This article is from the source 'nytimes' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/02/books/review/alex-prudhomme-by-the-book-interview.html

The article has changed 2 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 0 Version 1
Alex Prud’homme Wishes He Was in the Room Where It Happened Alex Prud’homme Wishes He Was in the Room Where It Happened
(7 days later)
I have a colorful pile of books that is slowly accreting by my bed, and occasionally sets off a landslide. At the moment the stratum includes: George Saunders’s “A Swim in a Pond in the Rain,” Geoff Dyer’s “The Last Days of Roger Federer,” Toni Tipton-Martin’s “Jubilee” cookbook, Patti Smith’s “M Train,” Mark Strand’s “Hopper,” Mark Rozzo’s “Everybody Thought We Were Crazy,” Ian Fleming’s “Thrilling Cities” (a 1963 travelogue picked up for 10 cents), Sally Mann’s “Hold Still” and a substrate of magazines and catalogs. I dip in and out of these books before sleep, or when I’m procrastinating, and will eventually finish them all. Or not.I have a colorful pile of books that is slowly accreting by my bed, and occasionally sets off a landslide. At the moment the stratum includes: George Saunders’s “A Swim in a Pond in the Rain,” Geoff Dyer’s “The Last Days of Roger Federer,” Toni Tipton-Martin’s “Jubilee” cookbook, Patti Smith’s “M Train,” Mark Strand’s “Hopper,” Mark Rozzo’s “Everybody Thought We Were Crazy,” Ian Fleming’s “Thrilling Cities” (a 1963 travelogue picked up for 10 cents), Sally Mann’s “Hold Still” and a substrate of magazines and catalogs. I dip in and out of these books before sleep, or when I’m procrastinating, and will eventually finish them all. Or not.
The last book I read straight through — one way to define a “great book” — was Susan Orlean’s “The Library Book,” a deceptively simple tale of the Los Angeles Central Library, the people in its orbit, books, family and arson. In 1986 the library was engulfed by flame, over a million books were damaged and 50 firefighters were injured, but few outside Los Angeles noticed because the blaze occurred while Chernobyl was melting down. After declaring that she was done with book writing, Orlean got hooked on the tale of Harry Peak, a classic Orleanian oddball and possible firebug, and the MacGuffin she uses to pull the reader through a meditation on time and knowledge and the evanescence of things. A book about libraries doesn’t sound like a page-turner, but I found myself sprinting through it, then doubling back to reread sections for their sheer wit.The last book I read straight through — one way to define a “great book” — was Susan Orlean’s “The Library Book,” a deceptively simple tale of the Los Angeles Central Library, the people in its orbit, books, family and arson. In 1986 the library was engulfed by flame, over a million books were damaged and 50 firefighters were injured, but few outside Los Angeles noticed because the blaze occurred while Chernobyl was melting down. After declaring that she was done with book writing, Orlean got hooked on the tale of Harry Peak, a classic Orleanian oddball and possible firebug, and the MacGuffin she uses to pull the reader through a meditation on time and knowledge and the evanescence of things. A book about libraries doesn’t sound like a page-turner, but I found myself sprinting through it, then doubling back to reread sections for their sheer wit.
I am an on-again-off-again reader of spy fiction, and one of my favorites is “The Riddle of the Sands,” a classic novel of spycraft and seafaring, first published in 1903. Written by Erskine Childers, it begins when Carruthers, a junior British foreign officer and fop, is invited to sail around the Frisian Islands, off the German coast, by his friend Davies, an expert mariner. After some picaresque high jinks in the fog and sandy shoals and snooping around a “wreck,” the yachtsmen discover the Germans are secretly massing a flotilla to invade England. Based on Childers’s own sailing in the Baltic Sea, the book is nautically accurate and predicted Kaiser Wilhelm’s imperial ambitions by a decade. Despite some archaic language, the book remains a dramatic, comic, salty adventure that is said to have influenced many 20th-century espionage writers.I am an on-again-off-again reader of spy fiction, and one of my favorites is “The Riddle of the Sands,” a classic novel of spycraft and seafaring, first published in 1903. Written by Erskine Childers, it begins when Carruthers, a junior British foreign officer and fop, is invited to sail around the Frisian Islands, off the German coast, by his friend Davies, an expert mariner. After some picaresque high jinks in the fog and sandy shoals and snooping around a “wreck,” the yachtsmen discover the Germans are secretly massing a flotilla to invade England. Based on Childers’s own sailing in the Baltic Sea, the book is nautically accurate and predicted Kaiser Wilhelm’s imperial ambitions by a decade. Despite some archaic language, the book remains a dramatic, comic, salty adventure that is said to have influenced many 20th-century espionage writers.
