Could you be a little more specific?

“The Matses are a 2,500-strong tribe, and they live in the tropical rainforest along the Javari river, a tributary of the Amazon. Their language, which was recently described by the linguist David Fleck, compels them to make distinctions of mind-blowing subtlety whenever they report events. To start with, there are three degrees of pastness in Matsese: you cannot just say that someone ‘passed by there’; you have to specify with different verbal endings whether this action took place in the recent past (roughly up to a month), distant past (roughly from a month to fifty years), or remote past (more than fifty years ago).  In addition the verb has a system of distinctions that linguists call ‘evidentiality’, and as it happens, the Matses system of evidentiality is the most elaborate that has ever been reported for any language. Whenever Matses people use a verb, they are obliged to specify – like the finickiest of lawyers – exactly how they came to know about the facts they are reporting. The Matses, in other words, have to be master epistemologists. There are separate verbal forms depending on whether you are reporting direct experience (you saw someone passing by with your own eyes), something inferred from evidence (you saw footprints on the sand), conjecture (people always pass by at that time of day), or hearsay (your neighbour told you he had seen someone passing by). If a statement is reported with the incorrect evidentiality form, it is considered a lie. So if, for instance, you ask a Matses man how many wives he has, unless he can actually see his wives at that very moment, he would answer in the past tense and would say something like daëd ikoşh: ‘two there-were [directly experienced recently]‘. In effect, what he would be saying is ‘There were two last time I checked’. After all, given that the wives are not present, he cannot be absolutely certain that one of them hasn’t died or run off with another man since he last saw them, even if this was only five minutes ago. So he cannot report it as a certain fact in the present tense.

“But finding the right verbal form for directly experienced events is child’s play compared with the hair-splitting precision required when you report an event that has only been inferred. Here Matses obliges you to specify not just how long ago you assume the event occurred but also how long ago you made the inference.”

And if you think that’s bizarre, wait until you hear about the Guugu Yimithirr people’s use of geographic directions.

Guy Deutscher, Through the Language Glass

Your correspondent

“She was funny. Yet despite my feelings for her, I realised that I would have preferred a letter to her presence. Is this pathology due to the predominance of written correspondence in my life? Rare are those whose physical presence is preferable to one of their letters – assuming, of course, that they have a minimum of letter-writing talent. For most people such a realisation would mean an admission of weakness, a lack of energy, an inability to confront the ‘real’. People have said to me ‘You don’t like people in real life’. I retort ‘Why are people necessarily more real if they’re standing in front of you? Why is their reality not better, or just different, in a letter?’ [...] ‘There are people I know only via their letters. Certainly, I’d be curious to see them, but it’s far from indispensable.’

Amélie Nothomb, Une forme de vie (my translation)

Le Chalet de la Foret

Last night we drove a long and winding road through the deep dark woods south of Brussels to get to Le Chalet de la Foret (two Michelin stars). It’s housed in a rather imposing building, and the interior is a familiar mix of blinding white walls, spotlights, modern art and elegantly minimalist floral arrangements.

Inside we were given the choice of two tasting menus (or à la carte) by a short, well-groomed head waiter with a busy air about him, who kept fiddling with his wedding ring.

Having made our choice, we were presented with amuse-bouches of hare and mustard (the cubes) and little anchovy-flavoured cakes.

Next, charbon de mais aux truffes, which was crunchy on the outside and full of truffly cream on the inside. Yummy and fun. Next to it, a beautifully soft wild mushroom mousse.

The first proper course was a charlotte of crab and almond. The green swoosh didn’t taste of anything much, and I’m not entirely convinced by the almond flakes, but the crab was lovely, if a little chilly.

This, on the other hand, was fantastic. Lobster with barbecue sauce (no, really) and crunchy leaves. We asked the waiter what the leaves were and he said something which sounded like “chisseau“, but I haven’t been able to find in on Google (probably beacause I’m not sure how to spell it).

Turbot, enlivened by a meaty jus and some chopped celery. Not as exciting as the lobster, but still very edible.

The meat course: pigeon and butternut squash crumble. The circle in the middle is pigeon liver paté on toast, and the one at top right is half an apricot. The pigeon meat was quite pink but tender and very tasty.

An interesting pre-dessert. Banana sorbet with basmati and curry cream. My wife wasn’t impressed (she likes it hot, so maybe the “curry” was underwhelming), but I thought it worked very well. Plus, I love bananas.

Hot and cold chocolate. The mousse in the centre was hot, causing the thin square of chocolate on top to slowly melt over it, and the “soup” underneath was cold. The interplay of temperatures in the mouth reminded me of the hot and iced tea we’d had at The Fat Duck.

