However, some bits of book I can read whenever, and usually do, twenty minutes before sleep or on a particularly long metro ride. These are usually funny epidodes of fiction or non-fiction, and include Lardass' achievements in Stephen King's short story "The Fall from Innocence" (from his book "Different seasons") or bits of William Boyd's "Stars and stripes".
Here are two such extracts that always make me laugh. The first is from the rather wonderful collection of stories "Mortification" edited by Robin Robertson. The book is a collection of author's worst moments, and I am shamelessly giving you Matthew Sweeney's, which is just as slapstick as you can get. The second is an extract from Ruth Reichl's "Comfort me with apples", an autobio-food book. I hope they make you laugh, as they never fail to with me.
Matthew Sweeney "If fortune turns against you" in Robin Robertson (ed),
Mortification:
writer's stories of their public shame, Harper Perennial, 2004, pp. 112- 115
"It's a dangerous thing to have too many esses in a poem. Or to have a tooth clean-up too close to a reading. Or to chew a toffee just before the reading starts - a toffee that turns out to suddenly have acquired a very hard nut, that is actually a crowned front tooth complete with mounting spike.
I was in Torhout, in Belgium, doing a few days' work in a high school. Before coming over I'd been involved in the judging of a school poetry competition, and part of the prize was an early dinner with me. Soùme prize, I thought, but I went willingly - I had some bits of advice to give the young people about their writing, and the food in Belgium tended to be good.
It was a girl and a boy who came to join me; the girl slim, diminutive, very confident, the boy, the first prize-winner, a bit on the shy side and fat. We chatted easily enough, they had pasta and coke, I had a rare chataeubriand, and red wine. When it came to dessert we decided to skip it, but a plate of free toffees came gratis, and I unwrapped one of these and stuck it in my mouth as we walked out.
So I was in the snow when I extracted my tooth from toffee and held it up. The cold wind whistled through the gap which the tip of my tongue instinctively went to fill. And I was on my way to the library where in five minutes I was expected to give a poetry reading.
Somewhere in the back of my mind I had a déjà vu about this happening once before, but long, long ago. All I remembered, though, was that it had been a toffee, too, that had done the damage on that occasion. I resolved there and then to give up toffees, but that wouldn't help me do the reading. As we picked our way carefully over the treacherous pavement, I chattered away, out of embarassement, to the two young people. I knew that if they weren't with me they would be laughing their heads off. All my words were coming out lisped. And all those esses in my poems!
Out of desperation, and prompted by the branch of the memory that stays in the unconscious, I put my tooth up into the gap and tries to push it back in. After a few attempts I actually managed this. It stayed in! So I might be able to do the reading after all. Full of resolve, and ambition to give the best reading of the year, I hurried us along to the library.
The teacher who'd organized my visit was waiting for me with the librarian who would introduce me. He was a quiet, likeable and clearly very decent man. The librarian was a jolly, quite attractive blonde. She immediately handed me a copy of the poster for the event which had a title at the top, I noticed -
A Dramatic Whole. Puzzled, I looked at this until the teacher laughed and said he'd taken it from one of my e-mails, and I remembered telling him a poetry reading was a dramatic event, albeit drama with a little d. He'd turned it in to a big D. I smiled thinly and asked to see the reading space.
There were twenty or so chairs set up in what appeared to be the children's section of the library. As well as my reading, the presentation of the students' prizes would take place, and they would each read their winning poem. These had been nicey produced in a booklet. It was all very well organized. And the fact that the students would be there meant that their parents would be there also, so I would definitely have an audience.
I tried checking my email but the computer I'd been shown to refused to cooperate, so I flicked through some magazines instead, seeing how much of the Flemish I could understand from my rusty German. People were drifting in. I went over and looked through the prizes I would be handing out to the students. I sat down at the table at the front and looked through the reading list I'd carefully prepared. I wasn't giving my tooth a thought.
When all the prizewinners had shown up it was decided that we should get going. the teacher told the audience about the competition, nd how he'd coaxed me over to Torhout. I then gave a little spiel about poetry competitions, what I looked for, what I didn't want to see. The students came up one by one, received their prize from me, returned my smile, mumbled their poem, and sat down. Their parents took photographs.
Then it was my turn. As I half listened to the librarian introduce me, I was pumped up with adrenalin and raring to go. I got to my feet like a boxer coming out of is corner. I launched, without introduction, into the first poem. Two lines into the second, however, I felt the horrible sensation of my tooth loosening in my mouth. Sure enough, before I got the end of the poem it was in my hand again and I was lisping the last lines. Most of the adults in the audience were sniggering. I shoved the tooth back up into my mouth and started on the third poem, but this rendition was altogether less confident, and involved constant flicks of the tongue to ensure the tooth was staying in place. Not satisfied with this, I kept bringing my right thumb up to push the tooth in. I must have looked like Charlie Chaplin in
The Great Dictator. Not surprisingly, there were frequent unscheduled pauses in the delivery of the poem. Even the teenagers were laughing now. The librarian had to take herself outside, overcome with hilarity.
