Grant Achatz Wins Beard Award!

[bourdain]

And some of us have very happy--even post-orgasmic sense-memories of pine! Reminds me of the old Show World.

[Chef/Writer Spencer]

And some of us have very happy--even post-orgasmic sense-memories of pine! Reminds me of  the old Show  World.

But how does that correlate to food? Listen, Steve nailed me. I'm a fake, I've never tried the food I'm bashing so I need to shut the fuck up... I agree. It speaks ill of me to sit on my high horse pretending to know what I'm talking about like some righteous asshole. So I'll back off that arguement. But I hear a whole lot of pine defenses "It reminds me of this...I have beautiful memories every time I smell pine. I choked one off in the woods with Sara So and So, all the while staring mindlessly into a gargantuan pine tree." Memory, as Keller knows, plays a major role in the whole food experience so it would make sense that this pine reprobation would work...I'm just having a hell of a time trying to figure out the mentality that would link pine to something savory and enjoyable...Memory is a strong thing but not if there's no liason to make the whole thing work. It just reeks of over-thought out attempts to captivate the intellectual factions. It doesn't smack whats-so-ever of a good meal. But I could be wrong.

[Elissa]

with lamb, a la rosemary?

lavender pine (choc&van) granita

lime pine vodka martinis

i cannot drink gin

they put it in retsina, no?

Edited May 18, 2003 by lissome (log)

[Chef/Writer Spencer]

lamb, a la rosemary?

with lavender in a granita?

lime pine vodka?

Too much rosemary in a dish, people say, "It tastes like pine, yuk."

Lavender Honey Ice Cream, ok but in general, lavender belongs on your skin or on top of your toilet.

The thought of shootin' a shot of pine-lime vodka makes my ass cinch up.

[bourdain]

I recently ate at WD50 in NYC...the foie gras anchovie terrine with pommelo, tarragon and bitter chocolate was challenging--but delicious.

Ditto the squid linguine, asian pear, serrano ham, sweet paprika yogurt thing. Really good.

I think this kind of high-wire fusion act falls in the category of "Don't Try This At Home". Meaning the vast majority of practitioners should probably stick with the classics. But there clearly ARE those who can pull it off. Wylie Dufresne being one of them...Adria surely another. Like you, I have not eaten Grant Achatz's food yet. But I'm curious. Ain't you? I , also tend to align myself with the "Bloods" meaning the terroirist, cook-from-the-region reference tradition sense memory crowd--as opposed to the "Crips" (the fusion mob). But I really think there is indeed room for a few brave souls to serve food which "challenges" the customer, makes you think and analyze. That IS, I agree, very much in opposition to the whole idea of sitting down at the table. But why not? The first person who tried a speedball probably thought they were messing with a classic--and yet that mixture proved very popular.

[Chef/Writer Spencer]

Well I'm very curious about Achatz, and I think that he'd probably burn my cynical old ass down to the ground with the high-wire acrobatics, monkey fusion, look into this mirror, take a sip of this--with one eye shut and try to conjure the image of nothingness--gimmickry....anyone who works with Keller and Adria can't be puffing smoke rings out their ass, they can't be. Agreed.

I'm a die-hard blood though, with a subtle taste for some good crippin' but a true distaste for bad crippin'. And I can't abide when a blood wants to turn into a crip because they think it's cool to make foie gras tacos with pommegranite-foam, shaved abalone, and sous-vided caramelized dairy because some guy in Spain is doing it.

Edited May 17, 2003 by Chef/Writer Spencer (log)

[dbrociner]

The first person who tried a speedball probably thought they were messing with a classic--and yet that mixture proved very popular.

Ah, that Bourdainian perspective. I must have missed the speedball episode of A Cook's Tour.

[NeroW]

Spencer:

I believe it was in the same article discussed here, the reporter asked Chef Achatz what he likes to eat at home, and he said (most charmingly): "anything my girlfriend makes."

Now.

What have you got to fling at that?

[MatthewB]

I'm a die-hard blood though, with a subtle taste for some good crippin' but a true distaste for bad crippin'.

CWS,

Keep it coming. Contrary to some, I (mostly) enjoy your postings.

For sake of discussion, let's assume that Grant is a good crip. From there . . .

Let me try to make bourdain's "blood/crip" metaphorical dichotomy a bit less hard & fast.

