The Rake Magazine

Month: September 2005

  • Dear Wendy

    American gun lovers who hated Bowling for Columbine have got another thing coming with Dear Wendy. Scriptwriter Lars von Trier already raised hackles on these shores for his blasting of bedrock American values in Dogville; that’s partly why Dear Wendy was directed by his buddy, Thomas Vinterberg, who is himself responsible for The Celebration, one of the best dysfunctional family dramas of all time. Given the proclivities of this Danish duo, expect some outrage over this story of how Dick, inspired by love for his gun (which he calls “Wendy”), establishes a club for the other boys in his small town. Homoeroticism is bound to be the least of Dear Wendy’s provocations. 309 Oak St. S.E., Minneapolis; 612-331-3134; www.mnfilmarts.org

  • Good for the Liver?

    What is it about Americans and guilt? Mr. Bush, it seems, may now be willing to admit that the world is warming up. But he would not have us think that the human race (let alone its industries and motorcars) is in any way responsible. Mustn’t feel bad about it, must we?

    This is strange because the sort of Christianity favored by President Frutex (Latin for Bush, don’t you know) used to be particularly keen to impress on people that all have sinned and all have fallen short of the glory of God. Augustine developed the notion of original sin partly from a conviction that the world was actually by nature good (adjust your set, there is no fault in reality). Oliver Cromwell struck a chord with the Puritans of the Rump Parliament when he beseeched them “in the bowels of Christ, that ye may be mistaken.” John Wesley famously felt himself to be a brand plucked from the burning, and generations of evangelical preachers have striven to convince people they are sinners, so that they can then pull the redemption rabbit out of the hat.

    Cromwell’s political successors seem to feel that it is other people who make the mistakes. The axis of evil has moved elsewhere (though the only thing I can see that Iran, Iraq and North Korea have in common is that all three irritate the United States). Of course, politicians are hardly the only ones to deny guilt. We the People do so often, and avidly. I had pupils when I taught in California who seemed simply impervious to the mildest suggestion that a mistake might have been made (which is easy enough when writing Latin sentences); correction, as the Frenchman said, ran off their backs like a duck’s water. The word has even been verbed—as in the accusation, “You are trying to guilt me!”

    Such shunning of a sense of personal error does not ensure universal happiness. The whole horror of modern no-fault divorce is designed to ignore the possibility that sometimes fault is involved. The masterpiece of those who advocate the avoidance of guilt must be the doctrine of passive aggression. This holds that you may employ the patience of Griselda or of Job putting up with my nonsense, but mysteriously it all remains your fault; I am not responsible for the fact that I behave like a bastard.

    Admitting mistakes gives people the chance to put them right. Of course, eating humble pie is not a particularly pleasant pastime. The word “humble” as applied to “pie” does not actually derive from anything to do with humility; it comes from the same root as lumbar (as in lumbar pain), and the humbles (or numbles) of a deer are its innards. All the same, humble pie is the opposite of a delicacy, even if it was a dinner as familiar in the Middle Ages as haggis and chips in modern Scotland.

    Innards are something else Americans have difficulty with. All right, not everyone savors the scrunch of prairie oysters or the sliminess of cervelle. Cockneys can keep my share of tripe and onions. But heart cooked long enough (it is, after all, quite a tough muscle) is, well, heartening, and grilled kidneys on fried bread is one of the most toothsome breakfasts I know. Perhaps the best bargain at the butchers round here is liver. (Is life worth living? That depends on the liver.) Cut thin, dust with flour, salt and mustard powder, then fry fast with bacon and onions—it is one of the few cuts of meat that gets tougher the longer you cook it—and anoint with the pan scrapings transformed into sauce. The gritty flavor of liver is the perfect accompaniment for spinach cooked quickly in butter.

    And a good wine for both liver and spinach together is a red from California that is tough enough to take on any taste (even haggis). Better still, it sells for only about eighteen dollars locally. The 2003 DeLoach California Pinot Noir, from the Russian River valley north of San Francisco, is bright and honest. There is at first a sweetness and flowery charm, but then a delightful roar, as determined as a motorcycle engine, develops in the back of the throat. The sweetness turns into fine strong tannins and, as the wine goes down, aroma rises through the nose. This is wine that engages the attention on every level, like a really worthwhile woman; it has both immediate appeal and depth. But the real beauty of combining it with liver and spinach is the resulting symphony of bitternesses. Who knows, a patient appreciation of these may even make you sorry for your sins.

