Gherkins & Tomatoes

Gherkins & Tomatoes

Meditations and Photographs about Food, Cooking, and Life

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Large still life with apple

The Promise of Apple Blossoms

May 6, 2013 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Spring, when she sashays in, always takes my breath away. Such vivid raiments cover her, so radiant that Joseph with his coat of many colors could only turn green with envy. The eye hardly knows where to light, much as a honey bee – turned loose in a field of daisies – darts from one nectar-filled delight to another, drunk on the experience. Apple trees always draw me close. I suppose it has to do with the apple tree that […]

Categories: Apples, Art, Food writing, Photography, Poetry • Tags: Apple blossoms, Apples, Art, Food writing, Haiti, Kenscoff, M. F. K. Fisher, Meditations, Photography, Still life, Susan Branch

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Art credit: Jehan Georges Vibert (1890)

The Cardinal and the Chef

November 11, 2011 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Sauce Madère 2 cups brown sauce (you can use prepared demi-glace like that sold by D’Artagnan ) 2 T. good Madeira Cook down the brown sauce for 20 minutes over medium heat. Add the Madeira, raise the heat, and cook rapidly; the sauce should look syrupy and lightly coat a metal spoon. Serve with beef or chicken.

Categories: Chefs, France, French Cooking, Paintings • Tags: Art, Jehan Georges Vibert, Paintings, Sauces

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Knock and Enter: A Gallery of Parisian Door Knockers

September 28, 2011 by Cynthia Bertelsen

 

Categories: Art, France, Photography • Tags: Art, Door knockers, Doors, France, Paris, Photography

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Afterwards ... (Photo credit: C. Bertelsen)

Brassai’s Paris, a View Through the Tunnel of Time

January 8, 2011 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Before the second world war, filled with the wandering souls of the “Lost Generation,” Paris throbbed with the fluttering notes of jazz and the clattering of horse hooves on cobblestones. And Paris also served as a subject for the art of photographers like Brassai, one of the earliest photojournalists, influenced by surrealism. Brassai (born in Hungary as Gyula Halász) moved to Paris in 1924, worked as a journalist, and started taking pictures in 1930 to use with his articles. He had […]

Categories: Beef, France, French Cooking, Photography, Potatoes • Tags: Alice B. Toklas Cookbook, Art, Brassai, France, French cuisine, Lost Generation, Paris, Photography, Steak and Frites

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Quilts peas

Curl Up with a Nice Food Blog …

July 21, 2010 by Cynthia Bertelsen

The creativity, wit, and wisdom of food bloggers never ceases to amaze me. And so today, I simply must let you know about some new, to me anyway, blogs (and bloggers) that I’ve run across lately. Here are two that provide gorgeous pictures, along with commentary and a bit of food history: “An English Kitchen,” by the author of “Joanna’s Food,” documents cooking in a country house in England: I have a huge collection of cookery books, and have recently […]

Categories: Art, Paintings • Tags: Art, Food in Art, Peas, Quilts

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Hestia

Idylls of Cuisine, #65

June 6, 2010 by Cynthia Bertelsen

[A picture, and nothing more, for silent contemplation.]

Categories: Art, Cooking, Greece, Italy, Paintings • Tags: Art, Cooking, Greek Goddesses, Hearth, Hestia, Kitchen Gods, Roman Goddesses, Vesta

Lent Pieter Brueghel

Idylls of Cuisine, #51

February 21, 2010 by Cynthia Bertelsen

[A picture, and nothing more, for silent contemplation.]

Categories: Art, Carnevale, Lent, Paintings • Tags: Art, Lent, Paintings, Pieter Brueghel the Younger, The Fight Between Carnival and Lent

Dig for Victory 1

Dig for Victory! Locavorism in Eons Past

December 31, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Looking at the past almost always calls up that old adage: “There’s nothing new under the sun.”* Take locavorism’s wartime antecedents … As these WWII posters from England’s “Dig for Victory!” campaign prove, the idea of local foods is not one whose time has come, but whose time has come again. Aimed at encouraging the civilian population to grow their own gardens, “Dig for Victory” freed up commercially grown food for the troops.  The “Dig for Victory” program began in […]

Categories: Agriculture, American Cooking, Art, Cooking, England, English Cooking, Europe, Gardens, Hunger, Local foods, Locavores, Posters, United States • Tags: Art, Cooking, England, Food, Posters, Propaganda, United States, Victory Gardens, Wartime, World War II

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Christmas Cooking together print

Idylls of Cuisine, #42

December 13, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

[A picture, and nothing more, for silent contemplation.]