I’d say a good or interesting, but not a great, book can be badly written. Political memoirs, celebrity biographies, business bibles and travelogues are notorious for telling good stories ineptly. Life is too short for them — unless, of course, readers have their own agenda. When I’m working on a book I become a hungry reader, meaning I will give almost any book a chance, convinced that “everything is material” and that even bad writers can turn up useful information. Often this is a fool’s errand and I bail, but sometimes it produces surprises. In researching “Dinner With the President,” I encountered numerous dull treatises studded with shiny nuggets (presidents used to eat a lot of squirrel stew, turtle soup and roasted possum, it turns out) or entertaining anecdotes (the dyspeptic Woodrow Wilson was not tempted by food, but he had a racy romantic life and his food policies saved millions of people). These are the kinds of Easter eggs that keep me reading through pages of purple prolixity.I’d say a good or interesting, but not a great, book can be badly written. Political memoirs, celebrity biographies, business bibles and travelogues are notorious for telling good stories ineptly. Life is too short for them — unless, of course, readers have their own agenda. When I’m working on a book I become a hungry reader, meaning I will give almost any book a chance, convinced that “everything is material” and that even bad writers can turn up useful information. Often this is a fool’s errand and I bail, but sometimes it produces surprises. In researching “Dinner With the President,” I encountered numerous dull treatises studded with shiny nuggets (presidents used to eat a lot of squirrel stew, turtle soup and roasted possum, it turns out) or entertaining anecdotes (the dyspeptic Woodrow Wilson was not tempted by food, but he had a racy romantic life and his food policies saved millions of people). These are the kinds of Easter eggs that keep me reading through pages of purple prolixity.
Many people assume that a hammock amid palms is the best place to be, and a romance or light thriller glowing on an electronic device is the best thing to read. I prefer to hunker by the fire on a stormy day in Maine, with a book printed on paper; as howling gusts rattle the windows, rain drums the roof and waves crash on the rocks outside, I become absorbed in imaginative, involved stories that are entirely different from my own. Since childhood I have happily traversed a shelf’s-worth of books under these ideal conditions — from “Stuart Little” through Narnia and the Hobbits to “Jonathan Livingston Seagull,” “Dune,” “Moby-Dick” (of course), “The Shipping News” (ditto), “Corelli’s Mandolin” and “One Hundred Years of Solitude.”Many people assume that a hammock amid palms is the best place to be, and a romance or light thriller glowing on an electronic device is the best thing to read. I prefer to hunker by the fire on a stormy day in Maine, with a book printed on paper; as howling gusts rattle the windows, rain drums the roof and waves crash on the rocks outside, I become absorbed in imaginative, involved stories that are entirely different from my own. Since childhood I have happily traversed a shelf’s-worth of books under these ideal conditions — from “Stuart Little” through Narnia and the Hobbits to “Jonathan Livingston Seagull,” “Dune,” “Moby-Dick” (of course), “The Shipping News” (ditto), “Corelli’s Mandolin” and “One Hundred Years of Solitude.”
