Books (Reviews)

The Glow

Dan P.Monday, January 12, 20090

“Given our shared passion for cooking, how is it that we were suddenly convinced to retire our pots and pans for good? It’s not just the extra cupboard space that our oven now provides.”

– from the book reviewed here…

Raw Food real world Buenos Aires – Okay, pet peeve in regard to book titles. Yes, book titles. If you have a catchy title, if you, or your editor or publisher, gave it some thought, why do you need a subtitle explaining what your book is all about? Is it really that difficult, with a book called Raw Food Real World for anyone to grasp the subject matter at hand? Does it need 100 Recipes to Get the Glow? Which, by the way, comes across to me at least as less explicative than the title – sure, I get the 100 recipes part, but “get the glow”?

That out of the way, let’s look at the book. It’s a subject matter that’s all the rage these days – raw food or life food. It’s written by a chef who, at least within the New York foodie world, is pretty well known, and his wife, who isn’t. It’s beautifully illustrated with photos of the food, and less so with lots of pictures of the two of them, presumeably glowing. Not that they’re not a cute couple, in fact, Matthew Kenney is… well, was… one of the cutest chefs around – but that’s 15 years ago or so when he was running Matthew’s on the Upper West Side (which was not a raw food vegan restaurant and was a spot I regularly dined at and had a good number of late eve conversations with Matthew about the industry after introducing myself) – we all lose a bit of cuteness with age, you know? Graphically, it’s not well designed – the recipes for the most part are fine, but the chapter introductions are all done in spindly white text set on vividly colorful pages, with a particular fondness it seemed for yellow and orange, making them difficult to read.

Their explanations of how and why they got into a raw food lifestyle are relatively straightforward, if, perhaps, punctuated by a few too many gee golly gosh how good I felt after I did this moments that get a bit repetitive. The level of detail is probably just about perfect for someone who’s more interested in this as a recipe book than as an explication of the lifestyle itself. The recipes are well written and clear, and sound delicious. On the other hand, most of them sound like things that are fairly complex to make – the “real world” part of the title is a bit misleading. I did a little surfing online to see what sort of reaction the book has garnered among the raw food folk, and one of the most common comments is something to the effect of “everything looks so good, but way beyond my skill level to make”. Which was my reaction and I cook for a living.

The recipes, and the whole story they present, in general, are clearly aimed at those with a lot of time on their hands to make stuff, and more, with a lot of cash to burn. Exotic ingredients, professional level equipment – and no suggestions for substitutions on either – in fact a bit disparaging of any attempts to make this food without using the best (and most expensive) kitchen tools and ingredients out there (with supplier sources listed for where to order all this exotica from should you live somewhere, say, other than New York City or San Francisco).

On the positive side, I like that they don’t preach. In fact they’re quite clear that they aren’t fanatically committed to a 100% raw food vegan lifestyle, and actually enjoy eating both cooked food and non-vegetable food, when they eat out, but have chosen this for home – and even that has it’s minor exceptions. In their lead-ins they do make it sound like anyone could jump on the bandwagon should they want to, it’s just a shame that the recipes make it seem far harder than it has to be to do so. And that leaves this book, for me, as one to sit and glow on the coffee table, should you be so inclined, and less likely to be on the kitchen bookshelf where it might be used.

Books (Reviews)

cookbooks, Diets

Sourdough Dreams

Dan P.Sunday, July 20, 20080

“It is important to understand the basic differences between the wild yeast of sourdough and the commercial baker’s yeast in most other breads. First sourdough yeast grow best in acidic doughs, while baker’s yeast does better in neutral or slightly alkaline doughs. Baker’s yeast is a single species, with hundreds of strains and varieties, while sourdoughs are usually leavened by one or more species in the same dough, none of which is baker’s yeast. Baker’s yeast is a highly uniform product that produces an equally uniform texture in bread dough. The wild yeast are anything but uniform, and they vary from country to country. But the most impressive difference between the two yeast types is that a single package of instant dried yeast produces just one batch of bread, while the same amount of wild sourdough culture produces loaf after loaf for the lifetimes of many bakers.”

