Cooking, Clothes, and the Quest for Fantasy

Last month, the Manolo posted about the release of his friend Linda Howard's new book, The Thoughtful Dresser. I haven't read it, though it sounds like a lovely book, but I've been meaning to post a link to the Manolo's post because it included two points that I think are really good ones.

Point one: "The quest for the perfect item of clothing, the perfect pair of shoes, is exactly congruent with the search for the divine. They are one and the same, expressing as they both do the innate human desire for the transcendent."

Point two: "Far from being the frivolous frivolity, the shopping for and wearing of clothing brings pleasure, brings joy, brings wholly human satisfaction, which moreover has the power to repair and restore one’s soul."

Both of these ring true to me with respect to shopping for clothes and shoes (my closet bears this out). But replace the clothing references with mentions of food and cooking, and they're also true. The search for the perfect restaurant meal, the creation of a perfect dinner party, even the creation of a perfect Tuesday night dinner - these can be transcendental (I've written about this before - here and here and here).

Oh, often they're not. Tuesday night dinner is usually just Tuesday night dinner - just like shopping for t-shirts at Target is usually just t-shirts at Target. And the restaurant meal and dinner party have the capacity to be frivolous, just like clothes shopping does. It's up to the chef/eater/shopper to make the activity one that transcends the ordinary.

It's not hard to do that - to turn an ordinary activity into something special. It's mostly a matter of savoring details and connecting the cooking or eating or shopping to the fantasies and desires we all have - to our own quests for the divine. Of course, just because it's not hard doesn't mean it's practical to do every day. Every Target trip could be full of fantasy and pleasure, but it probably shouldn't. Even fantasy can start to feel ordinary.

But that doesn't take away from Manolo's points, or from the extension of those points to cooking and eating. After all, desiring the transcendent is a human trait and it's part of what makes every day more beautiful.

Cool, Over, Never, Intriguing

• Cool: I rarely drink Australian wine anymore (I, like many people, got Yellowtailed out when I first got into wine), but I'm certainly not immune to the adorable map that illustrates this Food & Wine overview of Australian wine regions. Cutely drawn maps are my crack cocaine.
• Over: I'm not saying Turkey's not probably a super cool place. I bet it is. But this is hardly the first article I've read about sailing off the coast of Istanbul. It looks like a gorgeous country and I have it on good authority from my friend Bert, who would know, that Turkish women are some of the most beautiful in the world. But still, how many sailing-in-Turkey articles can be written? (P.S. Sorry to Rasim, my friend since kindergarten, who is Turkish. But I'm pretty sure I'm right.)
• Never: I have watched enough Travel Channel shows to know that I am never going to want to eat like an Icelander, no matter how healthy it is.
• Intriguing: In non-Food & Wine news - non-food news, if you want to be picky about it - I found this Galley Slaves post on what makes an alpha male completely fascinating. Also, revealing. Let's just say it potentially explains a lot about my early 20s, all the way up to the point when I met Cooper. Plus, I do like a nice psycho/socio/anthropological theory.

A Couple of Links from the NYT

The NYT has, lately, been chock-full of interesting things. First, that Michael Pollan article I wrote about yesterday. Also, this excerpt from Frank Bruni's memoir.

Earlier this week, M&G reader Emily sent me a link to the Bruni piece, which I'd read about, but hadn't read. After a quick skim of the first page, I assumed it was an entertaining look back at his life of eating. What I didn't realize was that the title, "I Was a Baby Bulimic," was more than flip. The fact that men have eating disorders, too, is something so rarely addressed. Bruni's story is an important one, and it's touching. It's also funny, though, and as we all know, it has a happy ending.

On a happier note, Maira Kalman has a new piece up in the Times and as usual, it's brilliant (via Pigtown Design). It starts as an ode to Benjamin Franklin and by the end, gets to this:

Jell-O lightbulbs. She gets there in a logical manner, too.

