Hasta La Gadget!

One of the few bright spots of bipartisanship on Capitol Hill of late has been in global development. The House recently passed a bill to support President Clinton’s Power Africa initiative, which is designed to boost access to electricity access across six countries in the region.

Both houses also managed to reauthorize PEPFAR –the President’s Emergency Fund for AIDS Relief– which provides antiretrovirals to nearly seven million people worldwide. The U.S. still ranks near the bottom of the list among rich countries in terms of the generosity of its overseas development program, but these two pieces of legislation at least suggest that altruism and fellow feeling have not completely evaporated in Washington.

The kitchen is just so important to me, to Italy, to almost everyone I know. So, as I am sitting in my Spoleto kitchen looking out at the clouds and rain, I am reviewing my Italian kitchens, some of which have been great and others, not so much…….

For my first four Italian months I had a large, well-equipped kitchen in Florence, in my Piazza Mercato Centrale apartment. The apartment had been in the Palmerini family for a long time, and Signore Palmerini told me that he and his father had grown up there, and that his aunt used to live downstairs. He now lives out of the center of Florence, as many apartment owners do, making economic sense out of owning real estate in a hot real estate market. Since there are so many college students living in Florence for a semester, many of them behaving badly, renting to an ‘adult’ like me is a boon for the landlord in many ways, since I am a responsible tenant. Sr. Palmerini also told me that he wouldn’t rent to students, preferring to keep the apartment empty if necessary, especially because so many of the family possessions, including silver and dishes, are still in the apartment.

So, my Mercato apartment had all of the conveniences, including a microwave and a dishwasher, that I was accustomed to and wanted. I could settle myself at the table near the window or hang the wet laundry on the line outside the window overlooking the courtyard. I had enough pots and pans to cook with, and I made some good meals for myself and friends. Since the great and vast Mercato Centrale was actually next door, I had easy access to wonderful fruits and veggies and meats and chicken and fish and oils and herbs and pasta and all, and I began to have my favorite vendors, some of whom did treat me as a special customer making me feel comfortable, even with our limited conversations. I actually loved the daily ritual I developed of going to the Mercato, choosing and buying only what I really thought I needed for the day.

Thanksgiving with David and Meredith and Mary Ellen and the wonderful college girls from next door was a great time, and I had been able to pre-order a beautiful turkey (which I overcooked, but everyone was too polite and happy to complain) from one of the Mercato vendors, and David and Meredith had brought a package of Pepperidge Farm stuffing all the way from California. We ate in my beautiful dining room, using the kitchen as the prep station and enjoying the Palmerini silverware and dishes. We lacked cranberry sauce and gravy, but had a marvelous time anyhow.

The kitchen window provided sunlight and a view of Italian life in the other windows, and I liked being in that space. The refrigerator was inconveniently located behind the glass door into the room, but somehow that was a minor inconvenience, and I got used to it quickly. All in all, it was a lovely room, and, since it was my first Italian kitchen, it has sort of set a high standard for the rest of my apartment kitchens.

My next Italian kitchen was in Ortigia, Sicily, in Ottavio’s recently renovated truly fabulous and modern apartment overlooking the sea. The room was really large and not really designed for good ‘flow’, but it was great, and, again, I was delighted with all of the modern conveniences (dishwasher, microwave, washer) that were new and worked well. The kitchen had a little balcony overlooking the street below and a wonderful view of the rooftops of Ortigia on one side and another wonderful view through the adjacent living room to the sea. In retrospect, I realize that the kitchen wasn’t a comfy place, though, and I used it for cooking and washing but I never lingered there, preferring to settle in the living/dining room area with a clear view of the sea. I cooked some good meals there, though, with fresh produce and fish from the absolutely wonderful daily farmers’ market and from the even more absolutely wonderful Sunday market (smaller and with the farmers and producers themselves selling — the best place to get fresh ricotta, oranges, artichokes, breads, honey, etc… amazing).