I glanced at my watch, and at my reading list . God, I wasn't even halfway through yet. This was the worst reading I'd ever do in my life. I asked the audience if any of them were dentists, but all I got were grinning shakes of head. I started on another poem, noticing with horror that it was the most s-ridden of them all. Halfway through the piece the tooth came flying out of my mouth and bounced on the floor, rolling under the feetof the fat boy who was in the front rowThe momentum of the poem carried me on for a few lines toothless, lisping until embarrassment made me stop. The audience was in stitches now. One of them cried out, 'There it is! Don't put your foot down! It's under your shoe!'
'Give me my tooth back,' I croaked, and watched as two squeamish girls recoiled from it, leaving the fat boy to pick it up and bring it to me, shaking his head.
This time I couldn't fix it in at all. The teacher was on his feet now, telling the audience that because of my dental problems the reading had to be abandoned. As the audience filed out, looking back at me, I was still struggling to get the tooth in to my mouth."
Ruth Reichl,
Comfort me with Apples, Arrow Books, 2003, pp. 281-295
(Ruth, an experienced and well known food writer/cook in her native California, is in Barcelona with five other American chefs)
It was April, and the air was crisp when we left the hotel, they city too delicious to resist. Rococo buildings were piled onto the sidewalk like pastries on a plate (...). 'Look!' said Alice, pointing to a little shop on the far side of the street. In the window stood a woman holding out a scoop filled with toasted almonds. She smiled and Alice pulled me across the street.
Inside the shop, saffron, cinnamon, and mint mingled with the aroma of nuts. The woman gestured, inviting us to come closer as she raked the almonds into a huge pile. Alice and I plunged our hands into the warm mound until they were covered all the way to the wrists. I closed my hand, retracted it, and put an almond in my mouth; the fragrance swelled to fill my entire head.
We munched on almonds as we walked, and then Alice discovered new treats: olives, anchovies, ice-cream. 'I'm really worried about this dinner', she confided. 'We're supposed to cook a meal for absolutely everybody who counts in the Barcelona food world, to show them how American cooking has matured. But these collaboration dinners are always difficult. Doing one in a foreign city, with people you haven't worked with, products you don't know, and no time to practice is insane. I can't believe any of us agreed to it!' (...)
'We're meeting for cocktails at ten.' It was Alice on the phone.
'Cocktails?' I asked. 'In the morning?'
'Hurry', she said. 'If you get up now you can just make it.'
Barcelona is rich in bars, and we bagan each day in a different one. "Why are we drinking sidecars at ten A.M.?' I asked one morning.
'To try and forget', said Johnathan, 'that we have this horrible dinner hanging over our head'. He was joking, of course, but when I thought about it afterward it seemed like a premonition. At the time I thought only that I too was trying to forget, and that alcohol was helpful.
Colman had arranged this trip with the firm determination of showing off everything Barcelona had to offer; our schedule was very full. We went to bakeries, wineries and markets. We were endlessly eating. My body ached from lack of sleep. (...)
The chefs wanted to see every site and sample every flavor. We spent hours in an olive store where the owner handed his wares across the counter. First the large obregons, which are cured in oranges; next the tiny black, purple, and green extremanas; and then, triumphantly, the little grayish arbequines, which are the pride of Catalonia. Colman took us to visit champanerias, vinegar makers and the House of Salt Cod.
'Write this down", said Lydia. 'I just ate salt cod with Roquefort sauce. If you had ever told me that I would do such a thing, I would have told you it was impossible.'
'Write this down too', said Mark. 'salt cod fried with honey. I can't believe I even tasted it.'
'And this', said Alice, 'it was good'.
'But not that good', said Johnathan. (...)
For years Barcelona had been forced to speak Spanish; now, freed from the tyranny of language, the city reveled in its own Catalan tongue. If you stopped someone to ask for directions to the Mercado de san José, he would look at you blankly, as if he had no idea what you could possibly be talking about. Ask for La Boqueria, on the other hand, and you got directions not only to the market but also the the nearby sidewalks designed by Miro.
An ornate Art Nouveau roof covers the market. It dates from the last century, but if you look around the edges you find ancient marble columns, the remains of earlier markets in much earlier times. la Boqueria is so rich in history that it feels like a great temple to food, and we all found ourselves becoming quiet as we entered its doors.
