Category Archives: Epicurienne’s library
book lists, book reviews, what’s Epicurienne reading now?
Where Epic finds that Starbucks is about more than just coffee.
In recent years, I’ve found one of the most efficient conversation starters to be “what do you think of Starbucks?” The opinions fly about as fast as Roadrunner on his sixth triple espresso, and there’s often the feeling that it’s a bit uncool to admit to liking Starbucks, just like when it wasn’t cool to like Abba. Don’t get me wrong; there’s always a handful of brand-faithful caffeine addicts ready to share their love of vanilla frappuccinos, Christmas gingerbread or eggnog lattes, caramel macchiatos or the reliability of the simple flat white. On the other hand, there are plenty of folk who make no secret of their disdain for the world’s most famous coffee house.
Some people hate Starbucks because it’s everywhere. Others love it because it’s everywhere. It would seem the jury’s still out, especially because of the effect of Starbucks on the small, old-fashioned coffee shop which has been fast-disappearing, unable to keep up with the larger coffee chains. Think: You’ve Got Mail, only with independent cafes, instead of bookstores, being put out to pasture by the new big boy on the block. Given all the different opinions, the argument seems nowhere near being resolved. Then, in one online dispute between some of my fellow bloggers from different cities around the world, each with their own Starbucks (plural) nearby, I learned something new about the coffee giant: in the States Starbucks is respected for the benefits it offers its employees and the fact that it has a notable non-discriminatory recruitment record. That piqued my interest. Gay, straight, young, old, black, white, with or without qualifications. If you’re willing to work, you’re almost assured of a job at Starbucks.
A while ago, I picked up a book in a charity store. It was called ‘How Starbucks Saved My Life’. It sat in my To Read pile until recently, when I found I could not put it down. The author, Michael Gill, tells the tale of his successful career, for which he sacrificed Christmas with his kids and quality family time as he jetted around the States and beyond in the name of advertising. Not so clever in hindsight, he finds. He never considered that the agency for whom he worked would axe him. No, he really believed he’d be there until he retired, but the agency didn’t see it that way. Suddenly, and without further ado, Gill was fired. His face no longer fit the image of the agency.
One failing consultancy, an affair, a love-child, a divorce and a tumour later, Gill finds himself down-and-out, applying for a job at Starbucks. Instead of feeling embarrassment at taking a blue collar job with very basic hourly wage, Gill surprises himself by realising how much he enjoys his new, simpler life. He makes new friends, looks back at past experience with fresh eyes, learns to take pride in all aspects of his new-found work, including toilet cleaning, and starts to reassemble the different parts of his broken life. It’s inspiring.
Some cynics would say that the Ad-Man in Gill saw an opportunity here; by writing about his experience of such a global brand, he’d get his book noticed, and he did. I don’t have a problem with that. Others might complain about Gill’s name-dropping, which did annoy me at times, but we should remember that until he lost his job in advertising, Gill really was a major player in that world, so a certain amount of his past-life involved schmoozing high-profile people. What impressed me, however, was how the once-grand man with everything learned to take pleasure in simple things and be grateful for them. Once upon a time Gill would have taken his ad-agency remuneration package, including health care benefits for all his family, for granted. He is now almost pathetically grateful for the health care he receives through Starbucks. In the past Gill would have been scared to cross paths with some of his co-workers, from starkly different backgrounds to his. Now they share music and anecdotes and learn from each other’s life experiences.
Gill works hard and steadily, getting himself into a new groove and routine. He overcomes fears, confronts his failings and learns enough about coffee to run tastings for colleagues and guests. I’d say that’s pretty admirable for a man who only recently thought he was on the scrap heap for good.
Apparently Tom Hanks thought Gill’s tale was worth further attention, because he bought the film rights. The film version of How Starbucks Saved My Life is listed on IMDB as being a 2012 release, so we’re going to hear a lot more about the global coffee king before too long.
Before you all jump on your soapboxes to tell me that I’m evil for supporting what one acquaintance calls The Devil’s Coffee House, just remember that my day job is in Human Resources. In recent years I’ve had to tell too many good people that they needed to find a new way to cover their rent/ mortgage/ school fees/ loan repayments and credit card debts because their job had ceased to exist. I’ve seen grown men and women sway with catatonia and cry, and it’s been soul-destroying for all concerned.
