Empires, Cannibals, and Magic Fish Bones
Join us as we celebrate food, the dinner table, and quite likely empires, cannibals and magic fish bones!
Philippe de Champaigne’s painting Saint Augustine (1645-1650) presents the image of a burning heart in the theologian’s hand to emphasize his burning love of knowledge, truth and God. A smoking heart has much to do with a love of taste, and with that, a few words about taste from the Journal of René Redzepi: The connection … Continue reading Smoking Heart Of Love.
In the early sixteenth century, Leonardo Da Vinci sketched many anatomical drawings and wrote many notes concerning the human heart. Nature has made the cords on the back side of the fleshy membrane of the three gates with which the gateway of the right ventricle is shut; and she has not made them on the … Continue reading Eating A Burning Heart Of Love.
Houston like any city from Ur to Rome to Hong Kong tells its story through food and those who bring food traditions from around the world to their neighborhood. A Brief History of Houston Barbecue offers such a tale, one where I stir a barbecue sauce in my Houston Heights home and wonder, whose sauce … Continue reading More Alchemy And Travels Through Space And Time With Barbecue Sauce.
A maid and a cavalier look out at us from a 17th century kitchen in Pieter Cornelisz van Ryck’s A large kitchen still life with a maid and a gentleman. She’s scaling a fish and he’s pouring back some water or wine. Practices of a day and time, very much like today, though the clothes … Continue reading House Of Kitchens To Doctor Omelette: Cooking Strategies And Tactics.
In his final work Ecce Homo, Friedrich Nietzsche reviews his life, draws conclusions, and emphasizes what he has learned about the art of living. In this context, he writes about nutrition. I am much more interested in a question on which the “salvation of humanity” depends far more than on any theologians’ curio: the question … Continue reading What Would Nietzsche Eat? Why Bagna Càoda, Of Course.
Sometimes they arrive without an invitation. As in Edward Gorey’s masterful The Doubtful Guest, having a door exposes you to knocks and bells beginning a doubtful process of hospitality. Maybe you had sent an invitation but then forgotten you had, and now as you’ve settled in for a quiet evening with a bowl of leek, … Continue reading The Dinner Guest
A dissolute aristocrat dreams Don Quixote who dreams Miguel Cervantes writing his novel Don Quixote who dreams Pablo Picasso painting two lonely figures on a hill. Our narrator dreams the Knight of La Mancha dreaming an inn as a castle, prostitutes as maidens, and stockfish as trout. I read of Castile and Alcalá de Henares … Continue reading Dreams Of Mustard Greens, Pigs And Shrimp.
Gustav Klimt‘s painting Garden Path with Chickens from 1916 no longer exists. Hasn’t for awhile. Thirteen of his paintings stored in Schloss Immendorf castle in Lower Austria during World War II were destroyed by retreating German forces who set off explosives. Only a photographic reproduction of the work allows us to view it today. Gustav Klimt’s … Continue reading Chicken Soup For A Friend Who’s Fallen Ill.
Our collective human memory reaches far back through many doors, many hallways and rooms, and alway we find, though never that first room, a place to cook and a place to sit down and eat with each other. In Homer’s the Odyssey, Odysseus portrays this action and place as the best life has to offer. … Continue reading Happy July 4th! Some Thoughts on Cannibalism For North Carolina.
It’s the first poem I read by Tomas Tranströmer. My teacher at Wayne State University, Edward Hirsch suggested Tranströmer’s lyric sweep of history would appeal to my eye for detail and a poetic line setting deep within a panoramic view of space and time. Baltics (ÖSTERSJÖAR) a slim collection of poems casting a haunted eye … Continue reading A Simple Meal In Stockholm
