Karen Tripson's Blog

Copenhagen is terrific. It’s easy to walk around but watch the bike lanes! Public transportation is excellent or rent a bike. The city is so quiet with very few cars but so many bicycles and the people speak quietly amongst themselves. Most of the buildings are old, brick or stone surfaced and 4 or 5 stories tall which feels nice compared to skyscrapers. Sometimes the adventure was finding the place. Maybe it once had a street number or name, but behind this door was a famous craft cocktail bar worth the effort to locate it. Sometimes only google can help you.

The weather was cloudy, windy, rainy and sunny—just like Seattle. Copenhagen exceeded my expectations. It's lovely with water everywhere and lush with trees and landscaping. The food, the people, the atmosphere. It's so clean—the sidewalks, the streets. No homeless. No fentanyl. Socialism creates a wholesome sidewalk scene.

Noticeable on the street to me was how many girls and women are taller than I am. I’d say six feet is common. A few people spoke Danish to me. I smiled and said thank you in English. Click on any photo to zoom in and then you can use the arrow to go backwards or forward to see them all enlarged.

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Copenhagen has many so attractions. If you plan to visit make your list and check it three times and be willing to be flexible because there is always something fascinating around the corner you didn’t know about that you must investigate.

Old Canals and Hidden Gems Social Boat Tour

This was a very fun three hour activity and good to do at the beginning of the trip to get an overview of Copenhagen. The boat was speedy and comfortable for about eight people, with water, beer and wine on board. Our Captain Nikolai was an around the world competitive sailor, charming and showed us not only the canals through various residential neighborhoods but also the port. He took us ashore on an island where the Germans had a camp and offices during WWII. He pointed out the commercial buildings and architecture of note. He was knowledgeable about the history of the city and government projects we would never have learned about any other way such as the plant where they burn garbage to create electricity to be sold. He successfully encouraged everyone to participate in the conversation.

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Modern Architecture and Design

Design of every aspect of life is a passion and an industry here. If you’re interested, don’t miss The Danish Architecture Center, The Danish Design Center, The Black Diamond (library and museum), The Royal Danish Playhouse and The National Aquarium.   

Danish Castles Abound

I enjoy looking around a castle. The Danish seemed to have had quite a building program all over the country. Many of them burned, several times, and were rebuilt. The invention of bricks for building was a huge advancement. One castle we enjoyed in Copenhagen is the Rosenborg Castle which is close to a number of top attractions in the city center. It’s got jewels, fancy furniture, art, racy royal history and a large public park surrounding it.

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Random Cuisine Experiences

Restaurants

My observation is the food is quite good in Denmark. High quality ingredients and expert execution were typical. Many cuisines are represented in the city. The service was consistently pleasant. No tipping is necessary anywhere! Here are a few venues that were enjoyable that I also have decent photos to share.

My first outing after a long walk was a rustic craft cocktail bar, Lidkoeb in the Vesterbro neighborhood. Dinner in an old school restaurant, Frk. Barners Kaelder, with local specialties was a treat beginning with watching everyone come in the door and be welcomed by name. The server insisted I ordered a fish, plaice, because I’ve never had it. I liked it so much I ordered it again and again. A sweet, white flat fish, it is the most commonly eaten fish all over Denmark but also popular in Scandinavia and Europe.

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At Maple Casual we shared an order of sticky ribs that many cuisines would be proud of, including the southern United States. They were served with brown paper rolls which I thought would be hand towels. Turned out to be black plastic gloves so you wouldn’t need any cleaning wipes. That’s Danish ingenuity. The ribs were fabulous. The owners are Canadian and found frequent uses for maple syrup. Mussels were on the menu everywhere and typically big and juicy with creative sauces. One night they were served in a coconut chili garlic sauce which will be easy to make at home (coconut milk and sriracha were the key ingredients). Sorbets appeared on many menus and were unusual flavors of fruits and herbs. An Asian inspired salmon with ginger, yozu and sesame at Bloom was particularly great. No false moves here. The quality of everything was amazing all day long.

Hot Dogs

Danes love hot dogs! There are several varieties of meats, beef, pork, goat, vegetarian and styles, meaning different garnishes. There are a few famous places to purchase this local icon. I asked our captain for his favorite spot which was by the Round Tower an easy location for us in the central area. I ordered the #1 all beef all the way. It was good but not over the top. The servers were adorable. I wish we’d had time to try several more locations but eating four or five times a day is something I just can’t do anymore. I’m sure you understand.

Open Face Sandwiches (Smørrebrød)

This is a specialty of the country served all day and night everywhere with some well-known simple combinations as well as creative variations. My absolute favorite was called the Shooting Star: 5 fishes, roe, mayo, lettuces. Egg salad with roe and tomato was tasty to me as well tuna with watercress.

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The Baking Class in Copenhagen

I took a baking class because that was what was available during my visit and I learned the how to on sourdough rolls, cardamom buns and cinnamon twists. Although each one of these was tasty, I am not baker and they are quite a bit of effort. We’re talking about working with yeast, kneading, rolling, shaping and glazing. So none of these recipes are likely to be recreated at my house. They won't be in my new book either, Cooking Class #5, but Denmark will be!

I enjoyed the two women I was grouped with to share the steps in the three recipes. Lucky for me they were both experienced bakers, passionate and I became the videographer. The end results were eaten together at a big table. I give high marks to the CPH Cooking School who offers this and other classes. Their facility is modern and well organized. The teacher was patient and clearly a professional baker.

The Danish bake a lot of breads I couldn’t name, even after eating them. It’s so fresh it’s never offered toasted. It seems there are bakeries on every block selling pastries, chocolate croissants, cookies and cakes. When I entertain with a Danish menu I will purchase what I need from one of the several Danish bakeries near me in Seattle.

Museums

Museum of Danish Resistance

Touring this museum was a harrowing descent into loosing freedoms similar to what’s happening today in the USA. The story was told by five characters over the five years of the occupation who played different roles in the resistance including one who joined the Nazi party the day the Germans invaded. The capture of Denmark took about six hours. The scenes and the multimedia presentation tools telling the personal stories over the years of occupation were well done. For example, a small sailboat was part of a coastal scene at night where 20 people would squeeze in for the journey. The captain of our tour boat said his grandfather had been part of the resistance and sailed Jews to safety.

