I'm writing late on the Cinco de Mayo (the date the Mexicans defeated the French, quite unexpectedly since they were much less well equipped, in 1862. The French did manage to take Mexico City a couple of years later where they proclaimed Napoleon lll's brother Maximilian emperor of Mexico). And it's also a full moon day, an especially big fat full moon they tell us. I caught a glimpse last night as I walked through the streets late after the Beard Awards, happy to be out in the air and walking with a friend. The moon smiled benignly down, or so it felt to me.
I wrote that first paragraph last night, then hit the hay. New York can do that, just get the adrenalin going, and going, and then suddenly I run out of gas. Yesterday after our Beard Cookbook committee meeting I headed up to Kitchen Arts and Letters. Nach Waxman was not there (he's more likely to be there early in the week), which I regretted, but being in the store is always a treat. There are treasures to discover each time. And each time I know I've only scratched the surface, leaving many wonderful books unnoticed.
Just as well perhaps, because covetousness starts to take over - yes I'd like to own that one, and that one, oh and yes perhaps those two... I came away with two books, one of which I am especially pleased to have. It's by Phyllis Bober, who died about ten years ago, a tall intelligent force-of-nature woman, beautiful, with dark red hair and a distinctive style. She taught classics at Bryn Mawr but I knew her through food. She had a deep interest in traditional foodways, and her two passions, for history and for food, come together in this book: Art Culture & Cuisine: Ancient and Medieval Gastronomy.
I first met Phyllis on an Oldways trip to Tunisia. One day five of us rented a car and drove to the ruins of a Roman city called Bulla Regia in the northwestern Tunisian plain. I'll never forget Phyllis's enthusiasm as we guided us around the site. She knew it intimately, from her studies and reading, but had never been there. She showed us the amazingly intact mosaics, explained the distinctive architecture (houses built with underground areas to give coolness and shelter from the summer heat), and her delight in it all brought the place alive.
And now I have her clarity on the page, helping me decipher some of the early history of emmer and other wheats, the role of barley, the food traditions in ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, and Rome.
I need this help, to prepare for the Foods that Changed the World course that I'll be teaching at the School of Continuing Studies at U of T, starting in mid-May, for six weeks. It's all coming together, but as always with interesting rich subjects, I now feel that I could take double the time, or more, to explore each of my topics.
From Kitchen Arts and Letters it's an easy 19 block walk to the Whitney, where I saw the Biennale. I had read some pans of it, but I like to see for myself. The most outstanding-to-me art that I saw (which may just mean, the things I understood at least a part of) were: a thoughtful installation by Nick Mauss, Dawn Kasper's nomadic studio; Nicole Eisenman's multi-painting collections, and her one large painting, (such versatility and intent); Tom Thayer's fragile-looking haunting birds and suspended sculptures; Liz Deschenes' subtle and somehow powerfully memorable photo print sculptures; and finally the extraordinary multi-media installation by Werner Herzog called Hearsay of the Soul, which is mesmerising.
Yes, it's a bit of a long list.
A walk back north took me to the Met to spend more time at "The Steins Collect." What a contrast, with order and colour and form the priority. But it's worth remembering how shockingly wild Matisse was at the time with his violent use of colour (hence that label "fauve"). Weekends are a crowded time to be at the Met, but not, I discovered, after 6 in the evening. It's open until 9 pm, so civilised, on Friday and Saturday, and the crowds thin nicely. Afterwards, after a look at the Byzantine and Islam show, and a little time with the Van Goghs (now there was a guy who shocked in his time - I love the Berceuse), I went to the balcony that overlooks the entrance hall and had a glass of white wine (a very pleasing Alberino) and started reading Phyllis's book.
It was dusk, with the moon up but not visible in the cloud, as I headed back south the 35 or so blocks to my hotel. What a wonderful privileged rich day. I'll have lovely things to think about as I sit around at JFK this evening waiting for my plane to Toronto.
Thank-you New York.
Showing posts with label Foods the Changed the World. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Foods the Changed the World. Show all posts
Sunday, May 6, 2012
Saturday, April 28, 2012
LIFE & TIME-TRAVEL AS I REJOICE IN THE NOW
Apologies for starting with a complaint, but blogger has a new look, and I'm finding it very off-putting. Or maybe any new look, like the recent revision of Facebook, is disturbing. We like our tools to stay comfortable. Any change forces us to think anew about things and be uncomfortable until we are accustomed to it.
But I'm not here to complain about online stuff. It all feels so small-beer compared to the vast and glorious diversity of the natural world. Yes, I'm burbling on, once more, about the wonders of mother nature.
I've just returned from a quick car trip to Ottawa to see various friends and go to a public session about Burma. As I whizzed along up the highway the leaves of Toronto gave way to a pre-leaf blur of green on the trees by the road and along the fence-lines in farm country. And by the time I was driving back two days later, despite unseasonably cold weather, the sunshine had worked its magic and the trees were yellow-green, definitely more in leaf, and brighter altogether.
