The alarm goes off at 3 a.m., as usual. Soda, one of our two cats, starts by rubbing her paws rapidly against the side of the bed. When that fails, she presses the pads of her front paws into the little openings in the caning of the headboard. By pushing and pulling, she turns it into a kind of percussion instrument. If that doesn’t work, she beats me on the face with a paw. At that point, she’s furious.
I get up and feed her. Then, at 7 a.m., I get up again and attend to the six cats in the backyard. These are strays that my wife and I inherited when a cat-loving neighbor moved and the free lunch came to an end for a roving colony of felines. Many thousands of dollars in vet bills later, Nancy and I have created a cat paradise in the backyard, complete with a big plastic igloo and an insulated dog cottage.
The now-neutered cats assemble at the backdoor around 6:45 a.m. My appearance triggers mass jubilation. I feed them, then return in my role as social director, giving them a half-hour workout with a kind of fishing pole to which Nancy attached two little red pompoms. The bouncing balls send them into a frenzy, and if all six cats get going at once, kitty gridlock can result. After a good session of wind sprints, they settle down, and I can start my day.
The holidays have played havoc with my schedule. Normally I do most of my writing on Friday, but this week I start Monday like most other people, with a sickening feeling in the pit of my stomach. I have never experienced writer’s block. I write quickly. I’ve never been stuck for a lead. But I still experience the queasy feeling that most writers know all too well when faced with a blank piece of paper. The night before I have to write, I feel anxious and peevish. I can’t really concentrate. This only gets worse with time. I read somewhere that neuroses only intensify with age, in the same way that nuts tend to tighten on a car wheel as its spins. It’s true.
Actually, this day presents real difficulties. The review I have to write is a big one, a reconsideration of Alain Ducasse, a restaurant that opened with enormous fanfare about a year and a half ago. It failed to impress me and other critics. Now it gets a second chance. I know what I think about the place, but to make a compelling, readable case I have to surmount the long list of problems inherent in food writing. First and foremost is the awkward fact that there is no direct way to describe flavors. Steak tastes like steak. The only way to make taste experiences come alive is to sneak up on them from the side and express them indirectly through metaphor or by comparison with other known tastes (the metallic quality of liver, for example). Food writers generally rely on a top-10 list of adjectives and “colorful” verbs. I swore to myself that I would never use “slathered” or “studded” in a review, and so far I have stuck to it. I think.
In addition to the review, I have to write a double batch of scripts for my daily radio spots on WQXR, a classical station owned by the New York Times. These are a mixed bag of mini-reviews, observations on topics like the psychology of tipping, and bits of food-related news that cross my radar screen, like the recent finding that fat might actually be a taste, like sweet and bitter. I have to dash off eight of these by 3 p.m. I often wonder who listens. Occasionally an irate listener calls me at the paper and rants into my answering machine about some snide comment I’ve made on the air. Then, for months on end, silence.
I don’t listen to my own spots. I worry that I sound like one of those whimsical, wimpy, self-amused NPR personalities. In fact, I know that’s what I sound like. What I want is Walter Winchell. The truth is, I loathe any form of self-expression or self-exposure other than writing. Many journalists love to appear on television. I regard television appearances with deep-seated fear and black hatred. But that’s tomorrow’s little task.
