FINISHED: Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper

Over the weekend, I finished reading Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Pepper, British food writer Fuchsia Dunlop’s delectable memoir of eating in China. The Guardian called this book a “cultural immersion,” which is apt, as the memoir entails much more than food.

Beginning in the early 1990s, Dunlop lived in China, off and on, for over a decade. As a student—and as a professional writer—she has traveled to remote corners of the country, engaging every person she could in conversation. That rich experience certainly imbues her writing with great depth. Between descriptions of food and meals, Dunlop dazzles with history, geography, modernization, growth, and more.

In the early 1990s, Dunlop lands in Chengdu in Sichuan province—the area recently devastated by earthquakes—where she researched Chinese policy on ethnic minorities. She falls for street food, as well as the incendiary food of Sichuan province and the snout to tail eating of China. When her visa expires, she enrolls in a professional training school for chefs, as the only Western student and one of three women.

As a student of Sichuan cookery, Dunlop learned about mastering the arts of flavor, starting with fu he wei, the complex flavors. Sichuan cuisine boasts twenty-three official complex flavors, one of which is “home-style”—salty, savory, and a little hot. In her travels, she had an opportunity to challenge her culinary comfort zone by eating a lot of truly exotic foods, including civet cats, goose intestines, and more. The chapter on food textures and mouth-feel—an integral part of Chinese cooking—is eye opening.

All is not delicious. Dunlop explores the SARS health crises, which temporarily put a damper on eating in restaurants, where the risk of disease transmittal was high, especially with such practices as “public” chopsticks. She also looks at other issues, such as food safety (use of toxic food additives is rampant) and the controversial consumption of endangered species (shark’s fin and bear paws, to name a few).
In addition to Shark's Fin, Dunlop has written two authoritative cookbooks, one of which—Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook—was nominated for a James Beard Award (Asian Cooking) this year.

If you’re interested in China, food, or travel—or if you simply appreciate sparkling prose—this book is for you.

tidbits

Just a few more items for the “so many books, so little time” column:
~ NPR’s Alan Cheuse, who always makes reliable recommendations, presents his summer picks.

~ Also at NPR.org, Emily Wylie takes a turn at Three Books—cowboys and indians, which includes Sherman Alexie's wonderful The Absolutely True Story of a Part-Time Indian

~ The LA Times offers a nice, annotated round-up of summer releases. I've added the following to my TBR list: Come on Shore and We WillKill and Eat You All (Christina Thompson, Bloomsbury, 7/08), What I Talk About When I Talk About Running (Haruki Murakami, Knopf, 7/08), Man in the Dark (Paul Auster, Henry Holt, 8/08)

Three Books

Here’s something you’ll want to add to your RSS feed. National Public Radio has a fantastic new feature—Three Books, in which a writer recommends three great reads on a single theme. So far, the books chosen run the gamut from popular to lesser known, hot-off-the-press to classic, as well as literary to lighter fare.

Sloane Crosley, author of the much-buzzed I Was Told There'd Be Cake, riffed on the theme of sun and sand. Diane Abu-Jaber weighed in with three books about blood and brains.

Truth to Power

The NYT recently asked a handful of writers to recommend books to the presidential candidates. The survey results were published in the Book Review this past Sunday. Many of the responses were remarkably astute, but my favorite recommendations, which spoke most directly to each candidate, were made by John Edgar Wideman:

Thanks for an opportunity to school the stars. As required reading for Obama I assign “The Prince” (Machiavelli), a manual detailing strategies for handling situations when turning the other cheek won’t do; for McCain “The Little Prince” (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry), a lyrical narrative about loving that’s not taming but loving by letting go; and in the spirit of gender equity, since there is only one female candidate, two books for Clinton — “Black Beauty” (Anna Sewell), a tale from the horse’s mouth about the trials and triumphs of being a dark horse; and any volume by Miss Manners that reminds a reader civility matters, even in presidential campaigns.

Which books would you recommend that the presidential candidates read?

HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Ian Fleming

With apologies to Fred Chappell and Walker Percy, whose birthdays are also May 28.

