Herbs Do Weird Things To People

This piece is a little different from the kinds I usually write, and it's not (just) because of the herbs.

Since writing this I've learned that: a) Not everyone gets a clove of awesome fried garlic, which could be another reason why the fries are awesome (garlic-and-herb infused oil?); b) myBurgerLab is planning collaborations with local startups Forty Licks and Smooshie Juice, so McDonald's is in trouble; c) the crispy savoury thing in the A++ is a wafer made of grilled parmesan cheese; and d) did TMI modify their file structure again?

Anyway, I should start cutting down my trips there; I work nearby and it's a 15- to 25-minute drive from there plus heavy traffic. It has reached a point where the staff recognise me on sight.

---

Burger trippin'

Flavours from of this 'lab' are so good, they're almost illegal

first published in The Malaysian Insider, 09 March 2013


For weeks, Melody has heard her friends wax lyrical about this burger joint. Feeling a sort of burger fatigue, we put off investigating this place until one rainy weekend. It always seems to rain each time we embark on burger hunts.

Gateway to meaty, charcoal-bunned
awesomeness; photo ©Alexandra Wong

Our first attempt to find myBurgerLab was not successful. And we thought Salak South was a Bermuda Triangle for traffic. But we eventually found it, the McDonald's for hipsters and purveyors of Instagrammable burgers.

Inside, there was barely any room to stand. Décor was threadbare, not unlike similar hipster joints popping up all over the Klang Valley. Slogans, notices, signs and wall decorations were sprinkled with wit. That wall painting of a giant burger? Strain your eyes and you'll see a hidden message.

Ordering could be a problem. So many varieties on the chalkboard menu - what to choose? And the ingredients - ever had maple syrup and hash browns in a burger?

In the end, you just close your eyes and point. They're all just as pricey.

Melody explored her masochistic side with a "Kick in the Face" while I went with the simpler-sounding "A++" - with eyes wide open.

Behind the counter is a hot, steaming burger assembly line. Plum-sized balls of bright pink minced meat are laid out on a ledge near the griddle before they're transported onto hot metal, cooked and pressed into patties.

Various burger components are made separately before they're stacked between the trademark charcoal buns and bussed to the tables or packed for take-away.

On a good day (for the restaurant, not you) an eternity and a half can pass before your order number appears on the LCD display above the counter. The six to eight people in the kitchen can barely keep up.

"Kick in the Face", about to kick someone's face in;
photo ©Alexandra Wong

Melody's "Kick in the Face", a "mustard-grilled patty" with jalapenos and horseradish sauce, looked rather subdued but the flavours were whoa. The horseradish sauce made all the difference, adding a slightly nutty layer of flavour.

I couldn't tell whether the crispy savoury thing in my A++ meat-and-mushroom thing was beef bacon or something else. Both were delicious.

What I was not prepared for was the fries.

- OMG FRIES WITH HERBS ROSEMARY FRAGRANT MAYBE THYME AND OREGANO CRISPY OUTSIDE CREAMY RICH INSIDE SALTY FINGERLICKING GOOD -

The herbs were a nice touch. It's one of those things you never think of but makes sense once you've experienced it. Who knew a dash of mixed dried Italian herbs could turn mundane into magnificent?

Oh, here's some red dipping sauce.

- OHDEARME IS THIS SPICY PEPPER MAYO OMNOMNOMNOM LIKE PRINGLES ONLY MOIST FRESH HOT AND IN 3D CANNOT STOP MOREMOREMORE -

These are some wicked fries. And it comes with a wrinkled clove of garlic that's fried, salted and herbed like the potatoes - and also tasted good. I can only imagine that it goes well with beer, because I don't drink.

On a Tuesday one week later, I returned to myBurgerLab to round up the exploration with a Beautiful Mess 4.0, a tower of a burger with a breaded and fried portobello mushroom nearly as big as the patty and a sunny-side-up on top, which was said to have been refined four times. I had to wait about half an hour because they made a beautiful mess of my order.

myBurgerLab's A++ Burger, the awesome fries and magic
red sauce; photo ©Alexandra Wong

I got the impression that myBurgerLab is perpetually packed. No surprise, since they only open for dinner, taking half the day to prepare the raw ingredients and kitchen. Customers fill their cups from a dispenser at the back while their burgers cook.

"We consider today a slow day," said the lady at the counter. I believed her.

When my order eventually arrived, I pondered. Eat or run?

Then I spied the shelves for standing customers inside and outside the joint. That made things easier. I stepped outside, away from the crowd, and opened my take-away package.

There is no way to eat a Beautiful Mess v4.0 without making a beautiful mess of it. But what joy to smoosh your burger to make it fit.

At some point you can't tell where the meat ends and where the juice-soaked buns or egg bits begin. You'll know where to find the mushroom, though. If you're eating it fresh, it's the scalding hot bit somewhere near the top- darn, ate a bit of wax paper.

- SHADDUP ABITOFWAXPAPER WON'T KILL YOU EATAFRY DIP IT IN THE MAGIC RED SAUCE OHHELPME CAN'TSTOP OMG WHYSOGOOD -

I'm still trying to wrap my head around the simple yet mind-blowing genius in the herbed fries.

- MUSTBETHEHERBS PUNGENT PULCHRITUDINOUS HERBS YOU KNOW WHAT THEY SAY ABOUT HERRRBS RIGHT HEEHEEHEE -

How ironic it would be if myBurgerLab ended up being more famous for its fries.

- WHOCARES FRIES ARE AWESOME DIVINE SKINS ON MORE FLAVOUR OHYES WHAT FRIES ALMOST GONE NONONO WHYYY -

With the last of the burger gone, I tipped the wrapper and down went a mix of melted cheese, meat juice, sauces, yolk and grease.

I can see why Melody's friends were wild about this place. They're cooking up some interesting combinations in this burger lab of sorts. You can't let go of the tastes. All they need is to stock some artisanal ice cream from The Last Polka and McDonald's will be in trouble.

Lumping a burger into a set - with a drink and fries - can take the bill past RM20, but it's worth it.

Just go easy on the fries. Oil, salt, glycaemic index and all that.

- AND HERBS LOVELY HERBS HEEHEEHEE COMEBACKTOMORROW OMG ♪ I'D LIKE TO MAKE MYSELF BELIEEEEEEVE ♫ -

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myBurgerLab (SEA Park)

No 14, Jalan 21/22,
Seapark, Petaling Jaya,
Selangor

Pork-free

Tuesdays to Sundays, 5pm-10:30pm

Closed on Mondays

Facebook page

Adiós, Hugo

So, Hugo Chávez's (aka Mr Freeze's) long goodbye has come to an end. Seems the whole world is mourning his passing; half because it means one less gadfly poking at Uncle Sam's eye, while the other half bemoans the loss of a target for snarking, object of loathing, and less-colourful headlines.

Those who 'like' him because he's a 'socialist' and hates the US, Britain, et al are missing the point. Because some people are paying a heavy toll so that he can call Bush Jr 'a devil' in a UN General Assembly, among other nutty stuff. I found him too weird for admiration, like that Turkmenbashi fellow. He's also too easy to hate, and I have better things to do.

Don't worry, because the caretaker of Hugo I's kingdom is striving to fill his late liege's shoes. And his credentials are notable, which includes former bus driver, Sai Baba follower and conspiracy theorist (emphasis mine):

...Hours before Chavez's death, Maduro accused "imperialist" enemies of infecting Chavez with cancer - the kind of headline-grabbing allegations against powerful foes that Chavez often used to whip up supporters during his 14 years of tumultuous rule.

He'll do just fine. And with friends like this, he'll do even better.

But a national security lawyer from one such "imperialist" country denies that bit because, well, "logic" (emphasis mine - do I have to do this? It's tiring):

"It's just not effective ... While some cancers can be intentionally induced, they take years to kill you. If an intelligence agency wants you dead, it wants you dead now so that you'll stop doing whatever it is that you're doing that makes them need to kill you."

That's the idea, I think. But now it seems the cancer he had didn't swing the scythe - and was only one of several ailments plaguing him till the end.

RIP Hugo Chávez, Venezuela's President for Ever.

08/03/2013: And Venezuela apparently agrees with me. If they follow through with this, will they build a pyramid for him next?

