The Company We Keep is Good Company

The Company We Keep
Robert and Dayna Baer
305 pages, library book

The Company We Keep is an interesting spy yarn that balances intelligence gathering and international intrigue with fast-paced danger, and also the slow tedium of day to day relationship building and bureaucracy management, that is a more "real" sense of the CIA's inner workings than any accumulated action-film mythos would have you believe.

In the first two thirds or so of the book, that's certainly true. Especially in Dayna's chapters about learning CIA skills like shooting, and sneaking through buildings, there's a satisfying amount of cinematic action. Particularly in the latter half of the book, it's also a more nuanced discussion of international politics- in the context of informants, missions, intelligence, and what governments are willing to say to one another.

As much as I was delighted to get two interwoven insiders' perspectives, there were elements that felt rushed, or possibly sketched in and glossed over. Sure, you could say some of the vague spots had to be vague so as not to divulge CIA secrets... but it does stand as a contrast to the excellent descriptions of certain missions, certain informant relationships, or aspects of the way their spy training works.
The contrast between Dayna's side of the story and Bob's mission reports highlights the gaps in description- by tracking her training from the start, and having Bob only tell his story of being a seasoned operative on multiple missions, he sounds almost too sure of himself, like the kind of action hero who's so untouchable his danger doesn't feel that frightening. And in some instances, Bob recounts events with such detachment, his perspective is spooker than the events themselves.
I can't tell whether, for him, that's a reflection of his personality, his career, or a choice he's made in storycraft.

Whatever the reasons behind the shift in style, I found Dayna's chapters more interesting. There was more of a sense of her humanness, of her understanding of the dangerous aspects of her mission. I hadn't expected it to be so important to me to read her understanding of consequences and danger. I've come away with an entirely plausible sense that both former agents and their colleagues are a breed apart- the sort of people who seek dangerous situations and thrive on peril. As someone who takes a dim view of roller coasters, I can't even fathom some of the situations the two agents saw as just another day's work.

These Delicious United States

The United States of Arugula
David Kamp
(library book)

"I remain convinced that there are more people interested in knowing where to buy the best bagel than about the latest act of political or corporate corruption, primarily because they personally can do something about the bagel but feel powerless against the rest of the world."- Mimi Sheraton, from her memoir Eating My Words, quoted in The United States of Arugula

The United States of Arugula is a meticulously researched, fun, gossipy and informative look at the way eating well and cooking became a cultural marker, and culture in itself, in the United States. While stepping through a food driven social history of the United States, from Thomas Jefferson (had a garden any farmers' market would envy) to the first cookbooks (mostly written by women) to the era when science and cooking got muddled together and spawned an unholy union of convenience foods (otherwise known as Bad Things With Jello And Soup) all the way to the present: artisanal cheese, celebrity chefs and heirloom fruits and vegetables.

In some ways, the combination of densely packed information with a highly readable, almost gossipy tone, reminded me of Gail Collins' America's Women. Reading provided the same experience of getting fascinated with a deep look into a particular subset of history.

Much of America's food culture owes a debt of influence to the French style- Escoffier's rich sauces and complex preparations for example. Julia Child certainly gets her due in this volume. But, having grown up in a big city in the later part of the 20th century, some of the descriptions of French dishes drowned in buttery sauces were almost too rich and evocative to read. Say what you want about the modern approach to super sized gluttony, that much bearnaise is a little alarming.

For all the ground Kamp has to cover, he takes his time exploring most of the key names in food history- Julia, of course, and James Beard, but also Alice Waters, Wolfgang Puck, Rick Bayless, and a host of other boldface names of the foodie world. It's a fairly evenly told story-- if some of these chefs, critics and resterateurs get put on a pedestal, it's because they made a name and a reputation for themselves, not because Kamp is getting excessively worshipful. When his research reveals some of what he delightedly calls "bitchery," or moody infighting, he lets these food personas have their moments of grudges, shortsightedness and petty tantrums. They may be part of America's social history and culinary dynasty, but they're human too.