Louisiana Museum of Modern Art

Although not really in Copenhagen, it is an easy train ride about an hour north of the city and close enough to the Karen Blixen Museum to visit both in one day. (The train network is clean, efficient and appears to be always on time.) This collection is considered to be the premiere art destination in Denmark. There are many museums in Denmark. This was my favorite museum for its sculptures that were mainly outdoors. The founder, Knudsen Jensen, in 1958, invited the artists to the property to select a spot they would like for a piece of theirs. Several artists such as Alberto Giacometti, Max Ernst and Henry Moore did several pieces. Joyful would be one of my initial reactions. The founder said he was lucky he didn’t have to buy a Water Lillies from Monet because one came with his property. I think Giacometti chose to have this statue placed in front of the natural water lilies. Although about 4000 pieces of the collection are displayed inside in some rotation, at the time of my visit, there were three artists with special exhibitions so I saw none of the regular collection. Here are a few of my favorite sculptures at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art.

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Karen Blixen Museum

As a fan of the stories of Isak Dinesen, her memoir Out of Africa and the film based on it, I loved the experience of being in her Danish world. A terrace overlooking the garden is served by a sweet cafe with traditional pastries and sandwiches. The house is maintained as it was when she died 30 years after she returned from her African coffee plantation. She graduated from the Royal Academy of Art in Copenhagen before she went to Africa and the drawing of the male torso was her graduation exercise. The African portraits are hers also. If you zoom in you should be able to read the translations about those people.

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In the sitting room there were two things of Denys Finch Hatton, a caned chair and his gramophone. The view from her bedroom window is the sea and I’m sorry there is no space to show the room,. The Menus on the kitchen wall are from Dinesen’s story Babette’s Feast based on the cooking of her personal chef and the film by Gabriel Axel 1987. Her love of entertaining is documented in the museum. She did so frequently and considered it an art form. Like my hero, Mrs. Dalloway, she always did the flowers—but she didn’t have to buy them—she got hers from her large garden. She’s buried on the property and many visitors leave mementos.

For the food enthusiasts and lovers of the movie Babette’s Feast, I worked on translating the menu one word at time not too hard for turtle soup and blinis with caviar. I hit the jackpot on the entrée with a complete translation from the New York Times Recipe Box done by Molly O’Neill November 17, 1997. The firewall makes a link useless but if you want it, let me know and I’ll send you copy of her article “Food: Eye Candy and the recipe. I loved refreshing my memory on what Babette spent her windfall money on: Quails stuffed with foie gras and truffles (roasted and served in a puff pastry nest with a pan sauce of wine, chicken stock, demi glace and figs).

I loved Copenhagen and plan to return. The next time I write you I’ll tell you about the wonderful Danish cities outside of Copenhagen, Odense, Kolding and Aarhus.

As a member of the Queen Anne Fortnightly study group for almost ten years I hosted many lunches for 24 ladies, planned quite a few parties and prepared about five presentations on a variety of topics. My favorite was choose a famous person to dine with which became Richard Olney Comes to Dinner at My House in March 2019, a very festive but fictitious event. He was my hero of food writing and living the best life you can. Although an author of several great cookbooks, he is probably most known for the Time Life series, The Good Cook Techniques and Recipes with 28 volumes of clear instructions on how to do everything in the kitchen (published in the US in 1969-70). This series is prized by culinary students and chefs and frequently plagiarized under the misguided sense the recipes are so old no one will notice. The recipes are so distinctive anyone who has read them would notice.

When he visited me for dinner where I made all his favorite things, described in the linked post above, he told me about working on The Good Cook series (very tiring, good money, never doing it again). He described why most don’t make it as professional wine tasters–don’t like spending the day in cold, dusty wine cellars spitting in a bucket 200 times and writing clearly about each of those spits. In his desire to be alone in the hills of Provence to paint, garden and cook, he had no running water or plumbing in his cottage. That still didn’t keep everyone away. He believed his wine cellar and his record collection lured people in to dance all night on his terrace overlooking the olive grove. Richard Olney was beloved by many including me.

Recently I received an extraordinary submission from my website which attracts salesmen of many varieties and a few marriage proposals. I read every one just in case it might be important. This one from an attorney in Providence RI made my heart pound.

“This is, no doubt, an unusual contact submission. My parents and I were friends with a woman in NY who had lived earlier in Britain and often traveled to Paris. In the 50's or early 60s she became friends with Beauford Delaney and with Richard Olney - whom you have written about on this blog. He had no descendants I am aware of. Our friend in NY also had no descendants, and so I inherited her belongings - full of interesting things, even though few have monetary value. One is a painting by Richard Olney. It is nothing special: a small painting of flowers. But it is signed "RO" in the lower right, and has his name written in her handwriting on the back. Now, the question is, whether you are aware of anyone who has collected memorabilia of Richard Olney, and who might be interested in the painting?”

I responded formally and at length with all sorts of ideas about relatives and people like Alice Waters but at the end I said, ME! I just happen to have an unusual collection of art by family and friends that this piece will fit right in and be cherished.

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My new painting of Flowers by R.O. Two photos of Richard Olney at his cottage outside the village of Sollies-Toucas, close to Toulon and 30 minutes from Bandol in Provence. A portrait of James Baldwin by R.O. Part of the famous Good Cook series.

I am now indebted to Joan Sitwell who then took the painting to New York city where she lived on West 60th Street and had it framed by the esteemed House of Heydenryk with offices nearby and is still in business today for the finest museums and others who care about their framing. I will try to learn more about her and her envious lifestyle of the 50s and 60s. From what Richard wrote about his life in Paris then it was extremely lively and fun loving day and night.

I am forever grateful and indebted to the attorney, a noble human being who tracked me down through an internet search to try to find a friend of Richard Olney who would treasure a small painting of flowers. It found a home immediately at my house near the fireplace next to another rural painting where any visitor will see it first and I will study it every night when I sit on my loveseat at the golden hour to chat with my husband about the day.

Now that the Queen Anne Fortnightly papers will be archived at the University of Washington, we will all have more chances of being found by more researchers in the future. Isn’t that exciting?

