WINE SNOBS AND DINNER PRICES

A blogger (here) mentioned an extreme episode of wine snobbery that she experienced while eating at L’Etoile.

It breaks my heart when that happens! (Not literally, but you get the point – I so dislike wine snobbery.) It is no secret to those who know me that I do like wine. I especially like it when it is made by a small family-run operation, from grapes grown on small strips of land. Why? Because while others are imagining pears, lemons, minerals, woodsiness, etc on the palate while sipping wine, I am imagining the hard work, the care, the love that went into the making of it. You cannot be a small producer and not love your work because it is so very tough and extremely unpredictable in its result. One grower told me that he was happy that he had little kids, otherwise for sure he would have committed suicide in years when everything in wine-making failed him.

Wines should never break anyone’s budget. There are so many good inexpensive wines out there! Less than $10 per bottle, yes, of course – so many interesting, enjoyable bottles that complement meals and can be had for small prices. The ones that top $30 per bottle are already over the top – to be enjoyed by those who truly do not know where to lay down their cash. I always think that we in this country are such impatient fools, spending huge sums on wines that have been aged because we are used to instant gratification. Elsewhere, if people truly love the complexity of older, more expensive wines, they buy them young (and cheap) and put them away for a requisite number of years, to be enjoyed later.

Restaurant wines drive me insane: the mark up is two to three times the cost of the wine. Again, this is so unique to our way of dining. Elsewhere, the basic table wine is often the price of bottled water. And no waiter should ever, EVER even bat an eye if you ask for an inexpensive ‘house wine.’ Of course, this category of wine does not exist at l’Etoile… Sigh… L’Etoile’s prices all around are steep. If it’s any consolation, the restaurant doesn’t get fat on its dinner service. The cost of ingredients and the labor-intensive work makes each dish prohibitively pricey to prepare. L’Etoile makes up deficits incurred during slow days by selling croissants at the Market Café!

ISLAND PEOPLE

In one day I had two encounters with island law types. I received an email from the author of this blog, based in St. Croix of the U.S. Virgin Islands, and I had lunch with a friend who spent a year with her husband studying and practicing law in Palau. I’m told that in Palau, there is indeed a law of the indigenous people, supplemented by random suggestive rather than binding case and statutory law from the States. I would assume that in the Virgin Islands the primary law IS the U.S. law.

But what’s it like to be an attorney on the islands? Do people walk to court with sand in their sandals? Do they wear breezy, patterned shirts with palm trees on them? Am I creating images that not only stereotype, but also demonstrate my complete ignorance about island life?

More importantly, how did these law people find such interesting places to apply to for jobs, while my biggest venture into the world Out There after law school was to send inquiry letters to Milwaukee firms? I think I missed the boat on that one. Literally.

WHERE TO EAT IN MADISON?

A friend and fellow blogger succumbed to the “favorites” list mania (posting on the topic here, responding to a call for favorites here). In spite of my dire warnings about favoring this or that (see post below), he rolled forth with a listing of top three restaurants (in three separate categories), overall bottom five as well, and explanations justifying placement. Now, as a self-proclaimed foodie, I am going to say that his lists are not bad. Perhaps his rant against Mickey’s is a little odd given his favoring of Hubbard’s, but still, one can forgive – it is a trivial error.

But let’s go back to the top of the top. Where in that little pile is Harvest? I mean, granted, who am I to squabble about the virtues of the place where I choose to lay down my wimpy talents, but still, assuming l’Etoile rules, where, after that, is Harvest?

As for chains, please scratch Macaroni Grill and replace it with Big Bowl. For sure!

