Jacques Pépin
is world renowned as the host of his acclaimed and popular cooking programs on
public television, and as a prolific author, respected instructor, and gifted
artist. Pépin has been awarded the
highest honor by the French Government and holds the title of CHEVALIER DE
L'ORDRE NATIONAL DE LA LEGION D'HONNEUR.
Pépin is the host of many popular public television programs, including the
series Jacques Pépin: More Fast Food My
Way, premiering in October, 2008.
Featuring recipes for fast, healthy meals, this will be the twelfth
series hosted by Pépin and produced by KQED Public Media in San Francisco. His memoir, The Apprentice: My Life in the Kitchen, was published by Houghton
Mifflin in 2003 and in paperback in May, 2004.
Pépin’s book, published by Stewart Tabori & Chang in April 2007, is
a visual biography, Chez Jacques: Traditions
and Rituals of a Cook. He is also a
proud grandfather of his daughter Claudine’s first child, Shorey. Pépin was born in Bourg-en-Bresse, near Lyon.
His first exposure to cooking was as a
child in his parents' restaurant, Le Pelican. At age thirteen, he began his formal
apprenticeship at the distinguished Grand Hotel de L’Europe in his hometown. He subsequently worked in Paris, training
under Lucien Diat at the Plaza Athénée. From 1956 to 1958, Pépin was the personal chef
to three French heads of state, including Charles de Gaulle. Moving to the United States in 1959, Pépin
worked first at New York's historic Le Pavillon restaurant, then served for ten
years as director of research and new development for the Howard Johnson
Company, a position that taught him about mass production, marketing, food
chemistry, and American food tastes. He
studied at Columbia University during this period, ultimately earning an M.A.
degree in 18th-century French literature in 1972. In 1997, on the 50th anniversary of the
creation of the School of General Studies at Columbia, Pépin was honored with
four other distinguished alumni of the School, each representing a different
decade in its history. http://www.pbs.org/food/chefs/jacques-pepin/ "Cooking is giving." - spoken by Jacques Pépin during an American Masters PBS program on Alice Waters and the
Edible Schoolyard viewed in Toledo area January 12, 2019
The Chef Who Saved My Life by Brett Martin I emerged from the subway and stood blinking in the hot
sun at Grand Street and Broadway. Across
the street, on the corner, sat the International Culinary Center. Jacques Pépin had been a dean at the school
since 1988, when it was still called the French Culinary Institute. I hadn't eaten, and I felt shaky and
weak. With ten minutes to kill, I went
looking for something to stabilize my stomach.
At a bodega, I scanned the refrigerator case for anything I could choke
down. Blindly, I settled on some kind of
protein drink. I gagged as much down as
I could before throwing the rest away.
Then, I crossed the street and went upstairs. I knew enough about Pépin's stature to feel
sheepish about taking up his time for such a small story. I expected to spend a quick twenty minutes,
ask my questions and get out of there.
An assistant led me to the cluttered office where Pépin waited. He extended a hand to shake, one of the most
extraordinary hands I'd ever seen: angular
and bony, with an exceptionally long middle finger, thick pads at the tip of
each digit, and a thumb that protruded at an odd angle upwards. It seemed at once wrecked by years of kitchen
work and oddly delicate; the hand of a workman and an artist. How one
should, of course, have a gas stove but opt for the consistency of an electric
oven, preferably placed high on the wall, to avoid excessive bending. How, contrariwise, a side-by-side fridge and
freezer is a waste of space and the freezer as bottom drawer is preferable. How most gadgets are useless and fail the
Closet Test—i.e. that anything you stick in one will never be used. How there should be good light, good music,
and a good view, if possible, and a place for your guests to perch to drink
wine and watch you work. These were all
simple, concrete, tactile tips based on a fundamental view of eating as a
central part of life and the effort of cooking as an integral part of the
pleasure itself. What I noticed most,
though, was how completely Pépin was granting me his attention, how present and
engaged he was, despite the banality of my questions. It was a simple thing, but weirdly magical,
allowing the rest of the world to fade away as we chatted. Twenty minutes passed quickly, then forty,
then an hour. I was surprised to find my
shoulders starting to relax. It was now
approaching noon and finally I got up to leave. "Would you like something to eat?"
