Squash

Two weeks ago at the Courthouse Farmers' Market, I came across a type of squash I had never seen before. They were large, round but fairly flat, and had a pale, dusty green color and smooth skin. The crate they were in was not labeled, and the girl tending the cash box didn't know what they were either. Of course I had to buy one. It sat on my kitchen counter for two and a half weeks, during which I found out that it was probably a Citation squash. Last night I finally decided to cook it. Lately, I've taken to roasting squashes and pumpkins in the oven after peeling and cutting them into cubes and tossing with some olive oil and salt.

This guy was an absolute bear to deal with. It was rock hard – I broke a sweat just trying to cut it in half with a regular chef's knife, and made a mental note to buy a cleaver. When I finally split it open, the kitchen filled with an intense aroma of cucumber. The inside was a bright, deep yellow and contained the largest seeds I've ever seen. The seeds, surrounded by the usual hairy stuff, were easy to scoop out, but peeling the thing was a nightmare. The skin was practically a shell – thick and completely inflexible. My three-dollar carrot peeler that usually does a fine job on butternuts, kabochas and small pumpkins was woefully inadequate for the task. After fifteen minutes of huffing, swearing and sore arms and fingers (having sprained an elbow at the gym earlier in the day didn't help), I finally had it mostly peeled. Cutting it up was marginally easier, and eventually I got the thing into the oven. It didn't take as long as I expected for it to cook, given how massive and hard it was – it was nicely browned and fork-tender after about 20 minutes. I left it in for a further five minutes for good measure – squash, along with eggplant, is about the only thing that is better to overcook than undercook. When I finally tasted it, it was out of this world. Succulently sweet, it had a texture closer to a sweet potato than a squash – soft but not mushy – and tasted of honey and flowers. It was absolutely delicious. J. and I ate a few pieces with salmon for dinner. Tonight, the rest is getting pureed with some butter and freshly-grated nutmeg.

Repatriation

There was a report on NPR this morning about a program Putin's government is putting in place to entice Russians living abroad to repatriate back to Russia. They are trying to reverse the brain drain of the nineties, the Russians are saying, and get some of the professional talent back. Fair enough – I have no doubt that the outflow of talent was enormous; it was only to be expected. What the report left unmentioned, however, is that there is little question that Putin has another motive.

Being able to boast of a success in convincing educated people to return to live in Russia would be an enormous PR coup for his government. It is obvious that the backbone of Putin's program is restoring Russia to its former glory of Soviet days, i.e. he wants it to be both respected and feared by other nations. Instilling fear will be attempted with the inevitable rearmament and an increasingly aggressive military stance, paid for with profits from selling oil at record-high prices. That's a topic for another day. Earning respect, however, requires either doing something actually worthy of it – something most governments, and especially one run by a former KGB agent, want to avoid if at all possible – or it requires massive propaganda. And the repatriation program is a small piece in that propaganda machine. Its success would enable Putin to say, “Look – intelligent, educated people are coming back voluntarily. This means Russia is once again a great place to live and work. The problems that originally drove these people out have been solved. We are a great country once again!”

What the NPR report also did not cover is the fact that there is a precedent for this in Russian history – a similar program was launched, on Stalin's orders, after WWII. It is portrayed with chilling realism in Régis Wargnier's East-West. At the time, the program was aimed primarily at Russian ex-pats living in France. Tugging at the heartstrings of a generation that genuinely and sincerely loved Russian culture, language and history, and remembered life in pre-Bolshevik Russia first-hand (but knew little of the Bolshevik version), Stalin implored them to come help rebuild their beloved country that fought so heroically in the war and sacrificed so much for the good of mankind. Most of those who were naïve enough to return, and in many cases their non-Russian spouses, were never heard from again. I grant that it is unlikely that the Russians returning today would be faced with a complete relinquishing of control of their lives the way their predecessors in the late 1940s were, but the motivation on the part of the government – take advantage of human weakness and sentiment, entice by deception, and get some cheap talent and free publicity out of the deal – is fundamentally the same.