I am a loyal subscriber for 13 years to Eat Your Books, a cookbook indexing service, or portal to 172,152 cookbooks as of this moment. I have brutally whittled my collection down to 225 which amounts to some 65,000 recipes in my house. When you want to make a lemon tart or Bolognese sauce, where is your recipe? That’s the premise behind the EYB business started in 2010: how to find the recipe you want quickly when you own a ton of books. These days they offer much more of the culinary world and a much more quality search result, particularly for online recipes, than the standard Gx$?&* search.

The most popular author in the EYB collection is Yotam Ottolenghi with three books ranked #1 Plenty, #2 Jerusalem, #3 Simple of the top ten and he has five books in the top ten. Plenty is on 14,530 bookshelves today. Samin Nosrat is the next most popular author and her book Salt, fat, Acid, Heat is on 8,812 bookshelves. Julia Child with about 35 years more in the market place with her one of her big hits, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, is close behind newcomer Nosrat with 8,048 bookshelves.

EYB Top 10 most popular books (by number of members who own them)

Plenty - Yotam Ottolenghi

Jerusalem - Yotam Ottolenghi

Ottolenghi Simple – Yotam Ottolenghi

Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat - Samin Nosrat

Mastering the Art of French Cooking #1– Julia Child, Louisette Bertholle and Simone Beck

Plenty More - Yotam Ottolenghi

Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking – Marcella Hazan

Ottolenghi – The Cookbook – Yotam Ottolenghi

The Silver Palate Cookbook – Julee Rosso and Sheila Lukins

The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science – J. Kenji Lopez-Alt

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My 10 favorite books at EYB from their most popular rankings

Plenty - Yotam Ottolenghi

Jerusalem - Yotam Ottolenghi

Mastering the Art of French Cooking #1 – Julia Childs and Simone Beck

The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science – J. Kenji Lopez-Alt

Dining In:  – Melissa Roman

Dinner: Changing the Game - Melissa Clark

My Paris Kitchen - David Lebovitz

Bistro Cooking – Patricia Wells

Pok Pok: - Ricker and Goode

Dinner in French: - Melissa Clark

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When I sorted my bookshelf by the most popular and reviewed the results, I decided to exclude the books I don’t use now or haven’t used much in my life. A good example is The Silver Palate Cookbook – Julee Rosso and Sheila Lukins. It was wildly popular when I was young in New York. I visited their deli and took out the famous chicken salad for a picnic in Central Park like thousands of others and bought the book. I may have made a few recipes then, if so, I don’t remember what. I own Volume 2 of Mastering the Art of French Cooking but it has not captured my attention. I use Julia Child’s The Way to Cook much more but that doesn’t rank as high with the EYB group.

I continue to cook from all the books on my list, plus many that didn’t make the top ten, like Curaté. I own two more Ottolenghi books than I listed, Plenty More and Simple. I work with each new Ottolenghi book as it comes out but seldom go back to it. That’s his problem with being so prolific and being a newspaper columnist (over 1100 online recipes from the Guardian are available at EYB). He provides so many new things to try all the time without buying a book. As of December 2024 he's given up the weekly Guardian recipe and is going to a quarterly model as well as started a Substack newsletter. I’m happy for his success and think he deserves all the accolades. His food from his books is good. Although I haven’t eaten at any of his places in London because I haven’t visited there in many years, I send people and they report back favorably.

“My favorite recipes from Jerusalem are:
Chicken with Caramelized Onion and Cardamom Rice, Prawns, Scallops and Clams, Root Vegetable Slaw, and Mixed Bean Salad.”

I depend on David Lebovitz whose Substack I subscribe to and think he’s worth every penny, plus he has a brilliant web site with recipes, Paris restaurants and travel trips. Melissa Clark is my favorite NYT food writer with many recipes in my recipe box and I buy her books. I like Alison Roman but she has become an exclusively subscriber business and she charges more than I want to pay. I do miss her cooking videos. I am a huge fan of Kenji Lopez-Alt from the old days at Serious Eats and The Food Lab, is my favorite reference book. His last two books on single subjects (woks and pizza) weren’t of interest to me as I already had them covered and didn’t use them. I enjoy his once a month column in the NYT. I follow all of them on Facebook and Instagram. I have become quite a fan of David Tanis who also publishes a column monthly in the NYT. He is an alumni, like David Lebovitz, of Chez Panisse restaurant in Berkely CA, and is working again with Alice Waters at Lulu restaurant in the Armand Hammer Museum in LA.

Seeing some of the abandoned authors on my list and how I’m moving away from others I once reverred, I felt particularly guilty that I threw Marcella Hazan off the truck as I was devoted several decades ago. To learn why she is so beloved watch the trailer at marcellafilm.com. I own several of her books that are well splattered and spent an afternoon with her and her husband Victor at the Hollywood Farmers Market selling Marcella Cucina. The event was memorable for all the uber cool Angelenos who ignore movie stars but walked by our table pointed at her and said out loud, “Look who that is!” So I have to accept that no one stays on top forever—except it appears that Ottolenghi is showing stamina.

I am a loyal subscriber for 13 years to Eat Your Books, a cookbook indexing service, or portal to 172,152 cookbooks as of this moment. I have brutally whittled my collection down to 225 which amounts to some 65,000 recipes in my house. When you want to make a lemon tart or Bolognese sauce, where should you start looking? That’s the premise behind the EYB business started in 2010: how to find the recipe you want quickly when you own a ton of books. These days they offer much more of the culinary world and a much more quality search result for any recipe than the standard Gx$?&* search.