News: Everything's A Critic, Etc

Jon Methven's novel This Is Your Captain Speaking was 'reviewed' on Amazon by one of its characters, a "Passenger 12B": "Far be it for me to point out that I almost died on that plane. There I was, pinned to the fuselage's ceiling, wondering if I would ever see my kids again. Then we all discovered it was a ruse, and there was much rejoicing. Then we discovered Mr. Methven, who dreamed up our hellish descent and was writing a crap novel about it."

Everybody and everything, it seems can now be a critic. Will some of Nigella or Jamie's dishes start telling their authors what they really think of all that double cream or those "knobs o' butter"? Or will Hanuman in various adaptations of the Ramayana comment on their spoken 21st century lines? "Verily, honoured scribe, I do not speaketh so."

The mind boggles at the possibilities.


Elsewhere:

• Nook suffers an over 20 per cent drop in business, not long after Barnes & Noble's founder, chairman and largest stockholder, Leonard Riggio, announced his intent to buy the company's retail business, but not the digital end of B&N.
• Do you really own the e-books you download or 'buy'?
• 'Trusted friends', word of mouth and book clubs ranked top three book discovery tools. Goodreads appears to be growing as a go-to for book recommendation. Amazon reviews? Not so much.
• Homer's Iliad was written around the eighth century BC, according to geneticists.
• Jonah Lehrer's other book, How We Decide, is being yanked from the shelves by publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, who also plans to refund customers who bought copies. Apparently, they found a boo-boo in that book.
• Your new Oxford English Dictionary entry of the week: "friend zone".
• Is it not chilling that some people don't know what 1M'sia book vouchers are for? Apart from, say, something to sell for money?
• The complete works of Shakespeare, now in Punjabi.
• Buying your way into the best-sellers' list? Probably not a good idea.
• International Herald Tribune to be renamed International New York Times. And how is the Times NOT international already?

Keep Calm And Read

I had something else to post, but something came up.

We're being invaded, of course, but that doesn't mean work on blogs, books and manuscripts have to stop.

On an unrelated note, a rescue mission of sorts took place on Friday at the distributors' side. One phone call and the editors in publishing and one or two colleagues were there in a flash.

My batch of rescued books. Will they all be read - preferably this year?

On staid Fridays, these rare phone calls from Distribution are a treat. We were like kids in a candy store.

Most are at least a year old and destined for pulping. Some could not be saved, including some Twilight-related publications (no huge loss there). But it's got me thinking.

Unfortunately, I didn't ask Distribution about any alternative recourse for to-be-pulped books. My understanding is that unsold items are written off and, when the time comes, are shipped off to their doom. Other than the annual warehouse sales, I don't know of any other ways (that don't involve money) to properly dispose of these books.

Now... how do I make time for these?

News: Mantel, Libraries And "Culinary Jingoism"

Okay, lots of things happened last week.

For one, Hilary Mantel brought up some royal bodies and got roasted by the UK media and some. Though some were offended by what she said about Kate Middleton, others have rallied around her and accused critics of quoting the offending passages out of context. Also, she's not the first stormraising essayist on the London Review of Books.

So far, however, Mantel has appeared fireproof. The media storm over her remarks has instead swept Mantel up Amazon's charts. The author who wrote of goings-on in the court of Henry VIII will still receive the Bodley Medal at the Oxford Literary Festival.

---

Sci-fi writer and Internet phenomenon John Scalzi responds to the Horrible Historian's comments on libraries with his own personal history with libraries. Worth reading, because it reminds some of us about our own library experiences. Broke up the following excerpt because it was too long:

"I don’t use my local library like I used libraries when I was younger," he writes. "But I want my local library, in no small part because I recognize that I am fortunate not to need my local library — but others do, and my connection with humanity extends beyond the front door of my house.

"My life was indisputably improved because those before me decided to put those libraries there. It would be stupid and selfish and shortsighted of me to declare, after having wrung all I could from them, that they serve no further purpose, or that the times have changed so much that they are obsolete."

Take that.

While we're on the subject, someone asks if libraries are the next start-up incubators.


Elsewhere:

• Someone out there is hankering for the return of the illustrated book, because certain things being written these days are just begging "to be realized in ink."
• The Canadian French language police have 'allowed' restaurants to use Italian words such as "pasta" on menus. This issue reportedly arose when some restaurants were pursued by the Quebec Board of the French Language over the use of too many foreign words. An Italian restaurant in Montreal, for instance, got cited "for excessive use of Italian on its menu."
• Food writer Jason Sheehan finds out why some people take their food too seriously. He'd said something uncomplimentary about chicken rice in Singapore and some angry kiasu-types warned him "to never walk alone in that restaurant’s neighborhood again."
• An author pens an open letter to the shoplifter who stole a copy of his books.
• Women writers (often) get asked the darnedest questions during interviews. Of course, this piece wouldn't be complete without Hilary Mantel.
• The Librotraficante saga continues: the movement sets up an underground library.
• Ever wondered what some music albums would look like as book covers?
• Is the Internet reviving the short story? Not really.
• Crime writer Patricia Cornwell wins damages in a financial mismanagement case, which she blames entirely on the firm that managed her money. But it seems her alleged "taste for Ferraris, helicopters and a temporary apartment in New York City she rented for $40,000 per month", among other things, did not weigh much against her.
• Ben Yagoda on how to not write bad. One tip: "...the best writing has some of the qualities of conversation; and, in fact, my favorite short piece of writing advice is 'read it aloud.' When my students write—either in a scholarly, journalistic or essayistic mode—it’s almost as if they’re cowed, or intimidated, by the expectations they perceive. They end up writing stiffly and borderline pretentiously, using a fancy word like 'reside,' when the simpler 'live' is stronger and better."
• Literature and indie music - more in common than previously thought?
• A novelist and the tyranny of the word count.
• Reader's Digest files for Chapter 11 for the second time in less than four years.
• Is 'sick-lit' a symptom of an ill publishing industry?
• Today, video games are being blamed for certain social ills. Way back when, it was comic books. And it was supported with flawed findings.

Shanghaied

Some time back, I'd read a not-very-glowing assessment of Map of the Invisible World. So, when given the chance to review this book, I steeled myself for some disappointment.

I needn't have bothered.

Five Star Billionaire can be laborious to read in places, but at least it's set in a contemporary period, so it feels real. Was there anything I could say about the writing? Cadence? Tone? Pacing?

No, there wasn't. Hey, it's Tash Aw.

If there was something off about the culture, people and places in the setting, I'll leave that to those who're more qualified.

Did I like it? Not much. I won't be pushing a copy into the hands of everybody I'd meet, though I will say "It's not as bad as some people say."

---

Shanghaied?

When a bunch of Malaysian Chinese balik tongsan

first published in The Malaysian Insider, 23 February 2013


This was heard at a "live" comedy act: "There are two kinds of Chinese: rich Chinese - and potentially rich Chinese."

The audience chuckled. How stereotypical and absurd.

But tell me: Which Chinese family doesn't believe its scions are meant for something greater?

Tash Aw's latest novel, Five Star Billionaire, charts the lives of five Chinese Malaysian emigrants - a mix of these "two kinds" - to bustling Shanghai, ranked the world's 16th most expensive city last year, as they journey along their yellow brick roads.


Meet our heroes
Duped by false promises of a good job, Phoebe Chen repackages herself in an effort to move up the social ladder, guided by the words of a "five-star billionaire."

Five Star Billionaire is by Tash Aw (left), who met fans, read some
passages from the book and fielded questions during a meet-up at
Silverfish Books in Bangsar on 23 February 2013

Entrepreneur Leong Yinghui, daughter of a disgraced former government minister and jaded bohemian, enters an urban development joint venture with a mysterious partner.

Hoping to improve the fortunes of his family's flagging property firm, Justin Lim's attempt to buy a piece of real estate is stymied by a possible rival.

Scandal-dogged pop star Gary (no apparent last name) struggles to rebuild his career after a bar brawl with a drunk foreigner - proving that only Bruce Lee or Jet Li can clock a white guy and still look good.

