Holiday Cheer

About this time sixteen years ago, Worldwide and I were embarking on our belated honeymoon. We flew from Skopje to Vienna, spent a few days drinking punsch and seeing the sights, and then took an overnight train to Venice, where we spent the better part of a week.

At the airport (I think) Worldwide bought the Holiday issue of a magazine called the Economist, which I had never heard of. Not long after, I was deep into articles comparing the internet with electricity and analysis of the political unrest in Madagascar. I loved everything about it: the scope of the coverage; the economics; the wry British humor; and the succinct writing style.

When we returned to Skopje, we found a bookstore that carried it, and every Saturday, on our way to the Green market, we would pick up the latest edition. I became a subscriber when we returned to DC, and have been ever since.

I don't read every article (although I did from 1997-2009), but I can confidently say that I have read more than 90% of everything published in the last 16 years. I downloaded the current holiday issue this morning, and very much enjoyed the look back at World War 1 on the centennial of its beginning and the selection of the Country of the year, which just legalized gay marriage and cannabis, and whose president reportedly drives a Volkswagen Beetle to work. I'm looking forward to reading about the real Ozymandias and Indian mothers-in-law, and to another year of news and insight. It's not cheap, and it takes an investment of your time, but it has definitely changed the way I look at finance and economics and at the same time helped me become far more attuned to what's happening around the world.

Talking Turkey

My first week in Belgrade, I went to dinner with my predecessor and his wife. They took me to their favorite Italian restaurant, just a few blocks from their--now my--apartment. I add a thin crust pizza that was in every way, unremarkable. Nothing to complain about, but that is a low bar in the pizzasphere.

I soon realized that TripAdvisor is a useful tool for identifying local restaurants, and I noticed that the aforementioned restaurant was ranked #27 in the city. Not bad, and, given its proximity, worth another try. I went back this summer, and had a delicious dinner, some sort of bruschetta and an entree since forgotten, both specials. I went back a couple of months later and had a very forgettable ravioli dish off the menu.

So is it a good restaurant or not? I was not sure. Last night, I went back with a colleague. Our waiter described the specials in excellent english, but he had a problem with one of the entrees. "It's a roast lamb over a--what is it--not rice, but similar. You know the stuff you make bread with."

"Jecham" he asked the pizza chef in the open kitchen. Shrug.

It sounded like some sort of dumpling or spaetzle, and I ordered it. He came back with his phone as we were enjoying a roast lamb over risotto, but instead of rice, made with barley. That was the word he didn't know. I've never heard of using barley to make bread, but Wikipedia indicates that it was one of its first uses in ancient Egypt.

Anyway, my conclusion about the restaurant is that you should focus on the specials, and that bringing your smartphone is a good idea. When Worldwide and I lived in Paris in 1995, I bought a big dictionary to carry in my backpack because my pocket version didn't have all the fish in the sea. Now there is a better way.

Megan's List

I've been following Megan McArdle for over a decade, and it's been nice to watch her go from amateur blogger to Bloomberg celebrity. Like me, she loves kitchen gadgets, and, as much as I enjoy her insight into the business world, there is no entry I look forward to more than her holiday gift guide. The Gs picked out "unitaskers" for me at Williams Sonoma last year, earning bemused looks from the clerk, who didn't enjoy the pejorative assertion of the term. Nevertheless, I love my strawberry huller, and I use it often during the summer. And the oxo peeler is something I really miss here. Bee Wilson has a long encomium to the recent technological progress in vegetable peelers that reinforces what I learned by accident twenty years ago, when I bought the vegetable peeler that, pound for pound, may have contributed more to my quality of life, than anything else in my kitchen.

She's more of a baker than I am, but I've been coveting the Vitamix and the Breville toaster oven. We have pedestrian versions of both that I can't wait to break, but I'm not just going to toss while they still do the job. I've also been toying with the idea of both a pressure cooker and a slow cooker, but I've held out, just because they can't quite seem to make the leap in my mind to deserving a dedicated counterspace. But the combo? Hmm.

And a salt pig looks like something I might wonder how I ever did without. Can't wait for the holidays!

When the Music is Here...

Another serendipitous moment of shuffle play goodness last night as i was cooking dinner. I can't think of a song that is more evocative of young love--the good part and the bad.

Thanksgiving menu

Back from a delightful week at home with the fam and Josie and the Pussycats. Saw the OG cheer at a JV game, Worldwide and the BG in a performance of Drood at the local church, and enjoyed a roller skating birthday party for the BG, where I won a free soda in the Cha Cha slide competition with my slick moves on the hardwood. The dog is still terrified of me, and it is a great feeling to know that I can make her cower with just a stern look--several times, a stern word and a hard stare was successful in keeping her from jumping excitedly into Worldwide's lap.

The Thanksgiving menu came off nicely, and I managed to get everything plated more or less in accordance with the 4:00 time we had agreed upon. The BG was too ill too eat anything, so some of the vegetarian options were ignored, but they were prepared with love, and I trust that the large tranche of leftovers in the refrigerator is slowly depreciating.