Today marks the 100th birthday of Ian Fleming, creator of James Bond and author of the children's class, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. My favorite brief bio comes courtesy of Garrison Keillor's staff writers:

It's the birthday of the man who created James Bond, novelist Ian Fleming, (books by this author) born in London, England (1908). He wanted to be a diplomat, but he failed the Foreign Office examination and decided to go into journalism. He worked for the Reuters News Service in London, Moscow, and Berlin, and then during World War II, he served as the assistant to the British director of naval intelligence.

After the war, he bought a house in Jamaica, where he spent his time fishing and gambling and bird watching. He started to get bored, so he decided to try writing a novel about a secret agent. He named the agent James Bond after the author of a bird-watching book. Fleming said, "James Bond is ... the feverish dreams of the author of what he might have been — bang, bang, bang, kiss, kiss, that sort of stuff. It's what you would expect of an adolescent mind — which I happen to possess."

The first Bond novel, Casino Royale (1953), sold about 7,000 copies, and Fleming followed it with four more that sold less and less well. Critics said he was good at writing about places, but that was about it. Fleming had a newborn son at home, and he was disappointed that these books weren't making more money to help support the family, so for his next Bond story, he wrote the book specifically for the movies. He filled it with more psychopaths and beautiful women than usual. No one in the movie industry was interested at the time, but the novel From Russia, with Love (1957) became a huge international best seller.

In celebration of this day, Doubleday is releasing Devil May Care, the latest Bond novel, written by literary novelist Sebastian Faulks. Here an exclusive online review from Publishers' Weekly:

Set not long after the action in the last Fleming Bond novel, The Man with the Golden Gun (1965), Faulks’s much anticipated James Bond thriller captures the spirit of the original better than any pastiche to date. America is involved in Vietnam, drug trafficking is on the rise and the cold war is as hot as ever. Bond, who’s been on a “three-month sabbatical” imposed by his superiors, is called back to London for a new assignment involving Dr. Julius Gorner, a heroin trafficker. A classic Fleming villain, Gorner wants to destroy British civilization, and he’s physically marred by “an extremely rare congenital deformity” of his left hand (his so-called “monkey’s paw,” of course, is always gloved). He even has a deadly sidekick, Chagrin. Bond travels to Paris, where he hooks up with beautiful Scarlett Papava, whose sister, Poppy, is Gorner’s drug-addicted slave. After Bond and Gorner meet for a particularly dramatic tennis match, the action accelerates into overdrive, moving to Persia, Russia and, ultimately, back to Paris. Gorner’s scheme is as far-fetched as that of any Bond villain, but Faulks (Birdsong) gives it a ring of plausibility (and he fashions a great twist for one of the characters). The author’s real accomplishment is in recreating the tone and feel of the Fleming novels: the travelogue is terrific, and Bond’s confidence in his mission is part of the character’s enduring appeal. This may not be a James Bond for fans of the movie franchise, but it’s a great new addition to the “Fleming” canon—and should encourage readers to rediscover James Bond.

I'm off to buy my own copy right now!!

Bonus: Check out CBS News' Bond-o-Rama.

FINISHED: a bunch of books

Taxonomy of Barnacles

I first read about The Taxonomy of Barnacles in the New York Times. Not in the Book Review, as one might imagine, but I read an interview with Galt Niederhoffer in the “Fashion and Style” section, in which she reveals her eccentric family, the basis of her first novel. Her family story was deliciously odd. I finally got around the purchasing the book when it was released in trade paper. Niederhoffer wows with a confident comedy of manners, as well as a nod to Charles Darwin and Shakespeare’s King Lear. The patriarch of the Barnacle family presents his six daughters with a challenge: produce a male heir, and win the family fortune. The others get nothing. The characters are richly drawn (two of the sisters have “befriended” twin brothers who live in their building). The setting—New York City—is delightfully rendered. This is for anyone looking for something that reads like Wes Anderson’s Royal Tenenbaums. Or you could wait for the movie.

