Art in the Kitchen

I just recently finished reading Adam D. Roberts’ The Amateur Gourmet: How to Shop, Chop, and Table Hop Like a Pro (Almost). Adam’s mission in life is to get everyone to put down the frozen pizza and learn to savor the experience of making your own spaghetti sauce. I can’t claim to be a “foodie” myself, but I married one and have made great strides in the kitchen and when ordering at a restaurant since Annie came into my life (just some of the many, many substantial upgrades she’s introduced). The Amateur Gourmet brings an art appreciation sensibility to the kitchen and the table. With great humor and sensitivity, Adam shows you how the food you eat really is a quality of life issue—the better you eat the better your life will be. He redefines comfort food—breaking free from the mashed potatoes of doubt and insecurity and flying ahead to the braised leg of lamb of independence and adventure. (My metaphor, not his.) Borders just recently picked him as one of their best Original Voices for September, so you have no excuse not to pick up this book and a spatula (in that order).

You’ll find Adam’s writing to be entertaining and informative, like a friend talking you through chopping onions over the phone (something he actually does in the book). I especially loved the chapter on dining alone—part memoir and part pep talk for the single diner. I happened to be reading The Amateur Gourmet at the same time I was reading the catalogue for the new Edward Hopper exhibit at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC and tried to imagine that lonely lady in Hopper’s Automat as less lonely and actually enjoying her dessert.

Adam began his career as The Amateur Gourmet in 2004 with his blog, an endless source of information and entertainment. Hearing how he shook off the chains of a lifeless legal career and followed his bliss into a whole new culinary adventure is encouraging. It’s tempting to say that he’s lost his amateur status now that he’s hit the big time, but I like to think of “amateur” as a badge of honor rather than a putdown. Just like all the great amateur political journalists that ask all the questions and carry all the opinions the mainstream, dead-tree world of media won’t, I want to believe that the passionate, gifted amateur can offer something that the jaded pros no longer can. Someday, I hope to be counted in that “gifted amateur” category , too.

Play at the Plate

A post over at Art and Perception asking if artists cook the same way they make art made me think about the entire art of food plating. The Art and Perception post is about the act of cooking, whether you're following a recipe or your own bliss when cooking, rather than about plating, but I've seen enough Iron Chef to know that there are some wonderful ways of making great food look better. (My cooking tends more to surrealism, so I'll keep my own style to myself here.)

I found the photo above in an article about an art-inspired chef who tries to incorporate a painterly style into his plating presentations. I haven't seen it myself, but the go-to book for those looking to improve their own plating seems to be Working the Plate: The Art of Food Presentation by Christopher Styler with photos by David Lazarus.

As I write this blog, I always try to be more conscious of the way art is part of our daily lives. Aside from whatever public sculpture or architecture we pass on our way to work or whatever photos, prints, or calendars we hang on our walls, art, the act of artifice, is always all around us every day of our lives. Eating can also be another form of art in our lives, if we choose to see it that way, from the wrapper on a fast food burger to the elegant plating of the finest restaurant.

My wife and I, when we used to dine in nice places (i.e., pre-baby), loved to play "backseat chef" at restaurants when looking at the plating, a habit you can't help but pick up from watching Iron Chef. I always thought that there was a great mystery novel to be written in which the little dots and dashes of sauce on the periphery of a plate ended up being a message in Morse code sent by a desperate chef to the hero.

(And since we're on the subject of Iron Chef here, are there any six more terrible words spoken on the Japanese Iron Chef than "going for the ice cream maker"? They put some pretty horrible stuff in there, like they're trying to prove that you can make ice cream out of anything. I always thought that it would be a great interrogation technique: "Hans, get the ice cream maker... and some squid..." "NO, NO, NO, I'll talk, I'll talk!!!")

The Art of Eating, The Eating of Art

There is a new restaurant in New York City named Klee, after the great Swiss artist Paul Klee. (Klee's The Golden Fish from 1925 is above.)

In the press for the restaurant, they claim that Klee's playful approach to art inspires the head chef to be equally playful and creative in his cooking. As much as I agree with the characterization of Klee's playfulness, I did a double take when I first saw the name of the restaurant featured in the April 9, 2007 issue of The New Yorker. I've read of Klee's influence on Alfred Hitchcock (who was a collector of Klee and other artists, and even worked with Salvador Dali on Spellbound), but have never before seen anything regarding the culinary arts.

Maybe Modern Art will be the next secret ingredient on Iron Chef.