Author: JWF

Random Reflections: Dec. 2016

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Birds.  One of my favorite aspects of living on Sarasota Bay in a nature preserve is all the different species of birds.  We had one of those exceedingly low tides last week and with mud and sandbars exposed, birds spent the early morning hours feasting in the shallow water.  There were the usual egrets (stately birds), the always travel-in-a-group ibises (with their long beaks to the ground), seagulls and terns, and one lone spoonbill.  With bright pink plumage on its hind quarters, the roseate spoonbill is easy to spot and always seems to be by itself.  I’ve also become aware of more songbirds in the trees along our boulevard.  Perhaps they have migrated from the north; whether it’s just me or there are more of them, their presence and their songs are most welcome!

Films.  As a break from holiday preparations, we manage to squeeze in two movies in the past week.  One was good and the other excellent.

Allied.  Set during WWII in Morocco and London, Allied stars Brad Pitt and Marion Cotilliard as operatives on an intelligence mission.  He is Brad Pitt, but she as Marianne Beausejour is amazing to watch.  I didn’t see the trailer beforehand so I got caught up in puzzling when she was playing a role and when she was showing true emotion.  She was alternately brittle and effusive.  With echoes of Casablanca, the first third is somewhat slow to ignite.  Good overall, not great.

Manchester by the Sea.  I had read so many laudatory reviews that I was prepared to be disappointed in this film.  Not.  It’s simply superb.  Casey Affleck deserves an Oscar for his portrayal of Lee, a socially challenged and emotionally numb loner who works as a janitor.  When Lee’s brother Joe dies, Lee is named as guardian of Patrick, his 16-year old nephew.  Leaving Boston, Lee returns to Manchester where he navigates a landmine of grief and troubling memories.  What you get is a sensitive depiction of sorrow, tragedy and male bonding.  Lucas Hedges as Patrick is both tough and vulnerable while Michelle Williams as Lee’s ex-wife Randi converses with Lee in one of the most moving scenes in the film.

Season’s Greetings

For me, this time of year is all about sharing time with those nearest and dearest to me.  Whatever holiday you celebrate, be it Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa or some other, I wish you a happy one.  As we approach the winter solstice and sunset comes earlier and earlier (fortunately, in Florida that means around 5:30 pm, not 4:00 pm where I grew up) I take heart knowing that soon again we will be going in the direction of more light.  So happy holidays and happy New Year.  May you travel safely and have good times with family and friends!

Header photo:  www.carolinabird.com

The Power of Reading: Book List #2

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WHY WE SHOULD READ.  I love the Wall Street Journal (for a host of reasons),  but their tight firewall only allows subscribers to access the full text of an article.  So I’m going to quote from the lead essay in the November 26-27 Review section.  It’s by Will Schwalbe, author of The End of Your Life Book Club, and is entitled, “The Need to Read.”  I think it’s excellent.

“Books are uniquely suited to helping us change our relationship to the rhythms and habits of daily life in this world of endless connectivity.  We can’t interrupt books; we can only interrupt ourselves while reading them.  They are the expression of an individual or group of individuals, not of a hive mind or collective consciousness.  They speak to us, thoughtfully, one at a time.  They demand our attention.  And they demand that we briefly put aside our own beliefs and prejudices and listen to someone else’s.  You can rant against a book, scribble in the margin or even chuck it out the window.  Still, you won’t change the words on the page.”

And after providing examples of books that have influenced him or changed his mind or made him wiser from Stuart Little to The Odyssey to Lindbergh’s Gift from the Sea to Reading Lolita in Tehran, Mr. Schwalbe salutes the power of reading:

“Books remain one of the strongest bulwarks we have against tyranny—but only as long as people are free to read all different kinds of books, and only as long as they actually do so.  The right to read whatever you want whenever you want is one of the fundamental rights that helps us preserve all the other rights.  It’s a right we need to guard with unwavering diligence.  But it’s also a right we can guard with pleasure.  Reading isn’t just a strike against narrowness, mind control and domination:  It’s one of the world’s great joys.”

In these somewhat unsettled times, his words resonate with me.

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BOOK LIST FROM MY BLOG

And here, in time for your holiday shopping should you choose, is the list of books I’ve mentioned in the blog since June.

Buruma, Ian                          Their Promised Land (biography, July)

Belfer, Lauren                       And After the Fire (novel, June)

Brower, Kate A.                    First Women:…First Ladies (biography, June)

Gyasi, Yaa                              Homegoing (novel, June)

Lewis, Sinclair                      Main Street (novel, June)

Purnell, Sonia                       Clementine (biography, June)

Cambor, Kathleen                In Sunlight, in a Beautiful Garden (novel, July)

Church, Elizabeth J.             The Atomic Weight of Love (novel, July)

Cooper, Anderson                The Rainbow Comes & Goes (nonfiction, July)

Delinsky, Barbara                 Blueprints (novel, July)

Doiron, Paul                          The Poacher’s Son (mystery, July)

McCoy, Sarah                       The Mapmaker’s Children (novel, July)

Simonson, Helen                 The Summer Before the War (novel, July)  

Smith, Dominic                   The Last Painting of Sara de Vos (novel, July)

Cleave, Chris                        Everyone Brave is Forgiven (novel, July)

Haigh, Jennifer                    Heat & Light (novel, Aug.)

