Drinks After Death

I live in Hemingway country, the area where he and his family the spent the summers of his youth. It's a beautiful area of lakes and trees and was the setting for some of his stories. I've had drinks in the bar he used to frequent in Petoskey Michigan but of course not with him. But my favorite author with Michigan ties is not Hemingway. It is Jim Harrison who died in 2016. Mr. Harrison wrote many novels and poetry but he also wrote a food column for Esquire and other magazines. In 2001 he compiled these columns and published a book titled The Raw and the Cooked. This is no cookbook. Jim Carvalho of the Tucson Weekly said "Calling The Raw and the Cooked a book about food is like calling the Old Man and the Sea a book about fishing". I reserve it for reading during summer evenings on my deck facing what is called around here, Challenge Mountain, a ski hill for handicapped children. Also I'll only read it when the wind is just right to keep the insects at bay while not being too strong to flip the book pages. I must have my favorite cabernet within reach. That's essential. Reading these columns without accompiment of wine would be doing a disservice to the essence of what they portray. I'm not sure if Mr. Harrison intended these columns to stand in for his physical presence after his death but for me they do. I feel like I'm having a drink with him right here in front of me as he tells the stories that prove there is more to food than just eating and there is more to drink than just drinking. I only met Mr. Harrison for a mere moment at a book signing after an evening of him and two of his good friends in the round at Michigan State University which had been enormously entertaining. Now I read and re-read this book and feel he remains very much alive as one of my favorite drinking buddies.