Cantar

Me gusta susurrar canciones en los oídos ajenos al anochecer. Fados, fanfarrias, baladas, suspiros. Es como un momento que sólo existe entre la otra persona y yo; mi voz y su tímpano; mi respiración y su alma.

Muchas veces canto cuando la otra persona duerme, porque me da vergüenza que me escuche; no porque lo haga mal, sino porque me ruborizo ante las letras que puedo llegar a susurrar y tal vez ésa persona no me quiere escuchar.

Otras veces lo hago en mitad de la calle, sin pudor alguno; porque me da igual lo que digan los demás, lo que piensen, lo que supongan.

Y me encanta cantar canciones "pequeñitas" cuando hace frío... canciones de Rosenvinge, Iha, Love of Lesbians, Mariza, Ferreiro, Björk, PJ Harvey, Tori Amos, Johnny Cash, Sidonie, Maxïmo Park...

¿Qué quieres que te cante al oído?

Adrià launches a book, I eat derivative Thai food

October 10

I’m told that Corton, Drew Nieporent’s new restaurant with chef Paul Liebrandt, is superb. I was told that by Drew, who might not be the objective source, but who is objective when it comes to food?
The restaurant’s business card is certainly elegant. Plain white, or possibly eggshell, with "CORTON" written in a clean, medium-green sans-serif font. Very nice.
Drew handed it to me as I arrived at the most A-list party I’ve been to in awhile, the launch of Ferran Adrià’s new book.
The event was held in a private room at Per Se, which of course implies A-list, but I don’t know — there was something about the lighting or the way the servers were dressed or the fact that they were serving not just white cava but rosé that made it feel almost intimidatingly so. I shared this observation with Little Owl chef Joey Campanaro and then with James Oliver Cury, the executive editor of Epicurious.com, but they didn’t give me an adequate explanation.
“The lighting” offered my friend Yishane Lee, who was there as a gues of her friend Riza, who works for Vogue. We stood around and drank both colors of cava and I told her who everyone at the party was — well, not everyone, I didn’t know everyone. But people were there from Food & Wine and Good Housekeeping and Food Arts and The New York Times Book Review and Martha Stewart.
Herself was there, too, I later learned from my new Twitter friend Mark Tafoya, who has posted posted pictures on his facebook page.
He also did a video.
So that was fun and the food was good — foie gras with apple gelée and fennel pollen, José Andres’s interpretation of a cheesesteak (beef and a whisper of cheese in an almost impossibly light pastry, topped with truffle shavings), Señor Adrià’s offering: a drop of encapsulated seasoned olive oil with a bit of gold leaf sticking out of it. The publisher, and then the host (Thomas Keller) gave brief speeches and then the author spoke briefly, I think in Catalan, because it didn’t really sound like Spanish. He actually started with two words in English: “Good night.” He meant “good evening,” of course, so it’s probably just as well that he continued in Catalan.
Anyway, I promised Dallas-based publicist Jeffrey Yarbrough that I’d go to his party at Highline, a Thai restaurant I’d never heard of on the outskirts of the Meatpacking District that’s owned by the same people who own Peep and SEA and a bunch of other highy-stylized restaurants serving Thai food toned down for New York tastes.
So I hopped in a taxi and tried to talk to the restaurant’s owners about Thai politics, which are just a freaking mess at the moment, but they said that I probably knew more about it than they did, so we talked about food.
As I said, these guys don’t claim any authenticity, but they still added kapi, a funky fermented shrimp paste, to the fried rice, which left a guy from Wine Spectator slightly befuddled.
The desserts actually were interesting, in that Asian desserts, in my opinion, generally suck, but these both tasted distinctly Thai, but also good, like a sort of jasmine-infused panna cotta, and Thai iced tea ice cream.

Friday Nibbles - Parmesan Cheese

The focus of previous Friday Nibbles has been very much on the frugal side of cooking. Items featured have been, invariably, cheap and in possession of an innate versatility that renders them almost essential for any kitchen store cupboard whether you are an accomplished chef or a mere beginner when it comes to matters culinary.

But with the world’s economy crumbling like stale bread, banks collapsing like a series of failed soufflés and trillions of dollars going up in smoke like fish fingers left under the grill (apologies, but I ran out of analogies there), a little luxury might be needed in order to raise a smile. Not luxury in the manner to which we have become worryingly accustomed, I’m not talking of white truffles or Jamon d’Iberico, more like small luxuries, more luxury in terms of simple pleasures that are almost guaranteed to raise a smile.

Parmesan is a little luxury. It’s slightly too expensive to be on a weekly shopping list but cheap enough to be bought without feeling any pangs of guilt. It doesn’t go off so you needn’t worry about leaving it too long on the fridge and I can think of no better way to watch the encroaching depression than with a big bowl of pasta covered in slightly too much Parmesan cheese melting into it. If it’s all going to shit, might as well forget the healthy eating plan.



But is this cheese worthy of inclusion on the Friday Nibbles Hall of Fame? In a word, yes. Simply, yes. We don’t get through a huge amount of the stuff but there is always a chunk of it in the fridge poised a ready to be grated over steaming pasta, a salad or even a plate of beans on toast. It melts into delightfully stringy strands and lends a real cheesy richness to whatever meal it meets.

Real, genuine Parmesan comes from Parma, Italy and only from Parma. Like Champagne and Stilton, Parmesan is guarded by a PDO – a Protected Designation of Origin – a legally enshrined concept that prevents any Tom, Dick or Harry within the European Union from muscling in on the worthy name of a famed product. We take our foods very seriously here in Europe.

The cheeses are made in huge rounds each weighing about 38 kilos (80 pounds) before they are cut into more manageable chunks and exported all over the world and have enjoyed a notable reputation for many centuries. During the Great Fire of London in 1666, diarist Samuel Pepys buried his Parmesan in the ground to prevent it from being damaged by the flames:

‘…in the evening Sir W. Penn and I did dig another [pit] and put our wine in it, and I my parmazan as well as my wine and some other things.’ 4th September 1666, Diary of Samual Pepys.

So wonderful to hear a voice from centuries ago speaking of cheese with such love and referring to his ‘other’ items with such casual flippancy. Truly a man after my own heart.

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