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Aristologist in the Hills
September 1, 2022 September 2, 2022 ~ Meals Matter ~ 1 Comment
Time passes in a pair of small country towns 20 minutes from Adelaide centre
Once upon a time (more than forty years ago), Jennifer Hillier and I opened the Uraidla Aristologist in the Adelaide Hills. Still a long time ago (2016), I promised a blog post, reporting on its namesake, the then new Summertown Aristologist, just down the road.
We've dined there several times since, which might be all I need to say. But here are a few quick, belated reflections, and a few memories.
Summertown Aristologist (with apologies to Vermeer)
While individual expressions, the two restaurants have also been products of their times. Our dining room had a provincial feel, with linen and white plates and simple cutlery, in an old stone building in a garden. The Summertown version is more hip wine bar with long shared central table, benches, a booth and outdoor tables.
In Uraidla, we went for a three-course, fixed-price menu, opening with a glass of sparkling wine and cheese savouries with around four choices in each course, and closing with coffee. Those cheese savouries lasted from the first meal at our Cantina di Toia in Tuscany until our last meal at Uraidla.
We decided that the fixed price was a "licence to generosity", and we asked $38 for some years – seemingly little these days.
The cooking was our version of Italian and French – always a pasta, often a soufflé – an eclectic mix that might appeal to foodies hankering after simple meals in those countries back then.
The Summertown Aristologist offers a collection of dishes (sample menu below), usually centred on one ingredient, so that one can snack, share plates or submit to the chefs' collection, and cooked more professionally. While a series of chefs have taken charge, their food has remained surprisingly consistent.
Both places set out similarly focussed on local ingredients in changing circumstances, given how we ran through the 1980s into the mid-1990s (Jennifer held on a couple of years longer).
We chose a hidden paradise of market gardeners for our location, although the small growers were already then getting big or out. I would go around the district each summer morning extracting zucchini flowers, and also picked up vegetables from one or two remaining old-style market gardeners. The cherry varieties were extraordinary (including from Julie Bishop's parents). We were able to get English gooseberries from Basket range, sour cherries, quinces, foraged blackberries. A young family started farming Basket Range trout. Basil from a film maker. Avocados from a nearby valley. Locally farmed quail.
We grew plenty in our large garden, including globe artichokes in spring (only cut when ordered), an over-abundance of raspberries through December… and eggs throughout.
Jennifer always baked our bread rolls, and made preserves. We did cure prosciutto and salami, relying on local Italian expertise, but relied mostly on Vari's deli and then Marino's in the Central Market..
While strawberry growers have kept up, and orchardists with cherries and apples are somewhere to be found, the Summertown operation could name several prized suppliers the other day, although often at a relative distance, while they boasted growing all their own vegetables. Otherwise, it's simple ingredients sympathetically considered, the old trick.
Since Jennifer and I were doing a restaurant for its own sake, and eschewing prevalent commercial approaches, we turned out often to have been ahead of our time. Perhaps the simplest example was the grumbles (and thanks) we attracted for "inviting" guests to smoke cigarettes away from the dining-room in a special room or outside. The Summertown A. has no fights on that score.
Perhaps little indicates the changes like wine.
The quick profit from brussels sprouts was ruining land back then. Fortunately, grapes were coming in: Petaluma had planted in 1979, and Ashton Hills would break ground in 1982.
I organised the first Adelaide Hills Wine Show. To get it going, I simply went around to Geoff Trenorden's – the secretary of the excellent Uraidla Show – and he said "sounds good", and what section did we want? Since "W" was available, we became Section W: Wine.
Winemakers Brian Croser and Stephen George joined in, and decided that judging should be done by the exhibitors themselves, sitting around in a circle at the Aristologist. The show started with possibly half-dozen wines, including from backyard makers, but within a few years Croser and George were joined by other notables, not least Stephen and Prue Henschke and Geoff Weaver. Those were the days.
While they now have vineyards in all directions, the Summertown restaurant owners are natural winemakers, the restaurant doubling as their cellar doors.
The changed cost of wines is remarkable; fancy wine prices have responded to increased global demand. For example, from a 1985 winelist, we sold Krug champagne for $36 (about $116 in present dollars). By way of comparison, Dan Murphy's retails the equivalent bottle for $363. It gets worse. Our Petaluma Chardonnay 1981 was on the list for $20. At Rockpool Bar and Grill, an equivalent year is $380. We had the Wendouree Shiraz 1978 for $11, and Rockpool asks $750 for something with a similar age. You'd have to be really in the know to get Mt Mary Cabernets (now called Quintet), which I wasn't alone in considering the finest Australian red, but we asked $25; Rockpool seeks $390. Chateau Coutet 1980 was $25, whereas $325 now.
To explain (not for the first time) the reason for "Aristologist", a London writer Thomas Walker coined "aristologist" for "student of dining" in 1835, and the early Australian cookery book author Edward Abbott used it as his nom-de-plume in 1864. The eccentric name provided a warning that the old (and presumably new) restaurant cared about dining, yet did its own thing.
Dining with a thump
May 19, 2022 May 20, 2022 ~ Meals Matter ~ Leave a comment
ONCE, WHEN WE WERE DINING OUT in Sydney's Leichhardt in the late 1960s, the noise became so unbearable that the Italian waiter whistled shrilly, everyone quietened, and then we gradually talked louder to be heard, until he whistled again.
That's changed, because many restaurateurs now unapologetically drown out conversation. No longer young and silly, and with hearing aids, I have in recent years shied away from at least two restaurants as soon we felt the racket, and I have also put up with the noise in more than one highly-fashionable place where I'm not keen to return.
Discriminating among voices becomes harder with age (too much rock n roll when young). But now speakers thump imperiously beneath the clamour. Managements seemingly welcome the "Lombard effect" (people speaking louder to be heard). They must mistake deafening exuberance for buzz.
Certainly, several waiters have obligingly reduced the volume. Yet in Summer Hill, a young woman turned the sound down, only for the manager to turn it up. When we explained that we'd asked for it down, he said something inaudible about other customers (there were only one or two other tables). He then devoted himself to shifting around paper packages awaiting meal deliverers. Without soliciting our order, he remained unconcerned as we departed, and discovered a cheaper, much friendlier take-away around the corner, with a few tables and wine glasses.
New York Times restaurant critic Pete Wells actually mounted a "ringing defense" of noise. Constantly implored to condemn raucous places, he realised he didn't find loud restaurants a problem.
The truth is, I love them. Not all of them, not all the time. I enjoy more than a few quiet restaurants, too, where you can concentrate on the food and the conversation without auditory distractions. But so many of the places I enjoy most tend to be at least somewhat noisy.
