From Kittens To Kids

As a mere mortal, nay a serf, in the culinary realm where master chefs reign supreme (yes, I am a huge fan of the Japanese "Iron Chef"), I can only dream of enjoying the bonhomie of great chefs as we partake of a sublime feast together.  Alas, such an honor is and never will be in the cards.

Which is why the book "My Last Supper" by Melanie Dunea is such a gift.  In it, she interviews 50 great chefs with a simple set of questions: 

What would be your last meal on earth?
What would be the setting for the meal?
What would you drink with your meal?
Would there be music?
Who would be your dining companions?
Who would prepare the meal?

With a foreword by Anthony Bourdain, how could I resist?  And by the way, that photo of him on Page 19?  Classic  Bourdain.  Shock and awe, disturbingly and hilariously sexy.

What's fascinating about this book is that each chef's narrative of his last supper provides a rare piercing look into the intimate core of his being.  I doubt it was intended.  Rather, that, like a last confession, thoughts of your last supper rouse an introspection that yields, if one is honest, notes of truth and clarity about who we are, what we value and how we choose to live our lives.

I thought it would be fun to share with you MY idea of the perfect last meal.  I wonder what it tells me about me?  

KAREEN'S LAST SUPPER
 What would be your last meal on earth?
 Since it's my last meal, I would like to savor the magic alchemy of the freshest ingredients prepared by a chef who respects food and nature.

My appetite is generally light, so I would have a tasting menu of the best of French, Japanese, Thai, Singaporean and Chinese flavors.  It would go something like this: 

Appetizers:  a malpeque oyster with lemon and salt (a small little oyster, not too briny),  a piece of otoro sushi with chef-brewed smoked soy sauce and fresh grated wasabi. 

Entrees:  seared foie gras with plum sauce, a soft-boiled egg from a home-raised quail topped with fresh black truffle shavings, Thai green papaya salad with a slice of seared and tender medium rare beef, a lump of crab meat cooked with honey and crushed black pepper Singapore style, a piece of Soon Hock or pompano steamed with soy sauce, ginger and scallions Teochew style served sitting in its cooking juices with a tiny bowl of steamed white rice, a small piece of perfectly roasted chicken breast (of a home-raised young chicken) with crispy salted skin served with a tiny bowl of double-boiled chicken soup. 

Dessert:  A quartet of "onee" (a Teochew confection of fluffy yam, lard and gingko nuts); durian pudding made with gula melaka (an Indonesian palm sugar) and real coconut milk squeezed from a freshly-grated coconut, accented by a thin slice of Gouda; a small slice of ripe Pakistani mango; and three seedless segments of the sweetest mangosteen.

 What would be the setting for the meal?
 A table set with a pure white tablecloth, on a stone patio overlooking a deep blue sea. It would be late summer or early fall, when the days are long and the twilight hours stretch deep into the evening. The wind would gently caress the canopy of the magnificent trees that shelter us. There would be thoughtful outdoor lighting, soft candles and beautiful flowers on the table.  No mosquitoes.  The perfume of Shoyeido incense will tantalize with its subtle fragrance.

 What would you drink with your meal?
  Sips only of a lime margarita or caipirinha with the oyster, green tea with the otoro, a sommelier's recommendation of a mellow red and a sweet Riesling with the entrees and a glass of water from an unspoilt spring.  For dessert, an eisweinn.

 Would there be music?
 I would play a CD of favorite songs from Keane, Aerosmith, Alison Krauss, Bruce Springsteen, Joe Cocker, Willie Nelson, Diana Krall, Norah Jones, Shania Twain, Elvis Presley, Mariah Carey (too many to name), plus operatic arias from La Boheme, La Traviata, The Magic Flute, and classic pieces by Bach, Mozart and Pachelbel.  After the guests have left, I would enjoy in solitude the haunting beauty of Ave Maria sung by Renee Fleming, followed by a last dance with my husband to the strains of Crazy sung by Diana Krall.

 Who would be your dining companions?
  My husband, family and a few close friends.

 Who would prepare your meal?
  A great French chef and a great Japanese chef who has worked in a Singaporean kitchen.  In this fantasy, these chefs would be personal friends.

That's the title of the book by Nina DiSesa.

Go read it, then give it to your daughter and get her to read it.

It's really hard for any woman to prove herself in a man's world. Nina tells you how she did it, with charm and aplomb, accepting men for what they are, embracing the best of what they have to offer, and meeting them halfway across the male-female chasm.

A bio, expose, self-help book, chick lit – whatever you call it, the Chairman of the largest advertising network in the world tells it as she has lived it.  It's a fun read.

I noticed that Nina mentioned empathy as an attribute that woman have, that men simply don't have.  I was just thinking the other day, that male doctors are incapable of empathy.  They could be the most technically-competent physicians in the world, and have the best of intentions…they could even be conscious of a desire to display more empathy, but their perfunctory rehearsed routines feel like, well … a rehearsed routine.