For example, the "pine" thing.

Might we agree that smell is essential to taste?

Then, might we also agree that smell is essential to (food) memories?

If we taste via smell & if smell is crucial to our memories, why not highlight smell during a dining experience? In fact, smell is always already present during the enjoyment of food! (Note: I said enjoyment. I'll stick with the opinion that those who cannot smell cannot enjoy food, per se. But that's not the crux of what I'm attempting to say here.)

To make my point a bit more bluntly, I don't think that Grant's cooking is that far off from the tradition. In fact, I would argue that his cooking is an extension of the tradition that we commonly associate with Escoffier. To be even more blunt, I don't think "postmodernism"--if one feels the need to use that term--is anything but another variation of "modernism"--albeit with a new name. It seems, IMHO, that the use of the term "avant garde" is always overblown, overblown by either its proponents or its opponents.

So, perhaps the thing to do is this: experience Grant's food for what it is rather than the categories into which we try to force his food. Categories are great for marketers. Categories always fall short of honest experiences.

[NeroW]

Smell is most certainly essential to taste, I think we all have to agree on that.

Smell is also most effective, for me, in conjuring memories.

MatthewB, great post.

[tan319]

I'm a die-hard blood though, with a subtle taste for some good crippin' but a true distaste for bad crippin'.  

CWS,

Keep it coming. Contrary to some, I (mostly) enjoy your postings.

For sake of discussion, let's assume that Grant is a good crip. From there . . .

Let me try to make bourdain's "blood/crip" metaphorical dichotomy a bit less hard & fast.

For example, the "pine" thing.

Might we agree that smell is essential to taste?

Then, might we also agree that smell is essential to (food) memories?

If we taste via smell & if smell is crucial to our memories, why not highlight smell during a dining experience? In fact, smell is always already present during the enjoyment of food! (Note: I said enjoyment. I'll stick with the opinion that those who cannot smell cannot enjoy food, per se. But that's not the crux of what I'm attempting to say here.)

To make my point a bit more bluntly, I don't think that Grant's cooking is that far off from the tradition. In fact, I would argue that his cooking is an extension of the tradition that we commonly associate with Escoffier. To be even more blunt, I don't think "postmodernism"--if one feels the need to use that term--is anything but another variation of "modernism"--albeit with a new name. It seems, IMHO, that the use of the term "avant garde" is always overblown, overblown by either its proponents or its opponents.

So, perhaps the thing to do is this: experience Grant's food for what it is rather than the categories into which we try to force his food. Categories are great for marketers. Categories always fall short of honest experiences.

awesome post!!!

[Chef/Writer Spencer]

Let's put it this way...How many 3-d movies have you seen recently? Seeing action in 3-D is a lot more interesting than uni-dimensionally, right? Well, I'm not one for gimmicks...these are gimmicks...and are interesting and viable but in the long race they'll be left long behind...Why even bother with the whole thing? This cooking is peripherally satisfying but when taken head on, dissected for what it is, it isn't soul satisfying, or built to last...at least to me.

Edited May 20, 2003 by Chef/Writer Spencer (log)

[chefg]

it isn't soul satisfying, or built to last...at least to me.

What is? And explain its sucessful evolution from it's predecesor, and how that differs from the current movement in food.

[Steve Klc]

Spencer, here you go again. This is somewhat troublesome: "This cooking is peripherally satisfying but when taken head on, dissected for what it is, it isn't soul satisfying, or built to last...at least to me."

You see, "this cooking" is a slur, a slight, the tame culinary equivalent of some stereotype. Whose cooking are you talking about, who are you attempting to lump together with this--as if we're supposed to understand who and what you're talking about? Who is being painted by this Flat Earth Society brush of yours? (And this is just the first hurdle before one tries to deal with what your definition of "soul satisfying" might be and the potential value you might see in something "built to last.")

On this thread, ostensibly about Grant, and on other threads you try to poke fun broadly at all of these seemingly strange sounding permutations, these apparent culinary revulsions and fancy-schmancy new techniques to defend your point of view--but you don't actually cross over from this oblique make-believe world of yours to comment or critique real dishes and real chefs--and share your reaction to those real dishes good or bad. Why? Don't you see how your voice, and statements about "this cooking" would carry so much more weight if, just like Bourdain, you spoke of actual dishes and meals you had at the hands of these chefs or any chef, but unlike Tony, you didn't praise said dishes but instead ripped them a new one for not being soul-satisfying or whatever--if in actuality they weren't?