I think Kalman is kind of brilliant - I like the way she draws and the way she thinks. In this case, I like her subject a lot, too. Last Thanksgiving, my brother and sister and I had a characteristically dorky conversation about which founding father was our favorite. We all agreed that though TJ was the logical choice (architect, foodie, wine lover, W&M alum and founder of UVA), there's just something about Franklin. His penchant for invention and his absolute devotion to America fit with our particular family values kind of perfectly.

Old School Thursday: High Culture Meets Low Edition

Today is huge – for real. Well, today does carry on the “random lobby gets its day” tradition - it’s National Cherry Cheesecake Day. But today is also St. George’s Day – he’s the patron saint of farmers. And that’s just getting things started.

Today Bermuda celebrates the Peppercorn Ceremony, a big pompy and circumstancey parade during which the Mayor and Governor of the island collect a symbolic rent of one peppercorn from the inhabitants of the Masonic Lodge. By all accounts, it’s a pretty entertaining exhibition.

In less symbolic news, today is Shakespeare’s birthday (1564) and the anniversary of his death (1616). I’ve written before about Shakespeare here.

Much, much later, and important in a different way, today in 1985, Coca-Cola announced that it was changing its secret formula (at the time, 99 years old). We all know how the New Coke experiment turned out.

More successfully on the big brand front, today in 1992, McDonald’s opened its first location in Beijing. Seventeen years later, China’s still not a democracy, but it is arguably more open than it used to be. Thanks, Ronald.So today, to celebrate? Shakespeare and pepper and Coke and Big Macs? That runs the gamut, huh?

Artsy: Duchamp at the National Portrait Gallery

The Dada movement has always appealed to me. I'm into the humor, the nonsense, the vacillation between being intellectual/theoretical and not taking anything seriously at all. It's no surprise, then, that I'm a fan of the absurd work of Marcel Duchamp.

The double-exposed photo of the artist above, though, has always kind of creeped me out. I think it has something to do with whatever Nick Bantock book it's used to illustrate (I can't remember which). As much as I love Bantock books, they always leave me feeling a little unsettled. Which, I think, they're probably supposed to do.

All of this is a long way of saying that I enjoyed Blake Gopnik's article on the Duchamp show at the National Portrait Gallery. It's not long, but it's an interesting look at Duchamp's concept of identity, using the show's 100 portraits (and self-portraits) of the artist as a backdrop. The key quote, as I see it:

A portrait can't get at the essence of its sitter -- because such essences, Duchamp says, do not exist.

So, then, how is this about food? I'm not quite sure, but I've been trying to connect that last quote - about essences - to ingredients. Because I think that while Duchamp's point is partially valid - in today's parlance, every human can create his own brand - I also think it's impossible to completely erase the core self in favor of that brand. Duchamp may have created new identities for his portraits, but dada was such a part of his being that no matter how far he departed from his "usual self", the simple act of departure pulled him back.

Just like with food. You can dress up an ingredient, make it work a different or unusual way, but at its core, it is what it is. It'll do what it's made to do.

Too much of a stretch? Probably, right? But still, interesting article. And a show I wouldn't mind seeing.

Cornuts

Today's the 20th anniversary of the release of "Heathers" - aka the movie I was obsessed with when I was 13. And 14. And older.

This "where are they now" slideshow is interesting and enlightening. I'm surprised by how many of the actors are on shows I've watched recently (JAG, which I watched ALL of in the early mornings right after Dixon was born; The Suite Life on Deck, which proves how much Disney I accidentally watch; Charmed, which I don't feel like I have to explain because, hello, Aaron Spelling?). But most of them I didn't connect - at all - to their roles in the movie.

Twenty years. Wow. Does it make me sound crochety if I say "they just don't make them like that anymore"?

Artsy Wednesday: Picasso the Art Historian

Guess what? This is my 700th post! It's the first time I've noticed when I was writing a "milestone" post. Seven hundred. Wow that's a lot of hours, huh?

So I suppose, since this is my 700th post, that it's only fitting that it's the first "and how, exactly, is this about food?" post that I've written in a while. Don't worry, if you just hang in there, it'll be about food.

