Empires, Cannibals, and Magic Fish Bones
Join us as we celebrate food, the dinner table, and quite likely empires, cannibals and magic fish bones!
It’s a dinner party. Wine passed down the table. Angels have appeared at Abraham and Sarah’s door, and as good hosts the old couple provide food and drink. And the LORD appeared unto him by the terebinths of Mamre, as he sat in the tent door in the heat of the day; and he lifted … Continue reading Night Thoughts For North Carolina
The first thing you notice about Pieter Aretsen’s painting A Meat Stall With The Holy Family Giving Alms (1551) is all the meat–an ox head with eyes staring at us, pig trotters on a cabbage leaf, whole side of a slaughtered pig split cleanly down the spine, a large ham shank, sausage, smoked fish, herring; … Continue reading Thinking About Who’s Sitting Down To Dinner In North Carolina
Francisco Goya’s still-life, A Butcher’s Counter. A sheep’s head and sides of mutton. Painted between 1810 and 1812. Painted during the ano del hambre in Madrid when thousands starved to death. This was the time of Napoleon’s invasion, time of Desastres de la Guerra. In our featured painting, protein is the key molecule, movement. In … Continue reading Protein Of The Soul
Jules-Alexandre Grün knew how to paint a dinner party. All the light, all the wealth, all the joy. Such a beautiful nineteen hundred and eleven, what could go wrong? I think of the word hospitality. Here’s a Walter Arnold photograph of the old Marine Hospital in the French Fort area of Memphis, Tennessee. … Continue reading The Dinner Party: Do I Amputate, Change Out, Or Kill The Guests?
