Reading, Watching, Listening

Recommendations for the end of May

Greetings readers! Last week’s almond croissant post inspired many of you to send me pictures of the almond croissants you are eating (or have eaten, or will soon eat), which I found very delightful. I also now have a line on where one can find excellent croissants in Los Angeles, Traverse City, and New Jersey. Almond croissant solidarity! Let’s eat as many as we want! They are delicious!

Ever since my most recent episode of Radiolab went up, listeners have been sending pictures of toothpaste tubes that they’ve sliced into with sharp slicing tools in order to extract the last smidgen of paste (listen at around 11:10 to hear why). In related news, my mom, who came to visit last weekend, brought me a tube-squeezy-gizmo to give to Matt (see above). He told me he’d throw it out the window if I actually brought it to his house. We will see!

This week, I thought I’d do a round-up of a few Petite-Patate-related recommendations. Although I am perpetually behind in my media consumption, I always like to hear recommendations from friends on what to read, watch, and listen to. Hopefully you feel the same way. Maybe I’ll try and do this once/month, if it appeals!

Film: The Taste of Things

So much of the art and philosophy of the “everyday” is French, a fact that constantly surprises me, but probably shouldn’t. After all, it is a cliché/borderline pernicious stereotype of French people that they are constantly on vacation, endlessly sitting in cafes, drinking espressos, always eating a perfect sole meunière and smoking three cigarettes simultaneously. They love life! They love food! They love leisure! Viva la Petite Patate! The 2023 film A Taste of Things, directed by Tran Anh Hung, offers a beautiful, often captivating, experience of this version of France (minus the vacations). There are long, visceral, noisy sequences of Juliet Binoche’s character – Eugénie, a late 19th century cook – preparing, and later, eating meals -- butchering birds, sizzling fish, slurping soup. There’s also an unusual, and subtle, love story and an excellent performance by Bonnie Chagneau-Ravoire, who brings depth and humanity to her role as the teenage apprentice, Pauline. But mostly this is a film where the drama, and emotion, is communicated through the preparation, consumption, and enjoyment food. Small potatoes, indeed!

Podcast Episode: Patti Smith on Wiser Than Me

About halfway through this episode of Wiser Than Me –Julia Louis Dreyfus’ popular podcast where she interviews famous older women – Dreyfus actually says the words “and that’s no small potatoes.” She’s talking to the incomparable Patti Smith about the decade (roughly the ‘80s) when she moved to Detroit to have kids and raise them with her husband Fred “Sonic” Smith. People who had been in the NYC punk scene with Smithwere appalled by the notion that she’d leave the city to have a family. She describes a “satirical” VIllage Voice cover with an image of her in braids and drawn-on cow udders. But Smith talks about those years as some of the most fruitful and  personally fulfilling of her life. “No small potatoes,” as Dreyfus says. I found the whole episode incredibly moving, but particularly when Smith talks about the quiet ways that motherhood and family life can help us to grow and become new versions of ourselves, even when we aren’t particularly good at domestic tasks. 

Book: The Anthropologists by Ayşegül Savaş (Coming June 9)

I read an advanced copy of The Anthropologists in two big gulps on a recent trip to St. Louis. I started it on the flight there and finished it the same evening, tucked into bed after I’d seen the arch and given my talk at Washington University]. Given that I have a small child,  it has been difficult to find time to read recently, and the experience of reading a book this way -- all at once, in flurry -- felt incredible. Like so many wonderful small-potatoey things, The Anthropologists wasn’t engrossing because there was a propulsive, twisty plot or incredibly high stakes. In fact, you could say that very little apart from the banal happens in the book -- a young couple living in a Paris-like city look for an apartment, have squabbles with friends over cocktails, and deal with aging parents who live far away. The couple, for the most part, get along and like each other. No one is perfect, but everyone is decent. But Savaş’ characters are deep and real -- occasionally crabby, often tender, always trying to understand the people around them a little better -- and the book is largely about the ways that small parts of daily life shape who we are and determine what will ultimately become of us. I highly recommend that you preorder it -- it is the perfect book to read on an early weekend in June, just as the peonies bloom.