Six Degrees of Separation – from Kitchen Confidential to The House on East 88th Street

It’s time for #6degrees, inspired by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best. We all start at the same place, add six books, and see where we end up. This month’s starting point is Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain (2000). Before (and during) his book and television career, he was the chef at Brasserie Les Halles, which I went to several times, although never caught a glimpse of him (I didn’t mind; the steak and frites were good). When the book was a huge bestseller, everyone in NYC warned each other not to read it or we’d be afraid to ever eat out again.

Maida's Little Island

On Thursday, Carolynne Lathrop (visiting Betsy-Tacy listren from Iowa, who is also a Maida fan), my mother and I set out to visit Spectacle Island, one of the Boston Harbor Islands, the setting for Maida's Little Island (1939). The island has been expensively restored after 6 million tons of dirt and gravel from Boston's Big Dig were dumped on it, creating an 80 foot mound of trash. A friendly and helpful park ranger drove us to the island's north drumlin, the highest point in Boston's Harbor, where we were 157 feet above sea level (I had not worn appropriate shoes and was delighted to have scored us a ride in the airport-like people mover since the day was hot and the road to the top was long and dusty).

North Drumlin, Spectacle Island

This vista towered over neighboring islands and boasted a view spanning Boston's skyline and the 40 miles between Salem to the north and the Blue Hills Reservation to the south. The island itself was named by early colonists because of its resemblance to a pair of eyeglass spectacles shaped by two hills, with what is called a bridge in the middle. See map.