Finally, my own personal announcement of the bravery award: that my pal should think he can continue to live, work, and eat and not bear the wrath of not listing Chautara attests to his strong moral fiber and unwillingness to succumb to the PC trend of including it on all lists favoring anything at all in Madison, including ‘favorite place to encounter other favorite place aficionados.’ For this alone, one should trust his listings and give him the reigns to freely expound on the subject of food henceforth. [Though, in all fairness, anyone writing on the topic should right away explain what they do and do not eat. I happen to know that this particular blogger is a semi-vegetarian. Irrelevant? Not really: I may not myself put Smoky’s on a top anything list, but it certainly explains why this blogger blows Smoky’s off without so much as a wink. I have yet to meet anyone who would rank Smoky’s as a superior eating place based on its caraway-laden cottage cheese side-dish, or its iceberg lettuce salad alone, but those who eat beef do swear by the place.]

LEARNED HAND AND GUIDO CALABRESI’S WIFE ARE NOTED AT YALE GRADUATION WHILE THE BUSH FAMILY LAYS LOW

Today marks the first day of the graduation ceremonies on the Yale campus. I understand that every effort was made to keep politics away from the podium. President Bush, though in New Haven, is not going to make an appearance at any of the ceremonial events. His graduating daughter, too, skipped the speeches today.

…And so she failed to hear filmmaker Ken Burns say the following (this from the AP):

Without mentioning Bush by name, Burns drew parallels between today's political leaders and the Iraq war, versus Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War, which he chronicled in an award-winning film series.

Both wars threatened to tear the country apart, Burns said.

"Steel yourselves. Your generation must repair this damage, and it will not be easy," Burns told the seniors.

Burns quoted famed jurist Learned Hand as saying, "Liberty is never being too sure you're right."

"Somehow recently, though, we have replaced our usual and healthy doubt with an arrogance and belligerence that resembles more the ancient and now fallen empires of our history books than a modern compassionate democracy," Burns said, to applause from the 1,300 graduates and their families and friends.

…But I wonder if she noted the protesters outside the home of the University president (where the Bushes were staying for a while this week-end)? And who exactly was protesting? From the AP release:

The crowd was a mix of students and older Yale graduates.

Anne Tyler Calabresi, 69, of Woodbridge, said she was protesting on behalf of herself and her husband, Federal Appeals Judge Guido Calabresi, a Yale graduate and former dean of the Yale School of Law.

"I'm profoundly worried about the way this country is going," she said. "And I'm furious about the lies George Bush has told to us again and again. He has led us into a war that is destroying our reputation around the world and creating implacable enemies around the world that we didn't have one year ago."

TORNADO WARNING AND OTHER WEATHER-RELATED DIRECTIVES

A message from the local weather radio station (currently appearing on my computer):

While driving tonight... do not enter flooded roads... underpasses and intersections. Stay away from flooded rivers... creeks and culverts. Remember... turn around... don’t drown.

I appreciate the good intention behind this advice. Moreover, I should not be the one to comment, since I am sitting safely home rather than being on a road where creeks and culverts are flooding. Here, the only danger of flooding is in the solarium… Of course, I am at the moment in the solarium… Does the warning thus apply to me as well? Should I turn around and type backwards, with an eye toward avoiding a rush of water from underneath? If they're telling me not to drown, I most certainly want to be a good citizen and do my part to keep my head above any rushing waters.

HOW CAN SO MANY PEOPLE CONFIDENTLY MAKE UP LISTS?

Everyone does lists: favorite books, movies, names, favorite everything! Even the new blogger format asks this of you: name this, describe yourself thus. To me, this is an impossibility. My favorites, my personals, they’re always in a state of flux.

Take movies: when I was 15, I saw Zeffirelli’s Romeo & Juliet 45 times (I counted), paying each time the requisite Polish zloty (I lived in Warsaw then) over and over to sit through it. The colors, that youthful, zesty Juliet, Mercutio’s stunning movements, I could not get enough of it all. [Oh! I see that John McEnery, who played Mercutio, is currently appearing in a very minor role in “Girl with a Pear Earring!” I should see if he still evokes the same rapture, in his, ahem, slightly older countenance.]