What misguided concoctions, post-modern, avant-garde or otherwise, have you had and at whose hands have you suffered to feel so certain about these "gimmicks" and by inference gimmicky chefs? School us, historically, on some of the distaste you've endured at the hands of bad crippin' chefs here or abroad and please name names. Because when you write something like this: "I can't abide when a blood wants to turn into a crip because they think it's cool to make foie gras tacos with pommegranite-foam, shaved abalone, and sous-vided caramelized dairy because some guy in Spain is doing it" you sound like you know what you're talking about, but I'd like to know WHO you are talking about since you're speaking disparagingly of other chef's motivations behind the particular dishes they create.

I may be guilty of holding you to a higher standard--if that is unfair or unrealistic I apologize--but if so that's precisely because you are a professional chef and you should know better. You can cook from Adria's CD-ROM, you can begin to explore his techniques in the privacy of your kitchen, you can experience Grant's cooking first-hand with a more nuanced, more appreciative perspective because you are a chef, you can eat at Tru and assess how Adria has already heavily influenced and re-energized Rick, etc., presumably because you'd have a better handle on how things have been done or are usually done--because you've done them!

Bourdain mentioned Wylie Dufresne, describing some of his most challenging dishes as delicious, but actually Tony seems to reinforce, perhaps unintentionally, the accepted media mantra that only a few very special geniuses, the chosen few, can pull any meaningful "fusion" or "avant-garde" or evolution off. The inference being that the rest can't. And that's just another subtle way to retain a hold on the status quo, to "categorize" as MatthewB wrote so successfully about. Me? I see a lot of creative modern cooking going on, informed by "terroirist, cook-from-the-region reference tradition sense memory crowd"--it's just that I view that as very inclusive. And stuff either is delicious or it isn't, right?

Which brings me back to why you feel the way you do about "this cooking," Spencer. And I find I don't know enough of the "why" in your case because you haven't talked about specific chefs and specific dishes that so utterly displeased you to cause you to lash out, to swing so wildly about and slur the very good work of an increasing number of chefs around the country who really are just doing their own thing.

Edited May 20, 2003 by Steve Klc (log)

[Bux]

Adria is the third pillar in my shrine.  I love that guy:  brilliant, humble, slightly mad, and  not financially motivated.

Everyone is of course financially motivated to some degree or another, but you may be interested to know, if you didn't already, that Adria has some interest in the NH Group of hotels. The website says that he has "joined them" and also that he is consultant to the group. I had heard that he actually has some financial stake in the company. Perhaps others could confirm one way of another. This is in no way intended as a criticism of Adria, but mentioned just to contextualise Spencers comment.

I hadn't heard that he actually has any financial stake in the corporation, but that he was a consultant. I've commented on what he's doing with NH in a few threads a while back in the Spain board. Much of his consulting, at least as I understand it, hasn't been in terms of the food and menus but more a conceptual nature about how people use hotels and the integration of restaurants and hotels. We tried to check a couple of places that arose out of his relationship with NH when we were in Madrid, but crossed signals and a short stay there left us short of the mark. Who knows, it may well be that Adria makes his mark as a chef, but his money as an idea/think tank consultant. The world's a funny place and Adria's inventive food has established him as an idea man in Spain.

A side effect of his relationship with the hotel chain is to bring them some publicity. Mrs. B's reaction was that it they're hip enough to hire Adria as a consultant, they're worth checking out. She wouldn't have told a client to stay in an NH hotel because Adria works for them, but it piqued her curiosity enough to plan on staying in several of their hotels in Andalucia last month. Although none of them showed any influence of Adria, they were all reasonable buys at their respective price points. Publicity is a strange thing. One of these days, we will also get to see what Adria is doing for them, although I did get a menu from one of the new restaurants that arose from his collaboration and the menu looked quite ordinary. Then again we were sent an English menu. It's amazing how much food loses in translation. In an attempt to make the dishes comprehensible to foreigners, they often take the local flavor out of the translation.

I'm off on a tangent. Sorry I just picked up on this message. I will try and learn more about Adria's relationship with NH and report back somewhere on this site.

[MatthewB]

To riff off Chevy Chase's "Be the ball, Danny" in Caddyshack . . .