Matar, Hisham                    In the Country of Men (novel, Aug.)

McCann, Colum                  Dancer (novel, Aug.) 

George, Elizabeth               Believing the Lie (mystery, Aug.)

Thompson, Victoria           Murder in Chelsea (mystery, Aug.)

Cleve, Chris                          Everyone Brave is Forgiven (novel, Aug.)  

Erdrich, Louise                    LaRose (novel, Aug.)

Donati, Sara                         The Gilded Hour (novel, Sept.)

Sweeney, Cynthia                The Nest (novel, Sept.)

Haruf, Kent                           Our Souls at Night (novel, Sept.)

Carr, David                           Night of the Gun (memoir, Oct.)

Harrod-Eagles, C.               Orchestrated Death (mystery, Oct.)

Hadley, Tessa                       The Past (novel, Oct.)

Goodwin, Daisy                    Victoria (novel, Nov.)

 

Note:  Photos ©JWFarrington (some rights reserved)

 

 

 

Tidy Tidbits: Mostly Books

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ROYALS—WATCHING AND READING

qe2  I read so much about the Netflix series, The Crown, while I was in London, I couldn’t wait to start watching it once I returned home.  And now, I’m enthralled!  It is so well done, elaborate, lavish even, and the family dynamics (exiled Duke of Windsor, Prince Philip’s role in their marriage once she’s queen) and back stories are fascinating.  Claire Foy as Elizabeth is mesmerizing too.young-victoria

I also just read Victoria by Daisy Goodwin.  It was for sale in the UK in paperback and just was published here in the U.S.  I believe that Goodwin wrote the script for the upcoming “Masterpiece” TV series before she wrote the novel.  In any case, the two are linked.  The novel is about Victoria’s first years as queen.  She was only 18 when she ascended to the throne and had been protected and managed by her mother, her mother’s special friend, John Conroy, and her uncle, the Duke of Cumberland.  They were all seeking power and influence over her.  Victoria, if this account is to be believed and questions have been raised, became reliant on, and perhaps even developed a tendresse for her prime minister, Lord Melbourne.  Whether all true or not, it’s an absorbing and enjoyable read.  And one realize politics always exists whether in the foreground or background!

OTHER RECENT READING

The Past by Tessa Hadley

This novel has been much touted.  Initially I wasn’t sure I liked it.  The writing was lovely, full of imagery related to the English countryside, but there didn’t seem to be much of a focus.  And I wasn’t fond of Alice, the first of the four siblings to be introduced. She seemed too diffuse and scatterbrained.  She and her sisters, Harriet, the eldest who never married, and Fran, mother of two young children, plus their brother Roland are to spend three weeks at a summer cottage that belonged to their grandparents.  They are gathering partly to decide whether or not to sell the cottage.

Roland arrives last with his third wife, the Argentinian Pilar, who is different and definitely an outsider.  The other sisters both want and don’t want to like her and her very difference gives her status.  Roland brings his 16-year old daughter Molly, and Alice has included Kasim, the son of her former boyfriend, who is in his early 20’s.

It’s a novel of shifting relationships, more than action, full of undercurrents and nuanced encounters.  These now middle-aged adults engage and assess and disagree with one another all the while observing or not the attraction between Molly and Kasim. And ignoring to some extent what the children, Arthur and Ivey, are hatching.  In three sections, the first and last are the present and the middle section is The Past.  It focuses on Jill, the adult siblings’ mother, long since deceased, and is to me that which links everything together.  I liked this section best and it made it possible for me to re-appreciate the first part and to really enjoy what Hadley does in the closing section.  img_0062

Orchestrated Death by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

I have been working my way through Harrod-Eagles’ Morland Dynasty series, but have just discovered her police detective series.  Where the Morland series is measured, detail-laden prose steeped in English history from the 12th century on (there are 30+ volumes), this first Bill Slider mystery is contemporary, fun, and romantic, all at the same time.  Middle-aged Slider is on the cusp of burnout when he is assigned the case of the murder of young violinist Anne-Marie Austen.  Her death haunts him personally more than most cases although he soon discovers that she was unlikable and had few friends.