Then I moved to Rome, first to an apartment that I didn’t like, with a kitchen that was functional but felt unclean and grimy; it was a Roman bachelor’s ‘pad’ and it had that aura — I got out of there fast…

Then I ended up with an apartment in Trastevere, at the bottom of the hill (hooray) and with an elevator (hooray again). I believe I was the first tenant; the space was quite lovely, but needed some serious up-dating. The kitchen was a fine room, with space for a small table and stools, but it didn’t invite cooking or lingering, and could have done with a good make-over. It had no dishwasher (again I am surprised how that is important to me, but I think it is more sanitary than the way I wash dishes!) and no microwave (the owner, a strange Italian woman married to a Danish man, told me ‘everyone is too afraid of them.’). The apartment had been intended to be an in-law apartment, and it was pretty spartan and had no remnant of personality of the intended inhabitants, not even anything on the walls. The sunlight did shine in, filling most of the apartment with wonderful light, but the kitchen never really felt great. One of the issues is that the Danish in-laws must have been small people, since everything in the kitchen was really too low for me, making it difficult to use the faucets or the counter (also true in the bathrooms!). My cooked meals were minimal there, but I was only in the apartment for a month, so that was just fine.

Then I went back to Florence for one more month there, to a last-minute rental owned by an ex-pat couple my art history teacher knew. The apartment was up some tough stairs, and was quite quirky in many ways. It was a long and skinny space, with the kitchen at one end. This kitchen became my ‘comfy’ space, since I could sit at the table, using my computer and looking out at the garden and terrace. The living room had no good space for me, because it was without windows and without comfortable chairs, so the kitchen became what I needed. Setting up some kind of personal space is just so vital for me, even when I have to work hard to find it or create it in my Italian apartments; I have moved furniture, rolled up pillows and redirected lamps in search of that ‘sweet spot’ where my body and mind can be comfortable and where I can be plugged into my favorite devices. Sometimes it has taken me a few tries to get it just right, and then, I find, it is usually time to move to another city and another apartment and start all over again. I think being in Italy for a year, wandering around as I have been, is going to be the exactly right amount of time for my ‘adventure’, and I realize that I am yearning for some of my ‘normal’, including my good mattress and some comfy chairs.

After the quirky apartment on my re-visit to Florence, I also re-visited Ortigia for a few weeks. Since Ottavio’s apartment wasn’t available for my whole visit, I did a lot of moving around before I got there. Giuseppina was an incredibly good friend and gracious host, and I stayed in her daughter’s garret room for over a week, using Giuseppina’s lovely and complete kitchen only a few times since I wanted to stay out of her way and not be a burden. My visit was completely inconvenient for her, since she was trying to finish the school year, manage her family and manage the tenants and the apartments she rents. Thus, my leaving no messes or complications for her was really important. Her kitchen does open onto the deck overlooking the street and the sea, so it was delightful to stand at her stove making coffee and enjoy the view.

After one of Giuseppina’s little apartments became available, I moved in for a few days. The apartment has recently been renovated and really is a short-term vacation rental at this stage, so it isn’t really equipped with a good kitchen. It has a couple of burners on a counter cooktop, but the little cooktop takes up the whole counter, making any preparation quite impossible for me. Again, I was happy to leave that non-kitchen, especially after the swordfish dinner I planned just didn’t work out in that space as I had hoped. I was just thrilled to move back upstairs to Ottavio’s apartment for another week, where I settled in happily and once again enjoyed it all.

Now I am in Spoleto, and my apartment is up in the high part of the city, near the Duomo piazza. I knew my apartment was on the first floor (NOT the ground floor, of course, in Europe) so I would have a few steps to climb to get into my used-to-be-the-attic apartment, and the stairs are fine. The whole city is on a hill, with different levels connected by stairs or sloping sidewalks down the alleyways; my apartment stairs seem tame by comparison!