"Be the food, Spence. Be the food."

In other words, to continue to so ferociously criticize Grant's cooking without having had an experience with it . . .

Well, it makes feel like someone's blasting a 900 page book with which their only familiarity derives from reading the NYT Book Review.

[Chef/Writer Spencer]

Mea culpa...shutting down all communications concerning subject...going back to writing my book...thanks...spencer.

[MatthewB]

CWS,

Please do not stop the dialogue because of me.

If I've caused that then I'm the one to extend an even bigger mea culpa.

For me, I think Grant is on to something concerning *smell* as a crucial component of a dining experience that is soulfully satisfying. That's why I jumped in earlier to give a different take on the "pine" thing.

[tan319]

Adria is the third pillar in my shrine.  I love that guy:  brilliant, humble, slightly mad, and  not financially motivated.

Everyone is of course financially motivated to some degree or another, but you may be interested to know, if you didn't already, that Adria has some interest in the NH Group of hotels. The website says that he has "joined them" and also that he is consultant to the group. I had heard that he actually has some financial stake in the company. Perhaps others could confirm one way of another. This is in no way intended as a criticism of Adria, but mentioned just to contextualise Spencers comment.

I hadn't heard that he actually has any financial stake in the corporation, but that he was a consultant. I've commented on what he's doing with NH in a few threads a while back in the Spain board. Much of his consulting, at least as I understand it, hasn't been in terms of the food and menus but more a conceptual nature about how people use hotels and the integration of restaurants and hotels. We tried to check a couple of places that arose out of his relationship with NH when we were in Madrid, but crossed signals and a short stay there left us short of the mark. Who knows, it may well be that Adria makes his mark as a chef, but his money as an idea/think tank consultant. The world's a funny place and Adria's inventive food has established him as an idea man in Spain.

A side effect of his relationship with the hotel chain is to bring them some publicity. Mrs. B's reaction was that it they're hip enough to hire Adria as a consultant, they're worth checking out. She wouldn't have told a client to stay in an NH hotel because Adria works for them, but it piqued her curiosity enough to plan on staying in several of their hotels in Andalucia last month. Although none of them showed any influence of Adria, they were all reasonable buys at their respective price points. Publicity is a strange thing. One of these days, we will also get to see what Adria is doing for them, although I did get a menu from one of the new restaurants that arose from his collaboration and the menu looked quite ordinary. Then again we were sent an English menu. It's amazing how much food loses in translation. In an attempt to make the dishes comprehensible to foreigners, they often take the local flavor out of the translation.

I'm off on a tangent. Sorry I just picked up on this message. I will try and learn more about Adria's relationship with NH and report back somewhere on this site.

Don't the Adria's consult and do R&D for companies in their lab during the off season?

Nothing wrong with that.

[estufarian]

Just got back from Chicago and was amazed at this discussion.

Shortly before we went had a pine sorbet in a Toronto restaurant. It was awful - couldn't finish it.

In Chicago, ate at Trio. Had the dish under discussion 'Sautéed Frog Legs w forest vegetables and evergreen vapor'. It was superb. Tied with one other dish for the best of the evening. The dominant flavors (and aromas) were the mushrooms (particularly morels). The secondary aromas were the 'forest' hints, But I hardly noticed pine - it was more cedar and spruce. The flavours and textures were more earthy (than trees) and the frog 'nuggets' worked perfectly adding some chewy texture which picked up the morels. And it included veggies such as ramp.

A great dish, perfectly executed.

So the 'pine' was irrelevant in these two dishes. One soared, the other sucked!

[Holly Moore]

I'm going to write more about my dinner at Trio under a separate post, but here is the dish in question. It's was on my menu as "Swan Creek Rabbit, forest vegetables, evergreen vapor."

I smelled the evergreens as soon as the dish was presented. Having summered in Maine every year since age 8 months I do associate the aroma of spruce with the Maine woods.

The waiter then poured hot water onto the evergreens. Maybe I was used to the aroma by then, but it struck me that the hot water took away the smell of the spruce, diluting it.

The dish, it self was, wonderfully intense, lusty, indeed earthy. The ramps, the mushroom including morels, the stock, and the rabbit - A hearty ragout, and other than the evergreen adornment, one of the more traditional dishes of the Tour de Force.

