hrabal (say it five times fast). It tells the story of a man in the hospitality industry before and during the German occupation. The man is a bit of a Czech character archetype, a good soldier Svejk kind of guy, simple, earnest, and always getting things wrong, but in a way that endears him to you (and this is coming from someone who generally has no patience for the stupid). Hrabal's work in this and his other books (all of which are totally worth reading) has such charm and whimsy that when I saw there was a movie being made, I was certain these qualities would be lost, but through a surprisingly well-executed series of voice-overs, both shone through so that a person unfamiliar with the book could come away with a feel for its style and not merely its content.

Another interesting, yet depressing, clue that the movie was not made by Americans (yes, the subtitles give it away too) was the casting. There were a fair number of naked women in the movie and all of them looked like actual human beings. There were body flaws you would only ever see in an American documentary on body flaws and I had forgotten how interesting naked women could be when they are demonstrably different from one another. There were also naked men, but I really can't recommend them on aesthetics. The people, naked or dressed, looked like people, whereas even in American movies where the cast is full of "unknowns" the unknowns seem to have gotten their noses fixed and their teeth capped at the same clinic and the only variations are in hair color and height. I am going to endeavor to watch more foreign films (especially if Cablevision continues to mightily suck).

Low

I made fun of Ed when he told me I would want a cellphone with a camera, but he was right: I'm having a lot of trouble unobtrusively taking people's pictures in the train and therefore, sadly, you will have to imagine the guy I sat across from yesterday afternoon who slept with his mouth so wide open...

Ok, I'm not going to be that lowbrow.

Ah Desks

I'm not that picky when it comes to furniture, honestly I'm not. I've never given much thought to furniture, so I'm not wedded to a specific style or color. What I would like is something I'm not embarrassed by. I don't want to go to IKEA, and I don't want the 50 dollar desk from Staples. I'd like something that looks, sort of, nice. Sadly, even if I wanted to go to Crate and Barrel/Pottery Barn/Restoration Hardware/West Elm, I'd end up with something that, to my untrained eye, looks like the IKEA desk but is more expensive. So I've embarked, yet again, on a magical mystery tour of craigslist only to discover that lots of people are getting rid of their used IKEA desks for the bargain price of 70% of retail. Because I'm sure the desk you've been using for two years has only lost 30% of its value, considering the high quality of the merchandise in the first place. Perhaps I'm biased, but if you're selling your IKEA furniture and it's in mint condition, you can have the gall to ask for 40% of retail, but everyone else should be satisfied if he can get $5. This is IKEA furniture people. It's like trying to sell your used clothing that you bought at Target for 70% of retail. Anyone in his right mind would simply GO TO TARGET AND BUY IT NEW!!!!!

But craigslist has, true to its nature, turned up a number of puzzling listings, many of which have made me consult a dictionary for the definition of antique, and others making me scratch my head wondering if the person who penned the ad is altogether sane.



Not bad, right? It's not what I'm looking for, but it seems to be a desk. It's being sold for $325. That's right. Someone's old desk from West Elm is being sold for $325. It was a limited edition color, though, that should mean something; similarly the poster assures me it's easy to 'essemble.' I'll try to over look the fact that it is a slab of metal on legs, and a used slab of metal on legs that someone wants $325 for. Is it me?!?



Again, we have something that looks perfectly serviceable. Not my style, but it's someone's, and it looks to be in good condition. $600. Want to know why? Because the poster claims he/she spent $2000 on it when it was new. If this is the case, that person should be committed. $2000 for this? It's just some wood. It's decent looking wood, but wood nonetheless, and I'm pretty positive it doesn't bear the imprimateur of a famous designer. If you paid $600 for it when new, I would be more convinced. That you want me to give you $600 while simultaneously believing you once paid someone else $2000, well, I would like to introduce you to my handmade artisan 8th grade pottery; it can be yours for only $300 and will bring you years of delight!



No no no no no! I'm sorry. This is not a salable item. This is trash. If it isn't, you've done a piss poor job of photographing this item to its best advantage. Right now this looks like something destined for the curb. In hell. That you want $90 for this is a joke. If someone would give you $5 you should take it gladly. That someone will not be me, however.



As if to illustrate my point here comes this. $350. The poster states that when he bought it a "few years ago" he paid $500. So what the poster is telling me is that if I, too, want to spend another $150 I can have a brand new one of these that no one ever spilled diet coke on, a chair no one ever farted into. Or I could give him more than half the purchase price for his. I just bought a car. It had 8 miles on it when I took possession. By the time I had gotten it from Queens to Connecticut, it was already worth about $3000 less than its new value. But your table and chair has only depreciated $150 in the unspecified "few" years you've owned it? I must be missing something because these listings are not aberrations, they're everywhere. Please buy my used crap for nearly new prices. After all, I once paid for it, so you should too, but you won't get the new version, you'll get my old version. This is why when I buy used books from Amazon I only buy ones that are a dollar. You see if the new book costs 15 dollars and someone is selling a used copy for 11, I'D RATHER HAVE THE NEW ONE FOR 4 MORE DOLLARS. This should hold true across the board. New things are better than old things with a few notable exceptions, but those exceptions are generally for valuable things (amphorae and the like - no one wants to pay top dollar for a brand new amphora), not a couch you and your family have sweat on for five years.

Now, to be fair, there are a couple of desks that passed the Yelena test, things made out of non-IKEA wood for the friendly price of $100-$150, and I'll be following up on those, but the rest of the stuff just flummoxes me. I think we, as a society, should all get together and agree that IKEA furniture is disposable. You buy it and that's it, it doesn't get a second owner, it gets a one-way ticket to the dump. Selling cheap furniture, even for sub-$50 prices is embarrassing, because the furniture wasn't worth anything to begin with. I have owned and loved IKEA furniture, but I have never had the balls to try to sell my IKEA furniture to someone else. Because it's from IKEA. Used things should never be sold for more than half of new things because new things frequently go on sale for half the price of themselves. See how this all makes sense? Ok, I see my crazy is emerging and it should be returned to its cage.

Nopropos: I finished reading 2666: A Novel last week and while I can't tell you what it was about because I'm still trying to decide that, I can tell you it was the best book I've read in years. It is a book I think everyone I know should read (and likely people I don't know). Yeah, it's long. But it's broken up into 5 easily digestible pieces, made easier by the fact that it's now in paperback whereas I was toting the hardcover around with me. This book = good. Read this book.