Gastronomy and Literature: The Perfect Mix

My favorite books are those that include food in some form, preferably in full descriptions of the way it was prepared and how it was presented.

So much of social interactions these days involves food. I'm talking about when people actually get together and talk, not fake communication like Facebook and other so-called 'social media'. Before long, if today's trend continues, no one will talk face to face (forget Skype-type chat), instead relying on impersonal contacts, if that.

Unlike so many people I know, I still read books. Real books, not e-book readers. Poetry is my latest passion. Recently I thought about all the wonderful food written about in the many books I've read. Here are my five favorite references to food:

1. 'Strawberries, and only strawberries...the best fruit in England', in Jane Austen's Emma.

2. The meal at the college Oxbridge, with its sole, partridges and pudding, in Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own.

3. Cliche, perhaps, but the gorgeous little formed cookies -- madeleines -- from Marcel Proust's Remembrance of Things Past.

4. The 'crusty bread rolls filled with chunks of brie and minced garlic drizzled with olive oil and baked until the brie was bubbly', in Supper, a poem in Garrison Keillor's 77 Love Sonnets.

5. The freshest tomatoes, basil and garlic for pasta, and the wild mushrooms and truffles, in Peter Mayle's A Year in Provence.

For those of you salivating over those food references, and perhaps wanting more, here is the rest of the meal in Keillor's sonnet. It's enough to make you dash to your nearest farmers market and grocery: 'salmon with dill and lemon and whole-wheat couscous baked with garlic and fresh ginger, and a hill of green beans and carrots roasted with honey and tofu.'

A Woman With No Name

I lost my name at age 18. That's when I married the first time and took my new husband's last name for my own. From then on, the name I had through childhood disappeared forever. Few of my friends these days even know what it was.

When I divorced, then remarried, I took my second husband's name for my own because I saw no reason to keep the last name of my former husband. So, once again, I became a woman without a name, at least a name that was my own.

Each name change there were papers to update, everything from driver's license to Social Security to legal records, such as mortgages, bank accounts and insurance policies. I was someone else yet again, which further diluted my real being.

It's not bad enough that I have no name, I can't even call my childhood surname my maiden name. I brought that up one time and feminists jumped all over me, saying that was not my maiden name but rather my family name. But it wasn't my family name. My maiden name was my father's surname, and my father deserted me when I was younger than four years old. Why would I want to use his name anyway? He wasn't my family.

The last name I really would like to use is that of my grandfather -- a solid German name carried by great-grandparents, uncles, male cousins, but not me. Besides, if I were to use it now it would look stupid. Sometimes I tell people my middle name is my last name. But that makes no sense either because it's obviously a middle name.

Our name is our identity. Everyone calls us by our names. Without them, we'd all be called Hey-You. When our names are taken away, we become nobodies.

Even though I was a byline reporter for a major California newspaper, I never thought that title represented me. It always was as if someone else had written the stories and had their name between the headline and the first word. I didn't exist. That byline wasn't my name. But it was. And it wasn't because I didn't and don't have a name any longer.

If you men out there think this is nothing, take away your last name and give yourself another one. Then you'll see how you identify with that name you've had since the day you were born. I don't have the name I had from day one.

Not long ago, my husband acquired a coat of arms and story about how and where his surname originated. He proudly displayed the framed print on our bedroom wall. Wasn't that special? For him, yes. For me, it meant nothing. It wasn't my name. It isn't my name. I don't have a name.

Anyone reading this may think I'm an embittered woman, sick and tired of men taking away our names. Not at all. I blame the women for allowing their names to be sucked into oblivion. Why would they do it? Why did I do it? Wanting to get along, I think. Don't mention it, don't stand up and keep your name (if that's the name you want to keep) because the romance may end or become contentious.

Besides, when I married the first time, only a few beatniks were keeping their names. When I married the second time, those were the days when women kept their maiden names and hyphenated them along with their newly married names. Beyond silly. No one knew what their names were. And if they had kids, I can't imagine the confusion.

It's too late for me to do much about my name. Everyone knows me by it now and I'll keep it. At the end, I hope someone will put just my first and middle names on the brass plaque along with my beginning and ending dates. Anything else will not be me.

The Poverty of the Wealth of Nations

Is capitalism in decline?

At the very least, it seems in need of first aid. Adam Smith, in The Wealth of Nations (1776), himself noted that capitalists are the biggest threat to capitalism. They don't like to compete, and so try to create monopolies and cartels to avoid competition. If they succeed on a large enough scale, capitalism (which is predicated on consumers and choice) ceases to exist. Thus, according to the father of capitalism, capitalists must be regulated.

Remember that capitalism requires consumers and choice, as well as bona fides between participants in a contract. In our society, most of the consumers are (or were) employees. The great capitalist Henry Ford recognized this when he opted to pay his workers an order of magnitude more than the going wages at the time. The businessmen at the time thought he was crazy. His reply was that if his employees couldn't afford his cars, he couldn't sell as many. Ford recognized the connection between his employees and the consumer pool that bought his products.

The problem we have is that most capitalists today no longer seem to see that connection between both the number and the pay scales of their employees and the demand for their own products. The consumer pool consists of all the employees, so it's easy to "cheat." If any individual company gets rid of employees or reduces their wages, the overall pool isn't hurt much. But if every company starts to do this, the economy goes into a negative spiral. Layoffs and salary reductions lead to fewer customers, which leads in turn to more layoffs and salary reductions.

