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  • Where I’m Calling From

    There are several vital tricks to surviving life at a daily newspaper, like I did at the Pioneer Press for fifteen years. One is a developed affinity for list-making, especially end-of-the-year list-making. So, Rake readers, as my first act in this space, a list … of the best and worst in media for 2006.

    The Best …
    • Dexter Filkins and John Burns of the New York Times, and CNN’s Michael Ware, from Iraq; MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann from New York: Long before the media peloton found the gonads to describe what was happening in the Mideast, the first three offered vivid reporting from inside the shattered society. Exploiting the freedom of cable news, Olbermann has lifted righteous indignation to an art form.

    • Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert: It is impossible to under-appreciate the salutary effect of the mirror Stewart and Colbert have held up to America’s cowed, corporate journalist/pundit class, and Colbert’s appearance at last spring’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner (also see, “Worst of … ”) was a watershed moment, dividing the relevant from the fatuous.

    • Dan Froomkin’s White House Briefing blog for the Washington Post: While every Capitol Hill and prep-sports reporter is rushing to produce an “edgy” blog, usually while straining to drain it of the pedantic institutional voice long-revered as “balanced” and “objective,” Froomkin has broken through the firewall with consistently well-informed aggregation and spot-on analysis.

    • Reality Check by WCCO-TV’s Pat Kessler, and Is That A Fact? by the Strib’s Eric Black: These truth-assessing vehicles, driven by deeply sourced, mainstream, veteran reporters, represent the sort of thing I used to think was a fundamental responsibility of journalism, namely, ascertaining and saying out loud what is true and what isn’t.

    • Hugh Laurie as House, and Ian McShane as Al Swearengen on Deadwood: One of my pet theories holds that an essential quality of adulthood is the desire to forgo sentimentality in entertainment. TV characters like House and Swearengen evoke the kind of snarly, sinewy associations with real life that gird you for battle in the company mines tomorrow morning.

    The Worst …
    • Fox’s If I Did It O.J. Simpson special: I still say Fox will attempt to air a live execution before the end of the decade. But until then, offering a homicidal psychopath sweeps-month prime time to discuss how he “might” have cut his wife’s head off is about as low and crass as it gets. To listen to Fox mogul Rupert Murdoch feign remorse only added to the insult. Rupert, try this: “We’re very sorry … that we were going to lose money. But we’re negotiating for the Britney/K-Fed sex tape as I speak.”

    • The Washington, D.C., media cognoscenti at last spring’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner: If you ever wondered how Cheney and Bush got the press to cheerlead for the invasion of Iraq, your answer could be plainly seen on the lifted, tucked, and self-satisfied faces of the media elite as they reacted with befuddlement and horror to Stephen Colbert’s vivisective “praise” of Bush’s, and their, manifest incompetence.

    • The disparity between political advertising and political reporting on local television: A University of Wisconsin survey of seven Midwest TV markets showed local TV news devoted twice as much time in the 2006 election season to political advertising as to political coverage. At what point does someone step in and say, “You get these broadcast licenses for nothing, and this avalanche of noxious ads is free money to you. So get off your asses and do your community the service of telling them who is lying and who isn’t.”

    • Bruce Sherman: Who? Sherman is CEO and chief investment officer of Private Capital Management LP, of Naples, Florida. More than any other individual’s, Sherman’s demands for greater profits (excuse me, “shareholder value”) were responsible for Knight-Ridder, the newspaper company, selling off properties like the St. Paul Pioneer Press, which eventually fell into the hands of a sweatshop company by the name of MediaNews. Along the way, hundreds of middle-class families were hit by lay-offs as Knight Ridder papers gutted their newsrooms. Did I mention that Sherman’s contract paid three hundred million dollars if he delivered the “shareholder value”?

