Alas, Proust

Somehow, I ended up with multiple projects and endeavors due in the September - November timeframe, and reading has taken a back seat. Poor old Proust. I just loved the beginning of Cities of the Plain, but haven't gotten very far. Such a relief from the Guermantes and their endless dinner parties and all the receptions.

Gourmet, alas, has folded. Very sad. My first and best Gazpacho recipe is from Gourmet 1964. Think about that. The founder, Earl McAusland, has a summer place in Nantucket before the big money moved in. The big noisy money. Nantucket was always a great place to dine, but had little in common with Balbec, except of course, there were always yachts and bicycles, and dunes, and artists. Gee, maybe Nantucket does have something in common with Balbec.

We subscribed to Gourmet until last year. When the economy tanked, it was time for us to scale down our travel, dining out and dining in food budgets, and I noticed that I seldom actually cooked any of the Gourmet recipes. We became Bon Appetit, and Cook's Illustrated folks. In Germany last winter, we ate at obscure country inns and bratwurst on the street in Thuringia. None better.

Tonight, for example, I'm making a ratatouille and Italian sausage pie with a cornmeal crust. Homey, frugal, healthy and ,we hope, tasty. With parsley, basil and thyme and even a tomato from the garden. Tomorrow is our wedding anniversary, and we were going to celebrate at Coriander in Sharon and discovered it had been sold and turned into an Indian restaurant. We got to Needham for Indian Food. Masala Art. So we're trekking to Providence to Al Forno where the food is always sublime and your waistline and wallet both take a hit.

The last time we were in Paris our big dining splurge was at the Pompidou Centre restaurant, and a fine meal it was. Would Proust approve? What would he think of all those pipes and escalators and the modern art? Proust was a man of his time and I think he would like it. Can you see his quiet, pleasant little smile? Sort of like a psychiatrist's.

Now Gourmet is gone. Before we downsized and moved, I had a twenty-year collection which I parsed for "keep" recipes. I also saved all the Thanksgiving and Christmas and barbecue issues, which actually had stuff you would cook. Or might. Holiday foods that Francois could produce. Does Proust ever mention holidays? Can't recall. Just the summer vacances. Interesting no? Inquiring minds . . .

I'm sorry I haven't read much of anything lately. Can't even keep up with the newspapers (also folding) and the magazines. Life is not what it once was. But then it never is.

Onward,

Odette

The Guermantes Way

A Christmas gift from me to myelf. I finally finished Young Girls in Flower, the Proust book set in Balbec by the sea where Proust first meets Albertine and her friends.

I was touched an amazed at how the last few pages summarized the whole book, with beautiful lyricism about the sea and the girls and how everything came together. One had earned these fantastic passages by reading the preceding pages, and contemplating Albertine's cheecks hundreds of times. It reminded me of the lyrical Kerouac after many tedious pages about the exploits of Dean Moriarty. I wonder if anyone has ever written a thesis about Proust and Kerouac. It won't be moi.

The odd thing is, I have the idee fixe that Albertine looks like a high school friend of mine, and I can't dislodge it, no matter how I try.

Now, on to The Guermantes Way, and long descriptions of the Guermantes humor which I don't think is anything like Saturday Night Live, or Susan Silverman, or Mort Sahl, Shelly Berman, Bill Murray or Blue Man Group.

I ordered the Proust cookbook or whatever it is, not, I assure you, to make truffled pineapple salad but for the whole experience of food in the Belle Epoque. The January edition of Gourmet Magazine is devoted to Southern Food, and noted that Southern Food is the only food genre, so to speak, that the United States has produced. I daresay this excludes Tex Mex which is derivative, and Yankee Cooking which is not, per se, a whole cuisine but a collection of "dishes."

Last night I made crepes stuffed with chicken and mushrooms napped in a Mornay sauce with some white wine added, and let me tell you this is good and it even looked Christmasy with parseley and bits of pimento for the red and green.

Onward,

Odette