How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Martini
Sally Bowles, Gordon Ramsey, and a painful farewell…
Posted 8th January 2009 at 04:55 PM by Irene Wilde
Welcome back everyone! I hope this finds the Devoted Three all safe and sound and hopefully not too broke. So, what did Irene do over her hols? Lots of reading, of course, a responsible amount of imbibing, and suffered through the worst personal disaster a hard-working, 21st Century , Angeleno can live through (more on that later).
First to the reading! All sorts of books in my stocking this year. I fell further in love with Tim Gunn after reading his “Guide to Style, Quality & Taste,” not because it’s the best book of its sort, but how many women’s fashion guides can invoke Soren Kierkegaard in a chapter on closet organization? Tim, darling, we really need two things from you – i) lots more stories about your mother -- she sounds a treat! ii) a real in-depth history of fashion type deal that explains to us busy working moms not only what works, but where it came from, who designed it, who wore it best, and how it’s fared over time. In the meantime, if any of the Devoted Three need motivation to clean out your closet or made a new year’s resolution to do something about the state of your clothing, think of this volume as a little piece of motivation, provided in Tim’s charming, constructive, inspirational, no-nonsense manner that so quickly made him America’s favorite gay uncle.
Now, about Gordon Ramsay – you know the one thing I don’t know at all? If Mr. Ramsay can actually cook. And after reading “Roasting in Hell’s Kitchen,” I still don’t know. This was more tabloid/celeb/bio than anything to do with cooking, food, how Gordon relates to cooking or food – it felt like a ghost-written answer to the tabs -- “Oh no, Gordon’s this really nice bloke, honest!” The parts about young Gordon growing up poor read true enough (powdered milk, that’s a detail you don’t forget if you lived it), but how he became passionate about food, what keeps him interested, what challenges him – there’s very little. He took a catering course, it seemed to annoy his father a great deal, and whoosh, he’s off to become a chef, whoosh, he’s in some of the finest kitchens in France, whoosh he’s opening his own place, whoosh he’s now on at least three different tv programs on two continents. Further, he seems more like Donald Trump than Careme, worrying about business models, expansion, and how much he’s been on television. Saddest thing, reading this book did not make me hungry. Any book about cooking/food/chefs/restaurants -- even if it is ghost-written tabloid fodder -- should make me want to eat! It’s not like it’s that hard!
Enough! Now let’s talk about the good stuff – “The Berlin Stories.” I’ve thought and thought about what I could say about this collection, but so much has already been said, and almost all of it is true. It is an amazing volume, written at an historic time in an historic place, by a gay writer who really went off to the Berlin because that’s Where the Boys Are (or Were, as the case maybe). Yes, Isherwood’s narrative style -- “a camera with the shutter open wide” -- is a fantastic way to meet his characters, and no, there’s no way he could know what would happen in Germany in the ensuing years, but yes, he provides frightening glimpses…all said and re-said by finer wordsmiths than me. And yes, it was the basis for both a musical (“Cabaret”) and non-musical (“I Am A Camera”) play and films based on both plays, probably the most famous being “Cabaret,” one of the greatest film musicals of all time. I don’t think there’s one original word I can add to the lexicon. Except this, and it’s probably hardly original, and certainly applies to more than just “The Berlin Stories,” – Isherwood did the thing that you and I and everybody else ought to do: he got out there and saw the world. Nothing replaces experience, and while reading “The Berlin Stories” is a wonderful experience, it is nothing to seeing Berlin, where the history of everything before Sally Bowles and everything after, the full and complete picture – not just the soundbites offered on The Hitler Channel – is all still there, waiting to be explored and discovered by you. Isherwood had his “Berlin Stories” and Irene has her “Berlin Stories” – but everyone should have his or her own, and if not Berlin, then London, Paris, New York, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Mumbai, Cairo, Beijing, Moscow, Sydney…it’s all getting on the first train. Maybe you meet Mr. Norris, maybe you meet Uncle Billy, maybe you meet Sally Bowles, or you just might meet Irene Wilde, you never know, bringing us back to motivation and inspiration – at the start of the new year maybe your goal is to travel? Maybe it should be.
Just one more thing before wishing you all the best 2009 can offer us: a final and heartfelt farewell to my “Gizmo,” better known as my three-year-old T-Mobile Sidekick II. The Devoted Three are well acquainted with my handheld/cell phone that I used for everything except, with rare exception, talking on the phone. It’s been with me since I started the adventure of taking the train into downtown LA five days a week. It’s kept me in touch with the Devoted Three and more. Sure, it was inadequate to the task of many of the larger and more complex websites, and yes the “qwerty” keyboard was almost worn through in spots and buckled in the summer heat. It didn’t have a built-in mp3 player, or video capability, and its camera was a joke. Newer, sleeker, shinier devices kept coming out and I kept waiting for just the right one, because after all, it would be replacing my trusty Gizmo. So I’d been looking and looking, but not quite certain what to do, and then, it was gone. It was actually painful when I learned that the big red X that greeted me the morning before Christmas meant Gizmo was no more. It’s just technology, I know, just a tool. But those morning train rides certainly were lonely without all of you there to share them.
So now I have a shiny new G1 with a touchscreen and multi-media – it could possibly even make breakfast for me! It’s a new year -- time for a change. Prairie Oysters, darling!
Prairie Oyster
Ingredients:
1 teaspoon Worcestershire Sauce
1 tablespoon Tomato Juice
1 whole Egg Yolk
2 dashes Vinegar
1 dash Pepper
Method:
Pour ingredients in order into wine glass, stir gently, taking care to not break the yolk.
