Feasting on Art

This post has been a long time coming. Between a few freelance writing projects and my curatorial debut, I have had very little free time left to finish this post. Plus I have managed to forget butter the last three times I went grocery shopping. Without it, these pretty madeleines would have been very sad tasting. A madeleine is a small sponge cake that hails from the northeast of France – the Lorraine region to be exact. The cakes are distinctive for their shell-like appearance and are made with a dedicated pan especially for madeleines, available at most home-ware shops.

Vincent van Gogh, Still Life with Basket and Six Oranges, 1888
oil on canvas, 45 x 54 cm, Private collection

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I was fortunate to spend the early part of the New Year travelling around the South Island of New Zealand with my grandparents. Under blue skies and surrounded by mountains, I consumed an inordinate amount of quiche. Settled among the meat pies and soggy sandwiches, the towering triangles of vegetable-studded egg always appeared the most appetizing. However, filled with wintry root vegetables, the dish left me longing for fresh and bright summer flavours. Although quiche is typically classified as a French dish, the name is a derivative of the German noun, kuchen, meaning ‘cake.’ This recipe for a quiche filled with sweet semi-dried tomatoes, spindly asparagus and sharp feta is both delicious and aesthetically pleasing. Perched upon a cake platter with a serving knife, the presentation alludes to the etymological origin of the dish.

Paul LaCroix, Still Life with Asparagus and Tomatoes, 1864
oil on canvas, 34.29 x 41.28 cm, Private collection

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I am honored and excited to be included on the Design*Sponge website as part of the ‘In the kitchen with…’ series. I had several recipe ideas, bookmarked and filed away for a very special post, and was delighted when my recipe for a pear tart with whiskey cream was selected as it was inspired by one of my favorite still life artists. Hopefully the short description I sent with the recipe will tempt you to visit the Design*Sponge page to take a look at the pear tart with whiskey cream.

Combining the ingredients in Tom Wesselmann’s ‘Still Life #2′ was a natural
marriage, the dark molasses flavours of the whiskey compliment the subtle
sweetness of the pear with the toasty hints in the liquor mirrored in the toasted
hazelnuts of the crust. Cinnamon and ginger continue the warming flavour
palette and provides a sharp-spiciness to the tart – the perfect foil to the cooling
whiskey cream, speckled with vanilla seeds.

I would like to welcome all of the new readers arriving from Design*Sponge. I hope you take a bit of time and explore the site. You can find the entire listing of recipes here and if you are curious about the type of art you can find among the pages of this blog, then head on over to the art index and click on the images that catch your eye.

Tom Wesselmann, Still Life #2, 1962
oil and collage on board, 121.9 x 122.2 cm, Norton Simon Museum

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When making chipotle sweet potato mash for our Thanksgiving table, I grossly over-estimated the number of spuds needed for the recipe. Left with a very large potato in the pantry, a batch of salty, sweet and sour fries seemed the best solution. By baking the potatoes with a bit of oil, the desired crispiness is achieved sans the overbearing oil taste often found in the deep fried variety. The fries need to be left alone to toast and become slightly blistered in the hot oven.

Unknown, Still Life with Pumpkin, Book, and Sweet Potato, c.1855
daguerreotype with applied colouring, 6.3 x 5.1 cm, Smithsonian American Art Museum

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Until last week, the joys of a warm cheesecake were unbeknownst to me. With my ever present soft-spot for the previously cool but always creamy dessert, I would help myself to a rather generous wedge accompanied by a spoonful, or two, of strawberries in a sugar syrup. For my palate this was a bit too sweet, so I forfeited the syrup for purple grapes, already naturally sweet, crusted in a bit of crunchy sugar. This variety of cheesecake is typical of New York and is combined with the British/Australian tradition of using a crushed biscuit base. The first recipe for cheesecake is thought to date back to the Ancient Greek times but I have both William Lawrence and James Kraft to thank for developing and refining the unripened cheese, also known as cream cheese, in the late 19th – early 20th century. Philadelphia cream cheese is used in most cheesecakes, including the recipe below, and is essential in creating the light yet rich texture characteristic in the best slices.

Feasting on Art has clip in the October 2010 issue of Virgin Blue Voyeur, click here to view.

Henri Fantin-Latour, Still Life with Grapes and a Carnation, c.1880
oil on canvas, 30.5 x 47 cm, National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.

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