At the risk of being accused of nepotism, one of my favorite overlooked reads is “From Julia Child’s Kitchen,” a cookbook-memoir that is now out of print and never spawned a TV show. This book was the hardest one for Julia to write, but its publication in 1975 marked a watershed moment, when she eschewed the “French Chef” persona and began to perform as Julia Child, write alone, include personal stories for the first time (such as the day she ate Caesar salad in Tijuana, made table-side by Chef Caesar Cardini himself), use recipes from around the world, include fictional reveries (she imagined a “raddled little helper … her poor little arm beating, beating, beating” sugar, butter and eggs with a wooden spoon in pre-electric mixer days), and illustrate the book with her husband Paul’s poetic photographs and drawings. Julia’s editor Judith Jones pushed her to write more personally, which Julia — a modest person who disliked “tooting one’s own horn” — balked at. But eventually she got the hang of it, and found it liberating. In the meantime, she had a mastectomy, engineered a professional breakup with her collaborator Simone Beck (they remained friends) and nursed Paul back to health after a botched heart-bypass left him with “the mental scrambles.” Working on the book saved her from going “cuckoo in those dark months,” she recalled. “From Julia Child’s Kitchen” marked the best and worst of times for Julia, when she finally discovered her true voice and embarked on her second act.At the risk of being accused of nepotism, one of my favorite overlooked reads is “From Julia Child’s Kitchen,” a cookbook-memoir that is now out of print and never spawned a TV show. This book was the hardest one for Julia to write, but its publication in 1975 marked a watershed moment, when she eschewed the “French Chef” persona and began to perform as Julia Child, write alone, include personal stories for the first time (such as the day she ate Caesar salad in Tijuana, made table-side by Chef Caesar Cardini himself), use recipes from around the world, include fictional reveries (she imagined a “raddled little helper … her poor little arm beating, beating, beating” sugar, butter and eggs with a wooden spoon in pre-electric mixer days), and illustrate the book with her husband Paul’s poetic photographs and drawings. Julia’s editor Judith Jones pushed her to write more personally, which Julia — a modest person who disliked “tooting one’s own horn” — balked at. But eventually she got the hang of it, and found it liberating. In the meantime, she had a mastectomy, engineered a professional breakup with her collaborator Simone Beck (they remained friends) and nursed Paul back to health after a botched heart-bypass left him with “the mental scrambles.” Working on the book saved her from going “cuckoo in those dark months,” she recalled. “From Julia Child’s Kitchen” marked the best and worst of times for Julia, when she finally discovered her true voice and embarked on her second act.
This is an ever evolving list determined by my mood, companions, location, the weather and current projects. These days I am drawn to Haruki Murakami, Michael Pollan, Michael Lewis, Jon Krakauer, Ed Yong, David Grann, Erik Larson, Mark Kurlansky, Mark Bowden, Jennifer Egan and Rebecca Solnit.This is an ever evolving list determined by my mood, companions, location, the weather and current projects. These days I am drawn to Haruki Murakami, Michael Pollan, Michael Lewis, Jon Krakauer, Ed Yong, David Grann, Erik Larson, Mark Kurlansky, Mark Bowden, Jennifer Egan and Rebecca Solnit.
Other than Julia Child’s oeuvre, for the home cook I recommend Irma Rombauer’s “The Joy of Cooking,” Jacques Pépin’s “Essential Pépin” and — this is a cheat — a tie between Marcella Hazan’s “Essentials of Classical Italian Cooking,” Mark Bittman’s “How to Cook Everything” and, for a vegetable-forward diet, Yotam Ottolenghi’s “Simple.”Other than Julia Child’s oeuvre, for the home cook I recommend Irma Rombauer’s “The Joy of Cooking,” Jacques Pépin’s “Essential Pépin” and — this is a cheat — a tie between Marcella Hazan’s “Essentials of Classical Italian Cooking,” Mark Bittman’s “How to Cook Everything” and, for a vegetable-forward diet, Yotam Ottolenghi’s “Simple.”
When it comes to presidential cookery, I recommend Poppy Cannon and Patricia Brooks’s “The President’s Cookbook,” Letitia Baldrige and René Verdon’s “In the Kennedy Style,” Henry Haller with Virginia Aronson’s “The White House Family Cookbook,” Walter Scheib and Andrew Friedman’s “White House Chef,” and Roland Mesnier and Christian Malard’s “All the President’s Pastries.” (Executive Chef Scheib and Executive Pastry Chef Mesnier worked together under Presidents Clinton and George W. Bush, and detested each other, which provides some sharp asides.)When it comes to presidential cookery, I recommend Poppy Cannon and Patricia Brooks’s “The President’s Cookbook,” Letitia Baldrige and René Verdon’s “In the Kennedy Style,” Henry Haller with Virginia Aronson’s “The White House Family Cookbook,” Walter Scheib and Andrew Friedman’s “White House Chef,” and Roland Mesnier and Christian Malard’s “All the President’s Pastries.” (Executive Chef Scheib and Executive Pastry Chef Mesnier worked together under Presidents Clinton and George W. Bush, and detested each other, which provides some sharp asides.)