In yesterday's Washington Post, Blake Gopnik reviewed a Picasso exhibit that was surely designed to personally torment me. Spread across Paris, at the Musee d'Orsay, the Louvre and the Grand Palais, the exhibit is called "Picasso and the Masters" and it is, in Gopnik's words, "not so much about Picasso the artist as Picasso the art historian."

At this point in the article, Gopnik begs his readers not to ditch him - but how could they? (Oh, not everybody's an art history geek, you say? OK then.) The exhibit places recognized masterpieces alongside Picasso's works - sometimes studies of the original painting itself (Picasso, late in his career, painted 41 versions of Manet's Dejeuner sur l'herbe) and sometimes with works in which the influence is less explicitly obvious.

I emailed the article to Erin and Libby - Erin replied with an immediate suggestion that we go to Paris (alas, not very practical, especially since she's going to Egypt in a few weeks). It's not really an exhibit that could travel, but wow. Wouldn't it be amazing to see? I'd even love to read the catalog.

OK, so how is this about food? Well, there's the obvious: half the article is dedicated to Dejeuner sur l'herbe, which is all about a picnic.

But here's the less obvious answer: Chefs, like painters, are influenced by their predecessors and studying that influence is a pretty fascinating subject. The article also dedicates some column inches to reminding the reader that Picasso, even in old age, was relentlessly competitive and full of ego. Sounds chef-like, huh?

As Gopnik notes, Picasso is also a painter who, by embracing cubism, broke with thousands of years of painterly tradition. As I've mentioned here before, I see a parallel between cubism and molecular gastronomy. Ferran Adria as Picasso?

Just like last week, when I wrote about modern art and molecular gastronomy, I'm having a sort of "too. many. ideas." problem - it's difficult for me to be articulate when I'm just so excited.

Quotable Tuesday: van Gogh's Artificial Light

As I write this article, three electric lights illuminate the space around me, but that doesn't leave me more impressed by them. It makes them fade into the background. Even as artificial lighting becomes something that we cannot live without -- to paint a picture, to take a nighttime stroll, to write an art review -- light itself becomes something we take for granted.

Van Gogh's pictures, with stars and moons and setting suns that shine as big and bright as lamps, but only as big and bright as lamps, record the moment when this happens. Light has stopped being a force. It has become one more datum in a modern life.

In today's Washington Post, Blake Gopnik writes about a new MOMA show that showcases van Gogh's nighttime scenes. Gopnik starts out cynical - another van Gogh show designed to part fools from their money in exchange for a Starry Night-themed mousepad? - but quickly admits that the show ultimately changed the way he looked at van Gogh's work. Instead of considering van Gogh in the tradition of Old Masters who use light to craftily illuminate their subjects, van Gogh is a new breed of artist, one for whom artificial light is something of a subject in itself (deliberate or not).

And how is this about food? Well, it's a stretch, but Gopnik mentions the democratizing effect of light in terms of gathering places (including cafes). Not long before van Gogh was painting, only the very rich and aristocratic had much opportunity to gather at night in well-lit spaces. Cheap gas light changed all that, and likely changed the social dynamic.

Sometimes it's helpful to be reminded that cell phones and email and the internet weren't the first game-changing innovations out there.

Artsy Wednesday: Bootlegs and Biographies; Dylan and Shakespeare

Ron Rosenbaum has an interesting, meandering article on Slate right now. It starts out with sixties bootlegging and a collection of about-to-be-published Bob Dylan poems, winds its way through the debates of Shakespearean attribution, and ends up with the author begging (but maybe not seriously)?) Dmitri Nabakov not to go ahead with the publishing of his father's final unfinished work.

Sounds all over the place, but it follows the rules of logic, I promise. (Though I'm pretty sure it also offers some insight into how Rosenbaum's mind works.) It's worth a read if you have any interest in Dylan, Shakespeare, Nabakov or literary drama.

Two points were of particular interest to me. The first involves the idea of bootlegs. Those dorm room staples - mildly illegal tapes of jam bandy concerts. Rosenbaum reports on a lunch he had with Clinton Heylin, Dylan biographer and author of a new book on a hotly contested collection of Shakespeare sonnets published in 1609. It seems that Heylin puts forth the theory that the 1609 collection is actually a bootleg - authored by Shakespeare but published without his knowledge. Rosenbaum bites and it's an interesting use of modern pop culture language to explain historical questions.