Pépin's assistant asked. I assumed this
was just a courtesy and prepared to beg off.
"Will you join me?" I asked Pépin, sending the courtesy back. "Of course," he said. "It's lunchtime!" I can think of no better summary than an
interview conducted by the photographer Melanie Dunea for her book My
Last Supper: 50 Great Chefs and
Their Final Meals. His answer to
the question of what his final meal would be begins: The menu for my last meal would be
eclectic, relaxed, informal, and would go on for a very, very long time—years!
. . . I cannot conceive of anything better than the greatest baguette, deep
golden, nutty, and crunchy, with a block of the sublime butter of Brittany and
Bélon oysters. I would consume tons of
the best beluga caviar with my wife, dispose of the best boiled ham and the
most excellent Iberíco ham, and would eat eggs cooked in butter, scrambled,
mollet-style or sunny-side up, with the ham.
And the list continues: fingerling
potatoes cooked in goose fat, pâté of pheasant with black truffles, a lobster
roll, a hot dog, apricots, cherries, white and wine peaches, "I would pile
homemade apricot jam onto thin, buttery crêpes, hot from the pan and accompany
them with a Bollinger Brut 1996 champagne." Read much more and see graphics at https://www.gq.com/story/food-and-life
Plovdiv, the oldest city in Bulgaria, has been
officially inaugurated as the European Capital of Culture for 2019. Squeezed
between the Balkan and the Rodopi Mountains, Bulgaria's second-largest city has
survived for thousands of years on the crossroads between Western Europe and
the Middle East. Plovdiv claims to be
the oldest continually inhabited European city, with more than 6,000 years of
history. Evidence of that can be seen in
many architectural landmarks dating back to Thracian, Greek, Roman, Byzantine
and Ottoman times. Some 350 cultural
events are scheduled in Plovdiv this year, including an exhibition featuring
fragments of the Berlin Wall to mark 30 years since its fall. Plovdiv, the first Bulgarian city to become a
European culture capital, was also named among The New York Times' list of 52
places to go in 2019. It shares the 2019
culture title with the Italian city of Matera.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/destinations/2019/01/12/plovdiv-bulgarias-oldest-city-honored-european-culture-capital/2558024002/ See also https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/48-hours-in/plovdiv-bulgaria-what-to-do-best-restaurants-hotels-culture-holiday-weekend-break-a8472691.html
Like Rome, Plovdiv was built on
seven hills and ancient ruins are still scattered around the city. Most impressive is the Roman Theatre, a
second-century ruin and one of the world’s best-preserved antique theatres.
In its first issue of 2019, National
Geographic named a shop in Buenos Aires, Argentina "the
world's most beautiful bookstore." NPR was ahead of the curve. Bob Mondello filed this report 18 years ago,
shortly after the Teatro Gran Splendid was converted into El Ateneo Grand
Splendid. Impresario
Max Glücksmann wanted his new theater, the Teatro Gran Splendid, to remind people
of the Paris Opera. He had it built in 1919 with three ornately decorated
balconies hugging the back wall of a 1,050-seat auditorium. It's decked out with gilded statues, marble
columns and a ceiling mural celebrating the end of World War I. In the days before air conditioning, the
domed roof opened in good weather to give theater audiences a glimpse of the
stars. It is a spectacular space. After a $3 million renovation, it's no less
grand than at any time in the decades since it was built. There is one difference today. Where once the vast auditorium was filled
with rows of theater seats, it now has rows of bookshelves. The Gran Splendid has been converted into
what is quite possibly the most spectacular bookstore on earth. The transformation is the brainchild of
Adolfo de Vincenzi, who has loved this theater since his student days and still
recalls films he saw here (one of them being "a movie of Liv Ullmann and
Ingrid Bergman, Sonata Otoñal [Autumn Sonata]")
whenever he could take a break from his accounting classes three blocks
away. See pictures at https://www.npr.org/2019/01/12/684636807/inside-the-world-s-most-beautiful-bookstore-in-argentina Patrick Jarenwattananon adapted this archival
story for Web in 2019.