Finally, there's enigmatic business guru Walter Chao, whose soliloquies in the novel could have come out of a self-help book. Chapter headings reminiscent of stratagems from The Art of War enforce that feel.

Of course, their paths will intersect at certain points in the story. Otherwise, there wouldn't be any point to having so many characters.


This looks familiar
Like the stand-up comic, Aw serves up these flawed, sad bunch of could-have-beens for our entertainment and maybe some reflection. It's quite a pick: the pisau cukur wannabe; the scion of a property giant; the Idol contest winner; the single, lonely-yet-insecure, gaydar-tripping career woman; and the egocentric, emotionally distant know-it-all.

Though interesting and compelling, this is no beach novel. Aw's writing is lush and descriptive, and he packs his yarn with more about the protagonists than the casual reader can handle.

Much of it feels familiar. Phoebe's obsession with status and resentment of the upper classes and her perceived lowly station are infuriating, and just when her life starts turning around, she throws it all away. In Gary, we see the travails of talent-contest winners who crack under the glare of publicity and pressures of celebrity.

Yinghui the boho chick is heaps more annoying than Yinghui the entrepreneur who craves recognition for her hard-won business savvy. Her impassioned, self-righteous frothing-in-the-mouth over plans to demolish an iconic cinema building reads like so many Facebook posts.

We're so glad when those illusions are shattered but the crisp lapels she adopts later in life don't suit her and watching her try to fit into them is tiresome. And what is Justin doing, moping around, meeting strange women and trying to hook up with Yinghui after the deal goes pear-shaped?

What they all ultimately share are varying degrees of parental estrangement, the discomfort with who they currently are, and the need to prove something to the world.


Cautious optimism
You might have encountered at least one of these five archetypes in real life and, perhaps, sneered at them with derision or helped yourselves to some schadenfreude at their failures. You think nothing of it, until you begin exhibiting the same traits.

Reading about the media circus around Gary's fall and Justin being trolled by anonymous armchair crusaders online can get a tad uncomfortable. But we feel little sympathy for the characters. Maybe that's the mental defense mechanism kicking in, trying to blot out unpleasant truths.

Of all the lessons in this book, the strongest seems to be: nothing good comes from stepping outside the box.

All of Aw's characters – except maybe Walter – ventured out of their comfort zones and got burned. But does that mean there are no paths to Oz other than the beaten ones?

Towards the end of the novel, they still seem to be looking. That's when we really start rooting for them because, in the end, all of us believe that we are meant for greater things.

---

Five Star Billionaire

Tash Aw
Fourth Estate (2013)
434 pages
Fiction
ISBN: 978-0-00-749416-3

Mantel Gets Flak For Bringing Up Royal Bodies

Multi-book-award-winner Hilary Mantel riled up passions with a Nile-long essay on how some of us see royal women, with examples such as Marie Antoinette, Lady Di, and Queen Elizabeth II. But it was what she wrote about Kate Middleton that twanged some nerves. The 5,000-plus-word piece became an 'attack on Kate' that many, including England's PM Dave Cameron, took offence with.

Many arguments defending Mantel have since surfaced, so it's pointless for me to comment in detail. So I'm left to ponder: Were the descriptions of royal women Mantel's own, or did she describe an image manufactured by the media for public consumption? Two voices, both in The Guardian, believe it's the latter.

"Tabloid papers – actually, all papers if we're honest – deal in templates and received ideas: in pretty princesses, snooty highbrow authors, smirking fiends and tragic tots," writes Sam Leith. "It's in the nature of that trade, though, that you can't write about the templates and received ideas themselves. That is a level of reflexiveness, a level of self-scrutiny, too far. Mantel was attacking the paper doll in which newspapers have imprisoned the real Kate Middleton."

So, it's no surprise that the papers fought back. That, at least, is Hadley Freeman's argument, that this whole media storm is "a story of lazy journalism and raging hypocrisy".

"Mantel was discussing how the royal family and the media manipulate women; it is of little surprise that the media would attack her back," she states. "But this nonsense highlights how it is still, apparently, impossible to be a woman and put forth a measured opinion about one of your own without it being twisted into some kind of screed-ish, unsisterly attack."

For many, the problem with Mantel's essay was probably its length; had 2,500 words been shaved from it, readers would've been able to reach the bottom, where she finally got to the point:

We are happy to allow monarchy to be an entertainment, in the same way that we license strip joints and lap-dancing clubs. Adulation can swing to persecution, within hours, within the same press report: this is what happened to Prince Harry recently.

...It may be that the whole phenomenon of monarchy is irrational, but that doesn’t mean that when we look at it we should behave like spectators at Bedlam. Cheerful curiosity can easily become cruelty. It can easily become fatal. We don’t cut off the heads of royal ladies these days, but we do sacrifice them, and we did memorably drive one to destruction a scant generation ago.

She didn't have to spell it out, did she? However, it seems like little has changed since then.

I haven't been fond of the British media of late. How it justifies its muckraking and disregard for private space is beyond galling, which means we probably shouldn't expect any soul-searching from Fleet Street.

Give the way Mantel worded it, her prescription for detoxifying the way the media portrays royalty - or other celebrities, for that matter - may be a bitter pill to swallow.

News: DoJ, A-OK, And Deary Deary Me

Is it me, or did this year's Chinese New Year holidays pass by much quicker than the previous ones?

Anyhoo, I've not been monitoring the Webs for book-related news during the break, which was probably what I needed. But some interesting things did happen during that time.

• Macmillan settles with the US Department of Justice, leaving Apple the sole defendant of the e-book price-fixing suit. The DoJ was also nice enough to approve the Penguin-Random House merger.
• 'Horrible historian' Terry Deary's comments on libraries have got tongues wagging. "Because it's been 150 years, we've got this idea that we've got an entitlement to read books for free, at the expense of authors, publishers and council tax payers," he said. Quite a few people have disagreed, including one Foz Meadows and Julia Donaldson, Children's Laureate and author of such books as The Gruffalo. This libraries thing is kind of hot in the UK right now.
• While you're waiting for your favourite novelists' next books, Chuck Palahniuk has apparently finished three, making every other writer on Earth feel as if they're hibernating. If your favourite is Chuck, well, lucky you. Just that he won't be releasing them all at once.
• "...a brittle little dominatrix and peerless narcissist who exploits her husband and her marriage with relish." Camilla Long's takedown of Rachel Cusk's memoir Aftermath is the 2013 Hatchet Job of the Year, edging out my personal favourites Ron Charles and Zoë Heller.
• Publishing may be growing in India, but is it really the opposite in the West? And is India's bootleg book industry helping or hindering this growth?
• It seems, like Germany and some parts of Europe, conservative attitudes towards e-books are slowing down e-book adoption in Japan.
• Brace for impact! The Submissive trilogy, a Fifty Shades clone by one Tara Sue Me (to which EL James might say, "Gladly!") will be released in mid-2013. At least we'll see this coming, unlike that Russian meteor.
• "I am a misogynist according to the Swiftians, and I should die." After Taylor Swift fans flayed Rick Moody for criticising their idol, Moddy responds and asks why "serious critics swoon for her narcissistic, hackneyed pap".
• Inkling wades into digital book publishing with Habitat, taking on Apple and Amazon.
• Is start-up funding for book publishing driven by passion rather than business sense?

Also: In case you didn't get the memo, Tash Aw (The Harmony Silk Factory and Map of the Invisible World) will be in town in conjunction with the release of his latest, Five-star Billionaire. This Saturday, 23 February, he'll be appearing in Silverfish Books at 1:30pm and Readings at Seksan's at 3:30pm.

Also reading at Seksan's will be Kris Williamson (Son Complex, Fixi Novo),
"New Age bookstore owner/director" Melizarani Selvakkumar, Zafar Anjum (The Singapore Decalogue, Red Wheelbarrow Books) and Ksatriya, a Penang-based urban poet and songwriter. The Satay Trio, headed by Az Samad, will provide the half-time entertainment.

Snakes Selling Snakes

This review threatened to go on and on, so I tried keeping it within the scope of the book. I thought the release of this was timely, considering the apparent fever for snake pets during the Year of the Snake. But did those reports have to use pictures of the albino Burmese python?