Slider is well-drawn and appealing while his partner and friend Atherton, O’Flaherty, the desk sergeant, and Joanna, Anne-Marie’s colleague and Slider’s love interest, are also well fleshed out characters.  Harrod-Eagles here writes with a verve and feeling which outshines her other series.  I’m looking forward to Bill Slider’s future adventures.

Note: Queen Victoria photo–www.yareah.com

Gastronomic Valencia: Part 3

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MEALS

After time in Valencia, we traveled down the coast to the town of Denia where we enjoyed several Michelin-starred meals, a tasting and lunch at the home of vintner Gutierrez de la Vega, noted for his sweet Moscatel wine, and short visits to the Borja ducal palace in Gandia, and the 11th century Moorish castle in Denia (under restoration).  dsc01481 Shown here is the palace.  Other high points included lunches at Casa Manolo in Daimus (I loved their take on caprese salad) img_1516 and L’escaleta in Cocentaina (a really tasty sweetbread ficelle sandwich ) and the five hour extravaganza at Restaurante Quique Dacosta where we were served twenty-six different tastes or bites.

The theme at Quique Dacosta was Fronteras, translated as “borders,”  but I might better call it “frontiers.”  This was cuisine at its most refined and most creative, in some ways more of an intellectual experience.  Precise attention to presentation and form in this meal.  Everything from little puffs of cod, tuna belly with seaweed, a slice of dried octopus, to a beautiful crushed and dried tomato (the maître d’ came around with his hammer to do the crushing, one of my favorite courses), a langoustine with green curry, avocado and corn, to mushrooms served on the forest floor, a piece of completely black charred bread with romesco sauce for dipping, to a slender vase of roses with a tangle of apple in the center.  Shown here the battered tomato, seaweed, part of one dish, and the wrapped langoustine.  img_1663  img_1659 img_1669     All quite amazing!

Coming back down to earth on our last day, we had a brisk walk in the lovely riverbed park in Valencia pausing only to gaze on Calatrava’s jarring and beautiful architectural forms:  opera house, music hall and science museum.  The final lunch was at a popular bar in working class neighborhood called Casa Montana.  Here the food was comfortingly familiar looking.  We began with sweetish vermouth over ice with tiny arbequina olives in the front of the bar.  Then ducking under the counter to get to the back room (it’s a tradition to duck), we sat on high stools at longish tables for an array of tapas courses. img_1749 img_1756 From Iberian ham to braised broad beans, tuna marinated in seven spices, cod brandade, little roasted red peppers stuffed with tuna (my kind of tapa!), tiny slices of grilled beef with garlic (yum!) to several kinds of sheep cheese including a grilled cheese toast and, lastly, homemade chocolate truffles.  All washed down with three different wines, a white and two reds.  What could be better!

INGREDIENTS

I was both surprised and disappointed when the guide book to Spain I purchased in advance of our trip had no discussion whatsoever of Valencia and the surrounding region.  This city and its environs are one of Spain’s autonomous communities and with such a richness of culture and cuisine deserve to be discovered.  Like the farm to table movement, there is great emphasis on local produce and local fish and meats.  Below are some of the foodstuffs that were repeated in the meals we enjoyed. And, if I had taken copious notes, I could have reported on all the many and marvelous wines we sampled!

Eel.  I am not a big fan of eel, but we had it simmered with potatoes, garlic and paprika, smoked on endive, and flamed and dried.

Rice.  Every chef has his or her rice dish (arroz) and in addition to two kinds of paella, we had two dry rice preparations, one with mushrooms, a soupy wet rice with chicken (delicious!), and creamy rice with pumpkin and mussels and one with pork flank and mushrooms.  img_1601 img_1605

Tuna.  Tuna was served in several ways:  tuna belly with tuna rillettes, tuna cured in paprika, and tuna stuffed red peppers.

Pork.  The Iberian ham was delectable, but we also saw pork in a creamy rice dish and shoulder of pork crusty with onion ash and charred quince.  img_1588 img_1479

Seafood.  Prawns, langoustines, squid, and the occasional clam or snail appeared on some menus.  I like the shrimp family, but not always the squid.

Local fish.  Besides cod in several forms and we also ate red mullet which I found very fishy and strong.  img_1668

Fruits and vegetables.  No green salads the entire week unless you count the lettuce and sliced tomatoes on the breakfast buffet in Denia.  Lots of citrus—oranges, lemons, quince—and also apples and tomato added as a flavor component of several dishes.  Asparagus, beans, endive, and vegetable tempura.

Oreos.  We were told that it was de rigeur that each chef create an Oreo hors d’oeuvre. These are mini size (think an American quarter) and we had one with parmesan and bacon (think the cookie was made from squid) and another from white and black garlic with salted nougat filling.

Now we’re home and after all that food and wine, it’s time to diet!  And get back to our regular exercise.

All photos ©JWFarrington

Header photo–Calatrava building in Valencia