But not for long. “R&J” got dumped once I discovered Lelouche’s ‘A Man and a Woman.’ [God, remember when he sings in the background ‘A l’ombre de nous’ – in the shadow of us; or when they come together but neither is ready, each lost in the death of their former love; oh, such a film! It was, btw, the Grand Prize winner at Cannes, in the 1960s… I can see it now, the cinematography is so slow, their love develops through the minutia of small, improvised gestures, glances; nuanced, gentle, hesitant, with exceptional acting; such a brilliantly artful film.]

That lasted until I went through my movies-in-the-shadow-of-WW II phase – especially ‘The Garden of Finzi-Continis,’ a 1971 film that blew me away. I dream about scenes from that movie still. [It was the winner of the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Even Pauline Kael liked it! Again, a contemplative, initially subtle movie, that takes you through the lush Italian gardens slowly, and then plunges you into the horror of Fascist persecution of Italian Jews.]

And so on. A favorite? No favorite. It doesn’t work that way. A favorite may be defined by the context, or by the state of readiness to be mesmerized, to fall in love, to be driven insane. Often it has more to do with me, than with the movie itself.

I KNOW THAT SOME OF MY GOOD FRIENDS AND CLOSE FAMILY MEMBERS ARE VEGETARIAN BUT…

This guy is dinner!-->

The brazenness, the audacity, I mean, come on! That patch of ground is decimated as a result of his shenanigans.






<--I found this rabbit dish on the Net: "Brochettes de lapin au fenouil et aux herbes de Provence." A few cubes of red pepper, cucumber, a dash of olive oil and we're set.


One more leap into the dianthus patch and I am sharpening the knives.

TO DUST

A week ago I was sitting at terminal 2E at the Paris airport thinking how nice it is that all Air France flights to and from the States arrive and depart from this brand new structure. (To and from Tokyo as well.) It is (was) amazing: all glass and air and space, curved into a hall that muffles sound and creates (created) a feeling of a contained universe: expansive, but not overwhelming.

I have another series of flights coming up this summer and I was looking forward to again being routed through there: 2E, the terminal of choice. But it is no more (see story here).

IT’S RAINING, SO WHAT ELSE IS NEW?

The tile floor of the un-solarium has suspiciously dark-looking grout. Normally it is not dark. It is dark on the rare, rare occasions when the ground underneath is so saturated that the water has nowhere to go but up, right through the cement, into the grout, eventually flooding the room. It has happened twice before in the 17 years I have lived here. I am near that stage again. Dark grout = wet grout. I WANT THE RAIN TO STOP! Enough already.

FAHRENHEIT 9/11: TOO HOT?

Alright, it is official: Michael Moore’s movie picks up the top prize at Cannes. Is it really because (as is suggested in the WashPost article here) no other movie stood out of the pack of contenders? Or because of the popularity of Moore’s political message in Cannes? Or is it the case that movies arousing controversy are almost always more likely to win at Cannes even as they have trouble being distributed in this country?

It took almost fifty years for a documentary to again walk away with a first place finish at the Cannes Festival (the last documentary to do so was, according to WashPost, Cousteau’s “The Silent World’). Are documentaries ever successful if their political message is disfavored?

I find it humorously ironic that insofar as release here will occur anytime soon, it is likely to be around the Fourth of July.

TO MARKET

Is it really possible for a thunderstorm to last for 12 hours? I am waiting for the water to come into the house. One more day of rain and my un-sunny solarium will be flooded for sure.

This is my first day back moonlighting at L’Etoile (see yesterday’s post) and I am sure to get there by 6:30 a.m. (is it still 'moonlighting' if it's such an early morning schedule?). If I am to be a market forager for the restaurant, I need to make a first round of the stalls at the very beginning, just to acquaint myself with all that’s available on this day.




Besides, I WANT TO KNOW WHAT THE BAKERS AT L’ETOILE’S MARKET CAFÉ ARE UP TO! Oh, but to breathe again that familiar wonderful smell of baking croissants and baguettes…










The summer staff for this season is efficient and together (this has not always been the case) and the bakers know what they’re doing. The croissants are even, the gougers are light, the eggs are there as well for those who like that market bun and egg combination.