It's been over two years, but Bryan Christy's NGM article still riles me up. But I guess it's understandable why these people get away with what they did. Given the world's nations' track record in enforcing and strengthening laws that govern human beings, who'd be convinced they can do anything to help protect wildlife from the likes of these 'lizard kings'?

So the trade continues, in both legally and illegally obtained animals for the pet trade and other reasons. Differentiating between 'captive-bred' and poached animals when they've arrived at their destinations is hard, if not impossible, which means poachers and buyers have to be caught red-handed - a slightly less difficult task.

And Bryan Christy is still making people angry. Right now, he's riled up the clergy in the Philippines with his article on the ivory trade and the aftermath of its publication. Crime novels are made of this stuff.

---

Serpent smugglers

Tales of the illegal trade in cold-blooded animals can make one's blood boil

first published in The Malaysian Insider, 17 February 2013


Investigative journalist and author Bryan Christy made me angry on January 2010 with his National Geographic article on the Asian wildlife trade and one of its alleged kingpins, and how wildlife protection laws and enforcement have largely failed to address issues of wildlife trafficking.

The central figure in this bit of reportage was said alleged kingpin Anson Wong (no relation), who is featured in Christy's book, The Lizard King.

Fancy a scaly, slithery pet for the Year of the Snake?
You might want to think twice

Wong had been caught trying to smuggle over 90 reptiles out of Malaysia in 2010. He was released from prison in 2012 when his five-year jail sentence was reduced to 17 months.

Both the book and the National Geographic article hints at a cosy relationship between Anson and some officers in the Malaysian Wildlife and National Parks Department (Jabatan Perhilitan). Perhilitan, naturally, said the book was "simply fiction".


Reptile rustlers
The Lizard King traces the beginnings of the illegal animal trade in the US, when zoos practically fought to have the most exotic animal species on display. This was during the Sixties, and nobody cared how the exhibits were obtained. We are also given a glimpse into the backgrounds of the enforcement agents who stalked and prosecuted these smugglers.

If I read this book right, it all began with love.

Two figures in this book: Ray Van Nostrand and Henry A Molt, Jr were fond of reptiles and eventually turned their passion into a business. Both would also do time in jail; Van Nostrand would venture into drugs and was snared in a drug bust, while Molt would set up an international animal smuggling network.

When Ray Van Nostrand went to jail, his son Mike took over the reins and expanded his father's reptile-selling business into a major smuggling outfit that could have rivalled Molt's.

Other key plots in this book include the cat-and-mouse chase between Mike Van Nostrand and Chip Bepler, an agent with the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS); the beginnings of Henry Molt Jr's reptile racket; and how an undercover USFWS agent helped apprehend Anson Wong in 1998.

This gripping account of the US authorities' pursuit of wildlife smugglers, albeit one that feels roughly sketched out, is short but well-paced. The exact magnitude and enormity of the illegal wildlife trade is conveyed by the behaviours of the smugglers; facts and figures appear only sporadically.

But there is enough bad behaviour to make you angry. A famous quote belongs, of course, to our very own Anson. "I could sell a panda and nothing," he once boasted to the undercover USFWS agent who'd got him arrested. "As long as I'm still [in Malaysia] I'm safe."

Another annoying aspect is carelessness, especially by those who should know better. Two tragic tales illustrate how love can make one stupid. A man considered "the dean of American herpetologists" in the 1950s died days after a venomous African boomslang bit him.

A surprising mention is snake expert Joseph B Slowinski. Deep in the Myanmar interior on 9/11, Slowinski showed no concern when a snake bit him, thinking it was a harmless "mimic" of the more deadly krait. Sadly, it turned out to be a real krait.

Love makes one do funny things, I guess.


Long live the (lizard) kings?
There is no fairy-tale ending in The Lizard King - no ending, for that matter. Not long after Mike Van Nostrand went to jail, Chip Bepler died of a brain tumour.

According to a syndicated article in The Star in December 2010, Bepler's quarry has returned to the trade. It also underscored the difficulty in regulating the ongoing wildlife trade, which also sells illegally acquired animals and endangered species.

No one has pinned down how much the trade's worth; estimates have gone up to billions in US dollars. Demand is high and all sorts of arguments were made for the trade. Jobs. Inspiring kids to learn about the environment.

How does one learn enough about the environment or help conserve it by keeping a Burmese python in a glass tank? Will this 'love' of the environment or the cute little snake remain after said animal outgrows its enclosure and starts threatening the family dog or cat, or when owners don't 'love' their pets any more?

Didn't they learn anything from the Burmese pythons in the Everglades or the extermination of over forty animals on a private farm in Muskingum County, Ohio, some of which were endangered big cats?

"No no no, we didn't poach these from the wild - they are captive bred!" Really? Then what about this little nugget from a local news portal (emphasis mine)?

The green tree python (Morelia viridis) is a popular snake in the global pet trade. It is one of Indonesia’s top exports, and stocks are declared as captive breds. In 2011, however, scientists Jessica Lyons and Daniel Natusch from the University of New South Wales found that at least 80% of Indonesia’s green tree python exports were poached from the wild.

All this, plus Christy's book, leaves one to believe that the pet trade is mostly about profit and prestige. Rare exotic specimens being marketed like the latest Louis-Vuitton bag (as opposed to being used to make Louis-Vuitton bags), Nike sneakers, or some action figure.

Such a demand, fuelled by hubris and naivete, only helps the likes of those 'lizard kings' more than the environment or the animals.

---

The Lizard King

The True Crimes and Passions of the World's Greatest Reptile Smugglers

Bryan Christy
Twelve (2008)
239 pages
Non-fiction
ISBN: 978-0-446-69975-4

Relationshiplympics

Mental exercises for building and mending bridges


The news lately has been depressing, whether it's paper or online. Team As versus Team Bs, dirty laundry aired in public, lawsuits and counter-lawsuits, and the seemingly endless string of celebrity infidelities. It probably won't be out of place to wonder if these people should work out their differences in a "mind gym" instead of the media.

Turns out there is a "mind gym" out there, and they did publish a book. The Mind Gym: Relationships is the third book by this UK outfit called the Mind Gym, for those who can't attend (or afford) its £1,500 (around RM7,325), 20-member training sessions. The founders assure us that their Mind Gym training is great for relationships in and out of the office; "from boardroom to bedroom", goes one blurb.

And there's still more to come – possibly books for "prisons, cruises, second lifers and who knows what." From the witty, upbeat, and offbeat tone of the writing however, it's hard to tell whether it's a joke.

While some people sweated over the Y2K bug, Octavius Black and Sebastian Bailey came up with the idea of "bite-sized" 90-minute corporate training sessions or "workouts", each packed with tips, techniques and activities, which can be packaged into different programmes. Training is not a two-way street; the tools and techniques continue to evolve from the insights uncovered by the Gym's team of psychologists, and the real-life experiences of other Mind Gym-goers. The Mind Gym appears to be popular, if not effective, concept. Just ask its clients, a who's-who of recognisable brand names.

A password to the Facebook-like Mind Gym community web portal in www.themindgym.com comes with each copy of the book. Unless a basic online profile is complete, some features will not be available to try. Exclusive goodies for book buyer include back issues of Mind Gym "magazines", and a forum where other users discuss tips and share their own.

In Relationships, the workout programme's structure and content – both online and offline – are similar. Chapters in the book are grouped into four fundamental sections in the following order: "Relationship ready" (prepping yourself), "Coming together" (building a relationship), "Tough love" (resolving conflict), and "A different relationship" (whether to salvage or end a relationship). At the end of some chapters exercises marked "I Spy" (observation) and "I Try" (self-explanatory) await.

Readers will have to endure the tedium of filling out questionnaires, making lists and totalling up points. The results can be surprising, depending on your honesty or whether the questions and answers are correctly interpreted. The first questionnaire determines a reader's workout plan, namely the areas he or she should work on; the more lazy can refer to one of several default plans in the book. Read only what you need – a great option for the increasingly time-starved. On the other hand, it says a lot about a reader who needs to go through the whole book.

Of course, no book of this ilk would be complete without affirming quotes from the famous, and anecdotal evidence of "why it works": examples from pop culture, history, and results of research, which, unfortunately, aren't annotated with their corresponding sources (a bibliography is available, if one is curious).