A fairly standard selection of mignardises, but the maccaron was interesting, as it had a caramel filling. Usually the filling is the same flavour as the cake.

On the whole a confident and stimulating meal. A lot of these places seem to reserve all their creativity for the starters, and when it comes to the main courses they’re happy to just give you a piece of meat, but the highlights in this case compensated and balanced things out, and I’d be happy to go back some day for another menu.

[insert name]

On two separate occasions in two different jobs (one fairly recent, i.e. about 20 minutes ago) I have had to deal with someone who thinks that all human communication should be standardized, codified and made as free of variation and spontaneity as possible. For these people, each email sent should adhere strictly to a set format containing pre-defined language, no matter how simple or unambiguous the message. One boss even asked me once, with a straight face, to show him the “script” I used when calling customers, and seemed stunned when I told him that I didn’t have one. That I just, you know, talked to people.

I have two problems with this approach. One, the boss is assuming that I have no communication skills and can only speak/write to other human beings if I can read from a script. What would Turing make of it all?

Two, it fails to recognise that most people would rather have what at least seems like a genuine interaction rather than receive something which is very obviously written by committee. How many times have you zoned out or lost the thread while listening to an automated response or recorded message? Or, more likely, grown frustrated with impenetrable, inflexible, impersonal officialese?

And yet, for some people, this kind of thing represents the height of efficiency.

Silence, please

Visiting Lake Orta over the holidays, we took a trip out to the Isola San Giulio, home to a Benedictine monastery and very little else apart from a few houses and a gift shop.

As you get off the boat a sign welcomes you to the island and reminds you to shut up and be spiritual.

A path circles the island, offering you little other than views of the walls of the monastery and occasional glimpses down slipways to the water’s edge. But then I started noticing the signs. At first I thought they were simple “shut up” reminders.

But the message varied each time.

Considering that there wasn’t much to see or do there, my attention latched on to the metal plaques as the sole point of interest, and I found myself rushing from one to the next, eager to see the latest pearl of wisdom.

I even discovered that they had different messages on the reverse side, but my travelling companion didn’t take kindly to my suggestion that we go back to the start and check the backs of the ones we’d missed.

And then it was time to leave.

Lunch and dinner in Piemonte

Every time we fly to Italy we pass over the lakes in Piemonte, and every time it looks pretty and enticing. This Christmas we finally got to spend a day there. We didn’t make it up to Lake Como where Anakin and Padmé first kissed in Attack of the Clones, but to the smaller Lake Orta, where we’d found a restaurant we wanted to try.

We arrived by the lake in time for lunch, and stumbled upon an intriguingly modern and trendy trattoria called Olina. Several dishes on the menu were either recognised by the Slow Food organisation or were marked “Km 0″, meaning that all the ingredients had travelled less than a kilometre to get to the table.

I had a starter of cheese and chutney:

Followed by purple potato dumplings with a chestnut and toma cheese sauce.

We spent the afternoon on the Isola San Giulio (a separate post on this next time), and then made our way up into the hills to Al Sorriso (3 Michelin stars), where we would dine and spend the night.

Our host was very chatty and keen to regale us with anecdotes about his experience in restaurants and hotels around the world, but I was distraced by the fact that something about him reminded me of Paul Daniels. We chose the truffle menu and a bottle of a local red. The wine was good, but more interesting to me was the contraption used by the sommelier to hold it. As well as supporting the bottle at a specified angle, presumably to keep the sediment at the bottom, the handle on the right could be used to gently tip the bottle when pouring was required. You’ll also notice a small candle holder at the bottom. It wasn’t used that night, but I’ve seen it before, placed under the bottle neck so as to warm the wine as it exits the bottle, in case the wine hasn’t had time to reach room temperature since being brought up from the cellar.

We started with scallops in a pumpkin sauce with chestnuts and crunchy bacon and carrot strips.

The next course was probably my wife’s favourite, and it bizarrely reminded me of something we’d eaten the year before in a hotel in Austria. It’s a potato, covered in cheese and shaved truffle.

But when you break it with your fork, it bleeds egg yolk.

Next were potato and cabbage gnocchi with a Bettelmatt (an alpine cheese) sauce and shaved truffles. Nice, although a little gloopy and stodgy in the mouth. The main problem though was that we’d had two very similar dishes in a row, both variations on a mound of squishy potato and melted cheese. Now I’m all in favour of comfort food, and mountainous regions like Piemonte are known for their hearty, filling fare, but from a 3-starred restaurant I expected something a little more delicate and refined.