When a female doctor kicks ass at what she does, AND exudes natural empathy for her patients – POW! She blows your socks off.

'Nuf said. I guess I agree with Nina that it is important for women to bring their own strengths to the table, and when you do so, you can shine in a way that no man can.  Hallelujah, Amen.

 

“And if you look over there on the right, you can see an angel statue.  It was placed there in honor of Thomas Wolfe, who was born in Asheville, North Carolina and this was the place on which he based his famous novel “Look Homeward, Angel.”

The tour guide beamed proudly at us as she conveys this piece of local history on the ride back to the hotel after dinner.

“Really? Thomas Wolfe – the writer of the greatest short story ever written in human history?  I’m in HIS hometown?  Pinch me!”

Wolfe’s collection of short stories sits on my bookshelf at home.  It is a well-worn, often-read treasure; my favorite story is “I have a thing to tell you”.  The story-telling is so tight; the language so crisp.  And, he ends it with a page of hauntingly beautiful prose, as he delivers his indictment against Nazi Germany.

I quote a bit of it down below, but as you read it, just know that this quote does NOT do the author nor the story enough justice.  Read the whole short story, and I think you’ll know what I mean. 
  

"I have a thing to tell you. Something has spoken to me in the night, burning the tapers of the waning year; something has spoken in the night; and told me I shall die, I know not where. Losing the earth we know for greater knowing, losing the life we have for greater life, and leaving friends we loved for greater loving, men find a land more kind than home, more large than earth. 

Whereon the pillars of this earth are founded, toward which the spirits of the nations draw, toward which the conscience of the world is tending—a wind is rising, and the rivers flow."
                                                                                                                                             —Thomas Wolfe 
  

Thank you, Type-A-Mom and Kelby Carr!  It never would have occurred to me to visit the birthplace of my literary hero, but I’m so glad I did.

P.S. I couldn’t resist putting up this shot of us in our HiveMoms T-shirts!

My feet hurt.

I was trudging up and down the convention halls of the Moscone Center in San Francisco today.  It’s a big vascular device meeting – almost like the UN down here with docs from all over the world. 

But, I digress.  What I meant to say was, “I can't believe women here are in heels. 

How do they do that?  I’m in sensible flats, and my feet are killing me."

Then it struck me.  Iron Crotch Kungfu!

No, not these ladies!  I mean, I just remembered the book American Shaolin by Matthew Polly, in which he described how Shaolin monks would train parts of their bodies to be hard as iron. 

Remember Uma Thurman banging her fist against solid wood in Kill Bill 2?  That was Iron Fist Kungfu, but there are all kinds of Iron Kungfu – Iron Stomach, Iron Forearm, Iron Neck, and cringe – Iron Crotch. (You gotta read the book.)

So the idea is that you put that part of your body through constant hell and years of battering.  Suffer thus for your art, and I’m guessing your nerve pathways for pain transmission get totally zapped. 

That’s what these women in high heels have done. 

Mistresses of Iron Stilleto, I bow to you.

 

Did you hear about the big fight Google had last year with the Association of American Publishers and the Authors Guild?  It was settled, and Google got the rights to digitize millions of books still under copyright.

Back then, I thought: hey, no big deal – in fact, it’s great for dispersal of knowledge.  But, I just read this book, The Big Switch by Nicholas Carr (a great read on cloud computing, BTW), and now I’m a little dubious about what Larry Page and Sergey Brin have in mind for the information they’re entering into Google’s database.

If the book’s reporting is accurate, it’s nothing less than tinkering with the human brain.  Seriously, I kid you not: by using human thought (recorded in the deluge of written works by past authors) to train artificial intelligence, they envision a day when that souped-up artificial intelligence can somehow be hooked up to the human brain.

Brin was quoted in the 2005 book The Google Story:

“Why not improve the brain…Perhaps in the future, we can attach a little version of Google that you just plug into your brain.”

Channeling Keanu, I gotta press the pause button here and say, “Whoa”.

Sure, there’s some kind of magic in thinking we could download instant knowledge about piloting a helicopter (or being a gourmet chef!), but don’t you think this kind of talk blurs the line between brilliance and madness?

Even if the human brain could evolve that way, I’m not sure the human psyche will.  We’d surrender the one thing that is most human about each of us: our uniqueness – shaped by our individual journey through life.  How can we evolve if, in the end, we strip ourselves of the diversity that brings about life’s most wondrous moments and talents?

YK (my husband) sees it as a quest for immortality.  If human thought and knowledge can truly be digitized, you could upload your “brain” and pay/trick/beg someone like Zoolander (hilarious movie BTW) to download your “brain” when you’re done with your frail ol’ body.

Extreme hypothesis?  Not really – just an extension of the idea to its logical conclusion.  (Mmm…that's vaguely Spock-like.)

The good news is:  This is a huge challenge, even for the likes of Google.  My bet is that they won’t be able to do it, not in my lifetime.  God bless these mad scientists – let’s hope they don’t destroy the world while playing in it.