Domingos; George; AA Gill

Domingo 25 de octubre de 2009


Hoy he trabajado, algo que no me acabo de acostumbrar, pese a los años que me ha tocado hacerlo. Si es cierto, que, de manera curiosa, encuentro más placentero el paseo hacia el trabajo los domingos y los días festivos. La ciudad vive otro ritmo. Y me influye. Los domingos, antes de entrar a trabajar, suelo comprarme el periódico y leerlo mientras tomo un café, los martes no. Quiero decir que no me gusta trabajar los domingos, pero me gusta la cadencia que genera.



Me ha llamado George, se marcha a Kerala, al sur de la India, una semana. Su madre se está muriendo. La conciencia le recrimina que no esté allí para ayudarla en estos momentos. Él es el hijo menor, y la tradición dicta que el último vástago de la familia será el encargado de cuidar de los padres. Para esa conciencia, no cuenta que esté trabajando 11 horas al día, muchos días sin comer, para sacar a sus dos hijos y a su mujer para delante, para darles una vida mejor. Una vida posible. Sus lágrimas me duelen.



Leo una entrevista a AA Gill, un crítico gastronómico inglés que escribe unas columnas bastantes sagaces. Saco estas frases:

-“… I find really difficult to use. I really am not ever going to write that something is succulent. Wafting aromas. Nestling. Drizzled, moist – I can’t write jus. That menu-language isn’t fit for serious or popular joined-up writing. So you have to find another way of talking about food. I thought about it before I ever wrote anything down, and I thought, well, the truth about food is that it’s the great metaphor for all of life. There’s nothing that hasn’t been used as a simile or a metaphor for this life – a chicken in every pot, the bread of life, the salt of the earth – everything about food pertains to something about life, so why can’t you do it the other way around? Why can’t all of life be used as an allusion for food?”

-“What I am is a restaurant critic. I write about being in restaurants. For most customers, the food is only part of the experience of being in a restaurant. It may be that Michelin judges and a few very anal, effete metropolitan gents will sit down and critique the food as they’re eating it, but most people don’t do that. Most people know if the food isn’t nice, and they know if the food is particularly good, but what they go out for is a whole mixture of stuff – hospitality, atmosphere, a feeling of largess and a sense of comfort, to be with friends, to have a mise-en-place that reflects on them in a way that makes them feel grander than they would necessarily be, or sexier, or more comfortable, or a juxtaposition to the way they live or work, or makes them feel that they’re in a chicer place than they’d normally be or where other chicer people might also be, therefore making them slightly more fashionable than they would normally imagine themselves. There are all sorts of reasons for people going to restaurants, and when they choose where to go, they make probably an unconsidered calculation of all of those things, of how much money they’re going to have to spend, of how hungry they are, who they want to impress, whether or not they want to be heard. Those are all things that count as much as the food. I don’t think anyone goes to restaurants because they’re hungry”


Continuo alucinado con los ZZ Top.