London, GB | Formerly of New York, Buenos Aires, Fife, and the Western Cape. | Saoránach d’Éirinn.

“Nothing between the insulting and the superlative…”

« In the restaurant on the Rue Saint-Augustin, M. Mirande would dazzle his juniors, French and American, by dispatching a lunch of raw Bayonne ham and fresh figs, a hot sausage in crust, spindles of filleted pike in a rich rose sauce Nantua, a leg of lamb larded with anchovies, artichokes on a pedestal of foie gras, and four or five kinds of cheese, with a good bottle of Bordeaux and one of champagne, after which he would call for the Armagnac and remind Madame to have ready for dinner the larks and ortolans she had promised him, with a few langoustes and a turbot — and, of course, a fine civet made from the marcassin, or young wild boar, that the lover of the leading lady in his current production had sent up from his estate in the Sologne.

“And while I think of it,” I once heard him say, “we haven’t had any woodcock for days, or truffles baked in the ashes, and the cellar is becoming a disgrace — no more ’34s and hardly any ’37s. Last week, I had to offer my publisher a bottle that was far too good for him, simply because there was nothing between the insulting and the superlative.” »

– A. J. Liebling, Between Meals (1962)
Published at 8:08 pm on Wednesday 20 January 2010. Categories: Errant Thoughts Quotations Tags: .
Comments

Andrew, South Africa seems a nice place but wouldn’t you move to Europe or you decide to devote all the time to blogosphere?
So as for me living in Moskva also has a number of disadvantages but it would be mad to move from the place where my parents born.
and yes, i enjoy your webpage.

Regards.

— dareboy 23 Jan 2010 3:40 pm
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