For the longest time, I've been fascinated by the Basques, the non-Indo-European people living among the western Pyrenees, in the border region between France and Spain. They've lived in Europe longer than anyone else and their language is pretty nigh unclassifiable. The Basque country, or Euskal Herria in Euskadi, ties with Wales as the part of Europe I most want to visit (as opposed to cities, where London and Rome still hold preeminence). I was scarcely deterred by watching a strange BBC documentary from the mid-50s hosted by Orson Welles. Welles, of course, is one of my heroes, and this period, even with Mr. Arkadin and Touch of Evil, is supposed to be a low point in his career. You wouldn't be able to tell, though, as he swans about the mountains doing whatever he damn well pleases and gets paid for it into the bargain (one would imagine, anyway). It's a treat watching people turn to drink in their interviews with him just to get a word in edgewise.* Back to the Basques, their food is held by many critics to be the height of Spanish cuisine. Much of it involves seafood, as the Basques have been making a living off the Atlantic for centuries and probably knew about America before Columbus (likely from the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, one of the world's great historic fishing grounds). There's one recipe in particular that I've long been meaning to try.

Marmitako (Tuna and Potato Stew)

1/2 cup olive oil, 2 large onions, sliced or chopped, 4 medium Anaheim chiles, seeded and thinly sliced, 2 bay leaves, 8 garlic cloves, thinly sliced.

Warm olive oil in stockpot over high heat. Add onions, chiles, bay leaves and garlic, and saute for 10 mins.

2 lbs. Yukon Gold potatoes, quartered, 1 cup dry white wine, 3 cups veggie stock, 6-8 saffron threads.

Add potatoes, stock, wine and saffron. Bring to boil, cover and reduce heat to minimum.

1 tbsp kosher salt, 1/2 tsp pepper, 1 mild dried chile pepper.

Add salt, pepper, and dried chile; cook until potatoes are tender (approx. 15 mins.).

2 tsp olive oil, 2 lbs. yellowfin tuna fillets, cut into 1 1/2 in. cubes, 3 tbsp chopped parsley.

Warm remaining 2 tsp olive oil in large saute pan over high heat. Add tuna and saute for 2 mins. until lightly browned. Transfer tuna to stockpot with potatoes; continue to cook about 8-10 mins. Stir only occasionally on account of fish. Season with salt and pepper to taste and discard bay leaves.

Yes, "simple," hearty "fisherman's stew," which appears to be the Basque equivalent of bouillabasse. To me, it seemed the height of gourmet dining. So many of these recipes looked delicious (I got this one from Gerald and Cameron Hirigoyen's The Basque Kitchen), but I wanted a soup to try, and this one turned out fantastic, my favorite yet. I had to make a few subsitutions; I probably could have bought saffron threads from Whole Foods, but the transportation issues didn't seem worth it. Having a few green peppers on hand, I switched those for the Anaheims and compensated with a couple of jalapenos. I used dried parsley (a lot less, as dried herbs are usually stronger than fresh) and found I had no veggie stock, so I decided to use one cup chicken stock and two cups water, just to make sure it didn't overpower the flavor. I probably should have processed the chili pepper (it was an ancho; I didn't want it too strong and they didn't have any guajillos besides), but wound up simply doing a julienne and dumping it in there; I don't think it was that big of a deal. Browning the tuna was a surprisingly sensual experience. I love seafood, and love cooking it almost as much. Add to that the piquant taste of the peppers and spices, and the extra tang of the wine (I'm not sure they had sauvignon blanc in mind, but that was all I had, so there), and you have a very delicious soup. I was pretty damn proud of myself, to be honest.

Susan Faludi, Stiffed: The Betrayal of the American Man (1999): When I was in high school, I read Faludi's Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women (1991). I wasn't supposed to do so, as it had nothing to do with any of my classes, but you know how it is (I got a 4.0 anyway). I came away mighty impressed with the mix of theoretical anmalysis and direct reportage that Faludi brought to her examination of the hissyfit a lot of guys threw around that time at the alleged despotism of "feminazis" and their ilk. She was particularly good on the media, eviscerating thirtysomething's not-so-subtle tumescence for the imaginary fifties and looking at the bizarre reactions Roseanne (while living on Spring Street a few years ago, I caught up on a few reruns and don't think I'd ever realized how good it was) provoked for its honest and feminist portrayal of American working-class life. I'd been meaning to read Stiffed for a while and had just never gotten around to it. Faludi's recent The Terror Dream, about the official manipulation of masculinity and popular culture since 9/11, has just come out, and the reminder of her existence spurred me to get in gear and read Stiffed (among other things, so I could read The Terror Dream, as they seem to comprise a trilogy of sorts). One of the reasons I enjoy reading, say, Bitch magazine is that it demonstrates feminism to be a universal; if, as the bumper sticker says, "women are people," then it follows that men are people, too, something just as easily ignored in patriarchal culture. Faludi looks at how the alleged winners are just as deprived under the existing system, one that prizes winning above all and an almost sociopathic veneration for the individual, drawing on a host of cases from American cultural and economic life during the post-Vietnam era. Her core thesis--that a brief progressive moment of collective identity in the immediate post-World War II era was usurped by a triumphalist imperialism that not only got the country into Vietnam but also the problems of its aftermath--I've found echoed in other works, from Gore Vidal's essays to Fred Inglis' impassioned, Anglocentric history of the Cold War, The Cruel Peace (1992). Faludi focuses primarily on the changing nature of fatherhood, and how many men felt they had to live up to paternal examples that simply didn't exist in real life. Most of her stories come from that new heartland, Southern California, many in turn revolving around the McDonnell-Douglas defense industrial complex. Her most gripping tale comes from Michael Bernhardt, the Vietnam veteran who, with fellow vet Ron Ridenhour, blew the whistle on My Lai. On the cultural front, she has a very illuminating series of discussions with Sylvester Stallone, both on the mythmaking nature of the Rambo movies and his own status as a male role model of sorts, and undertakes a fascinating exploration of how the porn industry devalues men as well as women. The latter section demonstrates why I enjoy Faludi so much as a writer, probably because her background's in journalism and not academia. She can engage in a deep, scholarly "interrogation" of the fin-de-siecle male malaise and then provide this image:

A few weeks after the [porno] incident, [Ron Jeremy] invited me to his apartment to watch a videotape of a Beavis and Butt-head segment in which they sniggered endlessly about Jeremy's paunch. "Isn't this great?" Jeremy crowed, as he sat on the floor before his wide-screen TV, devouring an entire platter of bagels, lox, and cream cheese, which was supposed to be brunch for three. "I don't care what they say about me," Jeremy said cheerfully, as he snaked his tongue along the empty bottom of the deli cream-cheese container, "as long as they spell my name right." (546)**

*If you ever run across it, though, it's great fun, both entertaining and fascinating (mostly entertaining) as he jovially bullies the wan young son of an expatriate American food writer, smokes a cigar while speaking on-camera during a pelota match (Basque stickball, commonly known as jai-alai), and basically turns into a five-year-old whenever anyone shoots off fireworks.

**Probably just as well, then.