The second point, though a short part of the article, addresses a big idea. Rosenbaum gives some column inches to the late David Foster Wallace:

Last Sunday in the New York Times' Week in Review section, A.O. Scott reminded us of the late, lamented David Foster Wallace's complaint about biographical criticism of another great artist, Jorge Luis Borges—whose stories, Wallace once wrote, "so completely transcend their motive cause that the biographical facts become, in the deepest and most literal way, irrelevant." Yes!

Rosenbaum gets here by mentioning that a number of women have claimed to be the inspiration for particular Dylan songs...probably because Dylan told them himself that they were. The same could be true for Shakespeare - the argument over to whom certain sonnets are dedicated might be more complicated than we thought, since it's possible that the old bard was also an old dog, throwing "inspiration" around whenever it suited.

But then, DFW asks, does it really matter? If the work itself is that good, can't we just take it on it's own merit and let the biographical details fall where they may?

I think this is one of those questions that keep art history (or music history or English) departments funded. In fact, just yesterday, my friend Mark and I were having a semi-political discussion when he invoked the "can you separate the art from the artist" question. It's eternal.

And...how is this about food? Well, originally I was going to try to find some convoluted way to define bootleg food. But instead I'm going to focus on part 2 of the poast - the art/artist debate.

The idea of food as real art, not just craft, is a fairly modern one. One of the things that comes with that is the elevation of chef from craftsman to artist. It seems that we've just hit the point at which the chef/artist's biography does inform the end product. I can imagine, for example, that the experience of eating at Babbo is heightened by knowledge of Batali's personal culinary experiences and history.

So maybe the separation of artist from art is a characteristic of an evolved medium? And regarding food-as-art, we're still in the early stages of evolution?

Or...maybe I'm trying to hard to find a food connection. But still - interesting article, even if it has nothing to do with food.

Some Things I Can't Connect to Food

I've tried, but I just can't figure out any connections. But I want to link to these anyway:

Artsy:
Artists infuse portraits of famous people with the artists' own features. Cool research on soooo many levels. What does it mean about artists? About humanity? About our visual perceptions? About our psychological perceptions? About the way we record history?

This subject is so incredibly interesting to me that I almost can't handle thinking about it. It gets very meta, very quickly.

Trendy:
What is up with how hip the undead are these days? Zombies are all over the place lately - something I was reminded of while watching Rihanna perform Disturbia at the VMA's last night (we only really watched a minute of it, all for Brit Brit, and I found Russell Brand so annoying that I couldn't take any more). During the (very weird) performance, I said something about zombies to Cooper and he was like, "You know, vampires, too. Vampires are everywhere." Good point.

Is pop culture trying to tell us something? If so, is it important? I just can't tell.

And that's it. My non-food-related observations for the day.

Dictionary Friday: Glamour

glamour
1. the quality of fascinating, alluring, or attracting, esp. by a combination of charm and good looks.
2. excitement, adventure, and unusual activity: the glamour of being an explorer.
3. magic or enchantment; spell; witchery.

On Wednesday, I posted a link to a new blog, Deep Glamour. Looks like that's going to be a regular thing. Unsurprisingly, given the people involved, Deep Glamour's totally intellectual approach to glamour solidly connects philosophy and frivolity.

Today, one post includes a chapter of Forgotten Fashion, a dark faux history book by Kate Hahn. It's more than entertaining...and food is involved (in fact, kitchen appliances play a starring role). Highly recommended.

I have a feeling I'll be saying that a lot with respect to Deep Glamour.

Green Issues

This has nothing to do with food, except in that I complained about it with respect to food magazines a while back.

I am so over the "green issue".

Apparently I'm not alone. Love this from The New Yorker.

(Also, and this is food-related. If you've got some time, read the rest of Cartoon Lounge. The sandwich wars make me laugh, too. It's all kind of McSweeneys-ish, but I still like that dry hipstery humor.)

