Phở in the Rain

25th
May

70 notes

murakamistuff:

The meals in Norwegian Wood

Haruki Murakami.: The meals in 1Q84 visualized

Dennis Gilstad, an art student at Cooper Union, has created an epic and stunning infographic for his graduation show that charts and visualizes all the meals that occur throughout Murakami’s 1Q84. Dennis says that he was actually influenced by Japanese architecture firm SANAA (…

Moules Frites

17th
April

183 notes

foodfuckery:

Eggs Benedict with Steamed Asparagus and Crispy Prosciutto.
Recipe

Celebrate National Eggs Benedict Day by reading this very informative website with a dreadful background colour. The medical risks page includes a note by Anthony Bourdain about bacteria in your Hollandaise sauce.Benedict is my favourite style of eggs, best with asparagus and/or roast potatoes, and let me mention that it’s been so for ages, well before I started to develop my infamous obsession for Benedict Cumberbatch (I also have witnesses who will confirm that I’ve always tied my scarf in a simple loop). To Anthony Bourdain the smell of Eggs Benedict may be the smell of defeat, as cooking breakfasts marked a difficult, drug addicted time of his life. But to me eggs in the morning is the smell of traveling abroad, because in Italy no one would eat eggs in the morning (and most people remain absolutely horrified at the idea). Well, that, and the smell of dollars of course, my currency of choice for negotiations outside Europe. By the way, dollar notes are known to be contaminated with cocaine.

10th
April

0 notes

Piatto Unico

This is a new place I like. The chef, sometimes in a menacing pink apron, reminds me of Shayn in Soul Kitchen.

VerdePeri

Fattoria cucinante balsamica a candele. Partecipazione straordinaria del Dr. Peri specialista in tempo libero con più di mezzo secolo di consolidata esperienza.

For the Birds

Two weeks ago while walking in the park I noticed something orange on the ground behind a small fir. That fir used to be my neighbour’s 2002 Christmas tree, one night he transplanted it the park and the evil municipal people did not notice - they did notice the cherry trees though, the ones another neighbour had planted illegally years ago for our hanami, and they accused him of obstructing the way of the municipal vehicle (of course that was ridiculous), so he decided to cut down two of the cherry trees, the ones which were closer to the entrance of the park, to save the others. Now we have two cherry trees left, a very small but sweet hanami. I went to check what the orange something was, to remove it in case it was plastic trash, and what did I see, a dozen persimmons left on the ground, for the birds.

So I have a neighbour who transplants firs illegally, another who transplants cherry trees illegaly, and a third one who feeds persimmons to the birds in January. Or maybe they’re just two. There’s a fourth one actually, the one who carries his guinea pig to the park inside a basket so that it can have a breath of fresh air.

Anyway, the evil municipal people did notice the persimmons a few days later, and they were removed. I replaced them with pears, less visible to the eye of the evil municipal people. The blackbirds did like the pears, but the blackcaps not that much.

Of course now everything is covered in snow. This morning I hanged a fat ball with seeds inside (ambrosia free) to a branch, a friend of mine hangs fat balls with dead insects inside. In the afternoon I went checking and the seeds on the surface were gone, but the fat was still there - too cold.

Riccioni

Riccioni is the italianization of a dialect word. It’s how in Reggio Emilia we call a special wild radicchio, it’s very green, curly and bitter. You can find it in the countryside, but it’s better not to eat it nowadays because it’s probably poisoned by pesticides. I was so lucky to find at a local farmer’s market some riccioni that were harvested in the Apennines.

But I was in Modena and the farmer called them by another name I couldn’t fetch, so I just pointed at them. I wonder how they are called in proper Italian.

Haruki Murakami’s Sapporo beer commercials

murakamistuff:

A few days ago we reported about the television commercials Haruki Murakami wrote for Japanese beer brewery Sapporo. Those commercials (four in number, not only one like previously assumed) were aired during the annual Tokyo-Hakone Ekiden which is a very popular race telecasted on Nippon TV. The four videos which are each one minute in length were produced by movie director Hirokazu Koreeda and voiced by actress Yukie Nakama. See them here:

Haruki Murakami’s Sapporo beer commercials

or on Sapporo’s homepage (only until the end of January)

The commercials are based on “What I Talk About When I Talk About Running”. It seems like most passages were taken directly from the book and perhaps a little bit modified by Murakami-san to fit the TV format.

Those commercials were produced to encourage the people struck by the earthquake and tsunami back in March. Murakami is going to donate his writing fee to them.

See our ramblings and a few of the passages quoted from the book down below.

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