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Women and food, anyone?

"Why we love women", by Mircea Cartarescu and "Savory Romania", by Radu Anton Roman

Posted in Services on Tuesday, December 21, 2004

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I cannot imagine better gift choices than books. If ever faced with a special occasion and you’re puzzled as to what gift to get, if none of the obnoxious ads attract you, and if you don’t give in to any of the suggestions that the TV self-proclaimed VIP so willingly give… then you’ve got to get a book.

Not because a "book" is a "last-resort" sort of gift, but because a "book" is the best gift of them all. When you’re not fooled by the colors and sparkle of the shopping windows, when nothing that crowds the city streets appeals to your consumer instinct, that means you’re on ground 0, the truest... the most authentic space within you. That means that you don’t buy gifts that must give happiness out of obligation, but that you buy gifts out of love, gifts that will certainly bring joy to the one who receives them. That’s what I mean when I say that books are the best choice. I recommend two books which can brighten anyone’s spirit; unfortunately, they are only available in Romanian at this time.

If love were an airport we landed on at least once in our lifetime, then we can explain why love stories touch us, we understand them, and they make us emotional, regardless of how profoundly they belong to someone else and how purely subjective the writing is. What’s as simple and yet, as complicated, as the old story of “one boy loved a girl”? A huge director, Billy Wilder if I’m not mistaken, writes in his journal that, one night, he dreamt of the most emotionally charged love story. While sleeping, he was so moved by the story that he made the most humongous effort of them all, and got up to jot down a few words so that he won’t forget it the following morning and not be able to continue writing the story. He went to his desk, almost asleep, he turned on the light, he grabbed a pencil and he scribbled a few things down. He went back to sleep, pleased that he did a good thing. He knew that the basic facts of the story were on that paper, and that this was the beginning of a great movie.
In the morning, happy as he was, Wilder looked at the paper on which he wrote about the fantastic story, and, to his stupor, there was only one phrase on the white page: "A boy met a girl". There’s nothing more and nothing less in a love story, really.
And so I remembered this little tale, when I turned the last page of Mircea Cartarescu's last book, "Why we love women". The title isn’t a question, you see; he’s not asking why we love women, but rather… he tells us why. His stories show that the "boy meets girl" myth is immense and that it holds the entire secret of life. Variations on a given theme, one might say. I would call it: "variations written with colossal talent on the most complex theme the world has ever produced".
The book is a collection of different love stories and the protagonist is, mostly, the author himself. Every prose is, in essence, autobiographical, and Mircea Cartarescu is an author who masters this beautiful literary truth.

Most of the stories in this book, edited by Humanitas under the "Cartea de pe noptiera" collection, have already been published in the course of this past year, in Elle Magazine, Dilema, Romania Literara, Tabu, and Lettre Internationale. Thos who have read them in the above mentioned publications, are sure to be happy to hear that they can now have them all gathered in a book slightly bigger than a heart.

You can still find in some bookstores (like Carturesti on Magheru), "Food, wines and Romanian tradition", by Radu Anton Roman. A true delight! It’s more than a cooking book and more than an ontological excursion. You’re sure to find a lot of Romanian recipes and descriptions of many traditional customs from different corners of the country. But you will also find a very suggestive writing, wonderful stories that surround certain foods, and mostly, you will discover that urge within you which makes you go into the kitchen to find out, through cooking, what’s beautiful in the world and, consequently, within you.

I really don’t know what draws me more to this book: the writing or the recipes. The colloquial style, the humorous aroma, colourful and charged with delicious metaphors, and extremely sensorial, this book is the ultimate temptation for all food-lovers. If you’re not a food addict, if you do not savour food but you’re one of those who enjoy soymilk and cereal, then this book will introduce you to a whole new universe which, I promise, you may never leave, once you start imagining the satisfaction your plate can offer you. The dishes described by Radu Anton Roman are true legends, and your gustatory papillae will be as stimulated as your neurons. Celebrate these dishes with barbarian appetite and savour these words with aesthetic enchantment.


Carturesti
Str. Edgar Quinet no. 9
Bucuresti
Tel/ Fax 311.06.46

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