Growing up with all of Julia Child’s books in our shelves, “The French Chef” in our little black-and-white kitchen TV, and the actual Julia cooking in our kitchen, everything my towering great-aunt wrote, said or demonstrated influenced me in ways that are profound and unmeasurable. Julia and Paul (the twin brother of my maternal grandfather) did not have children, but they treated my sisters, cousins and me like surrogate grandchildren. While she never gave us “cooking lessons,” Julia swept us up in her enthusiasm for all things gastronomic — setting the table, helping Paul bring wine from his cave, slicing and stirring and frying and baking, experimenting with newfangled gadgets (she was an early adopter of salad spinners, food processors and microwaves), laughing at our mistakes, taking part in dinner table conversation, washing dishes — which taught us to eat and entertain by osmosis. I am extremely lucky and grateful to have had that experience, which helped shape my life.Growing up with all of Julia Child’s books in our shelves, “The French Chef” in our little black-and-white kitchen TV, and the actual Julia cooking in our kitchen, everything my towering great-aunt wrote, said or demonstrated influenced me in ways that are profound and unmeasurable. Julia and Paul (the twin brother of my maternal grandfather) did not have children, but they treated my sisters, cousins and me like surrogate grandchildren. While she never gave us “cooking lessons,” Julia swept us up in her enthusiasm for all things gastronomic — setting the table, helping Paul bring wine from his cave, slicing and stirring and frying and baking, experimenting with newfangled gadgets (she was an early adopter of salad spinners, food processors and microwaves), laughing at our mistakes, taking part in dinner table conversation, washing dishes — which taught us to eat and entertain by osmosis. I am extremely lucky and grateful to have had that experience, which helped shape my life.
I am drawn to the bracing M.F.K. Fisher and the acerbic Richard Olney, the naughty Nora Ephron and inquisitive Michael Pollan. As for memoirs, you can’t go wrong with Gabrielle Hamilton’s “Blood, Bones & Butter,” Bill Buford’s “Heat” and “Dirt,” Eric Ripert’s bittersweet “32 Yolks,” Jacques Pépin’s touching “The Apprentice,” Stanley Tucci’s “Taste” and, yes, despite his faults, Anthony Bourdain’s “Kitchen Confidential.”I am drawn to the bracing M.F.K. Fisher and the acerbic Richard Olney, the naughty Nora Ephron and inquisitive Michael Pollan. As for memoirs, you can’t go wrong with Gabrielle Hamilton’s “Blood, Bones & Butter,” Bill Buford’s “Heat” and “Dirt,” Eric Ripert’s bittersweet “32 Yolks,” Jacques Pépin’s touching “The Apprentice,” Stanley Tucci’s “Taste” and, yes, despite his faults, Anthony Bourdain’s “Kitchen Confidential.”
I feel more guilty about not reading things I “should” read than reading things I “shouldn’t,” but when my brain is frayed and stuffed with words at the end of the day I turn to art books, magazines, graphic novels and beautifully illustrated cookbooks.I feel more guilty about not reading things I “should” read than reading things I “shouldn’t,” but when my brain is frayed and stuffed with words at the end of the day I turn to art books, magazines, graphic novels and beautifully illustrated cookbooks.
It’s been years since I’ve read them, but I recall Hemingway’s descriptions of dishes — especially a dinner of poularde de Bresse with a bottle of Montagny — in “A Moveable Feast,” and Steinbeck’s famished Joads wolfing down hamburgers in “The Grapes of Wrath.” And then there’s Brillat-Savarin, Balzac, Proust and Colette — all geniuses who, truth be told, I have only skimmed.It’s been years since I’ve read them, but I recall Hemingway’s descriptions of dishes — especially a dinner of poularde de Bresse with a bottle of Montagny — in “A Moveable Feast,” and Steinbeck’s famished Joads wolfing down hamburgers in “The Grapes of Wrath.” And then there’s Brillat-Savarin, Balzac, Proust and Colette — all geniuses who, truth be told, I have only skimmed.
