My new Storytellers Unplugged essay went online this morning for your reading pleasure.
That was my main writing endeavor for the weekend. I also wrote a couple of book reviews, read the first 80 pages of Doug Clegg’s The Abandoned, watched Battle for the Planet of the Apes and watched a few flame wars. Better than TV.
I’d forgotten how bad the non-ape actors were in Battle. The “city folk” were okay, because they were supposed to be mad, but the humans in Ape City were wretchedly stilted. The “chase scene” up the tree at the end was also pretty painful to watch. Not the best of the batch by far.
Thanks for posting about Storytellers. I clicked the link the first or second time I saw you mention it and have been hooked ever since. It’s one of the most best collective blogs I’ve seen.
In today’s essay I liked the way you laid out different reactions to criticism and discussed the uses and merits of each. As an as-yet-unpublished writer I can definitely understand the urge to argue with critics, but the Amazon example you cite (among others) provides good motivation to stay quiet. I thought the “terrorist in the marketplace” comment was especially apt.
And thanks for the news on the POTA boxed set!
Bev, forgive me for this OT comment, but I can’t find your e-mail. I finally read the book you sent me ages ago, The Seasoning of a Chef — during our exile, I was more in the mood for fiction — and enjoyed it a great deal. I thought you might like to pass along my Amazon review to the authors.
Other readers seem to have come to this book with an odd set of expectations. You don’t read a book by a working chef for detailed descriptions of gorgeous meals. While the best chefs have a deep appreciation of food, they don’t spend hours rhapsodizing over the food they make; in fact, you might be surprised how seldom they even taste it. Unless they’re heading the kitchen, they seldom see the food being made at stations other than the one they’re working. People who want to read about eating (as opposed to cooking) would do better to seek out the works of Calvin Trillin, Jeffrey Steingarten, M.F.K. Fisher, Ruth Reichl, and others who’ve spent more time in the dining room than the kitchen.
It’s also fairly superfluous to criticize a head chef — or someone who aspires to be a head chef — for being a snob. Egalitarian cooks usually end up as journeyman cooks working in inferior kitchens, since they’ve never developed a stringent set of standards for themselves. Sure, Anthony Bourdain tells amusing stories with plenty of sex and drugs, but he has described himself as a journeyman. Here is the story of a cook who aspires to be more than that, and who’s more interested in the work itself than the after-work debauchery. KITCHEN CONFIDENTIAL was a terrific book, but in the wake of its tiresome imitators looking to top one another with tales of restaurant excess, I found Doug Psaltis’ single-minded work ethic refreshing. It is seen too seldom, both in restaurant kitchens and in the body of literature that has begun to emerge from them.
THE SEASONING OF A CHEF is a convincing and seemingly honest look at the inner workings of several kitchens, and, more broadly, at the development of one serious cook. I won’t deny that Psaltis comes off as a bit insufferable at times, as when he declares that cooks who have families and children aren’t really dedicated to the business — most of the finest chefs I’ve known have had significant others and/or families — but he’s young yet and one hopes he will find someone able to share an admittedly hard life. The tale of the debacle that was Mix is particularly entertaining, especially if you’ve had occasion to deal with corporate front-of-the-house pinheads who didn’t understand how a kitchen works, or if you are close to someone who has. I look forward to hearing about — and from — Doug Psaltis again in the future.
Thanks for your comments. I’m always glad to hear when people enjoy the essays.