"No Rhyme or Reason - What I'd Read If I Could Read Anything" by Mr. Stacy Kuiack
Medium Raw by Anthony Bourdain
Bourdain isn’t the kind of guy I’d want to go on a three day road trip with, but I’d sure like to have dinner with him and talk shit about the food industry. I think any longer than three hours and the endless barrage of allusions and metaphors would force me to cross the median into oncoming traffic. As the first rock star of food, Bourdain writes about food like no other; and almost without question, we believe him.
I often wonder how much we see of Bourdain is his character and what is caricature; the braggadocio, the heroin, the culinary concubines. He lived a life that would have killed most of us and he’s bragging about it. Bourdain may be self-absorbed, but he’s certainly not introverted; his personality resonates with readers. He gets away with being a prick because he lets you in on the joke – you feel like you’re getting the real deal.
Medium Raw glosses over Bourdain’s early days because those sordid tales can be found in his first big hit, Kitchen Confidential. His latest book picks up after fame found him, taking us through his divorce, the Caribbean meltdowns and his suicidal tendencies. He recounts his reckless swashbuckling with coked-up trust-fund brats and his eventual second marriage to an Italian who appears to have his number. Bourdain is disarmingly transparent and self-aware throughout the book and it works like a charm.
Bourdain has mastered the art of cynicism to such a great extent that he can sweet talk a story about dancing with his young daughter out of one side of his mouth while he tears bloody strips off Alice Waters (the self-proclaimed “mother” of Slow Food) with the other. He has an opinion on everyone and everything and 99% of the time he’s just saying what we’re all thinking – notions of “right” or “wrong” become subjective. This makes him just like me; except taller . . . and he’s allowed to smoke in Samantha’s car. No wonder I liked this book.
Amberville by Tim Davys
Think Mean Streets meets Sesame Street and get Joe Pesci to play the antagonist in a pigeon suit. Now soak that street in booze, “disappear” a few teddy bears, and you’ll have the setting for an amazingly ambitious and highly entertaining first effort by Tim Davys.
It’s hard not to sound ridiculous writing this, but the main character, Eric Bear, is a teddy bear. He has a beautiful wife and a quiet life, and he struggles to keep both of those when his somewhat sordid past comes crashing back into him.
Eric’s nemesis in Amberville is Nicholas Dove, the desperate and evil boss of the most violent gang in their small town. Nicholas is on the teddy bear Death List with only days to live. So the evil Nicholas Dove convinces the formerly bad, but trying to be good Eric Bear, that it’s his job to fix the Death List before the Chauffeurs driving the red death trucks come to collect. It’s now up to Eric, and his fuzzy group of friends – Tom Tom Crow, Sam Gazelle and Snake Marek – to figure out the seedy underbelly of the town and save the bad guy from the bin.
Amberville turns out to be more than a film noir mystery focusing on some decidedly dark days in Eric’s life. It’s a cunning, multilayered drama about the reality of being good in a world of evil. Davys writes in the first person from each character’s point of view which is REALLY hard to do if you’re writing for giraffes and gorillas. By doing this he gives the reader a highly insightful look into the very human, individual and lonely struggle to adhere to the notion of “good” in the face of very tough choices.
The Slap by Christopher Tsioklas
Tell me you haven’t. Lie to me and I won’t believe you. Tell me you haven’t wanted to haul off and kick the ass of that kid screaming blue murder in the grocery store for the sake of a Pop Tart. Or the three year old running through the restaurant making NASCAR noises while his parents dine in oblivion. But to actually do it!? To slap a child? Sacrilege!
In Tsioklas’ fifth novel, the social contract is broken and one man slaps another family’s four year old (who TOTALLY deserves it) at a BBQ and all hell breaks loose. Feelings are hurt, insults are issued and the wars between these characters begin. The slap acts as a catalyst, but from that point on Tsioklas deftly begins to unravel the lives of all those present at the BBQ.
The drama(s) unfolds through the skewed perspectives of each of those present at the slap. It’s genius, at times barren, prose that exposes the biases of gender, class, culture and nationality. His writing is not for the faint of heart, and can feel cold at times, but this “telling it like it is” keeps the reader from picking sides during the grim infighting that ensues.
On the surface, The Slap may be perfect for every short-on-sleep-long-on-stress-under-on-paid regular guy who wanted to backhand the hissy-fitting 4 year old at the airport. But beneath that gruff exterior is a complex, challenging and compelling read focused on the parts of the human condition some of us would rather not admit to.
