The Wednesday Curator – 4/13/2016

April 12, 2016

Beverly Cleary, Age 100. The piece is written by Sarah Larson for the New Yorker, and it’s lovely. Happy Birthday, Ms. Cleary.

David Graham has written The 2016 U.S. Presidential Race: A Cheat Sheet for The Atlantic. Mr. Graham provides a fine overview of what really matters: who’s got delegates, how many, and how the race for delegates shapes up. Lauren Fox has GOP Delegates Have No Idea What’s Gonna Hit Them in Cleveland for TPM, focusing on the fact that delegates will have to deal with more than fine meals, parties, and hoopla. And then there’s NPR’s piece about the 54 uncommitted Pennsylvania delegates, In This GOP Primary, You Can Win the State But Get Only A Few Delegates. The sh*t show continues!

Has Obama Upheld the Law? is David Luban’s review of Power Wars: Inside Obama’s Post-9/11 Presidency for the New York Review of Books. It’s a fine review, and provides the short version of the Charles Savage 769-page tome about the legal underpinnings for national security decision-making. That’s a very important topic, and one which gets covered very poorly in the media.

Bouvier. For living persons of a certain age—say, people between 85 and maybe 55—the surname attaches itself to Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis, wife of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, America’s 35th president. Courtesy of longform.org, here’s The Secret of Grey Gardens by Gail Sheehy for New York magazine. It was written in 1972, when Jackie O was alive and well, with a very eccentric aunt and cousin, both named Edie Beale. (Grey Gardens, the documentary by Albert and David Maysles, is outstanding.)

Here’s Andrew Knowlton’s 2015 edition of America’s Best New Restaurants for Bon Appétit. I know I linked to the story on November 18, but I’m doing it again because … Cathy Chaplin, blogger at Gastronomy.com and big deal food writer in Los Angeles has a report on Al’s Place, the Best New Restaurant for 2015. Looks like very good food!

Finally, Joan Nathan has Loathe Gefilte Fish? Not After You’ve Tried This for the New York Times. Looks mighty fine, and at the risk of repeating myself again, I addressed the subject of homemade gefilte fish last year in the March 25 edition of The Wednesday Curator. Been there, done that with the homemade stuff, and I’m pretty damn sure if I tried it again I’d get “we like it the regular way” again. And the regular way, for non-Jews? Gray and tasteless!

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