Thursday, November 20, 2003
Fun at the Rhinebeck Sheep and Wool Fair
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
If you want to know where the 1960's hippies have gone, long time passing, I can tell you some. Now I have more to offer, about their mates, the flower children, the beautiful anti-war girls with long hair who stuck daffodils into the muzzles of guns. Joan Baez has a new record out, there may be explanations of the rites of passage of that disenchanted generation .
Anyway, Mallory Pier in Key West attracts the street- arts- talented , and Sturges, ND draws the adventurous, and various flea markets and crafts fairs in the more remote locales of the country are where you can find more of them, men and women. And also, at the convocation venue I stumbled into, the 31st Annual Sheep and Wool Festival, at the spread-out Dutchess County Fairgrounds in Rhinebeck, one of several such unrelated events held throughout the country. Sort of endearingly anarchist, if you know what I mean.
The mid -October S&WF strained the capacity of the extended facilities, a dozen buildings and more tents and booths and fields for sheep-herding events. We truly are people close to the ground, friends of the earth, lovers of the natural. The proof is the huge attendance at this event . New Yorkers rear sheep (and goats and rabbits and llamas) for wool (also cheese, but that's another country), shear them, clean and card the wool, spin the yarn, and knit woolen clothing, the best and warmest, maybe even too much so, in this climate- controlled unnatural environment that we have come to love. Most visitors at the Fair are what I'd call Phase IV people, knitters, who buy patterns and matching wool not only in the US but also from Canada, a major wool producer and importer, and from New Zealand. Some get more exotic wool and yarn, South African merino and Falkland Islands top white, and occasionally scour the earth for rarer specials, certain yak wool, vicunas and alpacas. Long-haired Angora rabbits abound domestically. It turns out that a single bunny can can produce wool for one or two exquisite scarves, every year.
The Dutchess Fair brings producers from the entire Eastern Seaboard, all the way to Canada. Growers of sheep bring raw sheared wool, $5 a pound, and roving - long tubes of parallel long fiber, washed and combed - at $16 (the washing out of lanolin and carding of dirt and other reduces the yield by a half.) The vendors of finished wool yarn for knitters have varieties, in all colors, plain and multi-fiber, some with sparkles thrown in. Packaged sets of wool matched to interesting patterns are popular
Spinning gear makers also range from Virginia to Maine and Canada. Their pedal or treadle- driven wheels cost upwards from $200, although purists can use the Navajo spindle, a long shaft with a heavy wooden spinning head. The spinner activates it every few seconds with her left hand, imparting a spin by rubbing the stem against her thigh, while the right feeds wool to the process. A slow and demanding multitasking process, compared to the treadle-driven spinning, which leaves both hands free to manipulate the wool. The charms of the process that seduce people into hand- spinning wool stem from the total control and the artistry - the spinner creates twisted yarn of any thickness and density that she chooses, and of any color combination and consistency. Skeins of yarn at the show, for sale from S5 to $28 show the varieties, from hairy short-fiber to fine "tops." The character and quality of wool ranges from coarse "belly" fiber for carpets to material for hairy woolens and smooth worsteds. As to llama vs. alpaca wool - it is same animal, different breeding. The llamas in Peru were pack animals, alpacas were bred for wool. Remind you of another species? Imported mass-produced llama wool will be coarser, and may have less "memory" (bounceback quality to retain shape after washing) than the US product.
What about Angora? Well, Angora wool is the lightest, fluffiest fiber, pleasant to the touch, and allegedly healthy. It is produced by rabbits. The Angora goats produce mohair, next best, and after that comes cashmere, a goat product, as explained to me by Claudia of countrywool.com, our upstate purveyor of wool and airtravel-safe knitting needles, who has a little shop and knittery/spinnery way back in the woods. The harvesting process of long-hair rabbits is either by natural moulting or by shearing, both renewable and harmless to the animals, I'm told.
Now back to the wool people. The ladies of the trade, particularly those in spinning, remind me of the flower children of yore, although slightly aged - tall, long grey hair, plain homespun costumes, slow measured speech, occasionally offering an anti-war calendar for sale. The spinning wheel men tend to have ponytails, wear overalls and carry carpenters' gear. Those in knitting and in selling of wool, of both sexes, include a modern contingent, not as colorful but well-equipped with computerized knitting instructions and portable credit card machinery. Some have web-sites for mailorder trading facilities. Keep this Fair in mind for next October's entertainment.
If you want to know where the 1960's hippies have gone, long time passing, I can tell you some. Now I have more to offer, about their mates, the flower children, the beautiful anti-war girls with long hair who stuck daffodils into the muzzles of guns. Joan Baez has a new record out, there may be explanations of the rites of passage of that disenchanted generation .