Possibly a more vexing question is that of the motivation on the part of the participants. That's a book-length topic. One potential returnee's statement quoted on in the NPR report, however, was truly frightening. An academic and a Jew, he spoke excellent English though he settled in Germany after leaving one of the most anti-semitic societies in the world (Germany is eternally responsible for keeping a hawk eye on its anti-semitism thanks to WWII. Russia, having fought on the righteous side, gets a pass when it continues to let anti-semitism thrive). Of the many problems Russians face on the daily basis, he chose to cite three – intense anti-Western sentiment, rampant corruption and low life expectancy. Yet, he said, it may be better to live to sixty and enjoy life than live to eighty or ninety doing some random job, and he is considering returning. What do you say to that? It makes me hang my head in despair, Russian style.

Italian Concertos

I can't get enough of Alexandre Tharaud's recording of Bach's Italian Concertos. I've been listening to it continuously ever since I got it a few weeks ago. As frequently happens with these things, it was an impulse purchase, and one I was snared into making by an ad. The ad was on the back page of the liner notes for the fantastic recording Tharaud made accompanying Jean-Guihen Queyras on Schubert's Arpeggione sonata.

First, there are the works themselves. I was not familiar with the collection until now, and didn't realize that save for the Italian Concerto itself – a three-movement work in energetic, extroverted F major – the set actually consists of Bach's keyboard transcriptions of music by other composers, all of them Italian. It seems odd to us today that someone of Bach's stature would bother, but keep in mind that the stature is something we assigned to him in our day, and it was common then, and in fact a sign of respect, to transcribe others' work. Plus, Bach shows impeccable taste in his choice of source material.

The opening work – a slow movement from one of Vivaldi's d-minor violin concertos is alone worth the price of admission. Its beautiful, melancholy two and a half minutes work wonderfully on the piano and should put to rest any claims that Vivaldi was not a genius-level composer, even if it takes Bach to prove it. Tharaud follows with more Vivaldi, a g-minor concerto from his Op. 4, of which I happen to have a “normal,” violin-and-orchestra recording. The opening movement is readily recognizable, even if the keyboard version has a little less passion and brio. The rest, though, is where it becomes obvious just how much of an accomplishment a good transcription is – it is and isn't the same piece of music. The notes are there, but the feel is completely different. The slow movement, in particular, I think is more interesting on the keyboard.

The sleepers of the set are two concertos by the Marcello brothers, Alessandro (oboe) and Benedetto (violin). Little more than historical curiosities today, they nevertheless acquit themselves well, at least through Bach's filter. Here, it is obvious that the music is not originally Bach's, or even Vivaldi's – more one-dimensional, the melodies are more straightforward, and the counterpoint noticeably leaner. Still, Bach saw something in them, and it's easy to see why – they are attractive pieces, a pleasure to listen to, and obviously virtuoso statements for their original instruments, making it that much more of a challenge to transcribe well. There is more stuff on the disc, and I'm not going to get into every track. Suffice it to say that there is not a dud among them, and some, like the closing Andante, believed to be by Torelli but never proven, are fascinating.

Then, there is Tharaud's playing. If you measure every attempt to play Bach on the piano against the way Glenn Gould played, or would have played, the same music, Tharaud is the anti-Gould. He is unabashedly pianistic, playing with great dynamics, an expansive, lyrical tone, and using the sustain pedal when he feels it suits the music. He is not an overwrought Romantic-era drama queen, however. Tharaud gets Bach. There is no smearing or glossing over. Every note is clearly articulated. His rhythm is metronomic. The counterpoint is crystal-clear, and far easier for the modern ear to grasp, I should point out, than it could ever be on the harpsichord. While I am not advocating a dichotomous choice of instrument in either one's listening or one's playing, this CD is the perfect illustration why Bach can, should, and indeed must, be played and recorded on the piano. The purists can shut up one last time.

