John Kenneth Galbraith dead at 97

His vision from his 1958 book, "The Affluent Society", rings true today. From his NY Times obituary:

In it, he depicted a consumer culture gone wild, rich in goods but poor in the social services that make for community. He argued that America had become so obsessed with overproducing consumer goods that it had increased the perils of both inflation and recession by creating an artificial demand for frivolous or useless products, by encouraging overextension of consumer credit and by emphasizing the private sector at the expense of the public sector. He declared that this obsession with products like the biggest and fastest automobile damaged the quality of life in America by creating "private opulence and public squalor."

Posted by BradRubenstein at 07:55 AM | TrackBack

How I Make Brisket for Passover

My friend Adam asked me to make a main dish for Passover at his house, where there were going to be about 15 of us. I'd never made a brisket before, so I took the opportunity to give it a go.

It's actually very easy. Here's what you do.

First, you have to find a good brisket.

Then you trim off most of the fat, and brown it all over in boiling oil. Really brown.

In the same oil, brown some chopped onions and garlic.

Put the brisket in a very heavy pot, pour the onions (along with all the garlic, drippings and oil) and over it, sprinkle a package of dried onion soup mix over that, and then cover the whole thing with dried apricots. Lots of them.

Carefully pour as much water around the side of the brisket as will go, without getting the stuff on top wet.

Cover, and put the entire contraption in a 325 oven.

Now walk over to the Brooklyn Academy of Music, where the National Theater of Bergen, Norway, is performing Henrik Ibsen's Peer Gynt in a production conceived and directed by Robert Wilson. From BAM's broadsheet:

Where does the real self lie? For Peer Gynt, an irredeemably hypocritical farmer’s son with more identities than an onion has layers, it’s a question that only a roguish life of loving, leaving, and stealing can answer. As envisioned by Robert Wilson, with a transcendent score composed by violin virtuoso Michael Galasso, Ibsen’s existential masterpiece radiates humor, pathos, and stunning beauty in its timeless look at our shared virtues and vices.

The performance is completely in Norwegian (there are supertitles), performed by actors in whiteface, on a stage that is starkly empty. This review captures the effect.

It is critical to sit through the entire show, even though it is in Norwegian, since the production runs for three hours and fifty minutes, which, if you add the time it takes to walk to and from BAM, is the perfect amount of time to braise the brisket, and steam the apricots into a delicious sauce.

Let it sit overnight, and reheat it during the four questions.

Anyway, I thought the result was delicious, and so did many others. There were no leftovers.

Posted by BradRubenstein at 03:55 PM | TrackBack

Precious Moments

My friend Jim writes,

On Wednesday of this week, at two minutes and three seconds after 1:00 am (for those of you who need a little more detail - that is in the morning - as in after midnight) the time and date will be 01:02:03 04/05/06. This will never happen again in your lifetime.

My reply: As I write this, the time is 17:34:53 04/03/06. This too will never happen again in your lifetime.

Every moment is precious, not merely the good-looking ones.

Posted by BradRubenstein at 05:34 PM

Here's something you didn't know

Stepping Onstage as a Waitress, She May Exit the Met as a Star - New York Times

Without technical assurance, Ms. Sunnegardh lacked confidence. "Vocal technique is like money or sex," she explained. "If you don't have it, it's all you think about."

Posted by BradRubenstein at 08:54 AM | TrackBack