WHEN PSYCHIATRY DOESN'T HELP

Tim Hayward has been writing on the Drake’s website (no, not Drake the Canadian rapper).  

It’s actually an article about the Fergroni at St John, but before he gets to that he says, “When I order something as simple as a Martini, I don’t want something with a ‘flavour profile’ curated by a couple of blokes who once did something promising in the City, I want Tanqueray Export and Noilly Prat because that’s what Hemingway, Parker and the rest of the Algonquin crowd drank to get seriously fucked up.’

 

And here is a cartoon in the New Yorker by the beloved Ros Chast:

 

And here is what I think may well be the best cartoon in the history of the New Yorker, in the history of the martini, and very possibly in the history of the world, by Henry Martin.

 

 

JULIAN WASSER

 Sad to hear that Julian Wasser has died, although he was 89, and I hope somebody somewhere is doing medical research into why so many photographers live so long.

 

Like everybody else I’m mostly familiar with Wasser’s wonderful, we might even say ‘iconic,’ photographs of Didion, Duchamp, King, et al (seen surrounding him in the picture above); but in fact he seems to have photographed just about every celebrity who lived in or passed through the L.A. area.

 

He was a very long way from being a ‘food photographer’ and yet food imagery does crop up here and there in his work.  As in these pictures of Canter’s Deli, and the Tail o'the Pup:

But looking through his photographs now I found one I’d never seen before, this one of Mick Jagger eating a sandwich.  It takes a bold rock star to be seen eating a sandwich, but then that’s Mick all over, isn't it?

 

And here is a photograph of Wasser himself, in a photograph taken by Diana Mara Henry.  Sure you got enough food there, Julian?

 

 

COMEDIANS BEING PAID TO EAT SANDWICHES

I just watched an episode of ‘Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee,’ the one where Jerry Seinfeld’s guest is Steve Martin. They end up in the Pleasantville Diner, in Pleasantville, New York.

Martin orders the egg salad sandwich, which as Seinfeld points out, is a bold move for a man who’s being filmed. He could easily end up with egg on his face.  Martin manages as well as anybody could.

But the sandwich itself is truly amazing.  The camera goes into the kitchen so you can see the sandwich being made, and I’ve never seen a sandwich with such a generous portion of egg salad: two whole scoops. I don’t know if this was just done for the programme, maybe they serve smaller portions when the camera’s not on them – I do hope not - but it was a great moment.

 

And then having formed a dome of egg salad the cook drapes a curved canopy of lettuce leaves over the top so that the egg stays in place.  It’s a triumph of sandwich architecture and mechanics.