I used the dry brine from dadcooksdinner, and I made the three stuffings and the cranberry sauce the day before. The OG made a delicious peanut butter chocolate pie with a crust of pounded wafer cookies to complement my traditional dessert. In retrospect, I wouldn't change a thing.

Thanksgiving Menu 2013

• Grilled Dry-brined turkey (cut up like a chicken)
• Bread stuffing (actually stale soft pretzels) with dried cranberries, celery and apples (Veg)
• Sausage and cornbread stuffing (Joy of Cooking)
• Vegetarian Sausage and Cornbread Stuffing (using Morningstar maple patties)
• Green Beans
• Mashed potatoes
• Drip pan turkey gravy with bacon fat
• vegetarian gravy (flour, butter, vegetable stock)
• Tossed green salad with dried cranberries and toasted pecans
• Garlic knots (using store bought pizza dough)
• Cranberry Sauce
• Pumpkin Pie
• Peanut butter chocolate pie
• Chocolate Milk shakes

I also made a couple of pies with the leftovers--filling deep dish pie crusts with turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce and gravy, topped with mashed potatoes. They are in some ways better than the sum of their parts.

November Books

The Big Necessity: The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why It Matters

Rose George

Acclaimed as “extraordinary” (The New York Times) and “a classic” (Los Angeles Times), The Big Necessity is on its way to removing the taboo on bodily waste—something common to all and as natural as breathing. We prefer not to talk about it, but we should—even those of us who take care of our business in pristine, sanitary conditions. Disease spread by waste kills more people worldwide every year than any other single cause of death. Even in America, nearly two million people have no access to an indoor toilet. Yet the subject remains unmentionable.

Moving from the underground sewers of Paris, London, and New York (an infrastructure disaster waiting to happen) to an Indian slum where ten toilets are shared by 60,000 people, The Big Necessity breaks the silence, revealing everything that matters about how people do—and don’t—deal with their own waste. With razor-sharp wit and crusading urgency, mixing levity with gravity, Rose George has turned the subject we like to avoid into a cause with the most serious of consequences.

Note; Enjoyable look at the cultural and scientific aspects of the production and disposal of human waste. Interesting throughout.

Consider the Lobster: And Other Essays

David Foster Wallace

Do lobsters feel pain? Did Franz Kafka have a funny bone? What is John Updike's deal, anyway? And what happens when adult video starlets meet their fans in person? David Foster Wallace answers these questions and more in essays that are also enthralling narrative adventures. Whether covering the three-ring circus of a vicious presidential race, plunging into the wars between dictionary writers, or confronting the World's Largest Lobster Cooker at the annual Maine Lobster Festival, Wallace projects a quality of thought that is uniquely his and a voice as powerful and distinct as any in American letters.

Note; Fresh and beautiful writing about random topics in everyday life. A pleasure to read.

Fragments

Heraclitus

In the sixth century b.c.-twenty-five hundred years before Einstein-Heraclitus of Ephesus declared that energy is the essence of matter, that everything becomes energy in flux, in relativity. His great book, On Nature, the world's first coherent philosophical treatise and touchstone for Plato, Aristotle, and Marcus Aurelius, has long been lost to history-but its surviving fragments have for thousands of years tantalized our greatest thinkers, from Montaigne to Nietzsche, Heidegger to Jung. Now, acclaimed poet Brooks Haxton presents a powerful free-verse translation of all 130 surviving fragments of the teachings of Heraclitus, with the ancient Greek originals beautifully reproduced en face.

Note; Really short. Deep though. Like life.

Low Life: Lures and Snares of Old New York

Luc Sante

From opium dens to the Bowery's suicide saloons, this lively, learned work of outlaw urban history ushers readers through the dark heart of New York City in the years between 1840 and 1919. "A systematic, well-researched historical account of . . . corruption, vice, and miscellaneous mayhem . . . well-crafted and tightly written. 

Note: Fascinating account of New York in the 19th Century. Unbelievably chaotic, corrupt and violent.

Sleights of Mind: What the neuroscience of magic reveals about our brains

Susana Martinez-Conde, Stephen L. Macknik, Sandra Blakeslee, 

What can magic tell us about ourselves and our daily lives? If you subtly change the subject during an uncomfortable conversation, did you know you're using attentional 'misdirection', a core technique of magic? And if you've ever bought an expensive item you'd sworn never to buy, you were probably unaware that the salesperson was, like an accomplished magician, a master at creating the 'illusion of choice'. Leading neuroscientists Stephen Macknik and Susana Martinez-Conde meet with magicians from all over the world to explain how the magician's art sheds light on consciousness, memory, attention, and belief. As the founders of the new discipline of NeuroMagic, they combine cutting-edge scientific research with startling insights into the tricks of the magic trade. By understanding how magic manipulates the processes in our brains, we can better understand how we work - in fields from law and education to marketing, health and psychology - for good and for ill.

Note: We are easily duped; and hard-wired for it, too.

Dear Life

Alice Munro

Alice Munro captures the essence of life in her brilliant new collection of stories. Moments of change, chance encounters, the twist of fate that leads a person to a new way of thinking or being: the stories in Dear Life build to form a radiant, indelible portrait of just how dangerous and strange ordinary life can be.

Note: Deceptively simple; always surprising.