Inside, light filtered dimly down from the ceiling, and we blinked, adjusting our eyes. "Don't forget to make a list of what you find and where you find it", Alice called as we fanned out past neat pyramids of fruit, spiral stacks of mushrooms, and fluffy bouquets of herbs.
At the meat counters the tiny kids were strewn with flowers, which made them look like sacrifices rather than food. The animals were so young that the butchers' knives moved soundlessly through the soft bones. The innards were beautiful too: the tripe so clean and white it might have been spun by spiders, and the great dark blocks of congealed blood laid out like so much marble. Calves' brains, intricate coils, looked like some exotic fungus lying on the counter. "How beautiful they are!" said Llydia, staring at the looping twists. "I want to do something with those brains at the dinner."
Mark stood by the fish stalls, eyeing bright snapper, glistening blue mackerel, and silver sardines. "Raw fish", he murmured, "we should do something with raw fish. That would surprise them, since Catalans always cook their fish."
Across the aisle Alice was cooing over skinny, dark green asparagus. "We'll buy lots and lots of them to cook", she exclaimed. "They're wild!" She moved to the next stack, some fat white asparagus which she strokd tenderly. "I love their little lavender tips", she said, leaning over to break one off and stick it onto her mouth. The vendor looked on, startled.
Jonathan was mesmerized by clams with brightly patterned shells. "They're called Romeos", he sais, staring at them. "Aren't they wonderful? I want to use them for the dinner." The fish woman flirted with him, patting the shells so that all the clams seemed to stick out little red tongues. Jonathan laughed out loud and the fishmonger, delighted, did it again (...)
As they left the market, they were thinking big. "Colman's bragged about us all over Barcelona", said Alice. "Every winemaker and chef in the region is coming. The Julia Child of Spain will be there. How many courses do you think?"
Day by day the number grew. "Remember, we don't have a lot of time", said Alice... just before adding a quail course to the menu.
"Let's not go crazy", said Jonathan. And then tacked on clams casino as a second course.
"We want to make this as foolproof as possible", suggested Mark, increasing the courses with a pablano pesto. Still to come: the fish course, the meat course, the salad course, dessert.
The menu changed almost hourly as they discovered new foods. But as the days went on, one thing remained constant: Dessert, the chefs had agreed from the start, would be a blood-orange sorbet. "They'll be amazed", said Alice. "The only thing they ever do with blood oranges is use them for juice."
But on the day before the dinner Jonathan suddenly had a terrible thought: "What if there's no ice-cream maker?" he asked.
"Oh, there must be one," said Mark.
"If there's not," said Bradley, "I'll do it by hand." They all turned to stare at him. "With a rubber spatula," he explained, "and a stainless steel bowl set over rock salt and ice."
There was no ice-cream maker. There was barely a bowl. As the chefs hauled their purchases into the kitchen they looked at one another with dawning horror. Five people could not possibly work in that kitchen at the same time; five people could barely breathe in there at the same time. The dinner, clearly, was doomed.
"How are we going to cook six courses for forty people on two burners?" asked Alice, staring at the stove.
"We'll grill", said Jonathan.
"What are you going to grill on?" she asked.
"We'll build a grill,"said Mark. I'll use cobblestones if I have to."
"But it's starting to rain", said Alice.
"Don't worry," said Jonathan , "I can grill in any weather".
They had left behind kitchens stuffed with the latest equipment and staffed with eager assistants. At home they had minions who prepped the food, who cleaned and chopped and shredded. Not one of them had washed a pot in years. Now they were on the far side of the ocean staring at two burners, one small and slightly clogged sink, two pots, one pan, and not nearly enough room. They were staring at disaster. Amercia's most famous chefs took a deep collective breath, pulled on their whites, and went to work.
Bradley commandeered a corner of the kitchen. Knife flashing, he began boning quail; within minutes he was covered in blood. As he finished each bird, Jonathan swept the skeleton into one of the pots for stock; Lydia used the other pot to poach brains. Mark assessed the situation, realized that there was no room for him, and went outside to build a grill.
"I found the most beautiful baby spinach," said Alice, irritably inspecting her purchases, "but when we tried to buy it the woman took this ancient stuff from the back. We tried to get her to sell us the good stuff, but she said it was only for display." Alice gathered up the entire heap, dumped it in to he garbage, and turned to the remaining greens." The asparagus is bitter, " she lamented. "The beans aren't very good. there goes one course. We're not going to have enough."
"Alice, Alice", crooned Jonathan. He was now shaking garlic in a pan. The aroma rose up and filled the tiny kitchen. "It's okay."
"Where am I going to sauté the brains?" asked Lydia. In one smooth move Jonathan dumped the garlic out and handed the pan to Lydia.