As you might expect, American presidents are often served remarkable dishes, for better and for worse. At the first state dinner held for a foreign leader, for instance, Ulysses S. Grant hosted King Kalakaua of the Sandwich Islands (now Hawaii) in 1874. To celebrate, the chef Valentino Melah prepared a banquet of some 30 courses for the “Merry Monarch,” who loved to eat but brought stone-faced food tasters to ensure he wasn’t poisoned. The menu from that night has not survived, but Melah was famous for prodigious spreads that began with, say, consommé, moved on to trout, gained momentum with squab, hit their stride with beef tenderloin (charred to a crisp to suit Grant’s taste) and a parade of sides and salads, and ended with a cavalcade of desserts with names like sorbet fantasie. One admirer hailed a Melahnian elixir thus: “No soup, foreign or domestic, has ever been known to equal it. It is said to be a little smoother than peacock’s brains, but not quite so exquisitely flavored as a dish of nightingale’s tongues.”As you might expect, American presidents are often served remarkable dishes, for better and for worse. At the first state dinner held for a foreign leader, for instance, Ulysses S. Grant hosted King Kalakaua of the Sandwich Islands (now Hawaii) in 1874. To celebrate, the chef Valentino Melah prepared a banquet of some 30 courses for the “Merry Monarch,” who loved to eat but brought stone-faced food tasters to ensure he wasn’t poisoned. The menu from that night has not survived, but Melah was famous for prodigious spreads that began with, say, consommé, moved on to trout, gained momentum with squab, hit their stride with beef tenderloin (charred to a crisp to suit Grant’s taste) and a parade of sides and salads, and ended with a cavalcade of desserts with names like sorbet fantasie. One admirer hailed a Melahnian elixir thus: “No soup, foreign or domestic, has ever been known to equal it. It is said to be a little smoother than peacock’s brains, but not quite so exquisitely flavored as a dish of nightingale’s tongues.”
Other presidential meals have been decidedly less refined, such as the barbecue served to William Howard Taft, who was stumping in Fargo, N.D., in 1908. By some reports thousands of people gathered around a bonfire to feast on 10 steer and 20 mules, which symbolized the roasting of the Democratic Party. Two black bears fattened on walnuts were also on the menu, but were spared when the organizers realized that bears were linked to Taft’s mentor Teddy Roosevelt in the public imagination. “It would never do to have the candidate eat up the ‘real Teddy bear,’” The Times noted.Other presidential meals have been decidedly less refined, such as the barbecue served to William Howard Taft, who was stumping in Fargo, N.D., in 1908. By some reports thousands of people gathered around a bonfire to feast on 10 steer and 20 mules, which symbolized the roasting of the Democratic Party. Two black bears fattened on walnuts were also on the menu, but were spared when the organizers realized that bears were linked to Taft’s mentor Teddy Roosevelt in the public imagination. “It would never do to have the candidate eat up the ‘real Teddy bear,’” The Times noted.
Occasionally, White House fare has been almost inedible. While Franklin D. Roosevelt was a certified gourmet who thrilled at “curious foods,” like buffalo tongue, ptarmigan from Greenland and whitefish “fresh from Duluth,” the food of his White House was legendarily abysmal. This was thanks in part to wartime rationing, but mostly to the housekeeper, Mrs. Henrietta Nesbitt, who, under the protection of the first lady, Eleanor Roosevelt, produced a farrago of liver and beans, mystery casseroles, gelatin salads with marshmallows and other “economy menus.” After a 1937 dinner chez Roosevelt, Ernest Hemingway described the meal as “the worst I’ve ever eaten … rainwater soup followed by rubber squab, a nice wilted salad and a cake some admirer had sent in. An enthusiastic but unskilled admirer.” Hem’s soon-to-be third wife, the journalist Martha Gellhorn, ate three sandwiches at the airport before they flew to Washington: “She said the food was always uneatable,” he wrote. “She has stayed there a lot. Me, I won’t be staying there any more.”Occasionally, White House fare has been almost inedible. While Franklin D. Roosevelt was a certified gourmet who thrilled at “curious foods,” like buffalo tongue, ptarmigan from Greenland and whitefish “fresh from Duluth,” the food of his White House was legendarily abysmal. This was thanks in part to wartime rationing, but mostly to the housekeeper, Mrs. Henrietta Nesbitt, who, under the protection of the first lady, Eleanor Roosevelt, produced a farrago of liver and beans, mystery casseroles, gelatin salads with marshmallows and other “economy menus.” After a 1937 dinner chez Roosevelt, Ernest Hemingway described the meal as “the worst I’ve ever eaten … rainwater soup followed by rubber squab, a nice wilted salad and a cake some admirer had sent in. An enthusiastic but unskilled admirer.” Hem’s soon-to-be third wife, the journalist Martha Gellhorn, ate three sandwiches at the airport before they flew to Washington: “She said the food was always uneatable,” he wrote. “She has stayed there a lot. Me, I won’t be staying there any more.”
