It’s really something when you realize that your favourite genre is probably “Food Memoir”
Book Choice for April 2021: Garlic and Sapphires, R. Reichl, 2005.
In April I read what can only be termed a “food memoir” by Ruth Reichl, who served as the restaurant reviewer for the New York Times in the late 90s. It has a phenomenal title, which I have to say really drew me to the book, and I didn’t regret it: it was very fun, and seriously, I ate it all up. (I’m sorry, but I did).
It was a heavenly respite from normal life, entering into the glittering world of swanky New York eateries, gosh, it was delightfully decadent. It actually does have a bit of a plot, there is forward movement, rather than just descriptions of lavish banquets—and excellent griping about faux pas made in either the food or service—it is just—a trip out of one’s own body, into a world I don’t expect to experience, or even feel the need to, but I really appreciated that Reichl has brought high-society down to us regular people—just for a taste.
As I read it so quickly, I rather wished that the book was longer, but it does tell a full tale, of one lady’s stint at a “the greatest newspaper in the world.” (Ok NY, we see you, you are indeed the omphalos of the world, there could never be another, etc., etc.) Of course, I had my quibbles with this book. It seems almost impossible to believe that a food writer was so famous that she could be recognized by sight before she had moved to New York to take up her work there—but I guess that happened. And it is also hard to believe that the many, many disguises (not to mention their very strange psychological effects upon the author) that Reichel donned were never rumbled or seen through.
Towards the end of the book the author intersperses a few homely stories of cooking big vats of food at her uni (Berkeley) for legions of friends and acquaintances (she didn’t specify, but it sounded like she was barefoot while doing this) and yet…in the first part of the book it seems that she was the only food writer seemingly under consideration for the coveted post at the NYT…it just seems like there might be some network of connections that is being omitted here—this is reaffirmed by the fact, dropped casually at one point, that her husband, a war reporter, had an interview with Osama Bin Laden before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks that was canned by the bigwigs upstairs (or something to that effect). Is she saying…that her husband…could have influenced…could have been one of the few who suspected….??? It’s a very big thing, but only hinted at.
Reichl has published several books, seemingly all to do with cooking and food, so, even though I am new to her oevre obviously she is an expert in her field. Perhaps she and her husband really were the ‘average people’ that they are presented as in the book—for example, Reichl took particular care to tailor her reviews of elite eateries to the readers who will never go to any of them—and I’m still not sure whether I find that thoughtful and aware or bloody patronising. The circles they travel in…are just so esteemed… It raises a few questions in me personally, as to how one enters there.
However, the book is quite fun, although rather mean-spirited in a few places, kind of in the right amounts, to avoid saccharine sweetness. I wasn’t thinking to write about it on the blog, but it was a book I sought out on purpose, and it did give me a bit of joy, as well as some serious cravings! (Squid ink, anyone?!) It basically scratched an itch.
Book Choice for January 2021: “Churchill: Walking with Destiny,” A. Roberts, 2018.
Dear Readers,
as you know, I love me some grandiose titles for my blogs, and so I am very pleased to present you with one that I have really earned: I have been walking with Churchill since January. I heard the book on the audible app, all 50 hours of it, while I have cooked and cleaned and wondered about my own destiny. I am so grateful that it is available via audiobook, otherwise I never could have fit Churchill’s staggeringly momentous life into my final dissertation semester. As it was, I heard him in tiny chops and chips, and honestly, loved every minute of him, updating my partner so often on what Churchill had accomplished that I believe he has a gained a good grasp of Churchill’s life second-hand. It’s just a wonderful book, and if I didn’t manage to read anything else this year, I wouldn’t be able to consider the year wasted.
As for specifics, I wonder what to really say, there was so much inside this tome. In the final chapter of the book the author speculates that Churchill has been condemned by posterity for so many things that he had no part in, simply because people cannot believe that one man led such a spectacular, varied and literary life. It is a life that could, and has, launched a thousand books and films.