The next dish was a yummy raviolo containing foie gras, leek and guinea fowl, although to look at it you’d say it was just another mound of cheesy truffles.

Venison, again covered with truffles. Livened up this time with thin slices of onion and apple, although these were a little chewy when I’d have preferred them crisp and crunchy.

The cheese course. No problems here: a great selection of mostly local cheeses, including Testun, which means “stubborn” or “pig-headed” in Genoese dialect. Lovely chutneys and jams to accompany them, too.

A mandarin sorbet to cleanse the palate.

And then a very pleasant and not too rich chocolate and orange dessert. I didn’t eat any of the decorations, including the pointless sprig of rosemary.

Sweet nibbles with the coffee, although by this stage we were too full to finish them.

So a pretty mixed bag, on the whole. Great cheese, but it would have been better to keep it in its own course at the end, rather than smothering it over so many of the main dishes.

Window shopping in Genoa

Shopping in the old quarter of Genoa is always a pleasant experience, as the warren of narrow, winding alleyways hides a multitude of tiny specialist shops, many of which are Ali Baba’s caves of exotic foodstuffs, equipment and knick knacks. Even if I don’t always want to buy the stuff, it’s usually fascinating to look at.

Whenever we have Christmas lunch in Genoa we have ravioli and insalata russa, but next time I’m going to politely request some cappon magro.

An interestng and slightly disturbing pork display. Vegetarians, avert your eyes.

I can take or leave shellfish as a dish, but the colour of this display really caught my eye. They’re not branzini; that’s the fish in the background.

We stopped for a coffee. The “restroom” featured this intriguing set-up. My wife thinks the shower head is for the cleaner to clean the floor. I think it’s for the customers, because they didn’t have room to install a bidet.

Now wash your hands. Using only the finest English sheep soap, if you please.

However all is not cuteness and tradition in the streets of Genoa. Since my last visit there’s been a disturbing development: “automatic shops” taking the place of real shops. These alcoves containing a selection of Japanese-style dispensing machines have multiplied rapidly, most upsettingly occupying the space formerly used by a little secondhand book and CD shop just around the corner from our flat.

I shudder to think what the lasagne and cannelloni taste like.

Ginseng coffee is all the rage, but machine coffee never tastes any good, whatever the flavouring.

Back to something a little more healthy and locally produced. Fried, battered courgette flowers are one of the things I miss about my mother-in-law’s cooking. Besides, look how cute they are!

The fresh pasta shop on Via Cannetto il Lungo has the most mouth-watering display of pesto, although my mother-in-law’s home-made version tastes the best.

And finally, something we did, in fact, buy. Walnut sauce for the pansoti we ate with friends back in Brussels on January 1st.

Comme Chez Soi

Last night my wife took me out for a birthday dinner. I didn’t know where we were headed, but I had a hunch, and as we got closer to the undisclosed location my suspicions were confirmed: Comme Chez Soi.

We’d been there once before, back in the olden pre-kids days. This was also back when it had three Michelin-stars and was at the height of its fame and prestige, although some were already of the opinion that it was resting a little on its laurels. Then in 2006 the chef Pierre Wynants, who had held onto his 3 stars for nearly 30 years, retired and passed the baton to his son-in-law Lionel Rigolet. Michelin immediately down-graded them to two stars, arguing that three stars have to be earned and can’t simply be inherited by a new chef.

We made ourselves comfortable in the swish Art Nouveau surroundings:

Occasionally peeking through the nearby window to the kitchen. Whenever I looked I didn’t see any actual cooking going on, just the chef’s wife on the phone:

The sommelier presented us with the wine list on an iPad, but assured us that we could have a paper version if we encountered any problems with the shiny, swipey one.

We chose a tasting menu, settling for six courses rather than the full seven, although we added a cheese course. We also ordered a half bottle of chablis as my wife was driving back. Amuse-bouches arrived. The round pastries filled with anchovy cream were nice.

More starters: a  crustacean jelly, mackerel carpaccio and veal with picalilli. The mackerel was gorgeous.

The first full dish: scallops, salmon cubes, oyster tartare, cucumber ice with chardonnay vinegar. Stunning. The tiny green spheres on the scallop popped very pleasantly in the mouth, and when we asked the waiter what they were he replied, with an admirably straight face “Flying fish eggs marinated in wasabi”.

Frogs’ legs (on either side of the plate) and sweetbreads in a consommé with garlic butter. Deliciously crusty and slightly fatty but the consommé was very light. Almost all the dishes featured this kind of successful contrast of textures.