  • Pleasures of the Flesh

    Remember Cook’s Choice? It was the most dreaded day on your school lunch calendar. The lucky ones brown-bagged it; the rest of us stood in line for a meal we knew had been planned by a Lunch Lady surveying the walk-in cooler and reading expiration dates. As we bravely offered up our trays for a plop of this and a smear of that, there was always a special sort of dismay reserved for the grayish slice of undesignated meat that was served.

    At a time when your world safely revolved around beef, chicken, pork, and fish stick, taking a bite of the mystery meat might have been the first indication of an adventurous life to come: one that refused to remain within the confines of a TV dinner tray, one that might someday include oysters, blue cheese, and goat tacos. Or perhaps your childhood revulsion sealed the fate of your food life to nothing more daring than buffalo wings. And that would be a shame, because most of us, in the new protein-obsessed world, actually wish for some adventure in the meat department.

    Many a well-intentioned cookbook is devoted to making chicken exciting, but at what point do you break down and weep at the sight of another pale breast? Steak is no longer special, now that Taco Bell serves steak fajitas and chains are churning out steak platters faster than you can say “blooming onion.” And sure, you can always count on a good Asian restaurant to throw you for a loop—but let’s face it, for many of us, jellyfish might be going too far, too fast. What we long for is a mix of the new and the familiar—something easily identifiable as meat by its appearance and its texture, but that also delivers a strikingly (maybe not radically) new flavor. Something we can add to our repertoire without going too far out of our way or freaking out our loved ones.

    Ostrich was one of the first “new” meats that sought contemporary mainstream acceptance. In the early nineties, food industry insiders in this country began extolling its virtues, pointing to its traditional role in South African cuisine (in the spicy, dried form of biltong) and more recent appearances on trendy European menus (pan-fried with leeks and smoked bacon). While ostriches are indeed big birds, they don’t produce poultry-like meat, but rather a dense, red flesh that is healthier than beef. It’s also lower in fat and calories than even skinless chicken or turkey. Add to that ostrich’s high iron and protein content, and it’s easy to see why this meat is recommended by the American Heart Association and American Diabetes Association.

    Serving up this huge, flightless bird still seems exotic, but ostrich farms are popping up all over the country. Blackwing Quality Meats, the best known name in the industry, has been selling fresh and frozen ostrich meats for twelve years. It shuns the use of hormones and additives, and, recognizing the need to gain fresh converts, its website offers helpful cooking tips and decent recipes for an herb marinade and ostrich scallopini. Ostrich meat doesn’t shrink like beef or pork when cooked, so a seven-ounce filet will remain at seven ounces from fridge to dinner table. It can be grilled, braised, smoked, fried, or roasted, but like any other red meat it’s best medium rare. Ground ostrich can be substituted for ground beef in any recipe, and it makes great burgers. Ostrich carries a delicate flavor, doesn’t have the fatty richness of beef, and has a soft, less grainy character that’s light on the tongue. The only thing ostrich needs is the patronage of some celebrity chef to elevate it into the cult of cool food. Locally, I’d love to see what Seth Bixby Daugherty of Cosmos would do with a heavy cut.

    Bison, too, has been on the cult radar for some time. (American buffalo and bison are the same animal, and in general their meat is referred to as bison.) Bison burgers are popular fare around the country—there’s even one on Ruby Tuesday’s menu, next to the turkey burger under the “Exotic” heading. Richly flavored yet lean, high-quality bison meat tends to be a touch sweeter than beef, although lesser cuts can be gamey or sharp. Beyond the ground meat, you can find steaks and roasts, as well as sausage and jerky.

    Locally, bison is big business. These naturally hearty animals thrive in summer heat and winter cold. Unlike cattle, which drift with the wind, bison turn their massive heads into a snowstorm, plowing drifts with ease in the search for food. Numerous ranches in the area have revived the tradition of bison grazing on thousands of acres of prairie lands, even though their herds are a tiny fraction of those that once thundered across the prairie. At places like Silver Bison Ranch near Baldwin, Wisconsin, bison are not given hormones or antibiotics, and feed only on native grasses that grow without aid of herbicides or pesticides. Prairie Heights Bison goes a step further into the past, inviting guests to take part in day-long guided bison hunts on its acreage in the Blue Mounds area of southwest Minnesota, which was a popular hunting ground for American Indians. Like those early hunters, Prairie Heights believes the field kill produces the finest meat and is most respectful to the animal.