Overall, Relationships is a relatively small self-help book that tries hard not to be boring. There aren't a lot of page-cluttering visuals; most anecdotal inserts are short and snappy, and each chapter is small and feels modular enough to stand on its own.

Relationships however, don't build themselves. As a young man Albert Ellis (1913 - 2007) overcame his shyness towards women by chatting up over a hundred ladies at the Bronx Botanical Gardens. Though it didn't get him a date, it might have prepared him for his future career as a psychologist; in 1982 he was ranked above Sigmund Freud among history's most influential psychotherapists. ...No reward without effort, right?

---

The Mind Gym: Relationships

The Mind Gym
Sphere (2009)
304 pages
Non-fiction
ISBN: 978-1847440631

Eager, Erudite, Eponymous

Copies of the graphical version of Lydia Teh's Do You Wear Suspenders? The Wordy Tales of Eh Poh Nim reached the office about two weeks ago, but I was too busy to post it earlier. Besides, what else could I write about it after this announcement?

The Wordy Tales of Eh Poh Nim #1: Big Bertha Meets Eh Poh Nim.
We're hoping for a #2 and perhaps a #3

The Wordy Tales of Eh Poh Nim chronicles the everyday life of Eh Poh Nim, a loquacious woman who can't resist explaining the meanings of English words and phrases - the more obscure, the better - to anyone who'd listen.

Samples from chapters "Hatter-somethings" (left) and "Do you
wear suspenders" - or something like that

In his volume, Eh Poh Nim show off her eponyms when meeting a Big Bertha at the airport. She also devises language puzzles for a friend in distress, gets into a heteronym face-off with an equally showy colleague, dispenses bits of kibitz to a fellow bibliobibuli, and more. We also take a trip back in time for a little Manglish lesson Down Under.

Lots of hairy expressions for your entertainment

Rediscover the excitement of learning the stories behind some English idioms, metaphors and other figures of speech in this illustrated, delightfully re-imagined series that brings the humour in the anecdotes to life.


Lydia Teh hung up her apron after seventeen years as a homemaker and is now managing an English-language centre. She wrote Life's Like That: Scenes from Malaysian Life, Honk! If You're Malaysian and Do You Wear Suspenders? The Wordy Tales of Eh Poh Nim.

Diana HND (aka Diana Chan) is an accounts associate by day and a comic artist by night. She lives with her family and a hyperactive beagle in a quiet neighbourhood far from the Klang Valley.

The Wordy Tales of Eh Poh Nim #1: Big Bertha Meets Eh Poh Nim is priced at RM12.90. It should be on sale at all major bookstores and is available through MPHOnline.com.

News: Events And Stuff, Because It's Spring

Because it's close to the Chinese New Year holidays I'm taking a break like the rest of you, so nothing of much substance for the time being. But there'll be some events to look forward to when you all return.


16 February  Newly opened indie hangout Merdekarya is hosting "Saya Selaku Perdana Menteri..." ("I, as Prime Minister..."), a piece of stand-up (or sit-down) entertainment at 8pm where four writers: Zara Kahan, Amir Hafizi, Hafidz Baharom and Umapagan Ampikaipakan will present their 'inauguration speeches' should they become Prime Minister of Malaysia. Check the Facebook page for details.


17 February  Artisan Roast TTDI will be hosting a Blind Date with a Book event organised by book columnist Daphne Lee starting at 10:30am; this post describes one example of such an event. Basically, pick a book, wrap it up, give it a really catchy label, leave it there for others to pick and 'blind-pick' a book yourself. More details on this Facebook page.


23 February  Author Tash Aw, who wrote The Harmony Silk Factory and Map of the Invisible World, is scheduled to be in Kuala Lumpur in conjunction with the release of his latest work, Five-star Billionaire. He'll be appearing in Silverfish Books at 1:30pm and Readings at Seksan's at 3:30pm.


Meanwhile:

• RIP Barry Wain, author of Malaysian Maverick.
• How (female) bloggers became the latest chick lit heroines.
• How to let go of books you won't read and cut down on the clutter.
• Israeli and Palestinian textbooks "largely present one-sided narratives", but do not demonise. But wouldn't people fed on a steady long-term diet of one-sided narratives tend to become more, well, biased?
• Of these nine writing mistakes you're probably making, you probably know six or seven already. You probably just don't care.
• That thing about print being better for reading than digital? It's wrong, apparently. Who knew the Germans were prejudiced against digital media?
• Sales of sci-fi/fantasy artist and author MCA Hogarth's self-published book on Amazon was blocked after makers of the Warhammer 40,000 series of games, complained that the title of her book violated their trademark over the (already widely used, like, everywhere) term "space marines". What are these guys, Apple?
• Anne Ishii talks c*ck in her review of Eddie Huang's Fresh Off the Boat. Oh, like you could resist.
• William Faulkner thinks living in a whorehouse (as its landlord) helps you be a writer. Is that why Wei Xiaobao, the anti-hero in Louis Cha's Deer and the Cauldron, was such a storyteller?
• Chuck Wendig's 25 jumbled thoughts on book piracy.
• After Going Clear, here comes Beyond Belief by Jenna Miscavige Hill. It seems that, even in this 'church', the one percent are treated different.

And, something unrelated to books: Slate's prime Explainer sheds light on the apparently skinflint pastor who refused to leave a tip on 'religious grounds'.

He also thinks "...it’s possible that Christians think their devotion to the next life exempts them from such social niceties as tipping in this one. That confidence in their ultimate salvation may also diminish their sense of financial obligation to God."

Does this "confidence in their ultimate salvation" also explain why some religious people are so dickish to those who aren't?

Something to ponder over the lunar new year.

News: Jumping The Gun, NYT Reviews And Gulag Humour

The literary world shed sweatdrops of dread when news came out that a library holding ancient manuscripts from Timbuktu was torched by Islamists fleeing from French forces. After all, it wasn't too long ago since a library in Egypt was torched destroying many valuable papers. Timbuktu locals claim, however, that some of the more important manuscripts were saved.

Back home: Is Pak Lah taking on Dr M in a tell-all to be released after CNY? No, he's not, it seems. The authors, Bridget Welsh and James Chin, have apparently denied the book's "tell-all" nature and called the report "an overly-sensational shoddy piece of journalism". A correction has since been added to the original report.

---

"He's Anthony Bourdain with a side of pickled radish." Eddie Huang's memoir, Fresh Off The Boat, reviewed in The New York Times.

Huang may be chuffed at by the rather positive review. William Stadiem, however, feels he has to defend himself against a NYT book reviewer's alleged accusations of Jew-baiting in a critique of his novel Moneywood.

---

Not long after Google Earth exposed the locations of some of North Korea's gulags, the 'reviews' start coming in, from "Great cuisine" and "Will visit again" to Meh".

But is it appropriate? Not if it focuses attention on these camps, apparently. "Smart-aleck awareness is better than ignorance." I'm kind of two minds about that.

---

Elsewhere:

• Bells continue to toll for B&N and the mega-bookstore. B&N is planning to close up to a third of its brick-and-mortars over ten years, but states that it is "fully committed to the retail concept for the long term." The response is one you might expect.
• Hilary Mantel brings up the accolades again, this time winning the Costa Book of the Year award for Bring Up The Bodies, and she's not apologising for that. Why should she?
• Talk about embracing trolls: Writer Brian Allen Carr is seeking the best one-star review in exchange for his books. Am I missing something?
• In the wake of the Lance Armstrong confession, somebody ponders the reasons we read memoirs.
• In the annals of weaponised reviews: Milanese opera house La Scala has blacklisted a newspaper's music critic after some of his reviews were said to have crossed the line. Calling Luciano Pavarotti a "musical illiterate" takes some balls, but can he back it up? Just asking.
• The next time you publish a book, please don't name it after a terrorist organisation.
• Some of the best arguments for and against the Oxford comma.
• Was that famous short story written by Ernest Hemingway? Perhaps not.
• Jeet Thayil's Narcopolis is awarded the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature. He's the first Indian recipient of the prize.

Card-Carrying Reviewers? Yelp!

Brad Newman thinks that online reviewers don't get enough respect. So he came up with a card that a reviewer can flash at rude waiters or uppity maitre'ds for near instant R-E-S-P-E-C-T.