The View from the Seventh Layer

Last April I read Kevin Brockmeier’s brilliant, bestselling novel The Brief History of the Dead. Before I even finished the book, I promised that I would read any future book that he wrote. Imagine my surprise when I stumbled upon his follow-up, hot off the press, at the library. The View from the Seventh Layer is a collection of thirteen stories, all of which have previously appeared in print. The very first story—“A Fable Ending in the Sound of a Thousand Parakeets”—knocked my socks off. It had all of the playful qualities of Brief History, as well as an ending with a big payoff. Many stories have a fantastical, surreal, speculative feel to them, which appeals to me. I found myself setting the book aside after reading many of the stories so they could linger, like a long finish on a fine wine. Another story, “The Human Soul as a Rube Goldberg Device,” is a clever Choose Your Own Adventure for adults. This is for anyone who liked early Jonathan Lethem, Judy Budnitz, or Borges. Can’t wait to read more Brockmeier.

Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
Some time ago, in anticipation of the forthcoming move, my friend Caryl kindly loaned me her beautiful copy of Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day. The idea was that I would read the book in time to see the movie. But as fate would have it, I didn’t manage to get past the first chapter. Just bad timing with other reading engagements. We went to the movie, and I loved it. Then I read the book, and I loved that too.

Written by Winifred Watson, Miss Pettigrew was first published in 1938. The novel is currently in print from Persephone Books, the super-cool British publisher that specializes in reviving lost twentieth-century classics, mostly written by women. Miss Pettigrew is sent by an employment agency to the wrong house. Instead of the governess job she was expecting, Miss Pettigrew finds herself thrust into a new role as social secretary to a nightclub singer, Miss LaFosse. And hijinks ensue. I loved Watson’s wit, humor, and carefree storytelling. Lighthearted line drawings make a charming package, immediately drawing the reader into the period and spirit of the novel.

I’m pleased to say that the movie stood alone quite nicely, and I was glad not to feel fierce loyalty to the novel. Amy Adams was spectacularly dramatic in the role of the Miss LaFosse, while Frances McDormand played Miss Pettigrew with great pathos. The movie follows the novel’s plot, adding a number of embellishments—most of which work, some of which are inexplicable (such as newspaper headlines of WW2's approach and air-raid drills, which I'm sure were meant to establish the time period, as if costuming were insufficient to the task).

I urge you to see the movie and read the book. Doesn’t matter in which order. Simply enjoy each on its merits.

las vegas reading postmortem

I’m back from Las Vegas. As always, my reading intentions were overly ambitious. I had purchased a few books specifically for Las Vegas—Casino Royale, The Emperor’s Children, and On a Hoof and a Prayer. As always, when planning a trip, I lost sleep over which would be the best book(s) to bring. Practicing some restraint, of these books, I only packed the Ian Fleming, for obvious thematic reasons.

In my carry-on, I included Death in a Strange Country, by Donna Leon. I read for almost every minute of the three-hour flight and knocked off about two-thirds of the mystery. Determined to finish this book by the return flight, three days later, I schlepped it with me everywhere, mostly to the pool. My suitcase, which had ample room, carried Then We Came to the End and Casino Royale. Neither saw the light of day.


The Mirage’s pool proved to be a difficult place to read. Pictured above is a view from the Dolphin Bar—seems almost postcard perfect, doesn't it? Usually, I would suit up and head down to the pool with a friend. The process of locating two empty lounge chairs, setting up towels, and getting situated with a tropical drink (pina colada is my poolside poison of choice) was exhausting. I would turn to chit-chat. And peoplewatching. Conclusion: the pool is not such a good place to read.

Here is a brief list of books other people were reading:
~ traveling companions: Lamb (Lisa, the birthday girl) and Eat, Pray, Love (Bonnie)
~ select books, poolside: Temptations by Douglas Kennedy (doesn't seem to be available in the U.S.), Certain Girls by Jennifer Weiner, and, on a heavier note, Dreams from My Father by Barack Obama

Bonnie, the most social of the group, was on my return flight. Although I only had fifty or so pages remaining in my mystery, the only reading I managed was the InStyle magazine—the biggest waste of money, but a ritual when I fly.

Viva Las Vegas

I’m off to Vegas for the weekend to help a girlfriend celebrate a milestone birthday. It’s my first visit, and aside from neon and casinos, I don’t really know what to expect. I’m not a gambler but I am a keen observer. My flight lands at McCarran at 10:30 a.m., which gives me just enough time to get to the hotel and be poolside with a cocktail and a book by noon.

