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WEEKEND BUTLER: Learning to love paddling out. A short summer novel. A really funny movie. The power of one song. Carrot soup.
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Published: Mar 21, 2024
Category:
Weekend
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THIS WEEK IN BUTLER: Holiday Ham and Lamb. Guest Butler Tom Fels. Michael Clayton.
THE WEEK THAT WAS: You turned away, wishing for a peaceful, private moment, but Reality was unavoidable. Butler strives for balance. Hang in. You’ll find a short, summery novel below. A movie that’s stupid/wise funny. And a toothsome recipe.
THIS WEEK’S LESSON: LEARNING TO LOVE PADDLING OUT
We’re fond of surfing in this establishment. My stepson is sufficiently hard-core to surf off Long Island in January; he’s the one who got me interested in surfing. Not that I actually surf. I fall into the spectator category, especially when it comes to “Riding Giants,” a film that shows the masters confronting 30-foot waves. I see these big wave surfers as fearless Bodhisattvas: “They’ve merged with nature, it’s like they’ve already died.” I’m less eloquent. I simply cannot grok that Laird Hamilton can put his hand against a zillion pounds of water as high as a New York brownstone as casually as if he were resting it on his wife’s ass.
“Saltwater Buddha: A Surfer’s Quest to Find Zen on the Sea” is a book that had to happen. Jaimal Yogis, who learned to surf from his father, hit puberty in Sacramento and freaked out. He was hanging out with rich, bored kids, and they got into rich, bored, First World trouble: drugs, vandalism, driving drunk, probation. Eventually Jaimal decided he’d had enough, and, like the young Siddhartha, left home to see what the real world offered. With a few differences: he “borrowed” $900 from his mother’s credit card and flew to Hawaii to become a surfer. Luckily for him — and us — he’s sincere and charming. You like him. You want it to work out for him.
Yogis returned home, but he’d seen enough of surfing and water to make a connection that many others have noted. Here’s Thich Nhat Hahn:
My ground of being is the reality of no birth, no death. No coming, no going. It is like water is the ground of being of a wave. The wave might be afraid of being or non-being. But if she knows that she is water, she will lose all her fear. Nothing is born…nothing dies. Birth and death cannot really touch us. If you know that, you will be able to enjoy every second of your daily life — even if you are in terminal illness.
Yogis dives into Buddhism. The reading. Sitting. The monastery life, at Thich Nhat Hanh’s retreat in France, in India, in California. He lives simply; drugs and alcohol fall away. He gains some wisdom. He becomes artful as a surfer. He gets — bet you didn’t see this coming — a master’s degree in Journalism from Columbia University. [To buy the paperback of “Saltwater Buddha” from Amazon, click here. For the Kindle download, click here.]
The joy of “Saltwalter Buddha” is its lightness. There are great surfer stories and great Buddhism stories. There are false starts and unexpected breakthroughs. There is charm and wit to spare. And when it comes to wisdom, Yogis heads right for the big stuff. Like this:
On this particular day, the waves were like endless frothy barricades. I’d been paddling for twenty minutes and I still wasn’t outside. I pushed and pumped and heaved and whined. The sea punched and kicked and jammed sand down my throat. And in the midst of this abuse, I realized how much I loved surfing.
I loved the actual riding of the wave, of course. But I also loved the challenge of the paddle.
It wasn’t always like that. And maybe I was just happy to be back in the water after living in India for months. Or maybe my mind was more accepting after hanging with all the ultra-happy Tibetan monks. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized every surfer has to like paddling, at least a little.
This was because extremely little of each surf session is spent actually standing up on your surfboard on a wave — maybe one percent — so if you’re looking to have a good time it’s essential to find a way to enjoy paddling, or at least good naturedly bear it. And in that way, I thought surfing is kind of a good metaphor of the rest of life.
The extremely good stuff — chocolate and great sex and weddings and hilarious jokes — fills about a minute portion of an adult lifespan.
I’m a famously slow learner. Paddling out is the lesson I’m struggling with. Interim report: getting there.
GUITAR GOD
The power of one song, “Going Home,” by Mark Knopfler. The theme of “Local Hero.” An all-star benefit for Teenage Cancer Trust and Teen Cancer America. Tears and cheers: guaranteed.
“FOUR DIED TRYING”
From the director: “Our new film series weaves together the courageous lives and catastrophic deaths of John Kennedy, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., and Robert Kennedy with bracing honesty and unprecedented access to over 120 colleagues, family, friends, and even enemies of the fallen leaders. If you haven’t seen it, you can get it now on Amazon. Chapter One, the next segment of the series, is now available exclusively on Patreon. Entitled “The World as It Was,” this chapter focuses on the post-war America of the Red Scare from which our four leaders emerge. By supporting FourDiedTryingFilm on Patreon, you’ll help us complete our historic documentary series — and free the history that rightfully belongs to all of us.”
FUNNY AS “MY COUSIN VINNY”
The movie is “The Castle.” Darryl Kerrigan and his family are good-hearted, if not overly bright, and we know this immediately because their house, which was built on toxic landfill, is just a chain-link fence from the landing strip of a large airport. All is joy until a man knocks on the door to deliver an order: a “compulsory acquisition” with a buyout price of $70,000. Darryl decides to fight back. Watch the trailer, rent the stream.
A SHORT SUMMER NOVEL
“I had a strong desire to write and some free time,” Françoise Sagan recalled. “And in two or three months, working two or three hours a day, I was done.” Bonjour Tristesse was an instant best-seller in France in 1954. Not bad for an 18-year-old first-time novelist.
WEEKEND RECIPE: CARROT SOUP
It’s cold. And the cold will stick around.
Yield: Serves 6
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
2 pounds sweet carrots, peeled and thinly sliced
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
Freshly ground pepper to taste
¼ teaspoon sugar
2 quarts water, chicken stock, or vegetable stock
6 tablespoons rice, preferably Arborio
2 tablespoons chopped fresh herbs, such as chervil, mint, chives, or parsley, for garnish
1 cup toasted croutons for garnish (optional)
Preparation
Heat the butter and olive oil in a large, heavy soup pot over medium-low heat and add the onion. Cook, stirring, until tender, about 5 minutes. Add the carrots and ½ teaspoon salt, cover partially and cook for another 10 minutes, stirring often, until the vegetables are tender and fragrant. Add the rice, water or stock, salt (about 1½ teaspoons), and sugar. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat, cover and simmer 30 minutes, or until the carrots are tender and the soup is fragrant.
Blend the soup either with a hand blender, in batches in a blender (cover the top with a towel and hold it down to avoid hot splashes), or through a food mill fitted with the fine blade. The rice should no longer be recognizable (it thickens the soup). Return to the pot. Stir and taste. Adjust salt, add a generous amount of freshly ground pepper, and heat through. If the sweetness of the carrots needs a boost, add another pinch of sugar.
Serve, garnishing each bowl with croutons and a sprinkle of herbs.
Variation: Substitute 1 medium Yukon gold potato or ½ russet potato (about 5 ounces), peeled and diced, for the rice.
Advance preparation: The soup can be made hours before serving, or a day ahead, and reheated.