For the adventure of it, knowing it was not as the chef had intended, and hoping the greenery was indeed spruce and not hemlock, I sampled the evergreen broth. Alas, it had the flavor of hot water.

[NeroW]

it isn't soul satisfying, or built to last...at least to me.

What is? And explain its sucessful evolution from it's predecesor, and how that differs from the current movement in food.

CWS--

Come on. Let's hear it.

I, for one, would enjoy reading your response to Chef Achatz's post.

[Chef/Writer Spencer]

All right...the consensus wants me to defend my position...So I will.

I'm all for innovation, pushing the envelope, testing the limits. I'm all for applying intellectual principles to food. I'm all for getting famous for standing out in a sea of copycats.

What I'm not down with really has little to do with Grant's cooking and more to do with a mentality that I found myself absorbed in and that I see taking over a larger section of the fine dining world than it should.

I was 27 once and wanted to change the world with weird gimmicks, skyscraper constructs and interesting china, improbable taste combinations and odd menu wording. When I finally realized that food is not some muse to be courted with disco lights and herbaceous incense trickery my cooking became more than me and my worthwhile ideasI was looking for my voice. I had all of these individualistic ideas of where the future of fine dining was headed. People want a dog and pony show, I thought. They want something more than a nice steak with a nice sauce, and some Robuchon mashed potatoes. That stuff was so passe, I told myself. How could I ever make my mark by copying classical dishes and giving them an ever-so-subtle Spencer gloss over? How boring? No one's ever gonna think I'm a brilliant chef if I'm pumping out entrecotes du boeuf avec sauce Bordelaise--that's brasserie food. I wanted to change the world, make the big names take notice. I wanted to combine tarragon with cumin, fennel pollen with poached quail egg confit....I wanted to do things that were so improbable and funky sounding that customers just had to try it. I had the confidence, as I do now, in my ability to do the proper alchemy so I was unstoppable. The world was my oyster. And the media were biting like pirrahnas. My ego was out of control. I struted like a peacock, squashing any attempt at getting me to realize why I got into food into the first place. I was a star chef in training. No one was going to tell me what to cook and what people liked. They were packing me in, patting me on the back...Fuck the naysayers....I was livin' the dream.

Well I had an ephinany one day at the bookstore. I was thumbing through Portale's new 12 Seasons book and, like a divine kick to the groin I thought, "Is all of this gravity-defying Eiffel Tower stuff really where we're headed?" I loved the guys' combinations, rustic Meditteranean flavors, big nods to the French, classical ideology but I thought he was hampered by a presentation crutch. I'm not naming names--though I've alluded to him here--but I worked with a chef who trained with Bocuse, got real famous in town and tried to forge out his own cuisine. He was one of the pioneers of French-Southern fusion. He too made elaborate presentation a very integral cornerstone to his food. Eventually, after 12 years of trying to combine hushpuppies, okra, and lemongrass barbeque sauce he totally bottomed out creatively. Instead of dishes with substance he ended up worrying more about height and frills. He had nothing else to say with his muse, and it was sad. His food was a joke. And he's a Maitres Cuisinier of France for god's sake. He should be rocking the house with classics or at least good enough to keep up with Vongrichten (his close buddy). But he lost track of why he got into the biz in the first place. It wasn't to bowl the world over but to cook professionally for a living.

I think Achatz is probably a brilliant cook, probably close to genius level but I see a lot of the same, "This is THE future of fine dining" arrogance that was the undoing of many a great cook. It's hard to argue with the guy right now, Beard Awards, local awards, all of the press, the accolades, the sycophantic eGullet adoration. Anything I say is going to be taken as a slight of the guy. I've said many places that he's got to be brilliant...I just think he's going to run into a brick wall as soon as Ferran Adria hits the same. Just one guys opinion....But I'm stickin' to it.

[tan319]

All right...the consensus wants me to defend my position...So I will. 

I'm all for innovation, pushing the envelope, testing the limits.  I'm all for applying intellectual principles to food.  I'm all for getting famous for standing out in a sea of copycats.

What I'm not down with really has little to do with Grant's cooking and more to do with a mentality that I found myself absorbed in and that I see taking over a larger section of the fine dining world than it should. 