His illustrator did not seem so keen…
In a study of reviews in the New York Times and San Francisco Chronicle, researcher John Lang found that restaurant noise could affect the critics' evaluations. Strikingly, the correlation between comments on noise and overall rating was reversed between east and west coasts:
That is, in the Times, as noise increases, restaurant ratings decrease; while in the Chronicle, as noise increases, so do restaurant ratings
The quality of food had double the impact of service on overall rating, followed by "atmosphere", while noise remained a lesser, but still "significant predictor of the overall restaurant star rating".
The Zagat "State of American Dining" report in 2016 had already found that, for 25% of customers, noise was the most irritating component of dining out, and the internet abounds with complaints. Various apps – including iHEARu and soundprint – been launched to share information about the noise levels of particular restaurants.
So why raise the volume? Researchers found that tasters rated beer more highly when listening to music by a familiar band.
A pair of professors of marketing, studying restaurant "servicescapes", have identified the "environmental cues" such as lighting and music that "strongly" influence eating behavior. For example, loud noise and bright lighting increase the quantity eaten, and decrease the pleasure, without an overall effect on the money spent. They also found that "softening the lighting and music led people to eat less, to rate the food as more enjoyable, and to spend just as much".
Acoustic engineers around the world, including at Flinders University, have advised of how to mitigate the effects of minimalist, hard surfaces.
Noise could become a problem for us at the Uraidla Aristologist in the Adelaide Hills (and so could curmudgeonly customers, but let that pass). A shouty table of six or eight could ruin it for everyone. After we had added a kilim and tapestry to the walls, a further, smart suggestion was to fix egg cartons underneath the long, central serving table. Confession: our notorious cat clawed them down.
Certainly, near-silence could be embarrassing for, say, just two tables of two. But we never succumbed to the increasing pressure to add "atmosphere" with any recorded music. Instead, we often achieved the beautiful hum and clink of contented conversation and dining – one pleasure I still miss.
Surroundings are enormously important to dining. Big money is spent on chairs, walls, bars, benches and lights. Restaurants run from closeted haute cuisine to blaring television echoing around hard surfaces on the other side of the Alps. In recent times, some owners have chosen to deafen customers, and some have chosen to stay away.
With the pandemic, crowding gave way to muffling masks, social distancing, and outdoor tables. But then the clamour came crashing back. Restaurant reviewers ought to include a noise indicator.
@GoldingCartoons
Morrison, "fake"
April 27, 2022 ~ Meals Matter ~ Leave a comment
SCOTT MORRISON would never make a good waiter. He's a total "fake", as certified by recent Australian of the year Grace Tame.
She responded to the Prime Minister's attempt to effuse sympathetically, when a mother inquired about cuts to NDIS payments for her child with autism.
Scott Morrison and his wife were unable to conceive for the better part of two decades. Nearly giving up on IVF, at the age of 39, Jenny gave birth to the first of the couple's two daughters.
"She is our miracle child, the answer to a lifetime of prayer and 14 years of painful, invasive, heartbreaking treatment," Scott wrote in 2009.
So, in a televised leaders' debate the other night, he replied, concerning the future of the NDIS, "Jenny and I have been blessed, we've got two children" – and here he stumbled – "that don't – that haven't had to go through that." He added: "And so for parents, with children who are disabled, I can only try and understand your aspirations for those children."
Grace Tame and fake (to her right)
Along with the famous photo of her sideways look at Morrison, Grace Tame tweeted that "autism blesses those of us who have it with the ability to spot fakes from a mile off".
In a classic non-apology, the Prime Minister later said he was "deeply sorry" about the way his comments were "sought to be represented by our political opponents in the middle of an election," and that he had intended to "respect the challenges they [?] face, not the opposite".
He's a fake leader. He pretends to the role – as a "bully" to some, and "friend" to all the "quiet Australians", while leaving CEOs, lobbyists and cronies to run the place.
Serious waiters are not fakes. They actually care for people. They help them have a good time, and cope with the full range from angry ignorance to gratitude. They have seen it all – couples in love, couples parting, two-timing spouses, drunken politicians, business wheeler-dealers, tearful families, wedding parties, and new-borns in baskets. They have studied the strangest dietary preferences, and all manner of anxiety.
We have had personal experience. Strangers would try to say the "right thing" when confronting our beautiful son, whose disabilities were in plain evidence. They would say things like: "It's wonderful what science comes up with". Or they promised a "miracle" from God.
At restaurants, Lawrence would often cry, and possibly be calmed by listening to the Wiggles. But, truly, the better the restaurant, the happier he was.
Perhaps the noise levels were more comfortable. Perhaps he joined our enjoyment. Perhaps the waiters knew what do. Whatever it was, we confirmed the effect time and again.
There was much that Lawrence couldn't do (he was blind, never said a word, and remained unable to walk or even grip an object). But, among some wondrous abilities, he could spot fakes.
At good places, waiters would organise clear soup or a mash, so we could feed him. (Ultimately, though, he was happier and healthier just being tube fed.)
And, invariably, good waiters did not carry on about science or God; they just said something sensible.
We can't exactly remember the best-ever response, but we know it was by a waiter, and where he was – Café di Stasio in St Kilda. His intent was something like: "He will look after you, and you will look after him."
I dedicated my latest book, Meals Matter, to "Marion, Dorothy, and Lawrence Symons Maddox (1999-2009), who together have taught me so much about meals, and thereby everything".
"Delicious" joins the great foodie movies
December 21, 2021 September 11, 2022 ~ Meals Matter ~ 5 Comments
Words are the aspect of meals that helps their planning, description and acclamation.
Likewise, movies are additions – before, after, or with a glass of wine or popcorn – that can also proclaim dining's centrality to human existence.
Any good movie is bound to include meals. Charlie Chaplin shares his boiled boot in Gold Rush (1925). Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy play battling barristers in Adam's Rib (1949), so that George Kukor establishes their happy domestic relationship by them working comfortably together in the kitchen.
It's not enough just to show pretty food to make a foodie movie – that's like bringing in stars like Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal without actually establishing their love.
Foodie movies (initial list below) have to bring the whole world together, however fleetingly. As Italian cook Primo reveals in Big Night (1996): "To eat good food is to be close to God."
Délicieux (Delicious) (2021)
Where does Eric Besnard's new movie, Delicious, rate on the foodie scale?
Not up with Babette's Feast, but what is? But it sits alongside, say, The Truffle Hunters (2020) and Pig (2021).
Some movie reviewers mustn't be blessed with the "sacred fire" that Brillat-Savarin described, so that they "regard meals as hours of enforced labour, put on the same level everything that might nourish them, and sit at table like an oyster on its bed". Accordingly, critics who found Pig merely a trite satire revealed they had missed the central, dramatic point.
In Delicious, another big, obsessive chef has also retreated to the woods, but, whereas Nicolas Cage's recluse produces one overpowering meal, Grégory Gadeboi's character ostensibly opens the first restaurant a few days before the French Revolution.