A Quick Non-Food-Related Observation

I've read several blog posts about Cuil today and most had a similar reaction: the search results sort of suck. What's funny is that most people tested it the same way I did: by searching for themselves.

Here's why I think Cuil's not so great. The Cuil search for Kit Pollard vs. the Google search for Kit Pollard.

And, about food? Only in that I rely on Google quite often for blogging material. I wouldn't use Cuil. Not inspiring trust and hurting my fragile blogger's ego.

Trendy Monday: Mad Men

Retro can be trendy, right?

I came late to the Mad Men phenomenon, even though as a show, it's pretty much made for me. Cooper's cousin Sarah told me about it when she was watching the first season (when it was originally on) but I missed it that time around. Fortunately, I've been able to pick it up quickly over the past couple of weeks.

There are all kinds of things I love about this show. It's aesthetics are amazing - the interiors are understated and perfect (except for the zebra walls in the restaurant in the series premiere. They were not understated. But wow, were they perfect.) And the clothes absolutely kill me (that outfit on Cutthroat Bitch - it's amazing.)

And of course, there's the plot. I've read a lot of reviews that compare the show to The Sopranos, and I see it. It's that kind of television - the writing is good and sometimes a little knowing, but it never winks at the audience too broadly. The characters drive the story and they're interesting, tragic, conflicted and somehow sympathetic (not unlike Tony Soprano). Plus, there's the advertising.

Right out of college, I went to work for a small agency as an account exec. Four years later, I left there for a just slightly larger agency, where I worked in research (as it turned out, that second job was more like working for a research company with a little advertising on the side, but still I was working side by side with a bunch of ad people). During that time, I worked with several big NYC agencies - the same ones who are mentioned in passing on Mad Men.

Like a lot of young ad people, I read a million books about advertising written between 1920 and 1970. I have a decent amount of knowledge of the time represented in the show. The creator, Matthew Weiner, he gets things right. But what he gets most right - the thing that makes me really love this show - are the people.

Things, of course, aren't as explicitly sexist or smoky anymore (though they still are fairly boozy and, well, I'm not aware of any agencies with rules against inter-office dating). But the specific personalities of the people who get into advertising...they're the same. The conflicted creatives who love the money, and sort of thrive on manipulating the public, but kind of wish they could just be pure poets - when they're in that sort of company. The tension between creative and research. The bumbling and overly hungry account people who draw consistent ire from the creative director. The underlying belief (at least when you're with a pack of ad people), that agency people are so much smarter, more interesting and more fun than people in other professions. This is pretty of true. (To be fair, there are also some legitimately cool people in advertising. A few.)

The show just gets it so right. And it looks so good while doing it. It deserves its trillions of Emmy noms and all of its accolades.

And, um, how is this about food? Well, it is. Weiner's attention to detail is pretty phemonenal, and that is, I think, what elevates the show beyond the garden variety television drama. Last night, during the season two premiere, Don and Betty are at the Savoy on Valentine's Day - Don's surprised her with a room. They're kind of drunk (as usual) and they call room service. Initially, Don asks for a BLT and a bowl of vichyssoise. Then Betty says, "no, no - two shrimp cocktails." She changes her mind again, so Don hands her the phone and she orders a half an avocado filled with crabmeat and a petit filet, rare.

Perfect. That's just perfect, exactly right period food. Food that exactly underscores the mood of the scene.

Little things like that are what make this show almost too good.

Artsy Wednesday: Eliminating Art Crime, One Masters at a Time

I wrote a while back about the idea of lost possible selves - the act of mourning the choices you don't make for yourself. I probably mentioned it back then, but I'm very lucky to have a younger sister upon which I can foist my missed opportunities.

My latest "I want to live vicariously through you" push involves this Masters program in art crime (solving it, not committing it). I got an email about it last night, which I promptly sent along to Erin, who responded that she's really considering applying. The whole program takes place over the course of the summer (next summer will be the first session), so it wouldn't even interrupt her architecture school. And who doesn't want a second Masters? Plus, it's in Italy!

So I am, obviously, excited for my future trip to Italy.

Which is where the food comes in. Just think of the food!