– Ed Wood, Classic Sourdoughs

Local Breads by Daniel Leader Buenos Aires – Though it was published last year, I just got around to reading through Daniel Leader’s Local Breads. I was particularly interested in this bread baking book because it focuses on sourdough breads from a number of traditional European cultures, and it’s a topic, good sourdough bread, that is, that comes up regularly in expat conversation here. A friend of mine recently went back to the U.S. to visit family and agreed to bring back a couple of different books that I’d wanted, so here was my opportunity. Daniel Leader is well-known for his award winning book Bread Alone that came out in the mid-90s – a solid introduction to the world of bread baking. This new book has gotten rave reviews, with only minimal criticism for at times being a bit technical and dense. I have to admit, I didn’t find it that way, but then, I’m kind of used to reading books of that sort.

I am, however, going to point out the emperor’s nudity… just a bit. Overall, I liked the book immensely. It was a completely enjoyable read, and his stories about different regions and his travels are engaging. His recipes are a little repetitive, giving overly detailed step by step instructions, over and over again – but then, most people probably are not sitting down to read the book cover to cover – they’re picking out one or two recipes and trying those out – so they don’t really want to be flipping back and forth to previously referenced techniques. I can’t really fault him there. I did find his writing to be a bit… hypocritically humble – hmm… maybe that’s not quite the phrase. He constantly bows and scrapes to the various bakers he talks about, as if each, in turn, is some sort of godlike figure in the world of baking – producing the ultimate loaf of bread of their style. He then turns around, one by one, and discusses how he took their product and “perfected it”. Beyond the presumption that he can take on the recipes of the gods (maybe he just writes about them as if they were on pedestals…), his regular assertion of his ability to turn these humble (yet deity-produced) loaves into his version of perfection, is a bit off-putting. Sort of like listening to that guy at a cocktail party who stands there while you’re talking, tapping his foot and waiting for his turn to tell you you have an interesting idea, but he has a better one.

My biggest problem with the book is his math. Initially, it didn’t catch my eye, until I hit the phrase in his section on German breads – “He told me that the average German eats a kilo of bread a week – about 10 ounces of bread a day.” and then goes on to talk about how this seems to be alot in comparison to Americans. Mmmm… no, a kilo a week would be 5 ounces a day, pretty much the same as the amount he talks about for Americans. Either he meant 2 kilos a week, or he simply got his math wrong. I would have just discounted it as a simple mistake, only when I started out to try his recipes, I found similar problems with the numbers.

I decided to start off with his section on liquid levain – a watery sort of sourdough starter that is all the rage amongst a certain group of French bakers these days. The levain itself turned out to be quite easy to make, a simple mix of 2/3 cup of water and 6 tablespoons of flour… hmmm… that is quite a bit of water, no? Left to sit with various stirrings and daily additions of 1/3 cup each of flour and water. Over the course of four days it turned into a bubbling, fermenting container of delightful smelling levain the consistency of light cream.

In the beginning – just mixed

After 48 hours, with two additions of water and flour

After four days and four additions, bubbling and ready to use.

That was all well and good and I was excited and ready to go. My first inkling that something was amiss was as I mixed the ingredients for his Baguette à l’ancienne, an old world style baguette. He talks regularly in the book about doughs that are hydrated more than what we’re used to working with. But this was like thin pancake batter. He didn’t give a detailed description of consistency, merely that it would be far softer than what one would normally think of, and he does say it will be a challenge. At the same time, though he opts for machine kneading, he asserts that it’s possible to hand knead this dough, with care. that wouldn’t have been possible with this – it would have simply poured onto the counter and dripped off onto the floor. I looked back at the numbers in his recipe, and sure enough, his proportion of water to flour comes out pretty close to 1:1 – I mean, even a “wet dough” is generally only about 2/3 the amount of liquid to flour, and most people work with bread doughs that are more like 1:2. Top that with past experience here that the flours here need extra water in comparison to what I’m used to in the U.S., and something was clearly wrong. Still, I gave the mixer a try – he asserted that after 8-9 minutes of high speed mixing the dough would take on the consistency of a marshmallow. Maybe if it’s been melted over high heat…

So, I added in flour – high gluten bread flour in fact to help it develop some structure, almost 50% more than his recipe called for before I got something that was remotely marshmallow-like. At that point I wasn’t going to even try to shape this mess into baguettes and simply poured it into greased mini-loaf pans, let it proof for a couple of hours (it did rise… though slowly), and then baked out these little loaves. The taste was great – the lightly tangy sourdough flavor – and with the extra flour the consistency was okay – though not really baguette-like.

