BERNEVAL

The cover is special. It is of a felt that feels like peach fuzz.

Diana Henry
How to Eat a Peach
Introduction (its conclusion)

Meals, no matter how simple, are made better by small things […] They’re also made bad by small things: salami served in the plastic package in which it comes, poor bread. I don’t like the suggestions — prevalent these days — that cooking is all about “lifestyle.” I think it’s about taking care of the small, seemingly unimportant things.

The idea for this book came to me years ago; nearly all of my books have been in my head for a long time. In a single moment I realized how much other people, when cooking, care about these small things. At a restaurant in Italy (on my first trip there), the diners at the next table didn’t have a fancy dessert, they just had a bowl of peaches and a bottle of cold Moscato. Everyone sliced their peach and dropped it in the wine. After a while they drank the wine — now imbued with the flavor of the peach — and ate the peach slices, which now tasted of the wine. This was not a complicated dish, but it was lovely way to end a meal — seasonal, straightforward, caring, even a little magical — and it illustrated an approach to food and cooking that I already understood but hadn’t yet articulated. I’ve never forgotten this. More than a memory, those peaches became a symbol of what good food is all about.

Details matter. Like the special tactile attention to covers. This one feels like fuzz.

And so for day 2531
17.11.2013

Consider Gussie’s lines from the 1948 movie Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House — it’s her culinary and linguistic creativity that saves the day. I’ve seen the movie; I now want to read the novel to see if the key plot point rests on the character of the black woman.

Gussie is played by Louise Beavers

***************

Shooting script

“MR. BLANDINGS BUILDS HIS DREAM HOUSE”

Screenplay by Melvin Frank and Norman Panama Based on a novel by Eric Hodgins

               Gussie's head appears from the kitchen.

                                     GUSSIE
                              (brightly)
                         Come and get it! Breakfast everybody.

                                     BETSY
                         Good! I'm starving! What are we 
                         having, Gussie?

                                     GUSSIE
                         Orange juice, scrambled eggs and you-
                         know-what.

                                     JOAN
                              (making a face)
                         Ham?

                                     GUSSIE
                         Not ham -- Wham!
                              (cheerily)
                         If you ain't eatin' Wham, you ain't 
                         eatin' ham!

               Gussie's head disappears.

               CLOSE SHOT - JIM.

               CLOSE SHOT - Jim.

                                     JIM
                         What did she say?

               He reacts with the sudden exhilaration of Balboa first seeing 
               the Pacific. He snaps his fingers.

                                     JIM
                         Darling, give Gussie a ten dollar 
                         raise!

Those lines that sound like a jingle

Gussie: If you ain’t eatin’ Wham, you ain’t eatin’ ham.

are appropriated for the ad campaign that is marked as wildly successful and bringing in the money to cover the by now extravagant new house. Earlier lines that set up the conclusion (but aren’t in the shooting script)…

Gussie : The children like Wham.

Jim Blandings: Well, there must be other things that we…

Gussie: Mrs. Blandings likes it, too.

Jim Blandings: Just the same…

Gussie: And I consider it very tasty!

Just like a snippet from a commercial — they all like it and so should you — no arguing with the arbitration. A case of she who rules the roast, rules the roost?

And so for day 2523
09.11.2013