Heck Of A Guy

This Post Contains 24% Of Your Recommended Daily Allowance Of Leonard Cohen

It’s coming from the sorrow in the street,
the holy places where the races meet;
from the homicidal bitchin’
that goes down in every kitchen
to determine who will serve and who will eat.

~ From Democracy by Leonard Cohen

Leonard Cohen - Restaurant Consultant

Writing at Gremolata,¹ Nancy Hinton² opens her essay, What Leonard Cohen taught me about food, with these words:

Peeking under the silver dome to check out the entrée,³ it turns out that the key to the lesson is that “… Leonard Cohen’s music made me [Ms Hinton] realize that it is still possible to be touched profoundly by something without understanding every nuance.”

She goes on to discuss the parallel situation in which she, as a chef, might feel her skills are wasted in preparing meals for yokels.⁴

Her point, of course, is that less refined customers may genuinely and profoundly enjoy her food without grasping each aspect of the process of preparation or the product much the same way that she is deeply moved by Cohen’s songs and words without grasping each aspect of the process of preparation or the product.

And, she is precisely correct (i.e., her view is identical to mine) about Leonard Cohen’s generosity of spirit in making his music and poetry accessible not only to a widely diverse audience but also to other musicians, who have made covering Leonard Cohen songs, especially for television soundtracks, one of the few high growth industries in the current economy; to visual artists, who use his words as inspiration; and to more profoundly creative sorts like Phillip Glass, who adapt and weave his work into their own visions.

Heck, he’s gracious to journalists, some of whom clearly lack any manners, let alone a valid perspective on his oeuvre, and who use his conversations as well as his professional work to sell cold remedies and diet colas advertised in their publications.

He is even nice to bloggers, including those who incessantly nag about including “Do I Have To Dance All Night” on his new CD,⁵ who claim that Dolly Parton was the actual model for Suzanne and that the original name of “Take This Waltz” was “Take This Waltz and Shove It,”⁶ and who extend invitations for threesomes and foursomes⁷ to Anjani.

I admit to being a tad disappointed that the chef-author chose not to comment on Leonard Cohen’s penchant for “pair[ing] Kraft Macaroni & Cheese with a 1982 Chateau La Tour,”⁸ his experience during his five year stay with the Zen monks on Mount Baldy as a cook (his specialties were soups and a lauded preparation of teriyaki salmon),⁹ or the Red Needles cocktail he concocted, according to the authoritative LeonardCohenFiles, from Tequila, Cranberry juice, Lemon (and/or exotic fruits), and ice.

Otherwise, however, Nancy Hinton’s post is not only an interesting, relevant, and thoughtful piece well worth reading but also a heartening source of encouragement for folks like me who have on occasion been treated cavalierly at one or two of your swankier beaneries. The idea of a hot-shot chef who believes in putting out her best work for every customer, regardless of his bumpkin titer, and who has a thing for Leonard Cohen has me ready to hie myself to Montreal to chow down at Ms Hinton’s establishment.

Her post can be found at What Leonard Cohen taught me about food

Leonard Cohen - Food Critic

Bernadette and Lorca cook for Leonard And Anjani. Food tasting and comments follow.

Leonard Cohen - Vegetable

The November 20, 2007 post at Let the Sky Rain Potatoes, a “blog about food” written by Shelly Blake-Plock,¹⁰ is ominously titled Is Leonard Cohen a Vegetable?

Happily, this has nothing to do with Leonard Cohen becoming comatose but deals instead with the question that everyone, one assumes, has asked him- or herself at one time or another, “What sort of vegetable Leonard Cohen would be if Leonard Cohen happened to be a vegetable?” ¹¹

The author suggests first a radish, then a Savoy cabbage. A commenter makes the case for an acorn squash. I like the rationales provided although I never had much use for radishes, cabbages, or squash of any sort. It’s a quick, fun read and can be found at Is Leonard Cohen a Vegetable?

Lady Lawanda, an accomplished culinary sort herself, is steadfast in her opinion that he would be a string bean. Anjani is on record that he would be a cabbage, but more about that later.

Footnotes

1. Hmmm. I see now that this post is actually reprinted at Gremolata. It was originally published on Ms Hinton’s own blog at What Leonard Cohen taught me about food on September 18, 2007↩
2. Nancy Hinton (aka Soup Nancy) describes herself on her own blog, soupnancy, thusly:
   I’m thirty seven years old, an anglo from Quebec City, and a chef by profession. Formerly the chef de cuisine at L’Eau à la Bouche, I now cook at “la Table des Jardins Sauvages”, a woodland table specializing in wild plants and mushrooms just outside Montreal, and I consult and teach on the side. In spirit, I’m a proud Québecoise and Canadian, who loves Montreal, and the country too. I’m a fiesty, passionate, idealistic, slightly obsessive-compulsive insomniac, who loves life, and my job. I love food and cooking, and making people happy. I love to work hard and play hard. I love fire and knives; I love fresh herbs, tomatoes, almonds and cheese. I love curry, and meat broths, and everything anise flavored. I love anything from a pig, anything green, and anything pickled. I love good coffee and wine, and eating with chopsticks. I love the smell of men’s cologne, of Dad’s bagel shop, and of fresh coriander. I love making lists and checking things off. When not in the kitchen, I love newspapers, reading and rollerblading. I love CBC radio, Leonard Cohen and being in the sky.

   She sounds, in fact, delightful - if a bit exhausting.↩

3. The wordplay could have been worse - I considered using “spill the beans”↩
4. To be fair, she doesn’t call the culinary disadvantaged “yokels.” She calls us “country bumpkins on a bender,” which I’m sure is meant only in the nicest way. Shucks, within the Québecoise crowd, “country bumpkins” is probably one of those expressions that masquerade as insults but are actually used as an ironic signs of comradely, not unlike men in the Ozarks greeting each other with “Jim, you ol’ SOB, how are you?”↩
5. See The Best Leonard Cohen Song You’ve (Probably) Never Heard and many, many other posts↩
6. See 10 Fake Items About Leonard Cohen↩
7. The number of folks to be invited is a matter of ongoing negotiations↩
8. Quote from Anjani Thomas. See Pitchfork interview↩
9. See Rolling Stone, “The New Leonard Cohen”↩
10. His description of himself opens with “Although Shelly Blake-Plock may be better known in some circles for his music and poetry, it is as a culinary experimentalist that those among his circle of close friends best know him.” ↩
11. On raising this query, the blogger, who appears to share my willingness to declare the obvious to eliminate misunderstandings, immediately goes on to respond, in reference to the subjunctively stated condition of Leonard Cohen being a vegetable, “which he is not.”↩

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