A weekly series that celebrates everyone’s favorite part of the author
reading: the Q&A. This week, Jami Attenberg, author of The Middlesteins, talks about the emotional attachments of writing about food.
Like most of you, I read the scathing New York Times review of Guy's American Kitchen and Barwith scarcely containable glee. My restaurant was featured on Diners, Drive Ins and Dives in 2008; Without fail, at least once a weekend, we get the same question...
Read MoreThe restaurant is small: ten tables total, plus four stools at the counter. 8:30 a.m. on a weekday, a woman walks past the "Please wait to be seated sign" and sniffs around the booths. The restaurant is still half empty. The host attempts to guide her toward one table, then another, this one next to a table with seated customers. The woman looks at the table, turns, and says:
"I don't like sitting that close to other people."
image: drericmorrison.com
Party of five: Grandma, Grandpa, Mom, and two young sisters crouched together staring at a smartphone. They are not talkative but not unfriendly. The three adults order their breakfasts but the sisters do not look up when it's their turn. Grandpa looks at Mom and says:
"Are you going to coach your daughters on how to order?"
Image: closetcooking.com
Brooklyn Shaken & Stirred, an event “celebrating Brooklyn imbibing,” was held two days ago in the Green Building, on the Carroll Gardens side of the stinky, superfundy Gowanus. As an imbiber from Brooklyn, I went to the event to see what could be tippled.
Read MoreThe New Yorker counted Britain's Lawrence Norkolk among Europe’s best young novelists way back in '98, and yet he’s never quite made it across the pond. Not that he lacks for singularity — his first book, Lemprière’s Dictionary, concerns the writing of the Bibliotheca Classica, while The Pope’s Rhinoceros describes in encyclopedic detail the quest to bring a rhino from West Africa to the Pope. (One can only imagine what Sharon Olds would do with this title.)
Norfolk's Shakespearean vocabulary and voluminous range of historical references don’t make him an easy read, but with his newest book, John Saturnall’s Feast, he uses them in service of a far simpler story: the coming-of-age of an orphaned kitchen boy who, through his skill in cooking, slowly begins seducing the lord's daughter. Never before have I read a book so laden with food — archaic food, pungent food, weird food. To give you a bit of the book’s flavor profile, here are a few of the delicacies I ended up researching. (Vegetarians: run for your lives.)
Forcemeat
The first step in preparing sausages, pâtés, quenelles, and other meat-stuffed dishes. Raw meat is emulsified with fat by being ground or puréed together. Forcemeats can be made straight without additional ingredients, country-style with liver and other spices mixed in, gratin with some of the meat cooked before emulsification, or mousseline with cream and eggs for a lighter texture.
Madeira Sugar
Sugarcane had been growing on Madeira, just off of Portugal, and in the first half of the 17th century (when John Saturnall’s Feast takes place) no other major sources of sugar were available. Consequently, dishes that featured the “sweet salt” were rare. John Saturnall labors for days with it to create a transparent tart; he declares it is “for Tantalus” because of the jewels cooked inside, visible through the jelly.
Bukkenade
A stew of beef or veal usually including eggs and several spices, from hyssop to cloves and mace. “Sharpened” with verjuice (from sour fruits) or vinegar, the preparation makes a hearty concoction for the cold winter nights weathered in the manor. Even in John Saturnall’s time, however, the stew was considered “ancient,” and the best recipes online are written inMiddle English.
And that's not all. Norfolk has posted a glossary of even more obscure concoctions online. As I looked through the recipes that prefaced each chapter, it became increasingly clear that, even with the advances of modern technology and global cuisine, cooking nowadays is hardly as downright strange as it was in John Saturnall’s time. We owe Norfolk our thanks for keeping it alive.
And now, if you'll exuse me, I must check on my chawdron: "A black sauce made with boiled giblets and offal (especially liver) and often served with roasted swan."