We weren’t alone; the credit crunch has forced many companies to shrink their staff numbers or close down completely, and many firms use the credit crunch as an excuse to remove non-contractual benefits and cut salaries. Often the business reasons for this have been valid. At other times, you’ll find they’re a tight-fisted pretext for making those at the top richer and Joe Bloggs poorer. Of those still in work, most of us are worse off than we were four years ago. So when you’re jobless, sixty something, down on your uppers and are accustomed to having coffee served to you as opposed to serving it to other people, but have never made cappuccino foam in your life, what do you do? Take a leaf out of Gill’s book and head for Starbuck’s. Then ask for an application form. In this tough climate, Starbuck’s is rare in not pulling the plug on staff benefits and however you look at it, the list of benefits for U.S. Starbucks workers is impressive. They cleverly call it a ‘Special Blend’. Here’s a brief summary of benefit components that a Starbucks partner might expect, taken from the U.S. website:
- Competitive pay
- Insurance: medical, prescription drug, dental, vision, life, disability
- Bonuses
- Paid time off
- Retirement savings plan
- Stock options and discounted stock purchase plan
- Adoption assistance
- Domestic partner benefits
- Emergency financial aid
- Referral and support resources for child and eldercare
- A free pound of coffee each week
Further information is here:
http://assets.starbucks.com/assets/benefits-guide-12-29-09.pdf
When it comes to finding out what benefits a UK Starbucks partner can expect, there is a curious lack of information on the UK website, but I did manage to find out that Starbucks intends to introduce an NVQ training scheme for their staff from next year, with an MBA-style programme for senior managers currently in development. These courses and more will be available to partners through the Starbucks University, helping them to gain education whilst working, whatever their level.
As for Michael Gill? He’s written a second book, called How to Save Your Own Life: 15 Lessons on Finding Hope in Unexpected Places, but according to a quote on his website, he is intent on keeping things simple.
“I have heard from literally thousands of people who have told me that they have benefited from my surprising story,” Mike says, “I think because my life is irrefutable proof that simply acquiring things does not bring happiness. In fact, the contrary has proved true for me: losing a lot of stuff frees me to be truly me. There is a cost to working 12 hour days like I used to do, or striving to keep up a big house and a big life. There is a freedom to going through life without a lot of heavy status stuff—and just giving yourself the chance to do what you were meant to do, and be who you were truly meant to be.”
http://www.mikegatesgill.com/Gill/Home.html
Sounds like someone’s been talking to the ghost of Epicurus…
In case you’re wondering, yes, Michael Gill still works part-time at his local Starbucks. And my favourite Starbucks beverage? Ice-cold mocha frappuccino, even when it’s snowing.
Do you have a comment to make about The Devil’s Coffee Shop? Let’s debate. Let me know YOUR experience of Starbucks, good, indifferent or bad – all opinion is welcome here.
Week In, Week Out by Simon Hopkinson
Simon Hopkinson does not like chestnuts. He avoids honey, and his views on New Zealand’s green-lipped mussels are clear, if harsh: “they are as tasteless as they are unwelcome,” he writes in Week In, Week Out, a collection of his weekly food columns for the Independent, released in paperback this past July. Quirks of the palate aside, this book, replete with the sort of photography that will reduce a foodie to Pavlov’s dog-style salivation, is a blissful read.
I can vouch for this statement, you see, because when I sat down with my copy of Week In, Week Out on a Saturday morning a couple of months ago, I initially predicted spending an hour or two with it until such time as the sun lured me outside, for it was indeed a beautiful day out there with The Normal People. This plan did not work for me, however. In fact, it failed miserably. Had friends not insisted I keep my promise to attend a planned get-together, I may not have made it out into the fresh air at all that day. Week In, Week Out was my anchor to the sofa. I barely moved until it was absolutely required.
