04 May 2010
 
Knives at Dawn


The title of the book is a little florid for my taste, though I certainly appreciate the value of a good blade, be it on an instrument as long as your arm, or something better suited for the satisfying clean plunge through a tomato.
 
I would tell you about the expensive plastic part that fell off the Hubrismobile, and why I was sitting in the alley across from the service entrance of the Hubris Dealer before seven this morning, but that is my problem, not yours. I have come to accept the fact that operating a high-performance German automobile is very much like having a vintage Luftwaffe ME-262 jet in the garage.
 
It may be fast, but it is also exceedingly expensive. Things fall off the Bluesmobile all the time, of course, but the vehicle plows on regardless.
 
Sitting in front of the service bay in the more expensive liability, I heard that someone had been arrested in the attempted bombing in New York. It appears to be a man named Faisal Shahzad, a naturalized U.S. citizen of Pakistani origins, and he was nailed while actually seated on an airplane destined for Dubai out of JFK.
 
His detention confirmed a rumor I heard yesterday. Why am I gratified that this threat vector is something understandable, rather than some home-grown nutcase?
 
Credit for the attack- and others to come- was purportedly claimed by yet another group whose existence, prior to yesterday, I was blissfully unaware. The Pakistani Taliban video says the attack is revenge for the death of its leader Baitullah Mehsud and the recent killings of the top leaders of al-Qaida in Iraq.
 
There was nothing specific about New York in the video, so maybe it is true and maybe it isn’t. I did note when I looked at the propaganda that there were multiple yellow stars on the map of America, but the Police Commissioner of the NYPD told me not to worry about it, so I won’t.
 
And don’t worry about North Korea. I’m sure everything is fine. L’il Kim took his private train up to China to talk to his sponsors. I assume he is apologizing for sinking that South Korea destroyer or something. I can only imagine the chagrin of the Chinese parent welcoming the prodigal son.
 
I have a lot going down on the home-front, so I will let the grownups who have all this stuff so well under control do their jobs. I mean, they got Faisal, didn’t they?
 
All this led to me talking to another author last night. I have to say that if society appears to be melting down, there is still glory in the collapse. Andrew Friedman wrote a  book called “KNIVES AT DAWN: American's Quest for Culinary Glory at the Legendary Bocuse d'Or Competition.” I am on the mailing list of the Willow Restaurant’s formidable PR wing, and I was informed that Andrew was to appear for a book-signing appearance and a panel discussion with the owner, Tracy O'Grady, moderated by former White House Chef Walter Scheib.
 
With complementary alcohol. Does life get better?
 
Andrew's book tells the story of the American team that competed at the 2009 Bocuse d'Or, the world's most prestigious cooking competition.
 
But as usual, I am getting ahead of myself. I like to cook, but I am not what you would call a “foodie,” that species of gourmand intensely interested in the nuance and subtlety of the cooking process.
 
Like you, I remember vaguely the origins of American haut cuisine in the form of cultural icon Julia Child, whose life has been celebrated in film lately. I remember her lineal successor in the media as being an Australian guy named Graham Kerr who called himself “The Galloping Gourmet.”  His show featured a lot of wine and the demonstration of what he called "hedonism in a hurry," creating dishes overflowing with cream, butter, egg yolks and deep-fat frying.
 
Technology and the proliferation of channels that had to be filled with content, regardless of how banal, yielded today’s food networks, and the dubious media stars of excess and curiosity. Think of “Iron Chef,” or “Hell’s Kitchen,” bizarre excursions into brutal interpersonal relationships that only coincidentally happen to occur in the kitchen.
 
I try to remind myself to watch those things, since there is much that is fascinating about road food and regional cuisine, but I do not often succeed. The one I catch most often is the gentle and good-spirited Lynn Rosetta Kasper’s “Splendid Table,” which manages to evoke the aroma of fine food from the grill of the radio in the Bluesmobile.
 
On the whole, I would rather actually cook than watch, and apparently there is a counter-offensive in progress against the extreme of pop culture.
 
For all of that, I would never have been talking to the former White House Chef if a restaurant called Gaffney’s had not been located equidistant between the corporate headquarters of my company and the office high above N. Glebe Road where I hang out during the working day.
 
I used to go to Gaffney’s as an alternative to the Flat Top Grill, long before I worked for the company. The drinks were cheap, and the place had good bones, having started out as an attempt at a high-end steakhouse that went belly up almost instantly. There was nice rich woodwork and there was never a crowd. I found out later there was a reason for that. The food sucked, and the bartenders were robbing the place blind. Gaffney’s lingered for a while and then folded, as most restaurants inevitably do.
 
That is where Tracy came in, just about the time that my Executive Vice President joined the company, and needed a convenient place to have a quality lunch.
 
Tracy was attempting the unlikely. She was going to bring haut cuisine to the bitter end of Fairfax Drive, at the end of the increasingly vibrant Wilson Boulevard corridor.
 
It is just dumb luck that the bar in her wonderful restaurant is located right across the street from the office, and features the best damn wine list in town.
 
I will have to get to that tomorrow, though, but in the meantime I can commend “Knives at Dawn” to your attention. It is an entrée into a world that I could only really encounter in a book, filled with names and places that existed for me only in the pages of The New Yorker or Gourmet magazine.
 
Who would have thought there was an outpost almost in the shadow of Big Pink? I will take you there tomorrow. In the meantime, look out for SUV’s parked haphazardly at the curb with the flashers on, or North Koreans with particularly grim looks.
 
Copyright 2010 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
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