And, I moved on… more cautiously now. I’d already decided I wanted to also try his recipe for Pain de campagne, more commonly referred to as boules. I decided to approach this carefully, as looking at the recipe I could already see that the liquid to flour was at 85% and I wasn’t looking forward to a liquid mess. So I added only about half the water upfront, figuring on adding in more as needed. In the end, I needed very little more, a matter of a couple of tablespoons, and bringing the liquid ratio down to about 65%. From that, I got a nice, soft, pillowy dough, that fit his description perfectly. I continued with the rest of the process, and, voila! Boules.

Now, to this point, I’ve only tried those two recipes, in the section of liquid levain. I have yet to delve into the making of others, though I’m going to continue trying out various ones over the coming weeks and months. My sourdough starter is bubbling away, and I’m feeding it and chatting with it on a daily basis. I’ve read a few blog entries by various other folks who’ve tried different recipes (the most common choice seems to be his basic yeast baguette recipe, different from the one I tried above), that seem to have had good results.

So the question I’m left with is… is his math just off or is there something so very different about the flour here? If anything, I’d have expected based on past experience that if it was the latter that I’d have needed more water, not less, so it leads me to think his math is off, or the book wasn’t carefully proofread. More tests and trials to come….

Other last notes on the book – which may add credence to the proofreading hypothesis – there are numerous typos in the book when it comes to foreign words, a simple example, he refers to an Italian tomato bread as al pomodori – mixing the singular article with the plural noun – I realize that’s not something that everyone will notice, but it’s something he should have (it should be either al pomodoro or ai pomodori). And back to that sort of conceit mentioned above – he subtitles the book Sourdough and Whole-Grain Recipe from Europe’s Best Artisan Bakers, yet, his travels (at least as detailed within the book), and recipes, only cover parts of France, Italy, Germany, and a very brief look at Czechoslavakia in search of one particular bread. Europe’s a whole lot more than that, and there are wonderful artesanal breads from many other countries and cultures – perhaps, who knows, perhaps better than the ones he terms Best.

Books (Reviews)

Baking, cookbooks

Libro Trio

Dan P.Friday, December 14, 20070

“I never read a book before reviewing it – it prejudices a man so.”

Sydney Smith, Essayist, Clergyman

Buenos Aires – In the last couple of weeks a trio, or is it a quartet, or quintet, of books has come across my desk. They didn’t get there by themselves, I went to book launching parties and was given copies of them, which is a delightful way to acquire books, especially when there’s free food and drink, the chance to ferret out the three people at the party actually worth talking to, and no requests to do any work – i.e.,, no one asked me to review the books, they were gratis without strings. The 3/4/5 thing we’ll get to momentarily.

The 2008 edition of Viñas, Bodegas & Vinos was amongst them. Long time readers might hazily recall that I’ve reviewed the last two editions, and that I was a member of the tasting panels for the 2007 edition. Likewise this one. My thoughts from last year pretty much stand – I’m still disappointed that the book is being offered these days in Spanish only, and that it only covers Argentina now – I can’t vouch for the marketing and finances and what went into the decision last year to drop the side-by-side English translation and the rest of the continent, but I can tell you I’ve heard from at least a couple of dozen people over the last year asking if there was an English edition now because all they could find was the Spanish, and the 2006 and previous editions are simply out of date. There’s a market out there for a South American wine guide in English, believe me, and if it wasn’t the massive undertaking that it is, I’d be all over that. Beyond being an update, the book is very slightly expanded this year, with an increase in the number of wineries and wines covered. One fun little addition at the back, being the fifth edition, the editor/publisher had saved up bottles of the top wines from the first edition in the cellar, and we had a separate tasting of those to see how they had held up over the last 4-5 years. Some well, some not so well, but it was an interesting exercise that’s included in this year’s edition. The event, by the way, was held at the Museo Evita, which is worth a visit in and of itself, has a nice little restaurant on the property, and a beautiful courtyard. The top 60 wines were all arrayed for our tasting – one in particular truly stood out for me, the Valle Las Acequias “Rosedal” Malbec 2003, quite possibly the most elegant, delightful Malbec I’ve had the opportunity to taste.

