Empires, Cannibals, and Magic Fish Bones
Join us as we celebrate food, the dinner table, and quite likely empires, cannibals and magic fish bones!
I’m rereading Samuel Becket’s novel Watt, while also listening to Dermot Crowley voice the Singing Master’s words on Audiobook. In the opening pages, we do not meet Watt directly but through Mr. Hackett and Mr. and Mrs. Nixon who sit at a bus stop and observe someone or something disembark from a tram, variously described … Continue reading Cooking Beckett: A Stew For Mr. Knott.
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.
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.
We open with Gustav Klimt’s Garden Path with Chickens (1916). If a blog post is a path to a particular world of sense and sound, then this one includes a chicken. And a cow. And leeks. Let’s walk further down the path. The first words of a favorite novel open thus, “You are about to … Continue reading If On A Winter’s Night A Cock-A-Leekie
Here is a description of a food class I’m offering this mid-winter session at The Honors College at the University of Houston. More news to come. While reading, I suggest you listen to the Presentation for The Mystery Sonatas by Heinrich Ignaz Franz Von Biber. What is a recipe? It’s an All in One complex system … Continue reading The Great Banquet: The Alchemy of Recipes