Not that Delicious even tries to be accurate in its details. By 1789, a new kind of dining had already emerged based on restoring broths or "restaurants", served in private booths. Even more to the point, Antoine Beauvilliers had already brought aristocratic dining to the streets of Paris.
I talk about these developments, and explain why true restaurants are "open domestic households", in Meals Matter.
Overall, nonetheless, through unashamedly fictional means, Delicious makes bigger statements about the fundamental importance of gastronomic pleasure, and its relationship to French foundation myths.
It is, for example, entirely believable that the French Church decried underground produce as further from God – chef Manceron combines potatoes and truffles in his little pastries that give the movie its title.
In anticipation of you catching Delicious, I won't give more of the plot, except to disclose that Isabelle Carré, although not so well known outside France, is mesmerising.
Initial list of foodie movies:
Tampopo (1985); Babette's Feast (1987); Chicken and Duck Talk (1988); Au Petit Marguery (1991); Like Water for Chocolate (1992); Eat, Drink, Man, Woman (1994); Big Night (1996); Chocolat (2000); Mostly Martha (2002); Sideways (2004); Ratatouille (2007); The Trip (2010); The Lunchbox (2013); The Truffle Hunters (2020); Pig (2021); Délicieux (Delicious) (2021)….
Postscript: Lock-down would appear to have unlocked ridiculous numbers of foodie movies. I've just noticed (September, 2022) a couple more that don't in this case sound all that appetising, namely, Flux Gourmet and The Menu.
Add your favourite foodie movies in the comments.
Is the movie "Pig" for or against foodies?
October 21, 2021 June 2, 2022 ~ Meals Matter ~ 2 Comments
(Perhaps it's post-foodie)
The movie Pig, starring Nicolas Cage, tells of a recluse who leaves the woods in search of his stolen truffle-hunting pig in Portland, Oregon, where he was once an influential chef.
It mightn't be everyone's cup-of-tea; it's filmed grimly almost entirely in the dark; Cage speaks somewhere between a growl and a mumble; but I thought it great.
It's a counterpoint to both the Truffle Hunters, about Italian men and their dogs, and SBS's The Beach, showing Warwick Thornton cooking, and looking, for himself.
An even closer (although less successful) comparison would have to be the recent ABC-TV series, Aftertaste, about an authoritarian chef seeking to redeem himself back in the Adelaide Hills.
Mind you, Pig starts out deceptively as if about a brutal guy – with only a pig to share his meals – fighting the world. But it soon heads elsewhere, although exactly where, as in any decent artwork, can withstand endless interpretation. I won't reveal too much, in case you intend taking the journey.
While the orthodox movie critics, with few exceptions, praise the movie highly, and especially the performances, the rest of the internet helps answer the big question, which is whether it's pro- or anti-foodie.
Take this from the New Republic:
Pig cuts straight through foodie hypocrisy
The overwrought film from Michael Sarnoski contains a fundamental truth about a very sick industry.
It's about time America became disenchanted with foodies. Pig, Michael Sarnoski's foodie noir about loss, love, and labor in Portland, Oregon's restaurant scene, doesn't leave them much room for redemption…
This critic, Jan Dutkiewicz, disapproves of "obnoxious" restaurants and "foodie writing—think Michael Pollan and Mark Bittman and their literary progeny". He opposes "elitist" fetishizing. And he congratulates the movie, which he didn't seem to like much, for also exposing the industry's abuse of workers and animals. (As a scholar, Dutkiewicz works on "improving the treatment of animals through the legal system".)
The scathing, non-comprehending reviewer in the New Yorker declares the movie's key moment to be when our martyr apparently learns "the awful truth of the restaurant world and of the world at large".
Or we could take this:
'Pig' Review: A truly brilliant foodie movie
Not wanting not to spill the beans, Nick Johnston writes:
What I will say is that this is one of the great modern Food movies, and I would not be surprised to see allusions to it pop up in culinary culture over the next few years … It's about our authentic relationships to the food we eat and the emotions and memories that come along with any given meal.
Other commentators remain enticingly ambiguous, like Sydney Morning Herald's Jake Wilson, who says:
Moody, foodie drama with a menacing side serve of parody
… But he's a foodie not a fighter, and the kind of reverential treatment that might be given to a samurai sword in a Tarantino movie is here more likely to go to a salted baguette.
Hillary Dixler Canavan organised a roundtable for the foodie website, Eater.com, where she's a restaurant writer, familiar with Portland, and "obsessed" about the movie.
A Heated Discussion About 'Pig,' the Movie of the Summer
Eight Eater editors debate and dissect the new Nicolas Cage film about a man's search for his beloved truffle pig
The foodies' reactions turn out to be mixed, including Canavan's:
It would have annoyed me much less if the film's most important women weren't dead or in a coma.
Needless to say, the theme of women gone missing is central to the movie. When a sympathetic baker recalls former times, and she finally hugs the grizzled hero, the camera pointedly retains its distance. A woman suddenly revealed in close-up is an intense movie high point.
So, is Pig foodie or anti-foodie? One answer could be that it's anti-bad-foodie and pro-good-foodie, but I hesitate to divide foodies into, say, "deep" and "shallow", even when I suspect fetishising.
I'd rather think of Pig as post-foodie in that it treats restaurant dining – and transcendent meals, in particular – with the utmost seriousness, while at the same time satirising ridiculous hype.
It's not just about sublime tastes either, but very much also about the pleasure of sharing with a loved-one. At the climax, the tragedy turns out to be dining in the absence of not just a pig, but treasured human companions.
Murals matter
July 6, 2020 ~ Meals Matter ~ 2 Comments
Diego Rivera, "Wall St Banquet"
VISUALLY, MY BOOK OPENS and closes with murals. The cover borrows the "Wall Street Banquet" of Mexican muralist, Diego Rivera, and the back flap author photo was taken in a restaurant in Germany. I suppose it's a coincidence that the book is walled-in, so to speak, although there's something about murals …
Rivera's "Banquet" is part of a huge set in Mexico City, covering three floors and staircase of the Ministry of Public Education building, taking Diego and his team six years to finish. That was in 1928-29, as Wall Street crashed.
In this panel, eight diners share champagne, while being served ticker-tape streaming the latest stock market prices from the golden machine under a glass dome. Behind that is a bank vault with megaphones. A Statue of Liberty lamp balances on the table in the foreground.
Rivera, "Dinner of the capitalists"
At least some of the well-dressed guests are historical figures, including a Rockefeller, whose family would commission Rivera, who was an on-and-off-again communist, to work in the U.S. Inevitably, in 1934, the family instructed labourers to scrub out his most ambitious American piece, a huge mural in the foyer of The Rockefeller Centre, New York.
Meals Matter might almost equally have been illustrated by a nearby mural in the Mexico series – "The dinner of the capitalists", which shows a ruling family served coins, with revolutionaries with abundant food in the background.
