Cocido Y Violonchelo / Stew and Cello

Un elogio en voz alta de dos de los principales placeres que nos ayudan a sobrellevar nuestro tiempo en la tierra: la música y la comida.>Cocido y violonchelo es ese recinto amplio y cómodo donde la desmesura y la obsesión por las actividades que nos proporcionan placer son atributos de los que enorgullecerse. Este es, en definitiva, un testimonio perspicaz, erudito y ameno de las ganas irrefrenables de sacarle el jugo a la vida.ENGLISH DESCRIPTION This book praises aloud two of the core pleasures that help us cope with our time here on Earth: music and food. Mercedes Cebrián decided to learn to play the cello at an age when, apparently, is too late to begin. She thus embarks on a curious adventure, carrying on her back an instrument not very popular in Spain that takes her from music academies to amateur orchestras, to luthier shops that smell of freshly-made stew. The author delves in the nature of music, while observing through a looking glass and a scathing sense of humor a small world where aspiring talents or enthusiasts parade, struggling to get a good sound out of their instruments. And along the way, she invites us to wander through a mentally idealized Russia, with its instrumentalists and gymnastic virtuosos, through the strange underworld of child prodigies, exposed on social media by their own mothers, or through traditional taverns that serve long-standing dishes. We go from a post-Franco Spain to the pandemic, a time when, for so many, dedicating hours to dust off an old hobby has been vital to keep their sanity. Stew and Cello is that wide and comfortable enclosure where excess and obsession for any activity that gives us pleasure are attributes to be proud of. This is definitely a keen, knowledgeable, and enjoyable testimony of the uncontrollable need to get the most out of life. "In just a few paragraphs, I can sense writers with a good ear and a good appetite. A few more pages in, I sense a good discernment and a proficiency in that instrument called the Spanish language, since of late foolishness and grammatical, lexical, and syntactical incompetence are hidden behind short sentences, as hiccups. This book by Mercedes Cebrián has all the qualities that seduce me in good writing: good ear, good appetite, intelligence, and a comfortable and natural mastery of the instrument. You read it as if listening to a scurrying sonata while savoring a perfect pasta." - Héctor Abad Faciolince "The gaze that Mercedes Cebrián casts upon the world in these stories reveal an unimaginable originality that derives from knowing what literature is and acting accordingly. [...] Quite a find." - Juan Ángel Jurist, ABC