BOOK:|:KITCHEN

Monday at the Greenmarket in Union Square, red plums.

Today, at the Greenmarket in Union Square.

Been very swamped with my final semester of graduate work at The New School. My final projects are all production-intensive pieces that require travel for footage and numerous hours in front of my computer screen or cornered off in a Final Cut suite or ProTools booth. I apologize to my lovely readers for not posting in two weeks. Trying to make it all work. I have not posted simply due to being overextended. Nothing else.

As you bear with this, let me give you a quick update of some readings, happenings, and otherwise goings-on over at the B:|:K casa:

• Spinach. Didn't post about this. You probably thought: Ah-ha! Watershed moment! The tipping point? Mere. Hype. Certainly this story will be known as some sort of catalyst, though I am not prepared to reveal what it may actually precipitate. I promise to later, as I get my thoughts sorted out and my head around more measured language as to not entirely offend. Hint: I am keeping my eyes open.
  
• NYC: Big Brotha's in the Kitchen. Can The City really expect restaurants to omit trans fat from their prepared foods? Tag me as an idealist any day, but this one I find a bit dubious. Maybe it's my inner-libertarian. If Barry Goldwater said politics should stay out of the bedroom as an analogy for a broader, direct argument of keeping the people free from government (or, at least unnecessary government interference), I'm afraid the same could apply to restaurants, in this case. Yes, yes, I know restaurants need oversight, but the best way to encourage restaurants to reduce their use of trans fat it to reward those that do. Provide incentives. Hire a young, gifted graphic designer to come up with a clever logo for the program. Print stickers. Restaurants can put them next to their Zagat's ratings. But please, let's stop formulating unnecessary laws. It's not creative. And furthermore, it's a cop-out for lazy bureaucratics who lack vision. And cognitive ability (read: ideas) outside of generating policy.

• The United States of Arugula by David Kamp. Almost finished. Read A.O. Scott's review in the Sunday NYT's book review. More on the book later. Feel free to share thoughts.

• Found my Cooking with Pomiane by Edouard de Pomiane.  A friend reads it every Thanksgiving. This year, I will too. Usually I am in the kitchen so much, cooking with others. The day is more about conversation than reading. This year, I will go to San Antonio, TX to be with my father and sister. Our house in SA has a renter, so it's kinda weird being in my home town, but not being in my home. Ah, the trade-offs we make to live in NYC. I will cook some at my father's, but since it's a mini-holiday, I'll get through some de Pomiane as well. 
  

• Good To Eat: Riddles of Food and Culture by Marvin Harris. A fun book I'm reading sporadically. The riddles are rooted in foodways of peoples around the world. I like this one so far, on page 26: "Among the Canela of the Amazonia, ii mo plam means "I am hungry" but iiyate means "I am hungry for meat." I like how these different words allow them to express "meat hunger." Wish we had such efficient language to express the difference. Especially seafood hunger.
  

• The Curiosities of Food or the Dainties of Different Nations Obtained from the Animal Kingdom by Peter Lund Simmons. Enlightening. Reminds me of one of my fave films: The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover. Still yet, makes me question my own prejudices of not eating such and such. Not that there's much I won't touch. Mostly it's not so much disgust as boredom. Like pate. Pate bores me after the second bite. Now foie gras seared at Andrew Weissman's La Reve in San Antonio is another story. Big congrats on making number six out of fifty top restaurants in this month's Gourmet magazine. It inspired shock, as in ...  Anyway, the little book explores many ways to use animal scraps, such as blood, which some may think of as waste. Mr. Simmons declares the blood of not only pig and fowl as edible, but also that of oxen, sheep, goats, and calves as eminently nutritous. Remember that tip for your next soup.

Before I sign off. . .last year, I sold my old Benz wagon to this guy in California. A sweet 1983 TD300, loaded, but in need of some immediate maintenance and, a home as I was moving to NYC. My little black beauty and I went back a long way. Nevertheless, a promising sale materialized in the form of a true Mercedes Benz wagon aficionado. Ian and I remain connected to this day. He restored her beautifully. And he also converted her from Diesel to a bio-fuel engine, something I may have done had I used my money for that instead of grad school. Anyway, in last month's Wired, page 90, (and in April) the magazine reports the prospects of Italian's venturing into the alternative fuel game with the leftovers of plonk wine due to overproduction. I myself have not researched this further, so please spill the beans if this is just wishful thinking. Now, if we could only get Australia to commit 50,000 cases of Yellow Tail to the cause.                          ^{La Reve, before dinner service} 

Be well.