Head Shots

Yesterday, Cooper's cousin Sarah emailed me this Slate article, asking me if I'd read it. I hadn't, yet, but it was on my list. The article is about web head shots - what people use, how they take them, what they say about us. It's the sort of modern iconography/tiny cultural touchstone topic that I find interesting all the time, but probably especially interesting right now, since I just joined Facebook (after years of relying on my sister's login. And of course I'm kind of obsessed with it, especially since I'm now back in touch with some of my really good old college and high school friends. This internet thing, it's amazing.)

Anyway, the article is a good one, but the most interesting part to me and to Sarah was the link to FaceStat, an outfit I was previously unfamiliar with. The author of the article describes FaceStat as sort of a next-gen Hot or Not, only with a more rationalizable angle.

The gist is this: you upload a photo and anyone can comment on it, answering a few key questions about what they think you're like, based solely on the photo. Anybody can comment on the photos - no upload necessary. The idea is that, in aggregate, you end up with a pretty good idea of what people think of you based on your appearance.

Sarah and I spent a little time figuring out whether satisfying our curiosity regarding what people think of our looks would be worth the potential blows to our egos (the questions range from attractive? to trustworthy? to political affiliation? and on and on). Also, we talked about how to make it about food, so I could blog about it.

And here's what came out of the conversation: I'm going to have Cooper take a bunch of pictures of me, all wearing the same outfit, all in basically the same pose, but doing different things. One control, where I'm not doing anything, but also one where I'm cooking, one drinking beer, one drinking wine, one eating, one holding Dixon. Then I'll post them all under different pseudonyms. Then I wait for the responses...and compare. So it becomes a research project (I love research!) about the influence of cooking/eating/drinking/kids over our perceptions.

Projects! I love them!

Forming Opinions: Experience vs. Information

It's been a while since I've written a real "and how, exactly, is this about food?" sort of post. Blame it on the combination of work and vacation - I haven't had much time lately to randomly read the internet for inspiration.

Fortunately, last night, during a much-needed break from pharmaceutical research analysis, I came across this Freakonomics post. Dubner's reading David McCollough's The Great Bridge, about the building of the Brooklyn Bridge, and was caught by this sentence (comparing Brooklyn and Manhattan in the 1860s):

People then were still inclined to form opinions more from experience than information and it was the experience of most Brooklyn people that between their city and the other one, there was no comparison.

Dubner asks some questions about the validity of this phemonenon as it relates to the public as a whole. I'm more interested, of course, in how it relates to me and my life (if I wasn't self-involved, would I blog? Doubtful.)

The quote suggests that Americans moved, or are moving, from a state of experiential opinion-forming to one of informational opinion-forming. There's no value judgment in the quote regarding which is the better alternative, though some of the commenters (who sound pretty condescending, if you ask me) clearly believe that information-based opinions are more valuable and "right" than experience-based ones. (To be fair, there are also a number of commenters who note that experience is essentially the same thing as information, it just comes from a different source.)

Here's what's so interesting to me: if the hypothesis that Americans tend to be experiential opinion-formers, I think I am the opposite of most Americans. Growing up, I was definitely on the bookish, academic side (I mean, I had friends, but I definitely read a lot). My opinions were absolutely based on what I read in books and learned in school, or on the discussions we had around our dinner table. I'd go so far as to say that most of my friendships were formed on conversations I had with people, not just on time I spent with them or parties we went to. We all talked a lot. We still do.

It wasn't until I went to Europe for the first time - I was 25 and in business school - that I realized the value of experience on its own. Somewhere between watching the sunrise at Sacre Coeur and the Scotch tasting at the Scotch Malt Whiskey Society in Edinburgh, I developed a crazy intense bond with the people I was with. Of course, we did have long, involved talks while we sat on trains or in airports, but the bond was definitely a result of sharing experiences, not just words.

(As an aside, I took hundreds of pages of notes on that trip - it's kind of what I do - and very few of them were about conversations.)

So there it was, my personal revelation: information's not everything. Experience is valuable.