Anyway, Mallory Pier in Key West attracts the street- arts- talented , and Sturges, ND draws the adventurous, and various flea markets and crafts fairs in the more remote locales of the country are where you can find more of them, men and women. And also, at the convocation venue I stumbled into, the 31st Annual Sheep and Wool Festival, at the spread-out Dutchess County Fairgrounds in Rhinebeck, one of several such unrelated events held throughout the country. Sort of endearingly anarchist, if you know what I mean.
The mid -October S&WF strained the capacity of the extended facilities, a dozen buildings and more tents and booths and fields for sheep-herding events. We truly are people close to the ground, friends of the earth, lovers of the natural. The proof is the huge attendance at this event . New Yorkers rear sheep (and goats and rabbits and llamas) for wool (also cheese, but that's another country), shear them, clean and card the wool, spin the yarn, and knit woolen clothing, the best and warmest, maybe even too much so, in this climate- controlled unnatural environment that we have come to love. Most visitors at the Fair are what I'd call Phase IV people, knitters, who buy patterns and matching wool not only in the US but also from Canada, a major wool producer and importer, and from New Zealand. Some get more exotic wool and yarn, South African merino and Falkland Islands top white, and occasionally scour the earth for rarer specials, certain yak wool, vicunas and alpacas. Long-haired Angora rabbits abound domestically. It turns out that a single bunny can can produce wool for one or two exquisite scarves, every year.
The Dutchess Fair brings producers from the entire Eastern Seaboard, all the way to Canada. Growers of sheep bring raw sheared wool, $5 a pound, and roving - long tubes of parallel long fiber, washed and combed - at $16 (the washing out of lanolin and carding of dirt and other reduces the yield by a half.) The vendors of finished wool yarn for knitters have varieties, in all colors, plain and multi-fiber, some with sparkles thrown in. Packaged sets of wool matched to interesting patterns are popular
Spinning gear makers also range from Virginia to Maine and Canada. Their pedal or treadle- driven wheels cost upwards from $200, although purists can use the Navajo spindle, a long shaft with a heavy wooden spinning head. The spinner activates it every few seconds with her left hand, imparting a spin by rubbing the stem against her thigh, while the right feeds wool to the process. A slow and demanding multitasking process, compared to the treadle-driven spinning, which leaves both hands free to manipulate the wool. The charms of the process that seduce people into hand- spinning wool stem from the total control and the artistry - the spinner creates twisted yarn of any thickness and density that she chooses, and of any color combination and consistency. Skeins of yarn at the show, for sale from S5 to $28 show the varieties, from hairy short-fiber to fine "tops." The character and quality of wool ranges from coarse "belly" fiber for carpets to material for hairy woolens and smooth worsteds. As to llama vs. alpaca wool - it is same animal, different breeding. The llamas in Peru were pack animals, alpacas were bred for wool. Remind you of another species? Imported mass-produced llama wool will be coarser, and may have less "memory" (bounceback quality to retain shape after washing) than the US product.
What about Angora? Well, Angora wool is the lightest, fluffiest fiber, pleasant to the touch, and allegedly healthy. It is produced by rabbits. The Angora goats produce mohair, next best, and after that comes cashmere, a goat product, as explained to me by Claudia of countrywool.com, our upstate purveyor of wool and airtravel-safe knitting needles, who has a little shop and knittery/spinnery way back in the woods. The harvesting process of long-hair rabbits is either by natural moulting or by shearing, both renewable and harmless to the animals, I'm told.
Now back to the wool people. The ladies of the trade, particularly those in spinning, remind me of the flower children of yore, although slightly aged - tall, long grey hair, plain homespun costumes, slow measured speech, occasionally offering an anti-war calendar for sale. The spinning wheel men tend to have ponytails, wear overalls and carry carpenters' gear. Those in knitting and in selling of wool, of both sexes, include a modern contingent, not as colorful but well-equipped with computerized knitting instructions and portable credit card machinery. Some have web-sites for mailorder trading facilities. Keep this Fair in mind for next October's entertainment.
Monday, November 17, 2003
A tour of paradise, in South Pacific
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
I am ten years old, and I am in a National Geographic expedition to New Hebrides, watching the Melanesians! This déjà vu was prompted by viewing a harvest processional, called the Rom Dance, on Ambrym, an island renowned for its magic, in the South Pacific, part of what is now the Ripublik blong Vanuatu. This ritual, performed by 14 men in full-length banana leaf costumes, with spire-top bird-head masks, surrounding a group of naked men dressed in nothing but pandan-leaf penis sheaths, is the precinct of village elders, who acquire the rights, and the accompanying social standing,, by donating a pig (valued at $200!) once a year. In turn, they are allowed to make wood carved tom-toms, the sacred two-tone drum communication devices, and their miniature replicas favored by tourists, and the privilege of issuing certain taboos. The dance costumes are destroyed at the end of the real ritual. A neat social structure for promotion of industry, and taxation, Washington to copy.