Kitchen image credit: skiptoncastle.co.uk; Forcemeat image credit: kitchenmusings.com; Sugarcane image credit: madeirahelp.com; Bukkenade image credit: medievalcookery.com
My geek-heart fluttered as the Resident Evil-themed restaurant Biohazard Cafe and Grill S.T.A.R.S. touched down in Tokyo's Shibuya neighborhood. For the unaware, Resident Evil is a survival horror video game that spawned zombified novelizations, comics, and feature-length films. Since it's Japanese, S.T.A.R.S. wouldn't be complete with just a Resident Evil-derived menu (though no “brain” dessert like at Shinjuku's Capcom Bar) and tons of memorabilia. And so, unlike Chuck E. Cheese's, where pizza comes with aweird-ass animatronic theatre show, the centerpiece at S.T.A.R.S. is a life-sized Tyrant that, via 3D projection mapping, “comes alive and attacks,” only to be subdued by the all-female S.T.A.R.S. ANGELIQUE staff's sexy choreography. You just can't make this shit up.
"Nerds are just deep, and neurotic, fans. Needy fans. We’re all nerds, on one subject or another."
07/20/2012
My geek-heart fluttered as the Resident Evil-themed restaurant Biohazard Cafe and Grill S.T.A.R.S. touched down in Tokyo's Shibuya neighborhood. For the unaware, Resident Evil is a survival horror video game that spawned zombified novelizations, comics, and feature-length films. Since it's Japanese, S.T.A.R.S. wouldn't be complete with just a Resident Evil-derived menu (though no “brain” dessert like at Shinjuku's Capcom Bar) and tons of memorabilia. And so, unlike Chuck E. Cheese's, where pizza comes with aweird-ass animatronic theatre show, the centerpiece at S.T.A.R.S. is a life-sized Tyrant that, via 3D projection mapping, “comes alive and attacks,” only to be subdued by the all-female S.T.A.R.S. ANGELIQUE staff's sexy choreography. You just can't make this shit up.
Think of the potential for other fantastical eateries! Consider Milliways, akaThe Restaurant at the End of the Universe, the time-bending brasserie and titular sequel to Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Obliging cattle that converse before being butchered, mixologist-worthy drinks like the Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster, exorbitant prices, and the bestpeople- (or otherwise-) watching...sounds a bit like NYC's Meatpacking District, yeah?
I'm sure some ambitious local restaurateur could conjure a virtual “Gnab Gib”: the universe-terminating extravaganza enjoyed at Milliways. Evidence: the semi-private “Purple” room of superlounge hellhole Tenjune and the agoraphobia-inducing Great Hall in Buddakan around the block. I despise these places and the surrounding neighborhood, but the American propensity for outsized hyperbole—in restaurants and in life—is limitless.
Unfortunately, Martin Freeman quashed the possibility of a bigscreen Hitchhiker's sequel, so we'll not be seeing Milliways on celluloid anytime soon. All the more reason to consider brick-and-mortar.
Meanwhile, let's think smaller. Cyberpunk novels (and their steampunk cousins) tend to feature awesome, character-riddled booze havens. China Miéville's Perdido Street Station has The Moon's Daughters: your favorite dive bar, if you swap the bikers for “artists, thieves, rogue scientists, junkies and militia informants.”
The opening chapter title of William Gibson's Idoru is the Kafkaesque bar Death Cube K, whose chitinous, surgical, and chilling chambers recall The Metamorphosis, In the Penal Colony, and The Trial, respectively. And though the Black Sun within Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash has a prohibitive door policy and dodgy drug undercurrents rivaling Little West 12th Street, this noirish virtual nightclub is strictly no-drama, hacker-approved.
Given the choice between these and any of New York's countless faux speakeasies (especially one masquerading as a deli), I say without hesitation: So long, and thanks for all the absinthe.
Main image: 4Gamer.net; Milliways via Hitchhiker Wiki
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