Anyhow, my Spoleto kitchen is a good space. It is small, but with enough room for a table and chairs that I use as my base; it is painted white, with some red accents, and has recently been renovated in a very basic way. My two high windows feel as if they are at a heavenly level, and I get great views of the whole city when I stand up and of the blue or cloudy or stormy sky when I sit down. (If the apartment belonged to me, I would build in a kitchen island or counter with comfortable stools or chairs so that I could see the view while sitting.) The counter space in my kitchen is minimal, and the kitchen supplies are also pretty lacking; I don’t even have salt and pepper shakers or a sugar bowl!!! My ultimate shock came when I realized that my kitchen lacked a cheese grater, a real necessity in every Italian kitchen!. I do have a pretty new cooktop and oven and refrigerator and microwave, but no dishwasher and very few pots and pans; I have asked the realtor for some more utensils and cookware. I don’t know who owns the apartment (and it could be Norma and Laurie, the realtors), but I think they have recently done a pretty basic renovation in order to rent it and not to make it a home. I like the kitchen, have my computer and my lights and my stuff scattered everywhere, and I am happy here. In fact, it is the room that I am the most comfortable in, and, perhaps the only room in the apartment that I am completely comfortable in so far, most likely because I have personalized it.

Some photos of beautiful Spoleto:

Decorative doorknobs, cabinet pulls and hinges are the little touches that bring your home’s décor to the next level. Hardware company SA Baxter opens the doors to its eco-friendly Hudson Valley foundry to show how, from conception to hand-finishing, their hardware pieces are made and why its worth investing in these decorative accents.

1. Great Design. The first step in making SA Baxter’s bespoke hardware is the process of lost wax casting. Wax positives, produced from aluminum molds, of the hardware parts are created with details hand-carved into the wax. SA Baxter has partnered with top interior designers, architects and artisans to develop designs for their hardware collections. Above is a wax positive of a door lever (LV-5908) designed by architect Anthony P. Brown. In its finished state, this jewel-like door lever’s graceful curves and intricate detailing project an understated elegance.

Wax positives are assembled onto a wax tree, a structure used to produce multiple hardware parts at once. Here is a wax tree for master architect Robert A.M. Stern’s Meander Suite Hinge (BHC-5801). The repetitious archetypal Greek key pattern is perfectly symmetrical and adds a classic touch to a variety of interiors.

Wax trees are then encased in several layers of slurry material, a cement-like mixture that will create the mold for the metal hardware parts. After the slurry material has hardened, the wax parts and tree inside are melted away, creating a hollow cavity in the slurry material referred to as a ‘shell.’ This is the ‘lost’ part in the lost wax casting process.

2. Pure Materials. Bronze ingots, oblong blocks of metal suitable for further processing, will be melted and then poured into the newly-made shells.

3. Time-Tested Techniques. Similar to the ancient Egyptian jewelry making technique, molten metal is poured into the crust shell where it then cools and hardens, taking the shape and design of the earlier wax forms.

SA Baxter staff wear extensive protective gear when handling the molten metal. The metal can reach a temperature of up to 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit – that’s as hot as volcanic lava!

4. Commitment to the Environment. SA Baxter has incorporated several eco-friendly steps into its production process to reduce emissions during the casting stage and wastewater during plating. The acid-baths, part of the finishing process, are safe enough that owner and founder Scott Baxter has dipped his hand in them to prove the point!

After the metal parts have been extracted from the shells, they are ready for machining, which is part of the finishing process that ensures the hardware’s flawless operation. Above is a tray of modern hinges with a square pillow design (BHC-4017A), which are ready to be tapped with mounting holes for installation.

5. Hand-Finishing. SA Baxter staff tap mounting holes on hinges with machinery for rosettes. SA Baxter hardware is hand-finished by local artisans guaranteeing their superior quality.

After machining, pieces are individually hand finished. These Ringed Cabinet Knobs (CK-2009) are cast in solid bronze and are on their way be finished. Regal and understated, they dance with light when used with a highly polished finish.