As far as my book wardrobe goes, I’m having a difficult time choosing which titles to bring. I’m a few chapters into Death in a Strange Country (Donna Leon) and stand a fair chance of finishing the book on the plane. I’ve made some good progress on the next book group title, Then We Came to the End, which could be perfect poolside fare. Since learning I have a conflict and can’t attend the next book group, there’s no need to finish it soon.

I’ve already ruled out my recent hardcover purchases (Jhumpa Lahiri’s Unaccustomed Earth or Geraldine Brooks’ People of the Book) owing to bulk. Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food is too nutritious for vacation reading.

Here are the contenders:

~ On a Hoof and a Prayer—Polly Evans’ tour of Argentina on horseback
~ Death by Pad Thai and Other Unforgettable Meals (edited by Douglas Bauer)—short in length, essays are good bedfellows when faced with the distractions of travel
~ Sound Bites—one part foodie, one part travel, essays written by Franz Ferdinand lead singer, Alex Kapranos
~ Casino Royale—James Bond, gambling, classic Ian Fleming, no brainer
~ Emperor’s Children—Claire Messud’s critically acclaimed novel

Back Monday...

tidbits for the first monday in may

~ Last week, the NYT reported that for the first time in 10 years, Harry Potter is missing from the bestsellers list. Unreal. I've traveled in my wayback machine to recall how ten years ago, while working as a rep for Holtzbrinck, it was difficult to get a book on The List because Potter was on the adult list. Yes, there wasn't even a separate children's list then. It's hard to deny that J.K. Rowling's series has had an incredible influence over the public's reading habits, but also on the publishing industry and other venerable institutions, such as the The List (a measure of a book's success).

~ The National Book Critic Circle (NBCC) announces their Good Reads list for Spring '08. A few of these—Price, Lahiri, and Baxter, for sure—are on my TBR list. Read more here.

FICTION

1. Richard Price, LUSH LIFE, Farrar, Straus & Giroux
2. Jhumpa Lahiri, UNACCUSTOMED EARTH, Knopf
3. Steven Millhauser, DANGEROUS LAUGHTER, Knopf
*4. Charles Baxter, THE SOUL THIEF, Pantheon
*4. Peter Carey, HIS ILLEGAL SELF, Knopf
*4. J. M. Coetzee, DIARY OF A BAD YEAR, Viking
*4. James Collins, BEGINNNER’S GREEK, Little, Brown
*4. Brian Hall, FALL OF FROST, Viking
*4. Roxana Robinson, COST, Farrar, Straus & Giroux
*4. Owen Sheers, RESISTANCE, Nan A. Talese: Doubleday

NONFICTION

1. Nicholson Baker, HUMAN SMOKE: THE BEGINNING OF WORLD WAR II, THE END OF CIVILIZATION, S. & S.
2. Drew Gilpin Faust, THIS REPUBLIC OF SUFFERING: DEATH AND THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR, Knopf
3. Mark Harris, PICTURES AT THE REVOLUTION: FIVE MOVIES AND THE BIRTH OF THE NEW HOLLYWOOD, Penguin Press
4. Honor Moore, THE BISHOP’S DAUGHTER: A MEMOIR, Norton
5. Susan Jacoby, THE AGE OF AMERICAN UNREASON, Pantheon

POETRY

1. Grace Paley, FIDELITY, Farrar, Straus & Giroux
2. Frank Bidart, WATCHING THE SPRING FESTIVAL, Farrar, Straus & Giroux
3. Eric Gansworth, A HALF-LIFE OF CARDIO-PULMONARY FUNCTION, Syracuse University Press
4. Marie Howe, THE KINGDOM OF ORDINARY TIME, Norton
5. Robert Pinsky, GULF MUSIC, Farrar, Straus & Giroux

nuggets

~ Pulitzer Prizes were awarded earlier this week. You can see a list of winners here. I think it's finally time to read the wondrous Junot Diaz.

~ As I was cleaning off my desk, I found a printout of an old article, dated July 11, 2007, announcing an official new James Bond story. Marking the centenary of Ian Fleming's birth, Doubleday will release Devil May Care on May 28, 2008. I'm pretty excited for many reasons, the approaching release date chief among them, but also because Sebastian Faulks, author of Birdsong and On Green Dolphin Street, has written it. Viva le Bond!