Apart from the fact that Week in, Week Out contains luscious photography and sensibly seasonal recipes, Hopkinson’s use of language is nothing less than inspired. He uses words like ‘flobbery’, gently instructs us to ‘worry not,’ in a fatherly fashion, and likens lazy game preparation to ‘intercourse with a blow-up doll: tasteless, bouncy, spineless.’ I have not had the pleasure of meeting Mr Hopkinson, yet his writing allows a very particular personality to shine through, so that by the end of reading this feast of seasonally-grouped columns, an idea of what it’s like to dine with this chap, under both good and intolerable circumstances, is very firmly planted in one’s mind.
References made by Hopkinson to his upbringing, including fondly-related memories of his mum’s Kenwood mixer and tales of his father’s forays into the kitchen, add a nostalgic slant to certain extracts, and his understanding that not everyone has 2.3 kids, dogs and extended family to hand prompt him to create a string of recipes for the childless couple’s quiet night in. This means that, for once, a celebratory meal for a mere two people, couple or otherwise, need not create excess expense or leftovers aplenty for days to come. How considerate.
The tips peppered generously throughout Week In, Week Out, are many and varied – from where to find wild smoked salmon, to how to get your hands on good, peeled shrimps and even how to bone a pair of rabbits. There are recommendations for the gastronome’s bookshelf and some noticeable reverence given to the late Elizabeth David, but just when you think that perhaps Hopkinson’s recipe inspiration is a tad too bygone in era (kidney soup with bone marrow and parsley dumplings, syllabub, poached chicken or rabbit tongue), suddenly out pops something with roots in a completely different hemisphere (chilli crab salad with grapefruit and avocado) or region (squid stuffed with minced chorizo).
Hopkinson’s mentions of meals enjoyed as far afield as Bangkok and Rome do not go astray here, yet may increase excess salivation. Places that rate high on the Hoppy Index include Amsterdam’s Oesterbar for smoked eel and impeccable peeled shrimps, Tre Scalini in Rome for espresso graniti and Cova in Milan for a cornetto or two. In the UK, Hopkinson favours, among others, Riva in Barnes for the sort of tiramisu that sounds as if it might actually make it to 10/10 on Monsieur’s tiramisu scale of perfection, a score as yet unreached.
At the other end of the foodie scale, Hopkinson displays typically passionate tendencies to rant about what does and does not work in the kitchen. He discusses torn versus chopped basil, comments on the apparent extinction of the brown paper supermarket bag and the scarcity of a decent high-street fishmonger. The confusion of metric versus imperial sizes of containers for various ingredients also rate a rant, and who could possibly disagree with this man? He may not be licking his lips or proclaiming his own cooking “dee-lish-usssss” every twenty lines, but that’s what makes this book an even better read: its honesty.
If that wasn’t enough to tweak the Epicurienne tastebuds, then the final section of the book proved to be my favourite. It’s all about eggplants, which I adore in all its forms, from fritters to baba ganoush and parmigiana, but there’s one eggplant dish which is seared into my memory: the one with miso sauce. When I lived in Sydney, my dear friend and colleague, Kayoko, took me for a quiet Japanese dinner in celebration of my birthday. When it came time to order, I deferred to her expertise. She insisted we try the eggplant with miso sauce and I’ll never forget its smooth touch against my tongue, or the subtle blending of tastes. I forget whatever else it was that we ate that evening. For me, it was all about that eggplant.
Now, years later, Simon Hopkinson has endeared himself to me forever by including the recipe for eggplant and miso in Week In, Week Out. In my opinion he saved the best for last. For that I may even forgive the fact that he doesn’t like New Zealand’s green-lipped mussels.
Don Epicurienne
It’s always a relief to me when Christmas is over. Following all the over-eating, excitable families, pressure to spend, emotional blackmail to eat more, stay longer and be energetic, happy beings, in spite of any work-related year-end exhaustion, I find myself in desperate need of escape. Forget peace on earth and goodwill to men. Few people seem to remember the true meaning of Christmas. Take last Christmas, for instance, when Israel was wreaking havoc in Gaza. There was nothing peaceful about that. Extremist factions around the world favour Christmas as a great time to try to blow things up, and on Boxing Day 2004, a tsunami swept through southern Asia, killing over 200,000 people in 13 countries, so forgive me if peace is the last thing I relate with Christmas these days.