Austral Rumbo guides 2008 Apparently several years in the making, and perhaps another part of the reason why the wine guide has been cut back, editor Diego Bigongiari has been hard at work on a duo of Buenos Aires guides… Now, I realize we need more travel guides to Buenos Aires like we need another newspaper article extolling the amazing and wildly exaggerated cheapness and ease of moving to and living in this city, and it’s also hard to be critical of a couple of books written by someone I’ve spent the last two years working with and also consider a friend. Nor do I object that he included a mention of Casa SaltShaker at the bottom of page 146… Thankfully, I don’t have to be particularly critical, as I think he very smartly approached the guides in a different manner from many of them out there. The guides, first of all, are in Spanish only, and second of all, they come together as a set – tall and narrow and inserted into a plastic cover which is useful for packaging and marketing and protecting the books from dust on your shelves, but completely useless when you’re ready to use them. However, with no manual skills at all you can easily slip them out of the cover and use them separately – which you should. The first book, in big bold letters titled BUE, states it is a traveler’s guide to Buenos Aires and surrounds, from rumbo-austral, rumbo meaing “to get one’s bearings”, and austral being the publishing company. Coming in at 335 pages, it’s packed with ‘hood by ‘hood tips on things to do and see – and it goes well beyond the usual three or four barrios that most tourist guides bother to cover, gives detailed information on how to do things like navigate the bus and subway systems, and covers everything from where to get good coffee to where to find transvestite prostitutes. The maps are well thought out, there are lots of sketches to illustrate various monuments and buildings, and it’s well written. Each entry has a color coded bar along the margin placing it in a category such as “eating and drinking”, “architecture”, or “night and sex” – which would be truly annoying and useless given that color key is in the introduction to the book and includes eight different categories, except they very smartly didn’t just put the color bar, but also the category name in each bar, so you really don’t even need the key upfront after all.

The second book is more for the armchair traveler, or perhaps while you’re sitting in your hotel room, or whiling away an hour or two at a local café. It covers the same neighborhoods, in the same order, one by one, but instead of being a guide, this one is labeled in big bold letters BUE… oh wait, it’s the same, but in small print says it’s the traveler’s book, rather than guide… it’s designed for simply reading. Perhaps the best way to think of it would be as if you had a tour guide sitting right there telling you stories about this building or that monument, or an event that happened here, or one of those great anecdotes that make having a good tour guide a gem to find. While you have to read this rather than listen to it, you do have the priceless advantage of not having to listen to the identically dressed in tracksuits never set a foot on a track middle aged couple from Home on the Range Middle America complain about no one here speaking English and why don’t they learn it and why can’t they eat at 6 p.m. like regular people and do we really have to get off the bus and walk it’s just as easy to take a picture through the window as we pass by. My British readers will recognize the same couple as being from Outer Peasbody on the Marsh, but the rest of the details remain the same.

Mixology in Argentina Now, lest you think I spent all my time at one party at the Evita Museum sipping high end wines and snagging delicious little hors d’oeuvres off passing trays, let me assure you that’s not the case. I also found myself inside a jam packed soirée at OchoSieteOcho, the “secret” speakeasy that’s not secret anymore, a faceless bar at 878 Thames with a guy in a suit out front deciding whether or not to unlock the door behind him and let you in. He pretty much let’s everyone in, at least when it’s a private event and you have enough wits about you to say “I’m here for the private event.” Here, the focus, at least in the free drinking and dining realm, was well made cocktails offset by iffy hors d’oeuvres that might have been thrown together by someone who’d just dropped into the kitchen and thought they’d “give it a whirl”. The event this time, the dual release of the Spanish and English language editions of Coctelería Argentina and Mixology in Argentina, by Rodolfo Reich, a local food and wine writer and editor. Though I don’t know Rodolfo, I do know his English translator, Brian Byrnes, the person who invited me to the event and reserved an English copy for me. I haven’t read through the Spanish language version, but I trust that Brian stayed true to the original. The book is by parts a history of the world of cocktails in Argentina – at one time a big part of the drinking scene here, not so much these days when everyone is into wine and micro-brewed beers – an introduction to some of the “top” bartenders in the country, and a cocktail recipe book. It’s beautifully laid out and photographed, and it’s well written, at least the English prose. The history part was intriguing and fun to read, no question. The recipes, a mix of classics, reinterpreted classics, and outright inventions, useful if not particularly exciting to read – but recipes rarely are. The introduction to the bartenders, for me, was a trifle odd… not that it wasn’t interesting, it was, but there is, perhaps, a conceit, not uncommon to someone in their early 30s, that the true innovators, masters, etc., are in their own age bracket. Of the twenty bartenders profiled, all but one, at least based on their photos and resumes, are not more than a few years out of college (their birthdates are given, and range from 1971 to 1982, with one from 1963) – and are, for the most part, the bartenders at trendy venues frequented by the club set. Now, not being someone who hangs out at bars, and these days I don’t drink many cocktails, perhaps there are very few over 35 bartenders here plying their trade and proving that they know how to mix a drink, and innovating – but if my experience in other cities around the world holds true, that’s unlikely to be the case, and it was notable that they weren’t included. The best part for me was a single page devoted to a local aperitif called Hesperidina, something that’s uniquely Argentine, though it’s a shame he didn’t spend a little time on others, like Pineral, Legui, or Hierro Quina. For cocktail aficionados, the book is a nice addition to the bar library shelf, and worth the investment.

Books (Reviews)

Buenos Aires, Cocktails, Travel, Wine

With Liver and Giblets for All

Dan P.Thursday, August 16, 20070

“The wickedly entertaining, hunger-inducing, behind-the-scenes story of the revolution in American food that has made exotic ingredients, celebrity chefs, rarefied cooking tools, and destination restaurants familiar aspects of our everyday lives.”

– back cover blurb from…

Buenos Aires – …The United States of Arugula, by David Kamp, catchy title, no? Wish I’d have thought of it first. For those of you not in norteamericano foodie circles, this book has been getting a lot of attention since its publication last year in hard cover (paperback edition just came out in July), everything from press reviews to casual offhand remarks, online and off (yes, there is still life offline). First off, let me say that it’s well worth reading, a veritable page-turner of recent food history in the U.S. – I’m not going to say I couldn’t put it down, as I did, several times, because it’s a long book and I had other things to do, but I also read through it, cover to cover, over the course of the last week.

Here’s the good stuff – it’s witty, and I like that. It’s not laugh out loud funny, but it has enough humorous anecdotes, and David Kamp has enough snarky irreverence thrown in to keep a smile on my face through a good portion of the book. It gets into the “history” of the foodie movement pretty well, going very in-depth on a few stories, James Beard, Julia Child, and Alice Waters in particular are covered at length and breadth, and resurface throughout the book. It’s well organized, starting with at least a mention of the late 18th century and moving on up to what was present day when it was written. I knew a good number of the stories already, but not in so much detail, and, of course, I’m in the business, so a lot of the people in the book are people who I know either casually or well. And hey, there are a few stories that I could… well, never mind.

On the other hand, and you knew there’d be one… while he acknowledges that food didn’t spring miraculously into existence with the arrival of James Beard on the scene, quoting Barbara Kafka, “It’s like there was no food in this fucking city, or this country, until this miraculous apparition came along! Or there was no cooking at home until Julia.” But then, he promptly manages to cover the entire period from the 1790s until the 1930s in a matter of a few pages, and even in those keeps returning to the latter part of the 20th century, and then covers the period from the 1930s until the early 60s in less than a dozen pages, most of which are focused on one restaurateur, Henri Soulé. But, in a sense, that’s in keeping with the style of the book – its focus is on some very select individuals and their stories, with others coming into play more as peripherals – not that he doesn’t give those extras some page time, but I was left feeling like they were propping up his main characters – for the most part, the three folk listed above, whom, after reading the book, did I not know better, could have pretty much done it by themselves, with a few food writers thrown in for good measure.

The book is, not surprisingly, coastal-centric… if one can be coastal and centric at the same time – focusing mostly on the food scene in New York, the San Francisco Bay Area, and a bit in Los Angeles. While there’s no question that a huge amount of the modern food movement, and in particular the public figures in it, come from those areas, I think he gives short shrift to the rest of the country. Someone like Norman Van Aiken, the godfather of “Florida cuisine” doesn’t even make an appearance in the book. Ming Tsai (who ought to fit his celebrity criteria) is nowhere to be seen. His ethnic influences seem limited to French, a nod to Italian (Mario Batali apparently invented Italian food in the U.S. with the help of ingredients from Dean & DeLuca), Mexican (Rick Bayless and a bit of Bobby Flay doing the same for south of the border cuisine, with a very brief nod to Mark Miller and Diane Kennedy, whom, we gather, did lots of research but not much else), and a bit of Japanese, in particular sushi, and in particular the famed Masa and Nobu. There is, in essence, no mention of other influences – China, India, Southeast Asia, the entire rest of Latin America, the Middle East, the rest of Europe, Africa, Austraila (admittedly the latter two have yet to have any major impact on cuisine in the U.S.) – the influence of Chinese cuisine is covered in three widely separated paragraphs, Craig Claiborne meeting the authors of a Chinese cookbook, a mention of Michael Field’s review of a different Chinese cookbook, and Wolfgang Puck bringing Chinese influence (apparently for the first time on our shores) into his restaurant Chinois. The only mention I recall of all of Latin America outside of Mexico is a brief cameo by Felipe Rojas-Lombardi, from Peru.

But the biggest “missing” for me were the people, the “ordinary” people. I know that this book is focused on the celebrities – and let’s face it, that’s really what it is, a mixed celebrity bio, which for the most part in this tome means someone who has appeared regularly on television – and anyone who isn’t or wasn’t a celebrity is simply either ignored or discounted – does he really need to remind us, every time he mentions something good that Craig Claiborne did, that in his later years he “declined” into alcoholism, and how many times do we need to hear that James Beard was fat? Or repeatedly pointing out that they were gay, which, if it was somehow worked into their influence on the food scene might have been relevant past the first mention. Or that nobody really likes, or ever liked, Alice Waters…? The people missing, however, are more than just the rest of the professional food world in the U.S., they are the people who were eating all this food. The tenor of the book comes across that 99.99999% of the populace were pretty much dragged, kicking and screaming, forced at gunpoint, to try anything new. There seems to be no awareness, and certainly no acknowledgement, that what made it possible for these chefs and food writers and food growers/raisers to do what they did is that We, the People, were actually a prime part of the equation – from immigrants hungering for foods of their homelands, to GIs who’d been overseas and came back with stories to tell of things they’d eaten, to the world simply “becoming a smaller place” with international travel, global media and in recent years, phenomena like, for example, hey, food communities on the internet, where we were actually actively seeking out the new, the exotic, the different – the social, cultural, political world that influenced the culinary or gastronomic environment into which these people could flourish and become the celebrities that they have.

Books (Reviews)

Food, History, USA

New Edition…

Dan P.Saturday, November 11, 20060

“Things will get better despite our efforts to improve them.”

– Will Rogers, Entertainer/Humorist

Buenos Aires – The new edition of Viñas, Bodegas & Vinos was released this week. Long time readers will possibly remember my review of last year’s edition and the launch event. Things changed quite a bit this year. First, and of course from my point of view, the most important was that I got to be one of the catadores, or tasters, who reviewed the wines for the 2007 edition. Second, due to a combination of various logistical and financial issues, the book was changed radically. To begin with, it was, midstream, cut to an Argentina only edition, rather than a survey of the wines of all of South America – not necessarily a bad thing, even if a narrower focus. The book was also released in Spanish only – the previous editions were side-by-side columns in Spanish and English. I was looking forward to participating in the English side of the book – while past translations were “correct”, one of the things the editor had wanted to do was give the English a bit more “flow”, something he (and I) had hoped I could bring to the prose. Obviously, this means the book is much smaller (and less expensive, by about half) than previous editions, and, of course, the book has lost a huge potential market from folks with an interest in South American wine who want something more comprehensive, and in English. For those who do read Spanish, it provides a nice update on the new vintage, as well as some bodegas that were not included in the previous edition – but I’d use it as an adjunct to the 2006 edition, which has far more information. The other thing, is that the selection of “best wines” from this year were scooped up and also appear in a second book – an agenda, or datebook – with each of the wines gracing, along with quotes from individual panel members (including myself), one week of the year. It’s a cute idea – a nice gift for the Spanish speaking wine aficionado, and it’s well designed and laid out.

The launch event was much smaller, and was held at the Escuela Argentina de Sommeliers. This year the tasting was limited to just the wines that were selected as the top wines of the year. I tasted through most of them, this time knowing what they were (the tastings were all blind tastings, and in addition, we did not find out what we’d tasted at the end of the day). I’d single out a few that I thought really stood out at the launch party:

Trapiche Origen Torrontés 2005

Chakana Cabernet Sauvignon Reserva 2004

Carinae Prestige 2004 – Malbec, Cabernet, Syrah blend

Finca El Zorzal Patrón Santiago Gran Reserva 2002 – Malbec, Cabernet blend

Books (Reviews)

Wine

Fin de Semana

Dan P.Monday, February 20, 20060

Abroad by Paul Fussell Buenos Aires – When I was departing New York back in January from my brief visit, my friend Frank handed me a few books he thought I’d enjoy. We do that. I left him one that I hadn’t. But then, that was all I had with me. I’ve been reading Abroad, by Paul Fussell, on and off since, not that it’s a long book, it’s more that it’s an odd book, and I had lots of other things going on. In the end though, it was a completely enjoyable and fascinating book. Mr. Fussell takes a look back at literary travel writing – in particular during the “golden age” of travel, between the two world wars. It’s sort of partly literary review and partly a bit of a travel book itself. I’m not going to say it’s action packed, but it definitely evokes some wonderful images of the world of travel via rail and ship and foot during that era. And if nothing else, I learned that the entire concept of passports and visas, is a very recent, 20th century invention of the British – in fact, the very first passports were issued only 91 years ago in 1915! Before then, one just sort of went where one wanted, often with little more than luggage and a little cash or a letter of credit. Think about that the next time you’re in a two hour long line at customs!