I was astonished by the story of Thomas Jefferson’s slave cook, James Hemings, which I pieced together from several books. Jefferson brought James to Paris as an 18- or 19-year-old, where he trained in some of the city’s finest kitchens and learned to speak French better than his master. Upon returning to America with a pocketful of recipes and money (slavery was not customary in France, and he was comparatively well-paid there), Hemings followed Jefferson from New York to Philadelphia and the Monticello plantation in Virginia. There, he prepared some of the most significant meals of the day, and in the process helped to define American cuisine as we know it — a fusion of native ingredients cooked with French tools and techniques, English recipes, African herbs and spices, and a soupçon of his own creativity.I was astonished by the story of Thomas Jefferson’s slave cook, James Hemings, which I pieced together from several books. Jefferson brought James to Paris as an 18- or 19-year-old, where he trained in some of the city’s finest kitchens and learned to speak French better than his master. Upon returning to America with a pocketful of recipes and money (slavery was not customary in France, and he was comparatively well-paid there), Hemings followed Jefferson from New York to Philadelphia and the Monticello plantation in Virginia. There, he prepared some of the most significant meals of the day, and in the process helped to define American cuisine as we know it — a fusion of native ingredients cooked with French tools and techniques, English recipes, African herbs and spices, and a soupçon of his own creativity.
James was also one of Sally Hemings’s brothers. Sally was a servant for Jefferson’s white daughters in Paris and, DNA testing has proven, the mother of at least six children by Jefferson. (Those children were three-quarters white but treated as slaves; four survived to adulthood and were not freed until the end of Jefferson’s life.) It’s a lineage that boggles the modern mind, though it was not unheard of at the time.James was also one of Sally Hemings’s brothers. Sally was a servant for Jefferson’s white daughters in Paris and, DNA testing has proven, the mother of at least six children by Jefferson. (Those children were three-quarters white but treated as slaves; four survived to adulthood and were not freed until the end of Jefferson’s life.) It’s a lineage that boggles the modern mind, though it was not unheard of at the time.
After James Hemings bought his freedom, he struggled to find his identity: As a former slave who could read and write, had traveled widely and was a culinary artist of the highest caliber, he was neither fully Black or white; he never married or had children, and his sexuality may have been fluid. He simply did not fit into the world as it was. Upon his election, Jefferson offered Hemings the job of White House chef, but the two men could not agree on terms. Instead, James settled in Baltimore, cooked at a tavern and drank heavily until his death at the age of 36. His story is worthy of inclusion in the curriculum — or, at the very least, deserves the Hollywood treatment.After James Hemings bought his freedom, he struggled to find his identity: As a former slave who could read and write, had traveled widely and was a culinary artist of the highest caliber, he was neither fully Black or white; he never married or had children, and his sexuality may have been fluid. He simply did not fit into the world as it was. Upon his election, Jefferson offered Hemings the job of White House chef, but the two men could not agree on terms. Instead, James settled in Baltimore, cooked at a tavern and drank heavily until his death at the age of 36. His story is worthy of inclusion in the curriculum — or, at the very least, deserves the Hollywood treatment.
Fresh water, which I believe will be the defining resource of this century. I wrote about the challenges of floods, droughts, pollution and sustainable use in my 2011 book “The Ripple Effect.” The dire predictions my sources made a decade ago are proving accurate sooner than expected, and their message remains stark: We can survive without oil, but not without water.Fresh water, which I believe will be the defining resource of this century. I wrote about the challenges of floods, droughts, pollution and sustainable use in my 2011 book “The Ripple Effect.” The dire predictions my sources made a decade ago are proving accurate sooner than expected, and their message remains stark: We can survive without oil, but not without water.