On reflection, 2008 was turbulent. A memorable year for all the wrong reasons, it had been a rollercoaster ride from start to finish and not in a good way; it was more akin to Expedition Ge Force than It’s a Small World. So, to recharge, Monsieur and I booked an end-of-year trip to Sicily (once we’d fulfilled all family obligations and celebrated Christmas not once, not twice, but three times over).
I hadn’t set foot on the island off ‘The Boot’ since I was a student in quite a different life. On that first trip, many of our group had been suffering from a nasty virus and I therefore coughed and sniffed my way around Sicily in a somewhat depleted state. This time I was determined to squeeze the most into and out of our New Year’s adventure, especially as Sicily was unbroken ground for my compadre, Monsieur.
The departure routine was the same as for most of our travels: washing and packing like laundry obsessives, to bed later than hoped, waking in the dark, groaning our way into readiness and repeatedly checking our bags for passport and ticket reference numbers in Frequent Traveller’s O.C.D.
For these and other travel prep reasons, I find it’s a blessed relief to reach the air-side part of any airport terminal, especially as you never know whether security will ask you to remove boots, shoes, belt, jacket or hat (I always wear a little Phillip Treacy fascinator for travel, daaahling), or whether they’ll confiscate your perfume or evian from carry-on luggage, lest you turn it into an incendiary device and blow up the plane. (It would seem the instructions for making such things are on the internet somewhere – God bless Google.) Whilst we’re on the subject of confiscated items, have you ever wondered where those clear plastic bags of illegal on-board items end up? I imagine the guards split the take at the end of the day “there you go, Bob, you said you needed a new deodorant. Eileen, you like Number 5, right? Who needs toothpaste? Full tube, whitening… Old Spice anyone?”
On the particular morning that we set off for Sicily, Monsieur and I were both in need of books, so we found a bookshop, stood in front of shelves of what’s deemed as good holiday reading and yawned. Chick lit… murder mystery… murder mystery… Danielle Steele… more chick lit… footballer ‘auto’-biography. It seemed we’d read all the decent titles and neither of us was in the mood for tales of unrequited office crushes or dismembered bodies floating in the Thames. Dismembered bodies in Sicily, however, were another matter entirely.
And so, with that in mind I walked towards the plane with the sort of book I never, ever buy, wondering if I’d just thrown a handful of (devaluing) pounds down the Drain of Mistaken Purchases. As I burned my mouth on too-hot coffee in the departures lounge, out of the hand-luggage it came: The Last Godfathers, by John Follain. At the very least, the book had pictures. That was a start. Turning to the black and white collection of images, I looked hard into the faces of the men who’ve tortured, maimed, murdered and terrorised so many good Sicilian folk. They could have been anyone; there was nothing remarkable or particularly violent-looking about any of them. Food for thought. In the name of better understanding our destination, it was time to find out what this whole Sicilian Mafia thing was about, so I started to read. By the time we reached Sicily, via Milan, I was hooked. Little did Monsieur know that his one-time peace-loving fiancée would soon be recounting tales of disappearances and body disposal, peppered with details of why you have to be strong to garrotte someone and what sort of acid is best for dissolving human bodies. Needless to say, many of these revelations took place at mealtimes for maximum effect.
Wherever we went in Sicily, we saw people and situations that smacked of a Sopranos-on-location episode: grey-haired men with cashmere coats slung across their shoulders, flanked by ginormous muscle-men in suits with mirrored glasses as they ambled about in the New Year sun… there were plenty of such stereotypes about, looking like they’d just walked off the set for The Godfather Part 7, but perhaps Monsieur and I possess over-active imaginations and we were just observing double-glazing magnates enjoying a stroll with their beloved nephews. I leave it to you to decide.