  • Anjou Reviver

    Heaven knows the European Community (or whatever they are calling it this week) fails to warm the cockles of the English heart. (How would you like life in Minnesota regulated in detail by a bloated bureaucracy, living on expense accounts in a foreign land?) But one of its pleasanter side effects has been a scheme of international town-twinning—“Partnerstädte in Europa,” the bumper stickers call it. Sometimes the partnerships between cities in different countries are rather elegant. Oxford, for instance, is twinned with Leiden, seat of the oldest university in the Netherlands.
    Indeed, sometimes these seem to be matches made in heaven rather than in Brussels. The committees responsible have been rather kind in twinning the small town I come from in southwest England, Tiverton in Devon, with Chinon, an even smaller town on a tributary of the Loire River in western France. I am not sure what we did to deserve this good fortune. Although Tiverton is more than twice its size, Chinon has by far the more distinguished history. It was a stomping ground of Joan of Arc, Rabelais, Cardinal Richelieu, and King Henry II of England. Tiverton was a place where the medieval Earls of Devon stayed to hunt stags; it then grew into an industrial center that did very nicely thank you in the early modern cloth trade—solid and lovely—but not the scene of great romantic deeds.
    In fact, the only thing I can think of that the two places have in common is that each has a twelfth-century castle that towers high over a river. Tiverton Castle, though, preserves little from the Middle Ages. The Parliamentary armies captured it during the English Civil War (a lucky cannon ball broke the chain holding up the drawbridge) and they did not leave a lot standing.
    The remains of Chinon Castle, on the other hand, are massive. And its origins were royal—it was built by Henry II of England (who was also Count of Anjou). Connoisseurs of cinema will know it as the setting for The Lion in Winter, where Peter O’Toole, impersonating Henry II in robes remarkably ragged for a monarch, trades swift Stoppard-like repartee with Katherine Hepburn posing as a rather unregal Eleanor of Aquitaine, “that fertile and fateful female,” as my old tutor used to call her. The only hint that the characters in this film are anything more than spoiled celebrities is a long shot near the beginning showing the castle massive and mysterious from across the water. Shakespeare did royalty better than this. (So did Helen Mirren in The Queen.)
    The wines made around the two towns are not really comparable, either. Tiverton lies on the same latitude as the Moselle River. So there is every reason it should produce good wine, but I have never seen our local Yearlstone vintages for sale in the United States. The Loire Valley, on the other hand, produces more different sorts of wine than anywhere in France. They range in flavor from the Granny Smith bite of Muscadet to the dark mysteries of red Saumur. After a hot summer, Rosé d’Anjou comes somewhere in between—light, fruity, and refreshing.
    Try a delightful rosé made just upstream from Henry II’s crenellated residence. Charles Joguet’s Chinon Rosé 2005 (just over sixteen dollars hereabouts) is made wholly from Cabernet Franc grapes, the same variety used to make red Saumur, but for the rosé the juice is taken from the must (the crushed grapes) before the skins have had time to color it much. The result looks just like the pink juice of mountain-ash berries as one boils them down to make rowan jelly, the perfect foil for roast lamb or venison. The wine also has the same sequence of tastes that you find in rowan berry juice—fruit followed by delicious, long, waxy bitterness. Think pink grapefruit without the acid, but with a little tingle in the taste. This wine drunk with a venison paste would have revived a royal palate jaded by a difficult day inventing the Assize of Novel Disseisin; with appropriate charcuterie, it might refresh a Brussels apparatchik after hours in committee-making regulations about straight bananas. And for us, in the dark time of the year, it could fuel an entire dinner party, from smoked salmon through rack of lamb to a baveuse wheel of Brie. Vive les Angevins.