The most popular author in the EYB collection is Yotam Ottolenghi with three books ranked #1, 2, 3 of the top ten and five books in the top ten. Plenty is on 14,530 bookshelves today. Samin Nosrat is the next most popular author and her book Salt, fat, Acid, Heat is on 8,812 bookshelves. Julia Child with about 35 years in the market place is close behind newcomer Nosrat with 8,048 bookshelves featuring Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

EYB Top 10 most popular books (by number of members who own them)

Plenty - Yotam Ottolenghi

Jerusalem - Yotam Ottolenghi

Ottolenghi Simple – Yotam Ottolenghi

Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat - Samin Nosrat

Mastering the Art of French Cooking #1– Julia Childs and Simone Beck

Plenty More - Yotam Ottolenghi

Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking – Marcella Hazan

Ottolenghi – The Cookbook – Yotam Ottolenghi

The Silver Palate Cookbook – Julee Rosso and Sheila Lukins

The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science – J. Kenji Lopez-Alt

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My 10 favorite books at EYB from their most popular rankings

Plenty- Yotam Ottolenghi

Jerusalem- Yotam Ottolenghi

Mastering the Art of French Cooking #1 – Julia Childs and Simone Beck

The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science– J. Kenji Lopez-Alt

Dining In:  – Melissa Roman

Dinner: Changing the Game - Melissa Clark

My Paris Kitchen -David Lebovitz

Bistro Cooking – Patricia Wells

Pok Pok: - Ricker and Goode

Dinner in French: - Melissa Clark

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When I sorted my bookshelf by the most popular and reviewed the results, I decided to exclud the books I don’t use now or haven’t used much in my life. A good example is The Silver Palate Cookbook – Rosso and Lukins. It was wildly popular when I was young in New York. I visited their deli and took out the famous chicken salad for a picnic in Central Park like thousands of others and bought the book. I may have made a few recipes then, if so, I don’t remember what. I own Volume 2 of Mastering the Art of French Cooking but it has not captured my attention. I use Julia Child’s The Way to Cook much more but that doesn’t rank as high with the EYB group.

I continue to cook from all the books on my list. I own two more Ottolenghi books than I listed, Plenty More and Simple. I work with each new Ottolenghi book as it comes out but seldom go back to it. That’s his problem with being so prolific and being a newspaper columnist. He provides so many new things to try all the time without buying a book. As of December 2024 he's given up the weekly Guardian recipe and is going to a quarterly model as well as started a Substack newsletter. I’m happy for his success and think he deserves all the accolades. His food is good. Although I haven’t eaten at any of his places in London because I haven’t visited there in many years, I send people and they report favorably.

“My favorite recipes from Jerusalem are: Chicken with Caramelized Onion and Cardamom Rice, Prawns, Scallops and Clams, Root Vegetable Slaw, and Mixed Bean Salad.”

— Jerusalem

I depend on David Lebovitz whose Substack I subscribe to and think he’s worth every penny, plus he has a brilliant web site. Melissa Clark is my favorite NYT food writer with many recipes in my recipe box and I buy her books. I like Alison Roman but she has become an exclusively subscriber business and I think she’s over priced. I do miss her videos. Kenji Alt-Lopez’s last two books on single subjects (woks and pizza) weren’t of interest to me as I already had them covered and didn’t use them. I enjoy his once a month column in the NYT. I follow all of them on Facebook and Instagram. I have become quite a fan of David Tanis who also publishes a column monthly in the NYT. He is an alumni, like David Lebovitz, of Chez Panisse in Berkely CA, and is working again with Alice Waters at the Lulu restaurant in the Armand Hammer Museum in LA.

Seeing some of the abandoned authors on my list I felt particularly guilty that I threw Marcella Hazan off the truck as I was devoted several decades ago. I own several of her books that are well splattered and spent an afternoon with her and her husband Victor at the Hollywood Farmers Market selling Marcella Cucina. The event was memorable for all the uber cool Angelenos who ignore movie stars but walked by our table pointed at her and said out loud, “Look who that is!” So I have to accept that no one stays on top forever—except it appears that Ottolenghi is showing stamina.

The first signs of summer at my house! Pok Pok chickens marinating 72 hours in an opulent bath of garlic, lemongrass, ginger, scallions and cilantro. The aroma of the big wood charcoal becoming smoldering ashes. The sound of the rotisserie rotating rhythmically as the chickens go from white to pale gold. The alchemy of the rotisserie is the continuous, gentle heat results in juicy meat in about an hour that never blisters or darkens the skin. The flavor is a mysterious sweet, salty, herbal, southeast Asian that defies further identification. It’s subtle, not spicy, pleasing, everyone loves it, even children eat it without questioning what it is. It’s chicken but it’s special.

I only make it for special people and in this case, a friend who recently bought all four of my novels, read them in order and reported to me the first book had a slow start she struggled with, but once she got past that, she enjoyed the characters and all the stories. Well, that deserves a round of applause and something. What else could I really do to show my appreciation but dinner at my house?

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 The side dishes can be anything you like. I wanted to try a new David Tanis recipe for Spicy Cucumbers With Mint, Scallions and Crushed Peanuts because I loved the taste of the dressing with equal parts toasted sesame oil and fish sauce with lime juice. It didn’t need any chilies for this crowd. To make it more colorful I added Napa cabbage and grated carrots. The fruit salad was just photogenic. I made it up, no recipe needed for honeydew melon, mango and tomatoes. Corn on the cob is always welcome and easy. The Rhubarb Cobbler was also a David Tanis recipe that came out of the oven and on to the table with not one thought of photography. What can I tell you? Everyone loved it with a generous scoop of vanilla ice cream.

The first celebration of the summer was very fun! Lots of laughs. A good time all around the table. I am so appreciative to have friends who read my books and are such good company.

San Diego Highlights

Near San Diego is a fish market I’ve heard about in La Jolla. Place your food order at the counter and one of the fellows will bring it to your table. We were pleased with our choices, Dungeness Crab Salad and a Halibut Sandwich. Take home fresh, fresh fish to cook or gift to a friend. If aroma is your first sign of quality in a fish market, I recommend El Pescador.

The Beau is a newly renovated boutique hotel in the Gaslamp District of San Diego. We stayed three days in the last of the pre-opening phase. There’s a lot to love about this place. I would definitely stay there again. Great location, price and service. My first stop of the morning was the free coffee bar with three flavors of Starbucks at the back of the first floor including outdoor seating. The hotel lobby bar in addition to drinks serves breakfast, lunch and dinner. The breakfast menu worked for me with banana bread and honey butter and a fruit platter or a poached egg dish with Mexican flavors. Get more steps walking along the Embarcadero of San Diego harbor which has many tourist attractions like the Navy aircraft carrier, Midway, The Star of India merchant ship, convention center, hotels, restaurants and activities for kids. The Santa Fe Railroad and Ticket Office is right there too, beckoning me to take a ride somewhere. The best photo opportunity is The Kiss opposite the Midway. I saw wedding parties, dancers and lovers all posing in front of the statue to have their picture taken. Everyone appears to be having fun in San Diego!

