Art

Not On Bread Alone Department: Two Invitations to an Upcoming Art Show

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Better Mouset Trap
When I married Santa Maria, I found out that I was in for a few surprises. These were not on the order of how often she likes to change her socks, or what habit she might have while brushing her teeth (don’t tell my mother-in-law’s friends, but we lived together before deciding to put a ring on it, as Beyoncé would say).

Most of the surprises were close to ineffable—joy, adventure, freedom (believe it or not)—but one is easy to share. I discovered that I loved to draw. I took classes at the Art Students League and I began to break out my sketchbook on the subway (I’ve since filled dozens and dozens of notebooks with jangly renderings of sleepy passengers). I started submitting cartoons to The New Yorker, and I’ve had five published there.

One of the images that didn’t get into the pages of the magazine is the above wine-and-cheese cartoon. It was accepted by the editors, then rejected after they realized that they had published a similar one that Charles Addams, the great New Yorker cartoonist, had created before I was born.

It is available starting tomorrow, however, at “Eat/Art,” a group show at the Atlantic Gallery in Chelsea. I have three drawings in the show, which features an amazing array of food-related art. All of the pieces for sale are small (none larger than 12”), framed, and ready to be taken home; the show’s holiday-friendly policy is that once you buy it, you can walk out of the gallery with it.

The best part of the show, from my hunger-obsessed perspective, is that 10% of every “Eat/Art” sale goes to Just Food, a local nonprofit organization that connects farms to inner-city residents and helps them grow their own food and otherwise increase their access to fresh ingredients.

Tomorrow night, from 6-8 p.m., there is an opening at the gallery, which is located at 135 W. 29th Street, and all are welcome. The show is up through Dec. 23.

Next Wednesday, December 8, also from 6-8 p.m. there is another gathering there, featuring New York State wines, local food, and a presentation by the folks from Just Food. I hope you can make one of the events. If you come, please say hello! 

A Hidden Summer Salad Recipe

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Sea salt

On Wednesday I didn’t cook for my children. Danny Meyer did. Santa Maria took them to Madison Square Park to view Jessica Stockholder’s “Flooded Chambers Maid,” a colorful geometric expanse, and they ate at the Shake Shack.

I didn’t join them, because I was busy at the office, but I did hear about it from Nina, who told me she had ice cream and fries and a bit of hamburger (oddly enough, hamburgers have never proven popular with either child).  They had lots and lots of ice cream, though.

I got home late that evening and needed to figure out what I was going to eat. Santa Maria was exhausted from her trip into Manhattan with the children, so she couldn’t make anything for me. I looked around the kitchen and the refrigerator made a great discovery. There were many things on hand that I could use to make a fine dinner.

I found arugula, boiled beets, and some poached chicken breasts, all remnants of a previous meal. Over the weekend, I had prepared the beets and arugula for Santa Maria. One of her favorite meals comes from a recipe in “Gourmet Everyday” for a goat cheese, arugula, scallion, and beet sandwich. Santa Maria’s inspiration was to leave out the bread and make a salad. She had that on Sunday. I had some, too, with the addition of poached chicken breasts, as the salad alone is not enough for me.

We were out of scallions, but we did have a ripe avocado. I threw it in with the beets, the chicken, and the arugula. Was this cooking? I don’t really know. I felt like one of those guys at a deli’s salad bar, pointing to cubes of meat and cheese to be tossed over lettuce. The difference, of course, was in what I was using at home. As Santa Maria pointed out, “all the ingredients were really good.” I guess that’s what matters, and I’m going to explore keeping prepared items like these on hand more often. I really enjoyed my salad and the ease of making it.

One of the finer ingredients I used was the salt. A while back, my brother and his wife returned from their honeymoon to the far east with a few gifts. They gave me hand-harvested sea-salt from Bali. It delivers a rapturous burst of flavor with every giant-sized crystal. I don’t think the salad would have been the same without it.

Ernesto Neto: The Spice of Life

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2269_2_Neto_8 My kids love to smell herbs and spices. They stand on a table in my kitchen and point to the colorful glass jars resting in a rack on the wall. I take the jars down one by one, unscrew the top, and let them take a whiff. I’m very happy when they spend their time this way, and I wonder what they are thinking as they inhale the deep aromas of ground cloves or whole cardamon pods. This must open up a whole new world to them, I figure, a world of vibrant experience. 

This isn’t exactly easy work for me. Our kitchen is about as narrow as a hallway and the stove (which is often hot) and the counter top (which is always hard) is just opposite the spice rack. They are so young that I have to keep a hand on them as they teeter on the little table along the wall. Were they to fall, it would be a disaster (and putting them on the floor with a jar of a spice entails another set of risks, as I learned the day I had to sweep up a pile of cumin).

Exposing Nina and Pinta to fresh herbs and spices is part of what I consider my job as a parent. It goes along with cooking them good food and having them taste real cheeses, wild fish, and homemade pasta sauces. It’s the same as reading them books and taking them to museums and galleries.

Yesterday, on the suggestion of a number of friends and publications, we took them to the Park Avenue Armory to see an installation by the Brazilian artist Ernesto Neto. “Anthropodino,” which is up through June 14 and should not be missed, is a sprawling wonderland of friendly forms (Pinta said they looked “melty”).

The accompanying brochure describes it as “kind of interior park,” and that’s apt. You walk under the forms, through the forms, and on the forms. It’s more than just a visual experience; the piece provokes almost all the senses.

You can roll around in a giant beanbag and dive into a pool of plastic balls, but for me, the most impressive part of the installation involves the nose.

The moment you enter Armory’s giant space you are enveloped in a faint and new scent. What is it? Something fresh and pungent, it put me on alert. The effect dissipated after a few minutes inside the hall, but it was replaced by something greater.

Many of the hanging forms are filled with spices like turmeric and ginger and herbs like lavender and chamomile. Much time was spent running from one to the other, holding it up to one’s nose and trying to figure out what was inside. It made me feel like a kid again.