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Alan Furst has yet another spy novel out.

Janet Maslin of the NYT says the hero of Spies of the Balkans, a Greek police official named Constantine Zannis, stays close to the Furst prototype, but is “a younger, more vigorous version.” Furst’s spy novels do stick to the formula—the attractive hero, the stunning women, that Casablanca atmosphere—but they’re such fun you don’t mind the deja vu. Also, Furst describes houses and their interiors—curtains, furniture, china—better than any other spy novelist. His real genre is Espionage Nostalgia/Interior Design. I’m surprised his novels haven’t been filmed.

My favorite Furst is the first one: Night Soldiers, which opens with the hero watching helplessly while his brother is kicked to death by Nazis. After that you want him to personally kick every Nazi to death.

My favorite spy novel is probably The Little Drummer Girl by John LeCarré. It was made into an unsatisfying movie starring Diane Keaton, who wasn’t right for the part. They should remake it. Well, maybe not under the current circumstances.

The Little Drummer Girl reads like an espionage manual that ate a psychology textbook. It takes you so deep into the heroine’s mind it’s almost suffocating. It’s also thrilling enough to make you cancel all your appointments for the day.

Summer by Pieter Bruegel the Elder.

Summer by Pieter Brueghel the Younger. I imagine the son added the ‘h’.

Recommended reading: Summer Solstice by Nick Joaquin.

Last week’s question was: What comes after the hors d’oeuvres? I’ve decided not to stand on ceremony; I declare all your answers correct, be they main course/plat principal, the fish dish, entree, or burong penoy. Some of my friends believe that every meal should begin with dessert (or consist entirely of desserts).

The winner of the raffle is. . .entry no. 26, gemini. Congratulations! We’re treating you and a companion to hors d’oeuvres and a main course at La Cuisine. Please post your full name in Comments (It won’t be published) and tell me when you intend to collect your prize, and I will make the reservation.

Photos by Melo Villareal, www.pinoycravings.com.

We asked Jean d’Orival of La Cuisine for a more difficult question this week, and this is what he came up with.

What is the French name of the soup with the following ingredients: Chicken carcass and legs, Leek, Carrot, Tomato, Crêpe, Celery Stick, Onion with Clove, Egg White, Thyme twig, Laurel leaf, Parsley, Salt, and Ground Pepper?

Don’t look at me, I can’t cook at all.

Post your answers in Comments. We’ll accept entries until Saturday, 26 June 2010 at 7pm. All the correct answers are eligible for the raffle on Sunday. The winner and her/his companion will eat the answer, plus dessert, at La Cuisine, on the date of their choice.

La Cuisine is on the ground floor of Paseo Parkview on the corner of Sedeno and San Agustin Streets, Salcedo Village, Makati near Makati Sports Club. The restaurant is open 7 days a week from 10 am to midnight. For reservations call 501.5202 or 752.0335.

Quiet and melancholy, as all airports should be. Happy airports are freakish.

Trip to London off to an excellent start: on the flight to HK I fell asleep the minute I strapped myself into my seat. Could be the (I suspect) lack of oxygen at NAIA 1, which was crammed with people. I was unconscious by the time the plane took off, and woke up only when the snack was served. If I can repeat this feat on the London flight I am a happy traveller.

Very multicultural population on the flight: attractive if balding mediterranean-looking guy in flip-flops reading a book, some Germans, Indians, lots of Pinoys including the two guys obliquely across the aisle from me who’d brought eggs for their snacks. They were either hard-boiled eggs or balut, I couldn’t see.

On this trip I’m reading David Mitchell’s The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet.

This is the back cover of the review copy I got from Lola at National (Lola who picks the fiction titles, not Lola as in the founder of National who is Nanay).

David Mitchell is particularly good for long trips. Years ago I read his Cloud Atlas on a train from Pisa to Paris. I felt like a real citizen of the world. Now that I think about it, all his protagonists are on journeys (not metaphorical, literal) everywhere. The Thousand Autumns starts on a Dutch ship arriving in Nagasaki, port of Japan, in 1799. The port officials are searching the ship for bibles, which are absolutely forbidden in the hermit kingdom.

But before that, a concubine is having a baby, and the details are enough to make you pass out. Remember the first chapter of Corelli’s Mandolin where the extraction of a pea that has resided in a human ear for many years is described? Like that, but a different orifice.

By the way if you blog, don’t publish an article about how paint killed Caravaggio. You will get tons of spam.

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There’s a lovely story by John Carney in today’s South China Morning Post about how Manila has become a haven for refugees everywhere, and how the Philippines which has massive problems of its own is the one nation that welcomes refugees unquestioningly and allows them peace of mind and a fresh start.

Unfortunately access to the article is for SCMP subscribers only.

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Aargh, my 1230 am flight to London is delayed by two and a half hours. On the other hand, all the waiting (2 hours in NAIA + 5 hours in HK + another 2 1/2 hours) has given me lots of time to write and email my column for Friday, so I’m still ahead.

In the James Bond movies and espionage TV shows of the 1970s, the height of spy technology was the “miniature” camera, a palm-sized box that the hero would use to snap photos of top-secret documents. The super-spy was also equipped with a wristwatch that was really a communicator, and a tiny tape recorder that could capture the villain’s foul plans (which the villain always took the time to explain to the hero in great detail, thus ensuring his own failure).

Remember that in those days, whenever the police had to summon Batman, they had to aim a circular beam of light through a bat shape at the sky.

How to listen to a lecture while catching up on your sleep. A review of the Pulse Smartpen in Emotional Weather Report, today in the Star.