Little Italy is nearby and a friend who lives in the area directed us to Nonna. Old fashioned or should I say classic food and atmosphere? Love the photo of the nonnas! Reminded me of the new Netflix movie with Susan Sarandon. I had a wonderful pork shank that fell off the bone and had braised all afternoon flavorful.

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Hard to get reservations at Animae and Mabel’s Gone Fishing were worth the trouble. The food was high level at both, Asian Fusion at Animae and Basque at Mabel’s. Fancy everything at Animae from the green velvet booths and gold light fixtures to the ‘wontons’ that were really fabulous pork and shrimp dumplings. Plain and simple dishes, green butter leaf salad and garlic gnocchi at Mabel’s. The expense of Animae makes it hard to recommend unless you have plenty to spend. Don’t pass up Mabel’s if you are anywhere close by. You know how I feel about Basque cuisine. And French cuisine! The only French we had time for was the Park Bistro, just outside Balboa Park, so it’s easy to plan a meal there before or after getting 10 or 20 thousand steps inside this amazing Olmsted inspired park. Spectacular landscapes, architecture, museums and a Japanese Garden. It’s hard to decide what you don’t have time to see. One dive bar of note for old punk rock fans is the Cherrybomb. When you’re hot and tired or need to do laundry–this is the place. Our visit coincided with the movie Speed being played starring Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reaves. (1994) Just a few minutes refreshes!

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Armchair Travelers: One of My Target Audiences

Love later in life is my genre of romance. Some portion of my readers are bound to be armchair travelers for health or other reasons. Maybe like my character Laurence, the retired Boeing engineer, who never liked traveling to begin with but likes reading about it. I am lucky to be connected to the Laguna Woods crowd because my mother-in-law has been part of the community. I’ve met many people here and know them to be intellectually vigorous and fun loving. My other book presentations have been well received here. I wasn’t surprised at all that more than 20 people wanted to come hear my newest presentation, “How I became an author of four romance novels.” (You may recall this was the most widely attended author event ever at the Women’s University Club in Seattle.) It’s a humorous short version of my writing life and how I structure my novels that I hope to give many more times. They were a wonderful audience. They got all my jokes! Participation in the Q&A was close to 100%. Everyone was complimentary afterwards. I look forward to coming back again. The co-hosts love having company.

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“Love later in life is the genre of romance I write in. All my characters are middle aged or older, smart, successful, fun loving and believe that love matters. Everyone is healthy and wealthy or mostly worry free. Most of them are having great sex and more of it than anyone you ever knew in your life. The ending is always happy or at least hopeful. All these elements are what makes it ROMANCE.
”

— Karen Tripson, The Cooking Class Series

Presentation for the Women’s University Club Feb 12, 2025

The Bee Sting is contemporary Irish literature a popular genre. Our club’s Morning Book Discussion on Fridays, a 75 year institution, is currently featuring contemporary Irish Literature. Is anyone here today participating in that? I have read a few books in this genre and plan to read more. The Bee Sting is a big book, a whopping 650 pages. The size may deter some readers–but if I like it–the size is a promise to me of hours of entertainment. And as I’m sure I have told you before, I give a book 30 pages, sometimes 50 before I give it up. I loved the characters. They are full-fledged human beings I will remember. They are funny, flawed and love each other very much. They care about the world, global warming and the frightening aspects of the financial crisis that began in 2008. They have morals and are all struggling to try to do right in a world that seems to be collapsing around them. I loved reading the words. The language is melodic. One of the author’s particular accomplishments is writing teenage thought and speak. He has demonstrated this talent in several of his books.

What the book is about

Family. Love. Love of children. Moral dilemmas. Teenagers. Romantic love. Marriage. The repercussions of the crash of 2008 throughout the family, the town, the country and the world. When you’ve become used to prosperity how do you cope when you’re poor? It’s about life.

The Characters

The story is told by the four voices of the family. You get to know each character intimately from the sections they narrate. The characters who tell the story are the parents, Dickie Barnes and Imelda Barnes and their two children Cass , 16 and PJ who is 12. The kids begin the story so you learn about them first and about the parents and the situation from their point of view. You will learn the back story from the parents about the previous generations and what their childhoods were like. One thing I didn’t like is the lack of punctuation whenever Imelda is narrating the point of view. You’ve nothing but capital letters to go by to mark the sentences which makes you re-read many sentences to try to follow her narrative. The author considered the lack of punctuation an insight into how her mind worked. Research yielded a reader saying he had returned the book to the bookstore he was so frustrated with the lack of punctuation and to his surprise they refunded his money. That surprised me too as an extremely service oriented bookstore. Imelda’s daughter Cass describes her style of speaking early in the story which helped me be patient with her sections.

“To spend time with her mother was to get a running

commentary on the contents of her mind – an incessant barrage of

thoughts and sub-thoughts and random observations, each in itself

insignificant but cumulatively overwhelming. I must book you in for

electrolysis for that little moustache you’re getting, she’d say; and then

while you were still reeling, Are those tulips or begonias? There’s Marie

Devlin, you know she has no sense of style, none whatsoever. Is that

man an Arab? Who invented chutney, was it Gorbachev? And on, and

on – listening to her was like walking through a blizzard, a storm of

frenzied white nothings that left you snow-blind.”

Cass is a high school senior when the story begins, # 1 in her class and completely involved with her girlfriend Elaine in the way only teenagers can be. They spend every hour then can together, at school, afterwards at one of their houses and then text message, sometimes one word at a time, laughing hilariously until 2 in themorning. They plan to be poets and move to Dublin to go to Trinity college as soon as possible and never return to this small town. They idolize their new teacher who is a poet and create a big problem for her. Cass also contributes to the plot with her collaboration with her father on a Geography project where they calculate how his work, selling cars, contributed to global warming. He was so disturbed he did the math twice and began bicycling to work which Imelda never stops castigating him about. It doesn’t look good for the car dealer to bicycle instead of drive! Everyone in the family but Imelda is concerned about the effects of global warming and the inability to do anything about it on a small or large scale.