Both murals belong to the building's third level, which illustrates the "Ballad of the proletarian revolution". Over the Wall St banquet, the banner translates as: "the rich man keeps thinking how to double his money." The words over the capitalists' dinner say: "Gold is worth nothing if there is no food".
I came across Rivera's murals when idly searching for an illustration of banquets, whose interpretation is important in Meals Matter. (I ended up with a photo of an electric chandelier in Glasgow!) The Wall St version is not strictly a banquet; in this case, "banquet" connotes privilege.
The back flap author photo was taken in mid-2019 by my wife, Marion Maddox, in Hannover, Germany. She took out the phone at the Max Walloschke restaurant, where we went several times. Our revisits explain the two versions (shown here) in different clothes in front of different still lives.
Max Walloschke, who was a weightlifter, professional wrestler and German bowls champion, opened the Kneipe ("pub") on 19 June, 1952.
In Berlin, I suspected that smart locals crowded old-time Austrian restaurants, because they could not admit to enthusing about what some might call "heavy German kitsch".
However, Max Walloschke remains unapologetic, calling itself "Das Kultrestaurant am Steintor" – the "cult restaurant at the Steintor", that is, the place with a dedicated following at the city's old "stone gate".
Another of their claims is "Hier gibt es das wahrscheinlich beste Eisbein der Stadt" – "probably the best pork knuckle in town".
The restaurant's official slogan, "Gutbürgerliche Küche und gemütliches Ambiente seit 1952", uses two words that are allegedly untranslatable. "Gutbürgerliche" suggests "homely" in the sense of lots of sausages, potatoes, and beer. And "gemütlich" hints at a "cosy" atmosphere, and more, because: "Cosy captures an element of it but crucially lacks those of friendliness and belonging."
Max Walloschke postcard
The restaurant also boasts "authenticity" and "tradition", which we can believe, and "Herzlichkeit" ("warmth"), which we can confirm. (I plan to say more on this.)
As immoveable artworks, genuine murals (rather than wallpapers) have tended to be sponsored for public places, including cafes and restaurants, where they often employ faux architectural elements to give the illusion of grandeur, space or being in the homeland – sometimes all at once, such as a panorama of the Bay of Naples through trompe-l'oeil pillars. The more Gutbürgerlich murals of beer, pork and vegetables encourage Gemütlichkeit.
I must find out the name of the painter, whose food murals contribute so warmly to Max Walloschke's welcome.
"Wall St Banquet" on left
How our "consolation of profit" thesis helps understand restaurants, megachurches, and Trump
May 3, 2020 May 3, 2020 ~ Meals Matter ~ 1 Comment
MARION MADDOX AND I have just published a paper, "The consolation of profit",* in New Formations, a journal of contemporary culture and politics.
Perhaps the quickest introduction is bottled water. Why do people pay for something they can get out of the tap?
At Max Walloschke, Hannover
Certainly, the hefty marketing promises health and status. But to those familiar explanations, we add another: the insistent hawking itself arouses a reasonable expectation that sellers are so desperate for profit that they will risk no other complication. If it's outside the market economy, can it really be safe?
The "consolation of profit" arose from attempts to understand consumer anxiety when Jennifer Hillier and I ran the Uraidla Aristologist restaurant more according to our own earnest ideas than the Market's.
Along with a funny name, the Aristologist had no piped music, no Coca-Cola, no smoking (except in a special room or outside), and otherwise signalled more than mere profit-seeking. The precipitating incident was a sweet, young couple looking at the menu, and asking if they might repair instead to a nearby restaurant. Our food would be "too spicy", they explained, although, in reality, this would have applied more to the other place.
A more likely explanation was that the Aristologist might seem to require savoir-faire, an unfamiliar wine, reflection on the experience, or any number of other interactions.
McDonald's redoubles the assurances. Their so-called "restaurants" advertise utterly predictable food – "Do you want fries with that?" – and stilted interactions – "Have a nice day". The hammering of cheapness backs the warranty: no any other demand.
As a religious studies scholar, Marion added the second case-study. Why have megachurches been on the rise, when mainline churches have generally declined? Megachurches have replaced old liturgies with the forms of rock concerts and television tonight shows. Theirs is "Jesus lite".
The "consolation of profit" thesis adds that, whereas a tight, more traditional congregation might threaten personal, social or deep theological challenges, these "growth churches" preach a simple message, "we want your money." The merchandising in the foyer, donation buttons on web-pages, repeated onstage appeals shout out the safety of profit-seeking. The upfront demand for money could risk no challenge.
Our third case study asks how could anyone vote for such a shallow charlatan as Donald Trump? Together with lies and racism, his heavily-funded election campaign came with the "consolation of profit". Trump never pretended to be anything more than a super-salesman with advertising slogans in place of policies.
This self-professed artist of "the deal" grew up in the congregation of prosperity gospel preacher, Dr Norman Vincent Peale, author of a string of business self-help titles, most famously, The Power of Positive Thinking (1952). Peale officiated at Trump's first wedding.
Voting for the celebrity money-maker guarded against any untoward governmental decisions. Selling himself as the greatest, Trump offered no "deep state" threats. Denouncing elite expertise, he ostentatiously ruled through Fox News tweets.
With the pandemic, the Symons-Maddox thesis sees a hard-selling, anti-intellectual braggart struggling with an unanticipated crisis. "We're prepared, and we're doing a great job with it"; "I like this stuff. I really get it," etc, shows he has nothing to sell but himself.
How enduring the consolation proves against obvious lack of social commitment, we'll find out in November.
*Michael Symons and Marion Maddox (2020), "The consolation of profit," New Formations 99: 110-126
How to buy Meals Matter
April 29, 2020 May 25, 2021 ~ Meals Matter ~ 3 Comments
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***Here is the Columbia link to use the friendly promo code CUP30 for a 30% discount.
Author with first copy
Now for something completely different … cheese savouries
April 13, 2020 ~ Meals Matter ~ 1 Comment
SOMETIMES THINGS fall into place so neatly as to be scarcely noticed. But I have never let myself forget the good fortune in discovering a simple savoury that we served to every customer from the first night of our restaurant in Tuscany in 1979 until Jennifer Hillier shut the doors on the Uraidla Aristologist seventeen years later.
The cheese savouries became minor celebrities, and various recipes have popped up in magazines and the internet over the years. Oddly enough, no-one seems to have revealed our source, until now.
To quote a recent correspondent with this blog:
Hi Michael – way back when living in Adelaide, I visited several times your lovely Aristologist restaurant in Uraidla – and so often reflect on the wonderful food that came to our table. I was wondering if your recipe for those lovely 'cheese aperitifs' that greeted us at the table as we began our evening was available in any publication? Sitting here in London on a grey morning, with this awful virus being the latest 'panic' we are facing, I was thinking how lovely it would be to be guided as to how to rekindle the taste buds with these lovely 'bites'. If you could send me in the right direction, that would be wonderful.
with warmest wishes
A quick online search showed up this version, "Grown-up grilled tomato and cheese sandwiches" on the blog of Mardi Michels, now living in Toronto, and who admitted she first ate them "at the legendary Uraidla Aristologist restaurant in the Adelaide Hills, where I was fortunate enough to dine a few times when I was way too young to really appreciate it".