One thing did take my breath away, however. As I sat watching Italian breakfast news one morning, I learned that one of the most notorious of Corleone’s godfathers, a man named Salvatore Riina, had not one but several Facebook sites in his name and other godfathers were being ‘honoured’ (if you can call it that) in the same social networking fashion. The pages were apparently set up by fans (Fans? These people have fans?) eliciting support for the release of Riina and his cohorts from prison where they’re serving life sentences for inconceivable crimes in both method and number. The Italian outcry had begun and soon spread to Facebook’s headquarters, where it caused great argument because Facebook says it doesn’t want to be responsible for censorship. The victims of such men do not agree. They view this stance as support of evil in our midst. Will we next see the godfathers blogging from their cells? Or should such rights be denied prisoners? The questions, the questions. Out of interest, if you stumbled across a Mafioso blog, would you dare post a comment? If so, what ever would you say? Well, I don’t know about you, but suddenly, I find myself in the grip of blogger’s block, quite, quite at a loss for words.
As for visiting Mafiosi on Facebook, well, what do you do to get a godfather’s attention, exactly? Poke him? Somehow that seems wrong. What are my chances of making it to the next birthday if I throw a sheep, instead? Or send tropical fish for the Don’s aquarium, or a round of pangalactic gargleblasters? Pass to all. I think I’ll just play the Facebook app called Mafia Wars, where I’m known as Don Epicurienne. Far safer.
Interesting links:
Donna Leon at Daunt
It’s no secret that I’m a Venetophile or that I have a mild addiction to all things Venice. Therefore it should come as no surprise that I trooped along to Daunt Books when I heard that bestselling crime writer, Donna Leon would be speaking there as part of their evening talks programme. So what if I had pre-booked three tickets in a rush of enthusiasm, believing I would be accompanied, only to find myself quite unexpectedly on my own? A girl behind me in the queue was very grateful for my abandonment, swiftly buying one of my spare tickets as the talk had been yet another Daunt sell-out, so I wasn’t very much out of pocket at the end of the day. It would seem I wasn’t the only one keen to see the famed Venetian crime writer and creator of the keen-eyed and affable Commissario Brunetti.
When Venice-based but American-born Donna Leon appeared on stage she was petite with a neat bob of grey hair and a tanned face that spoke of life in places warmer than London. It was hard to believe she was sixty-seven, such was her energy and spriteliness. Linking herself to the venue, Leon began by recounting her first visit to Daunt, when she didn’t realise that the bookstore had a travel specialism, causing her to ask an assistant why her books were in the section devoted to Italy. Then she moved on to explain some of the background to her current release, About Face.
The title should give us a clue – the emphasis placed by Italians on la Bella Figura, or good appearance is key to the plot. Leon explained that there is a strange phenomenon in image-conscious Italy, called La Superliftata. This is a woman who has undergone plastic surgery or ‘liftings’ on a number of occasions, so that she may come to resemble a Bride of Wildenstein-in-training. In fact, it is such a person once spied by Leon at the opera who inspired one of the characters in About Face.
The Mafia also raises its head in Leon’s latest; with particular reference to their involvement in the business of rubbish disposal . Leon told the aghast audience that the Italian government is burning toxic waste from the North of Italy and Germany without filtering it and the pollutant effects are visible to all. For instance, in Taranto, where the true Mozzarella di Buffala is produced, the sheep are thin and sick with toxicity. Poisonous waste is being burned in their immediate vicinity, great plumes of smoke evident on the horizon and suddenly a creamy ball of true Buffalo Mozzarella doesn’t seem quite as appetising as it might have been prior to this disturbing revelation. According to Leon, in Italy such scandals flare up, cause an outcry and are then relegated to the ranks of Il Domenticatore, a virtual or imaginary place where such things are sent to be forgotten.
As Leon put it, “Italians have always had an adversarial relationship with their government,” and according to her observation, they take delight in the relative innocence of countries who believe in the dedication of their respective governments, because their cynicism does not afford them faith in politicians, wherever in the world they operate. As far as the Italians are concerned, their own government is a bunch of dishonest crooks. This is something that’s difficult to dispute in a country where the Minister of Justice has recently been accused of collusion with the Mafia. We were certainly gaining a lot of unanticipated insight from Leon about her adopted home. This was developing into a superior event, easily surpassing your average book promotion.
On a more personal level, Leon admitted that yes, her books are becoming darker but that she is “genetically predisposed to cheerfulness.” Smiling at the thought, she continued: “I come from happy people. My parents liked one another. We were happy kids. My parents talked to us as if we were sentient beings.” Not surprisingly, they were all readers. However, when asked about her views on the current state of the world, Leon stated that “Intellectually, I really don’t see too much to be cheerful about.” She then referred to the increasing callousness that human beings show, including gratuitous violence, such sociological changes influencing the content of her novels.