    Rabbit is not an exotic meat by definition, but most Americans find it difficult to visualize their fuzzy bunny friends as good eats. They should meet Lenny Russo of Heartland, the St. Paul restaurant known for its fresh and seasonal Midwestern ingredients. Russo doesn’t hesitate to include rabbit on his menu when he can get it, even during Easter. Yielding a meat not unlike chicken, yet a touch sweeter, rabbit plays well with fresh fare from all seasons. At Heartland, it’s usually paired with whole grains, like an earthy barley risotto, to bring a heartier quality to the dish.

    Ready to banish chicken and have a go at hasenpfeffer? Clancy’s Meats and Fish market in Linden Hills has frozen rabbit, as well as fresh bison meat in its cases. A good glass of wine may help quicken the courage. A less tannic Pinot Noir with berry tones goes well with bison, while ostrich calls for a good California Cabernet, and rabbit loves a Sauvignon Blanc or Chardonnay. All it takes is that first leap of faith to widen your horizons.

    Blackwing Quality Meats; 800-326-7874; www.blackwing.com

    Silver Bison Ranch; bison@silverbison.com

    Prairie Heights Bison, Luverne, Minnesota;

    507-283-8136; www.buybison.com

    Heartland, 1806 St. Clair Ave., St. Paul;

    651-699-3536; www.heartlandrestaurant.com

     

    Herb-Roasted Buffalo Tenderloin With Blue Cheese Butter

    1⁄4 pound (1 cup) crumbled firm blue cheese

    1 stick (1⁄2 cup) unsalted butter, softened

    2 tablespoons port

    3 tablespoons olive oil

    31⁄2 pounds buffalo tenderloin, cut crosswise

    into eight or more 11⁄4-inch-thick steaks

    1⁄2 cup Dijon mustard

    3⁄4 cup packed freshly chopped rosemary leaves

    Salt and pepper to taste

    Preheat oven to 450 degrees; place rack in middle of oven.

    In a small bowl, mash together cheese and butter with a fork; stir in port until smooth. Form butter into a log on sheet of plastic wrap, roll up, secure and chill until firm, at least 2 hours.

    In a 12-inch heavy sauté pan, heat 11⁄2 tablespoons oil over moderately high heat until hot. Sear half of the steaks until browned, about 2 minutes on each side, and transfer to a shallow baking pan. Sear remaining steaks in remaining 11⁄2 tablespoons oil in same manner.

    When steaks have cooled enough to touch, spread tops and sides with mustard and sprinkle with rosemary, pepper, and salt to taste. Roast steaks in middle of oven eight minutes for medium rare (tops should just begin to brown). Transfer steaks to a cutting board and let stand about three minutes. Remove butter from fridge and slice into about twenty thin pieces.

    Cut each steak nearly in half horizontally. Tuck a butter slice between steak halves and top steaks with another slice.

  • Twin Cities Book Festival

    It took a while, but the Twin Cities finally got a literary festival of the caliber of Chicago’s great Printer’s Row Book Fair. Every year, the folks behind this true labor of love seem to push the thing further in the right direction. This is no mere gathering of highbrows and academics; sure, there is still the (always expanding) literary magazine fair, used book sale, and appearances by challenging characters along the lines of Eliot Weinberger–but beyond all that, the festival has become more egalitarian and entertaining each year (this is its fifth). The lineup includes appearances by, among others, Rick Moody, Ana Castillo, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, Pete Hautman, and Alison McGhee. The legendary comic pioneer Harvey Pekar will also be on hand to chat with Mary Lucia, which alone should be worth a whole lot more than nothing, which is all this shindig will cost you. 1501 Hennepin Ave., Minneapolis; 612-825-1528; www.raintaxi.com/bookfest

  • Philip Levine: O Taste and See: Poetry in a Consumer Age

    In an American literary scene where the writer’s gaze has been steadily turning inward for decades, Philip Levine’s concerns–blue-collar work, exploitation, social justice, and spirituality–are so virtuous as to be almost anachronistic. Born to Jewish immigrants in Detroit in 1928, Levine did a long apprenticeship in the Motor City’s industrial academies, and his poetry–distinguished by a rare absence of flash and by brutal, plainspoken honesty–has consistently ennobled “those who have failed.” His talk takes its title from a powerful poem by Denise Levertov. If this heroic figure in person is anything like the voice in his poetry, expect a straight shooter with plenty of relevant and resonant things to say about the current state of America.

