Feasting on Art

On the surface, the small bar in Newtown, Sydney, filled with antlers and aptly named Moose appears to have little in common with Cafe Felix, an Ann Arbor mainstay known for French-style tapas. The commonality the restaurants share appears in the form of a carefully roasted mushroom, upended to form a small cup and filled with a medley of cheeses. As a college student, I would stretch my food budget in order to indulge in the stuffed mushrooms bathed in a sage-cream sauce at Cafe Felix. The small dish had such an impact on my memory, I tried to recreate it to serve at the first dinner party I held in my first flat. As is always the case, I managed to serve my reconstructed masterpiece to a guest that despises mushrooms. I tucked the recipe away until recently, when an impromptu visit to Moose in Newtown revived my interest. Apart from tasting delicious, this cheese post also serves as a timely reminder that there are only 19 more days until the close of the 2nd annual recipe contest.

Pavlos Dionyssopoulos, Still Life with Mushrooms, 1997
wood, paper and plexiglass, 46.2 x 40 x 40 cm, Private collection

Read the rest of this entry »

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

Read the rest of this entry »

A fritter can be classified as an ingredient coated in batter and deep-fried. In my kitchen, it typically forms a rough patty, lightly fried in a skillet with a number of ingredients still visible through the crusted batter coating. According to the online etymology dictionary, the noun, not the verb, is derived from the 14th century Old French verb friture meaning ‘something fried’ which in turn is from the Late Latin frictura, ‘a frying’ (1). Precisely because of the double meaning of the word fritter, I am loathe to admit that when packing the little patties away for a beachside picnic, a few pathetic puns along the lines of ‘frittering the afternoon away’ made their way into my discourse.

Nora Heysen, Corn cobs, 1938
oil on canvas, 40.5 x 51.3 cm, Art Gallery of New South Wales

Read the rest of this entry »

I am excited to be writing from Michigan where I am on holiday for the next couple of weeks. Trading winter for summer has been wonderful, and last night I had the pleasure of testing out a few recipes in my aunt & uncle’s wood-fired pizza oven. It is a beautiful set-up (pictured below) and I am so impressed with his pizza handling skills. I tried to slide the pesto pizza into the oven and lost most of the cherry tomatoes to the fire in the process. The dough we used was purchased from Gordon’s – you could also make your own using this recipe, omitting the rosemary and lemon zest. The cooking times will vary depending on the thickness of the pizza crust but in a very hot, wood-fired oven it only took about three minutes.

Claes Oldenburg, Flying Pizza, 1964
lithograph, 43.2 x 56.2 cm, edition of 200

Read the rest of this entry »

Trompe l’oeil paintings have a long history within the realm of the visual arts. The French phrase translates to ‘trick the eye’ and it dates back to the Roman era, where it was used to create doors and windows within highly detailed murals. An ancient Greek story recounts a competition between the rivals Zeuxis and Parrhasius, the former painting grapes that appeared so tangible that birds flew down from the sky to peck at them. Parrhasius’ painting won the competition – Zeuxis asked to have the tattered curtains drawn aside to view the painting only to realise that the painting was of the curtains themselves.

De Scott Evans, A new variety try one, c.1890
oil on canvas, 30.4 x 25.4 cm, Columbus Museum of Art

Read the rest of this entry »