Regarding Venice, a member of the crowd proffered that it is not a functioning community, a statement with which I would disagree, because once you get to know it , the community is most definitely there; it’s just well hidden from the eyes of stopover tourists. Leon’s take is that Venice survives as Disneyland and “lives almost exclusively on and off of tourism.” That part nobody can deny.
When someone asked Leon when she first started to write fiction, she quipped “on my application to university and many job applications after that.” Another voice asked if she had always wanted to be a writer. “No, I just wanted to be a happy person,” came her candid response. According to Leon, writing is not a passion; the only passion she has is for Baroque opera. However, she does concede that people have certain innate proclivities and she has always had a particular affinity with language, perhaps explaining why, at university, Leon studied English literature. This she enjoyed because in Leon’s eyes, all she had to do was “lie on the sofa and read for eight years and then they gave me a degree.”
Then, in 1968 Leon spent a year in Italy. Her boat sailed into the port of Naples and, as Leon explained it, “I knew that I was home.” As a result, she was keen to communicate with the locals, so she set about learning Italian “very quickly.” Initially, this involved the acquisition of the Neopolitan dialect. Only when Leon and her companion started to move north did she realise that “No lo satch,” was not the generic Italian for “I don’t know, but was instead the rather brutish dialect of Naples. She soon caught on and Italian now forms an important part of her linguistic repertoire.
Between ’69 and ’91 Leon visited Venice at least once per year. She’d been living and working in Saudi Arabia, but when things turned sour, she became a refugee of that country, a veritably disorienting experience. Where would she live now? Leon settled on Venice as her new home, as the former seat of doges was one place that she’d always been happy.
Many bestsellers later and still happily ensconced in Venice, when Leon starts work on a new book she cannot predict how it will end. She says she knows intuitively how her characters will respond to given scenarios and literally goes with the flow as the plot develops.
A firm favourite with Leon’s fans is the character of Signorina Elettra, whose traits grew as the result of my ignorance and laziness. Signorina Elettra is the person who can do all of those things that I’m sure I cannot do.” Nonetheless, it’s difficult to imagine this sparky woman not being able to do something. Until her writing gained international acclaim around ten years ago, Leon said that she had “never had a real job, that is, when you know you’ll have the same job next year.” In spite of this, Leon has adopted a new country, mastered its language, developed an enviable reputation in the world of crime writing and puts paid to anyone who says they’re too old to change their life. I would say that Leon’s literary success from the age of 57 (when she attests things truly took off) is nothing less than inspirational.
It was in Venice that Leon first thought of writing a murder mystery. She was with Sicilian conductor, Gabriele Ferro and his wife backstage at La Fenice when they started chatting hypothetically about how to kill and bury a conductor. Thereafter, a novel was born, but it lived for a long time in a drawer until friends encouraged Leon to set it free. Next, Leon entered it into a competition, which she won, and because she then signed a two book contract, she had to write another book. Leon is self-effacing about this part of her literary history; she claims she never had much ambition and just got very lucky. “I never strove for this,” she told us, “I just found it was something that I could do and liked doing.”
So what’s the Donna Leon secret recipe to success? Read a lot in the genre in which you are interested. That way you will develop a sample of good prose in your head.
The Germans were the first to recognise the film potential of Leon’s Venetian murder mysteries, but took the liberty of creating a livelier sort of mother for Commissario Brunetti from the Alzheimer’s sufferer originally created by Leon. Perhaps more exciting is the fact that Leon is currently in talks with the BBC who are interested in making her stories into episodes for TV. About this, Leon is confident that we should see something on our screens within the next couple of years. Now, that’s something to look forward to.
One question on everyone’s lips was why Leon has been translated into many languages, yet deliberately chooses not to have her books appear in Italian. She explained that those Italians who have read her books in other languages are pleasantly surprised that she understands their culture so well. They think she must be Italian, and her name certainly sounds Italian enough for this to be a probability. But Leon enjoys her anonymity in Italy too much and would like to remain “a nobody in Venice.” She is also actively avoiding the criticism from some who read ABOUT her books in the Italian press, so guards her low profile there.