Of course, not everybody can get a shiny black ReviewerCard. Prospective cardholders will be screened for eligibility. For one, a cardholder must have written lots of reviews.

The idea came to Newman in France when he was brushed off by a waiter when he asked for green tea instead of normal tea during breakfast. When Newman hinted that this would mean a negative review on TripAdvisor, the manager of the place paid for his breakfast.

A thought hit him like Mjölnir from above. "Why can't waiters, hotel workers, concierges know that people are reviewers? If that French waiter had known at the beginning that I write a lot of reviews, he'd have treated me like Brad Pitt." I don't know whether he got his green tea, though.

Newman also cited a time when he got a hotel room in Geneva for about half price a night after waving his little black card. He doesn't call it what some people might see it as: extortion. "I see it as letting the restaurant know that they should treat me good because I'm going to be writing a review."

Unless you're Jay Rayner, A A Gill, Pete Wells, or some motormouth from Ipoh, I don't feel like paying attention to anything you say. Nor do I think anything you have to say matters all that much. However, this is the Internet we're talking about.

I've read some of the 'reviews' on sites such as Yelp. I've also read some of the horror stories about 'reviews' and 'reviewers' from sites such as Yelp. So I can say that giving this kind of people something like the ReviewerCard is akin to arming them with AR-15s. Both require a certain degree of faith in the integrity, maturity and intelligence of those entrusted with such power - faith that is at times misplaced.

Even before the Internet, complaints tend to travel faster than praise. Thanks to feedback sites such as Yelp, grouses gained warp drives. Some groups of Yelpers have begun acquiring an unsavoury reputation for shaking down restaurants and being free with lone-star rants. Thus, the means to help players in the hotel and food businesses improve via crowdsourced feedback is slowly becoming an instrument of terror where F&B players are concerned.

Which is why anything that empowers hordes of uninformed freeloaders and discount whores in this manner is just many kinds of wrong.

There are reasons why all these 'reviewers' are online and not in, say, The New York Times or The Observer. How much to they know about the businesses they're writing about and the cultures of where they're based? Do they know what is and is not available at the establishments being reviewed? Are they magnanimous enough to allow for days when the floor staff or kitchen staff may be having a bad day?

Do they really care about their readers, or is it just about the power trip from all the freebies and bragging rights?

Newman got miffed because the French waiter turned up his nose at his request for green tea. If this gentleman is correct, French waiters are known to be rude or snobbish. And does this establishment have any green tea to serve? Did his sense of entitlement just so happened to kick in at a particularly busy time in that place?

We don't know. But it's what he doesn't say in the LA Times article that rings louder in my head.

For whatever reason they're written, reviews are essentially a kind of service, and sites that collect these are supposed to help consumers with their decisions. If written well, reviews can be entertaining as well as informative and, most of all, reliable, as it describes a normal situation at an establishment that people are more likely to encounter.

When you declare your reviewer status at the table, you are never going to get that.

One can argue that food critics with a face also get preferential treatment, but that's because (one hopes) they earned it and, writing for a news agency and all, they're also bound by a journalist's code of conduct. Also, because there's the impression that food critics are relatively more stable and reliable than Yelpers.

"The food critic is definitely a reference because Yelp is basically full of people complaining," said chef Eric Ripert of the famed New York restaurant Le Bernardin. "We have to take into consideration some of the comments, but very often it's not even rational what they say."

The rise of what I call 'raviews' - overly glowing praise that is bought, faked or written in exchange for freebies or discounts - and the growing number of 'reviews' that are nothing more than complaints are bringing into question the helpfulness of crowdsourced customer feedback. Though Yelp and others have tried to rein in the insanity, the struggle seems to be an uphill one.

The F&B business is already fraught with pitfalls: competition, staff and customer turnover, logistics, and red tape. The nature of the business means that good restaurants and hotels generally prosper, while the bad ones will fold under the weight of their own screw-ups. The drive-by review business is changing things, but is it for the better or the worse? We don't know yet.

But the last thing it - and the rest of us - needs is a bunch of whiny entitled know-nothings waving cards that says, "I'm a reviewer. Treat me right - or else."

News: Novels For All, Tweets Of The Week

I'm mourning the end of a nice long weekend, so no yard-long list of Book Marks. Let's start off with something positive and more important.

Non-profit community Novels for Nepal is morphing into Novels for All, in its goal of encouraging reading while raising funds for charity. One of its initiatives, Café Reads, has been going on for some time now, raising funds to refurbish a study room in The Divine Mercy Boys Home in Kepong.

Novels for All has set up mini-libraries in several cafés in KL and PJ, including Artisan Roast TTDI, The Bee @ Publika and MyBurgerLab which isn't a café, but who cares if it's for a good cause?

Each of the books in the DIY shelves are for sale at RM10, or one can drop some spare change into a donation jar in the premises. All proceeds will go to the project; the target is to raise RM1,000. Sadly, books have been filched from these shelves.

All titles are handpicked by dedicated members of the group, so you probably won't see Fifty Shades (thank G*d) or anything from Harlequin or Mills & Boon.

---

Those following the Buku Fixi-Popular micro-saga shouldn't be surprised to know that the inevitable has happened:

Popular x nak jual Fixi lagi & kembalikan 1000+ buku. Termasuk stok cetakan 2011. Menunjukkan mrk x pandai jual buku. pic.twitter.com/slRlUmMY

BukuFixi @BukuFixi • 23 Jan 2013

So Popular Bookstores has decided to stop selling Fixi titles and has returned over a thousand copies of the former's books, which includes stock from 2011. Which, according to Fixi, is no big loss, since buyers are going to other bookstores as well as its own online shop.

Maybe those returned books can be sold as part of some kind of promotion. I'm curious as to how fast they will go.

Guess that's the end of that. Both sides should let it go already.

---

Meanwhile, controversial Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen had some words for countries that banned the screening of Tamil film Vishwaroopam, allegedly due to the film's terrorism theme and portrayal of Islamists:

Malaysia banned #Vishwaroopam.Coward countries will ban it.Coward cinemas will not show it.This fear of Muslim fanatics is just plane stupid

taslima nasreen ‏@taslimanasreen • 26 Jan 2013

Sharp words and typo aside, I'm unsure as to how this film could worsen perceptions towards Islamists, especially those who openly advocate violence and bay for the blood of critics and opponents. When they are their own worst enemies, who needs filmmakers, writers or poets?

---

Is a library in Sydney, Australia going to shelve Lance Armstrong non-fiction titles under "Fiction"? Uh, no, it isn't. And it can't. "Libraries can't arbitrarily reclassify categories of books, because that depends on the ISBN number that is issued by the National Library," said a spokesman for the Manly council in Sydney that runs the library. Fair enough, though it would be a manly thing to do. Suing Lance and his publishers for 'cheating' readers, however....

---

As readers go digital, physical books as collectibles may become a viable option. A 101 on collecting books seems to argue that it's easier to hoard for love than financial gain - spotting books that will become eBay bonanzas in the future.

---

Move over, Disney princesses, for Chitrangada, Sita and Draupadi, says New Delhi-based writer and educator Saraswati Nagpal. Perhaps its time a new generation of Indian women had some homegrown heroines to look up to.

Now, if only someone can stand up against those who want Joe Anton's supporters barred from the Jaipur lit fest.

Yeast, Encore

I rarely produce two reviews from one restaurant, but this place changes character according to the different times of the day. And I am sort of taken with the food there, even though I can afford to dine there, like, once a month. Thank goodness they also sell breads and pastries.

Two realisations: Virtually all my food reviews end with some form of "I'll be back", and I seem to be reviewing more restaurants than books lately. Which is why I guest-blogged this piece elsewhere first. In hindsight, this makes no difference, since every piece I've ever published will still be archived here.

Truth is, I love food more than books but eventually there'll be some foods I may no longer be able to enjoy. Books, on the other hand, do not raise blood sugar or cholesterol levels, although stress level warning labels should be applied to some.

---

Paris on a plate

When it comes to classic French bistro fare, Yeast Bistronomy rises to the occasion

first published on Nooks and Gems, 27 January 2013


The words spilled into the chat window from Melody's end: "I feel like splurging."

