Guinness Christmas pudding: holiday over-indulgence ahead

 

Depending on your point of view, the holidays are either (a) just around the corner and not a moment too soon, or (b) the right time to up your meds to holiday strength. Darkness swirls in earlier and the north face of winter can mean a cold, bitter slope with a fatal crash into the none-too-festive retail season. The good news: tomorrow's winter solstice means the days will begin their slow march toward spring. The bad news: Spring is three months away.

Better get to your doctor right away, then.

Many folks just banish all the misanthropic gloom with the joys of over-indulgence and damn the expense -- and calories too. Just in case you've misplaced your Christmas pudding recipe (and, you thought, just in time for the holidays, too -- unlucky you!) your luck's improved: here's the replacement: step-by-step instructions from Barrie Pepper's The Bedside Book of Beer. The collection is a convivial compendium of beer and ale in British literature -- and, of course, English politics. 

The book was originally published by CAMRA, the Campaign for Real Ale, complete with CAMRA application form in the back. Here are cartoons, limericks, poems, histories written by authors high and low and anonymous about the joys and sorrows of bitters, plains and smalls through the ages. No need during the impending months to belabor the point: there's too much to do to just sit and read about beer, when there's a holiday party somewhere we're all going to be late for. Cheers ....

Summer reading: food from Wendell Berry, trippy fiction, and the Beat brotherhood

When the weather outside is hot, cyber-shopping makes more sense than ever -- with a few clicks  all of us can go back to dreaming of iced tea, barbecue, or whatever makes summer the vacation season for each of us. Here are some books reviewed by others that are worth a browse. Order these right here on Bellemeade Books using the Amazon.com search box -- the books will be on their way and you didn't even have to leave the air conditioning.

Wendell Berry

Bringing It to the Table: On Farming and Food, Wendell Berry, Introduction by Michael Pollan (Counterpoint Press, above) If you aren't already familiar with Wendell Berry's essays and his fiction, Bringing It to the Table is an excellent introduction, and if you're already an admirer, wanting to spread the word to people on your holiday gift list, this book is a fine addition to Berry's recent publications. Born in 1934, Berry has been publishing poetry, fiction in long and short forms, and essays since the 1960s; he has been working a farm in Kentucky for about as many years. In an essay from 2006 he recalls, "In 1964 my wife Tanya and I bought a rough and neglected little farm on which we intended to grow as much of our own food as we could." Although he came from a farming background, he asked for advice from an organic gardener who was his editor at the time, and seeking out the source of that man's principles, he discovered The Soil and Health, by the British agricultural scientist Sir Alfred Howard. Berry says of Howard, "I have been aware of his influence in virtually everything I have done, and I don't expect to graduate from it. That is because his way of dealing with the subject of agriculture is also a way of dealing with the subject of life in this world." (Jim Quitsland, Sound Food)

What Was the Hipster? A Sociological Investigation: Mark Greif, et al (n+1 Books) All descriptions of hipsters are doomed to disappoint, because they will not be the hipsters you know. But to those of you who are reading What Was the Hipster in 2050, I can only say: Everything in this book is true, and its impressions are perfect. When we talk about the contemporary hipster, we’re talking about a kind of cross-subcultural figure who emerges by 1999 and enjoys a fairly narrow but robust first phase of existence from 1999 to 2003. At which point the category of hipster seemed about to dissipate and return to the primordial subcultural soup, for something else to take over. Instead what we witnessed was an increasing spread and durability of the term, in an ongoing second phase from 2003 to the present. The truth was that there was no culture worth speaking of, and the people called hipsters just happened to be young and, more often than not, funny-looking. (Anonymous, Atomic Books)

Fishers of Men – The Gospel of an Ayahuasca Vision Quest, Adam Elenbaas (Tarcher Press): The cross-generational stories surrounding Elenbaas and his father, and his father and grandfather, sanctify the Freudian influence on drug writing. From the opening chapter when his father lays bleeding, holding a hunting knife, till the final modernist resolution, redefinition of all the relationships occur. It’s very reminiscent of the poem "This Be The Verse" by Philip Larkin: “They fuck you up, your mum and dad./ They may not mean to, but they do./ They fill you with the faults they had/ and add some extra, just for you.” The Freudian model, which places so much emphasis on a child’s relationship with its parents as a foundation for personality structure, is being played out once more as a literary structure: “One of the most intense psychological settings in the world – the visionary space of ayahuasca” (201). The combination of the psychedelic experience and psychodynamic models is firm territory, not only in Fishers of Men, but in modern drug writing generally. (Rob, editor, The Psychedelic Press UK)