Mardi has added tomato in Toronto
That's Mardi Michels's photo, here. She wrote about them again as "Croque Monsieur bites", which is the photograph at the top. We only ever grilled them draped in grated cheese.
On the night before we opened the Cantina di Toia, we were still desperately seeking something to serve with a glass of the Fattoria de Bacchereto's vin ruspo, the local, fresh, light, rosato-style wine that makes an excellent aperitivo. The best Sydney restaurant back then – Tony and Gay Bilson's Berowra Waters Inn – would open with something with a glass of champagne. If such a welcome was good enough for them, it was good enough for us. Like them, we offered a fixed price meal (with several choices), which we thought of as a "licence for generosity" (a description Gay agreed with).
In desperation, where does a person turn? We loved Paolo Petroni's serious local recipe book, but wanted something less familiar for our customers. Italians scarcely knew even basic French things like quiches, let alone the Antipodean Pavlova (both of which we served). So, I checked out Elizabeth David, Jane Grigson and Mastering the Art.
It was in this last that I found "Croûtes [Toasted Bread Cases]" on page 222 of the Penguin paperback edition. The selected filling became "Fondue au Gruyère [Cream Filling with Swiss Cheese]", two pages later. I presume that was the original filling – in my head, it's just a thick, white, cheese sauce. A béchamel, if you will.
To summarise our method: we purchased white, unsliced "supermarket" bread a day or two early (slightly older is easier to handle). Take off the crusts, then cut into approximately 4cm-thick slices, which are divided both ways, to come up with cubes. Next, the tricky bit. After doing this countless times, I became committed to a perfect, little, sharply pointed knife, with which I hollowed the cubes out exceedingly neatly. Brush with melted butter, and crisp a little in the oven until pale gold.
Meanwhile, you will have made a thick white sauce. That is, heat flour and butter in a saucepan to make a golden paste, add milk, slowly at first to stir out even the possibility of lumps. Add grated cheese. Following Beck, Bertholle and Child, we "enriched" with an egg yolk or two. (Did we grate in nutmeg? – not sure.) Fill the cubes, covered with a pinch more cheese, and brown them in the hot oven.
Think that's right, Jill! It's many years since we made them. But you now have the source recipe.
The end of the world? In many ways, but maybe, you never know…
March 21, 2020 March 21, 2020 ~ Meals Matter ~ 4 Comments
The French Dispatch (Wes Anderson, 2020)
EMPTY SUPERMARKET shelves. Flights banned. Cruise lines taking a holiday . . . That'll pass.
But Parisian bars, cafes and restaurants totally closed? That's the end of some world or another.
More than just locked restaurants across the globe, urban life closes down and, with it, many seeming certainties. How unconvivial could this get?
My new book, Meals Matter, develops a "radical economics" from John Locke, Brillat-Savarin and others. As the first copies are being printed, a major rethink feels even more necessary. As First Dog on the Moon says: "Things are crazy and scary and they were already crazy and scary before."
Meals Matter laments the two-century dismissal of meals – the disparagement of domesticity, the corruption of the lively marketplace, and the denigration of the wider, political meal. For this last, I reclaim the name, "banquet". Needless to say, going along with money's demands, governments so abandoned their meal – the banquet – that it remains scarcely visible.
Along comes the coronavirus, and governments act financially. Save the stockmarket! This is meant to "save jobs" to maintain metaphorical "bread", although cynics also know that businesses seek to "capitalise the gains and socialise the losses".
The government "banquet" should be not just emergency provisioning, but a whole meal. After all, any good meal comprises not just nutrients, but also comfort, pleasure, companionship, beauty, health, learning….
The aristocratic and religious hierarchies embellished their banquets with fine architecture and arts, and employed musicians, dancers, clowns, and jesters to tell truths. They staged whole after-dinner operas.
After pulling down monarchies and theocracies, the people anticipated their own mighty, popular banquets. But capitalism rose up within and against democratic republics, preferring only one meal, that of the market, and that merely conceived as prices.
Without government employment, artists were expected to rely on the market, and private patronage.
Suddenly, performers are out of work. I can no longer attend Verdi's Attila at the Opera House tonight, nor the Bowral music festival next weekend. With a pandemic shaking live music and theatre to the core, government support looks slim indeed.
New York Times columnist, Michelle Goldberg, just wrote:
it's chilling to witness an entire way of life coming to a sudden horrible halt. So many of the pleasures and consolations that make dwelling in cramped quarters worth it, for those privileged enough to choose city life, have disappeared. Even if they all come back, we'll always know they're not permanent.
Things are changing. Social-distancing and self-isolation atomise face-to-face meals. Yet mass banquets reappear on balconies. Neighbours drop food off at front doors. The whole world comes together as never before.
Just maybe those who survive the pandemic might have been reminded the hard way that meals matter far more than money. If dictatorships haven't further edged out liberal democracies, the banqueters might appreciate that the political household depends on cooperative health care, decent educations, the performing arts….
You never know, perhaps even mainstream economists will soon disown their slogan, "greed is good." Governments might re-nationalise airlines….
Michelle Goldberg also wrote: "Maybe when this ends, people will pour into the restaurants and bars like a war's been won, and cities will flourish as people rush to rebuild their ruined social architecture."
To help prepare, put in your orders for Meals Matter: A Radical Economics through Gastronomy.


text:
How Virtual Reality is Making Mobility Accessible for Everyone: Part 2 Podcast Transcript
By Ed Bernardon • May 16, 2021 • 17 MIN READ
How VR is making mobility accessible for everyone – Listen HERE
As we continue to steer towards a more mobility-inclusive future, there's a restructuring that needs to take place. This goes for our perceptions of what is possible in terms of automated transportation, and how we make sure that this technology wave is being executed in terms of production. You might say it's a restructuring from the factory floor up.
Artificial Intelligence is entering our workspace in subtle ways already, but the future is proving bright for AI in more direct operations too. It's being used as a training tool for machine operators, and it's providing valuable information that operators, designers, and managers can use to change how we do things, improving training access and efficiency along the way.
In this episode of the Women Driving the Future series, Ed Bernardon continues his conversation with Sofia Lewandowski. As a Senior UX Researcher, IoT & Industry 4.0 at FactoryPal, her work happens directly on the factory floor where she can help shape both the design and assembly process. The virtual environment she's created has paved the way for accessible mobility for the masses.
