Archive for September, 2008
15th September: Saturnine Elegy – David Foster Wallace (February 21, 1962 – September 12, 2008)
David Foster Wallace hung himself on Friday. I am having issues with writing such a plain sentence regarding the death of such a circumlocutory character. I need more words – complicated, obscure words that delight the mind to read and the tongue to speak – but I can only think of simple ones like why*. I know DFW only through his words, with which he was generous. Infinite Jest will be what most people cling to, and it inspired and profoundly affected many of the people most dear to me, but I will look to his non-fiction especially the dizzying brilliance of “A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again” and the frankly brave** “Consider the Lobster”. There is a melancholy current in his writing*** and the vestige of his depression is evident in both his essays and his stories, but no more than what you find in most brilliant, funny people.
I’m gutted. It’s the first time I’ve been able to use that very British word. I know what it means now – and it’s a good word, and one I really wish I didn’t have to use.
*And why do we have such small, seemingly insignificant words for the biggies – your loves and deaths and wars and whys and yeses and nos. Probably because they were the first concepts we thought about and needed to name – and by necessity became obtuse to spice up less interesting concepts to make them feel special.
**I don’t use that word lightly – but “CtL” was published in Gourmet and the responses were – um – let’s just say there were opinions and some more opinions^. Gourmet, under the brilliant leadership of Ruth Reichl, doesn’t shirk from controversy, but while everyone can kind of get behind the idea that battery cages aren’t the apex of conscientious animal husbandry, CtL asks questions meat eaters don’t necessarily want to be asked – especially in this bon vivant bible.
***Most people don’t hide in their rooms on seven-day Caribbean cruises.
^In fact, I recall that it was the most hotly debated article in the magazine’s history – besting even the great Chocolate Cake with Vanilla Buttercream controversy of January 2004 – no, trust me – it was heated.
And this link is posting lots of lovely tributes
And this bookshop in Berlin will be hosting a reading and general WTF-RIP-DFW night Wednesday, 17th September:
What seems tender and apposite w/r/t David Foster Wallace’s heart-rendingly sad suicide is an evening of short readings from his work. St. George’s bookshop will host this occasion on Wednesday 17 September at 2030h.
Saint Georges English Bookshop
Wörther Strasse 27 – Prenzlauer Berg – 10405 Berlin – 030 81 798 333
Mon-Fri 11AM-8PM – Sat 11AM-7PM
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9th September – Becky Bakes in London
I’ve mentioned before that my transition to “European” has been rather smooth. I’ve been neither thrown nor surprised by much of London living since those nascent days when I learned about Television Licenses, that my fireplace was actually my living room heater and how to open my windows. So, I’ll admit it: I got cocky. I thought the little American had it all figured out – and so the universe challenged me with my greatest ordeal to date: baking a cake in London.
I’m a baker. I love to bake, though I will spare you my wistful oohings on the healing powers of the process. My friend Isabelle’s birthday was this past Thursday. When we worked together in New York, she gave me the highest compliment I’ve yet to receive baking-wise: “This is so good, it’s nearly French” (she’s from Paris).
So – for her birthday, I decided to bake for her a chocolate cake. I found my favorite recipe (it’s from Gourmet – Feb 2006, maybe 2005*). I noted the ingredients I would need and headed to my local Waitrose. I had perused the baking aisle previously, but just out of curiosity, and therefore had ignored the pitfalls before me. This is a store that has, at the ready, 20+ different kinds of sugar, 12 flours and all the extracts and accoutrement you could need – but not (in anyway recognizable to my American eyes) baking chocolate or frosting** or baking soda. Nor are the items I did recognize organized in the way I have found them for over – well for a lot of years, okay***. I paced between the aisle’s two cake related sections looking for key phrases, but found none, and succumbed to asking for help****.
The clerk was very kind (I was sporting a frazzled, wild-eyed look at this point) and took me around the aisle and its neighbor until we found, what he assured me, was what I was looking for. I nodded and smiled, but spent a great deal of energy keeping back the voices screaming “that is not – not-Dutch processed cocoa powder! Whatever shall we do!” and “Why is the buttermilk so far away from the other dairy products? What are they trying to tell me? What – and why – is it hiding?”, “90% cocoa – whilst fabulous – is not the same thing as unsweetened” and “Is bi-carbonate of soda the same as Baking Soda?” I wouldn’t have normally paused so much at that one, as it was next to the baking powder which is where one usually would find it, but recently I have learned that a mistranslated ingredient can lead to far worse things than a dry crumb^. I was feeling a wee bit low, and thought about chucking the whole process, not out of frustration, but out of fear – yes – out of the fear that I would give Miss Isa a cake unworthy of both her day and French taste buds^^. I rallied – I mean, the worst thing that was going to happen was that it was too sweet – not the end of the world^^^. I headed home and dutifully converted Fahrenheit to Celsius and Grams to Ounces and Cups, and the good baking elves at Gourmet did not let me down. The cake came out pretty well. The lack of frosting was well solved by dulce de leche as filling and Nutella as icing^^^, and while the final result looked a bit too homemade to my eyes, that is not what is important. And no – what’s important is not that I overcame such a silly fear or that I conquered a baking aisle (with a lot of help from the lovely Waitrose man), but that Miss Isa had a good birthday, and was very happy, cause that is ultimately what it’s all about.