Brother Souls: John Clellon Holmes, Jack Kerouac, and the Beat Generation: Ann and Samuel Charters (University Press of Mississippi): ... Holmes, a good friend of Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg and a founding member of the original Beat circle in New York City, also wrote several novels that were respectably reviewed. But he lacked the charisma and theatricality of the later Beat writers, and struggled for literary success even as his friends reached explosive levels of fame. It's only because of these legendary friends, and not because of his own fiction, that John Clellon Holmes merits an extensive literary biography by Ann and Samuel Charters today. Brother-Souls: John Clellon Holmes, Jack Kerouac and the Beat Generationis unusual among literary biographies because its hero never had a breakout success. Instead, he filled out his career with dead end manuscripts, odd magazine assignments and college teaching jobs. In this sense, Brother-Souls is actually a more accurate glimpse of how most writers live than any typical biography of a famous writer. (Levi Asher, Literary Kicks)

Guinness Christmas pudding: holiday overindulgence ahead

From The Bedside Book of Beer (Barrie Pepper), 1990

 

Depending on your point of view, the first week in November indicates the holidays are either (a) just around the corner and not a moment too soon, or (b) the right time to up your meds to holiday strength. Darkness swirls in earlier, the Halloween season just past re-awakens lurking, evil thoughts towards one's fellow creatures, and the north face of autumn can mean a cold, bitter slope with a fatal crash into the none-too-festive retail season ahead. 

Better get to your doctor right away, then.

Many folks just banish all the misanthropic gloom with the joys of over-indulgence and damn the expense -- and calories too. Just in case you've misplaced your Christmas pudding recipe (and, you thought, just in time for the holidays, too -- lucky you!) your luck's run out; here's the replacement: step-by-step instructions from Barrie Pepper's The Bedside Book of Beer. The collection is a convivial compendium of beer and ale in British literature -- and, of course, English politics. 

The book was originally published by CAMRA, the Campaign for Real Ale, complete with CAMRA application form in the back. Here are cartoons, limericks, poems, histories written by authors high and low and anonymous about the joys and sorrows of bitters, plains and smalls through the ages. No need during the impending months to belabor the point: there's too much to do to just sit and read about beer, when there's a holiday party somewhere we're all going to be late for. Cheers ....

A holiday weekend browse: book reviews from other sites

A round-up of books for skip-the-yardwork Memorial Day weekend reading: Here are some titles reviewed by others that are worth a browse. Order these right here on Bellemeade Books using the Amazon.com search box -- and no one will know you never even got out of the hammock today.

Wendell Berry

Bringing It to the Table: On Farming and Food, Wendell Berry, Introduction by Michael Pollan (Counterpoint Press). If you aren't already familiar with Wendell Berry's essays and his fiction, Bringing It to the Table is an excellent introduction, and if you're already an admirer, wanting to spread the word to people on your holiday gift list, this book is a fine addition to Berry's recent publications. Born in 1934, Berry has been publishing poetry, fiction in long and short forms, and essays since the 1960s; he has been working a farm in Kentucky for about as many years. In an essay from 2006 he recalls, "In 1964 my wife Tanya and I bought a rough and neglected little farm on which we intended to grow as much of our own food as we could." Although he came from a farming background, he asked for advice from an organic gardener who was his editor at the time, and seeking out the source of that man's principles, he discovered The Soil and Health, by the British agricultural scientist Sir Alfred Howard. Berry says of Howard, "I have been aware of his influence in virtually everything I have done, and I don't expect to graduate from it. That is because his way of dealing with the subject of agriculture is also a way of dealing with the subject of life in this world." (Jim Quitsland,Sound Food)

What Was the Hipster? A Sociological Investigation: Mark Greif, et al (n+1 Books) All descriptions of hipsters are doomed to disappoint, because they will not be the hipsters you know. But to those of you who are reading What Was the Hipster in 2050, I can only say: Everything in this book is true, and its impressions are perfect. When we talk about the contemporary hipster, we’re talking about a kind of cross-subcultural figure who emerges by 1999 and enjoys a fairly narrow but robust first phase of existence from 1999 to 2003. At which point the category of hipster seemed about to dissipate and return to the primordial subcultural soup, for something else to take over. Instead what we witnessed was an increasing spread and durability of the term, in an ongoing second phase from 2003 to the present. The truth was that there was no culture worth speaking of, and the people called hipsters just happened to be young and, more often than not, funny-looking. (Anonymous, Atomic Books)