Both Cass and PJ are tormented by the kids at school for theloss of jobs and money as the car dealership suffers in the recession. Cass gets in over her head with bad behavior with drinking, Elaine, boys and a mysterious foreign mechanic who looks like trouble even to her inexperienced eyes. In the opening section Cass and Elaine are driving around one town over with said mechanic looking for the house of a man who killed his family and the three of them end up drunk in the bunker that will become a big project of Dickie’s. It may be because of Elaine’s suggestion that he gets a job at her father’s garage. This is an ominous first domino in a chain with the mechanic. Cass suffers horrendously when from time to time Elaine drops her for another friend or talks of having another roommate at college. Everyone in her family suffers when she suffers. PJ keeps a running list of her faults #1 SARCASTIC, #2 DISRESSPECTIFUL TO OTHER FAMILY MEMBERS, #3 NEGATIVE ATTITUDE, # 4 DOESN’T CARE ABOUT ANYONE ELSE’S PROBLEMS.

Another subplot involves Elaine’s father, Big Mike, who continues to buy expensive vacations and clothes for Elaine that Cass isn’t getting anymore. Dickie was once an equally hot shot businessman around town as Mike and then is usurped by him. Dickie’s kids have only photos of ski trips and island vacations instead of actual suntans. Mike becomes a manager at the car dealership as Dickie is demoted by his dad, Maurice. Big Mike is also attracted to Imelda. As you see, it goes on and on and gets worse and worse. P.J. is in the 8th grade and experiencing all the horrors of adolescence and bullies at school. The author shows such skill in developing all the characters but his portrayal of the kids breaks your heart and makes you laugh. Porn on the cell phone costs money so they try to look in a window of a house in a failed subdivision where Big Mike installed his Brazilian housekeeper when his wife became aware he was having an affair with her. PJ and his buddy are trying to film through a window a man they don’t know having sex which makes PJ feel very guilty and he wants to go home. The noise his buddy makes arguing against this alerts the man and they flee in the dark to safety. That was PJ’s first encounter with the foreign mechanic, recognizable because of his black hair and tattoos, possibly Nazi tattoos. That episode was lighthearted compared to PJ being so upset about his parents not getting along and how he’s going to come up with $163 E he needs to pay off his torturers at school. PJ tries to escape troubles at school and his parents bickering playing video games. He’s also making a new friend on online, Ethan, who lives in Dublin and has the newest version of the best video game. PJ is pretty sure running away to Dublin is the only solution to his troubles. Ethan is encouraging him on this plan.

When Dickie was in university he had a life planned that had nothing to do with the town, his family, his father’s car dealership and garage. He was surrounded by intelligent men who loved books and learning. In his third year, he was in love with Willie and enjoying every aspect of the relationship. The dramatic circumstance of his younger brother Frank, the football hero that everyone loved, dying in a car accident, led him in a roundabout way to marry the pregnant, once-fiancé of his brother. His father just can’t cope with Frank’s death and moves to Portugal leaving Dickie with his house and everything else. Although he has no business sense at all, Dickie takes over the dealership. When times were good and people were buying cars, that didn’t matter too much.

Fatherhood, another thing he hadn’t planned on is soon his job. Before he became a father, he imagined the relationship as being like an intensive version of owning a pet. The child, he thought, was essentially passive, a vessel into which you poured your love. On TV hat’s how it looked. Children were silent, dormant; you went into their bedrooms, gazed down at them fondly, drew the blankets over them as they slept. But in life, he discovered, parenthood was like … living with a person. A new person, with strong opinions, strong tastes, arbitrary swings of emotion, all of them addressed at you. You were the passive one: the work of care was primarily to endure, to weather the endless, buffeting storms of unmediated will. I looked up “unmediated.” Technically it means: no intervening persons, agents, conditions. To help us all recognize what I believe is the common complaint of every parent, I’d recast the sentence to say: the work of parenting was primarily to endure the endless storms of irrational emotions from the child with no help from anyone–or the universe. Feel free to try to recast it to suit your experience.

As things deteriorate Dickie devotes himself to working on his bunker in the woods where the family could survive Armageddon. Assisted by Victor, a survivalist, who Imelda hates the sight of, not because he’s freakish looking but because he did such horrible renovation work on their house, there’s an element Don Quixote to this project and the passion in it. PJ also is a participant in the bunker project during the summer months. As PJ tells a friend, Victor is not a dwarf, he has poor posture.

Imelda was the most beautiful girl in four counties as a teenager and 20 years later still turns heads on the street. She was engaged to a football star, from a rich family, dreaming of her escape from a poor and violent household where everyone was brutalized but herself. Her father didn’t want to damage her beauty and the good fortune her marriage would bring him. When her fiancé, Frank is killed in a car accident, she stays grief stricken in Franks bedroom in the dress she wore to the funeral for weeks. She does not want to go back to her father’s house. Dickie consoles her in the middle of the night when she screams and soon they become lovers and pregnant. He asks her to marry him, not knowing what else to do. No one in either family is happy about Imelda marrying Dickie, but the horror of moving back home inspires her to go forward. She has no hint of his sexual preference and has some hope for their future together.

Fast forward 16 years later, the marriage has its frustrations but the 2008 crisis forces her to sell jewelry and clothes on eBay, which is humiliating. This is the beginning of endless arguments with Dickie. Dickie’s father Maurice has arrived and Imelda hopes he’s going to save her, save them all.

What Happens

The action of the story goes back and forth in time sometimes in the same sentence. The plot, takes on cataclysmic forms of nature as in avalanche, landslides, cyclones, earthquakes, that are all disastrous, devastating, shattering to each family member individually. They suffer in ways they can’t believe anyone else is impacted or could appreciate. They all have secrets. For example, Dickie’s father, Maurice, thought by all to be rich, living in Portugal, is coming to town briefly to be honored at a local event and some family members, Imelda and PJ, see him as their salvation. Dickie and Cass do not. Imelda kills herself cleaning the house and getting the kids in new clothes for the event so she can ask Maurice for the money to bail them out. She knows you must look the part to make the sale.

PJ plans to ask him for the money he needs to save himself from being beaten to death by Ears for not paying up the money he thinks he owes him. Cass wants to go to Dublin to look at an apartment with Elaine and is devastated she is not allowed to go. PJ in his new clothes, awaiting Maurice’s arrival, is sent at the last minute to the store to buy a cake. On the way home he is assaulted by the beast Ears who is blackmailing him, dragged down an alley and threatened with a steel bar. PJ arrives home muddy, bruised, new trousers ruined and no cake. Imelda is furious. This is typical.