Thanksgiving

Two weeks ago, I happened to walk through the local shopping mall. In the middle of the food court, amidst a lavishly decorated set, sat Santa, in all his red-velvet-clad chubbiness. I could have had my photo taken with him right there and then. In the first week of November! Not to put too fine a point on it, that bothered me. Not because it was a symbol of the onslaught of holiday shopping that arrives earlier and earlier every year – that's not news. What I find regrettable is that this kind of thing causes us to gloss over Thanksgiving. And Thanksgiving is important to us, both as individuals and as a society.

The vast majority of us have something to be thankful for every year, even if sometimes, in times of despair or misfortune, we do not feel that way. I myself can rattle off a bunch off the top of my head, from the utterly trivial (owning a relatively nice, very reliable car), to the mundane but important (having a well-paying job), to the truly transcendent (J.; being able to live in the US). I don't want to moralize, but pausing every once in a while to contemplate them, even if for a second, helps us appreciate them a little more, and take them for granted a little less, making us, in some small way, kinder, gentler, more giving and less selfish persons. And the Thanksgiving celebration provides a perfect opportunity to do just that, hopefully surrounded by those you love.

For society as a whole, Thanksgiving is hugely symbolic. First of all, we have a society. One that functions, most of time, politically, socially and economically. Even acknowledging all the problems and frustrations, some of which can seem overwhelming sometimes, we have rights, we have privileges, we have institutions that can be expected to work in more or less reasonable, or at least predictable, ways. That's more than can be said for many people elsewhere in this world. And for that, we should all be thankful. In addition, the Thanksgiving tradition, however mythologized it might have become since the 1600s, gives us an appreciation of our own history. It is a reminder of what those who came before us had to go through to ensure that we have what we do today. Pausing to remember that is a small token of appreciation, however abstract, that we should not neglect. A part of that history, even if we don't have any firm evidence, is the idea that sometimes, people are driven to help strangers simply by seeing them in unfortunate circumstances, the idea that cooperation, sharing and community are possible, occasionally even between those who would later become the conquerors and the vanquished.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

George Kennan

I'm roughly half-way through the second volume of George Kennan's memoirs at the moment. It's not a tell-all, heart-on-sleeve memoir. A bit of the opposite, in fact. It is necessarily selective, written in a formal, slightly stilted style of someone who, while a good writer, is not really trying to produce pleasurable reading and, written as it was long before the age of celebrity fetish and the public's insatiable appetite for dirt, noticeably reticent. It is nevertheless a fascinating read, and for reasons that might not be one's initial guess.

All the expected foreign policy stuff is interesting, to be sure. His account of his short tour as US Ambassador to the Soviet Union is one of the best summaries ever published of the impact of the Soviet police state on foreigners, the state which, while somewhat streamlined since Stalin's time, has not changed fundamentally until after the end of that regime, and is now showing signs of resurrection. What clinches the deal for me, though, are his observations about ordinary things. Here is a man who is intelligent, observant and perceptive enough to think about his daily experiences and their implications, and motivated enough to write them down. Write them down not because he is getting paid to do so (he is not), or to achieve notoriety (he had already done that with his foreign policy work), but because he cares about them, and sees wider implications in them. Traveling to California, he expresses astonishment, and more than a bit of alarm, at the California lifestyle's complete dependence on the car, and therefore on the supply of oil, as well as the precarious state of water availability and the population's insistence on going on with their lives as if everything is fine. What's more, he perceives the essentially irreversible nature of this trend and surmises that California is not unique, it is simply fifteen years ahead of the rest of the country. This in 1951, and, as far as I can tell, completely unprompted! And what are we talking about today, more than a half-century later, if not our dependence on oil and water rights disputes in the Western states?

Here also is a man for whom his work and his chosen field of endeavor is without exception the most important aspect of his life. He works hard, and thinks hard about work all the time, not because he is forced to, or because he is afraid of losing his job if he doesn't, or because he wants to make a pile of money. He does it but because he feels a genuine passion for what he does, he is completely convinced that the questions he contemplates as part of his work have far-reaching consequences for society as a whole, and he is deeply interested in the intellectual problems before him and does not feel like a complete human being unless he makes his best effort to address them. This is the definition of commitment. The kind of commitment I will never have, nor will most people I know. J. comes closest. I suppose this is why he gets to write a memoir and I don't.

Culture(s)

Not surprisingly, my last post has generated some disagreement. Re-reading it, and the comments, I realize that I have indeed put myself on a slippery slope towards being misunderstood, and since the original post made quite a bit of progress down that slope towards the bottom of the pit. So I'd like to clarify a couple of points.

What I am not suggesting is that being exposed to multiple cultures, for a child or an adult, is a bad thing. Quite the contrary, it is an excellent and useful thing and should be encouraged and cultivated at every opportunity. There is no question that anyone who has had the good fortune to be so exposed comes out the richer for it. What I am suggesting, however, is that one cannot be a member of two cultures in equal measure. Sooner or later, one has to choose. Further, I am suggesting that one ought to choose the culture of the place in which one lives, expressed, first and foremost, by the language spoken in that place. By “choose” I do not mean excluding all artifacts of the other culture. It is not an all or nothing proposition. But neither is it fifty-fifty. Why? Because a fifty-fifty approach leaves you with two half-cultures rather than one that is complete and enriched by contributions of the other. What I am proposing, essentially, is that an individual has, or if not, ought to have, a primary culture that is then enhanced by contributions from as many others as possible. Finally, I am suggesting that one's name is a manifestation of that primary culture.

"Are we not engaging in that most American of practices – welcoming the best the world has to offer – every time we sip French wine or Ethiopian coffee?" S.G. asks. Of course we are. But to me, that is precisely an example of a primary culture being informed by others, rather than trying to be in two worlds at the same time. American culture is a particularly interesting one to attempt to make one's primary one. It is no news to anyone that American culture is an amalgam of many others, and the implications of that have been discussed to death. What I find significant, however, is that the term that has caught on over the decades for referring to it is “melting pot.” Whoever coined it knew what they were talking about – a melting pot implies an irreversible alteration of the ingredients into an original whole. That is exactly what American culture is, or ought to be when it is not. More recently, some have suggested that American culture has become more of a salad, where individual ingredients are mixed but retrain their distinct identity. That, to me, is an unfortunate development. By not fusing the contributions into a new whole we deprive our culture of enrichment. If we let it continue long enough, we risk ending up as a collection of disparate, unrelated cultural elements all attempting to exist in the same place without a unifying identity of its own. That strikes me as a profoundly sad prospect.

What's in a name

S.G. and his wife had a baby (don't worry, no gurgly baby pictures at the other end of that link) a few weeks ago. A boy. I am very happy for them.

S.G.'s wife is from the Eastern Mediterranean. A wonderful woman, at least as far as I can tell from my few times meeting her. When she came to the US, however, she did not do so to flee violence or repression, or even to better her economic situation (granting that living and working in the US usually betters the economic situation automatically for people from all but a handful of countries). Coming from a family of middle-class civil servants (if memory serves), she entered a green card lottery, won, and decided, rightly, that it would be stupid to pass up an opportunity like that. So when their son was born, she and S.G. named him with a name that is common in her culture, but is obviously not an English name. I know it's none of my business, but I must admit it gave me pause. My question at the time – I was trying to be polite, and no doubt failing miserably – was something along the lines of “any reservations about peer reactions when he is older?” His response was “hopefully he will deal with peer reactions the way the rest of us did.” But frankly, I was not convinced. To put it bluntly, what was going through my head was “you're going to raise him as an American, aren't you? Then why not give him an American name?”

One's given name is the most personal thing one has. It is also indelibly linked with a language and, therefore, with a culture. A person living in one culture that carries a name from another will always be tainted with a trace of “otherness.” Not an individual kind of otherness (a teenager who listens to classical music when all his friends are listening to rock), but a categorical otherness – the person is instantly, and permanently, identified as a member of a group different than that of his peers and kept at arm's length by them. And that can wreak havoc on an adolescent's social development at a critical stage of his life. But wait, it's not that simple, is it? First of all, there are other factor's in one's social adjustment, not just whether kids in school think he is one of them or not, aren't there? Fair enough. But hey, in this day and age, kids need all the help they can get – why handicap them at the get-go?

There is something else that I can't seem to let go of. Is this “categorical otherness” really a bad thing? Well, that depends. I should give the disclaimer that I haven't talked to S.G. or his wife about this, so I really don't know what I am talking about, but I suspect that if I asked them, they would say “No, we're not going to raise him exclusively as an American. He can be both.” And if they didn't, surely there are other parents out there who would. If we accept the premise that your given name links you to a culture by way of language, it would imply that this kid will be raised in two cultures. And that, I believe, is impossible. Not equally, at least. It's one thing to be put on a jumbo jet and sent for six or eight weeks every summer to spend with grandma half way around the world while your parents go on vacation and catch up on their sex life. It's quite another to be permanently connected to one culture while living in another. If you try to belong to two cultures at the same time, you end up belonging to neither in full measure. Life is short enough, and any culture, including our American one (especially the American one, I would argue), is complex enough that fully absorbing, sharing in, and taking advantage of it is plenty challenging for most people. Attempting a second one, or, worse, being forced to attempt a second one by your name, is liable to leave you permanently hanging between two worlds, with one foot in each, but fully grounded in neither.

Tallula

J. and I went to Tallula for her birthday on Wednesday. It was lovely. We had eaten there once before, and have been eager to go back. Granting that there is no such thing as a perfect restaurant (or a perfect anything, save for a really well-made martini), Tallula comes as close as anything. The space, located a bit off the beaten path on Washington Blvd. between Clarendon and Columbia Pike, is not large but feel spacious, with a wall of wine racks along one side and an open kitchen along the other. It's fairly dark, but not so much that you can't read the menu. The décor is elegant and minimalist, but the place is inviting – far from the swankier-than-thou look of some places. The most shocking thing, though, is that Tallula is quiet. Some jazz was being piped into the dining room at a barely-audible volume, but it was not overwhelming, and the somewhat sparse Wednesday night crowd combined with a judicious use of soft surfaces allowed us to hold a conversation (about existentialism and specifically Albert Camus, with whom J. shares her birthday) without raising our voices – something that, sadly, cannot be said about many otherwise excellent restaurants these days.

Tallula's menu is, by today's standards, conventional – New American cuisine broken down into salads, appetizers, and entrees – with one twist. They have a section they call “Amuse Yourself” that features tiny, one or two-bite appetizers for a couple of dollars apiece. We had fond memories of them from our last visit, so we started our meal with a couple – a cevice and a barbeque pork tamale. The cevice was delicious – about two tablespoonfuls of tender fish packing a wallop of fresh lime and a strong punch of cilantro, served in a tiny tortilla cup. The tamale was less memorable – about three-inches in diameter, it was flavorful but kind of dry. Eager to try their entrees, we skipped full-size appetizers and salads, which turned out to be a good thing since the main dishes are quite generous. My choice, in particular – bison short ribs – were overwhelmingly hearty. This surprised me in a restaurant of this caliber, but I need not have worried – it was quantity and quality. Succulent, tender and literally falling off the bones (yes, there was more than one), they packed a flavor that was beefy, but not quite beef – both a little more gamy and a little more subtle at the same time. They were coated with a thick, rich sauce that was quite spicy – I was digging it (thank you, Arizona!), but I suspect it could be a little much for gringos raised in the swamps of the mid-Atlantic. The whole assembly was served over creamy polenta which, in deference to the local vernacular, they called grits. Delicious and incredibly decadent.

J. opted for venison – a far more reasonable dish, it also had a more interesting flavor – calling it “gamy” would be disingenuous, but that's what it was – musty and earthy, it was a perfect match to the sauteed lobster mushrooms it was served with. The texture was excellent as well – firm and very smooth – far less stringy than even the best steak. Beside the mushrooms, it came with little spinach dough balls that J. didn't care for but I found delicious.

The highlight of the meal, though, was the wine. Tallula is truly a local treasure in that department. Since they are also a wine store, their list is long and all dining room prices are $10 above retail – an unbelievable value. This can, should you wish, translate to a lower overall bill, but, celebrating as we were, we decided to splurge a bit and get a spectacular bottle for the price of a merely good one. What ended up on our table was a 2005 Neyers Zinfandel from the heart of Napa Valley. There is nothing like a top-notch zin to help you learn the meaning of cheap wine. Most zins that end up on our table, even perennial favorites like Cline and Rancho Zabaco, have fruit in spades, and usually a bit of zinfandel's characteristic spice. The Neyers, initially, seemed almost reticent by comparison, but after five minutes in the glass – long enough to lose the lingering taste of cevice and formulate exactly how the deconstructionists of the sixties used Sartre's existentialism to arrive at a lack of objective morality – it had all the qualities the more common zins, plus rock-solid structure all the way through, impeccable balance and a certain inexplicable elegance. Every sip really did make me stop thinking or talking and forced me to focus on nothing but the flavor of the wine for a few seconds. Amazing. A quick web search informed me that only 500 cases were produced in '05 – I'm headed back to Tallula this weekend to buy a bottle for Christmas.

For dessert, J. chose the pumpkin cheesecake, which came as an attractive single-serving disk topped with a scoop of cranberry sorbet. I didn't try it, but J. gave it top marks. I opted for cheese – an aged English cheddar was was delicious – sweet, firm and very dry, almost Parmiggiano Reggiano-like, and St. Pete's blue, which was a bit of a plane jane compared to the cheddar – buttery and salty, but not particularly distinctive. Lovely meal all the way around, I just wish the plate of short ribs had been a bit less gargantuan.

Consideration of Interest

I must be a callous, insensitive, cold-hearted and immoral person. I finished reading Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma the other night. The book has received a lot of attention since it came out last year, so I won't attempt a review. Suffice it to say that I enjoyed it tremendously. One of the reasons it made such a splash, though, is that it is supposed to have caused more than a few readers to stop and question the morality of eating meat. The book is not a polemic that advocates vegetarianism – far from it – but it does, supposedly, make some persuasive arguments about why eating meat vs. becoming vegetarians should be a thoroughly contemplated, conscious moral choice on the part of every human being. The problem is that I failed to be persuaded. To be sure, the arguments are thought-provoking. Understandably so – Pollan mostly digests Peter Singer's Animal Liberation – a book that most of probably would not think of picking up on a whim. They are also multi-faceted, multi-layered, and have a strong connection to formal philosophy. What I think Pollan, an excellent writer, intended, though, is not only to make us think, but to make us feel that we are not behaving in a moral fashion unless we think about these arguments. And that is what it failed to do for me. A central concept underlying these arguments is consideration of interest. As humans, we offer a consideration of interest to other humans, i.e. we think whether another person's interest will be furthered or diminished by our actions before we act, and that is what makes us moral beings. So far so good. Singer, channelled by Pollan, suggests that we ought to do the same for animals, and eating them does not further their interest. Fine (Pollan later offers a pretty convincing refutation of this idea, but I digress). Why is it immoral to thwart an animal's interest, though? Because as humans, not offering a consideration of interest to another human for one's own gain, is immoral. Puh-lease! How naïve can one be to believe that? People advance their own interests against those of others around them all the time! Business competition? Professional advancement? Politics? Is he suggesting that all these activities are by definition immoral? Actually, Singer would probably say yes. But god knows we've been there before.

P.S.: Vegetarianism is the focus of only one chapter in the book. The rest deals with other, far more significant, topics.