On a related note, check out Penguin's Bond reissues. Their retro appeal is perfect. I just purchased Casino Royale (1954) to read, appropriately, on a flight to Las Vegas next month.

Get a Bond fix:
Commander Bond
Ian Fleming Centre, the official site of Ian Fleming Publications, the Fleming literary estate
Which Bond are you? Take a quiz.

~ Are you ready for a new Carlos Ruiz Zafon? Doubleday will publish the English translation of The Angel's Game, a prequel to Zafon's wildly bestselling The Shadow of the Wind, in summer 2009. According to Publishers' Lunch, the novel is set in 1920s Barcelona, combining a love story, a mystery, a fantasy and an exploration of literature. I've read elsewhere that there was, not surprisingly, "an intense seven-figure auction."

catching up

When I left off here, I was fiercely determined to finish The Omnivore’s Dilemma before my book group met. I wish that I could have continued to write my impressions as I was reading, but with only four days to read two hundred pages—did I mention I am a s-l-o-w reader?—I gave myself over to the book. I’m pleased to say that I came within thirty pages of finishing. Book group met, six members strong, and we had a very good discussion—each of us equally horrified where appropriate, motivated to make the best food choices for ourselves and our families, and wowed by Pollan’s talent.

Where was I, then?

In the last half of the second section, Pollan continues writing about the animals on Joe Salatin’s farm, specifically about the rich symbiosis shared between the cows and the chickens. The cows produce manure. Three or four days later, the chickens eat fat, protein-rich grubs out of the cow manure, which not only produces rich and tasty eggs, but sanitizes the pasture so Salatin doesn’t need to use toxic dewormers or antibiotics on his cattle. I can’t get over how cool that is. Why can’t more farmers do this?

Pollan also details chicken slaughter, which Salatin is allowed to conduct on his farm. He visits Bev Eggleston, who markets Polyface meat and eggs, and he tags along with Joel’s brother, Art, as he delivers Polyface items to local restaurants that endorse farm-to-table menus. In the spirit of eating locally, the third of four meals is eaten in Charlottesville, before Pollan’s return to California. Pollan roasts chickens, which he helped slaughter, as well as corn, picked from Salatin’s hoop house. Pollan also prepares a soufflé from Salatin’s eggs and serves local wine, a Virginia-state viognier.

The book’s final section—the forest—was my favorite. Pollan examines the ethics of eating animals juxtaposed against a vegetarian diet. He also forages for mushrooms (morels), hunts wild boar, and harvests salt. For his fourth meal, Pollan establishes the following rules:

1. Everything on the menu must have been hunted, gathered, or grown by me.

2. The menu should feature at least one representative of each edible kingdom: animal, vegetable, and fungus, as well as an edible mineral (the salt).

3. Everything served must be in season and fresh. The meal would reflect not only the places that supplied its ingredients, but a particular moment in time.

4. No money may be spent on the meal, though already purchased items in the pantry could be deployed as needed.

5. The guest list is limited to those people who helped me in my foraging and their significant others. . . . There would be ten of us in all.

6. I would cook the meal myself.

Here is his menu:

Fava Bean Toasts and Sonoma Boar
Pate Egg Fettuccine with Power Fire Morels
Braised Leg and Grilled Loin of Wild Sonoma Pig
Wild East Bay Yeast Levain
Very Local Garden Salad
Fulton Street Bing Cherry Galette
Claremont Canyon Chamomile Tisane
2003 Angelo Garro Petite Syrah

Ambitious and a little (intentionally) pretentious. If you’d like to know the meal's outcome, I’d strongly suggest you read this book. It’s worth it for Pollan’s richly detailed writing.

Pollan concludes that without the fast food we wouldn't be able to appreciate the slow food fully, but ultimately argues that it would be nice to get to a point where food is food. He would like to enjoy food for food's sake and leave the politics out of the meal. Amen.