Cass, so sad about not seeing the apartment in Dublin, drinks about six free martinis at the event honoring Maurice, passes out at the dinner table and is taken by ambulance to the hospital to have her stomach pumped ruining the event. Dickie stays in the hospital with Cass so Imelda can handle Maurice. He knows his father thinks he’s useless.

Within a few days Maurice tells Imelda he’s staying in town for a while as an audit has revealed there is missing money and many customer complaints about missing catalytic converters. This is Imelda’s first glimpse that things are much worse than she thought at the car dealership. She cannot believe anyone would think Dickie is dishonest.

The Obstacles–the Villains

The kids both have challenges that seem overwhelming to them at times and insurmountable to this reader too. The mechanic is a Machiavellian nightmare wherever he goes and whoever he deals with. The reader learns in bits and pieces from his conversation and his tattoos that he is from Poland near a Nazi women’s camp from WWII. He is damaged in ways we don’t learn which doesn’t excuse his lack of morals but gives insight into how he feels free to take or steal anything he can. He is a sexual predator. It turns out the missing money in the dealership bank account was to get the mechanic to leave town. It can always get worse and it does. The mechanic comes back while Maurice is in town after being away for months to extort a second time as his girlfriend is pregnant. You may recall his girlfriend is the Brazilian housekeeper that was originally Big Mike’s employee and girlfriend who was kept in the house in the failed subdivision that PJ and his buddy liked peeping through the window. This mechanic is now a much more serious moral dilemma for Dickie and Big Mike as the story comes to a climax. Big Mike has also become a dilemma for Imelda. His long time desire for her has finally yielded an emotional return from her but adultery is a mortal sin! She must talk about with Dickie about this.

PJ’s runaway to Dublin hits a hard stop at Cass’s apartment where she and Elaine are hosting a disastrous party and she refuses to let him stay. Then his friend Ethan is revealed to be a senior citizen pedophile who has tricked him into putting a tracking device onto his phone. Given her poor situation, Cass reconsiders, leaves her party and races around Dublin in the rain looking for PJ and barely rescues him. On this dark and stormy night, they catch an irregular bus from Dublin that will drop them off near the woods by their house, not the town, to try to find Dickie at the Bunker to help them. Imelda also races to find Dickie at the Bunker to explain to him how complicated it is that she wants big Mike. Victor and Dickie are in the Bunker waiting for the mechanic to come for his money which they don’t have and plan to shoot him. Big Mike is also waiting for the mechanic at the house at the subdivision with money and the pregnant girlfriend. It’s a wild night.

What the Critics Say

 

The book was recognized by Irish, UK and American organizations winning several prizes for fiction and was named to many best of the year type reading lists. The New York Times Top 10 Books of the Year,
Winner of the Post Irish Book of the Year, the Nero Gold Prize, and the Nero Book Award for Fiction, Finalist for the Kirkus Prize for Fiction,
One of The New Yorker's Essential Reads of 2023, One of The Washington Post's 10 Best Books of 2023, One of TIME's 10 Best Fiction Books of the Year. Named a Best Book of the Year by NPR, The Guardian, The Economist, New York Public Library, BBC, and more.


There’s an impressive amount of smart people who like this book. Here are three brief excerpts from the smart folks.

 

 
—Jen Doll, The New York Times Book Review “Murray’s writing is pure joy — propulsive, insightful and seeded with hilarious observations . . . Through the Barneses’ countless personal dramas, Murray explores humanity’s endless contradictions: How brutal and beautiful life is. How broken and also full of potential. How endlessly fraught and persistently promising. Whether or not we can ever truly change our course, the hapless Barneses will keep you hoping, even after you turn the novel’s last page.” 


 


—The Washington Post (Ten Best Books of 2023) “Murray is a fantastically witty and empathetic writer, and he dazzles by somehow bringing the great sprawling randomness of life to glamorously choreographed climaxes. He is essentially interested in the moral conflicts of our lives, and he handles his characters and their failings with heartbreaking tenderness.”




—Justine Jordan, The Guardian “Murray is exploring the way families can always sense the emotional temperature, even if they don’t know where the fire is coming from. He is brilliant on fathers and sons, sibling rivalry, grief, self-sabotage and self-denial, as well as the terrible weakness humans have for magical thinking, not least in regard to the climate crisis. He can also create a laugh-out-loud moment . . . You won’t read a sadder, truer, funnier novel this year.” 


The Author, Paul Murphy

He began his publishing career with ‘An Evening of Long Goodbyes,’ while studying for a MA in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia. It was shortlisted for the Whitbread First Novel Award and nominated for Kerry Group Irish Fiction Award. This is a story of a teenager and all that implies. His second book, ‘Skippy Dies’ about teenagers and college boys was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. His third book, ‘The Mark and the Void’ was the joint winner of the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize and was named one of Time’s Top 10 Fiction Books of the Year. This book concerns the financial markets and a swindler with no morals whatsoever. Paul Murphy has received a great deal of attention from the beginning of his career. I think it’s well deserved.

The Rewards of Reading this Book

The great recession of 2008 isn’t that long ago. If the world should have the misfortune to experience another, we’ll all have better coping skills, right? If The Bee Sting is your cup of tea you’ll have days of unique entertainment ahead of you. Listeners will receive an estimated 26 hours. You will add some new characters to your list of those you won’t ever forget.

It has been a pleasure talking to you about all these things I care about. The books, the reading experience, the characters and the authors who bring us such pain and pleasure. Thanks for coming today.

It is a thrill for me to be here today. It’s not that often I’m encouraged to talk on and on about my favorite subjects–me and my books. In some ways it seems a long way here to this day and in other ways, wow, it’s so fast it makes my head spin. One minute I was an English Major in my Brooks Brothers suit beginning my new starter job in New York at a fancy Wall Street firm. Now I’ve written four novels!