And how is this about food? Well, for one thing, what's more experiential than food? Why are business meetings over dinner so much more personal and effective than ones held around a conference room table? Why do we go out to eat on dates? Because that experience is so important to helping us form opinions about the most personal things.

Also, bringing it back to me again (surprise)...it was less than a year after the trip that I learned to cook - also a totally experiential activity. And one that really helps me relive pieces of trips I've taken and experiences I've had.

Finally, all of this reminds me of an interesting discussion over at the Design Public Hatch blog. Becky started out writing about the Yestermorrow Design/Build School and she ended up on one of my hot topics - the ability of thinkers/critics to become actual creators. It happens to be something I think about all the time, and in a roundabout way, I think it's why I like to cook. After years of art history and history classes, I am a pretty good analyst of culture (if I do say so myself). But I have absolutely no artistic or musical or architectural or whatever ability myself - and that's so frustrating.

As Becky pointed out to me in the comments, it is possible to actually learn how to design - it's not just a talent you're born with - and I've seen that confirmed as my sister has taken drawing classes as a part of her undergrad art history degree and now in architecture school.

But, for me, cooking seems to be the creative outlet I turn to.

Cooking and blogging, of course.

Yves Saint Laurent

As I'm sure everyone's heard, Yves Saint Laurent died yesterday. He was only 72.

This has absolutely nothing to do with food, but it is sensory. At Ann Althouse's blog, the commenters are having a fascinating discussion of his perfumes.

Also, the YSL Mondrian dress that's in the post, that is one of my absolute favorite examples of fashion ever.

RIP.

Quotable Tuesday: Moveable Feast

If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast. - Ernest Hemingway

It's been nearly three years since I've been to Paris and I found myself talking about the city a lot this weekend. I'm ready to go back. It's just not like anyplace else. Also, Hemingway is my favorite kind of writer: interesting, spare, and into food. Wordly, but pure American. I loved this book.

Which is what this weekend was. Well, not worldly. But interesting, sort of spare and full of Americana. We didn't do a ton except visit with people and buy all of Ikea's outdoor furniture, but it was a really great weekend nonetheless. Sunday, we went to the wine and herb event at Boordy winery, where the wine is sooooo bad but the atmosphere is fantastic. The place was full of screaming kids (including ours) and parents getting really strange sunburns. Afterwards, everyone came back to our house, where we had dinner and our first outdoor fire in a long time. We stayed up late, so we were all tired for our friend's cookout on Monday, but it was well worth it.

In less than a month, we go to the beach for a week (Bethany) with the same group of people. I should probably start sleeping now, just to store it up.

Unrelated (to my weekend, or to food in general): This Freakonomics post on the economics of the art world (contemporary art, in particular) is fascinating. It's triggered by the recent sale of Lucian Freud's Benefits Supervisor Sleeping. When I was in college, I saw a Freud exhibit a the Met. The paintings are sort of mesmerizing, but they're also really disturbing. I'm fairly immune to the shock value of art created for shock value's sake (Piss Christ does nothing to me) but Freud's work makes me truly uncomfortable, which helps me understand how contemporary viewers and critics might have reacted to work we consider totally mainstream today (like, say, Monet).

If you're at all interested in art or econ, read the post. You won't be sorry.

"I work in the gap between art and life."

Robert Rauschenberg has died.

Of his work and influence, the New York Times says:

Building on the legacies of Marcel Duchamp, Kurt Schwitters, Joseph Cornell and others, he thereby helped to obscure the lines between painting and sculpture, painting and photography, photography and printmaking, sculpture and photography, sculpture and dance, sculpture and technology, technology and performance art — not to mention between art and life.

And on his personality:

A brash, garrulous, hard-drinking, open-faced Southerner, he had a charm and peculiar Delphic felicity with language that nevertheless masked a complex personality and an equally multilayered emotional approach to art, which evolved as his stature did.

I doubt I was thinking it at the time, but looking back on when I studied Rauschenberg in college, I can see how his approach to art helped shape my worldview - my obsession with how everything connects. (It's that obsession, and the role of food with respect to everything else - especially art - that keeps me blogging and keeps me so interested in food.)

It's a sad thing, for everyone, to lose someone so influential.