Thumbing through the book, trying to refresh my memory, I’ve read random, impeccably constructed sentences that remind me how much I enjoyed reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma. I know I’ll read it again, but in the meantime I’m passing along the book to my sister because I know she’ll appreciate it and we’ll have a good conversation later. I love Michael Pollan's dense narrative style, which pretty perfectly blends factual information with his personal experience. I have added some of his backlist to my TBR list—The Botany of Desire (another book that weaves science with anecdotes to explore the relationship between people and plants) and A Place of My Own (in which Pollan explores home construction through history and personal experience). And, I'd like to read the provocatively titled In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto, his continuing discussion about what we eat.

The next selection for our book group is Joshua Ferris’s critically acclaimed Then We Came to the End, an office dramedy described as such by Publishers Weekly:

This wickedly funny, big-hearted novel about life in the office signals the arrival of a gloriously talented new writer. The characters in Then We Came to the End cope with a business downturn in the time-honored way: through gossip, secret romance, elaborate pranks, and increasingly frequent coffee breaks. By day they compete for the best office furniture left behind and try to make sense of the mysterious pro-bono ad campaign that is their only remaining "work."

Substitute "architecture magazine group" for the protagonist's "ad agency" and "gut-wrenchingly stressful" with "wickedly funny," and Ferris's little novel strikes too close to home. Which may explain why I haven't started it yet. This book has been on my radar since I received an insider tip before it was published, but the glowing reviews for the hardcover, the nomination for a National Book Award, and making it to the semi-final round of the '08 Tournament of Books certainly boosted TWCTTE up my TBR list.

Links Fest

~ No, it's not an April Fool's—Borders is considering putting itself up for sale, finally.

~ The Morning News' Tournament of Books is halfway through the second round. I tanked in Round One, Game Two when I predicted The Savage Detectives would handily beat Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name. Even though I disagree with the judge's assessment, I will give the Vendela Vida book a shot.

~ If there is such a thing as an afterlife, I hope Geo. J. and Jon Hassler have been reunited. Beloved author Jon Hassler, whose unconquerable will to write became as much admired as his novels steeped in small-town Minnesota, died early Thursday of Progressive Supranuclear Palsy, a Parkinson’s-like disease. He was 74.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Penelope Lively

Today is the birthday of fiction writer Penelope Lively, whom I read for the first time in 2005 when The Photograph was one of the titles for Conversation with Books. I've meant to read more books by her, especially her Booker Prize winner, Moon Tiger.

You can read more about her here.

Photo copywrite: Jane Brown

Reading Notes: Omnivore's Dilemma, pp. 123-207

Book group is meeting on Thursday, and I still have half of Omnivore’s Dilemma to read. I had a few opportunities to read over the weekend. On Saturday, I read at Dunn Brothers for almost an hour, trying desperately to drown out the college kids making idle, loud chit-chat. This afternoon I squeezed in another hour while John watched Tiger Woods win the final round of the Arnold Palmer Invitational.

In the second section—grass—Pollan visits Polyface Farm, where Joel Salatin, a grass farmer (so-called because grass is the foundation of all agriculture on his farm) raises chickens, cows, turkeys, eggs, rabbits, pigs, and vegetables. Pollan examines the early organic movement, which promised alternative modes of production, distribution, and consumption, and introduces organic gardening forefathers, J.I. Rodale and Sir Albert Howard before turning his attention to Big Organic. This $11 billion industry embraces practices that call to question whether industrial organic isn’t a contradiction of terms if the food production is on a large scale or distribution involves traveling great distances (e.g., flying produce to the U.S. from South America).

Pollan eats his second of four meals, one that he prepares from his Whole Foods purchases, a store that Pollan refers to as promoting “supermarket pastoral,” using slick packaging to provide a story for the food items it sells. Pollan traces each food item in the meal to its source—greens (Earthbound Farms), vegetables, free-range chicken (Petaluma Poultry), and asparagus (from Argentina), with ice cream (Stoneybrook Farms) and blackberries for dessert. Most of his meal tasted good, though the asparagus (at $6 a bunch) was best described as tasting like cardboard.

Not surprising, Pollan revels that his industrial organic meal left a deep footprint. The lot of workers on industrial organic farms is not appreciably different from those on nonorganic factory farms. The chickens lived only marginally better lives than their conventional counterparts. A CAFO is a CAFO (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation). And, industrial organic farming is “drenched in fossil fuel,” often burning more diesel than their conventional counterparts.