Fishers of Men – The Gospel of an Ayahuasca Vision Quest, Adam Elenbaas (Tarcher Press): The cross-generational stories surrounding Elenbaas and his father, and his father and grandfather, sanctify the Freudian influence on drug writing. From the opening chapter when his father lays bleeding, holding a hunting knife, till the final modernist resolution, redefinition of all the relationships occur. It’s very reminiscent of the poem "This Be The Verse" by Philip Larkin: “They fuck you up, your mum and dad./ They may not mean to, but they do./ They fill you with the faults they had/ and add some extra, just for you.” The Freudian model, which places so much emphasis on a child’s relationship with its parents as a foundation for personality structure, is being played out once more as a literary structure: “One of the most intense psychological settings in the world – the visionary space of ayahuasca” (201). The combination of the psychedelic experience and psychodynamic models is firm territory, not only in Fishers of Men, but in modern drug writing generally. (Rob, editor, The Psychedelic Press UK)

Brother Souls: John Clellon Holmes, Jack Kerouac, and the Beat Generation: Ann and Samuel Charters (University Press of Mississippi): ... Holmes, a good friend of Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg and a founding member of the original Beat circle in New York City, also wrote several novels that were respectably reviewed. But he lacked the charisma and theatricality of the later Beat writers, and struggled for literary success even as his friends reached explosive levels of fame. It's only because of these legendary friends, and not because of his own fiction, that John Clellon Holmes merits an extensive literary biography by Ann and Samuel Charters today. Brother-Souls: John Clellon Holmes, Jack Kerouac and the Beat Generation is unusual among literary biographies because its hero never had a breakout success. Instead, he filled out his career with dead end manuscripts, odd magazine assignments and college teaching jobs. In this sense, Brother-Souls is actually a more accurate glimpse of how most writers live than any typical biography of a famous writer. (Levi Asher, Literary Kicks)

Guinness' Christmas pudding, just in time for the holiday

From The Bedside Book of Beer (Barrie Pepper), 1990

 
(Bellemeade Books is suggesting some holiday books from past posts.)


Just in case you've misplaced your Christmas pudding recipe (and, you thought, just in time, too -- lucky you!) your luck's run out; here's the replacement: step-by-step instructions from Barrie Pepper's The Bedside Book of Beer. It's his convivial compendium of beer and ale in British literature -- and, of course, English politics. (The book was originally published by CAMRA, the Campaign for Real Ale, complete with CAMRA application form in the back). Here are cartoons, limericks, poems, histories written by authors high and low and anonymous about the joys and sorrows of bitters, plains and smalls through the ages. No need during this Christmas week to belabor the point: there's too much to do to just sit and read about beer, when there's a holiday party somewhere we're all late for. Cheers ....

"Roadfood," Jane & Michael Stern: what'll ya have?

Grace Proffitt of Ridgewood Barbecue

Bellemeade Books is featuring gift suggestions for the holidays from this year's posts.

Few topics excite the blood and the tastebuds quite like the regional differences in barbecue (or, if you're traveling the back roads of America this summer, "B-B-Q," in faded red paint on the side of a building at the next four-way stop.) Obligatory form in Georgia demands that real barbecue be pulled pork and served with slices of white bread and accompanied by no less than a quart of sweet tea (endless refills free).

Elegantly simple. Yet even that simple recipe opens to a world of endless and tasty variations to please one's palate and temper. Because it's summertime, the search for the right barbeque can be a lazy but determined weekend passion supported by a full tank of gas and a good hunger, and even writers have been known to swear off the joys of the jug for half-an-hour of heaven at the right barbecue stand -- no liquor allowed.

The erstwhile Jonathan Williams -- provocateur, raconteur, epicure, and a cure-all for most of what ails popular literature these days -- knew a thing or two about the endless variety of barbecue and its preparation. Mr. Williams, who passed away in 2008, was the eminent force of the Jargon Society and its varied delights, not necessarily limited to the literary. Here is an extract from the North Carolina Literary Review, published originally in 1996, and currently available at The Jargon Society website. In it he mentions the original edition of Roadfood, by Jane and Michael Stern, which has been issued in a new edition in 2011. Grab a napkin and tuck in -- it's bound to get a little messy.