Me too, as it was just after payday and I can always count on Melody's sombre moods as an excuse for a posh evening out. And I had one spot in mind.

"Let's go to France!" I typed out.

"Haha," she shot back. "You going to fly me there, izzit?"

"No, we'll drive. Only twenty minutes to get there."

Because another slice of France had arrived on our shores just a few weeks back.

Diners at Yeast (left) and the vacherin aux fruits rouge
(vacherin with red berries)

On one of her occasional food hunts, Melody had stumbled upon a quaint little boulangerie (bakery) with a cheerful yellow signboard in Bangsar. As I am often a grouchy bear in the mornings when I wake up, she had to drag me there for breakfast one early morning – "Try it, you'll like it" – in case she couldn't finish the food.

Besides breakfast eggs and baked goods, Yeast Bistronomy also offered lunch and, more recently, dinner. I took three looks at the lunch and dinner menu (so many lovely items) and decided that we would be back.

Yeast Bistronomy was a slightly different place at night. The cosy Parisian-style boulangerie in the morning was now a cosy Parisian-style bistro and wine bar by night. The bread shelves and baskets were mostly empty, save for a few doggie bags filled with samples of the morning's baked goods for patrons to take home after dinner.

Chefs at work at Yeast Bistronomy

The founder himself met us at the door and showed us to the seats we picked: at the bar, facing the open kitchen. A veteran of the food and beverage business, Christophe Chatron-Michaud helped open and run restaurants with names such as Daniel Boulud and Jean-Georges Vongerichten (Chatron-Michaud reminds me somewhat of New York chef Eric Ripert).

In addition to easing his palate's homesickness, he started Yeast to bring Malaysians what he claims is a more authentic French culinary experience with imported French talent. Form his home country is Yeast's baker, Christophe Gros who inherited his father's skills as an artisanal boulanger (baker) and Yeast's head chef Clara Champonnois. Even the butter Yeast uses, a delicately flavoured, creamy product from the Charentes region in France, is covered by the European Union's Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) scheme.

Frisée aux lardons: French chicory and bacon salad,
with poached egg

With that kind of attention to detail, little wonder the baked goods we'd sampled one Saturday morning had that effect on us. What would the dinner menu do?

We picked seats facing the kitchen prep area, not far from the stoves. Rather warm, but we like being different, and these were ringside seats to some hot cooking action.

After our orders were taken, the bread basket arrived, along with a bit of that EU-covered butter. We nibbled sparingly at the bread, mindful of the need to save room for the main dishes.

Hearty, flavourful beefy braised goodness. Not telling you
any more about it... go and try it yourself

We shared a salad and soup. The frisée aux lardons is a classic French bistro salad that consists mainly of French chicory and bits of bacon, topped with a poached egg. No complaints with the salad, and the sweetness of the soup du jour, a sweet corn soup, was just right and went well with the shredded duck confit.

Nothing says France more eloquently than foie gras, but boeuf bourguignon will do if you're on the look-out for creeping calories or PETA-type activists. It's enough for Melody, who considers the dish of beef slowly braised in a sauce of red wine a classical French must-try.

Petites Madeleines Chaudes: Tiny bundles of fluffy warm sweetness

What arrived was three chunks of beef sitting on a rib bone laid on a bed of greens, drizzled with sauce that mingled with a pool of "root vegetable" puree — I suspect it's celeriac, which is a kind of ... root vegetable. We saw the sous chef dipping into a crock full of the stuff for someone else's order; "celeriac puree", he told Melody when she had asked.

Mon dieu, the rich, tender, melt-in-your-mouth beef ... each mouthful was a trip back to an old French kitchen where peasants simmered tough cuts of meat in red wine to make them more palatable. The mellow, slightly nutty puree cuts through some of the beef's richness, making each bite feel less heavy, so it goes down much easier. The crispy fried onions on top were a nice touch.

By now, Melody was almost full. I wiped the plate clean of beef juice and sauce with some leftover bread. I sighed deeply. "Okay, I think we can forgo dessert."

For some reason, Monsieur Chatron-Michaud thought different. In spite of Melody's protests, he insisted and assured us that it was just "a little something" that won't bust our guts.

We looked at each other, hoping that the "little something" was measured by Malaysian standards.

We ended up with a vacherin aux fruits rouge, a glass filled with vanilla ice cream, red berries, red berry coulis and bits of meringue at the bottom. The heavy-looking concoction was strangely light, not very filling, and delicious. We also had a ramekin of tiny madeleines, still warm from the oven and dusted with icing sugar.

I look over at Melody, whose mood had significantly improved - but that happened after the braised beef, which I can spell on the first try by now.

"So, can you roll proper French 'R's now?" I asked, still surprised that she had taken French lessons at university.

She seemed uncertain. "I ... think so." And then, she threw out a few phrases. "What do you think?" she asked afterwards.

I think there are some things even authentic French cuisine can't do.

---

Yeast Bistronomy

24G, Jalan Telawi 2
Bangsar Baru
59100 Kuala Lumpur

Pork-free

Fridays and Saturdays: 8am-10:30pm
Other days from 8am-10pm

Breakfast: 8am-11:30am
Lunch: 11:30am-3:30pm
High Tea: 3:30pm-5:30pm
Dinner: 6pm until closing

Closed on Mondays

+603-2282 0118

enquiries@yeastbistronomy.com

Web site | Facebook page

Honk If You Wear Suspenders

For a while, the then homemaker/author wrote a series of English language columns for The Star, and also authored several books on winning contests and tourist destinations.

Since returning to full-time employment, Teh seems to have stopped blogging, but hopes to write more books.

Like what we've done with Adibah's books, we're converting her books, Honk! If You're Malaysian and Do You Wear Suspenders, into e-book format.

As is often the case, I ended up reading the books instead of merely proofreading them - I believe there is a difference. And it was kind of fun.


Malaysiana, sharply sliced and served
Honk! If You're Malaysian and its prequel, Life's Like That are similar to Sri Delima's three books on Malaysiana, but has a more urban feel to it. The city, specifically Kuala Lumpur, is the backdrop to a lot of scenarios.

Unlike Adibah's coy, teasing former schoolteacher, Teh spares nothing and no-one when delivering advice and home truths, like the fiery, quick-witted, sharp-tongued aunt in the family everyone wants on their side of a discussion - or argument. No beating about the bush for her. Busybodies, procrastinators, fake beggars, annoying LRT passengers, look out.

And: "If a typical Chinaman, the type who wears Pagoda singlets and baggy drawers, tries to kiss me, I would punch and kick him until he resembles pickled mustard." Don't you like her already?

One thing about Honk! is just how insightful and instructional many of the articles can be. Her tips on becoming "the savvy shopper" (shh, don't let the supermarkets in on them) shows she's an old hand in writing tips and tricks. I'd heard that Congratulations! You Have Won!, now out of print, was considered a best-seller in the day.

Equally instructional are her suggestions to avoid being a victim of snatch thieves, decorating your new car, and things to do when the traffic lights turn red. Encyclopaedic chapters on things such as the kinds of beggars we have; the kinds of men, according to how often they wash their cars; and some common Manglish phrases are entertaining and enlightening.

The new cover for Honk! If You're
Malaysian that marks its 20,000th
sale milestone

And with a certain chapter, she scores a palpable hit for women everywhere who've been deprived of their husbands, thanks to the World Cup.

When Teh introduces chatroom lingo, she points out that: "...PITA isn’t the bread with a pocket where you can stuff all sorts of fillings for a delicious meal. POTS aren’t the vessels you use to cook your chicken stew in. SOS isn’t the distress signal you draw in the sand when you’re marooned on an uninhabited island. GAL isn’t a young girl, and KIT isn’t a set of tools."

Is Teh Malaysian? Definitely. Are you Malaysian? Honk honk!


Life, love, lexicon
Teh's Do You Wear Suspenders? The Wordy Tales of Eh Poh Nim, however, shares the same concept as Ellen Whyte's Logomania series. Both also started life as newspaper columns. Teh introduces idioms, eponyms, heteronyms, malapropisms, contronyms, oxymorons and so on through the life of a fictional character.

