HUNGRY GERALD

James Salter, the excellent writer who was a great favorite of other writers and knowing appreciators of exquisitely crafted sentences, is dead at age 90. HG never met Salter but HG feels he has lost a friend. Salter wrote novels, short stories, novellas, screenplays, criticism and much else. All wonderful. HG’s bedtime companion is a book he wrote with his wife, Kay: Life Is Meals: A Food Lover’s Book of Days. (HG did an appreciation of the book. Check the archive). It stands with A.J. Liebling’s “Between Meals” as an HG favorite work about dining — erudite and appetizing. Salter had a wit as dry as a flinty glass of Chablis. He once observed that most men have self delusions: That they look younger than they are. That they are good drivers. That they are good in bed. Thanks and farewell, James. HG thinks of you as a civilized companion whose works continue to delight and illuminate.

At some good Paris restaurants and bistros there’s a nice beau geste at the end of a meal: A little tray of bon bons and chocolates served with coffee or a liqueur. James Salter, that excellent writer who constructs sentences as exquisitely balanced as a crystal glass of Chateau Margaux, notes in his book “Life Is Meals” that he and his wife often serve sweets at the end of a dinner party. The discerning Salters favor Enstrom’s Butter Crunch (manufactured in Grand Junction, CO.). They state unequivocally (and HG agrees) that this is the best candy in the world. When HG/BSK are out of this delectable they serve dark chocolate and Belgian Butter Cookies. Excellent peanut brittle also delights guests. The nutty goody was discovered at the Latino-centric Pojoauque Super Market, a short drive from the HG/BSK New Mexico home.

HG has long been a fan of the writer James Salter. Though he has written many books, scores of excellent short stories, screenplays, searching criticism (he recently did a beautifully objective appreciation of Ernest Hemingway’s achievement for the New York Review of Books), he has never been very well known. He has received many awards and honors and been described as a “writer’s writer.” An aviator and fighter pilot (combat during the Korean War), no one has ever written better about flying. He also writes very well about food. For bedtime reading, there is nothing better than the book he wrote with his wife, Kay: Life Is Meals: A Food Lover’s Book Of Days. There are 365 brief essays (one for each day of the year) in this beautifully illustrated volume (published by Knopf). James and Kay Salter are a wonderfully civilized couple without an ounce of pretension but much erudition. There are some nice recipes and acute observations about people, places, art, history and, of course, food and dining. The perfect book for a bedtime browse.