Returning to the subject of the Italian Mafia, Leon tells the tale of a fellow writer who was published on this very subject in Germany. According to German legislation, you can’t write about the case of anyone who’s awaiting trial or sentencing, topics included in the friend’s book’s subject matter, hence the fact that she’d already been sued four times. One night, as she gave a reading from her Mafia book in a German centre renowned for its Mafia population, an Italian man stood up at the back of the audience. “You have such courage. Thank you,” he told her. Such praise is apparently a hallmark of Mafia disapproval; something the writer immediately recognised. She later told Leon that at that moment her blood ran cold. She knew that she was now under the watch of the Mafia.
The talk concluded and I joined the queue to have my copy of About Face signed by its author. “It was really enjoyable hearing you speak tonight!” I enthused. By return, the softly spoken Donna Leon said “We had a lotta fun, didn’t we? Thank you for coming!” Not only is Donna Leon accomplished, intelligent and inspirational, she’s also very polite.
A Package for The Planet (a.k.a. The Monkey’s Uncle)
Some while back, My Friend, The Planet (otherwise known as Planet Ross) sent me his blue monkey. He’s a funny little figurine with a pointy hat that probably has some sort of spiritual significance, but the only spiritual influence he’s had so far in London has been scaring one of my colleagues so much just by looking at her that I had to take him to live at home. Prior to that I thought he’d have fun living at work, but that was probably a mistake on my part. Only sad people like living at work. In any case, when Blue Monkey lived with The Planet in Japan, his life was fun. He played with puzzles and predicted the future all day long. Now his days are spent presiding over my shrine, scaring visitors and drinking from my rapidly diminishing bottle of sake when he thinks I’m not looking.
I knew I should send something back to The Planet, but wasn’t sure what to get. Then, one day when Blue Monkey and I were out shopping, we saw the ideal book for this man who loves word play so off it went to Japan for The Planet’s birthday. Here’s the post written by The Planet about his late birthday snail-mail from Blue Monkey and me.
PS Planet Ross thinks he’s old this year, but as Blue Monkey told him “you’re actuarry very young for a pranet”. (Blue Monkey’s still having problems with the English L sound but we’re working on it. ).
Dining in Disguise – or why Ruth Reichl is my new favourite food writer.
It isn’t often that I find a book that makes me want to read it twice in three months, but I should have known from the review that I’d want to immediately re-read Garlic and Sapphires by Ruth Reichl:
“GARLIC AND SAPPHIRES is Ruth Reichl’s delicious and mischievous account of her time spent as an undercover restaurant critic. Reichl knows that to be a good critic you have to be anonymous. When she lands the much coveted job of the NEW YORK TIMES restaurant critic, she resorts to disguise in order to avoid the inevitable red carpet treatment.”
Have you ever heard of anything so unusual? A restaurant critic dining in disguise, then writing about her experiences as various alter egos? I love reading about food; that’s a given. But what makes this book really special is how Reichl’s disguises take her on an unexpected journey to discover aspects of herself that she hadn’t been aware of previously. We’re not talking big hat and dark glasses here; Reichl (pronounced ‘Rye-shul’)develops astoundingly three-dimensional characters, adjusting hair, make-up, style and personality to suit each. In the course of the book we meet a frumpy old lady, a come-hither siren, an elegant hippy whom everyone adores and the invisible woman. A huge amount of effort goes into pulling off each of these new personae, but it works, and Reichl successfully avoids being spotted as she gets around the Manhattan dining scene. Sometimes, in the course of her research, Reichl visits a single restaurant multiple times, as both herself and as one of her other selves (not at the same time!), allowing insightful comparisons between how she is treated depending on which of her personalities dines there. Needless to say, the resulting reviews were the subject of some controversy, especially when revered establishments lost a New York Times star or two because they treated the alter ego badly. This is a veritable rollick through gastronomic Manhattan – so much fun!