First to the reading! All sorts of books in my stocking this year. I fell further in love with Tim Gunn after reading his “Guide to Style, Quality & Taste,” not because it’s the best book of its sort, but how many women’s fashion guides can invoke Soren Kierkegaard in a chapter on closet organization? Tim, darling, we really need two things from you – i) lots more stories about your mother -- she sounds a treat! ii) a real in-depth history of fashion type deal that explains to us busy working moms not only what works, but where it came from, who designed it, who wore it best, and how it’s fared over time. In the meantime, if any of the Devoted Three need motivation to clean out your closet or made a new year’s resolution to do something about the state of your clothing, think of this volume as a little piece of motivation, provided in Tim’s charming, constructive, inspirational, no-nonsense manner that so quickly made him America’s favorite gay uncle.
Now, about Gordon Ramsay – you know the one thing I don’t know at all? If Mr. Ramsay can actually cook. And after reading “Roasting in Hell’s Kitchen,” I still don’t know. This was more tabloid/celeb/bio than anything to do with cooking, food, how Gordon relates to cooking or food – it felt like a ghost-written answer to the tabs -- “Oh no, Gordon’s this really nice bloke, honest!” The parts about young Gordon growing up poor read true enough (powdered milk, that’s a detail you don’t forget if you lived it), but how he became passionate about food, what keeps him interested, what challenges him – there’s very little. He took a catering course, it seemed to annoy his father a great deal, and whoosh, he’s off to become a chef, whoosh, he’s in some of the finest kitchens in France, whoosh he’s opening his own place, whoosh he’s now on at least three different tv programs on two continents. Further, he seems more like Donald Trump than Careme, worrying about business models, expansion, and how much he’s been on television. Saddest thing, reading this book did not make me hungry. Any book about cooking/food/chefs/restaurants -- even if it is ghost-written tabloid fodder -- should make me want to eat! It’s not like it’s that hard!
Enough! Now let’s talk about the good stuff – “The Berlin Stories.” I’ve thought and thought about what I could say about this collection, but so much has already been said, and almost all of it is true. It is an amazing volume, written at an historic time in an historic place, by a gay writer who really went off to the Berlin because that’s Where the Boys Are (or Were, as the case maybe). Yes, Isherwood’s narrative style -- “a camera with the shutter open wide” -- is a fantastic way to meet his characters, and no, there’s no way he could know what would happen in Germany in the ensuing years, but yes, he provides frightening glimpses…all said and re-said by finer wordsmiths than me. And yes, it was the basis for both a musical (“Cabaret”) and non-musical (“I Am A Camera”) play and films based on both plays, probably the most famous being “Cabaret,” one of the greatest film musicals of all time. I don’t think there’s one original word I can add to the lexicon. Except this, and it’s probably hardly original, and certainly applies to more than just “The Berlin Stories,” – Isherwood did the thing that you and I and everybody else ought to do: he got out there and saw the world. Nothing replaces experience, and while reading “The Berlin Stories” is a wonderful experience, it is nothing to seeing Berlin, where the history of everything before Sally Bowles and everything after, the full and complete picture – not just the soundbites offered on The Hitler Channel – is all still there, waiting to be explored and discovered by you. Isherwood had his “Berlin Stories” and Irene has her “Berlin Stories” – but everyone should have his or her own, and if not Berlin, then London, Paris, New York, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Mumbai, Cairo, Beijing, Moscow, Sydney…it’s all getting on the first train. Maybe you meet Mr. Norris, maybe you meet Uncle Billy, maybe you meet Sally Bowles, or you just might meet Irene Wilde, you never know, bringing us back to motivation and inspiration – at the start of the new year maybe your goal is to travel? Maybe it should be.
Just one more thing before wishing you all the best 2009 can offer us: a final and heartfelt farewell to my “Gizmo,” better known as my three-year-old T-Mobile Sidekick II. The Devoted Three are well acquainted with my handheld/cell phone that I used for everything except, with rare exception, talking on the phone. It’s been with me since I started the adventure of taking the train into downtown LA five days a week. It’s kept me in touch with the Devoted Three and more. Sure, it was inadequate to the task of many of the larger and more complex websites, and yes the “qwerty” keyboard was almost worn through in spots and buckled in the summer heat. It didn’t have a built-in mp3 player, or video capability, and its camera was a joke. Newer, sleeker, shinier devices kept coming out and I kept waiting for just the right one, because after all, it would be replacing my trusty Gizmo. So I’d been looking and looking, but not quite certain what to do, and then, it was gone. It was actually painful when I learned that the big red X that greeted me the morning before Christmas meant Gizmo was no more. It’s just technology, I know, just a tool. But those morning train rides certainly were lonely without all of you there to share them.
So now I have a shiny new G1 with a touchscreen and multi-media – it could possibly even make breakfast for me! It’s a new year -- time for a change. Prairie Oysters, darling!
Prairie Oyster
Ingredients:
1 teaspoon Worcestershire Sauce
1 tablespoon Tomato Juice
1 whole Egg Yolk
2 dashes Vinegar
1 dash Pepper
Method:
Pour ingredients in order into wine glass, stir gently, taking care to not break the yolk.
Total Comments 2
Comments
-
Of course Gordon Ramsay can cook although I'm sure he can't keep up with an energetic 20-something in the kitchen. And yes, by all accounts he's a pussycat outside of the kitchen.Posted 12th January 2009 at 03:54 PM by sparkchaser 
- Yeah, all you tough guys are really pussycats underneath.
Posted 13th January 2009 at 07:01 PM by Irene Wilde
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