Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Still, your command of, uh, language makes Bourdain sound like a schoolgirl.
  

    
slippery mig
  

    
Wow... I guess I really DO have to read him.  

I still think it's a little funny how caught up people get on my
language.  I don't even think about it when I'm writing it, or at least
I didn't until people kept pointing out I've got a mouth like a
stevedore.  

What can I say... I came by it honestly.  In the bosom of the family,
so to speak. 
  

    
E Ross writes, from off-Well:

Please... in your negotiating with whoever/whatever publisher, include a
meeting with JC...before it is too late.
  

    
I wake up in the middle of the night sometimes, convinced that Julia's
passed away, with this terrible sense of a missed opportunity.

And then all day I agonize over the letter I want to write her. 

I'm pathetic.
  

    


Cari Pinkowski writes:


Subject: food writing- not to be missed

one exceptionally entertaining food writer is Richard Olney- ---"Simple
French Food" --he's sort of Oscar Wilde-ish--
  

    
And Millie says:

Has the past year impacted your enjoyment of restaurant food?  Do you
find yourself analyzing how they did produced it or thinking if they'd
just....? 

On a side note, since you answered questions about grocery stores,
what about favorite restaurants?  Both in New York and back in Texas. 

Oh, and think about and audio book as well as a written book, heck if
the Bridget Jones Diaries could be made into a movie, so could your
blog!!   
  

    <scribbled by tnf Wed 10 Sep 03 10:36>
  

    
(oops - Bruce already posted that one!)
  

    
(That's what I said when I saw the first one of yours!)
  

    

Love Richard Olney. LOVE.


One of my favorite food books ever is the Alice B. Toklas Cookbook, which
has its slow spots, but provides amazing snapshots of culinary life in
France around the time of the second world war.
  

    
You made me dig out my copy of Mastering the Art and make PORK CHOPS. It 
was the one recipe you posted about that didn't sound overwhelmingly 
complicated for a weeknight. Cannot believe you did full menus during the 
work week. I just had some steamed green beans with it and felt like I had 
cooked plenty.
  

    
Pork chops taste goooood.

Olney is definitely someone I want to read -- Julia is a fan,
actually, from what I hear.  

You know, as far as restaurants go, I suppose I'm a little more
critical, but not in a very analytical way -- it's not like I'm sitting
a La Grenouille muttering that the quenelles are about as light as a
brick or anything.  For fuck's sake -- I'm not a chef, what right to I
have to complain about food that someone else, someone with a hell of a
lot more expertise than me I might add, is making for me?

But I do find generally that eating out, the odd extraordinary
appetizer aside, is unsatisfying in comparison to home cooking.  This
is probably mostly because I go mostly to crappy restaurants.  I'm sure
if I was dining at Daniel and Ducasse I'd have a different experience.
 And I actually did have a brilliant meal recently at Esca.  Lovely
beginning to end.  Of course, that was partly because I was with the
kind of people who make a business of being treated VERY well in
restaurants.

I'll get back to a list of favorite restaurants a little later --
today's D-Day at my office, I have to go reflect and shit.

I feel so bad... This is the hugest time probably ever where I work,
my poor boss is going crazy, and I'm all -- "Oh, wait, I have to finish
this post for the Well," or "I'd love to stay late, I really would,
but I've got this publishers' meeting...."
  

    


oh right, this must be quite a busy day down there.

i've heard several very glowing reports about Esca now. may have to try it.

do you find when you're eating out now, julie, that you will mutter to
yourself as you peruse the menu, "why should i pay XYZ dollars for *that,*
it's just a fancy presentation of a (roast chicken/linguine with clam
sauce/scrambled eggs/whatever"?
  

    
I guess so.  I think I tend to analyze the menus a bit more.  I'm not
going to waste my time and money on a roast chicken I can make at home
for 5 bucks.  I think I've started looking at restaurants more as a way
to experiment with food I can't or haven't done at home.  

Barbecue, for instance.  God, my kingdom for barbecue.
  

    
David from Fedex writes:

Julie - Memphis has the best barbecue in the world.  I can
overnight you and Eric some from the Rendezvous, if you'd
like.  It comes on dry ice and you pop it in the oven for a
little while.  Just let me know.
  

    
Memphis barbecue.   Feh!
  

    

oh please, let's not. boring.



julie - i do the same thing at restaurants these days. incredibly reluctant
to order anything i can reliably make myself. it does force one to order
more adventurously, which is a good thing.
  

    
Julie, have you been to France since doing this project?  Any plans, wishes,
regions or restaurants in mind?
  

    
From still another correspondent:

Julie, 

As a fellow writer and avowed hater of people, I’ve been watching your
metamorphosis from office drudge to celebrity with keen interest.  You
are almost a sort of sociology experiment.  I intend no offense. 

A few questions arise in my mind: 

1.  You’ve started this juggernaut, and at this point it would be
rather unsporting to back off and say, “Whoa, folks.  Step back and
gimme space”.  So, how do you cope with the, no doubt, constant flow of
human contact coming into your life now?  You seem to be a quick
study.  I mean, you've figured out how to play the dreaded game with
great aplomb.  But don't you ever want to just tell us all to go fuck
ourselves?  

2.  You see yourself as a writer above and beyond all else, but are
you concerned that the Julie/Julia Project has already or will in the
future affect your desire—if I’m correct in thinking it is your
desire—to be seen as a “serious writer”?  (yeah, yeah, whatever that
is)  You say that you have a few unfinished novels.  What sort of
writing, other than your blog, do you do? 

Thanks so much for you time. 

Mary  
  

    <hidden>
  

    
Oh God I'm SOOOOOOOO SORRY ABOUT THAT!!!!!  Big mistake.
  

    
To reiterate:  VERY sorry.  I had a cut-n-paste disaster.
  

    
(If you want, you can make that go away, and repost it in a new post.  Save
the content, click the number on your own post (it is a link to "hide" or
"scribble" the post.  Hide makes it a click away, and is good for long
digressions.  Scribble blanks it out, leaving only a notice that a post was
removed in that way.  or let it be)
  

    
and I don't know what you're apologizing for!