Eh Poh Nim, a marketing executive with a pharmaceutical company, is a talkative woman who can't resist any opportunity to show off her English knowledge - you know, the kind who'd use "pulchritude" instead of "beauty" and tells you of several other synonyms for it. And:

If she was entertaining clients at the lounge and someone ordered a Bloody Mary, she would launch into an explanation of how the cocktail of vodka and tomato juice came to be named thus.

"Did you know that Bloody Mary was named after Queen Mary I? She put to death some 300 people as heretics and imprisoned many more. What a shame, isn’t it?"

If someone at the office came down with diarrhoea, she would announce to everyone that Daniel Elmer Salmon, an American veterinary surgeon, was the one who identified and gave his name to the bacteria Salmonella which was probably the cause of the diarrhoea.

Of course, this behaviour doesn't sit very well with many of her acquaintances and an old flame. But because of her generally upbeat disposition, it doesn't keep her down for long. And, quite unexpectedly, someone new enters her life.

Why does it sound like a story? Because it is. And that's why it's engaging.

Read what happens when Eh Poh Nim meets Big Bertha, chats with Big Willie and gets stunned by a ball of fire. Eh Poh Nim also gets educated by a dogged cobbler but don't pester her about it, as she can be acerbically alliterative when annoyed.

Also: Learn how to chew the fat and talk turkey and find out why you won't get any writing done with stationary. And no, I don't think Grand Prix legend Michael Schumacher makes or has ever made shoes in his career.

Though each chapter is short and doesn't really expand a lot on the characters, the length is sufficient for the purpose of this book. I don't think all the -isms and -nyms are featured here, just a few to help us get by - and maybe impress/irritate our co-workers and dates.


Fun, fast, educational
Some would feel that the stories are a little dated; Honk! and Suspenders were published in 2007 and 2009 respectively, though the articles that comprise them may be older. But it's great nostalgia and English is evergreen. Both are fun, fast reads. Informative, too.

...can't help wondering what the combined genius of Adibah Amin, Lydia Teh and Ellen Whyte would produce...


Honk! If You're Malaysian and Do You Wear Suspenders? is now available as e-books at MPH Digital. Sales for the former has reached 20,000 and it has been released with a new cover.

Putting Adibah Amin, Lydia Teh and Ellen Whyte in the same room, however, might be a bit foolhardy.

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Honk! If You're Malaysian

Lydia Teh
MPH Group Publishing (2007)
286 pages
Non-fiction
ISBN: 978-983-3698-12-7

Buy from MPHOnline.com

Do You Wear Suspenders?

The Wordy Tales of Eh Poh Nim

Lydia Teh
MPH Group Publishing (2009)
240 pages
Fiction
ISBN: 978-967-5222-08-5

Buy from MPHOnline.com

Book-Killers Of The Amazon Jungle?

Several years ago, I noted a news report that claimed anti-climate change trolls tried to sabotage sales of a book on climate change using one- or two-star Amazon reviews. I can't remember the details now as I forgot to save the link to the report or the book in question.

But I guess after Hurricane Sandy, a lot more people are thinking, "Come to think of it, our summers have been warmer lately...".

Now, another book is being threatened by an even greater, more insidious force: Michael Jackson fans.

From a 'speed read' of Randall Sullivans' book, Untouchable is largely sympathetic towards the late King of Pop and not nearly as kind to his siblings. The usual advice when it comes to such books is the best: take it with a pinch of salt. Or, as Michiko-san puts it: "Fans of Jackson's talent ... would be way better off viewing that documentary — or YouTube clips of the Motown show — than reading this bloated and thoroughly dispensable book."

But you know how some MJ fans are.

A group of such fans claimed credit for the rush of one-star Amazon reviews of Untouchable, sales of which seem to be buckling under all the negativity thrown its way. Out of the 16,000 copies distributed, only 3,000 were reportedly sold. One of the people behind this campaign said it was a "moral responsibility" to make sure the book tanks.

I'd like to believe that it was more due to the negative reviews by more mainstream voices. A reviewer in the LA Times, for instance, called it "a joyless slog".

...Still, I can't help but compare these guys to the so-called defenders of the US Constitution's Second Amendment. Especially when their actions seem driven by emotion and unfounded assumptions that something they hold dear is being threatened.

"Books used to die by being ignored, but now they can be killed — and perhaps unjustly killed," said Cornell sociologist Trevor Pinch, who studied reviews on Amazon, in The New York Times.

These days, we probably shouldn't expect or assume that objective, hardcore journalism is the sole reason behind the release of celebrity biographies, especially those that revolve around controversial personalities such as Jackson. But what about books that should be read? Books that are written by credible authors quoting unimpeachable sources?

Feelings about a book is part of a review. When a 'review' is mostly feelings or conjecture without the backing of fact or elaboration, it's just opinion, to be taken even more lightly than an 'actual' review.

Far from a show of solidarity for a maligned idol or "moral responsibility" in action, the negative campaign against Sullivan's Untouchable seems to confirm the possibility that the fate of a book - and to an extent, a writer's livelihood - can be determined via remotely directed mob justice.

Certain parties who are not fond of things found in books they don't like, even if it's just a paragraph, line or even a single word can now bury it, perhaps forever, with emotion-fuelled rants and falsehoods spread online by people who believe only what they want to believe.

As if there's not enough trouble already out there that keeps writers and publishers up at night.

So what if Randall Sullivan did get some things right or wrong in that book? How much does that matter now? Jackson's gone. One might not be able to libel the dead, but for Sullivan's career to be threatened or possibly ended by an angry virtual mob is also an injustice itself.

If the worst happens, will anyone claim 'moral responsibility' for the death of a writer's career?

Amazon can look away and pray this mess away, but if it's serious about making the product comments section a viable feedback tool, it needs to find ways to keep the trolls out. Too many comment threads out there resemble the insides of a chamber pot, and it won't be too long before Amazon's will be equally useless.

After all, wasn't Amazon set up to sell stuff in the first place?

News: Some Author Updates, Books and Obscure Punctuation

So Imran Ahmad spoke about his book yesterday at MPH 1Utama, and it was all right, even though lack of space limited the amount of seats. Some signed copies of the book should still be available at the outlet.

The 'perfect gent' holds court at MPH, 1Utama. And no,
this blog has not become "The Imran Ahmad Show".

And dear G*d, he's lost weight. 30lbs, I was told.

The Readings @ Seksan's event celebrates its eighth birthday this weekend on 26 January, from 3:30pm to 6pm. Writers scheduled to appear include Imran, Marina Mahathir and Eeleen Lee, with Bluetoffee Press editor and New Village zine publisher See Tshiung Han as the emcee.

Also: Boey Cheeming's When I Was A Kid is on its fifth reprint. Sales may soon reach - if not pass - the 10,000 mark.

Elsewhere:

• German publisher gets flak for cutting racist terms from classic children's book.
• Dear Abby ... RIP.
• Some reasons why print books will never die.
• Is there any pleasure in reading "repulsive" writers? And can chick lit be bad for your health?
• "To Lord Byron, from the author." An autographed copy of the original Frankenstein emerges from the past.
• Some juicy bits from Lawrence Wright's Scientology exposé Going Clear. Apparently, "the secrets" came to L Ron Hubbard while he was under anaethesia during dental surgery - if only half of us were as lucky.
• Imagine that: Facebook updates are more "mind-ready" than polished prose. Does this explain the slow death of literature?
• "In the English-speaking world, punning is viewed as more of a tic than a trick, a pathological condition whose sufferers are classed as 'compulsive', 'inveterate' and 'unable to help themselves'." Are puns that bad?
• Too good not to share: links to free e-book formatting and marketing guides, including the user manual for e-book conversion tool Calibre. And turn a blog into an e-blook with the Ebook Glue webapp.
• What do book editors want in 2013? More non-fiction, from the looks of it. Will it be bad years for fiction from here on?
• Eleven common words we're probably mispronouncing. For me, that's more than half the list and, goodness, "boatswain" equals "bo'sun"! Can we have, like, eleven more?
• Two spaces after a fullstop? Wrong, wrong, wrong. I think this has been posted on Slate before. And by golly, I didn't know there were these obscure punctuation marks for doubt, irony, authority and sarcasm.