I was 27 once and  wanted to change the world with weird gimmicks, skyscraper constructs and interesting china, improbable taste combinations and odd menu wording.  When I finally realized that food is  not some muse to be courted with disco lights and herbaceous incense trickery my cooking became more than me and my worthwhile ideasI was looking for my voice.  I had all of these individualistic ideas of where the future of fine dining was headed.  People want a dog and pony show, I thought.  They want something more than a nice steak with a nice sauce, and some Robuchon mashed potatoes.  That stuff was so passe, I told myself.  How could I ever make my mark by copying classical dishes and giving them an ever-so-subtle Spencer gloss over?  How boring?  No one's ever gonna think I'm a brilliant chef if I'm pumping out entrecotes du boeuf avec sauce Bordelaise--that's brasserie food.  I wanted to change the world, make the big names take notice.  I wanted to combine tarragon with cumin, fennel pollen with poached quail egg confit....I wanted to do things that were so improbable and funky sounding that customers just had to try it.  I had the confidence, as I do now, in my ability to do the proper alchemy so I was unstoppable.  The world was my oyster.  And the media were biting like pirrahnas.  My ego was out of control.  I struted like a peacock, squashing any attempt at getting me to realize why I got into food into the first place.  I was a star chef in training.  No one was going to tell me what to cook and what people liked.  They were packing me in, patting me on the back...Fuck the naysayers....I was livin' the dream.

Well I had an ephinany one day at the bookstore.  I was thumbing through Portale's new 12 Seasons book and, like a divine kick to the groin I thought, "Is all of this gravity-defying Eiffel Tower stuff really where we're headed?"  I loved the guys' combinations, rustic Meditteranean flavors, big nods to the French, classical ideology but I thought he was hampered by a presentation crutch.  I'm not naming names--though I've alluded to him here--but I worked with a chef who trained with Bocuse, got real famous in town and tried to forge out his own cuisine.  He was one of the pioneers of French-Southern fusion.  He too made elaborate presentation a very integral cornerstone to his food.  Eventually, after 12 years of trying to combine hushpuppies, okra, and lemongrass barbeque sauce he totally bottomed out creatively.  Instead of dishes with substance he ended up worrying more about height and frills.  He had nothing else to say with his muse, and it was sad.  His food was a joke.  And he's a Maitres Cuisinier of France for god's sake.  He should be rocking the house with classics or at least good enough to keep up with Vongrichten (his close buddy).  But he lost track of why he got into the biz in the first place. It wasn't to bowl the world over but to cook professionally for a living. 

I think Achatz is probably a brilliant cook, probably close to genius level but I see a lot of the same, "This is THE future of fine dining" arrogance that was the undoing of many a great cook.  It's hard to argue with the guy right now, Beard Awards, local awards, all of the press, the accolades, the sycophantic eGullet adoration.  Anything I say is going to be taken as a slight of the guy.  I've said many places that he's got to be brilliant...I just think he's going to run into a brick wall as soon as Ferran Adria hits the same.  Just one guys opinion....But I'm stickin' to it.

I think 'G' is just doing his thing.

Influenced by some but he's running his own game.

it seems that music and food have some close parallels.

Nothing is going to stay on the forefront forever, grabbing headlines, all over the radio, all over the mags. That's just the way it is.

I haven't read anything that seems arrogant by Achatz, just passionate about what him and some others are doing.

Perhaps passion and arrogance are separated by a fine line.

As far as getting lost goes, I've seen it happen so many times in music, it's not even funny.

Height and frills indeed. And most of these people, chefs cooks, and musicians seem to succumb to the same stuff. Bad advice, drugs, booze,and 'fuckin around. Or just burning out.

I'm sure you know how hard it is to stay on a roll.

Grant strikes me as someone who probably has a great support network and is totally focused on his food.

And hopefully he's tuning out all the static.

[MatthewB]

FWIW . . .

I was catching up on reading last night & I finally got around to the winter issue of Gastronomica. In which appears a review of Miguel Sanchez Romera's La cocian de los sentidos.

The reviewer notes that Sanchez Romera writes quite a bit concerning food & memory. If anymore is interested (Spencer?), I could post a few short quotes.

In any event, I interpret Grant's use of *smells*--such as the much-discussed pine--as attempts to evoke memory during the dining experience.

I do not claim that Grant himself intends this. But I was struck while reading this review last night by the fact that memory is so central to Sanchez Romera's concerns.

Grant, comments?

And, has anyone read Sanchez Romera's book?