.. Some like it lean, some fat. “Gimme a fat sa’mich, honey,” yells an old farmer. That’s it, just bread and fat. Some insist on shoulder or ham, some want to use the whole pig. Some chop it, some slice it, some pull it and shred it. In eastern NC the sauce is vinegar based. In western NC, it’s got ketchup, salt, sugar, red and black pepper added to the vinegar. Lexington is considered mecca to many, and my favorite place is “Lexington Barbecue #1,” off Highway 29-70, operated by Mr. D. Wayne Monk and his brother Tom. ...

There is one place about which Roger and I are in complete agreement. We are not the only ones. In their book, Roadfood, Jane and Michael Stern say: “We have found perfection, and its name is the Ridgewood Restaurant.” The sad thing is that the Ridgewood is tucked away in the wilds of eastern Tennessee and that means a long journey from almost anywhere. I try to combine a visit with Georgia Blizzard, the potter, in Glade Spring, Virginia, with a stop at Grace Proffitt’s wonderful eatery.

The Ridgewood is north of Elizabethton, Tennessee, at the crest of a low gap in the hills, on Highway 19-E. A few miles to the north is Bluff City. And further north, the city of Bristol. It’s about 11 miles on back roads, south from Interstate-81 at Bristol, using Exit 69. ...

Grace has been presiding at her restaurant since 1948 and everything seems about as good as it can get. Making the trip to the Ridgewood whets the appetite and puts one in reverential mood, like a first visit to Chartres, or the anticipation of a meal with Louis Outhier or the Brothers Haeberlin at the Auberge de l’Ill in Alsace.

Our last visit to the Ridgewood, two local businessman were entertaining two Japanese visitors. They were properly entranced. Such tastes required no translation. A hand-written testimonial from General William Westmoreland on a wall of the restaurant assured us all that it was the best barbecue anywhere on earth. If Jesse Helms can be right about barbecue, so can the General.

Because I love the accuracy of his writing, let me quote John Egerton from his book, Southern Food (Knopf, NYC, 1987), on how it’s done at the Ridgewood. Grace Proffitt’s way is not for traditional purists: “They start with fresh hams, not shoulders. The meat cooks and smokes for about ten hours over hickory coals. Then it is chilled in a cooler, sliced cold, and reheated on a hamburger grill at high temperature. While it sizzles, it is doused generously with a spicy-sweet and mildly hot tomato-based sauce. The mound of moist and piping-hot meat is then troweled onto a toasted bun and served with slaw and French fries, both freshly made and of the highest quality.”

Another side dish to order is a little crock of Mrs. Proffitt’s barbecued beans. C’est sublime, as they’d say in France if they had barbecue this good. Sweetened iced tea tends to be the beverage of choice. Beer is seldom to be found in barbecue restaurants, for whatever sociological reasons. Classic Coke suits me.

Neither Roger nor I has ever been able to eat more than one of the ample sandwiches (think it was all of $2.75 in 1988) at the Ridgewood, so we don’t know about the pies and cakes. We observed most customers picking up a little wrapped confection (made in Nashville) known as a “Goo-Goo Cluster,” as they paid their bill at the counter. One wonders.

When we paid Mrs. Proffitt and thanked her sincerely for such culinary art, I bought three pints of her secret-formula barbecue sauce, of which she makes about 15 gallons early every morning. Said Grace: “Boys, I hope you like that sauce. Hit’s got a whang to it!”

(Photo of Grace Proffitt from The Jargon Society.)

"Roadfood," Jane and Michael Stern: "Hit's got a whang to it"

Grace Proffitt of Ridgewood Barbecue

Few topics excite the blood and the tastebuds quite like the regional differences in barbecue (or, if you're traveling the back roads of America this summer, "B-B-Q," in faded red paint on the side of a building at the next four-way stop.) Obligatory form in Georgia demands that real barbecue be pulled pork and served with slices of white bread and accompanied by no less than a quart of sweet tea (endless refills free).