Bring on Thanksgiving…
*And yes – my back issues of Gourmet moved with me to London. I would have sooner have left my Le Cruset. I take all kitchen happenings pretty seriously.
**They have fondant – but I went to four stores – including Wholefoods and found no readymade frosting. Mind you, I was a bit embarrassed about using canned frosting in the first place, but at 11pm, when I was to commence the icing-making, I realized that I had not purchased enough butter and the stores were very much closed).
***Nice little “ways of seeing” palette cleanser though. I hadn’t ever thought that there could be a different way to organize a baking aisle, as no matter what kind of market, supermarket or mega-market you shop at in the States, the Baking goods are displayed in the same order. A little looking glass moment.
****I am not very good at this asking for help thing. I prefer to figure things out for myself/not put anyone out. And yes, I realize this is silly, but I’m being honest.
^I have a friend who is an excellent baker. He is the one who introduced me to the glories of Vanilla Sugar – which I used to make him bring me by the crate load when he’d visit New York from Berlin. A couple of weeks ago we were proofing recipes for a forthcoming project, and I stumbled when translating one of the German words. I called him for confirmation. He also wasn’t quite sure what the right word would be in English, and he talked it out. This is the resulting conversation:
Him: “Hmm…Aha! You know in Agatha Christie stories…”
Me: “Um – yes”
Him: “When it’s later in the story and she needs to kill off someone during a dinner party or at cocktails”
Me: “But…”
Him: “And later when person is dead, the corpse and their food or drink smells like almonds”
Me: “What? Are you talking about cyanide? That is the ingredient in the cookies? Cyanide?”
Him: “Yes! The best translation for Bittermandelaroma is cyanide”.
We will find an alternative before we go to press.
^^^Or, in the unlikely event that that is final trigger – Woo woo! Crisis averted.
^^^^As my friend Katharine will tell you, it is not the first time Nutella has served such a purpose…
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 1 so far )3rd September – The story of the macaroons
Yesterday I saw a man pay for £310.64 of macaroons. $600+ in macaroons. To my American friends, please let me explain. Macaroon here does not mean that odd clump of nougat and coconut that we consider the macaroon. These are bits of manna in sandwich cookie form. These are from Laudrée.
I went to Paris for the weekend and my wonderful friend Isabelle gave me a list of places not to miss. Then, as she re-read the list, realized that they were all food related. Fine by me. On the list was Laudrée, a trés belle tearoom, with a new outlet on the Champs-Élysées. The shop attached was thronged (and the percentage of patrons bent to the French – this is not just a tourist enclave like the Hotel Sacher in Vienna, where I heard not a single German nor Austrian voice in front of the counter). I was overcome – and not alone. The empirical debonair older Parisian Gentleman who stood in front of me was betrayed by his wild-eyed joy at the delicacies he beheld. He was like one of the old gods whom appear to be 75 and 8 years old as well as a spider a lion and a bear at the same time. He was l’homme très heureux.
On Monday, I shared the macaroons which I dutifully purchased, but there were not enough – there could never be enough. I left out one very important person from my distribution – a jet-black mark on my permanent hostess record. Fortunately, I, wishing to smudge as much of my indiscretion as I could, headed to the London outpost of Laudrée, which is nestled in the far back corner of Harrods. And this brings us back around.
In line, in front of me, were three of the most stunning women I’ve ever seen. None of them would have lasted more than a day at the Temple of Isthar. Coins would have been flung their way immediately. They were dressed in respectful Muslim fashion, except that their head scarves were Hermes and the like, and their faces and bearing striking enough to win nations from lesser beings. Each in their turn they selected their delights. Hat-box sized troves of baking excellence. Then they turned and floated away on a confectionary carpet laid only for their feet. Then he appeared. Silently – which seemed impossible as he had about him more blue-tooth than the most fearsome shark. Handsome, young* and oozing a look at me I’m a prince vibe, but I will not notice that you are looking at me or acknowledge your mean existence in anyway. This is at least how it seemed he felt about the woman at the till. Each question she begged went unheard and unanswered, but he removed from his money clip, as there are no wallets that would hold this movie-sized roll, seven £50.00 notes which did not even cause a dent in his pretty pink stash. With the slightest nod of his head, a burly man in dark glasses and Armani strode to the counter, removed the bags and took the change – and with more grace than even Keyser Söze, Prince BT was gone.
*I believe that all men – single men anyway – over the age of 28 are double-deckered out of London. Perhaps I’m wrong, but if you spot one, let me know immediately.
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Becky Goes to London 