We, the 112-member expedition tourists from the M/S Clipper Odyssey, exploring a new route for Intrav/Clipper, partly under the flag of the National Museum of Natural History, were favored with a preview of the hour-long ceremony, after a ritual exchange of gifts, and an obligatory pig-slaughter (only the Captain participated). The villagers are feared because of their powers of incantation and performing levitation (unconfirmed) and superior replication of magic figures (confirmed). The latter were sold after the ritual, by skilled speakers at festive tables, with groups of carvers observing, silently. Our arrival prompted visits by a hundred or so neighboring villagers in colorful dress, who reclined on the tree-lined black sandy beach, women and men separately, and watched our moves. The men and women have separate secret societies, and female menstrual emissions are, in some cultures, thought to have magic and deadly qualities. Magic and Christianity seem to coexist well, the cultural influence if missionaries is evident - there are no bare torsos in Melanesia, while the Micronesians still remain climate-appropriately undressed.
Upon our arrival in eight-person Zodiacs (rubber boats) and a wet landing at the beach, we were cordially greeted with handshakes, and escorted to logs placed around the village green, which soon became the scene of the back-and-forth Rom dance/parade figure movements, musically accompanied by two naked drummers on tam-tams. Photography was tolerated. The cordiality was evident when neighboring villagers left, shaking hands individually with locals (guards?), along the beachside access road, a far cry from the head-hunting ferocity described by Jack London (1876-1914) in his South Seas tales. The progeny of his Michael and Jerry, two dogs who sang, were roaming freely on the beach, along with fearless toddlers, who smilingly shook hands with strangers. The adolescents were more reticent, and an adult male, lying on the beach, ironically called out to the tourist: “this is how we spend our days!” We both laughed, uneasily. You do not have to read Bronislaw Malinowski of the Trobriands, or Margaret Mead of Samoa to catch the drift.
The Vanuatans, independent since 1980, with vestiges of a British-French overseeing Condominium installed in 1906 (ironically called Pandemonium), are at lest quadri-lingual, with Bislama, the pidgin language I remember from Jack London, prevailing. Native speakers of melodic “kustom” languages often speak two or three, their own and their mothers’ village tongues. Intermarriage between villages, even hostile ones, has always been favored, and population has been kept low. The na-Vanuatu, 200,000 inhabitants ob 83 islands, combined size of Connecticut, own land in common, live self-sufficiently on fish and swidden gardens (rotated in 10-15 generations, and seem to have learned, since settling there in the Stone Ages, to guard against overpopulation. Is this a practice in genetics, or simply lack of medical care?
Independence has been costly; the Vanuatu treasury, post-boom, lost some reputed mega-millions when persuaded by a London financier to invest in bonds returning 25% annually .Fortunately, islanders have not lost their money-less self-sufficiency. Visiting the Maskelynes, small low islands, our adventure- ready advance scouts (ours was very much an ad hoc day-by-day schedule) were granted beach and reef snorkel privileges for 2,000 vatu ($20) and a hat. Islanders rowed out to the ship in primitive dugouts with outriggers and lateen sails, held together with palm-frond ties, and a man, when asked, offered to sell his one-person canoe to our Amazon-size scout from New Zealand (she owns a dive shop) for 5,000 vatu. That was big bucks on Uliveo, where we did shoreline sight-seeing of the idyllically clean lagoon village (the weather became too dirty for snorkeling) in our eight-passenger Zodiac boats . We did see two men with adzes hewing at a tree-trunk, shaping a canoe (the dugout is so narrow that it holds two feet only when placed heel-to-toe), an effort of many hours of work. A replacement? Industry cannot be stopped. Our anthropologist, Bob Tonkinson, a Vanuatu veteran since the 1960s, hailed an old friend, a chief, who treated us to mangoes, best ever. The villagers’ source of cash income is Jimmy, a guide, who has a boat from the capital -Port Vila, of which more later - stop for fresh fish, on some mythical schedule, since there was no evidence of a cell phone or an electric generator, the few-hours- a- day link to civilization in more advanced Vanuatu and Fiji villages.
What else do I know about Vanuatu economy? Well, there’ s an award winning beer, Tusker, Air Vanuatu is the flag-bearing airline, and there are two newspapers and two news sites. The GDP is $1.3K per capita, and the trade balance is sadly one-sided. Main partners are Japanese, who buy sea-cucumbers. The Aussies, NZ, US and EU contribute. Ah, the cost of paradise.
I am ten years old, and I am in a National Geographic expedition to New Hebrides, watching the Melanesians! This déjà vu was prompted by viewing a harvest processional, called the Rom Dance, on Ambrym, an island renowned for its magic, in the South Pacific, part of what is now the Ripublik blong Vanuatu. This ritual, performed by 14 men in full-length banana leaf costumes, with spire-top bird-head masks, surrounding a group of naked men dressed in nothing but pandan-leaf penis sheaths, is the precinct of village elders, who acquire the rights, and the accompanying social standing,, by donating a pig (valued at $200!) once a year. In turn, they are allowed to make wood carved tom-toms, the sacred two-tone drum communication devices, and their miniature replicas favored by tourists, and the privilege of issuing certain taboos. The dance costumes are destroyed at the end of the real ritual. A neat social structure for promotion of industry, and taxation, Washington to copy.
We, the 112-member expedition tourists from the M/S Clipper Odyssey, exploring a new route for Intrav/Clipper, partly under the flag of the National Museum of Natural History, were favored with a preview of the hour-long ceremony, after a ritual exchange of gifts, and an obligatory pig-slaughter (only the Captain participated). The villagers are feared because of their powers of incantation and performing levitation (unconfirmed) and superior replication of magic figures (confirmed). The latter were sold after the ritual, by skilled speakers at festive tables, with groups of carvers observing, silently. Our arrival prompted visits by a hundred or so neighboring villagers in colorful dress, who reclined on the tree-lined black sandy beach, women and men separately, and watched our moves. The men and women have separate secret societies, and female menstrual emissions are, in some cultures, thought to have magic and deadly qualities. Magic and Christianity seem to coexist well, the cultural influence if missionaries is evident - there are no bare torsos in Melanesia, while the Micronesians still remain climate-appropriately undressed.
Upon our arrival in eight-person Zodiacs (rubber boats) and a wet landing at the beach, we were cordially greeted with handshakes, and escorted to logs placed around the village green, which soon became the scene of the back-and-forth Rom dance/parade figure movements, musically accompanied by two naked drummers on tam-tams. Photography was tolerated. The cordiality was evident when neighboring villagers left, shaking hands individually with locals (guards?), along the beachside access road, a far cry from the head-hunting ferocity described by Jack London (1876-1914) in his South Seas tales. The progeny of his Michael and Jerry, two dogs who sang, were roaming freely on the beach, along with fearless toddlers, who smilingly shook hands with strangers. The adolescents were more reticent, and an adult male, lying on the beach, ironically called out to the tourist: “this is how we spend our days!” We both laughed, uneasily. You do not have to read Bronislaw Malinowski of the Trobriands, or Margaret Mead of Samoa to catch the drift.
The Vanuatans, independent since 1980, with vestiges of a British-French overseeing Condominium installed in 1906 (ironically called Pandemonium), are at lest quadri-lingual, with Bislama, the pidgin language I remember from Jack London, prevailing. Native speakers of melodic “kustom” languages often speak two or three, their own and their mothers’ village tongues. Intermarriage between villages, even hostile ones, has always been favored, and population has been kept low. The na-Vanuatu, 200,000 inhabitants ob 83 islands, combined size of Connecticut, own land in common, live self-sufficiently on fish and swidden gardens (rotated in 10-15 generations, and seem to have learned, since settling there in the Stone Ages, to guard against overpopulation. Is this a practice in genetics, or simply lack of medical care?
Independence has been costly; the Vanuatu treasury, post-boom, lost some reputed mega-millions when persuaded by a London financier to invest in bonds returning 25% annually .Fortunately, islanders have not lost their money-less self-sufficiency. Visiting the Maskelynes, small low islands, our adventure- ready advance scouts (ours was very much an ad hoc day-by-day schedule) were granted beach and reef snorkel privileges for 2,000 vatu ($20) and a hat. Islanders rowed out to the ship in primitive dugouts with outriggers and lateen sails, held together with palm-frond ties, and a man, when asked, offered to sell his one-person canoe to our Amazon-size scout from New Zealand (she owns a dive shop) for 5,000 vatu. That was big bucks on Uliveo, where we did shoreline sight-seeing of the idyllically clean lagoon village (the weather became too dirty for snorkeling) in our eight-passenger Zodiac boats . We did see two men with adzes hewing at a tree-trunk, shaping a canoe (the dugout is so narrow that it holds two feet only when placed heel-to-toe), an effort of many hours of work. A replacement? Industry cannot be stopped. Our anthropologist, Bob Tonkinson, a Vanuatu veteran since the 1960s, hailed an old friend, a chief, who treated us to mangoes, best ever. The villagers’ source of cash income is Jimmy, a guide, who has a boat from the capital -Port Vila, of which more later - stop for fresh fish, on some mythical schedule, since there was no evidence of a cell phone or an electric generator, the few-hours- a- day link to civilization in more advanced Vanuatu and Fiji villages.
What else do I know about Vanuatu economy? Well, there’ s an award winning beer, Tusker, Air Vanuatu is the flag-bearing airline, and there are two newspapers and two news sites. The GDP is $1.3K per capita, and the trade balance is sadly one-sided. Main partners are Japanese, who buy sea-cucumbers. The Aussies, NZ, US and EU contribute. Ah, the cost of paradise.
Labels: Ambrym, Ripublik blong Vanuaty
Thursday, November 13, 2003
Nobu
Visiting the world of Japanese cooking in downtown Manhattan
The world of celebrity was once encompassed by stars of stage, screen and television, the sports and politics, plus some notorious criminals. Now a new breed has joined –the chefs and restaurateurs of note, whose exploits and adventures rank way up there in the media attention. Recently one of them was noted accompanied by a body guard My annual exposure to the haute cuisine world is anchored by two events, the James Beard Foundation Journalism Award Dinner in the Spring, and the 14th Street-Union Square LCD/BID Harvest Festival. I attend the former courtesy of a member of the family, who is a judge, and that is where one rubs shoulders with the notables who gain fame by writing about the cuisine and its celebs. There one meets the legendary Ruth Reichl, a person who exudes energy not camouflaged by the exotic and overflowing hair styles she used to affect when hiding herself while visiting restaurants on behalf of the readers of the Paper of Record. She has toned the secrecy down and become more accessible since leaving the NYT and assuming editorship of Gourmet magazine At the Beard event one also sees Gael Greene of the New York Mag, Jean Anderson, the prolific writer of cookbooks and Portugal, who once resided at 7 Lex, AH of GQ who consistently carries away the top journalistic awards, and xx the charming revealer of Indian cooking secrets for the home chefs.
The Union Square event is more for bumping into our domestic lions – Danny Meyers of the US Café and GT , Eric Petterson of US Coffee Shop and Luna, Todd English, the peripatetic head of Olives. It was therefore with great pleasure that we accepted an invitation to go to a different taste adventure, Japanese style. It was the opening show of dinnerware designed by Nobu Matsuhisa, the chief of the eponymous upscale Japanese restaurants. There are only three, two in NY, at the opposite ends of the same building at 105 Hudson Street, and one in London.
The event was held in the cozy showroom of Korin Trading Company, the wholesale distributor on Japanese dinner ware to the Occidental world (now open for retail trade), at 57 Warren Street, way west of City Hall, past Church Street, It is run by soft-spoken but voluble Saori Kawano, the tiny president of the company, who keeps expressing her regrets that people do not know where Warren Street is and cannot come to view her exquisite dinner plates and Oriental art. Her largely silent partner Chiharu Sugai, titled Master Knife Sharpener, rules over racks and racks of special purpose cutlery, 400 varieties that may thrill the connoisseurs of sharp objects. This industry stems form the Japanese art of making katana, the samurai swords, banned by Gen. MacArthur after WWII. Restaurants and butcher shops are known to turn in their knives to professional sharpeners, to restore their razor edges, and the sushi shops are no exception.
Speaking of sushi, the visitors to the show were treated to an unceasing stream of hors d’oeuvres from Nobu, starting with lamb anticuccho, black cod in miso, washu beef in jalapeno sauce, scallops with yuzu and creamy crab in truffle sauce. Nobu has been serving New Yorkers for nine years, a respectable age in the fashion driven NY restaurant world. Their rice sushi hors d’oeuvres extended well beyond salmon and tuna, to include also pike, yellowtail and farl, the belly of tuna, and some rolls of unknown content but uniformly good-tasting. Nobu rates a 28, “sheer bliss,” in the Zagat’s guide, I’m told.
This class series of treats was accompanied by sparkling water, sparkling wine from Italy, and three types of tasting saki, not sold in stores, from Japan Prestige Sake in LA. Ordinarily I’m not fond of this wine, California type, but these varieties – cloudy, fruity and hot – were pleasant to sip, and easy on the palate, at 14 ½ % alcoholic content Regular sake is best served hot, to meld and subdue the unpleasant taste sensations, according to the importer.
Now to the main event’s interest, the aristocratic pure white bone china, shiny or matte, by Nobu, best suited for Japanese service (the large plates are flat-bottomed, to accommodate small tasting portions). There is also a white on white bamboo pattern, and a clock pattern, the latter particularly suited for restaurant service; since now the chef can build the presentation toward the 6 o’clock edge, with the assurance that the serving person will put it properly, facing the customer. There are plates, bowls and teacups, round, oval and square, classic in their simplicity, and also thumb-print and food residue resistant. .
Nobu restaurants are part of the empire of Drew Nieporent, of Montrachet, Tribeca Grill and ten more venues, the second most famous grad of Stuyvesant High. When he asked me who is the firs, I had no name of the worthiest of the Nobel Prize graduates, there are so many. Matsuhisa, who has been a restaurateur on several continents, started a restaurant by that name in Beverly Hills in 1987, met Nieporent two years later, and opened the first NYC Nobu in 1994.
The world of celebrity was once encompassed by stars of stage, screen and television, the sports and politics, plus some notorious criminals. Now a new breed has joined –the chefs and restaurateurs of note, whose exploits and adventures rank way up there in the media attention. Recently one of them was noted accompanied by a body guard My annual exposure to the haute cuisine world is anchored by two events, the James Beard Foundation Journalism Award Dinner in the Spring, and the 14th Street-Union Square LCD/BID Harvest Festival. I attend the former courtesy of a member of the family, who is a judge, and that is where one rubs shoulders with the notables who gain fame by writing about the cuisine and its celebs. There one meets the legendary Ruth Reichl, a person who exudes energy not camouflaged by the exotic and overflowing hair styles she used to affect when hiding herself while visiting restaurants on behalf of the readers of the Paper of Record. She has toned the secrecy down and become more accessible since leaving the NYT and assuming editorship of Gourmet magazine At the Beard event one also sees Gael Greene of the New York Mag, Jean Anderson, the prolific writer of cookbooks and Portugal, who once resided at 7 Lex, AH of GQ who consistently carries away the top journalistic awards, and xx the charming revealer of Indian cooking secrets for the home chefs.
The Union Square event is more for bumping into our domestic lions – Danny Meyers of the US Café and GT , Eric Petterson of US Coffee Shop and Luna, Todd English, the peripatetic head of Olives. It was therefore with great pleasure that we accepted an invitation to go to a different taste adventure, Japanese style. It was the opening show of dinnerware designed by Nobu Matsuhisa, the chief of the eponymous upscale Japanese restaurants. There are only three, two in NY, at the opposite ends of the same building at 105 Hudson Street, and one in London.
The event was held in the cozy showroom of Korin Trading Company, the wholesale distributor on Japanese dinner ware to the Occidental world (now open for retail trade), at 57 Warren Street, way west of City Hall, past Church Street, It is run by soft-spoken but voluble Saori Kawano, the tiny president of the company, who keeps expressing her regrets that people do not know where Warren Street is and cannot come to view her exquisite dinner plates and Oriental art. Her largely silent partner Chiharu Sugai, titled Master Knife Sharpener, rules over racks and racks of special purpose cutlery, 400 varieties that may thrill the connoisseurs of sharp objects. This industry stems form the Japanese art of making katana, the samurai swords, banned by Gen. MacArthur after WWII. Restaurants and butcher shops are known to turn in their knives to professional sharpeners, to restore their razor edges, and the sushi shops are no exception.
Speaking of sushi, the visitors to the show were treated to an unceasing stream of hors d’oeuvres from Nobu, starting with lamb anticuccho, black cod in miso, washu beef in jalapeno sauce, scallops with yuzu and creamy crab in truffle sauce. Nobu has been serving New Yorkers for nine years, a respectable age in the fashion driven NY restaurant world. Their rice sushi hors d’oeuvres extended well beyond salmon and tuna, to include also pike, yellowtail and farl, the belly of tuna, and some rolls of unknown content but uniformly good-tasting. Nobu rates a 28, “sheer bliss,” in the Zagat’s guide, I’m told.
This class series of treats was accompanied by sparkling water, sparkling wine from Italy, and three types of tasting saki, not sold in stores, from Japan Prestige Sake in LA. Ordinarily I’m not fond of this wine, California type, but these varieties – cloudy, fruity and hot – were pleasant to sip, and easy on the palate, at 14 ½ % alcoholic content Regular sake is best served hot, to meld and subdue the unpleasant taste sensations, according to the importer.
Now to the main event’s interest, the aristocratic pure white bone china, shiny or matte, by Nobu, best suited for Japanese service (the large plates are flat-bottomed, to accommodate small tasting portions). There is also a white on white bamboo pattern, and a clock pattern, the latter particularly suited for restaurant service; since now the chef can build the presentation toward the 6 o’clock edge, with the assurance that the serving person will put it properly, facing the customer. There are plates, bowls and teacups, round, oval and square, classic in their simplicity, and also thumb-print and food residue resistant. .
Nobu restaurants are part of the empire of Drew Nieporent, of Montrachet, Tribeca Grill and ten more venues, the second most famous grad of Stuyvesant High. When he asked me who is the firs, I had no name of the worthiest of the Nobel Prize graduates, there are so many. Matsuhisa, who has been a restaurateur on several continents, started a restaurant by that name in Beverly Hills in 1987, met Nieporent two years later, and opened the first NYC Nobu in 1994.
Thursday, November 06, 2003
Dr. P.hears a former Israeli contrarian
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
Dr. Paranoia had a call from the Texan. “I want you to meet an Israeli who can explain his countrymen's attitudes,” said the answer-man. “Meet us at the bar.”
They met. No names were exchanged. “ I have been voting with the Meretz party, the most left wing liberal group in our country,.” the Israeli, a middle-aged man, started his story. “In the last election Meretz lost seven of its 12 members of the 120 seat Knesset. This shows how Israeli liberal opinion has turned to despair, viewing 40% of the Arabs as inflexible religious fanatics who blindly follow the Hamas terror policy, dooming us to a perpetual state of war. Many feel that a huge conflagration is needed to open the Palestinians’ eyes. Many, including myself, have signed on to support Sharon’s security policy, with targeted killings.. Let me explain, before you go into shock.
“Some of us progressives see a sort of five-step solution, somewhat related to the government’s position. Number one, most importantly, we must steadfastly continue the eradication of terrorist leaders, chopping off the hydra’s heads as they surface, not just in response to terrorist attacks. That is most important. That shows the terrorists that they are doomed, they have lost, that we do not respond to their attacks and their pauses of choice, that we will take action continuously, regardless, therefore the terrorist bombings are meaningless in provoking us. Note that point. We no longer play their game.
" Second, we must not close our borders, we must let legitimate Palestinians enter and earn their livelihood. That helps us all in keeping relationships. Third, we must foster the rise of an Arab leader who is a realist, and can dictate to his people. And as a hope for the distant future, we need the success of the Sari Nuseibeh – Ami Ayalon coalition, the Arab university president and the Israeli security leader, who see a future of two states, with the Arabs giving up the return principle and Israelis giving up the settlements. Some 60,000 Palestinians and 94,000 Israelis have signed on. I see them as heroes, not afraid of retaliation. As more people sign, the popular movement against terror and violence may grow and take hold. The large number of Palestinian informers we have is not only due to the money we spend, it also shows that there are Palestinians who want to help us and themselves to get rid of the troublemakers.
“Will this be effective? Who knows! The only effective ways of stopping terror that we have seen were mass murders, applied by Arab secularist leaders against their own religionists and other internal dissidents, such as when Syria’s Assad killed 10,000 Muslim Brotherhood adherents, destroying the entire town of Hama, in 1980, and when Saddam Hussein gassed 5,000 Halabja Kurds in 1988 and killed 100,000 more in the Anfal murder campaign.. The outsiders fail. Milosevich Serbs’ killing of 7,000 Moslems in Srebrenica did not suppress the Bosnians. Only President Truman succeeded, when he authorized the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which killed 105,000. The shock stopped a war, and the world cheered, but this reaction is no longer feasible without a major provocation, else the world will revolt. Blowing up a Tikrit, or Faluja, or the Ansar al-Islam villages will be disastrous. Too much like the Germans’ annihilation of the peaceful Czech village of Lidice in 1942, following the assassination of Reinhard Heidrich by outsiders, Allied paratroopers. As to the world opinion, we Israelis will be damned whether we make peace or war with the terrorists. Israel’s security comes first. .”
“So, what do you see for Iraq?” Dr Paranoia asked. “Much of the same,” said the Israeli. “You must offer big rewards to informers, with anonymity assured, for turning in Saddam and Osama, as well as lesser terrorists. That is needed to damp the resistance. Provide seed money for bounty hunters. Help Iraq restore its life, make alliances with the Shiites, build Iraqi police, build an army, fence in the terrorists. Bribe the mullahs throughout Islam, as Rumsfeld suggests. Talk to Iran, to all secular Arabs including Libya and Syria. The Arab kingdoms must understand that they must curb their Wahabis, else they are lost. Make a US/UN-supervised non-aggression treaty with North Korea, subvert their attitudes. Reward American college students for learning targeted foreign languages and history, for work abroad. Rebuilding trust in the US will be a long haul, maybe a slog. As for American economy, the comeback will definitely be a slog.“
After the Texan and his friend left, Dr. P. asked the bartender: “What does this man know about US economy?” “I’m not sure,” was the answer, ”but I think he has been reading Rumsfeld’s lips.”
Dr. Paranoia had a call from the Texan. “I want you to meet an Israeli who can explain his countrymen's attitudes,” said the answer-man. “Meet us at the bar.”
They met. No names were exchanged. “ I have been voting with the Meretz party, the most left wing liberal group in our country,.” the Israeli, a middle-aged man, started his story. “In the last election Meretz lost seven of its 12 members of the 120 seat Knesset. This shows how Israeli liberal opinion has turned to despair, viewing 40% of the Arabs as inflexible religious fanatics who blindly follow the Hamas terror policy, dooming us to a perpetual state of war. Many feel that a huge conflagration is needed to open the Palestinians’ eyes. Many, including myself, have signed on to support Sharon’s security policy, with targeted killings.. Let me explain, before you go into shock.
“Some of us progressives see a sort of five-step solution, somewhat related to the government’s position. Number one, most importantly, we must steadfastly continue the eradication of terrorist leaders, chopping off the hydra’s heads as they surface, not just in response to terrorist attacks. That is most important. That shows the terrorists that they are doomed, they have lost, that we do not respond to their attacks and their pauses of choice, that we will take action continuously, regardless, therefore the terrorist bombings are meaningless in provoking us. Note that point. We no longer play their game.
" Second, we must not close our borders, we must let legitimate Palestinians enter and earn their livelihood. That helps us all in keeping relationships. Third, we must foster the rise of an Arab leader who is a realist, and can dictate to his people. And as a hope for the distant future, we need the success of the Sari Nuseibeh – Ami Ayalon coalition, the Arab university president and the Israeli security leader, who see a future of two states, with the Arabs giving up the return principle and Israelis giving up the settlements. Some 60,000 Palestinians and 94,000 Israelis have signed on. I see them as heroes, not afraid of retaliation. As more people sign, the popular movement against terror and violence may grow and take hold. The large number of Palestinian informers we have is not only due to the money we spend, it also shows that there are Palestinians who want to help us and themselves to get rid of the troublemakers.
“Will this be effective? Who knows! The only effective ways of stopping terror that we have seen were mass murders, applied by Arab secularist leaders against their own religionists and other internal dissidents, such as when Syria’s Assad killed 10,000 Muslim Brotherhood adherents, destroying the entire town of Hama, in 1980, and when Saddam Hussein gassed 5,000 Halabja Kurds in 1988 and killed 100,000 more in the Anfal murder campaign.. The outsiders fail. Milosevich Serbs’ killing of 7,000 Moslems in Srebrenica did not suppress the Bosnians. Only President Truman succeeded, when he authorized the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which killed 105,000. The shock stopped a war, and the world cheered, but this reaction is no longer feasible without a major provocation, else the world will revolt. Blowing up a Tikrit, or Faluja, or the Ansar al-Islam villages will be disastrous. Too much like the Germans’ annihilation of the peaceful Czech village of Lidice in 1942, following the assassination of Reinhard Heidrich by outsiders, Allied paratroopers. As to the world opinion, we Israelis will be damned whether we make peace or war with the terrorists. Israel’s security comes first. .”
“So, what do you see for Iraq?” Dr Paranoia asked. “Much of the same,” said the Israeli. “You must offer big rewards to informers, with anonymity assured, for turning in Saddam and Osama, as well as lesser terrorists. That is needed to damp the resistance. Provide seed money for bounty hunters. Help Iraq restore its life, make alliances with the Shiites, build Iraqi police, build an army, fence in the terrorists. Bribe the mullahs throughout Islam, as Rumsfeld suggests. Talk to Iran, to all secular Arabs including Libya and Syria. The Arab kingdoms must understand that they must curb their Wahabis, else they are lost. Make a US/UN-supervised non-aggression treaty with North Korea, subvert their attitudes. Reward American college students for learning targeted foreign languages and history, for work abroad. Rebuilding trust in the US will be a long haul, maybe a slog. As for American economy, the comeback will definitely be a slog.“
After the Texan and his friend left, Dr. P. asked the bartender: “What does this man know about US economy?” “I’m not sure,” was the answer, ”but I think he has been reading Rumsfeld’s lips.”