In this follow-up episode, we'll learn the different mindset around creating vehicles versus establishing the groundwork for building better, more accessible vehicles. She'll share what she's learned from working remotely during the pandemic, and how it may be shifting the future of how we work. You'll also hear her perspective on women working in the software and automotive industries.
This is the transcript of the episode.
Ed Bernardon: Welcome to the Future Car Podcast. I'm your host Ed Bernardon, from Siemens Digital Industry Software.In many ways you can think of city streets to be much like a factory. But instead of moving parts around to different factory workstations, we're moving people and packages around from place to place." There are a lot of commonalities between what happens on the automated factory floor, and what happens with autonomous vehicles on city streets.
In part one of our interview with our guest Sofia Lewandowski we discussed her past work at HFM designing autonomous vehicles and making them better suited for the disabled. She now works for FactoryPal, where they are digitizing the factory floor. In this follow-up episode we shift gears from city streets to factory aisles as we learn about the mindset when utilizing AI on the factory floor. Sofia also shares what she's learned from working remotely during the pandemic as well as her perspective on women working in the software and automotive industries.
Sofia, welcome back to the Future Car Podcast.
Sofia Lewandowski: Hello, Edward. Thanks for having me. (insert from interview part 1)
Ed Bernardon: Well, let's move from autonomous vehicles to the factory floor and talk a little bit about what you're doing now at FactoryPal. I looked at their vision, FactoryPal's vision, and it's "To revolutionize manufacturing by synergizing human expertise and digital intelligence." What does that mean "to synergize human expertise and digital intelligence"?
FactoryPal enables machine operators on the shop floor to be more productive.
Sofia Lewandowski: Basically, the concept of FactoryPal is to enable machine operators on the shop floor to be more productive and to achieve improvement in efficiency by using our recommendations in the app for the machine settings. So, basically, we would recommend, in the app, what machine settings they would need to use to optimize the workflow of the machines so that they have less downtime, less speed losses, and can just do the right settings to the machine. We actually also have a couple of apps that we are working with. It's not just this app that gives the recommendations but also an app where operators document losses, such as downtimes and speed losses, and with the input of the users, we can enable operators to be more productive and also for process engineers to have this access to the information from their machine operators and analyze and optimize the machines. So, we work with the input from machine operators and through machine learning. We give them every time recommendations for the right machine settings.
Ed Bernardon: What kind of machines are we talking about here?
Sofia Lewandowski: Production machines. So, we are working with our customer, the customer produces a specific product, and we have their lines, production lines with different areas. On these lines, sometimes what happens is that there are a lot of different products that have been created on these lines, each product would slightly differ from the previous one, operators would need to try out different settings. It will be try-and-fail but with our recommendations for every run, they are getting optimized, and give the best recommendations for the operators.
Ed Bernardon: So, AI and machine learning is applied in trying to achieve these goals to optimize the interaction of the human and their production machines. How is AI used in this application?
FactoryPal utilizes machine learning to create recommendation for factory machine settings.
Sofia Lewandowski: At FactoryPal we utilize machine learning, which is the first milestone that gives us an output recommendation for the machine settings, as I said, and the algorithm continuously improves with next runs. So, it's difficult for machine operators to figure out all the machine settings for the products, we provide recommendations to a piece, and the piece can apply or decline this by giving their feedback. The machine learns best settings for the next time.
Ed Bernardon: And then the human or the operator will give feedback and say, "Ah! These settings were better, they weren't," or it actually monitors the equipment and actually tells the operator if it's operating better or worse.
Sofia Lewandowski: I would say two different kinds of operators, very experienced ones that already worked in the production from 15 to 30 years. They have all these settings in their mind but still have to try out a lot of times. And there are also inexperienced, new machine operators, younger ones, new generation, next generation that we are trying to support. And of course, without the help of experienced OPs, for them, it's a little challenging, especially in the beginning to set up the right settings. That's where we use the input from experienced operators who would decline some of the recommendations and provide feedback, and our software would learn the best settings for the next round from the feedback.
Ed Bernardon: Well, let's imagine you have a new operator, a younger operator, hasn't had too much experience running a particular machine, and you have two choices: you could get someone with 30 years experience to help them, or you could have let's call it an AI assistant. How would you compare those two? Because having someone that's very experienced help them, that's the traditional way. You think they're equal, same speed, slower speed?
Sofia Lewandowski: Even experienced operators, they still need to try settings out and see what works best. Sometimes, of course, it happens that new OPs don't always have the supervisor on their side, and they need to contact shift leads maybe or ask any other operators who are on another line. So, it actually would save time to work with the app to look up the recommendations there to also have more precise, over the time the recommendations, of course, will get better and better, and where they will not have to try out a lot but really will be able to rely on these recommendations.
Ed Bernardon: So, do you think if the experienced operator was available, probably you could learn at a more rapid rate? Because it sounds like one of the advantages is the AI assistant is always available, where the experienced operator might not be. But if they are available, is it still a better way to go if you can get someone that's experienced, rather than relying on AI and machine learning?
Sofia Lewandowski: Well, we consider a lot of different aspects that we use for machine learning for our algorithms. So, I would say there are a lot of different experience operators, but still they might not consider some of the aspects at the same time. So, that's why they will still try out until the right setting will be found, and the AI will make sure that it will happen faster so that the recommendation is already there without trying out a lot.
Ed Bernardon: I suppose with the experienced operator, though, once your break comes along, you could go and have a cup of coffee with him. We haven't perfected the AI assistant yet to do that have we.
Sofia Lewandowski: No, you cannot get the coffee with.
Ed Bernardon: You never know what you might learn on that conversation over a cup of coffee. That could be for the next version, version two. Now, how do you compare the difference in the goals you have at work at HFM with autonomous vehicles to what you're doing now working in factories here using artificial intelligence to improve and digitize the factory floor? How do you compare these two working environments and what your goals are?
Sofia Lewandowski: At the FactoryPal, I'm actually working as a UX researcher, and here I'm more specified. So, basically, I have the expertise in one area, I'm testing the prototypes that were created by designers, also test the features and different ideas with the users on the shop floor. And this is really more about UX methods. I apply a lot of methods, such as interviews with the users, I observed the users on the shop floor, I also create for them diary studies. I'm just basically using a lot of methods only for UX research. And here I also worked in the software area. So, with HFM. was more working on the physical level for physical motion work platform, I created these 3D designs in different 3D software, using VRED,using VR. And also was not just responsible for design but really, for a lot of different things at the same time. So, basically, designed the 3D models but also reached out to the community, represented the company, and so on. So, it's a completely different area, I would say.
Ed Bernardon: When you say it's completely different. Is it completely different in terms of the final application or more the difference in your role?
Sofia Lewandowski: Both. So, different in my role? Yes. I mean, I used to work, of course, with the customers and users as well, but it was more spread out. I really was responsible for a lot of different things in a, let's say, smaller startup, and now in this corporate startup with FactoryPal, I'm more focused. In terms of the company goals and also the product, we are comparing automotive industry with Software as a Service, let's say, with a software solution where we don't create a physical product but we create the software piece that we use at customer side and help them to improve their efficiency.