"I'll put the garlic in the oven," he said. As she took the pan with one hand, the other was already reaching for the oil. They were beginning to move in the same cadence.
"Attention grillmasters", said Mark, standing in the doorway wih a puddle forming at his feet. "We've got a grill." He shook his soggy hair. "That's the good news. The bad news is, it's pouring."
Alics blanched. "There goes another course," she said.
"Don't worry", said Jonathan, briefly squeezing her shoulder. "I told you. I can grill in any weather."
"In this ?" she demanded, pointing at Mark, who had squeezed up to the counter, where he was dripping all over Bradley.
"Pray," he said.
Mark removed his knife from the case and changed the tempo in the room. He and Bradley stood shoulder to shoulder, their knives flashing to a different beat. Mark's was a staccato tattoo that transformed a solid hunk of tuna into a mountain of chopped flesh. He chopped chilies and cilantro and mixed them into the fish. As he squeezed limes over the mixture the aroma in the room changed, becoming piquant and almost tropical.
"Good thing we decided on tuna tartare", he said. "At least we have something that dosn't need cooking."
"But we've got to toast the bread to put it on, " said Alice, "and we've got to hurry; the guests are beginning to arrive". She puled the oven door and smoke came pouring into the room.
"We forgot the garlic she coughed, peering through the haz, which now enveloped everyone. "Can't anything go right?"
"Alice, Alice," said Jonathan, starting into the refrain, "it's fine."
He pulled out the garlic and began pawing through it as Alice knelt beneath him, toasting bread. She handed the bread to Mark, who had to reach around Jonathan while avoiding Lydia, who was still sautéing brains. The four of them were standing in smoke, occupying a space no larger than a shower stall, but the first course had gone out to the guests and they could hear the applause of the crowd. An air of palpable relief ran through the room. And then Lydia let out a groan.
"Oh no,"said Alice, standing up to fast and nearly upsetting the pan. "I can't believe we didn't buy enough."
"The great chef's of America!" said Jonathan. He began to laugh, and as they all joined in there was a moment of near hysteria. Then it was over. Lydia scattered capers into the hot oil; the burst into bloom, becoming crisp little flowers.
"Two courses down," said Alice, relief evident in her voiceas the brains went into the dining room. She picked up a bucket of shrimp and called, "Somebody peel these," as she sent it flying through the air. The confidence of the gesture stunned me, who did she think would catch it?
I was Lydia who held out her hand and grabbed the bucket. With one easy motion she dumped the shrimp out on the counter and began pulling of the heads. The chefs had all caught the rhythm now, moving in a kind of kitchen ballet that did not waste a single gesture. They had become a single ten-armed creature, thinking on its feet with a common goal: to get through the night. The olive oil held out; the rain stopped. The creature wroked silently piling vegetables, beans, peppers and clams onto the salad plates, dressing them, getting them out the door.
"It's colourful," said Jonathan. "It's unusual."
"And it's gone," said Alice, watching the last plate disappear into the dining room. Without a word Mark and Lydia went outside to grill quail. Inside, Jonathan reduced stock on one burner to make a sauce while Alice stood next to him, shaking artichokes and potatoes over the other.
"We could have used that spinach", said Alice unhapily inspecting the final arrangement. It's too brown."
The plates were not pretty, but that was a minor detail. The chefs were gritting it out, trying to get the food cooked and the evening to end . There was not quite enough quail to go round- every chef's worst nightmare- but they simply rearranged the plates and made it work. The ordeal was almost over.
Bradley was setting the pace now, his spatual hitting the side of a stainless steel bowl with a relentless
thwack, thwack, thwack, a vibration reverberating through the kitchen. The beat was strong and so compelling that when he stopped, everything else did too.
In the sudden ringing silence Alice dipped a finger into the sorbet. We watched her face. "Nothing right tonight", she said.
Jonathan took a taste. "Terrible, "he agreed. And then in an instant they had pulled together , desperately trying to make the dish into something they could serve. They mascerated strawberries in Muscatel and tumbled them onto plates.
"We could make circles of blood oranges and put them around the edges," suggested Linda. She was already slicing as she spoke.
The guests applauded. they were polite. "It is so interesting," said the Julia Child of Spain, "to see our productsused in such different ways."
"That was terrible meal," sais Alice under her breath. She took a bow.
"It could have been worse", I whispered back, "under the circumstances."
"No," murmured Jonathan, "it was really bad. Accept it. That was no fun."
Lydia, the optimist, did not even lower her voice. "I had a good time," she said. "I lied working together. We fought for it." She looked around at the group and added. "We did our best. Sometimes that is ll you can do. And then you move on."