Elegantly simple. Yet even that simple recipe opens to a world of endless and tasty variations to please one's palate and temper. Because it's summertime, the search for the right barbeque can be a lazy but determined weekend passion supported by a full tank of gas and a good hunger, and even writers have been known to swear off the joys of the jug for half-an-hour of heaven at the right barbecue stand -- no liquor allowed.

The erstwhile Jonathan Williams -- provocateur, raconteur, epicure, and a cure-all for most of what ails popular literature these days -- knew a thing or two about the endless variety of barbecue and its preparation. Mr. Williams, who passed away in 2008, was the eminent force of the Jargon Society and its varied delights, not necessarily limited to the literary. Here is an extract from the North Carolina Literary Review, published originally in 1996, and currently available at The Jargon Society website. In it he mentions the original edition of Roadfood, by Jane and Michael Stern, which has been issued in a new edition in 2011. Grab a napkin and tuck in -- it's bound to get a little messy.

.. Some like it lean, some fat. “Gimme a fat sa’mich, honey,” yells an old farmer. That’s it, just bread and fat. Some insist on shoulder or ham, some want to use the whole pig. Some chop it, some slice it, some pull it and shred it. In eastern NC the sauce is vinegar based. In western NC, it’s got ketchup, salt, sugar, red and black pepper added to the vinegar. Lexington is considered mecca to many, and my favorite place is “Lexington Barbecue #1,” off Highway 29-70, operated by Mr. D. Wayne Monk and his brother Tom. ...

There is one place about which Roger and I are in complete agreement. We are not the only ones. In their book, Roadfood, Jane and Michael Stern say: “We have found perfection, and its name is the Ridgewood Restaurant.” The sad thing is that the Ridgewood is tucked away in the wilds of eastern Tennessee and that means a long journey from almost anywhere. I try to combine a visit with Georgia Blizzard, the potter, in Glade Spring, Virginia, with a stop at Grace Proffitt’s wonderful eatery.

The Ridgewood is north of Elizabethton, Tennessee, at the crest of a low gap in the hills, on Highway 19-E. A few miles to the north is Bluff City. And further north, the city of Bristol. It’s about 11 miles on back roads, south from Interstate-81 at Bristol, using Exit 69. ...

Grace has been presiding at her restaurant since 1948 and everything seems about as good as it can get. Making the trip to the Ridgewood whets the appetite and puts one in reverential mood, like a first visit to Chartres, or the anticipation of a meal with Louis Outhier or the Brothers Haeberlin at the Auberge de l’Ill in Alsace.

Our last visit to the Ridgewood, two local businessman were entertaining two Japanese visitors. They were properly entranced. Such tastes required no translation. A hand-written testimonial from General William Westmoreland on a wall of the restaurant assured us all that it was the best barbecue anywhere on earth. If Jesse Helms can be right about barbecue, so can the General.

Because I love the accuracy of his writing, let me quote John Egerton from his book, Southern Food (Knopf, NYC, 1987), on how it’s done at the Ridgewood. Grace Proffitt’s way is not for traditional purists: “They start with fresh hams, not shoulders. The meat cooks and smokes for about ten hours over hickory coals. Then it is chilled in a cooler, sliced cold, and reheated on a hamburger grill at high temperature. While it sizzles, it is doused generously with a spicy-sweet and mildly hot tomato-based sauce. The mound of moist and piping-hot meat is then troweled onto a toasted bun and served with slaw and French fries, both freshly made and of the highest quality.”

Another side dish to order is a little crock of Mrs. Proffitt’s barbecued beans. C’est sublime, as they’d say in France if they had barbecue this good. Sweetened iced tea tends to be the beverage of choice. Beer is seldom to be found in barbecue restaurants, for whatever sociological reasons. Classic Coke suits me.

Neither Roger nor I has ever been able to eat more than one of the ample sandwiches (think it was all of $2.75 in 1988) at the Ridgewood, so we don’t know about the pies and cakes. We observed most customers picking up a little wrapped confection (made in Nashville) known as a “Goo-Goo Cluster,” as they paid their bill at the counter. One wonders.

When we paid Mrs. Proffitt and thanked her sincerely for such culinary art, I bought three pints of her secret-formula barbecue sauce, of which she makes about 15 gallons early every morning. Said Grace: “Boys, I hope you like that sauce. Hit’s got a whang to it!”

(Photo of Grace Proffitt from The Jargon Society.)