This course was so tempting that I forgot to take a photo until I’d already desecrated with with my fork. Steamed plaice on a bed of lentils with a lard and chorizo sauce. For both this and the following dish the waiters were happy to offer you more of the wonderfully creamy sauce to soak up with your bread.

This was even better: line-caught sea bass with a parsnip and tarragon sauce and bulgur wheat. But the masterstroke was the orange powder at right: candied macadamia nut with spices. The fish itself was perfectly seasoned as it was, but a sprinkling of this sweet spiciness took it to another level.

And here was our optional cheese course. Far from a simple selection of lumps of cheese, we were treated to rolls of comté in Granny Smith apple skin with Liège syrup. The daisy chain is made of flowers and some kind of sharp coleslaw. Amazingly complex flavours. I’m tempted to name it the best dish of the evening.

And here began dessert. I was a little concerned that this was going to be too acidic for my taste, but in fact it was perfectly balanced. Poached pear, citrus fruit, almond biscuit, pear and basil ice cream (gorgeous) and a “Calcutta tea” sauce.

And then the obligatory chocolate.

And just a few more mignardises to round off the evening.

Best birthday meal ever.

New music

I used to find new music the way most people did: the radio. I was never a big radio listener but I heard enough at various times throughout the day, at home, at work or in shops to pick up on what was going on. TV supplemented this diet, from the heyday of Top Of The Pops to MTV (TOTP no longer exists, and MTV no longer plays music).

When I moved away from the UK my radio and TV consumption dropped dramatically, and this was also around the time that the way people bought (or didn’t…) music changed dramatically thanks to the internet. Nowadays I feel I’m between two generations: I use the internet to research new music, but I still buy a hard copy on CD.

Shares

Often I’ll find something after a friend shares it on facebook, twitter or a blog. Like this one, dropped in the middle of a friend’s recent blogpost just because she was listening to it at the time of events she was describing.

 

Precedents

One of the easiest ways to decide on a purchase is “Did I like their last album?”, and on that basis I just bought the new Florence + the Machine CD. But I don’t do it “blind”. I’ll still read some reviews just in case, and for that reason I avoided the last Björk.

 

Magazines

Once in a while I’ll pick up a copy of Songlines which, in addition to all the articles and reviews also gives you one or sometimes two free cds featuring the best of that month’s releases. A few from the last issue I liked:

Anoushka Shankar. Flamenco sitar. I bought the album at the weekend.

 

The Bombay Royale. Australian Bollywood Surf Guitar. Sadly they don’t seem to have released a full album yet.

 

Ali Khattab. North African flamenco. Album is proving hard to track down in CD format.

 

Old stuff still sounds new

Whenever I go back to the UK I’ll pop into HMV and scan the discounted section. These days it takes up most of the shop, as so few of us actually buy shiny discs any more, meaning that almost half their stock is available for five quid or less. Usually in these situations I’ll pick up a compliation or greatest hits package. On this trip I got Missy Elliott and Roxy Music.

 

How do you find new music?

Vogels en bijen

Warning for the faint-hearted: this post is mostly about laughing at cartoon willies.

The title means “the birds and bees” in Dutch. Why? Well, this past weekend we went to a local science and technology museum called Technopolis. We’ve been many times before and our kids always enjoy the many hands-on demonstrations, games and toys. As well as the permanent exhibits there are temporary themed exhibitions, and it just so happened that at the moment they have a new show all about puberty. It’s aimed at kids over the age of ten, so while ours played in the 4-8 year olds’ section upstairs, my wife and I took turns going downstairs to giggle at evaluate how they’d approached this sensitive topic.

The first thing that caught my eye was this glass case containing two puppet heads. You can put your hand into the back of each head to puppeteer the tongue and make them French kiss. Hours of fun…

The rest consists of a large number of displays of cartoons or puppets of various body parts, many of which are in some way interactive and most of which were operated by foot pumps. Use the foot pump to circulate spermatozoa inside the testicle!

Use the foot pump to inflate the condoms!

Use the foot pump to inflate the…er…

Use the foot pump to eject the sperm from the penis!

I can’t help but feel that some girls are going to walk away from this exhibition with some strange ideas about male “hydraulics”.

The girls’ end of things is handled a little more sensitively, with the possible exception of this chart explaining different breast sizes.

But, to be fair, on the whole it’s a pretty even-handed and down-to-earth show, with plenty of space also given over to the context of love and adult relationships. But I don’t think we’ll be showing this to our girls for a few more years yet.