Ed Bernardon: So, in one case, you're creating a vehicle, and in the other case, you're actually trying to, in a way, providing a service. Well, you're providing a product, but ultimately, it's to make what they have better. The whole idea of AI coming into a factory and helping people gain experience or improve, I would imagine, there may be some people that are excited about that, maybe others that are scared about it. How do you see people in factories or even people that are going to take a ride in an autonomous vehicle, how do you think they feel about artificial intelligence?
Sofia Lewandowski: For example, at FactoryPal, on the shop floor, there is fear on the shop floor level from, let's say, machine operators. On the management level, there is an excitement. So, basically, the same company, the same customer, but different levels of this excitement and fear. So, the management level understands the benefits, what it will be doing for the production, how the production will benefit from it. And they also know where it comes from and how it works. I would compare this with [ inaudible] where you have two phases, it's not separate. There's not either fear or excitement but there's both in the same person, or in the same company. I would say, also on the shop floor level, there is also both, the young OPs – so basically the next generation – they are excited about the technology, and they also support, they can work easily with smartphones, with tablets, with MacBooks where we have our apps. And they also are very familiar with all the usability aspects. They play around with the app and are really excited that they actually can use this knowledge base. So, basically, they can use these apps to optimize their processes to have easier life, easier workflow. But elderly, more experienced OPs, they are non-digital natives, and for them, it's a little scared because they maybe feel that they might be replaced in the future and they might not be needed, or they just don't know how it works and where it comes from. With automated vehicle, it's similar, there is also an excitement and fear, there's both. And I think because people are curious, but a lot of people don't want to be the first who would try out the new technology, there will always be these early adopters who will just jump on an autonomous vehicle, try it out, and see that it actually works well, that is not dangerous. I think we just need to go step-by-step by losing this fear to show that it's actually exciting and it will be beneficial for people.
Ed Bernardon: In an autonomous vehicle the fear is almost understandable. You get into it, "Oh, there's no driver!" And certainly, there are the early adopters that say, "Oh, no problem. I'll give it a try." On the factory floor though, when you say there's fear of AI, what's it fear based on?
Sofia Lewandowski: People don't understand where it comes from; how the AI works? And also a lot of, let's say, experienced OPsif they don't know what it will be good for, and how it will help them in the future; they might become fearful that they will be not needed in the future if the AI will know better.
Ed Bernardon: Yeah, "The AI is going to replace me." So, how do you go about when you encounter someone like that? Because if you have a user-centric product that's supposed to help the user, yet they're afraid of the very thing that's going to help them? How do you create the trust around the product that's AI-based so that they can get the benefits that it can provide to them? How do you do that?
Support from AI enables factory workers to have more time for other things, to maybe oversee not just one line.
Sofia Lewandowski: We don't actually aim for lifeless factories, the customers will always need the operators there. But this support from the AI will enable them to have more time for other things, to maybe oversee not just one line, but two lines, not being in a noisy environment but being in their cabin and monitor everything from there. So, to let them kind of understand and help them to understand what is the value, we need to show them where it comes from, and that they are still in charge, and that AI just supports them, these recommendations are actually originally coming from them. Shopfloor consultants, we do have shopfloor consultants on the customer side, who are companions to machine operators, they are assistance in the transformation process. So basically, they support them to learn how to work with the app and to understand where everything comes from. I think this is how we can gain trust.
Ed Bernardon: When you're doing these types of interactions, certainly being face to face has to make it a lot easier, especially if you're trying to build trust. But with COVID, over the past year, I would imagine a lot of your work, if not almost all of those, probably been done remotely, how has your role and what you've done changed because of COVID in trying to achieve the goals that you've achieved in the past when you were working face to face?
Sofia Lewandowski: I actually started during the pandemic and was even onboarded online. I still don't really know my colleagues in person, a lot of them, a couple of them I met in the office sometimes as I went there. But especially in the beginning, I went to the customer side to the shop floor, in the beginning, a lot. So, I was traveling to different locations in Germany. But now because of the restrictions, I cannot go there anymore or not that often. We created a remote setup to interview the users online. And, of course, there is a big disadvantage because I cannot be there and observe them, I cannot, let's say, bother them with questions and just figure out things I would like to figure out, and just I think observation is really important in this case. And I used to talk to a lot of different operators during the day, and now we schedule, let's say, maybe a couple of interviews a week, which is sometimes not enough input, but we figured out it actually works pretty well, I would say. Now, because of the pandemic, it's more accepted that people cannot be there and accept the remote environment and the remote installation, and are more ready to actually sit down in front of the computer and talk to me via Lookback, Teams, or Zoom. So, we do still have our shopfloor consultants, not all of them at the same time, but they help us with the installation. They have helped us with the installation in the beginning, and now they just look if they can get us some users, let's say, to invite for a remote interview. And if they are not there and they are not allowed to go there because of the pandemic, then we just have our person of contact, which is a process engineer at one of the locations, and he tries to organize the interviews with us
Ed Bernardon: Did it surprise you how well you're able to work remotely?
Sofia Lewandowski: Yes, actually, it was very surprising, I didn't imagine it will work that well. As I said, there are a couple of challenges because our users are non-digital natives, a lot of them. And they really don't work a lot with online applications, not even sometimes with smartphones, and for them, it's sometimes challenging. But I figured out for myself that it works better than I thought. I think it's just because of this social acceptance because everyone knows that it cannot work differently, right now.
Ed Bernardon: We've gotten used to the new way. And do you think it'll change the way you work in the future once COVID is over and we can work the way we used to, or maybe apply elements of what you've learned over the past year? Do you think it'll be different when we're back, shall we say, to the new normal?
Sofia Lewandowski: I think I just learned the advantages, actually, of the remote setup. I don't have to travel a lot, that's why I think in the future, it will be a mix of being at home and still interviewing users from Berlin and not having to travel to somewhere in Europe; it saves a lot of time, and a lot of energy. And I have free time to actually analyze the results, present the results to the team, being busy with other assignments, such as user journey maps, and so on. So, I think I've learned that it just really can work and it works well, and I can just save a lot of time on traveling, and in the future, I will be just mixing I think both.
Ed Bernardon: Yeah, I think we're all going to have to explore and figure out what the right mix is but it'll certainly be a mix. The other challenge is, obviously, you have a home office of some kind, what would you say your biggest challenge was to learn to work from home day after day after day, over the past year or so?
