A documentary about a sushi chef so masterful, Japan considers him a living national treasure. He is the oldest chef to receive 3 Michelin stars, which means, “a restaurant so amazing, it’s worth traveling to the country just for that restaurant and nothing else.”
Non-Fiction
Laurie Notaro cracks me up. It’s dangerous to read her books on the bus or in the break room, because I will end up giggling, snorting, or outright lol’ing and then look mentally deranged. Although on my bus or at work, I guess that’s just par for the course.
Here we have 18 new essays of mishaps and misunderstandings in Notaro’s life. Some of these are expansions of idle mentions on her Facebook page. Most of them are hilarious (some are a little bittersweet, like getting banned from the neighbor’s Christmas party, albeit for amusing reasons). My favorites have to be She’s a Pill, featuring Ambien Laurie (Ambien makes you sleep, but sometimes makes you THINK you’re sleeping–by giving you amnesia–and you are actually awake and doing stuff you probably shouldn’t be doing), and Forecasting World Destruction, which pretty much describes one of my aunts, and I have sworn to never give her my email address again due to the ridiculous, snopes-denounced, chain spam that gets sent to me. Also fun are Laurie and her husband’s attempts to understand their dog, the adorable Maeby, and Laurie’s trip to visit her parents, which is always good for a laugh.
My favorite story from her for all time though is still “The Sims” from I Love Everybody (and Other Atrocious Lies), where she makes her Sims self idealized, and her husband, less so, and Bad Things Happen.
In fact, I wouldn’t mind a good laugh so I think I’m going to go re-read that one.