Interestingly, I noticed that the final chapter was slightly more open to the idea that Churchill could be seen as difficult by his contemporaries, and slightly more open to the fact that negative things did happen to and around him than the rest of the book, causing me to wonder slightly if the biographer didn’t simply skate over some difficult things in Churchill’s life during the brunt of the book. As just one example, although I believe that the marriage of Winston and Clementine Churchill was a happy, and very supportive one, in this biography Clementine has almost no part except as a stalwart paragon—and maybe she was. Of course, this book is about Winston, the great man. But I do think that any evidence of any trouble in their marriage (although it was certainly over-ruled by the copious volume of supportive love letters they did send each other) or some similar shakiness in the internal life of Churchill would have simply been omitted by this particular author.
Now, I don’t think that there was much that plagued Winston on the domestic front, and he had many friends, I am just saying that in this biography, nearly everything is spun in a positive direction for Winston–and that is partially due to his own willingness to see everything as a spin in a positive direction for himself–a valuable, if slightly delusional, tool. But for example, every detractor of Winston was proved wrong (well, most were in the fullness of time) everyone who left a poor showing of Winston in their private diaries is characterized as “waspish”, “maligning”; you get the drift. The outlook of the biographer was that he couldn’t do much wrong: and I don’t think Winston Churchill did do much that we can say was wrong for the times he lived in, I mean, he was leading a war. I’m just saying that I need to read more, to shade the stark blacks-and-whites with some grey nuances, something which I am certainly willing to do for this incomparably-inspiring figure.
Did W.C make mistakes? Certainly. He missed the boat on women’s suffrage (as did about 95% the men of his generation, alongside the many women who also looked upon the idea unfavorably), he was absolutely pig-headed about independence for India (although that is, in context, explainable) and he did say a supremely-regrettable “keep Britain white” comment in terms of immigration into Britain from its own overseas dominions. These are the concrete mis-steps, however, that I picked out from what is probably over 1,000 pages of history and anecdote; what is more “problematic” today was that Churchill’s opinions and policies were based on his foundational belief that the British were the finest people in the world, and meant to lead and steward it. If you cannot bear that this was the innate premise of his life (regardless of whether you find it to be true), then you wouldn’t enjoy him as a historical figure; we have to accept that this was his outlook, even if we (probably) don’t agree. If you would prefer to tear him down from his pedestal, I have two words for you: go nuts. I, however, find heroes to be rare, and this is one of the times where an example of the Great Men school actually works for me, inspiring me to set aside my innate distaste to laud the establishment (and a enthusiastic colonialist). I love Winston Churchill (despite his horror of Communism) and I want to [inserting more inclusive/modern values] approach life like him.
We need heroes. I have always tried hard to dig and delve for the stories of women figures—we all like to see ourselves represented, there is some kind of natural sympathy… In this case however, I will take the classic, aristocratic model of W.C., and I will work with it. His life imparts many inspirational values, mainly of outrageous self-belief, hard-work, and of course “never, never, never, never, NEVER giv(ing) in.”
This book humanizes him, and this must be what makes it different than the many other biographies that have come before it. For one thing, W.C comes across as profoundly friendly to animals, which were honestly such delightful parts of the book; scratching his pet-pigs over the fence of their pen with a self-fashioned rake attached to a long-handle was a particularly adorable moment, of which there were many similar, such as putting up as sign for his cat who had run away to “read”, inviting him back, promising “all will be forgotten,” as well as the ditty he wrote called “Puggy-Wug” (an ode to a pug). He was also a statesman who had some time for his own children (I think details like these might be skipped in a lot of men’s biographies, with the subtext ‘who cares’), despite the fact that his own parents had been “distant” at best.
This book is divided into two parts, the first section takes place before the second world war, and the second part takes place during WWII and after it. Basically, so much of such deep interest had happened before the second part (before the second World War) that I considered going back and listening to the first 20 hours again—it was just so incredibly fascinating. I thought “what more could happen to one man?” But of course, he shone the brightest during WWII, and the progress of that war, on a seemingly daily basis (endless cabinet meetings, endless bombings) was also fascinating. As you can tell, there was a lot of fascination in this book, and it continues after I have finished it. I have ordered a biography of Clementine, and I would gladly read about his children and even his parents in future. One of his earlier publications “My Early Life” (1930) is also narrated on audible, and it has gone to the top of my list, I would also read at least some of the historical books that he wrote (he did win a Nobel Prize for his prose). W.C’s biography made me think a lot about the goals of history, and historical writing, in a way that I can’t wait to integrate into my own life and conception of my work.
Sometimes, we must raise ourselves by emulating the best parts of truly great people.
