Categories: books, and-another-thing
Date: 03 January 2010 22:50:35
Every Christmas I tend to get a book that ignites my imagination and I'll find myself reading it late into the night nursing a glass of Jack Daniels (another Christmas standby).
Often it's an old favourite. Cerebus the Aardvark has often been my Christmas read and sometimes it feels wrong to read it at any other time of the year. It's a weighty tome, a 3000 page graphic novel that defies simple explanation and rewards investigation. Its brim full of ideas, some good, some bad, and artwork that often makes me wish I could draw and writing that makes me wish I could write...
Similarly my love of the Silent Planet trilogy comes from a holiday readathon and I've not read the books since, just in case the Christmas feeling is a required part of the process of enjoying the books.
This year the winner, hands down, of the book I've loved spending Christmas with is Heston Blumenthal's 'The Fat Duck Cookbook.'
I asked for it for the artwork, I've long been a fan of Dave McKean's amazing and awe inspiring artwork. Alongside Neil Gaiman and Don Bluth he is the one who got me excited about wanting to be someone who visualised their ideas and tried to make them palatable for others. Blumenthal I knew little about as I don't watch much TV and earn, as a youthworker, a salary that doesn't stretch towards eating the work of artists who deserve higher recompense than basic staples deliver. That's not to say I wouldn't love to eat out at a fine restaurant... One freelance job part paid me in a meal at a posh London restaurant and I was thrilled to enjoy their tasting menu. It's just not something I follow because I only have so many avenues my mind can cope with remembering the paths down.
Anyhow: the artwork in the Fat Duck Cookbook is beautiful, to begin with. I knew it would be, I wasn't disappointed. What I wasn't expecting was how enticing the text would be. Blumenthal is a fascinating character, the recipes strange and extraordinary. I've nearly completed the book and though I won't be trying the recipes (my skill at transferring recipes from a page to a plate is limited as is my wallet although if I thought there was a hope of persuading wifey that the Fat Duck's tasting menu was worth the trip as a family holiday and the price of a theme park I'd give it a go. Sadly I know that it's not to be in a big way, all caps, underlined).
So: Fat Duck Cookbook. Recommended in a big way and in more ways than I'd anticipated.
In other news back in the saddle tomorrow. Wifey has an inset day which has her unsettled before its begun (long, unhappy story), kids back at school, son awake last time I checked as he's lost a tooth and is waiting for the tooth fairy, both kids back at school and me back at teacher training and freelance doodling. Sigh. Busy busy busy. Onwards to sleep afore chaotic Monday ensues.