As always when I go to Ottawa I am aware that life IS time-travel. I grew up in Ottawa and any trip back reminds me of places and events and people from times past, like flipping through a photo album, but with a more impressionistic and less linear feel. And seeing my aged aunt, in full-blown dementia, but still polite and nice to people helping her, and saying "I don't know what to do" (quite true) or "I don't know where I'm going" (also true) is time-travel of another kind. Exchanges with her have a super-real quality or super-true, kind of drug-trippish. I choose to read them as reflecting some larger truth. For her, who knows? They may be just fragments without deeper meaning, or they may be deeply intended, things she didn't dare say when she was concerned with decorum and privacy and in control.
And that's the other thing: old age potentially robs us of dignity, and of privacy, as does illness. We're all heading there sooner or later. How do we cope? How should we prepare? Or should we just dance and sing while the going is good, and then leave it to others to worry about our care when we decline? I am sure that we shouldn't worry. Worry is a waste of time. But it's worth thinking about these things.
I feel so fortunate to be able to time travel in my mind's eye, visualising people and events from earlier days. I like reconnecting with old friends and reflecting on where we find ourselves now, how little we imagined the world that we now find ourselves in. It's fun, and diverting, like watching reruns of films and getting a deeper or different understanding of them second or third time round.
Today as I sat in the bright sun at my cousin's place watching finches and wrens, a hairy woodpecker, and other birds I can't name, at a bird feeder, my cousin said something to the effect that we spend all our lives trying to understand how things work and how to do things, and just as we get some clarity and wisdom, it's the end. hmm But that insight doesn't have to be a sad or depressing picture. We can just accept that life is about exploration, and to be enjoyed while we're able.
I'm loving life these days, happily focussed on the now: the BURMA book is at third galleys stage, headed to the printer later this week; my two grown kids are flourishing at their university studies (yes, some people do flourish in the hothouse of Ancient Greek, or philosophy); the garden is freshly dug up and waiting for seeds; and summer is coming, with trips to the Kneading Conference West in September and to the Oxford Symposium in early July, and visits from friends promised here and there.
And before that travelling I have some teaching to do: a course called Foods that Changed the World, at the School of Continuing Studies at the University of Toronto. I love preparing for the six weeks of lectures, two hours every Tuesday. It's made me do time travel of a different kind, as I reflect on the movement of foods and food ideas around the world. The first session is about Salt and about Sugar, essentials and seductions you could say. There's trade and preserving and slavery too, as well as photos I've taken over the years: salt in Ethiopia, Burma, Thailand, and Senegal...
Happy end of April to you all.
I've just returned from a quick car trip to Ottawa to see various friends and go to a public session about Burma. As I whizzed along up the highway the leaves of Toronto gave way to a pre-leaf blur of green on the trees by the road and along the fence-lines in farm country. And by the time I was driving back two days later, despite unseasonably cold weather, the sunshine had worked its magic and the trees were yellow-green, definitely more in leaf, and brighter altogether.
As always when I go to Ottawa I am aware that life IS time-travel. I grew up in Ottawa and any trip back reminds me of places and events and people from times past, like flipping through a photo album, but with a more impressionistic and less linear feel. And seeing my aged aunt, in full-blown dementia, but still polite and nice to people helping her, and saying "I don't know what to do" (quite true) or "I don't know where I'm going" (also true) is time-travel of another kind. Exchanges with her have a super-real quality or super-true, kind of drug-trippish. I choose to read them as reflecting some larger truth. For her, who knows? They may be just fragments without deeper meaning, or they may be deeply intended, things she didn't dare say when she was concerned with decorum and privacy and in control.
And that's the other thing: old age potentially robs us of dignity, and of privacy, as does illness. We're all heading there sooner or later. How do we cope? How should we prepare? Or should we just dance and sing while the going is good, and then leave it to others to worry about our care when we decline? I am sure that we shouldn't worry. Worry is a waste of time. But it's worth thinking about these things.
I feel so fortunate to be able to time travel in my mind's eye, visualising people and events from earlier days. I like reconnecting with old friends and reflecting on where we find ourselves now, how little we imagined the world that we now find ourselves in. It's fun, and diverting, like watching reruns of films and getting a deeper or different understanding of them second or third time round.
Today as I sat in the bright sun at my cousin's place watching finches and wrens, a hairy woodpecker, and other birds I can't name, at a bird feeder, my cousin said something to the effect that we spend all our lives trying to understand how things work and how to do things, and just as we get some clarity and wisdom, it's the end. hmm But that insight doesn't have to be a sad or depressing picture. We can just accept that life is about exploration, and to be enjoyed while we're able.
I'm loving life these days, happily focussed on the now: the BURMA book is at third galleys stage, headed to the printer later this week; my two grown kids are flourishing at their university studies (yes, some people do flourish in the hothouse of Ancient Greek, or philosophy); the garden is freshly dug up and waiting for seeds; and summer is coming, with trips to the Kneading Conference West in September and to the Oxford Symposium in early July, and visits from friends promised here and there.
And before that travelling I have some teaching to do: a course called Foods that Changed the World, at the School of Continuing Studies at the University of Toronto. I love preparing for the six weeks of lectures, two hours every Tuesday. It's made me do time travel of a different kind, as I reflect on the movement of foods and food ideas around the world. The first session is about Salt and about Sugar, essentials and seductions you could say. There's trade and preserving and slavery too, as well as photos I've taken over the years: salt in Ethiopia, Burma, Thailand, and Senegal...
Happy end of April to you all.
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