Fiction with food on the side

Culture, Media, General
163

I just finished IQ. I liked IQ better than Marlowe.

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164

So far, me too, but it’s good enough so far. There are about 5 IQ books, so lots more to like!

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165

Yes it’s a good book. I already have next next IQ waiting for me t the library.

166

I finished it, which is saying something, but I found the ending somehow implausible for me. But it was worth finishing!

167

As time goes by, we find that not plot/storyline, but rather the characters, sense of place, and writing are the reason we consume so much mystery or thriller stuff.

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168

I agree, but the character of the 17 year old daughter just didn’t work for me at the end. It worked until the end. Troubled kids are what I do, and I just couldn’t “get no satisfaction”.

I didn’t have a problem with the characters in his other books. I wonder if it would have been different if I read this one first. I know I kept thinking I.Q.

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169

Goodbye Coast was our introduction to Joe Ide, prompting us to try the IQ series. We’ll guess he ran out of ideas for IQ, so he moved on to Marlowe. Other authors obviously do the same, and some concurrently sponsor more than one protagonist series – John Sandford comes to mind with Lucas Davenport and Virgil Flowers, or Michael Connelly with Harry Bosch and Mickey Haller; and both Sandford and Connelly have also folded the two into one book.

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170

Do you know if Goodbye Coast was part of the original Marlowe series?

171

Chandler had a lot of admirers to follow in his footsteps.

172

Interesting! I didn’t read it all, but are you saying many authors have written stories with characters named Phillip Marlowe?

173

I have now started four “capers” by Peter Mayle, finished three of them ; great food on the side. He does great restaurant, drink, menu, and food descriptions.

The Vintage Caper
The Marseille Caper
The Corsican Caper
The Diamond Caper (still reading)

174

I’ve listened to at least four of these!

175

John Sandford introduced a new protagonist, Letty Davenport, Lucas’s daughter in The Investigator. At page 55:

"‘What do you want to do?’ Kaiser asked . . .

"Get something decent to eat . . .

“Maybe find a rib joint,” Kaiser suggested: “Towns like this [Oklahoma City] got good rib joints.”

"Fine with me if I can get a salad.

“They wound up at Front Door Barbecue, where Kaiser ingested a year’s worth of cholesterol and Letty had an oversized salad with turkey.”

Well, wouldn’t you know, Oklahoma City is home to:

http://www.backdoorbarbecue.com/menus.html

P.S. Fried pickled okra! Pork belly! We’re in.

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176

I just started Search by Michelle Huneven. It’s described as a novel as well as “A Memoir with Recipes”. It’s too soon to tell much, but the main character is a restaurant critic and food writer.

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177

Sorry, this is a duplicate of a post I made in another food forum! If that’s against the rules please let me know but otherwise I realized this is probably a more suitable thread to put it in:

Found the pilot script for The Bear on this site I like. It’s an actual script (not a transcript) but NOT the shooting script and it doesn’t have a date or draft number.

I haven’t compared the script side by side with the produced pilot but it’s significantly different than the actual pilot including:

  • Some character changes (eg, I think Tina is Tito in the script)

  • Pretty significant dialog changes- some may have ended up on the editing room floor but other parts seem rewritten

  • There’s a scene in the script not in the pilot that seems like it was repurposed for a different episode. It tickled me that they capitalized “DELI” in the script- generally speaking that’s a signal to props to make sure it’s included and apparently that was critical enough to them to include in completely different episode. As someone that spent even a little time in a restaurant I did like that and other details they specifically wanted included:
    image

There are a lot more changes both small (eg, minor plot points) and large (eg, seemingly important character beats) and some other interesting tidbits. It’s not at all uncommon for even a polished pilot script to have these differences and makes for a fun read. It reminds me of old Justified scripts (also an FX show) where even what shooting scripts could be significantly different than what appeared on screen. Given the blocking, chaotic dialog, etc. I wonder if they take a similar approach to how Justified could deviate from the script based on how the writers, actors and director feel at any given moment. Very difficult to achieve if so.

EDIT:
In case anyone is uncomfortable clicking on the above link, here’s the URL for the site overall. For the moment the linked script is on that initial page and it should be searchable even when it gets pushed out of the most recent updates:

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178

In Daniel Silva’s latest, Portrait of an Unknown Woman Gabriel Allon is now living in Venice. Beginning at page 35, “He wandered over to the gleaming stainless steel Vulcan oven and peered through the window. Inside was the orange casserole dish that Chiara used for preparing osso buco .”

. . .

“‘It needs another thirty minutes.’ She poured two glasses of Brunello.”

. . .

"The meal arrayed upon the table looked as though it had been staged for a photo shoot by Bon Appetit – the risotto, the platter of roasted vegetables glistening with olive oil, and, of course, the thick veal shanks drenched in a rich sauce of tomato and herbs and wine. As always, they were fork tender . . . "

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179

Have always enjoyed Daniel Silva, but haven’t read him in years. IRL, he’s married to journalist Jamie Gangell, which is interesting. May need to read that, can’t remember him writing in detail about food in his earlier books.

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180

Chiara and Gabriel have always had good food and wine around, usually in old warrior Shamron’s company. Silva’s wife is a media name, and it might have been in the previous Allon book The Cellist that their dinner table current events conversation seeped into the manuscript. (We doubt that Vulcan stoves are installed in Italy in numbers even approaching double digits, so now we surmise how the Silva/Gangel household might be equipped.)

(Or it could have been another writer’s series that we always read.) Not James Lee Burke’s Dave Robichaux and his buddy Clete Purcel, who were usually good for some eating and drinking in Louisiana. They’re no longer a once a year treat, as Mr. Burke gracefully ages, we presume. His daughter seems to have taken up the family craft.

Michael Connelly, whether through Harry Bosch or Mickey Haller still sprinkles an LA menu or two into his manuscripts. By the way, the new Lincoln Lawyer series on Netflix held us better than Bosch on Prime.

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181

Oh good to know that about the LL Netflix series - I love that character. Jonathan Kellerman’s books actually go into quite a bit of detail about food in LA. I got tired of them after a while though and then discovered Michael Connelly.

If you like atmospheric suspense in San Francisco, I really enjoyed David Hunt’s The Magician’s Tale, and Trick of Light. Those books were written under a pseudonym that try as I might, I couldn’t determine the real name of the author. Accidentally I found out it was William Bayer, married to none other than Paula Wolfert! I was watching some cooking channel when they were interviewed and this detail came to light! Two favorite worlds colliding!

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182

Following An Old Man’s Game (reported somewhere above), in Reason to Kill, Andy Weinberger has Amos Parisman starting out fast at page 10 describing his L.A. Fairfax neighborhood:

“Back then there was no fancy Grove shopping center. No Whole Foods. No Trader Joe’s. There was the CBS lot and Canter’s Delicatessen and an actual farmers’ market where they sold broccoli and chicken and heirloom tomatoes. Real food straight off the truck. That was before the days of packaged candy and personalized license plates for kids.”

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