Out of necessity, I organize the books I’m using for current projects with relative coherence — my office shelf contains sections on food history and recipes, presidents, political and social history, the White House and so on. But the rest of my library is a series of haphazard collections. It doesn’t help that my wife is an artist and avid reader, whose shelves are packed with oversize art and photography books, along with a trove of novels, poetry, health and fitness guides, and random volumes. Most of our books are not on the floor, at least, but on one shelf I see “The Soul of a New Machine” next to “All the King’s Men” topped by “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.” Why? I have no idea. It’s packrattery, but I can usually lay my hands on the volumes I need.Out of necessity, I organize the books I’m using for current projects with relative coherence — my office shelf contains sections on food history and recipes, presidents, political and social history, the White House and so on. But the rest of my library is a series of haphazard collections. It doesn’t help that my wife is an artist and avid reader, whose shelves are packed with oversize art and photography books, along with a trove of novels, poetry, health and fitness guides, and random volumes. Most of our books are not on the floor, at least, but on one shelf I see “The Soul of a New Machine” next to “All the King’s Men” topped by “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.” Why? I have no idea. It’s packrattery, but I can usually lay my hands on the volumes I need.
Marie Kondo — just kidding! I like big, heavy illustrated books about marine biology, such as Ernst Haeckel’s “Art Forms in Nature” or the American Museum of Natural History’s “Opulent Oceans.” I find them beautiful and mysterious, and they tickle my inner Jacques Cousteau. I bet James Cameron likes them, too.Marie Kondo — just kidding! I like big, heavy illustrated books about marine biology, such as Ernst Haeckel’s “Art Forms in Nature” or the American Museum of Natural History’s “Opulent Oceans.” I find them beautiful and mysterious, and they tickle my inner Jacques Cousteau. I bet James Cameron likes them, too.
As a kid, Jules Verne’s “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea,” given by my paternal grandfather, a world traveler who sparked a sense of adventure in me. As a young man, Graham Greene’s “The Quiet American” — a book that gave me a shiver and a chuckle as I backpacked through Asia in the 1980s, gifted by a Swedish friend I met on a beach in Thailand. (I gave him Peter Matthiessen’s “The Snow Leopard.”) As an adult, Daniel Mendelsohn’s “An Odyssey: A Father, a Son, and an Epic,” a wonderful book that is partly about fathers and sons, given by my father, who was a voracious reader of history.As a kid, Jules Verne’s “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea,” given by my paternal grandfather, a world traveler who sparked a sense of adventure in me. As a young man, Graham Greene’s “The Quiet American” — a book that gave me a shiver and a chuckle as I backpacked through Asia in the 1980s, gifted by a Swedish friend I met on a beach in Thailand. (I gave him Peter Matthiessen’s “The Snow Leopard.”) As an adult, Daniel Mendelsohn’s “An Odyssey: A Father, a Son, and an Epic,” a wonderful book that is partly about fathers and sons, given by my father, who was a voracious reader of history.
I read a lot, all over the map, just like I do as an adult. The books that spoke to me shared a sense of adventure with heart and humor and a touch of poetry: E.B. White’s “Charlotte’s Web,” Roald Dahl’s “James and the Giant Peach,” William Steig’s “Amos & Boris,” Astrid Lindgren’s “Pipi Longstocking,” Gene Stratton-Porter’s “The Magic Garden” and Norton Juster’s “The Phantom Tolbooth.” I still have my battered copies of the Tintin and Asterix and Obelix comic books, and the Caldecott-winning work of our friend the illustrator Marc Simont. To this day our family reads Dylan Thomas’s “A Child’s Christmas in Wales” aloud every December, and it still sings.I read a lot, all over the map, just like I do as an adult. The books that spoke to me shared a sense of adventure with heart and humor and a touch of poetry: E.B. White’s “Charlotte’s Web,” Roald Dahl’s “James and the Giant Peach,” William Steig’s “Amos & Boris,” Astrid Lindgren’s “Pipi Longstocking,” Gene Stratton-Porter’s “The Magic Garden” and Norton Juster’s “The Phantom Tolbooth.” I still have my battered copies of the Tintin and Asterix and Obelix comic books, and the Caldecott-winning work of our friend the illustrator Marc Simont. To this day our family reads Dylan Thomas’s “A Child’s Christmas in Wales” aloud every December, and it still sings.
I can conjure up numerous fantasy dinners with Julia Child — pairing her with, say, King Louis XIV (the Sun King, who used haute cuisine as a political tool) and Jackie Kennedy (who modeled her White House soirees on the Sun King’s). But there was an actual party that I would have loved to attend as a fly on the wall.I can conjure up numerous fantasy dinners with Julia Child — pairing her with, say, King Louis XIV (the Sun King, who used haute cuisine as a political tool) and Jackie Kennedy (who modeled her White House soirees on the Sun King’s). But there was an actual party that I would have loved to attend as a fly on the wall.