And finally the products are finished according to client specifications. These Ringed Cabinet Knobs (CK 2009) have been polished and are waiting to be packaged and shipped!

Shop hardware from SA Baxter on Dering Hall

A few years ago, I began to buy some of my prescriptions from an online pharmacy in Canada. At my local pharmacy, my prescription was costing me about $60 a month, even with insurance. I noticed that I could buy a three-month supply from an online Canadian pharmacy for $90, plus $20 of shipping costs, almost a 50 percent savings.

I did a little bit of digging about the legality of this, and evidently the U.S. government does not enforce a ban on the importation of prescription drugs for personal use for more than a three-month supply.

But this got me wondering why Americans put up with spending so much more on prescription drugs than other industrialized nations. Generally speaking, things are cheaper here — luxury goods, gasoline, and food because of government subsidies and lower tariffs. Consumption is 70 percent of our economy. We like shopping for things, and we like it when it’s on sale.

Why, then, are we okay with the fact that we pay 50 percent more for prescriptions drugs than countries like Canada, France, and the U.K.?

Well, it has to do with our red-blooded American capitalist mentality.

You see, other industrialized countries negotiate prices on prescription drugs. Most of them have socialized medicine, so they negotiate prices in huge volumes with enormous buyer power. The U.S., on the other hand, prohibits Medicare from negotiating on drug prices. It sounds crazy, but it’s true. Generally speaking, drug companies tell Medicare how much it costs to manufacture a drug and Medicare adds some kind of acceptable margin, an approach known as cost-plus-pricing. Unfortunately, many hospitals base their prices for other customers on what Medicare reimburses, so this pricing scheme sets the tone for the entire system.

In essence, Americans subsidize drugs for the rest of the world even though we grant over $30 billion a year to research and develop new biomedical advancements through the NIH, the biggest source of research money in the world.

Drug companies will say that without the premium that Americans pay, they wouldn’t have an incentive to develop new life-saving drugs. They say that Americans get access to drugs one to two years before other countries. They say that it’s more expensive to provide drugs in America because marketing costs are higher in the U.S. (mainly because other countries limit how much marketing and selling drug companies can do).

Most importantly, drug companies claim that if Medicare would be allowed to negotiate prices on drugs, it would make the drug business suddenly unprofitable or at least less profitable. This point, of course, is very difficult to prove, but a terrifying consequence nonetheless. Drugs save lives, so there’s a moral imperative to keep the pharmaceutical industry thriving.

It’s hard to say which reality would cost more lives — keeping the cost of drugs high for Americans or eliminating the incentive to develop new drugs for America and the rest of the world? Either way, it feels like Americans were never asked which reality they prefer. It seems like the U.S. drug industry, along with their friends in the Congress, made the decision “for our own good.”

Shep Gordon, looking like a Maui high school graduate festooned with lei, received the “Maverick Award” on the opening night of the Maui Film Festival (MFF) in Wailea on Wednesday, June 4. The Maverick Award honors an individual who has the courage of their convictions and spares no effort to do the right thing to help those whose life’s work inspires him.

Gordon, who, as the super-manager of such mega-stars as Alice Cooper, Blondie, Pink Floyd (he managed them for just nine days) , Teddy Pendergrass, Luther Vandross, Anne Murray and Groucho Marks, to name a few, said he felt “weird” about being on the stage instead of behind the scenes.

“I’m enjoying it though,” Gordon said. “I must say I’m very, very comfortable doing it and I find it’s so much easier than in my real life. I never had the luxury of thinking about only one thing. Yeah, I’m having a really good time with it.

Before a capacity crowd at the newest MFF venue, the Seaside Cinema at the Grand Wailea, Gordon received the Maverick Award from Keith Carradine, and was also there to oversee the Maui premiere of Mike Myers’ directorial debut of the bio pic “Supermensch: The Legend of Shep Gordon.”