If, during an economic downturn, businesses would reduce their expectations for profit and hence keep their employees on the payroll, the economy would stand a better chance of not falling as deeply, or at least bouncing back more quickly. Game theorists call this type of arrangement the Prisoner's Dilemma. If everyone plays nicely, everyone does better than he would be if he were playing alone. But by cheating, you can get the best of both worlds, as long as you are the only one cheating. Hunter-gatherer societies have strict penalties for those who are caught "cheating." It's clear that in our large, modern societies, we have not yet developed the processes to create and impose sanctions on those who cheat at Prisoner's Dilemma games. As people (investment bankers, hedge fund managers, union leaders, politicians, consumers who borrow more than they can pay back) see others cheating without severe penalties, they start to cheat too -- until the system falls apart.

Carter Family Redux on 3rd Generation CD

Growing up on farms in Illinois, Wisconsin and Missouri, I listened to the music of the house, namely my grandparents' houses on the various farms. That music was old-time country, specifically the Carter Family, Jimmie Rodgers, Roy Acuff, and others who often appeared at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville.

While some kids grew up listening to classical, swing and other favorites of the late 1940s and early- to mid-1950s, I took in and learned to love Appalachian folk combined with bluegrass and hill songs, Carter Family country.

A.P. Carter was the songcatcher, roaming the hills of Virginia to find songs that he then adapted to fit what he, his wife Sara, and sister-in-law Maybelle could play and sing, which became the Carter sound. Sara played guitar, Maybelle an autoharp and guitar.

Anyway, the original Carters are long gone as are most of their kids. Now we have the Carter Family III, third generation cousins John Carter Cash (son of June and Johnny Cash) and Dale Jett (son of A.P. and Sara's daughter Janette). Carter Family III has come out with a great album (includes John's wife, Laura Cash), called Past & Present.

I love the CD, which is filled with good, old-fashioned music that would make the Carters proud. I'm a nonbeliever, but I absolutely love their country gospel songs that make up about a quarter of the album. It's available from Amazon for less than $14. Unlike a lot of CDs, there's not a bad song on it.

Hail the Egyptian Protestors

They did it, those brave Egyptians who started and continued a revolution to remove the corrupt Egyptian president Mubarak.

No one knows what the future will bring for that country where most of its people live in poverty. But anything that pushed out the thief Mubarak (he and his family have taken at least $25 billion to their London house) is good for Egypt.

Now we await other citizens of countries where the leaders are corrupt and are stealing all of its resources to do the same. Think about it, United States. Doesn't that describe this country too?

Porking Out on Energy Subsidies

It's long past time to strip away all energy subsidies and preferences from the budget and the federal tax code. Let renewable energy and energy-efficient technology compete on a level playing field with the fossil fuels industry. The only way to ensure that level playing field is to completely halt the corporate subsidies.

Republicans are no better than Democrats. Bills passed by a Republican-controlled House and a Democrat-controlled Senate are awash in corporate subsidies, tax breaks, and regulatory preferences.

If a technology is economically competitive, no public subsidies are necessary. Conversely, if there's no demand for a technology, no amount of subsidies will make it so. Let's free energy markets instead of rigging them like a crooked boxing match.

The Real Heroes

When Americans are asked to name people they most respect and admire, they typically choose from the political, entertainment and sports worlds. Contemporary favorites might include Hillary, Barack or Sarah -- Oprah, Angelina or Justin -- Lebron, Tiger or Peyton. You won't find a single altruistic thought from one of those familiar names.

A list of people I currently admire includes a few who, unlike those named above, perform courageous deeds for others, sometimes at great risk to themselves: Greenpeace and animal-rights activists; Tunisian and Egyptian demonstrators revolting against oppressive dictatorships; Julian Assange of WikiLeaks and his sources like Pvt. Bradley Manning; and members of groups like Code Pink and Veterans for Peace who fight hard to bring an end to what has become endless foreign wars.

As time passes, there will be other names to add to my list, ordinary people doing ordinary and extraordinary things for others.

Simon Says

One of the greatest film and theater critics of the 20th century, John Simon, is actually blogging.

That such a literate and urbane (and famous) man of letters now resides in the blogosphere is surprising enough. That John Simon is doing so is doubly surprising; up until recently, I suppose, he wrote all his reviews and essays by hand initially, typing them clumsily, with two fingers, on an electric typewriter only after the pieces were finalized.

At any rate, enjoy a remarkable critic with a near-Menckenesque stature.

http://uncensoredsimon.blogspot.com/

It's Taken 20 Years But You Did It

About time, Clive. You finally admitted that I'm clever.

What a great way to start the new year!

Why Won't Wealthy Liberals Give More?

Very clever of you, Cassandra, not to explicitly admit that the greedy, selfish people you scorn in your post are many of them Liberals, as studies have shown.

Liberals proclaim their generosity and their humanity, and the rest of the country probably believes them. It's become a cultural meme: an unexamined assumption that spreads like a virus and never gets questioned or validated with actual data.

As it turns out, however, Liberals aren't quite so generous with their wealth as they want us to believe.

Arthur Brooks, the author of Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism, says that "when you look at the data, it turns out the conservatives give about 30 percent more." Brooks adds, "And incidentally, conservative-headed families make slightly less money [approximately 6 percent less than Liberals]." The differences between conservative generosity and Liberal generosity stretch beyond money: for example, conservatives are 18 percent more likely to donate blood.

Brooks: "You find that people who believe it's the government's job to make incomes more equal, are far less likely to give their money away." In fact, he writes, people who disagree that the government should redistribute income are 27 percent more likely to give to charity.

So stick that in your stockings, Libs.