As a result of so thoroughly enjoying Garlic and Sapphires, I’ve now placed Reichl’s other culinary memoirs, Tender at the Bone and Comfort Me with Apples on my New Year’s reading list. These follow Reichl’s evolution from a New York childhood, through college at Berkeley and on to her career as a food critic. I’m also having fun devouring the odd copy of the magazine food-fest that Reichl edits, Gourmet, which is always crammed with fantastic recipes and inspiration. Check out Reichl’s pumpkin fondue recipe for some truly warming kitchen inspiration. (This said as it approaches 3pm in London, with the light fast disappearing and a particularly chilly office because the boilers failed – again - this morning.)
Do not stand at my grave and weep
This is for the people I know who’ve lost close ones in recent weeks, and for all those who know what it feels like to lose someone. WARNING: do not read without kleenex to hand.
Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there, I do not sleep.
I am in a thousand winds that blow,
I am the softly falling snow.
I am the gentle showers of rain,
I am the fields of ripening grain.
I am in the morning hush,
I am in the graceful rush
Of beautiful birds in circling flight,
I am the starshine of the night.
I am in the flowers that bloom,
I am in a quiet room.
I am in the birds that sing,
I am in each lovely thing.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there. I do not die.
To find out more about the poem’s attribution and history, please click here.
1000 Journals
‘The project officially launched in August of 2000, with the release of the first 100 journals in San Francisco. I gave them to friends, and left them at bars, cafes, and on park benches. Shortly thereafter, people began emailing me, asking if they could participate. So I started sending journals to folks, allowing them to share with friends, or strangers. It’s been a roller coaster ever since.’ So writes Someguy, the pseudonym for the brains behind this project.
Being an avid journal keeper, I was interested to learn about 1000 Journals. It’s become a collaborative art effort, with strangers from all over the world adding their own thoughts and images before handing the journal onto the next contributor and the results are nothing short of fascinating. The journals have travelled throughout the US and on to 35 different countries before returning to Someguy. Check it out here.
1000 Journals is now complete but the trend has been set. For anyone wanting to set off their own travelling journal or to contribute to an existing one, go to 1001 Journals .
Meanwhile, a selection of the best contributions has been collected and released as a book and filmmaker Andrea Kreuzhage has made a documentary about the journals, their travels, the lives of some of the contributors and what inspired them to take part. It’s currently touring the USA and fingers crossed it’ll reach the UK soon…
For a giggle, try to find the entry where a political critic talks about Presidents ‘Shrub’ and ‘Ray-Gun’!
Hokkaido Highway Blues by Will Ferguson
This is one of the most unusual travel books I’ve ever come across, written by a Canadian teacher of English as a second language, who decides to follow the appearance of the cherry blossom by hitchhiking from one end of Japan to the other. I haven’t yet finished, but can’t resist sharing a couple of hilarious excerpts from the book.
‘Another combination that gives me trouble is “human” (ningen) and “carrot” (ninjin) which once caused a lot of puzzled looks during a speech I gave in Tokyo on the merits of internationalization, when I passionately declared that “I am a carrot. You are a carrot. We are all carrots. As long as we always remember our common carrotness, we will be fine.”
On another occasion I scared a little girl by telling her that my favorite nighttime snack was raw humans and dip.’
You can probably imagine the fit of runny-nosed giggles I experienced when reading that on a plane recently. Another snorter is this:
‘Here I was, folding and refolding my maps, trying to figure out my next move, and this nattering gnat of a man was trying to engage me in a dialogue about my income. He spoke what I call Random English, dictated more by the abrupt firing of synapses than by anything approximating a plan.
“Foreigners can’t eat pickled plums,” he said. “And you are very racist. In America, you treat the blacks bad just because they aren’t as intelligent as other people.” (How do you respond to something like that?) “And you killed all of the Indians.”
I sighed. “There are still Indians in North America.”
“No there isn’t. I saw a show on NHK. You killed them all.”
At this point I decided to simply ignore him in the hope he would just shut up and go away. Or burst into flames and run screaming from the building. Either would have been fine.’
The rest of that particular page has me in stitches. Will update this post once I’ve finished this side-splitting appraisal of the life of an outsider in Japan, on the most un-Japanese of journeys to follow the very Japanese cherry blossom as it bursts into flower all over the country.
