Last spring, I was honored to be an artist in residence in the Pullman neighborhood in our beautiful city of Chicago. I initially had made plans to map the many blocks around my space as I considered the ravages of the built environment in the …
Happy Valentine’s Day! This Onion Dip for Breakfast pair had an early start in celebrating Valentine’s Day by having afternoon tea at the Drake Hotel over the past weekend. In the Palm Court, the hotel’s strikingly opulent and beautiful restaurant, we sipped tea, champagne, ate …
We never miss an opportunity to enjoy art in the galleries and on the table. How wonderful was it to engage with both! First, there was a terrific retrospective of Faith Ringgold’s body of work.
And then there was the art of the table. Chicago Restaurant Week is in grand fashion with the museum’s Marisol delighting us with delicious courses. The cod was my hands-down favorite. Courses included a zesty hummus with lovely crackers, radicchio and citrus salad, an extraordinary bouillabaisse-style cod, and a parsnip-cardamom cake.
We all were in favor of a relaxing holiday week with plenty of food, drink, conversation, and song. After almost three weeks of travel and landing in Chicago on Christmas Day, being still was a gift itself. Half of Onion Dip had been in the …
This morning’s family media club discussion focused on a special episode of High on the Hog, “Defiance”, that features my hometown of Atlanta. Public history is always personal history. In this case, the episode highlighted places and people near and dear to my heart: the …
Back in high school, my love for history was fed by many but especially by one teacher. Her knowledge spanned millennia and she shared it with us through literature, music, art, her stories, and even food. Ancient Greece and Rome, the Middle Ages, and more. Eventually, we made it to the Dutch and their dominance in trade of all types. I was most fascinated by the “Tulip Mania” period in 17th century Netherlands.
An entire country went absolutely mad for tulips. This was a wild time of speculation: a bundle of bulbs was a prince’s ransom. At its peak in early 1637, the most precious single bulbs sold for more than ten times the salary of an experienced artisan. My sixteen-year old self could think of little else for days. How could people get so caught up in the ephemeral moment of plants?
Ten years ago in a Georgian restaurant in Moscow, I had my own plant mania. After multiple courses of some of the most delicious food, I ordered sea buckthorn tea. Expecting a cup of black tea infused with an unknown ingredient, I was completely entranced when a glass teapot filled with a golden elixir was placed in front of me. It was like the color of Meyer lemons, marigolds, kumquats, and the sun; it tasted like that, too.
On and off over the next ten years, I searched in vain for this drink. Nothing lived up to that promise. Where did it grow? Near the sea? Could it grow in Chicago?
When I headed to Central Asia last month to convene with other artists from around the world, little did I expect to rekindle my love of this nectar in Kyrgyzstan. Hours after arriving in Bishkek, I was reunited with this extraordinary tea. It was glorious. This time, however, I wasn’t alone. