→ December 31, 2011
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The Last Good Kiss.

A reader, Michael L., recommended James Crumley’s The Last Good Kiss to me about fifteen months ago, knowing my affinity for hard-boiled detective novels. (This should also give you some idea of how long my to-be-read queue is.) Michael described it as very Raymond Chandler-esque, with influences from later, more “sordid” writers. It is undoubtedly more lurid and graphic than Chandler’s novels, but shares the master’s sense of characterization and his knack for weaving complex mysteries among a very small number of flawed people by layering intrigues and peeling them back one by one for the reader.

Crumley’s detective hero/antihero is C.W. Sughrue, a war veteran and possibly unreliable narrator (so maybe he’s not a war veteran) who handles unglamorous P.I. jobs like spying on wayward spouses for divorce cases or locating deadbeats for bill collectors. While retrieving a wayward author named Trahearne for the man’s ex-wife, Sughrue starts a brawl and shooting match that ends with him earning a job to locate a woman, Betty Sue, who’s been missing for ten years. Betty Sue was in San Francisco with a boyfriend when their car became stuck in traffic, at which point she opened the car door, walked away, and was never heard from again.

The pursuit of Betty Sue is the main plot point that drives the novel forward, but it’s the layering, mostly around Trahearne, that makes the novel so rewarding. Trahearne is a war veteran who fought at Guadalcanal, published three pulpy novels and some volumes of poetry, and lives on an estate in Montana with his wife, his ex-wife, and his mother, running off on semi-regular benders, one of which puts him on Sughrue’s radar. When the two men strike up an odd friendship and Sughrue’s hired to find Betty Sue, Trahearne cajoles Sughrue into letting him tag along, which is when the layering – and the lying, because no one in this story seems to tell the truth at first or even second blush – begins.

Sughrue might be the fourth- or fifth-most interesting character in his own book, which separates this from the best of Chandler, whose novels always revolved around Philip Marlowe. Sughrue certainly mimics Marlowe’s exterior toughness, dry wit, and natural cynicism (especially around the motives of others), but I didn’t find him compelling – he often takes a backseat to the beer-swilling bulldog Fireball, whose loyalty to his owner may merely reflect a desire to protect his main enabler. Trahearne is the real star of the book, complex enough to border on the ridiculous, an emotional train wreck on the inside with a buffoonish exterior. Sughrue makes his presence felt, but more as the machine that makes the other characters go; his best scene is his assault on a house in Colorado where he’s trying to rescue a kidnapping victim, and he has to deal with the house’s defenses and the idiocy of his overbearing, heavily-armed sidekick.

It doesn’t measure up to the best Chandler – which, for me, would start with Farewell, My Lovely – but it’s a quick read that was hard to put down but never insulted my intelligence while holding my attention.

Side note: I’m shocked that this was never made into a film. It certainly has all of the elements to satisfy a major studio – sex, violence, humor, sharply-drawn characters – but has the smart dialogue and layered plotting of a good Coen Brothers movie.

Next up: Carol Shields’ novel The Stone Diaries, winner of the 1995 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

–

I’m burying the lede here a little, but I want to thank everyone who’s offered kind words and positive thoughts after this week’s rumor regarding me. I have no comment on the rumor itself, of course, but so many of you have written via one method or another, including a number of readers who have never reached out to me before, that I want to make it clear how much I appreciate your messages and your continued readership over the last five-plus years. This job would not be half as much fun without you guys.

Have a safe and happy New Year’s celebration tonight. If you choose to drink, please give the keys to someone who hasn’t.

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→ December 28, 2011
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Of Human Bondage.

Another pretty good deal on Amazon – the complete BBC series Planet Earth: The Complete BBC Series is just $20 on DVD. I’m picking it up as a gift for someone who will probably see this so I’m going to stop talking about it now.

I also answered three questions for Keep Food Legal, the only organization dedicated to fighting for “culinary freedom” in the U.S. Hands off my unpasteurized cheese.

No Klawchat this week.

–

W. Somerset Maugham’s Of Human Bondage, #66 on the Modern Library 100, is a dense, autobiographical, highly philosophical novel that takes its protagonist, Philip Carey, from the moment he becomes an orphan at age nine through the end of his twenties, during which he tries several careers, loses his faith, and embarks on several ill-fated affairs, including one disastrous obsession that nearly ruins his life. It’s a book I’m glad I read, but will certainly never read again because the slightly awkward prose and the long internal monologues made it an arduous read.

The book opens with the death of Philip’s mother and his removal to the country home of his uncle, a vicar, and submissive aunt, who comes to love him as the son she never had but lacks any authority in her own home. Philip chafes under the restrictions of this life, finding solace by reading the books his uncle owns for show, but finds his life taking a turn for the worse when he’s shipped off to boarding school where his club foot makes him an object for derision and social isolation. After discovering he no longer believes in God (if he ever truly did), he begins a series of misadventures at university and in various careers, including a stint in accounting and an attempt to be a not-starving artist in Paris, before settling into medical school in London. At the same time, he begins an on-again, off-again affair with the unattractive, selfish, manipulative Mildred, who seems to view Philip as a personal ATM, only showing him attention or affection when she needs something from him, popping up in his life when he least needs her all-consuming distractions.

The novel relies heavily on events from Maugham’s own life. Like Philip, Maugham was orphaned before he turned ten, and was raised by a strict, religious uncle and an ineffectual aunt who expected him to take orders after school. He also drifted through several potential careers before studying medicine for five years, during which time he continued to observe people and their emotions and worked on his first novel, Liza of Lambeth, published when he was 23. (By comparison, Philip doesn’t become a writer in Of Human Bondage, and doesn’t complete his medical training until he’s nearly 30.)

Maugham’s prose is choppy and his inconsistent use of cockney spellings, even outside of the dialogue, is a distraction, but he makes up for these deficiencies with strong use of symbolism throughout the novel. Philip’s club foot stands in for Maugham’s own personal shame (at least earlier in his life) at his homosexuality, a theme that pervades the entire novel even though Philip never develops anything stronger than a friendship with any other male character. Philip’s sense that his disability causes his ostracism, leads others to mock or simply underestimate him, and prevents him from living a full life seems to stand in well for the obstacles before a gay man in England in the late 1800s/early 1900s, when any sexual act between two males was illegal and punishable by a prison term. Maugham was in medical school when Oscar Wilde was tried for “gross indecency” and sentenced to two years in prison, which convinced Maugham to keep his own sexuality (he was either gay or bisexual) a secret, both in his private life and in his early writings. Rather than make his protagonist gay, Maugham gave him a physical disability that could cause similar social disadvantages by making him sufficiently different from the rest of the guys.

The “bondage” of the book’s title, taken from a phrase in Baruch Spinoza’s Ethics (which, along with Renan’s Vie de Jesus, was a major influence on the personal philosophy of the young Maugham), refers to the multiple societal constraints that appear to limit our ability to find happiness in a life that is, according to Philip, devoid of inherent meaning. The strict religion of the Victorian era and the accompanying moral codes, the expectations a man’s breeding and/or education placed on his career, all of which also limited whom one might choose to love (if one even has such a choice), are bonds Philip must consciously break to find any sort of personal happiness in a universe that will not deliver happiness to him in this life or anything after it. The introductory essay in the edition I read says that many readers found the book’s positive ending jarring or unrealistic, but in my reading, it made perfect sense: Philip casts off all of his bonds and chooses a life he believes will make him happy with a woman well-suited to his temperament, for whom he feels genuine affection (if not actual love). I read this as Maugham’s own private yearning for a world in which he, too, could cast off the societal bonds, and live openly as a gay man. (Maugham had at least two longstanding, not-exactly-secret relationships with men, but passed away two years before the Sexual Offences Act of 1967 began the process of decriminalizing “homosexual acts” between consenting adults.)

Philip’s obsession with Mildred provides the narrative greed for most of the middle third of the novel, and I appear to be in good company in finding it inexplicable. She is presented without any redeeming qualities; she is rude, dismissive, haughty, plain, unfeminine, manipulative, and an unloving mother to the child she bore to another man she was sleeping with even as she is coaxing Philip out of some of his money. Philip’s obsession is presented in vivid, realistic terms, but there’s no logic to it at all beyond the possible desire he feels for a woman who won’t have him. He throws another relationship overboard, jeopardizes his career, and loses much of his savings for her, only to have her exact a rather severe punishment on him (albeit one that loosens yet another bond, that of a man to his property) in the end. She could have been just as awful a person, yet depicted as beautiful, and the obsession would have been more believable, yet Philip stands by her despite a lack of physical attraction and even as she openly mocks him by using his money to run off with another man. Is she merely a stand-in for the irrational, emotional impluses which bind us in our daily lives?

That same introductory essay, written by Professor Robert Calder of the University of Saskatchewan, who has written two biographies of Maugham, classifies Of Human Bondage with other autobiographical bildungsromans (coming-of-age novels) of its era, including A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (which I found excruciating), Sons and Lovers, and The Way of All Flesh (both on my to-be-read shelf). It’s a highly introspective, emotional style of novel, with long digressions on the author’s own psychological and philosophical development, and attempts to explain how external forces (people and events) shaped that development. As someone who reads for plot over all other elements, it’s never going to be my favorite subgenre, and Of Human Bondage didn’t offer me great prose or highly compelling characters to balance out that weakness.

Odd fact: One of Maugham’s great-grandsons, Derek Pavancini, is a blind, autistic savant pianist.

Next up: James Crumley’s The Last Good Kiss.

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→ December 27, 2011
→ By

A High Wind in Jamaica and After Dark.

Richard Hughes’ A High Wind in Jamaica, ranked 71st on the Modern Library’s list of the top 100 English-language novels of the 20th century, is an anti-adventure novel that deglamorizes the traditional pirate story and instead uses pirates as a vehicle for a serious novel about innocence and its loss.

The novel tells the story of the Bas-Thornton children, five preteens who live on a plantation with their parents in Jamaica, but who are sent back to England after a terrible hurricane convinces their parents that life on the island is unsafe. Traveling with two children from a neighboring plantation, they have barely embarked when their ship is set upon by pirates, led by the Danish sailor Captain Jonsen, who takes the children as well as all of the cargo. The cowardly captain of their original ship believes them killed and reports as such to their parents, who don’t learn the truth until the end of the book. Captain Jonsen tries to leave the children with a matriarch in a pirates’ haven on the island, but is rebuffed after an accident befalls one of the five, leading to several months at sea during which tensions rise between crew and captives and their “adventures” prove more harrowing than thrilling.

Unlike typical novels set on the high seas, A High Wind in Jamaica veers straight for the more serious themes, including rape and murder, that would be required in any realistic depiction of piracy. Forcing children who do not as yet understand mortality, and all of whom but one remain unaware of sexuality, into a situation where they will be confronted by the harsh realities of adult life allows Hughes to explore innocence and the cognitive dissonance children utilize to deal with events they can’t fully understand.

Hughes’ skill in dealing with this extends to his ability to bounce between the children when providing perspectives within the book, and aside from the one real murder of the novel, often describing occurrences in obscuring language to mirror the fog a seven-year-old might perceive when older children are discussing sex. The way Hughes jumps from child to child also seemed to me to mirror the rocking of a boat sailing somewhat aimlessly on the open seas, as Captain Jonsen wishes to rid himself of his human cargo (without harming them) but fears that he will be charged with kidnapping or worse if he tries to hand them over to another ship.

The book reads quickly as Hughes’ prose is straightforward, but lacked much narrative greed – there seemed little chance that Hughes would simply wipe out all of the children to end the book, so I read it assuming full well that there would be a reunion before the novel’s conclusion. Those final few short sections are critical, particularly to the resolution of Emily’s story, as she ends up the most central of the child characters, but I found my involvement within the plot to be rather limited.

–

I haven’t even acquired Haruki Murakami’s new book, the mammoth 1Q84, and probably won’t until it ends up in paperback next year. (When I’m reading a book, I tend to carry it all over the place, including on planes, and a three-pound book just isn’t my cup of tea.) I am still working my way through his back catalog, and read the somewhat inconsequential After Dark earlier this month. Telling the story of a few lost souls on one peculiar night in Tokyo, Murakami slips in a little magical realism, a few touches of his usual violence (off screen, for a change), and a lot of the vaguely philosophical dialogue that populates most of his novels.

The two main characters, Mari and Takahashi, meet by chance, and then are thrown together again by necessity, launching them on an all-night conversation that links their story to the parallel tale of Mari’s sister, who has been asleep – but not comatose – for what seems to be months, the result of a depression that is never explained but that has taken a toll on Mari as well. The parallel narrative trick worked more effectively for Murakami in Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, another book of his I’d rate below his average (which is still above most contemporary writers’ averages). In After Dark, all edges are blurred, perhaps a nod to the darkness and the way our vision is distorted by artificial light, but that same blurriness keeps his characters at arm’s length, and the novel is so brief that we never learn enough about any of the central characters to understand what’s driving them to or away from anything.

Next up: I just finished W. Somerset Maugham’s Of Human Bondage – I can think of at least one thing wrong with that title – and have moved on to James Crumley’s hard-boiled detective novel The Last Good Kiss.

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→ December 27, 2011
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Pasta with mushroom sauce.

Amazon has Inception – which I know many of you loved – on sale today for just $8 on Blu-Ray. I liked it, but thought the film made too many sacrifices to the mainstream demands of Hollywood to make it truly great.

–

I’ve grown increasingly fond of using mushrooms as a major flavor in all kinds of dishes now that I’ve learned to prep and cook them properly. Mushrooms are high in compounds that trigger the umami (or savory) taste, which is intensified when the mushrooms are dried, while browning the mushrooms caramelizes the sugars but produces a flavor profile much more similar to seared meat than caramelized vegetables. This recipe takes advantage of both techniques to produce a rich, hearty sauce, thickened with pasta water and a little cream, for a filling side dish or a potential vegetarian entree if made with whole-grain pasta or served with some fresh mozzarella dressed with an herb vinaigrette.

(You will hear and read that you shouldn’t wash raw, fresh mushrooms because they are like “sponges” and will absorb the washing liquid. This is nonsense; raw mushrooms are already pretty well saturated, and when Alton Brown tested this on “The Fungal Saute” episode of Good Eats by weighing the mushrooms before and after washing, he found the mushrooms absorbed only a minimal amount of water. So wash them in a colander, then spread them on paper towels, rolling them in the towels to dry.)

I make the sauce for this dish in a stainless steel saute pan that can handle high heat, but I also run the exhaust fan and cover the smoke detector because I’m pushing the oil to its smoking point. High heat is key to browning the fresh mushrooms and I’m not giving that up just because the smoke detector is too damn close to the kitchen.

Pasta con Sugo ai Funghi (Pasta with Mushroom Sauce)

½ ounce dried porcini or other mushrooms
8 oz fresh cremini (“baby bella”) mushrooms, cleaned, stemmed*, and sliced
1 small shallot, minced
2 cloves garlic, minced
¼ cup dry white wine
¼ cup heavy cream
1 tsp minced fresh thyme
1 pound tagliatelle or pappardelle
Grated Pecorino Romano and chopped chives, to taste

1. At least a half hour before you begin cooking, pour 1 cup of boiling water over the dried mushrooms in a heatproof bowl and allow the mushrooms to rehydrate. Strain through a fine-meshed strainer or through damp cheesecloth, but be sure to reserve the soaking liquid. Chop the rehydrated mushrooms, discarding any particularly tough stems.

2. Cook the pasta according to the directions on the box, making sure to heavily salt the cooking water, pulling the pasta when it’s still very al dente. Do not overcook the pasta. When draining, reserve ½ cup of the pasta water.

3. Heat 1 Tbsp olive oil in a large, heavy-bottomed saute pan over high heat until shimmering. Add a handful of sliced mushrooms, taking care not to crowd the pan – you should still see plenty of the pan’s bottom through the mushrooms – as well as a pinch of salt. Leave the mushrooms until they are nut-brown on their cooked sides, then flip and brown the second sides. Push these mushrooms to the sides of the pan and repeat the process (adding oil as needed) until all mushrooms are added and browned.

(Don’t panic when the mushrooms appear at first to soak up much of the oil in the pan. They’ll release it as the cell walls break down during cooking.)

4. Add the rehydrated dried mushrooms and cook for about a minute, adding more oil if necessary. Add the shallot and garlic and cook for another 60 seconds.

5. Deglaze the pan with white wine, cooking until the pan is almost dry, and add the strained mushroom soaking liquid, cooking until reduced by half.

6. Add the cream and simmer (do not boil) until thickened. Thin as desired with the reserved pasta water (I add about 2 Tbsp at a time, heat through, and check for consistency). You want this sauce to coat the pasta, but not to pool in the bottom of the bowl.

7. Add the thyme and season with salt and pepper. Add the pasta and cook for sixty seconds or until the pasta reaches the desired texture, adding pasta water if the sauce becomes too thick or dry. Serve with the pecorino romano and top with the chives.

Variation: Before adding the heavy cream, add one small can of diced tomatoes with about half of the can liquid and allow to reduce slightly. Omit the pasta water.

* “Baby bella” is a marketing term, as is portobello; those are just oversized cremini. To remove the stems, just pinch the stem right where it meets the underside of the cap, and gently rock it back and forth to loosen it. You should be able to pull it right out. The tips of all mushroom stems become woody and tough, so you at least need to cut off the final half inch, but I find it’s faster to just remove the stems entirely, and it makes them easier to slice.

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→ December 26, 2011
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Cauliflower steaks … and I Want My Hat Back.

Before I get to the recipe, I have to talk about my favorite gift from Christmas this year – one I gave, not one I received. I’m not even sure how I first heard about Jon Klassen’s book I Want My Hat Back, which has apparently spawned its own online meme, but it is one of the most clever, sneakily macabre childen’s books I have ever seen, one that my daughter and I both loved on first read. It’s about a bear who has lost his hat, asks various forest animals if they’ve seen it, and eventually realizes where his hat is, a few pages after the reader has figured it out. It’s dry and a little twisted, but also perfectly captures how kids lie even when they’re caught red-handed. I’d put the vocabulary level at age 3 or 4, but the subject matter might make 5 a better minimum age. My five-year-old daughter wasn’t disturbed, and she asked to read it again last night, which is good, because I wanted to read it to her again anyway.

—

As for this peculiar side dish, I got the idea from the most recent issue of Bon Appetit, a magazine with which I’ve had pretty mixed results over the years. (The original recipe does include a useful photo if you can’t picture a cauliflower steak.) I’m just finishing a free subscription I received because my wife bought me one of their cookbooks as a gift, and the book included a coupon for a free year of the magazine, but I won’t be renewing because their recipes don’t work well and the magazine seems so much more focused on eating out (and expensively) than on actual cooking. Anyway, the idea of a cauliflower cut vertically into large steaks appealed to me, but I changed up the sauce to something that I thought better suited the mellow, slightly sweet flavor of well-browned cauliflower.

To cut the ‘steaks,’ start with a whole head of cauliflower and trim away all green leaves while leaving the stem intact. Standing the head on its base, make a small mark with your chef’s knife in the center of the top of the cauliflower, and then make similar marks at least ½” in either direction, enough to cut four slabs from the head. Anything less than a half inch won’t hold together when cooked; too much more than about 5/8” and you’ll only get two steaks that won’t cook through before the outside burns. You can cut the remaining florets and brown them with the steaks, or save them for another use (like soup).

This sauce is tangy, but contains no heat; you could also roast a hot pepper, like a red jalapeño, and add it to the puree, or finish the sauce with a few drops of red chile oil.

Cauliflower ‘Steaks’ with Roasted Red Pepper sauce

1 cauliflower head, cut as described into four steaks
2 red bell peppers
2 garlic cloves, peeled
1 Tbsp sherry vinegar
salt and pepper to taste
2 Tbsp olive oil

1. Roast the peppers on all sides under a broiler, about 40 minutes total (turning as needed), until well charred. Throw the garlic cloves on the same sheet pan for about ten minutes to soften and brown slightly. Set the garlic aside.
2. Place the peppers in a bowl and cover with foil for ten minutes to allow the steam to escape the peppers and separate the flesh from the skin. Remove the charred skin, the stems, and any seeds, saving the liquid from inside the peppers.
3. Place the peppers, garlic, pepper liquid, and sherry vinegar in a bowl or cup and puree with an immersion blender, or puree in a food processor. Season to taste with salt and freshly ground black pepper and set aside.
4. When the peppers are done, set the oven to bake at 400 degrees. Heat a large saute pan or skillet over medium-high heat.
5. Add 1 Tbsp olive oil to the skillet and heat until shimmering. Add two of the four cauliflower steaks and cook one and a half to two minutes until nicely browned. Flip the steaks carefully with a spatula (place your hand on the cool side to flip without splashing the hot oil on yourself) and brown the alternate sides. Remove the steaks and any stray bits of cauliflower to a rimmed sheet pan, add another tablespoon of oil to the pan, and brown the other two steaks.
6. Roast in the oven for ten minutes until you can easily pierce them through with a paring knife. Remove, season with salt and pepper, and serve on a bed of the roasted red pepper sauce. Finish with a drizzle of an assertive, peppery olive oil if desired.

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→ December 24, 2011
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Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011 film).

I rate John Le Carré’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy among the best suspense novels I have ever read, a wordy but incredibly tense spy novel from 1974 that borrows from the great detective novels of thirty to forty years prior. Hearing Gary Oldman was set to play the lead in the first adaptation for the theaters was exciting and worrying, not so much about Oldman but about how well such a dense book could be adapted to the two-hour constraints of the modern cinema. The worry was needless, as the adaptation, while dispensing with much of the detail of the book, is extremely faithful to the novel’s plot, and one of the most intense smart films I have ever seen.

(I have not seenthe six-hour BBC adaptation from 1979, starring Sir Alec Guinness as Smiley, so I can’t offer a comparison – and, given the differences in duration and thus most likely in pacing, perhaps I’m also not hampered by the comparison either.)

The four words in the film’s title refer to codenames for five* senior British intelligence officers, one of whom is a Soviet double agent, referred to as “Gerald” in the book but only as “the mole” in the movie. As the movie opens, we see a botched operation in Budapest that appears to leave another British agent mortally wounded, after which the head of the unit, known only as “Control,” and senior agent George Smiley (Oldman) are sacked. Several months later, after Control’s death, Smiley is approached by Oliver Lacon, the civil servant who oversees MI6, the domestic intelligence agency known colloquially as “the Circus” (for Cambridge Circus, where Le Carré has located MI6’s offices), to lead an off-the-books investigation to identify the mole. Officially retired, Smiley recruits the young Peter Guillam, still employed by MI6, and one other retired agent to find out how Budapest truly went awry, what happened in Istanbul with rogue agent Ricky Tarr, and to ultimately set the trap into which the mole will walk.

*The fifth is Smiley, who is absolved from guilt when the investigation begins, while the name “Poorman” is used for the remaining suspect.

Oldman plays Smiley with tremendous understatement, especially in comparison to roles like Stansfield or Sirius Black, very much in keeping with Le Carré’s Smiley, who, even when beset by inner turmoil, rarely lets it reach the surface, and prefers to conduct his interrogations as the facilitator rather than the aggressor. This is a film of absent looks and tense pauses, with Smiley setting up the pins for others to knock down. Whether this is Best Actor nomination material or not depends largely on performances I haven’t seen by other actors, but its subtlety might mask its degree of difficulty to the point where voters overlook how key Oldman’s performance was to the film; his one great scene, reimagining a conversation with a briefly captured Soviet agent in Delhi several years previously, nearly explodes with Smiley’s emotional turmoil (and the symbolism of the purloined lighter), yet never quite boils over. One can only imagine the American remake, what with smashed lamps or over-the-top profanity or whatnot.

Aside from Oldman, the cast reads like the leading British actors were all fighting each other to get parts in the film, resulting in some powerful performances by big names in modest roles. Colin Firth appears as the caddish Bill Haydon; Ciarán Hinds (perhaps known best as Albus Dumbledore’s brother in the last two Harry Potter films) is underused as Roy Bland; John Hurt, as Control, is apparently morphing into Ian McKellen; Stephen Graham (of Snatch and Boardwalk Empire) has a critical cameo; and Benedict Cumberbatch (who plays Sherlock Holmes in the current BBC series starring that character) is even more critical as Peter Guillam, as tied up by internal demons as Smiley yet less able to restrain them. Even Tom Hardy, as Ricky Tarr, the one character who shows substantial emotions in the film (crossing the line into the pathetic, a deviation from the literary Tarr), manages to avoid sliding into the melodramatic.

The pacing of Tinker Tailor is outstanding, a direction set in the opening sequence, where the screenwriters have heightened the tension by putting the blown operation first. I remembered just enough of the book to follow the story without trouble – I actually remembered the codename of the mole, but not his actual identity, so I wasn’t sure of the ending until the big reveal. However, if you haven’t read the book, the film doesn’t waste much time with explanatory material, and it might take you a few scenes to figure out who’s who and what exactly is under investigation. The flashback scenes aren’t that clearly delineated from the present-day investigation, since they only go back a year or so and can’t be distinguished with hair and makeup. Karla, the fanatical KGB super-agent who never appears in the film except in flashbacks where only his torso is visible, also never receives any sort of introduction before characters begin referring to his existence. We lose some of the backstory of the four suspects, but it’s less necessary in a film that revolves around Smiley and the unraveling of the intrigue, rather than, say, the psychological motivation of the traitor.

The upside of the lack of long-winded explanatory passages is that the film drops you right in the heart of the action, grabs you by the throat, and spends two hours daring you to breathe. And yet there are no cheap, mass-market gimmicks to turn a taut, intelligent spy novel into a mainstream action flick; the furthest it panders is the occasional bit of inserted humor, or the on-screen death of a character whom I think was merely presumed killed by the Russians in the book, but nothing that changes the plot itself, which is ideal as the plot is the book’s greatest strength. (Connie Sacks’ one laugh-inducing line, while funny, is hopelessly out of tune with the rest of the movie, unfortunately.) Deviate from the details if you must, but when the plot’s the thing, leave it be, and the screenwriters – one of whom died at age 49 of cancer before the film was released – did just that.

The only real issue I had with this adaptation is the ending, where the final exposure of the mole’s identity is cut quite short, replaced with a series of wordless scenes set to a recording of “La Mer,” a great song that seemed forced here in a film so reliant on silence through its first 120 minutes. I could have done with less of that, especially the final flashback to the agency holiday party, and more with Smiley confronting the turncoat. It was an average finish to an otherwise plus film, one I’d gladly see again to watch for details I missed because I was so engrossed in the plot.

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→ December 22, 2011
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Top Chef, S9E8.

Notes from the episode where we see that Heather is indeed like a detuned radio…

* The conversations in the car were a little odd, but if Heather wants John Besh, she may have to fight Chris C. for him.

* Quickfire: I’m not a big fan of these mid-challenge twists. What are we measuring here? It feels like we’re just trying to create more drama. They could have just taken three tweets up front and said: Do a bacon hash with one ingredient added by a competing chef. Is that any less compelling to watch?

* Why not do something crazy with bacon in this challenge? I can’t get over the chefs here who looked at the bacon traditionally. You know the nine other chefs are likely to think traditionally, and you have to figure there will be some changes as the challenge goes along.

* Is sriracha an ingredient, or just a condiment? I don’t know, but this is hilarious anyway. I didn’t think this was such a dick move on the face of it – I think you could get away with using a small amount, just enough to produce some heat, without letting it overpower the dish. Maple syrup, which Lindsay gave Chris C. in return, seems much more likely to assert its presence in unwanted ways. (And I say that as someone who will, when your back is turned, drink maple syrup out of the bottle.)

* Chris J. used twitter as the verb instead of tweet. He fails the Internet.

* Quickfire results: Loved the idea of Sarah’s burrata stuffed squash blossom (and so did Hugh), but I was surprised to see it was among the worst dishes. Beverly is in the top three, so the editors show Heather’s face, of course. And Paul is so clearly ahead of the rest of the pack it’s not even funny. He’s cooking on another level. This thing has to be his to lose right now.

* So I had a brief, mostly facetious Twitter conversation with Hugh Acheson last night about whether Grayson is pretty, or just “Top Chef pretty.” One thing that I keep noticing is that she looks very different in the confessionals than she does in the cooking clips – like she’s put on weight since the show. I also noticed that Sarah looked much prettier in the older photos where she had longer hair. This stuff really doesn’t matter, but I keep noticing it.

* On Patti Labelle: I don’t care what song you sing, if you sing like that, you have my attention.

* Elimination challenge: Cook a dish inspired by the person who inspired you to cook. Granted, I’m not a professional chef, but I’d have a hard time with this because I wasn’t really inspired by someone’s cooking, but simply by the need for one of us to cook when I was in grad school, and with my wife exhausted every day from teaching preschool, shouldn’t it be me? I don’t cook the kind of food my mom cooked when I was growing up, and while my professional pastry-chef cousin has been a huge help to me when I’ve had cooking questions, I first learned to cook from outside sources like Good Eats and Joy of Cooking.

* Quick thoughts on the dishes: Chris J.’s steak looked blue (as in too rare) on my TV, and really dude, A1 sauce as an ingredient? … Heather’s spaetzle looked awesome, but the fear of the pressure cooker despite the different protein seemed out of nowhere. Loved Patti delivering the snark on her dish … I worried Sarah’s sausage-stuffed cabbage was too simple, but it did sound amazing (and obviously was), plus once you read the recipe you can see how complex it really is with sausage wrapped in kale wrapped in cabbage … Paul didn’t get in the top three but I still feel like he’s way ahead of everyone else with his skills and his vision … Beverly was surprisingly elegant here with her Korean short rib, so regardless of what Heather says, it seems clear the Bevster can make Asian work for her … Chris C. claiming he was “hoping the judges wouldn’t notice” makes me think he’s never watched the show. They always notice. Anyway, he’s starting to remind me of Kenny the “Preppin’ Weapon,” who could clearly cook but came up with these convoluted dishes where he sank a good idea under three more elements … Edward’s bibimbap without the stone bowl was genius in its presentation, in the contrarian move of going vegetarian, and in incorporating a ton of umami-packed elements on top of the crispy rice. Absolutely going to try that at home … Grayson apologized for her dish! Weak. Anyway, you can’t waste meat in front of Tom, and the dish seemed horribly dated … Ty-Lor, who also has apparently never watched Top Chef before, fried chicken tenders in duck fat. He had me at “fried in duck fat.” Anyone else notice a lot of peaches in dishes this season? Was it a bumper peach crop in Texas? … Lindsay’s trout spanakopita seemed clever, although I’m not a big roe fan; looking at the recipe now I can see why the butter sauce would have overwhelmed the dish, which wasn’t clear to me from watching the show.

* I’m sure Tom comparing Heather to Beverly at judges’ table was just a coincidence.