It is always a balancing act on bad weather days: the L’Etoile Market Café relies on there being no over-production or under-production. The cost of organic ingredients is high and so a surplus is an automatic loss. On the other hand, it’s not good to run out of baked goods by 10 a.m. Today, when the weather changed three times in the course of the morning, the anxiety about getting it right was high.

But my job for today is really to be at the market (here’s the L’Etoile cart that makes the rounds with me-->). Odessa comes along if she’s in town (as in today), otherwise I am on my own. I carry a calculator, a clip board, a menu, and a pocket knife to test for firmness, as well as a sack of croissants to hand out as treats to farmers who have especially good offerings today.

What’s hot right now? Snap peas! Delicious! Asparagus, of course. I spotted the first baskets of strawberries at one stand (gone by 8 am, more to follow next week). Spinach, yes, it’s there, though the winter hoop farmer refuses to grow it anymore: a spinach purist will only eat the cold weather variety. Rhubarb. Oh, and I picked up a half dozen squash blossoms for my own use (sautee, stuff, whatever).



I have to say that I get a charge out of buying large quantities: a whole bucket of honey, a crate of Gourmet Farms cremini mushrooms, 12 bags of Harmony Valley spinach, on and on. The list is huge and each L’Etoile supplier has to be greeted, with a review of what’s there and equally important, what’s coming next week.

Okay, I mustn’t get carried away. I’ll end with the flower basket I get each year for my own back patio. The clay pots still need to be filled. Spring is such a good season!

“GALLIC WARTIME NOSTALGIA??”

I saw Bon Voyage tonight. I’ll not say much here. Everyone who watches it ought to do so with an open mind. They can then let the film unfold. It will unsettle or amuse, or both, or neither.

How the French, especially in Paris, reacted to the invasion of the Nazis would appear to be a topic that could not be treated with anything but utmost seriousness, especially by the French themselves. Not so. But in this farcical chaotic romp of a movie, can’t it be said that there are seeds of something other than humor? At least a small handful of critics thinks so. Newsday comments thus:

And the very real concessions that people are willing to make to keep their peace and their comfort, not just in 1940 France but everywhere, are treated with the contempt they deserve.

I do have to include a note on the acting. My friend asked if I recall seeing any French movie lately that did not have Gerard Depardieu in it. I’m sure I have, I just can’t remember what it might have been. And how about Isabelle Adjani! I remember thinking that she was drop dead gorgeous in ‘the Story of Adele H.’ That would have been almost 30 years ago. As the Village Voice says of her in Bon Voyage: “ The opulent hotel interiors are magnificently Lubitschian, though the best reconstruction by far is Adjani's impossibly youthful visage, a taut, wrinkle-free zone that brings new meaning to the term les arts plastiques.”

YESTERDAY A LINE-COOK AND BAKER, TOMORROW A FORAGER

A few years back I went up to Odessa Piper, Madison’s chef extraordinaire (so says the James Beard Foundation award committee) and asked her to hire me to do some cooking at her restaurant, l’Etoile. She did. I worked there several nights a week, for a couple of years, after my law school hours (meaning late in the evening). I was the one that did your desserts and appetizers if you happened to be eating on the night that I was cooking. Why did she hire me? She’s my age and quirky. I suppose we have that in common. And, I was a conversation piece: a law prof who got a kick out of getting her hands burnt in the hot ovens and her fingers dirty mincing vegetables.

Then I got tired of keeping such insane hours and so Odessa agreed to let me switch to something with even more insane hours. I did Saturday market baking (croissants, bread, and gougeres) for a couple of seasons. But at the end of the market term I backed off again. I wanted to reclaim my free days.

Now Odessa has been calling again and so tomorrow I agreed to return to the folds of that cool group of cooks, waiters and crew. It is a different world out there in the tiny kitchen of l’Etoile. I like that. No one has anything important to say. Banter flows freely. Physical dexterity is an asset. So is the ability to tolerate extreme temperatures.

