Pop quiz:
Fäviken: Understanding the Genius Behind the World’s 34th Best Restaurant
Is that a headline from the Onion, or a real article from a food blog?
Answer: That’s a real article in the current “issue” of Dark Rye, which won the James Beard Award for “Best Group Food Blog” this year.
In conclusion, we introduce the RITUAL edition of Dark Rye, which is to say CIRCLES – that’s where it’s at. The essence of ritual. It all begins when we rise once again to make the perfect cup of coffee. We scramble eggs. Butter toast. Breakfast preparation as meditation.
Dog carcass in alley this morning, tire tread on burst stomach. This city is afraid of me. I have seen its true face.
Sorry. Where were we?
Again. Always again. Days as snakes that swallow their tails. Months, moon cycles. The ceaseless rotation of seasons. From Big Bang to apocalypse. From the eruption and destruction of every single moment – now, now, now. We’re born. We die. Who doesn’t dig a juggler?
I’d write more on the subject of “Dark Rye” (Why does the design make me stabby? Why are they endorsing the crank theory of Ayurveda?) but Ryan Sutton over at “The Bad Deal” has already made about as pithy a comment as I’ve seen.
(I know there are some people in my audience who feel that New York in general, and New York dining specifically, is overblown in the food news/food blog scene. I kind of agree with this in general: when it comes to Sandy, though, that was one of the most important food stories of the year, and there were lots of real food blogs that covered it well.)
In better news, the Edgar Award winners have been announced. I like Dennis Lehane a lot, so I’m pretty happy Live by Night
won. I have a copy somewhere, I think, but I haven’t read it yet; or, for that matter, the other nominated novels. (I am also kind of happy that Ace Atkins
got a nomination for a non-Spenser book.)
True crime: I didn’t read any of this year’s nominees. Midnight in Peking
looks interesting, but I never got around to picking it up. I probably will next time I’m at Half-Price. The other book people were talking about was People Who Eat Darkness
. My problem with that is: I’ve already read about the Lucie Blackman case in Jake Adelstein’s excellent Tokyo Vice
, and I’m just not all that damn interested in reading about the case again.
Critical/biographical: I hope The Scientific Sherlock Holmes: Cracking the Case with Science and Forensics
is a swell book. I thought Books to Die For
was a worthy nominee and a delightful book, so Scientific Sherlock darn well better be an even better book.
I finally got my hands on a copy of In Pursuit of Spenser
just this past Friday, so I can’t comment on it yet. I suspect I will be writing a longer review/appreciation once I do finish that book. But it is a promising sign to me that three of this year’s nominees for best novel were also contributors to Pursuit. (Lehane, Atkins, and Lyndsay Faye, in case you were wondering.)
This entry was posted on Monday, May 6th, 2013 at 2:20 pm and is filed under Books, Clippings, Food. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
Both comments and pings are currently closed.