Up next: animals on the grass farm

FINISHED: Service Included

It's kind of hard to know what to read after a powerful book such as What Is the What. I wanted to read something with a similar substantial tone, but I wasn’t quite ready for another heady book. One Sunday morning, when the boys woke me up early to watch cartoons with them, I took an opportunity to sample a few pages from each of the books piled on my coffee table. It didn’t take long to get totally hooked by Phoebe Damrosch's Service Included, an account of the author’s time spent as a captain at Thomas Keller's New York restaurant, Per Se.

I had the great fortune to celebrate my most recent birthday at Thomas Keller’s Napa restaurant, The French Laundry. In addition to the outstanding meal, I noticed that the service was different from that which we are accustomed to receiving at higher-end restaurants. Unlike the excellent NYC restaurant, Jean-Georges, where a squadron of servers descends upon your table for every single course, administering sauces, cracking pepper, and applying other touches to your plate that, quite frankly, should have been done in the kitchen, the French Laundry’s service is designed so as not to be noticed. Servers are out of your way, but are also attentive to your needs, trying to anticipate what you might want before you have to ask.

In Service Included, Damrosch writes about taking a position as backserver—serving bread, replacing silverware, refilling water glasses—at Per Se, before the restaurant opens to the public. She details the lengthy training she and the staff receive. Her aptitude earns her a quick promotion to captain, presenting the menu and managing the multitude of servers assigned to a number of tables.

The training is intense. Keller is exacting—always described as a perfectionist—and the stakes are high for his new restaurant’s success. In addition to knowing which silver or crystal to set with particular food, the servers can tell any inquiring diner where the tiles covering the floor came from or who sculpted the statue in Central Park marking their view. And Keller has many rules, such as “No cologne, scented lotions, scented soaps, aftershave, or perfume are to be worn during service,” and “If you’re going to be more than five minutes late for your shift, you must call—even if it means getting off the subway to do so.”

Damrosch is smart and has a great sense of humor, and both qualities clearly come through in her writing. She leaves tips for diners at the end of most chapters, such as “Please do not ask us what else we do. This implies that (a) we shouldn’t aspire to work in the restaurant business even if it makes us happy and financially stable, (b) that we have loads of time on our hand because ours is such an easy job, and (c) that we are not succeeding in another field.”

And, I would be remiss if I failed to mention that there’s a lovely little romance. Damrosch finds herself drawn to a wine captain who has come from The French Laundry to help with the training. The attraction is mutual, even though he’s come to New York with his girlfriend, who also happens to work for Keller. A messy, forbidden affair ensues, and I found myself rooting for Damrosch, who gets the guy in the end.

Service Included is a great read for anyone who dines in restaurants as well as for anyone who enjoys culinary essays, such as Bill Buford’s Heat or Tony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential.

Reading Notes: Omnivore's Dilemma

I started the second section, about grass, but didn’t get to read much last night because I blogged. So in the interlude, I offer impressions of a book I finished a few weeks ago, which will appear above this post.

reading notes on OD section one

Today over lunch, I finished the corn section, one of three food chains Michael Pollan examines in Omnivore’s Dilemma. In a series of short chapters, Pollan introduces us to the following: corn (botanical notes, historical context, uses), a Iowa farmer who grows corn, the government’s farm policies (subsidies), and the corporations that have insinuated corn into places you wouldn’t imagine. Pollan also follows the stream of corn from the Iowa farmer’s field to the grain elevator and beyond to the feedlot where corn comprises the diet of cattle and to processing plant where corn is transformed to HFCS (high fructose corn syrup), ethanol, syrups, starches, and food additives. Finally, Pollan treats his family to a meal at McDonalds, after which he details all the nastiness in their orders, but also the degree to which corn exists in the food they ate.

Of course throughout, there are astonishing and horrifying facts and statistics. The following moved me to sign up the boys for soccer and renew my vow to resist all processed and fast food:

Three of every five Americans are overweight; one of every five is obese. The disease formerly known as adult-onset diabetes has had to be renamed Type II diabetes since it now occurs so frequently in children. A recent study in the Journal of the American Medical Association predicts that a child born in 2000 has a one-in-three chance of developing diabetes. (An African American child’s chances are two in five.) Because of diabetes and all the other health problems that accompany obesity, today’s children may turn out to be the first generation of Americans whose life expectancy will actually be shorter than that of their parents.