Sofia Lewandowski: I think it was missing exchange with the colleagues in real. Sometimes, as I was onboarded, I didn't know actually not much about the company. And production is also, let's say, very technical, so you need to really understand what happens in the production. Not being able to go to the shop floor that often and not being able to exchange any time with the colleagues, that was the biggest, I would say, challenge. Sometimes, if you work with your colleagues everyday, you just know you have a lunch break together, you do a coffee break and during this time, you also talk maybe about work and about features they are working on and so on. So, it's not forced, it happens kind of intuitively. But in the remote office, you really need to schedule appointments if you want to figure out something and you need to know what you need to figure out. That's why I think remote office is a challenge because you sometimes don't get the information you would get if you would be in the office with 35 people that surround you.
Ed Bernardon: Well, and also if you have a pet – like a barking dog- you have to learn how to control them. Any challenges like that, that you encountered?
Sofia Lewandowski: No, actually, I'm pretty lucky, I would say. I mean, I can speak from my sister's experience, she has two children at home and they couldn't go to school during the pandemic, and still they are not able to go full time. So, for her, it's a real challenge. And if I compare myself with her, I really have the best conditions; I'm at home, my partner is at home. I don't still have children or dogs at home, so it's really relaxing. I would say, for me, the setup works really well. But for some of the families, of course, it's a struggle.
Ed Bernardon: I would ask you one last thing here. So, you've worked in the automotive industry, and now you're in the software business. How do you think the role of women compares in these two different industries? You've experienced both, how are they the same and how are they different?
Sofia Lewandowski: Both areas actually are about technology but I feel that if I think about how many women we have at FactoryPal, this is 1/3 of all employees and in HFM I was only one woman after another one left for her maternity leave. This is a big difference. Also, I used to work in an automotive company, in a corporate company, and I was the only one girl at that time, and the department consisted out of 40 people. So, I mean, here I see at FactoryPal, we have way more women, just because I think it's not that technical, it's not that physical; it's more about software consultancy, user experience, a lot about user experience and design. And I wish we would have even more women, of course, in both areas, in the automotive industry and in the software industry.
Ed Bernardon: Well, certainly women bring a different perspective.
Sofia Lewandowski: That's true.
Ed Bernardon: Well, Sofia, thank you so much for joining us here today. I want to finish up with what we call rapid-fire: a series of questions that we ask. You can answer very quickly, short answer or long answer if you want, or even say pass if it's a question you don't want to answer. Are you ready?
Sofia Lewandowski: Yes.
Ed Bernardon: All right, here we go. What is the first car that you ever bought?
Sofia Lewandowski: As I still was a student, I bought a new Hyundai I10. I had a couple of thoughts, why I would like to get a small car, it had to be small, good for parking in the city, but still have enough space inside to drive around with friends and family. It had to have a low fuel consumption to drive long distances so that I could afford as a student of course. And it shouldn't have any issues, that's why I got a new one. And I was super happy with actually this choice that time.
Ed Bernardon: Did you pass your driver's test on the first try?
Sofia Lewandowski: Yes, I did for my car in Germany. But I had to repeat the driver's test for my motorcycle in the US. But of course, I did it again in Germany I had to, and then I passed for the first time.
Ed Bernardon: Tell me have you ever gotten a speeding ticket? If you're a motorcycle driver, you must have gotten a speeding ticket. What's your best speeding ticket story?
Sofia Lewandowski: Actually, I'm not proud of my speeding tickets. And I've got a lot in Germany, seriously. Here are a lot of cameras installed everywhere so I regularly get them, unfortunately. But I also get pictures, so some of them looks fun. I'm very impatient and drive too fast, I think this is my problem. Last time I rented a car, Skoda Kodiaq, it has a great travel assistant, and the speed was automatically adjusted by speed limits. And the thing, automated cars will help impatient drivers in the future to keep the right speed. So, it helped a lot, me, to stay within the limits. And I think this is just a great solution. So, maybe I will improve in the future.
Ed Bernardon: Imagine, in the future – and actually probably not too distant in the future because HFM is doing it today – you could have your own living-room-on-wheels; an autonomous vehicle with whatever you want inside, you're going to take it on a five-hour journey, what would you want in your living-room-on-wheels?
Sofia Lewandowski: I think I would like to be by myself. And since I will not have to drive, I would like to have a foldable desk and a big screen to cut videos; I like cutting videos in my free time. I would probably also learn singing; karaoke or something like that so that nobody can listen to how terrible it sounds. I would video chat with my maybe family and friends I haven't seen for a long time. And once I will be done with all this, I would fold everything back and just relax and look out of the window.
Ed Bernardon: What person, living or not, would you want to spend that five-hour car ride with?
Sofia Lewandowski: I think I can think of two people. The first one would be Warren Buffett, I would love to learn about his investment strategies. And another one would be Elon Musk, I would like to ask him about his passions, his childhood, how he came to where he is right now, and what inspired him to do what he does today, and what are his further plans. I'm just really interested in people's biographies and stories. And everywhere I try to talk to people first about how they came, where they are, and about their childhood, and inspire them to do what they do today.
Ed Bernardon: What do you wish you understood better?
Sofia Lewandowski: I would say these are investment strategies in startups; this is something I would be interested in. And also how to found a company and be successful; this is also something that would very much interest me.
Ed Bernardon: Well, we need to build you that living-room-on-wheels and get you with Elon and Warren, right?
Sofia Lewandowski: Right.
Ed Bernardon: Now, if you could have the answer to any question, what would that question be?
Sofia Lewandowski: How to make the world more accessible to everyone?
Ed Bernardon: All right, if you could un-invent one thing, what would it be?
Sofia Lewandowski: It's difficult to say. I would say social media but not completely. I mean, I'm also spending a lot of time on social media. But only maybe partially, only the toxic part.
Ed Bernardon: It's a love-hate relationship, right?
Ed Bernardon: And if you could magically invent anything, just one thing, what would that be?
Sofia Lewandowski: Since I used to travel a lot and I kind of wasted a lot of time by traveling, I would like to have something like people-beaming. So, I would like to save time on traveling and would like to appear in Stuttgart, or Portland, or Detroit just within seconds to go ahead and drink coffee with a friend, or go to a conference I want to go or do users interview somewhere in the middle of Germany so that I don't have to travel down. So, I think that will be genius.
Ed Bernardon: The People Beamer, as you called it, is probably the thing that comes up the most when we ask that question, of one thing you could've done. Absolutely, so a lot of people looking for the People Beamer. So, hopefully, here it'll be invented soon. Sofia, thank you so much for joining us on the Future Car Podcast.
Sofia Lewandowski: Thank you, Edward. It was really great talking to you.
Automotive Software
AV Development
Cars of the Future
Innovating Design
Multidisciplinary Design
Paradigm Shifts
virtual verification
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Automotive OEMs
Automotive Suppliers
Bicycles & Parts
Buses & Specialty Vehicles
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This article first appeared on the Siemens Digital Industries Software blog at https://blogs.sw.siemens.com/thought-leadership/2021/05/16/how-virtual-reality-is-making-mobility-accessible-for-everyone-part-2-podcast-transcript/

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl