Chimera Song Mosaic
Saturday, September 02, 2006
I added two: Art and Fear (which is a self-helpish counter to Guest's bewildering--essays? notes? poems? craft lectures? I don't know what to call them) and The Scavenger's Guide to Haute Cuisine by Steve Rinella. Okay, I have already finished that one, just a couple of days ago, and I did enjoy it. I especially liked the hunting vignettes, which were both meditative and immediate and, I'd say, accurate. It was very fun to revisit Montana through Steve's writing, some Missoula haunts and folks. (I was in a nonficion workshop with Steve at UM.) The companion website is a MUST!
But, a warning, if you are looking for an gluttonous, indulgent, XXX epicurean fantasy, you may not get all the details you are looking for. No, for that you would need the scratch-n-sniff edition. For example, you never do find out how cotelettes financieres ("glazed medallions of bighorn sheep stuffed with creamed morels, partridge, and pheasant") or faisan a la georgienne ("pheasants and chukars poached with walnuts in a sauce of pressed grapes, pressed oranges, wine, green tea, and espagnole sauce") or selle de chevreuil Briand ("saddle of antelope larded with bear fat and roasted on a bed of vegetables and garnished with pears poached in red wine") tastes, but you do get cotelettes de saumon, Cyrano consomme, pigeonneaux crapaudine, along with bear, wild pig, snapping turtle, smoked eel, rabbit, and stingray--just enough so you have an idea of what things taste like, and more than enough to make you want to find out for yourself.
