The stuff you learn at the cinema. For example, until I saw the latest film from Trân Anh Hùng, “The Taste of Things,” I had no idea that the French for “Baked Alaska” is omelette norvégienne. Weird. Elsewhere, the movie offers an everyday tip: gently work your fingers under the skin of a chicken and insert thin slices of truffle, the better to infuse the tender flesh. Probably a good idea to kill the chicken first.
Most of Trân’s movie is—or appears to be—about food and drink, and it is set in, around, and near a manor house in provincial France. The date, by my calculations, is the mid-eighteen-eighties. There’s a sprightly walk by a river, and a paradisiacal lunch at a long table under the trees, but we never see the bustle of a town or hear the hoot of a train. The house is owned by Dodin (Benoît Magimel), whose vocation is that of a gourmet. He has a loyal cook, Eugénie ( Juliette Binoche), although, from the start, there is an unusual blurring of social boundaries. The kitchen is Eugénie’s dominion, yet Dodin is often to be found there, helping to prepare the next meal, and at one point he takes over entirely, devising an incomparable dinner for her alone. (This is where the truffle trick comes in.) As she sits and savors it, resplendent in a butter-yellow dress with a high lace collar, one has to ask, Who is at the service of whom?
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Denne historien er fra February 12 -19, 2024 (Double Issue)-utgaven av The New Yorker.
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Sniff Test - A maverick perfumer tries to make his mark on a storied fashion house.
What does conspicuous consumption smell like? On a December afternoon in 2013, the Parisian perfumer Francis Kurkdjian was scheduled to meet with the renowned French crystal manufacturer Baccarat at the company’s chandelier-crammed headquarters, near the Arc de Triomphe. The C.E.O. at the time, Daniela Riccardi, had commissioned Kurkdjian to create a limited-edition fragrance to mark the company’s two-hundred-andfiftieth anniversary. Baccarat planned to produce two hundred and f ifty diamond-cut crystal flacons of the new perfume, priced at three thousand euros each, and wanted the scent to reflect the quality and opulence of its vessel.
FAMILY STYLE
\"La Maison,\" on Apple TV+.
CLOSE QUARTERS
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IMMATERIAL GIRL
Sophie is gone. Her music lives on.
MERELY PLAYERS
Race, politics, and the theatre collide in Alan Hollinghurst's
MOVE TO TRASH
Is it time for a new Constitution?
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Eblis Álvarez's Meridian Brothers unites the many strands of Latin music.
Ambrose
Lily wants to live in the old days. Her mom, Debra, says, No, you don’t, because in the old days all women did was cook and sew and die in childbirth, but Lily still wishes she could travel back in time.
THE ESCAPE ARTIST
The Italian priest who helps women in the Mafia flee the criminal underworld.
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