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Saturday evening found us wandering our way to the Rosedal, but not to see the roses. Instead, it was to listen to, and hopefully see, Mercedes Sosa, quite possibly the most successful Argentinian singer of all time – nationally and internationally. Of course, we were not alone in heading for this gratis concert in the park, we were joined but a few thousands of other people who had the same idea. At about 7 minutes before 9:00 in the evening, a white helicopter zoomed overhead, and then swooped down and landed backstage. Sharply at 9, Ms. Sosa was on stage to a standing ovation – which was to remain the model of the concert – thousands of folk who’d come and found places to sit on the grass now stood, and remained standing, for two solid hours of music – clapping, cheering, and singing along – slowly pressing closer to the stage in hopes of glimpsing her directly. Not an easy feat, as she was seated in a grand armchair, making her a bit difficult to see – but large screens on either side of the stage kept her in view of everyone. She was joined mid-concert by Diego Torres, one of Argentina’s more recognizable young talents, and at the end of the evening, for her final three songs, by the legendary Charly Garica. No photos – it was dark out, they were using kleig lights shining out from the stage, and the best I could get was a flash photo of a few dozens of folk standing near to me.

Then we went back home and watched the re-broadcast of the concert on local television so that we could actually see and hear her!

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I left my camera at home last evening when I went out to meet my friend Michael for a bite to eat. It doesn’t really matter, as the presentation of the food we ate was nothing exciting – more or less just food slapped on plates. What matters is that the food was absolutely delicious! We’d headed over to Puerto Madero, figuring that it was early on a Sunday evening, and it was our best bet for finding something open. Plus there are ample people watching opportunities. I’d heard about a Cuban restaurant that was supposed to be pretty good, if slightly pricey, and so we took a table in the window, overlooking the puerto, at El Tocororo, Av. de Justo 1050 (Dock 7). Salsa music played in the background, the one other customer in the place was pretty much finished eating and ready to go, but we ordered a couple of well-made, and quite strong mojitos and settled in with the menu. [This place has closed.]

Only a part of the menu is “authentically” Cuban, maybe a quarter. But the rest of it is definitely Cariibbean and/or Cuban influenced. We started with a plate of guacamole, a glistening, parrot green, chunky mound of absolutely fresh avocado, seasoned perfectly, and topped with an array of plantain chips for dipping. A small salad on the side added a little extra interest. We also nearly inhaled the tower of pristinely fresh shrimp ceviche, still tasting briny from the sea, dressed in a light citrus, herb, and vegetable mixture, and topped with radish sprouts. Quite happy, we continued on to a plate of ropa vieja, a huge scoop of shredded pork, stewed in a mildly spicy tomato sauce, heaped atop a large plate of white rice and a “potage” of black beans. On the other plate, masitas de puerco con moros y cristianos – cubes of pork sauteed in garlic, onion, orange juice, and spices; alongside a large hill of a black bean, rice, and chili mixture. A bottle of locally bottled, but quite good tabasco and vinegar hot sauce was brought to the table and a dash or two added just the right amount of heat. We finished off with a creamy rice pudding with a vanilla brulee top, and a cup of the most sublime vanilla custard, swirled with caramel and topped with cinnamon, that I think I’ve ever had.

Pricey? Yes. Worth it? Yes. It’s a shame that the place was so empty, and I hope it’s not that way regularly – literally while we were there only two other people came in, and they only shared a quick snack and a couple of drinks and left. The place seats probably 200 people. If this is normal for them, go before it closes!

Books (Reviews)

Biography, Travel

Spooning

Dan P.Sunday, February 5, 20060

Buenos Aires – If you’re in the food world, especially in the restaurant end of it, you tend to hear murmurs about this chef or that in that world. The murmurs are usually in the line of “I had the most amazing…” or “X may not be famous, but he’s the best…”. Falling into that category is chef Roger Souvereyns, a Belgian chef who, while not completely unfamous, is not exactly a household name, let alone one that most foodies would even recognize. His inn, in the Belgian countryside, is a gorgeous affair, with a spectacular maze garden. But more importantly is his food – while I’ve never eaten there myself, over the years I’ve heard whispers and sighs as friends who have, have returned to extol the virtues of his presentation, his flavors, his flair, his creativity.

