I am a fiddler; I dip my toes into everything that interests me. Photography? Check! Writing? Pottery? Food? Teaching? Check check check....
It is especially rewarding when my interests intersect and collide. As I was perusing the pages of Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris, trying to pick an essay for my students to read, I came across a piece titled "Today's Special." It's about food! It's well-written and oh so funny. I thought I'd share a passage that had me laugh hysterically. I hope it lightens your Monday.
Excerpt from David Sedaris' "Today's Special."
As a rule, I'm no great fan of eating out in New York...SoHo is not a macaroni salad kind of place. This is where the world's brightest young talents come to braise carmelized racks of corn-fed songbirds or offer up their famous knuckle of flash-seared crappie served with a collar of chided ginger and cornered by a tribe of kiln-roasted Chilean toadstools, teased with a warm spray of clarified musk oil. Even when they promise something simple, they've got to tart it up - the meatloaf has been poached in seawater, or there are figs in the tuna salad. If cooking is an art, I think we're in our Dada phase.
I've never thought of myself as a particularly finicky eater, but it's hard to be a good sport when each dish seems to include no fewer than a dozen ingredients, one of which I'm bound to dislike. I'd order skirt steak with a medley of suffocated peaches, but I'm put off by the aspirin sauce. The sea scallops look good until I'm told they're served in a broth of malt liquor and mummified litchi nuts. What I really want is a cigarette, and I'm always searching the menu in the hope that some courageous young chef has finally recognized tobacco as a vegetable. Bake it, steam it, grill it, or stuff it into littleneck clams, I just need something familiar that I can hold on to...I order a [hot dog] with nothing but mustard, and am thrilled to watch the vendor present my hot dog in a horizontal position. So simple and timeless that I can recognize it, immediately, as food."
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8 comments:
I adore Sedaris, although I think his sister is even funnier. I love his phrasing... "tarting it up." Fussy food just sucks. Sometimes you just want a damn tuna sandwich, you know?
I am so enjoying your blog!
If you want another laugh, you should check out Anne Lamott's piece in her book "Bird by Bird" about school lunches. Hilarious!
Haha! It's a great piece, now I have to read the whole essay. I agree that sometimes food has become this complicated world of rare and unpronounceable ingredients, but the best food, for me, is the simplest and freshest. There's no need to look farther :D Thanks for sharing this!
Hahaha, sometimes we're all just in the mood for a hot dog :)
Hah! That is a great excerpt! Yeah, food can be really complicated and sometimes that is really fun. But sometimes ( a lot of times, really) I prefer something more simple.
The author would be happy with that dish we had in Alinea where one of the ingredients was actually tobacco :) Great excerpt!
i L-O-V-E david sedaris. i distinctly remember reading 'me talk pretty one day' on a flight to europe and laughing uncontrollably outloud one too many times! after all these years, it might be time for a re-read. :) you
Brilliant..Carla
TKW, I also love Anne lamott! There are some of her essays that I make my students read every semester. I will check out "Bird by Bird."
Ben, I agree.
Kerstin, that was my reaction too. I love a simple hot dog once in a while.
Natasha, I actually thought of your Alinea review when i read Sedaris' comments on tobacco as food.
Giao, that book makes a gread traveling companion.
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