  • A Truly Worldly Bird

    There are a few unwritten rules of food snobbery that come into play, especially when dining in a new hot spot or restaurant run by a big-name chef. One is for the dining party to order as many courses as possible, making sure to hit all areas where the kitchen’s repertoire is considered notable. Another prohibits the same dish from being ordered by more than one person, thus permitting a wider circle of tasting as everyone passes plates and forkfuls loaded with the perfect bite. Superceding those rules, however, is one that, when broken, has been known to create uncomfortable moments of silence among even very good friends. That rule is: Never order the chicken.
    Food snobs believe that restaurants offer chicken simply to provide something for your Aunt Sally from Iowa who just happened to invite herself along to dinner. It’s on the menu as a concession, or a bribe to be offered up by more adventurous gastronomes to the lesser inclined: “Well, I’m sure they’ll have some chicken you can order.” The self-proclaimed elite eaters pass over the chicken entrée because they wonder why anyone would choose a common rock when faced with a choice of precious stones. This is why, when I think my friends might be heading down the slippery slope of snobbery, I love to watch their faces when I choose chicken.
    In truth, chicken is king. Seriously, can you imagine a world without it? I challenge omnivores to find a week when they didn’t consume chicken in one form or another. Besides being the universal yardstick for the flavor of all things (“tastes like chicken”), the bird plays the role of prime protein in countless cuisines all over the planet. Instead of thinking of chicken as pedestrian, we should be celebrating its versatility—it can be satisfying as both a vehicle for a star chef’s signature sauce and as a bucket of crispy fried goodness.
    The domestic chicken we know today is believed to have descended from the jungle fowl of India and Southeast Asia. Like so many things, chickens date back at least to the ancient Egyptians, who perfected a method of mass incubation, hatching thousands of eggs at once. Trade routes and travelers helped deliver domestic poultry to the growing world. Because they are so easy to raise, adaptable to all types of climates, and prolific progenitors, it’s not hard to see how chickens came to feed the world.
    For many cultures, the chicken is more than just a food source. During Hindu cremation ceremonies, a chicken tethered by a leg acts as a channel for any evil spirits that might be in attendance. Ancient Greeks considered roosters to be god-like in their valor, and the Romans used hens as oracles by feeding them a special grain cake. If the birds reacted noisily, the omen was bad, if they ate the cake greedily, it was good.
    If ever there were a question concerning the culinary merits of chicken, consider this: Why would France, one of the most food-centric countries in the world, use the Gallic rooster as its national emblem? On these shores, our most familiar chicken emblem may be that of Harland Sanders’ bucket of Original Recipe, but as anyone responsible for six or seven family meals a week well knows, chicken is a home cook’s best friend.
    The IQF (individually quick frozen) breast may be one of the most popular ways to buy chicken. Bags of easily thawed, tender white meat have probably done more for the average American cook than any other product. Those who venture into more intensive cooking can always take on a whole bird. The capon, for instance, is a castrated rooster that has more white meat and a higher fat content than other types of chickens; this makes its meat extremely tender and flavorful (it is also among the largest birds, weighing from six to nine pounds). Roasters are young hens, about four months old, ranging from three to five pounds. Two- to five-pound broiler/fryers are the most commonly sold whole chicken.
    Of course, the industrialization of meat processing is one of the reasons why chicken has become so cheap and easy to get anywhere, at any time. Some disgusting common practices used by large chicken factories, like haphazard electrocution or bacteria-rich water baths, have come to light in recent years, causing unease among people who love to eat chicken. As a result, the market for fresh, naturally raised and processed chicken has been gaining momentum to the point at which even massive companies like Gold n’ Plump now attempt to trade on their wholesome qualities. More important, small producers like Lori Callister and her Farm in the City at the Midtown Global Market have found an audience for flavorful, naturally grown chickens. After choosing your bird, you can curry it and cook it in a tagine; throw it in a stir-fry in the manner of General Tso; or grill it on a skewer with a tangy Thai marinade. Maybe you are what you eat, or maybe you are what kind of chicken you make for the night. It’s often said that even a professional cook’s skills are best judged by sampling his hard-cooked eggs and roasted chicken. Creating simple, flavorful elegance from something so common seems the antithesis of pedestrian—surely this achievement should be heralded by people, even food snobs, the world over?

  • More Generous Than Grateful

    MORE GENEROUS THAN GRATEFUL
    Maybe it’s just me, but your series of “Giving and Getting” articles [December, 2006] seem much more weighted to the giving aspect. Even in “Rules of the Game,” which starts with “Giving and Getting,” and seems like it’s going to cover both topics equally, giving is placed before getting. All Penny Winton says about getting is, “Giving comes first. You can’t go out and try to get without giving.” In the other pieces, any discussion of receiving gifts focuses on lousy gifts. For every action of giving, there is necessarily a recipient. Nathan Dungan’s family and friends bemoaned the culture of consumerism and came up with the solution of share checks. Great idea, but still told from the standpoint of the givers. I would have loved to have read one of the letters Dungan had received from a recipient of a share check. And what did Mary Lucia’s sibling do with that gorilla suit, anyway?