What Do Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Collars Mean? Each One Has A Special Story by KAVITHA
GEORGE Supreme Court judicial robes don't leave a lot of
room for accessorizing, and Justice Ginsburg adds flair (and often political
statements) to her ensembles. "The
standard robe is made for a man because it has a place for the shirt to show,
and the tie," RBG said in a 2009 interview with The Washington Post. "So Sandra Day O'Connor and I thought it
would be appropriate if we included as part of our robe something typical of a
woman." One statement collar came
from the New York Metropolitan Opera gift shop.
It is a replica of the collar worn by Plácido Domingo in Verdi's
opera, Stiffelio. Domingo surprised Ginsburg with a serenade when
she received an honorary law degree from Harvard. Read
more and see pictures at https://www.bustle.com/p/what-do-ruth-bader-ginsburgs-collars-mean-each-one-has-a-special-story-9288551
"Snowflake" is a term used to describe used an
overly sensitive person who thinks the world revolves around them. The name comes from the phrase "special
snowflake", meaning somebody who is self-obsessed and fragile, easily
offended, or unable to deal with opposing opinions. It became popular in 2016 when some older
generations scoffed at young people's "hysterical" reaction to the EU
referendum result. The word has become
so popular it was added to the Oxford English Dictionary in January 2018. The experts say snowflake is "now used
as an insult to describe someone who is ‘overly sensitive or as feeling
entitled to special treatment or consideration’. "The word in fact once had positive
connotations and was used to describe children with a unique personality and
potential." "Snowflake"
first became popular as an insult in the US after the release of 1996 Brad Pitt
film Fight Club. One of the prominent
lines, "You are not special. You
are not a beautiful and unique snowflake," clearly struck a chord and the
phrase took off. Chuck Palahniuk,
who wrote the cult book the film was based on, has claimed he invented the
term. America's Miriam-Webster
dictionary reckons snowflake has been used as an insult for nearly 150 years,
but with a different meaning. It says: "In the 1970s snowflake was a disparaging
term for a white man or for a black man who was seen as acting white. It was also used as a slang term for cocaine. "But before either of those it was used
for a time with a very particular political meaning. In Missouri in the early 1860s, a snowflake
was a person who was opposed to the abolition of slavery. George
Harrison https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/5115128/snowflake-generation-meaning-origin-term/
"There are mysteries in
science, and mysteries in
art, but the greatest mystery has always been another
person's deepest
motivation." " . . . it is
not the truth that matters; it is
the untruth that
is nonetheless believed." A Dancer in the Dust, 2014 novel by Thomas H.
Cook
Tips for brewing a perfect cup of tea
from Gretchen Fayeweather (Clara J's Tea Room) Heat water
in glass container, not metal. Steep
green teas 2-3 minutes; black teas 3-5 minutes; and herbal teas up to 10
minutes. The Buzz Book, a guide to the
very best in Northwest Ohio Winter
2018
RIVERS OF CONFECTION 2019: A section of Interstate 40 near Flagstaff, Arizona,
was covered in chocolate after a tanker trailer carrying more than 40,000 pounds of the liquid overturned January
14, 2019. https://abcnews.go.com/beta-story-container/US/river-chocolate-blocks-traffic-arizona-highway-tanker-carrying/story?id=60375762 1919: On
January 15, 1919, a tank of molasses burst, releasing a thick, sugary tsunami
down the streets of Boston's North End. This
"Great Molasses Flood" killed 21 people, injured 150, and had impacts
far beyond the Boston waterfront. When
the tank burst, it unleashed a 30-foot-high wave of 2.3 million gallons of
molasses that moved 35 mph down Commercial Street. The neighborhood was destroyed, coated in a
thick, sticky layer of molasses.
THOUGHT FOR TODAY
The trees that are slow to
grow bear the best fruit. - Moliere, actor and playwright (15 Jan 1622-1673)
http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com January 15, 2019 Issue 2022
No comments:
Post a Comment