Celebrating 51 years together

 We made our first foray for crabs this year, heading to the old original, Cantler's outside Annapolis. We arrived at opening time on Sunday, 11:00 A.M., and managed to get seated on the deck. Because they assigned a waitress who hadn't arrived yet, they ran out of crabs before we could order. Crabs apparently are unpredictable--also fewer--this year. There are fewer mature blue crabs and more females, so the future looks better. 

Vanessa and I are the only true hard-crab crackers in the group so we did order other stuff. First, though, we put in for steamers, spiced shrimp, and calamari--the last for Dave, whose birthday it was Sunday. Everything was good, including the crabcakes and my soft-shell crab stuffed with rockfish (a switch on the more frequently found rockfish stuffed with crabmeat.

Then our waitress--who was a good sort even if her late arrival caused us to miss the opening crab order--came by to advise that more crabs had arrived. It seems she wasn't the only late arrival. So Vaness and I enjoyed sharing a half-dozen big ones. They were great. The sun was shining, the view of the arm of the Severn Cantler's borders was delightful, and we hadn't had to wait in a line. It was a feast we hadn't exactly planned.

Monday night Eileen and I headed to Le Diplomate for our anniversary dinner. It's 51 years and we've known each other for 55. It rained but Le Dip has wooden chambers along the street, complete with built-in heaters that they can turn on from inside the restaurant. As always, the service was superb--which is not usual in these parts. 

It was a cold wet day so Eileen ordered the one dish designed for those conditions: French onion soup, a bistro classic, and Le Dip is nothing if not a classic bistro. I had tuna carpaccio, not such a classic but excellent all the same.

It's always satisfying when Eileen can get steak frites grilled well-done. I had the special--dorade en papillote. Creme brulee to conclude for E; profiteroles for me. Possibly because of the rain, we even found a nearby legal parking space. 

This was a week for dining out, something we really don't do as often as we have this week.Last night, Wednesday, we weren't so lucky, joining a friend at La Piquette on Macomb St. We got there on time and had moved our table from outside to inside, and managed to get a real table, not a high one. There had been a storm at 5:30--our reservation was for 6:30.

Service was slow from the gitgo. There was a large party--8 or 10--across the way from our table. First course didn't take too long. I saw them hustling to get main courses served for the large party. It had been a while and we got assurances but nothing happened. By the time I spoke to the manager, since no one else had helped, we then were finally served. 

I had hoped we might finish by the predicted time of the next storm: around 8. It was not to be. I was partly responsible having order a dessert to share. The storm arrived with a vengeance. I ended up running around the corner--the car was pretty close--and somehow we made it home without being struck by lightning. Eileen ordered the one excellent dish--a fricassee of wild mushrooms.

We're dining at home, tonight and over the weekend.

It Was Never Likely That Roth Would Go Quietly

Just over one month ago, we surveyed the crowded landscape of Philip Roth biographies. I mentioned that Claudia Roth Pierpont (no relation) produced a fine literary biography a year or so ago, and that Professor Ira Nadel brought out a full-fledged biography in March. Then Benjamin Taylor, an old friend of Roth's, published his recollections of their friendship, and lastly and most significantly, Blake Bailey, Roth's ultimate authorized biographer--the first was fired by Roth and Nadel, always unauthorized, was sued by Roth--produced a 900-page volume. I bought Nadel's book because standing alone then in the bookstore, I assumed it was the major bio. It's not well-written.

Bailey's bio received excellent reviews from almost every critic until the New Republic published an attack predicated on accusations that Bailey, when teaching high school in New Orleans some years ago, had groomed female students to become sex partners when they reached the age of 18, and then looked them up. W. W. Norton, Bailey's publisher, proceeded to halt further printings and stop flogging the book. Bailey had made the rounds of major TV programs where authors are interviewed--I caught him on MSNBC's Morning Joe--and was now instantly persona non grata, the latest casualty of the cancel culture.

This morning Morning Joe had a discussion of the cause celebre, and it was finally acknowledged after one panelist claimed that Bailey's book was still readily available, that, in reality, Amazon had dropped it and the Kindle edition was no longer available. There was a good back-and-forth among a variety of panelists--Katty Kay of BBC, Ron Charles, book critic for the Washington Post, Matt Bai, a freelance journalist, and Judith Shulevitz, who authored the New Republic piece.

Not that a consensus ever emerged that resolves these kinds of conflicts, but the major part of the group seemed to coalesce on a conclusion that a publisher need not continue to promote a book by an author it no longer feels it can endorse but that in this instance, Norton ran away from Bailey before there had been any assessment of the evidence expected to be forthcoming from his accusers. 

It's not censorship because this is not an interdict imposed by the government. It reminded me of how the Democrats in the Senate did everything possible to force Al Franken to resign his Senate seat after a woman accused him years later of fondling her back when he was a comedian. Worse yet, there were allegations at the time that she was an operative of a right-wing group that specialized in setting up liberal political figures.Lastly, the Dems refused to wait for the results of the investigation that Franken had gone along with requesting.

It always seemed to reek of overreach and the traditional unwillingness of Democratic national administrations or Congressional Democrats to stand behind any of their members facing such accusations. The Republicans never surrender and the Trump persistence in denying the truth and the failed impeachment convictions attest to their steadforthness. Sen. Kirsten Gillebrand of New York was the leading voice demanding Franken's resignation. Franken now regrets that he folded.

Sentence first, trial later, as the Red Queen in Through the Looking-Glass proclaimed. Roth himself, now safely interred, was the target of renewed attacks for allegedly being a misogynist in his life and his fiction. Granted, positive female characters in Roth are few and far between. But I found it worth noting that one leading figure in one of his late short novels, Jamie Logan in Exit Ghost (2007), comes across as a strong woman who dominates her weak husband and is the object of Roth alter ego Nathan Zuckerman's ardor, admiring that quality. Unlike Lucy Nelson and Martha Regenhart in Roth's first two novels (Brenda Patimkin in Goodbye, Columbus, which is regarded as a novella rather than his first novel, also emerges as a less-than-positive character, as she joins Daisy Buchanan from The Great Gatsby as one of the "careless people" who leave others to pick up the pieces. in this case, a wrecked courtship), Jamie is depicted as strong but not controlling.

I've started reading the Bailey book, Philip Roth: The Biography. I haven't gotten all that far along but I can say that it is very well-written, and takes advantage of the exclusive access Roth gave Bailey to his papers, archives, and other materials. I'm not going to trash it and I intend to savor it.