Tag: brian w. ferry
December 5
Greetings from here, where the three of us are still sick. Brandon told me that he counted it up in the bathtub this morning, and he’s now been sick for 27 days. I keep wanting to sit down and write a new post, but all that comes out is blah blah blah mug of hot broth, blah blah blah homemade vap-o-rub that smells nice and feels good and maybe helps or maybe it’s just the placebo effect, blah blah blah sneeze sneeze cough. Illness makes me boring.
Things that are more interesting than this post:
The great Rachel Roddy was featured in a three-part “cook residency” over at The Guardian, and like everything she does, it’s very much worth your time.
The best days of my life, pretty much, are the days when, a) a new New Yorker arrives, and b) Patricia Marx has a piece in it. “Pets Allowed” is perfect.
This isn’t my first mention of Anna Sale’s wonderful podcast Death, Sex & Money, and for good reason. Please, do yourself a big big favor and listen to her recent interviews with actor Ellen Burstyn and author James McBride.
This piece on our cultural obsession with food and identity gave me pause – and, I should add, I think John Lanchester totally nails it. (Also, his piece on the way we talk about money is BRILLIANT.)
I had no idea what went into becoming a London cabbie, and I also didn’t know that I would much care, but this is fascinating. Long, yes, and fascinating.
I had never heard of Theo Jansen before this past Sunday’s story in the New York Times Magazine, but by the time I was halfway through the article, I was feverishly Googling and mumbling aloud Wow wow wow. Then I showed it all to Brandon, and he went Wow wow wow too. I mean, watch this, and look at this. I mean!
Last but never least, my friend Brian came to visit in late August. It was his first time meeting June, and the weather could not have been better, and he captured it all so well. Come back soon, BWF.
I’m hoping to be back here with a little gift guide this weekend. Until then: hey, if you have any interesting reads, or anything, please chip in! Leave a comment! And be well, everybody.
P.S. Update: Several of you have written with concerns about our illness, and I want to assure you that we are being well cared for by a medical doctor – and an acupunturist and Chinese herbalist, too. It seems that we’ve been dealing with back-to-back viruses, and there’s little to be done for that. Thank you.
I am here to tell you
First things first: thank you for the well wishes! That cold was a real heavyweight champion, the type that takes you down so hard that, for five or six days, your eyelids never make it above half-mast. I’m so glad that’s behind me. Though I did sneeze twice as I was typing that last sentence. A couple of years ago, not long after we opened Delancey, back in the days when I was still cooking there every night and trying to write on the side and living on pizza and cookie dough and adrenaline and contemplating a third career as a mass murderer, my friend Brian came to Seattle. I guess I should specify that we weren’t really friends yet;…
Read moreOctober 14
When I was eighteen, I took my first big trip without my parents, and before I left, my mother suggested that I pack a nice notebook to use as a journal. In my normal life, I’ve never been a journal-keeper, but I took her advice, and for roughly fifteen years now, every time I’ve taken a substantial trip, I’ve kept a record of my days. Sometimes I’m a real champ, and I’ll write down every detail: what I overheard in line at the museum, how much I paid for such-and-such, which subway station I was leaving when that handsome man smiled at me and my heinous pink-and-white polka dot umbrella, or, tragically, which subway line I was on when I…
Read moreYou’re lucky, she told me.
Hi, friends. This is not the post I had expected to write next. In my head, there were going to be cheers, an obscene number of exclamation points, and maybe a picture of the evening street outside our apartment in Paris. But due to sad and unforeseen circumstances, our Paris Diary project has been postponed. I don’t know how I even managed to type that sentence, because I hardly believe what it says. Your support for this project blew me away, and I can’t tell you how sad I am. I was due to fly out of Seattle this past Wednesday, go to London to see my friend Brian, and then take the train down to Paris on Sunday. Because…
Read moreWe tell stories
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about words, and about the way we tell stories. Today, I wanted to share some of the things that have been making me think. I started listening to Radiolab as a way to pass the time while I walk the dog, because he needs a lot of walking, and now I listen because I’m crazy for it. It’s part science, part philosophy, and part sound editing wizardry, but mostly, it’s good storytelling. Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich, its hosts, spin the kind of stories that lure you away to somewhere else, and when you drop back into yourself, you realize that you’ve been staring into space, grinning like a dope, through the entire show.…
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