This time I agreed to also do some foraging and basic prepping of some of the acquisitions. I’m willing to give it a shot. Sane hours and a chance to visit with the farmers again AND spend someone else’s money at the Market.

Besides, I’ve missed posting photos of foods, Sir Edwin.

GOING TO LAW SCHOOL IS NOT GOING TO BE FUN TODAY

I have been working at home the past several days. My work space here is seasonal: I am buried in a misguided solarium amidst jasmine trees and hibiscus plants and ferns that have grown unwieldy over the years. (I say the solarium is ‘misguided’ because the architect stuck it onto the northern end of the house; pleasing to the eye, perhaps, but any plant person will tell you that it’s daffy to have a plant room with so little sunshine). I can only work here in 3 seasons because it is too cold in the winter (again: great idea – a solarium without sun!). I could crank up the heat, but in truth, I want to respect the plants that need a bit of cool winter air, as well as my meager collection of wines which definitely would not thank me for a blast of dry warm furnace heat. So I move out instead. It’s not as if there aren’t any other corners in the house where I can work: SUNNY winter corners.

But I have been happy here this spring and see no reason to hike over to the law building which currently is having temperature problems and when it’s not having temperature problems it has other issues. Like for instance the fact that I can’t get up and pace outside without being observed. And there’s the risk of running into the wrong people. Indeed, the place is full of good people that are simply the wrong people to run into, say because I owe them work or time or something that I haven’t been delivering in any respectable fashion. It’s all terribly unsatisfying and so home in the shoulder periods is a good place to be.

But today, temporary grades are due and I have several appointments with students and so in I must go.

Still, the weather! Could it possibly be darker, gloomier, stormier, colder? No, it could not! This is not going to be a day of happy outcomes if things continue in this way. (Note the darkness in the photo, taken 5 minutes ago at 8 a.m. for Pete’s sake!)

A SUMMER-LIKE EVENING

At the moment, I am listening to my Chopin CD and thinking about the blog world. I’m quite attached to this CD. In fact, I had taken it with me to Japan last month. [One of only two; I don’t travel with my favorite music. If I did, I would have never discovered the little song on the plane’s audio system, right? And btw, I DID get in touch with Air France and they are ‘looking into’ my request for the names and songs on their ‘musique francaise’ station – see earlier post this week on falling in love with a song on an airplane.]

Just minutes ago I came across another blog (here) that had oh so kindly mentioned mine back in April, only I didn’t know it at the time. I never really pick up on most of these links because I am rarely aware of them. I hardly ever google or study referrals or do all that is part of a typical blogger’s life. I know I should be more at one with technology, but there isn’t time to become at one with so many things in life and so I split my minutes and become at one with dilettantish inclinations toward scattered places.

Today’s blog discovery underscores for me how little and how much blogs reveal about their authors. Having read most of this particular (extrememly good) blog, I think I know a bit about this person. Except in reality I do not know her at all. In fact I may go through life not knowing who she is, yet I will know even small details about the creative world she inhabits. This happens all the time in the world of weblogs.

I know that without the protection of anonymity, many of my favorite blogs would not be published on the Net. It is sad to note that for so many writers, this form of communication, if traced to its author, produces greater personal risks than benefits. On the other hand, one may say that personal identification is irrelevant to communication. A voice is a voice, whether it comes with a tag, or remains faceless.

WARM THOUGHTS

I was taking a walk minutes ago and I thought that I had hit the tropics. It is steamy hot outside!

Three memorable trains of thought from the walk:

First of all, I thought of a good blog post. It just suddenly hit me that I ought to write about this ‘Y’ topic. I thought of the contours for it and even began to contemplate title ideas. When I got back and sat down to write, something seemed odd and out of place. Only then did it strike me that I had already written about this in January. Conclusion no.1: I am a person of few ideas with a terrible memory who is likely to plagiarize her own writing. Conclusion no. 2: I should force myself occasionally to glance over my own blog. Unlike so many bloggers, I never reread anything of mine that is more than a day or two old.