Categories: American Cooking, Art, Christmas, Cooking • Tags: Art, Christmas

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Cooks Disgruntled Cook

To the Cooks, Prosit! Part I

November 23, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Sir Thomas More in his Utopia (1516), in delineating what would make an ideal society, said: .. all vyle service, all slaverie and drudgerye, with all the laboursome toyle and busines, is done by bondmen. But the women of every famelie by course have the office and charge of cokerye … and orderyng al thinges thereto belonging.” (Utopia, Book 2, Chapter 5, p. 70) It is fitting that there be a tribute to the women who cooked through the centuries. […]

Categories: Art, Cooking, Europe, Lit & Food, Thanksgiving • Tags: Art, Cooks, Cuisine, Flemish Painting, Food in Art, Thanksgiving

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Feast_of_the_Gods-Bellini

Idylls of Cuisine, #38

November 15, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

[A picture, and nothing more, for silent contemplation.]

Categories: Art, Photography • Tags: Art, Feast of the Gods, Food, Giovanni Bellini

Day of the Dead 2009 post 2

Halloween: Art

October 31, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

HAPPY HALLOWEEN! For more on the Day of the Dead in Mexico, see my previous post: Día de los Muertos (Todos Santos)/ Day of the Dead Food-Laden Altars .

Categories: Art, Halloween, Mexico • Tags: All Souls' Day, Art, Day of the Dead, Halloween, Mexico, Skull

Lemons Claesz

When Life Gives You Lemons, Dream of Sorrento

October 8, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Lemons — the smell of them teases out dreams of sunny days and slower ways, of light twisting through splintery pergolas hung heavy with purple wisteria. And, of course, bees buzzing above the wine glasses and darting through clumps of flowering thyme on the ground below. Lemons — the sight of them conjures up visions of Moroccan markets, the thin-skinned preserved doqqs and bousseras perched precariously in white enameled bowls, the blue rims crusted with the salt and juice of […]

Categories: Art, Italy, Lemons, Poetry • Tags: Art, Lemons, Pablo Neruda, Pieter Claesz, Poetry, Sorrento Lemons

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Bees beekeeping_Bruegel

Panning for Gold: Harvesting Honey

September 29, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Left to their own devices, bees usually built their hives in hollowed-out trees or other such spaces. Through the centuries, people learned how find beehives with their highly sought-after honey. And they started creating new homes for bees, in a number of ways and styles. The following picture essay illustrates some of these unique, and not so unique, beehives. (Some experts believe bishops’ mitres served as models for beehives. Or maybe it was the other way around? Certainly the iconography […]

Categories: Agriculture, Art, Local foods • Tags: Agriculture, Art, Bee Hives, Honey Bees, Local foods

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Christina, by Mark Ryden

The Art in Meat

June 24, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

“As for the garden of mint, the very smell of it alone recovers and refreshes our spirits, as the taste stirs up our appetite for meat,” ~~ Pliny ~~ Meat enjoys a reputation as a controversial subject these days. As well it should, in the food system now in existence. There’s even a vastly insightful magazine called Meatpaper. And some authors have begun to examine the modern, rather oppressive, presupposition that meat is bad. But what many advocates of a […]

Categories: Art, Meat • Tags: Art, Christina Ricci, Mark Ryden, Meat, Pinar Yolacan, Victoria Reynolds

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inauguration-2009

The Inauguration of 2009 Rendered in Art

January 31, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Artist Maira Kalman turned the Inauguration of 2009 into an artistic rendition of universal experience. Antoine Vollon’s eggs and butter caught my attention. I am offering this link in the spirit of the artist, as a celebration of America. And, of course, of food and community. Dine with your friends and sup with your enemies. The world will be a better place for it. Click here to see the whole series of Maira Kalman’s pictures.

Categories: Art, Inauguration 2009 • Tags: Antoine Vollon, Art, Food in Art, Inauguration 2009

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Food forms the very essence of life, from the fruit fly to the elephant, with humans in between. So much of what we do revolves around cooking, eating, and the finding of food. Here you'll discover stories, meditations, and photographs celebrating the places that we call home. And, of course, the food that garnishes it all.

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What’s Cookin’ Here

  • The Grocery List: Color, Primates, and Food Selection
  • A Bare Table is Like an Artist’s Canvas
  • “Stew’s so comforting on a rainy day.” *
  • Singkong, Manioc, Mandioca, Mandió, Tapioca, Yuca: Singing the Praises of Manihot esculenta (Cassava)

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