* Anyway, good riddance to bad rubbish with this elimination. I can’t help but think there was a racial component to Heather’s bullying of Beverly, and I think we’ll see some smartassery from Heather when Beverly shows up in Last Chance Kitchen. Speaking of LCK, great to see Nyesha start fulfilling my prediction that she’ll hold that jacket for a while, and to see her articulate her dislike for Heather and carry it out by executing a dessert for the win.

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→ December 15, 2011
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Top Chef S9E7.

Recapping another episode of Top Chef: Waterworks…

* Quickfire: This episode of Top Chef did not include a Quickfire, replacing it with an infomercial for some brand of tequila.

* I don’t like tequila – you know my spirit of choice (great book, by the way) – although I use agave nectar every morning in my tea, so it’s not the plant; I get a lot of smoke flavor from tequilas but no brightness to balance it out, although I’ve never had a fine sipping tequila like the 1942 used in this episode. Given the choice, I’d go for bourbon (like Ed), which at least has some sweeter notes to balance the char. So I don’t envy the chefs.

* Ty may have won, but Chris C.’s dish – raw oyster with tequila tapioca pearl and sea salt air – screamed “final three” to me. He’s going to push the envelope every time out, and he has the execution skills to pull it off. But what the hell is sea salt air? “Hey, I put some air around the dish for you” (with magical hand movements). Or maybe he bought it from this guy.

* Did Sarah put tequila in the risotto, in place of the wine? I may have missed that, but I would understand the criticism of the pairing in that case. Otherwise, I’m with Hugh on Tim Love’s views on an essential Italian dish.

* Elimination challenge: Working in teams of two, cook an assigned game meat for a table of judges and chefs who specialize in cooking game. I’ve had quail and duck, but don’t think I’ve had any of the others (venison, boar, elk, squab a.k.a. pigeon). Slightly surprised there was no rabbit, but perhaps that’s not game enough?

* Yeah, I’m sure that’s a total coincidence that Heather and Beverly were paired up. I understand that some drama is necessary given the format, but there’s organic drama (just from the pressure of the competition) and then there’s artificial drama (from putting the mildly racist chef with no self-awareness on a team with the emotional Asian chef). Someone pointed out on Twitter that other chefs should have stepped up to confront Heather over her bullying, but other than one attempt by Grayson, no one really did. I understand that confrontation can have its costs, but the long-term costs of doing nothing are higher – especially if you eventually have to work with her.

* That said, the whole format – where the entire losing team goes home, regardless of who contributed what to the dish – sucked. Sending Nyesha home because she didn’t check on Dakota seems awfully weak, especially since we’re watching another team with one chef trying to micromanage the hell out of the other.

* Also, was it just me or was there a huge disconnect between the comments about the venison during the meal and Tom’s comments at judges’ table? Tom called it “a little undercooked,” and one of the guest chef-diners said it was “a little blue.” At judges’ table, Tom said it was severely undercooked. I don’t know which was right, or if this was editing weirdness, but the inconsistency was shocking, and all of their other comments about Dakota and Nyesha’s dish were positive. Hugh wrote it was “UNDERDONE” in his blog, so perhaps the diners’ comments were off.

* Back to Heather – this season’s official Top Chef Villain™ – does she understand that Asia is a continent with maybe a hundred different cuisines? She keeps using “Asian” as if Asia is a small city outside Rome. Even within east Asia there are enormous differences between cuisines, and if she’s had any kind of formal culinary education, she should be aware of that. She reminds me of my grandparents’ generation, where “Asian” cuisine meant Chinese take-out, and sushi or pad thai were simply unheard of. Meanwhile, Beverly tells an even sadder backstory than Whitney’s, one equally deserving of praise for her ability to overcome it.

* Back to Grayson again – nice to see someone finally acknowledge that abasing yourself in front of the judges doesn’t work. Stand behind your dish. Admitting failure before the judges is just inviting them to send you home.

* LCK: First time this really felt necessary, since Nyesha was ousted under dubious (in my view, at least) circumstances. And it seemed like she cleaned up, despite being thrown by the use of cactus in the challenge. I think Nyesha could go on some kind of run here and make a legitimate difference whenever she’s allowed to re-enter the competition.

* Final three: Still Paul and Chris C. and then a big dropoff to everyone else. I had Nyesha in the third spot, but with her out I think it’s Edward over Lindsay to round out the top three. I wouldn’t exclude Heather here just for her personality, but I think her carping over “Asian” cuisine says something about her limitations as a chef, and limited chefs typically don’t win on this show.

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→ December 14, 2011
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Wednesday discussion: Your travel shortlist.

A reader asked me on Twitter if I had any restaurant recommendations for Madrid, to which I responded that I’ve never been there but would love to go – it’s on my travel short list. (And then a few of you said it’s dirty and overrated, so … maybe not.) Anyway, I thought some more about what my travel short list would look like and how it would be interesting to compare them.

Quick rules: These have to be cities or countries you’ve never visited, but would love to go to if money and time were not factors. You’re not obligated to say where you’re starting from, but if you’re not in the U.S. it might help to point that out. (Most of you know this, but I’m in Arizona; my list would be the same if I was still living in the frozen tundra.)

I’ve been to Europe a few times, so some obvious destinations like Italy or Paris aren’t on my list. I’ve been to 46 U.S. states, and to the three biggest cities in Canada, so my list comprises almost all destinations outside of North America.