Secondly, I thought about the email that I got this morning from Kyoto. It is from Mieko (Kazumi’s friend) and it says: “Last Saturday, we had an English Conversation Circle. You became a topic of conversation in the class. 'When Nina will be back again next year, we would like to invite her to our class.' we said.”
I had met at different times a total of four people from the English class at the Cultural Center of the town of Notogawa as they traveled to Kyoto to spend time with me and I had spoken to their teacher over the phone. I consider these “student meetings” no less important than the ones I had with university law students in Kyoto. However, something tells me that my funding source will not pay for me to travel back to Japan next year so that I can make an appearance at the English Conversation Circle of the Notogawa Cultural Center. Which is a shame.

Thirdly, I thought how fortunate it is that I have come to know a very kind soul who is computer savvy (and fellow blogger with a chirpy-looking kind of face; see sketch here) and who is willing to patiently explain to me the basics of the technology that I am using each day to blog with, thereby permitting me some degree of further experimentation with the size, shape and contents of the blog by the self-imposed June 1st deadline. In exchange I have offered to help him establish paternity rights over any nonmarital children that he may have (that is what I did for a number of years in my Legal Clinic). He has thus far not asked for such services, but you never know what the future may bring.

BOOK TITLES

Yesterday, a friend gave me a copy of Alexander McCall Smith’s new book, ‘The Full Cupboard of Life.” It was an extremely thoughtful gesture for a number of reasons, one of them being that she knows I am a fan of the person who wrote it. I have read numerous interviews with him and I find him irrepressibly funny and so full of zest that it makes me feel like I sleep my way through life by comparison. I have gone so far as to order McCall Smith’s 'Professor Dr. Moritz-Maria Von Igelfeld' series from England, since it is not available here in the States. His books are gently humorous, and from what I can tell, he himself is even more entertaining in person. I was sorry to miss his appearance at Border’s in Madison and so the gift of a signed book was an especially nice treat for me.

The book also made me think about the titles of novels I have come across just this year and how well suited or ill-suited they are, not only to the story, but to the market that they are attempting to impress. I like the title “The Full Cupboard of Life.” It is evocative and memorable and the publisher does well to include the picture of the ordinary cupboard shelves on the cover.

There are other titles that I am looking at right now that I also consider cool - ‘Global Soul’ (by Iyer), or ‘Ignorance’ (by Kundera) – brief, interesting titles.

Then there are, for me, the drip set: ‘Unless’ (by Shields) – completely forgettable, ‘Oryx and Crake’ (by Atwood) – I can never quite get the title right when I am talking about it, ‘Namesake’ (by Lahiri) – good book ill-served by boring title, ‘Pieces from Berlin’ (by Pye) – tells you absolutely nothing about the troubling Holocaust issues it confronts, ‘Three Junes’ (by Glass) – sounds like it should be about three women by that name, etc etc.

I know that some authors have a title in mind before they even write the first word of a novel. There’s a clever little book about this by André Bernard called "Now All We Need Is A Title," where he notes that mystery writer Raymond Chandler compiled lists of great titles for which he never wrote books, including "The Corpse Came In Person," "The Man with the Shredded Ear," "All Guns Are Loaded," "Too Late to Sleep."

Bernard also tells of titles that were changed at the last minute. Hitler wanted to title "Mein Kampf" ("My Struggle") as "Four-and-a-Half Years of Struggle Against Lies, Stupidity, and Cowardice.” "The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit," by Sloan Wilson was originally "A Candle at Midnight,” and "Catch-22," by Joseph Heller was all set to be "Catch-18" before the author changed his mind.

When books become famous, the title becomes associated with that work alone, so that you rarely remember that Shakespeare was the source for "Brave New World," "Pale Fire," "The Dogs of War," "The Sound and the Fury," and "Something Wicked This Way Comes."

