Jim Harrison, food, Russia...

Food, food is my life...I live on it...I don't live for it mind you ! but as I work in restaurants as a waiter I live on food...I spend my life in hotels, and we meet extraordinary people sometimes...I remember Etonnants voyageurs in Saint Malo...I was a kid but will never forget the huge man who's Jim Harrison...That would be so nice to meet him ...
In a small book called"Letters to Essenine" he pays a vibrant hommage to the russian poet who commited suicide in 1925...those letters are so full of life, of death, of hope and despair...
"My eyes misted and I heard fiddle music...how did I get gout? all that fried salt and side pork as a child. Humble fare. Quintuple heaps of caviar and decanters of vodka at the Hotel Europa in Leningrad. Tête de veau, the brains, tongue and cheeks of a calf. sideorders of tripe à la mode de Caen sweetbreads with morels. Stewed kidneys and heart.....but you know Sergei, I must eat these magical trifles to keep from getting brainy and sad, to avoid leaving this physical world."
I don't know Leningrad but do remember Saint Petersburg, Hôtel Astoria, we were so poor we only had a salad and drunk water...all the money was spent for the room...bu a salad in Astoria has a magical taste...the waiter spoke very good French...he learnt it with the newspapers left by guests in the rooms...