  • Amsterdam. And all over the Netherlands, really – I read about Maastricht years ago, shortly after the currency accord was struck, and it just sounded like an incredibly cool European city like the major tourist spots without the hassles of size.
  • Prague. I was obsessed with Eastern Europe as a kid, probably because it seemed indefinitely off-limits under communism, and when I went to Budapest it didn’t disappoint (although my wife found the architecture depressing). Prague would be my next stop, especially with its rich literary history.
  • Dubrovnik. A walled city on the Adriatic coast? sign me up.
  • Buenos Aires. I’ve never been across the equator, but this would be my first choice with its strong European influences and large quantities of meat. I had a near-miss with Buenos Aires in 2004 – had a trip scheduled with a friend who had free tickets and needed someone who could get by in Spanish, but we got nearly three feet of snow the day before we were scheduled to leave and had to cancel the trip. I’d love to go to Chile or Ecuador as well.
  • Istanbul. But not Constantinople.
  • Melbourne. I wouldn’t say no to Sydney, of course, but Melbourne sounds like it has more of the vibe I like in cities in food, the arts, and a slightly more manageable size.
  • Memphis. I’ve been to Nashville, twice, neither a particularly good experience (mostly because of that awful hotel), and to Chattanooga once for a few hours, but never to Tennessee’s BBQ capital.
  • Bologna. Speaking of food capitals, this is the food capital of Italy, but despite two trips to Italy I’ve never managed to hit Bologna.
  • Hawai’i. Almost certainly the next one I’ll cross off this list.
  • Dublin. Not just for the Guinness. But for the Guinness, definitely.

That’s not to say I’d turn down a free trip to Munich or Athens or Tokyo, but those are probably the ten I’d most like to visit. Now it’s your turn…

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→ December 13, 2011
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Write More Good and Edwurd Fudwupper Fibbed Big.

So The Bureau Chiefs, the geniuses behind the Twitter account @FakeAPStylebook (and now @FakePewResearch), sent me a copy of their first book, Write More Good, earlier this year. It’s almost all fresh material rather than a compendium of tweets, combining a fake writing stylebook with a fake self-help book for would-be journalists. And it is hilarious, especially since I do write for a living.

Each chapter covers a different area of journalism, some on specific sections of a newspaper, others on fundamentals like grammar or not getting yourself sued into oblivion. (To wit, the glossary entry on Scientology is simply “Our legal department informs us that Scientology is just swell.” Although the entry on Clear Channel – “see: Skynet” – might ruffle some feathers.) Freed from the constraints of 140 characters per joke, the writers stretch out to entire paragraphs before returning to 140-character jokes in the form of bullet points and glossary entries, although the book is surprisingly short on footnotes.

If you’ve read the @FakeAPStylebook feed, you know the writers (there are many, or just one with many personalities) can veer from crude humor to subtle satire from one tweet to the next. That style worked better for me on the printed page, which surprised me, but the constant careening between styles of humor kept me off balance the way an episode of Parks and Recreation does. The section on how to write about global warming, for example, includes bullet points about how your editor is going to put a picture of a sad polar bear next to the article, how you are obligated to mention in an article on a climate-change conference that it is currently cold somewhere in the world, how you should quote pundits who criticize celebrity activists who drive SUVs, and “We’re not saying not to mention cow farts when talking about climate change, but, dude: cow farts. That’s hysterical.” (Followed by a table of suggested “storms of the century names” that reminded me of this e-card.)

The sports chapter was, of course, a particular favorite, including thoughts on dealing with angry fans on the Internet, followed by references to Mario Mendoza, Darko Mlicic (RIP), Gerry Cooney, and, for no apparent reason, jai alai. The book is loaded with references to films, literature, and historical figures and events that more than once sent me to the computer to figure out what I’d missed. And the unconventional format means that if you didn’t like (or get) one joke, just keep reading, because there are ten more on the same page. It’s less a labor of love than the fruits of frustration for journalists who have seen journalism from the inside and are still undergoing intensive therapy to try to forget it.

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If, however, you’re looking for something you can share with your little one(s), I just bought another of Berkeley Breathed’s children’s books, since Mars Needs Moms! was such a hit with my daughter. (Too bad the movie got such awful reviews.) This one, Edwurd Fudwupper Fibbed Big, isn’t as sentimental as that book, with more outrageous humor and hints of the snark that made Bloom County such a big part of my 1980s memories.

Told by Edwurd’s little sister, Fannie Fudwupper, Edwurd Fudwupper Fibbed Big is the story of a little liar who spins some pretty tall tales until, one day, he breaks a ceramic pig dear to his mother and, rather than taking responsibility, comes up with an elaborate fib so big that the Army and Air Force get involved, as well as some sort of space monster whose head is as big as the Earth and who has an eye on the end of his nose. These unforeseen consequences (piled on an earlier, funnier fib) lead to a surprisingly sweet resolution as well as a lesson on lying – I think. The meter and wordplay seem like a cross between an homage to and parody of Dr. Seuss, while the exaggerated drawings call to mind the best Bloom County Sunday strips.

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And, of course, my wife’s Etsy shop, featuring earrings and necklaces she’s designed, remains open for business. Enter coupon code “TWELVE” to get 12% off (note: entering “FIFTY” will not have the analogous effect).

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