  • Talking Volumes: Joan Didion

    With her all-seeing eye and clear, impelling, and quietly humorous prose, Joan Didion helped shape the golden age of literary journalism in the sixties and seventies. In particular, her book of California essays, Slouching Towards Bethlehem, was a landmark work that confirmed for the rest of the country that strange folks indeed populate that state. Since then, Didion has written numerous investigative pieces, essays on personalities and politics, novels, and memoirs. Her latest, The Year of Magical Thinking, chronicles the year after the death of her husband, writer John Gregory Dunne, and the grave illnesses of Quintana Roo, their only child (who died in August). As a writer, Didion is known as the ultimate cool customer, and while she maintains that clinical reserve in this book, the palpable struggle to keep herself together is devastating and compelling. And so the main question here is: How does one of literature’s most esteemed figures conduct a book tour in the wake of her most recent loss? 651-290-1221; www.fitzgeraldtheater.org

  • Tom Huck: The Bloody Bucket

    The cringe-inducing title of this show is borrowed from the name of a bar, one that was the center of a peculiar sort of mayhem in mid-century rural Missouri. From 1948 to 1951, the regulars at the Bloody Bucket included a flood of World War II veterans who continued to live out the violence they’d become accustomed to overseas. In the decades after the bar closed, tales of its debauchery became part of the local lore–and became fixed in the imagination of Tom Huck, who grew up in the area. His large-scale yet delicate and wildly detailed wood block prints bring some of these lurid moments to life with wicked humor and a complete lack of restraint. 357 13th Ave. N.E., Minneapolis; 612-331-3889; www.roguebuddha.com

  • House of Oracles: A Huang Yong Ping Retrospective

    Huang Yong Ping is a perfect choice for the Walker’s first full-scale retrospective since its reopening last spring. While he’s known within the global contemporary art firmament, this exhibition will expose his work to more of us regular folks–and thus add him to the lengthy roster of international artists (think Rirkrit Tiravanija, Krystof Wodiczko, Fischli and Weiss) whose reputations the Walker has helped to build. Huang’s The History of Chinese Painting and the History of Modern Western Art Washed in the Washing Machine for Two Minutes (pictured here) was on display at the museum earlier this year, but it’s an exception to his usual M.O. Laden with obscure references to Chinese history, philosophy, and mythology, most of it is deliberately challenging–so it would behoove you to take advantage of an opening-day tour of the exhibition by its curator (and the Walker’s new deputy director), Philippe Vergne. 612-375-7600; www.walkerart.org

  • Mass Transit: Recent work by Shawn McNulty and Dave Whannel

    Getting around in the city can be intense, whether you’re swerving on your bike to avoid oblivious pedestrians, crammed into a crowded bus at rush hour, or squeezing past that bus in a car. The crush can be oppressive, but it can also have moments of hectic beauty; the latter is what inspires Shawn McNulty and Dave Whannel, whose massive abstract works convey the complexities of urban interaction. McNulty often approaches street life from an aerial perspective, which equalizes the people and machines in motion, and reveals inequities at the same time. Whannel’s paintings, as big as small cars, include hidden objects that reward those who take the time to make a careful inspection. 1011 Washington Ave. S., Minneapolis, 612-747-3942; www.rosaluxgallery.com

  • Afrofuturism

    This ambitious and high-concept show has twenty-eight artists considering the future of black culture. From Sun Ra’s cosmic jazz to Brother From Another Planet to DJ Spooky’s book Rhythm Science, the notion of a rising black culture that blends art and technology is nothing new. But the varied film, sound, collage, and multimedia works housed in the Soap Factory’s sprawling warehouse suggest that the future may already be here. Films screen on walls, floors, computer terminals, and even tiny screens embedded in collages, while more traditional media make bold pronouncements about race, culture, and art. Graffiti and canvas paintings have equal weight here, but the artists who have plugged in are the real visionaries. 518 Second St. S.E., Minneapolis; 612-623-9176; www.soapfactory.org; www.obsidianarts.org