Ham: An Obsession with the Hindquarter by Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough
This book’s title pretty much gives it all away from the get go. In “Ham: An Obsession…” Weinstein and Scarbrough go TMZ-stalker on a very specific part of the pig and one part only. They dedicate 211 pages to the common ham as they guide us on a well-researched and expertly crafted run from the Southern US (glazed ham), over to Spain (pata negra), to Italy (prosciutto) and onward toward China (Jinhua hams) with stops in between. This easily could have been a road trip fraught with pineapple rings, riddled with clove studs and loaded with wrong turns toward cola-basted summer ham recipes from your Aunt Shirley. But these guys know what they’re doing and they prove to be great tour guides.
“Ham” is a hilarious bit of personal storytelling, backed by great research, which gets to the heart . . . haunch of a foodie icon. This writing/cooking/eating duo begins the book by selecting, naming and paternally watching their piglet as she becomes a pig. Then they chicken out just a little and simply drop “Charlotte” off at the abattoir avoiding the nasty bit. They pick their pet up the very next week . . . in 22 individually wrapped brown-paper packages. Sure, they didn’t actually do the deed, but this is still closer than most people ever come to knowing where their food actually comes from. So good for them in my mind.
Don’t get me wrong; this isn’t at all about porcine purgatory or heavy-handed foodie politics. These guys are to ham what Sedaris is to the psychosis of a family. Page 1 introduces the reader to the one of their shrinks, Jews (oh the irony), Henry James, Auden, the Messiah, and ham mould. And, at the very end, page 211 recounts the time these guys tried to smuggle a ham through airport security (“Is this human?”). In between is a fantastic tip-to-tail profile on a prolific piece of food, and food history that is well worth the read.
Ghosted by Shaughnessy Bishop-Stall
A guy named Shaughnessy Bishop-Stall SHOULD NOT be writing debut novels like Ghosted. He should be mending his cricket sweater, drinking a Pimm’s Cup and tumbling over the Corgi’s underfoot. Ghosted knocks all the monarchy and formality out of Shaughnessy’s name and takes us on a freakish ride fuelled by lust, hate, booze and cocaine. There’s a book within this book, ghost-written suicide notes, bad dudes and dudettes galore, and more blackouts than a swinger’s party at David Carradine’s place.
While the plot(s) grabs you around the throat and shakes you violently in some places, SB-S does manage to convey the softer side of his anti-hero, Mason Dubisee. Mason struggles with an unresolved past, a bottomless bottle, an infinite line of cocaine and constant tension between his anger and his empathy. When he begins a side-job as a suicide-note writer Mason welcomes the saddest sack of characters into his life and his obsessive excessiveness goes on a binge. He inevitably falls for a hot paraplegic in a wheelchair at a poker game and, “Willy” shows us she has her own demons for Mason to piggyback around as his own.
There were passages in this book when I wanted to kick Mason out of his destructive funk. I wanted him to pull up his socks and clean up his act. To intervene. But I didn’t want to ruin the story that was unfolding in front of me. SB-S writes up a storm as he marches Mason toward one of the twisty-est endings I’ve read in a long time. Ghosted is not PG13, and not for everyone, but I tore into that book like I was locked in a room with my biggest vice.
The World Is A Ball by John Doyle (release date May 2010)
Somewhere in the stack of books that the folks at Bolen Books handed me was a book on soccer; a preamble to the World Cup, by John Doyle, the TV and entertainment critic for the Globe and Mail. My earliest sporting memories are of soccer and, as a lifelong player of the game who named his boat after the 2006 Cup-winning Italian team, I was doubtful that a professional couch potato could capture the excitement and gravitas of the coming tournament in South Africa. I was wrong. So happily wrong.
With grace, insight, and a very different view from any other sports journalist, Doyle lays out the political, cultural and very human importance of soccer. He takes us on an entertaining and hilarious journey from his Irish childhood to Canada’s unsuccessful qualifying games leading up to the 2010 World Cup on a circuitous and highly rewarding path. He provides the full back story to the game in a way that recognizes the 80,000 fans inside the stadium as much as he celebrates the millions of rambunctious cab drivers, publicans, face-painted 12 year olds and has-been beer league players watching from outside those expensive seats. Doyle does a marvellous job of capturing the people, places and crazy things that happen when the world seems to stop turning so 22 men battle it out for 90 minutes during the world’s most popular sporting event.
South Africa has the immeasurable burden and honour of inviting the world to their doorstep hosting a tournament that has been around since 1930. During 31 days this summer 32 teams will travel to South Africa and become a universal bond tethering some 2.2 billion viewers to their televisions around the world. For just over a month it will be acceptable to reclaim, or invent, your great-great grandfather’s heritage, wake up at 4am to catch “your” team play, and have a Guinness with breakfast while your friends sit beside you bleary eyed and fatigued from sleepless hours glued to the set.
I stood in Circus Maximus in Rome watching Materazzi drop like a sack of wet gnocci after Zidane’s headbutting moment of insanity during the final. I never expected anyone to be able to capture the pure lust I have for the game and all that comes with it. Doyle writes in a way that would make even Don Cherry weep for the beautiful game.
Locavore by Sarah Elton
Sarah Elton walks a well trodden path to follow the likes of Visser, Pollan and Schlosser, toward ideas about local and authentic food.
When every fat guy with high cholesterol and a disposition toward gout has a food blog it’s hard to rise above all the white noise of food nazi propaganda, but Elton conveys her message in a palatable and decidedly Canadian way (sorry, couldn’t resist that metaphor).
Elton begins with a personal story to get us thinking about the harsh consequences of BIG FOOD, and she continues on to celebrate the fundamental importance of local food. The pink dusted cookie from her daughter’s birthday turns out to be from China and that sugary treat Cannonball Runs on her forcing her to ask herself if she pays enough for what’s on her plate – financially and ethically. It’s a complex question that we should all be asking ourselves.
Enough writers have talked about “paying the real price” and “considering the source” that I feel guilty pulling the plug in the sink and not actually drinking the dishwater from a BYO stainless steel flask. Elton just manages get me thinking about the food revolution without the NPR-in-elbow-patches-and-tortoiseshell-glasses preachiness that can infect the likes Pollan, et al.
Here in sleepy Victoria we live relatively privileged lives. The vast majority of us get to make a choice every single day. Chances are that you can name at least one person raising, farming, selling, serving and living in your food world. I’m not gonna get all “Eat, Pray, Love” on you here, but don’t think for a moment that this notion of knowing where your food is from doesn’t matter. If you doubt the impact of your choices Elton’s book will change with that.
During the writing of this review the author ate the following: fingerling potatoes, Island raised lamb, mesclun greens, first of the season cherry tomatoes and bourbon from Kentucky (which horrified him...until the 3rd swig from a cup made of recycled fleeces and trailer tires).
Doing Dangerously Well by Carole Enahoro (May 2010)
My timing was perfect with this book. I was just thinking to myself “I wonder how I can turn Haiti’s unfortunate plight into my own personal gain,” and – BOOM! – out comes Doing Dangerously Well with all the answers.
Unnatural disasters, vulture capitalism, African corruption, bitter siblings, idealist hippies and broken parents come together in this darkly funny and engaging first effort by Ms. Enahoro. Even her chapter titles give you a good idea of how illicitly compelling her writing can be: “It Takes A Corporation” is the subtitle to Chapter 5. Cheeky.
The basis of the story is the collapse of Nigeria’s (fictional) engineering pride and joy, the Kainji Dam, which kills half a million Nigerians. Around this tragedy circles a cast of sharks that would give Idi Amin the creepy shivers. Nigeria’s opportunistic Minister of Natural Resources views this as his personal political coup d’etat and a chance to ascend to the throne. Assisting him along the way is the oh so very Gordon Gekko’esque bigwater corporate executive with father issues and with her own aspirations of promotion. All good villains need a foil and Enahoro gives us the equally Machiavellian Barbara, the Bohemian sister of the water exec. With her “Free Tibet” bumper stickers and circus-tent Romanian gypsy skirts reeking of patchouli, Barbara proves to be just as cunning, and just as bumbling, as her capitalist sister.
Enahoro’s writing is engaging and personable. She has a knack for taking a very complex and very real geopolitical issues and making them accessible to the reader. Her warm prose and humour will walk you through the moral minefield she lays out without sounding preachy. The book drags a bit in the middle, but, like that brief moment before the damn breaks, it’s just teasing us before the real tsunami of chaos hits.
It Takes a Corporation . . . and I thought I was a capitalist pig.
Momofuku by David Chang and Peter Meehan
This is, without doubt, the most highly anticipated cookbook of the season. And like David Chang’s entourage of haters, I wanted to hate this cookbook too. Just like I hate the glacial pace of the infinite lineup at the actual restaurant the book is based on. I wanted the book to fail, to let me down, to wallow in epic suckness, to be inconsistent like the early days of the restaurant were so many times. But . . . damnit . . . this is a great cookbook about a place everyone should have the privilege of getting to know in person. Chang 1, Kuiack 0.
David Chang turned the fancy ass world of New York Fine Dining on its ear when he opened Momofuku. Gone were the tuna tartare towers, out went the foie gras foam and redundant was the remoulade sauce (I know, that was a horrible, Tourette’s-like, sentence of shocking alliteration). What you find at Momofuku instead is truly legit, comfort food that looks, feels and tastes like the collision of Korea, Japan and the USofA masterminded by a chef with really, REALLY, good chops in the kitchen.
The book is drenched in profanity; totally expected from a guy who named his place the pornesque “Momofuku”, and this only adds to its addictive qualities. With every cuss word I wanted back in the kitchens I learned to cook in. Every great version of kimchi he lays out made me want to get off my ass and ferment cabbage – “Damn the horrific stench! This is IMPORTANT! AUTHENTIC! FOOD!” And I did . . . sorta . . . I’ve made 3 or 4 of the dishes in this book and they work like a goddamn charm. Damnit again. Chang 2, Kuiack 0.
It’s a ballsy maneuver basing a cookbook on your shop. You have to assume, or at least be ego manically deluded enough to believe, that people who have never darkened your doorstep will want to read about what just such an experience would be like. The book is an excellent narrative of the Chang Empire’s march from humble beginnings to the gastronomic force it is today. The evolution of his flavor profiles, the recipes and the team behind him are all given plenty of print time and the end result is a book full of inspiration, camaraderie and encouragement. Go buy it.
Chang 3, Kuiack 0.
One Day by David Nicholls (June 2010)
One Day occurs over a span of 20 successive July 15ths, St Swithin’s Day*, as two close friends try to figure out how they fit into each other’s lives. Emma and Dexter struggle, frustratingly and hilariously, to deal with something we have all had to deal with at some point: What do I do about this great friend of mine . . . who I want to shag?
Emma is the hipper, non-conformist (boring) gal from Yorkshire. Dexter is the guy I always wished I was – charming, handsome and rich. Although I do share some of Dexter’s less “resume-able” traits like ego, narcissism and the boozy haze of my mid-twenties. They swap verbal barbs at a party and hook up on a one night stand in 1988 that turns into a tenuously platonic, and very endearing, friendship.
Nicholls account of this complicated and warm friendship reads a bit like Catch 22 and About a Boy had a love child. It is a book full of the bitter irony of circumstance coupled with a fair amount of cynical romanticism. Nicholls captures all the yearning, bitter barbs, and kind gestures that inhabit decades-long relationships like the one Emma and Dexter live out as their contradictory lives run in parallel, or crash into each other.
This book isn’t all sitcom and syrupy romantic comedy. Nicholls manages to expose the dirty corners of loneliness, and the relentless progression of sad fate, as the characters dance around the center of their relationship. There is no doubt that Emma and Dexter are better people when they’re together, and Nicholls makes sure the reader feels their heartbreak when they are apart.
One Day is a sad, brilliant, funny and inebriated look at missing out. Missing out on love, and missing out on life one day at a time.
*St Swithin may be the Saint of Obsessive High School Annual Readers and Facebook Stalkers. But I’m not sure.
One Day will be released in June 2010. Reserve your copy now!
Nocturnes – Five Stories of Music and Nightfall by Kazuo Ishiguro
Writing about music can be, well, like writing about sound and noise – too ethereal, too emotionally driven and nearly impossible to convey the nuances without actually hearing the song. In Nocturnes, Ishiguro expertly weaves the notion, the detail and the heart of music through five stories of regret, nostalgia, delusion and some sad reality. But it’s not all gloom and doom in here; this guitar-playing, choir-singing, Japanese-born, Englishman makes us laugh in this book as well, and more often than we’d expect from the guy who brought us Never Let Me Go.
Ishiguro writes like a metronome – each sentence in these five stories is measured and metered. And Nocturnes, as a whole, reads like a piece of music – a little vibrato here and there, and strong passages that linger long after you’ve put the book down. "I rise up in intervals you'd never believe possible and then hold that sweet, very tender high B-flat. I think there are colours there, longings and regrets, you won't have come across before."
He tackles surprisingly complex issues – post-Communism, immigration, xenophobia – in his short and structured prose. His writing can feel too self-conscious and introspective at times, but he completes of each short story in a way that compels the reader forward to continue to let the scene play out.
Throughout these five stories I kept thinking of the mixed tapes I made as a teenager full of angst, the middle-aged music I listen to now, and the music I listen to sitting on a plane hiding behind headphones. I thought of where that music takes me and it was all the melancholy places Ishiguro goes to in this book.
Stacy J.J. Kuiack – Capitalist by day, wanna be chef by night
Stacy grew up in his father’s contracting business and stepped on his first jobsite at the age of 5 to flaunt child labour laws. He grew up on the wrongest side of the crookedest tracks and swore the whole time that when he grew up he’d get a “normal” job. That “normal” career never really seemed to materialize and Stacy has founded numerous entrepreneurial ventures throughout his career starting with a medical technology firm at the age of 25.
The Vancouver Sun named Stacy one of their “British Columbians to Watch” and he has been a finalist for the Ernst & Young “Entrepreneur of the Year”, the Caldwell Partners “National Top 40 Under 40”, and the BDC “Young Entrepreneur of the Year” awards (lost to Sarah McLachlan, some hot shot from Toronto and a home-delivery grocery guy respectively).
He lives on a plane between Victoria and Vancouver, keeps his boat stocked with cigars and Guinness, plays second fiddle to the dog, and manages to keep a spot on his soccer team in spite of their repeated attempts to get him to retire.