I was living with my sister in NJ, when I found my dream apartment about two months after I got my job. The next day at work I told my boss, “When the guy calls you, tell him I make 75 grand, okay?” He looked at me with his mouth open, “Is that wise?” he says, knowing he is paying me 20. I say, “Oh, yes, it’s a 1-bedroom with a fireplace. I can walk to work!” I called my mom so excited. “It’s in the theatre district.” She says, “What’s the address?” I say, “It’s on 38th between 9th and 10th Avenue.” “That sounds like Hell’s Kitchen to me.” “Mom, you’re in Florida! It’s quite close to the theatres.” Of course, I didn’t mention how close either to the Port Authority Bus Terminal, but she probably would have known about that too. I always thank my mom for sending me out equipped to conquer with a copy of The Joy of Cooking and a subscription to Gourmet Magazine.

From these humble beginnings all sorts of jobs, topics and companies developed. Decades went by. My obsession with food took over my life and writing. I won’t go into any details in this space but suffice to say I got lots of laughs and excellent questions afterwards. It was a memorable day.

A Few of The Concepts Behind the Cooking Class Series

The Cooking Class in the titles was chosen by me because it is a theme throughout each book. Even if the class is a half a day in real time, it is much discussed throughout the book. A few of the books have recipes. The characters (and the readers) learn about the cuisine because of the class and if possible, Amy will have a party and cook the recipes for everyone. The second reason is that as a traveler myself, I find it’s a pleasant calendar item. Typically in someone’s home, you can sit down, eat and drink. It’s refreshing to add another activity to your list of walking tours. museums, castles or historic sites. The teachers are usually charming and sometimes you meet fascinating people. Often they want to take you shopping which can be interesting. I always think I learn something new in the way of technique or spice combination or local beverage. The class is another way of adding to your knowledge of the culture of the country.

Despite the international destinations in the titles and covers which I think are important to branding, all my books are set in Seattle and in several neighborhoods. Amy, Kevin, Laurence and Eva live in Queen Anne. Drew lives in Belltown, his art gallery is in Sodo. Local streets, buses, bars and restaurants are referred to.

The Cooking Class in Kuala Lumpur employs a dinner party as the structure of the novel, a common device. You may immediately think of Mrs. Dalloway, or Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? The Dead by James Joyce, and a new entrant to the dinner model, The Party by Elizabeth Day (2017). She is also Irish, like Joyce, but her story takes places in Britain. I chose that structure because I love dinner parties. There is a dinner party in every book of mine.

Love later in life is the genre of romance I write in. All my characters are middle aged or older, smart, successful, fun loving and believe that love matters. Amy drives the food themes and many of the travel themes. She’s the one who is always worried about aging! The characters cook, dine, romance and most travel the world. A few characters don’t like to travel. A few characters are not as fascinated with food as the others. They are all friends and live in Seattle. They are a good group to spend time with. If you are an armchair traveler, this might be as good as it gets for adventure on the road with culture, food, wine and sex.

The Cooking Class in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence (#4)

The Cooking Class in Budapest (#3)

The Cooking Class in San Sebastian (#2)

The Cooking Class in Kuala Lumpur (#1)

Buy the books at Amazon.

I’ve been invited to talk at the Seattle Women’s University Club about my favorite subject: me and my new novel! How great is that!?! I hope you will attend. But if you can’t—there will be a report with photos afterwards.

Seattle Womens University Club

A dear friend and fan of my Cooking Class Series enjoyed a marvelous three-week vacation in Scandinavia (Norway, Denmark and Sweden). I have never been and always wanted to go. She easily transferred her photos from the trip to a wide screen TV! It was exciting to see the cities, the fjords, ferries and cafes in giant size. She completed my vicarious experience with a multi-course dinner—just like my character Amy always does! (Double click on the photos to zoom in and see as a slideshow.)

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Creating a paper menu as a souvenir is a nice touch. The appetizer—(Valnotter og ost)—was a unique combination to me of a green grape, a blue-ish cheese and a walnut. I loved the crunchy, creamy and medium firm textures and the nutty, rich and sweet flavors. Salty, crisp potato chips are an indulgence I adore. The perfect petite beverage to accompany the mouth feel and taste sensations was an Icelandic vodka with a dry herbal note. I really enjoyed every aspect of the appetizer. Aquavit, which I have little experience with, is traditional accompaniment to Scandinavian food. We tasted these two for a reference, but I am really an oenophile and preferred the OLEMA Loire Valley Sauvignon Blanc.

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Looking minimalist on the menu, Course 1 Smorrebrod (butter bread) was actually maximalist. There were three different versions served on dark Danish rye bread which is dense and square, cuts into four bites, and is always eaten with a knife and fork. The layers begin with a slab of Danish butter, specified to be thick enough to leave your teeth imprints. That’s generous and you can taste the marvelous butter with each bite despite all the accompaniments. Irish butter at my house will now take a back seat to Danish. The first one featured smoked salmon, red onion, cucumber, radish and dill. The second featured lettuce, shrimp, chives and a slice of hard boiled egg and lemon. The third following the custom was cheese with apple, fennel, onion and dill. Each one of the three was pleasing in tastes and textures.

Course 2 Fiskesuppe (Bergen Fish Soup) was more like the fourth course, but I never argue with tradition. We’re learning here how to do it the Scandinavian way. Bergen, Norway is reported to be one of the most beautiful cities in the world. I plan to go someday and look forward to more Fiskesuppe. The fish stock had a delicate splash of cream in it to make a white background but was light, not creamy. The fish of the day in the soup was black cod which is one of my favorites with its silken texture. A little bit of chopped vegetables provided color and al dente bite.

We’ve always got room for dessert, don’t we? The Scandinavian bakery on Nickerson in Queen Anne, Byen Bakeri, supplied the dark bread and the pastries, Apple Lingonberry Tart and Chocolate Whisky Tart. As you see in the photo everyone had a slice of each and a small scoop of vanilla ice cream. What a luxurious finish to an exciting culinary tour of Scandinavia. I was thrilled to be invited, enjoyed every morsel and felt happy that my “love later in life” novels are inspiring great meals to share with friends all about the joy of traveling .

A personal footnote: My Dad’s family was from Denmark and he visited relatives there once in Copenhagen and thoroughly enjoyed himself. He discovered some of his DNA on his first visit to a smorgasbord. He surveyed the opulence of seafood of all varieties and said, “This is what I like to eat! Why don’t we have this at home?”