Every couple of months, I open the journal portion of Rene Redzepi’s A WORK IN PROGRESS, following him through the seasons. I picked it up again today. “Fuck the winter,” he says. Today, the temperature dropped 25 degrees F and it rained hard, so, yeah, thanks for that, Rene. Tree boughs lean down, heavy with grey water. The droplets barely pick up a glow where the summer sun strains to burn through the cloud layer. The sky is that formless grey that the eye struggles to focus on. Might as well be in England. People accuse me of bringing English weather wherever I go. I make it rain in LA and snow in NYC. I bring ice to the north when they think they’ve seen the back of it, like some grim and heartless Nordic weather deity. I flick the dial back to late winter whenever I land, so I flick the journal back to spring and plan to roast a chicken like Redzepi, a slow incremental heat with lemons and limes.

A small cloud of bees pauses in the air and points at me. They know the chill is my fault. It comes from England, and I carry it in my bones.

 

Reading: A WORK IN PROGRESS, Rene Redzepi