    Mary Warner, Little Falls

  • Closed Doors

    CLOSED DOORS
    After reading the cover story “Postcards from Saudi Arabia,” I am so thrilled for Peter Schilling that he experienced such wonderful hospitality while visiting the desert kingdom. Luckily for him, he didn’t get caught in a homosexual act, which is punishable by death in Saudi Arabia (public beheading and stoning are two popular methods). He was also fortunate to have been able to drink bootleg liquor in the confines of a protected compound—had he imbibed anywhere else in the country, he might have ended up being publicly flogged. Ditto or worse if Mr. Schilling had criticized the Saudi government, which could lead to a long torture session in a prison for dissidents. Had he shoplifted, he would have had his hand amputated, sans anesthesia. Mr. Schilling is especially lucky that he’s not Jewish, as Jews are not allowed to enter Saudi Arabia, period. It’s also a good thing his wife didn’t try to drive, as women are forbidden to. I shudder to think what would have happened had Mr. Schilling tried to practice any religion but Islam. Schilling also failed to mention the alarming numbers of victims of human trafficking in Saudi Arabia, where male-chauvinistic laws allow men to repeatedly rape and abuse women, with no fear of reprisal. What a nice vacation spot: a thoroughly repressive, hateful, misogynistic, homophobic, bigoted country with one of the world’s worst human rights records, which also happens to export much of the world’s terrorism through its support of radical Wahhabist Islam. I’ll have to visit someday—oh, wait, that’s right, they don’t let Jews in.

    Stanley M. Berg, Minneapolis

  • KIERAN'S LETTER OF THE MONTH: Open Minds

    As an American Muslim, I think it was an ingenious idea to go to and report—very generously—on the closely confined Saudi Arabia [“Postcards from Saudi Arabia,” December]. For Peter Schilling to penetrate Saudi and report on it firsthand is absolutely honorable, since the Saudi government obstructs others (including many Muslims) from coming into its country to learn, live, or understand what Saudi Arabia is. What is admirable is that someone, against many odds, decided to report on a culture that many western governments try very hard to thrash, demean, and typify as close-minded and backward. Oh, not to mention a terrorist-breeding nation. Mr. Schilling’s report proves to many wary and cynical people that Muslims are generous—“unexpected generosity” took Mr. Schilling by storm! And although “unexpected,” Muslims the world over are just that. Failure to reach out to the rest of the world is what barricades most Westerners from realizing what is actually out there and real. It’s exactly why people such as “Fearful Jim” exist the world over, wary of Muslims and who they really are.

    Samer Kader, Minneapolis

  • NYC Poetry Slam

    The Rake & supplement in front of CBs Gallery and one of the whole group in front of the Bowery Poetry Club across the street of CBGBs.

    Ruthie Stevens

  • Athens

    Athens. 2006. It’s hot. The Acropolis on its hilltop is floating above the city on a shimmer of heat. But here on the hotel balcony I’m cool. I’m reading The Rake. Everyone who reads The Rake is cool!

    Robin Overmier

  • Alaska

    Me and your excellent magazine at the Mendenhall Glacier, Juneau, AK.
    Mendenhall Glacier is in the Tongass National Forest and falls under the
    jusrisdiction of the National Forest Service. The have an excellent
    visitor’s center and trail system around the area and down the glacial
    morraine. This was my fourth trip to Alaska and Mendenhall and it has
    been neat to see how it has changed over the twenty-plus years.

    Malcolm Newman

  • Florida

    St. Paul high school seniors Ana and Erin traveled to Florida during their spring break. They visited the Everglades Holiday Park where peacocks roam freely. This bird exposed himself in the background of the The Rake issue with the cover feature, “Exposed!”

    Linda Brooks