R.I.P - David Foster Wallace

David Foster Wallace - novelist, philosopher, journalist, humorist and one of the best wordsmiths to put pen to paper died on September 12, apparently having committed suicide by hanging himself.

In his fiction, Wallace was considered the heir of Thomas Pynchon, Don DeLillo and in his essays and observational pieces, he could be a combination of Malcolm Gladwell and Chuck Klosterman. He could write with equal felicity about tennis, porn or food. He was published in the New York Times Magazine, the New Yorker and in Playboy. His breakthrough novel, Infinite Jest was named one of Time magazine's 100 Best English Language Novels.

I first learnt of Wallace from a 2004 Gourmet magazine article about the ethical complexities of boiling alive lobsters for food. I remember thinking at the time, 'this is an odd article for a food magazine.' But that was the subversive genius of Wallace - he could write a philosophical screed on the "whole animal cruelty and eating issue" in a food magazine. I'm sure that when Gourmet commissioned him to write the article, they were expecting a standard issue travelogue , not a footnoted, annotated essay, which as Slate writer Troy Patterson puts it, "ranks as a must-read for anyone even thinking of having dinner."

Since we all think of having dinner at some point, here is the article. Hopefully, it will make us think also of David Foster Wallace.

Godspeed, and farewell.

Book Review: Heat, by Bill Buford

A friend of mine, who works in New York, purchased a copy of Bill Buford's book, Heat, for me recently. We were out walking the Manhattan streets, and had just walked into Strand, which advertises its 18 miles of books, before continuing to the Titanic memorial thingy and then to Pier 17 (we were going to end up more or less walking all the way up about halfway into Central Park... but didn't know it yet). Anyway, a food lover beyond compare, the other book he purchased was A Cook's Tour, by Anthony Bourdain, and more on that book in another post.

Heat, turned out to be a surprisingly good read. Well, coming from Kautilya, I wouldn't expect anything less. But what I mean is that instead of being a foodie-oriented great read, the book is almost an action-adventure located in a busy restaurant kitchen. There's blood, heat, tension, pressure and good grub, just a little bit more than the average thriller provides. Buford was a Fiction Editor at the NYTimes before he quit and embarked on the journey that is Heat.

It all started with Mario Batali, a genious cook and Buford's inspiration, and his restaurant Babbo (at which I ate, thanks to Kautilya; post coming), which drove Buford into this rather strange journey. Buford offers a very colourful, action-packed read. You should try it.

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