Myers, who he met on the set of Wayne’s World, felt that Gordon’s life was movie material and pursued him. Gordon didn’t want to, but later relented.

“I was in the hospital with some stuff, was heavily medicated and feeling real sorry for myself and said ‘yes,'” Gordon joked. Gordon had a heart attack of the intestines and almost died, but, according to Myers this incident happened two weeks into shooting. Gordon insists that Myers’ recollection is “different” from his.

In a recent New York Times story, Myers explained one of the reasons he wanted to do the film.

“In all of his [Gordon’s] stories,” Meyers said, “it occurred to me that fame is the industrial disease of creativity. There’s a toxicity to fame that will have reproductive harm.”

“I think if you’re industry is acting, you have to become famous in order to continue working,” Gordon explained. “The industrial waste from mining might be minerals in the water. The industrial waste from acting is ‘famous.’ It’s toxic. A lot of famous people have died or ended up in rehab. It has no purpose unto itself. Just like the waste in a lot of industries. I really related to that. I thought it was a brilliant way to put it.”

Of all the 19 films he’s been associated with, he’s most proud of Koyaanisqatsi, El Norte and The Whales of August. He also mentioned Alan Rudolph, with whom he did both Alice Cooper films.

“Working with Alan was a complete joy,” said Gordon.

Gordon came to Maui in 1974 to quit smoking. Unsuccessful at the attempt, it’s one of his few failures in life.

Most celebrities, who choose to live on Maui, give back (with one notable exception). Gordon famously made a deal with the paparazzi in which he would allow them to get their shots so that his people would look good. The paparazzi in turn, would donate 10 percent of the proceeds from the photos they got to the Maui Food Bank. One photo alone yielded a $50,000 contribution, according to Gordon. It was a win, win, win, win!

Gordon is also the coordinating sponsor of the Roger Vergé Culinary Scholarship Foundation, sits on the boards of The Tibet Fund and Reel FX, and the advisory board of the TAJ Hotels. He has served on the board of the American Liver Foundation, is the founding member of the Hawai’i Regional Cuisine Movement and was inducted into the Hawai’i Culinary Hall of Fame. He has also won numerous industry awards, including being named one of the 100 most influential people by Rolling Stone magazine.

Credited with inventing the celebrity chef, in typical low-key Gordon fashion, he said, “It’s what I do. I make people famous and they happen to be chefs so… that’s what I do.”

Actually, when he found out how badly chefs were treated, he set about to right the wrong. Such chefs as Roger Verge, Wolfgang Puck, Emeril Lagasse, among many others owe their careers to Gordon.

On Maui, he opened both the Mala Wailea and the Mala Ocean Tavern Lahaina, had a hand in bringing Mark Ellman to Maui and recently lured Top Chef finalist Sheldon Simeon from Star Noodle so that he could open Migrant at the Wailea Marriot.

Asked about his vision for Migrant, Gordon said, “It was more Sheldon’s than mine. It was to give him a place to present what he wanted to say. It’s really his voice. I don’t know if you know that right after he opened the restaurant, he won “Best Chef” from Food & Wine Magazine. It’s really amazing for a restaurant to be open for that short of time.” He added, “The food is amazing. Everybody should get in there and try it.”

When it was suggested that he was a personal friend of the Dalai Lama, Gordon said, “I wouldn’t say that. I wouldn’t. I am of service to His Holiness. I’ve been really privileged to be in his presence.”

He laughed when asked whether the Dalai Lama would see the film.

“He has so much better use of his time,” Gordon said. “I’d hate for him to spend an hour and 30 minutes watching it — as much as I enjoy the film.”

“It’s been wonderful to read the reviews and people are saying it’s the type of movie that can make people want to be better people,” Gordon concluded.

Just in case you don’t know the meaning of “mensch,” it’s a German word, which in Yiddish, means “a good person.” A mensch has the qualities one would hope for in a dear friend or trusted colleague.

That must make Shep Gordon an ubermensch.