<br /> Every now and again I search for one of his books, they’re difficult to find affairs. A couple of weeks ago I found a listing online for a first edition of his Look Into the Spoon. This is a stunningly photographed book, with equally intriguing recipes, and interspersed with the fascinating history of… the spoon. Souveyreyns is an inveterate antiques collector, and his spoon collection is his pride and joy. It makes for a great read, and if you should ever find yourself a copy, it’s worth getting. Mine required long distance negotiation with Simon of Chevin Books in England to convince him that sending a package to the wilds of South America was not akin to tossing the book into the fireplace. I’m delighted that he relented, as this book is ridiculously difficult to find for one that was published a mere ten years ago. I also grabbed another book from his collection, more on that after I’ve had a chance to peruse it.

Books (Reviews)

cookbooks

Too Much Chianti

Dan P.Wednesday, December 28, 20050

New York City – I was chatting via e-mail with a friend of mine recently about my food writing adventures, and the possibility of some sort of future book. We got to talking about books like Under the Tuscan Sun and A Year in Provence, and other such gems of travel writing that tend to involve a fair amount of food. I have to admit, those types of books, while interesting, tend to strike me as both over-romanticized and also a trifle vicious, usually by presenting local residents in caricature. There’s also the omnipresent attempt to define local culture in terms of one’s own background.

Now, while that’s understandable to a certain extent, it reminds me of conversations I sometimes overhear in Buenos Aires that I’ve become attuned to when I listen in on tourists. Last week when we went to Colonia, seated behind us were two young men, a couple, from Philadelphia, chatting with another young man from somewhere in Europe. The couple were bemoaning the fact that Buenos Aires was not nearly as interesting as they’d been led to expect… the conversation went something like:

“There’s really nothing to do here unless you want to go out in the middle of night to a club.”

“Have you gone to any of the museums or galleries?”

“We have museums in Philadelphia, what could they possibly have here that would match those?”

“Have you gotten out and explored the neighborhoods?”

“We’re staying in the center of town, in “Centro” [note: the downtown financial district], we’ve walked all around that area and haven’t seen anything historical except the “Pink House” and it wasn’t nearly as impressive as the White House.”

“Well what do you think of the food?”

“Who wants to go out for a steak in the middle of the night, besides we can get steak back home. We’ve just been eating in the hotel or at a nearby coffee shop.”

This sort of conversation isn’t unusual. I’ve heard complaints about the lack of peanut butter for “real sandwiches,” the lack of American or Canadian bacon to go with breakfast, the lack of Starbucks, the confusion of not having streets laid out in grid patterns, and even the old “how come they don’t learn to speak English here?” On the other hand, the vast majority of folk that I meet who are visiting Buenos Aires are fascinated by its rhythms and pace, charmed by its architecture and style, eager to seek out new food and wine experiences, and, well, just plain explore.

Back to the conversation, and my friend recommended that I pick up a copy of a relatively new book entitled Too Much Tuscan Sun: Confessions of a Chianti Tour Guide by Dario Catagno. So, I did, and it was my reading on the train back and forth to Lancaster over the last two days. Well, for me it was more of the same. The only difference is, it was told from the perspective of the local, talking about the tourists, rather than the other way around. But it still over-romanticizes Tuscany with long homages to grapes and olives and abandoned farmhouses and country roads, and from reading it you’d think that every local person is nothing but the most charming and interesting human to walk the face of the earth.

Despite a claim at the beginning that he had no intentions of the book being a vendetta against Americans who write travelogues about Tuscany, in the end, that’s exactly what he has written. With little exception, his “memorable clients” are villified for their lack of understanding of local culture despite his best attempts to guide them through it, and rather than emphasizing the charm and interest of those clients who are actually interested in learning and exploring (whom he dismisses in a couple of paragraphs in a late chapter in the book), he focuses on those who aren’t, and who were problems to guide around. I was left with the impression that he sees Americans as little more than Diet Coke swilling, shopaholics who wear too much makeup and do nothing but complain. In the end, despite his clear passion for the Tuscan countryside and local history, I couldn’t think of anyone I’d less rather spend time with in that part of the world – and I don’t think that was his intent in writing the book!

Books (Reviews)

Italy, Travel

Books (Reviews)

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