To me, Kundera (see also ‘Ignorance’ above) struck gold, though, with “The Unbearable Lightness of Being.” That title comes back to haunt me even more than the book itself. It is sheer genius to have four words play with a reader's psyche in such an enduring way.

IN TODAY’S LIGHT, I SEE GOOD THINGS EMERGING

I know I berated my perennial beds yesterday. I was too harsh. This morning, a closer inspection revealed this:


and this:


and this:











As for the weeds? Many are now in this (which is far far larger than it looks!):

ANOTHER EDITORIAL ABOUT THE AMERICAN RESPONSE TO THE EU

In the International Herald Tribune I read the following today:

And the proper way to begin this crucial project (of repairing damaged relations with EU members) is to use the presidential megaphone to teach Americans an appreciation of the European Union, despite its flaws and idiosyncrasies.

It was a sign of contemporary American myopia that the expansion of the EU from 15 to 25 members on May 1 was greeted in America with little more than polite indifference.

And further into the editorial:

Europe is a zone of peace. The 25 members of the EU, for all their quarrels and anxieties, belong to the biggest and most stable community of liberal democracies history has known.

It is interesting that if one were to poll Americans and ask where in the world could one find the biggest and most stable (liberal) democracy, they would probably not answer “in the EU.” I’m just guessing here.

EFFORT OR RESULT?

Last night I had dinner with a friend. We went to a restaurant expecting a relaxed evening of catching up on the past weeks. The food was fine, but the waiter was awful: he was slow, oh so slow on a relatively quiet evening and he got everything about the order wrong. When he was at our table, he was obtrusive and obsequious. The one thing you could not fault, however, was his effort. He seemed to be trying, it just wasn’t working for him. The result was horrible.

The question arose, how much do you tip on a night like that? The full 20%? It seems a reduction is in order. Or is it? He was, after all trying.

I thought about this later because it seems to me that the issue is ever-present for us only we don’t face it squarely: we are a result-driven lot. We disregard effort and applaud outcome.

Perhaps that is as it should be. Who cares if the cobbler put effort into your shoe if you can’t walk in it? Or, that the doctor exerted great effort to get your appendix out but missed it by a long shot? Wouldn’t you prefer the cobbler, the doctor who showed no effort but got it right nonetheless?

But I am uneasy about this quick response. Because there is, after all, something to be said for effort. I remember observing this equivocation in elementary school, where teachers would say that grades were handed out not based on polished work but on the effort put into the task. This was so as not to discourage those who were clearly trying. Yet at the same time they could not step away from the final product. A good result got the kid an ‘A’ as well, no matter what the effort.

And in Law School, do we not also reward effort in our Socratic teaching? Haven’t we dispensed with the old approach where a student would be humiliated for putting forth a thoughtful yet incorrect answer? When was the last time any of us said: you are so wrong, Ms Smith, just so very wrong!

But in the end, our noblesse is short lived because on the exam we grade strictly according to result. Ms. Smith, no points on that one: that is NOT the proper forum for adjudicating the matter. You clearly got it WRONG!

And so it continues, in every aspect of life: we hesitate, we pretend to equivocate, but in the end, result rules. Even in areas (for example outside the realm of commerce or paid services) where you want to see yourself as saying ‘no, I myself notice the effort. I tip according to how much a person tries.’ Test yourself, after all, on this one: A friend is perfectly amiable, cognizant of your every need, never overbearing, never forgetful, always on time with appropriate responses when you most want them to be there. Another gets it all wrong, clumsily tripping over him or herself, much like my waiter, and getting the order exactly in a mistimed way with all things on the ‘plate’ that you are ‘allergic’ to. Which one do you next turn to in a moment of need?

Last night, I myself under-tipped the guy – giving a cautionary 18%, so I doubt he even noticed. But I walked away thinking maybe I’d done the wrong thing. Maybe I should have handed over 20%.