On or around June 20, 1790, Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson hosted a secret dinner for Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton and Congressman James Madison at his house in New York, the temporary capital. The guests were fierce rivals who had been quarreling over “two of the most irritating questions that ever can be raised”: how to pay off America’s Revolutionary War debts (i.e., how to structure the American financial system) and whether to keep the nation’s capital in the North or replace it with a Southern site. The dispute had grown so heated that it threatened to rip the nascent union apart. Jefferson, a former ambassador to France who understood the value of breaking bread, invited the antagonists to a mouthwatering dinner prepared by his slave chef James Hemings, hoping to lull them into a state of open-minded pliability.On or around June 20, 1790, Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson hosted a secret dinner for Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton and Congressman James Madison at his house in New York, the temporary capital. The guests were fierce rivals who had been quarreling over “two of the most irritating questions that ever can be raised”: how to pay off America’s Revolutionary War debts (i.e., how to structure the American financial system) and whether to keep the nation’s capital in the North or replace it with a Southern site. The dispute had grown so heated that it threatened to rip the nascent union apart. Jefferson, a former ambassador to France who understood the value of breaking bread, invited the antagonists to a mouthwatering dinner prepared by his slave chef James Hemings, hoping to lull them into a state of open-minded pliability.
The dinner likely began with one of Jefferson’s famous salads, dressed in “wine jelly,” then moved to a first course of capon stuffed with Virginia ham, chestnuts, artichokes, and truffles, and simmered in Calvados and cream. That might have been followed with boeuf a la mode, a braised beef dish suffused with brandy, tomatoes and aromatic herbs. Jefferson would have kept the banter light, and freely poured rare vintages, such as Hermitage, Corbonnieux, Multipulciano and Chambertin (“the king of wines”). As the evening wore on we can imagine the rich amalgam of proteins, collagens, vegetables and alcohol softened his guests’ mutual loathing. Hemings likely finished them off with a piece-de-resistance: cold vanilla ice cream in a warm puff-pastry crust, a dish unknown in America that he’d mastered in Paris, washed down with flutes of Champagne. Marinating over snifters of brandy, Hamilton and Madison agreed to compromise on the national debt and to build a new federal city on a nominally Southern site, today’s Washington, D.C. The dinner likely began with one of Jefferson’s famous salads, dressed in “wine jelly,” then moved to a first course of capon stuffed with Virginia ham, chestnuts, artichokes, and truffles, and simmered in Calvados and cream. That might have been followed with boeuf a la mode, a braised beef dish suffused with brandy, tomatoes and aromatic herbs. Jefferson would have kept the banter light, and freely poured rare vintages, such as Hermitage, Corbonnieux, Montepulciano and Chambertin (“the king of wines”). As the evening wore on we can imagine the rich amalgam of proteins, collagens, vegetables and alcohol softened his guests’ mutual loathing. Hemings likely finished them off with a piece-de-resistance: cold vanilla ice cream in a warm puff-pastry crust, a dish unknown in America that he’d mastered in Paris, washed down with flutes of Champagne. Marinating over snifters of brandy, Hamilton and Madison agreed to compromise on the national debt and to build a new federal city on a nominally Southern site, today’s Washington, D.C.
Later hailed as “the Dinner Table Bargain,” that toothsome meal arguably saved the Republic. But with questions about taxation, states’ rights and the role of the federal government continuing to stir passions, the debate at Jefferson’s reverberates today — and it inspired “The Room Where It Happens,” Lin-Manuel Miranda’s rap about how “the sausage gets made” in backroom deals, in “Hamilton.”Later hailed as “the Dinner Table Bargain,” that toothsome meal arguably saved the Republic. But with questions about taxation, states’ rights and the role of the federal government continuing to stir passions, the debate at Jefferson’s reverberates today — and it inspired “The Room Where It Happens,” Lin-Manuel Miranda’s rap about how “the sausage gets made” in backroom deals, in “Hamilton.”
In an alcove in my office I am building a new ziggurat of books, this one about diving, treasure and beer.In an alcove in my office I am building a new ziggurat of books, this one about diving, treasure and beer.