These findings are sobering. Fast food appears very rarely in my diet. Still, I couldn’t help but take stock of everything I’d eaten over the weekend, trying to assess the damage. Even though the amount of processed food I ate was minimal, I can’t help but think of it as pure poison. And, I am guilty of caving to the boys' requests for chicken fingers (Tysons—horrors, I know) and macaroni and cheese (often Annie's organic, but sometimes homemade), just because I can't face their objections over trying something new or eating something with onions in it or food that's spicy or obscured by sauce. I'm doing them a disservice and need to find healthier alternatives for their quick meals.

The Omnivore’s Dilemma isn’t going to dramatically change my diet, which isn’t perfect but is already grounded in good principles. The book will, however help reinforce healthier eating practices and (hopefully) make it easier to reject the occasional cravings for junk.

Up next: section two—grass.

Reading Notes: The Omnivore's Dilemma

My book group is meeting in two weeks to discuss The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Michael Pollan’s eater’s manifesto. I’m only on page 64—still in the corn, as it were. I need to read approximately forty pages a day in order to finish the book by the designated date. There, I’ve psyched myself out.

I find it very easy to get bogged down in the details. In this section, I’m fixating on the chemistry of corn, which isn’t important to understand in order to finish the book. Still, I feel like mastering the information as if I was goingn to be quizzed.

So far, I like the way the book is structured, examining the three principal food chains that form the American diet. Pollan’s writing style is accessible, and I am enjoying the way in which he makes and supports his argument.

My coworker Ginny is also reading OD. She assured me that Pollan’s narrative picks up speed once you get past the corn section, so my goal for this evening is to finish it. That’s sixty pages, but who’s counting. I’ve have been reading about the corn farmer, who is the human focus of the section, and his practices, as well as about the absurdities of subsidies and the multinational corporations (Cargill and ADM) that have an extraordinary influence over nearly aspect of corn production.

I am now looking forward to meeting the corn-fed cow.

FINISHED: What Is the What

When I last bothered to post about what I was reading, I was preparing to host my book group. You can read about the food here. Attendance was pretty lame. Just four people came, and I was the only person who had finished reading the book. Even though we’d had two months to finish it, judging by the bookmarks, most had just begun.

Book-group member Suzanne chose What is the What by Dave Eggers, a novel about Valentino Achak Deng, a Lost Boy of the Sudan. This book has been on my shelf ever since Suzanne urged me to read it earlier in '07, and it's on my 40 at 40 list. Back in '07 though I bought the very cool McSweeney's edition, which has an unusual trim size (if I had to guess, it's 7 x 9 rather than 6 x 9) and paper over boards—a book that feels good in your hands, reassuring you that e-books could never take the place of printed books. I love what McSweeney's is doing with book design and graphics and fonts.

About the novel: Deng, with thousands of other young boys, was forced from his village during Sudan’s protracted civil war. As part of a large group, he marched to Ethiopia and, eventually, to Kenya, where he lived in a refugee camp. The story alternates between the present day, when Deng is living in Atlanta, studying and working odd jobs so that he may go to college, and his life as a refugee in Africa, where he has witnessed war, famine, disease, and lion attacks. In the States, Deng is held up in his own home at gunpoint and burgled. He also experiences indifference and is put off by bureaucracy. And, the larger question becomes Was Deng better off in Africa. Is the U.S. really the “land of opportunity”? And, if so, for whom?

Eggers does a remarkable job of telling Deng’s story. It’s deep and provocative yet handled with a great sensitivity and leavened with humor. Eggers, who came to attention with his first book, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, pretty much proves he’s a staggering genius. I would write more on this point and why this book is so important but I’m still mulling, but I do recommend that everyone read it, if for no other reason than it’s really well written.

The host gets to pick the group's next read. Way back in early December, Suzanne and I were talking about books on our TBR lists. While we had many in common, one stood out as an obvious choice for the book group, best read with the support of others and discussion worthy: Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma.

TOC judges announced

THE 2008 TOURNAMENT OF BOOKS is just one week away, and we’ve got some judges we’d like you to meet.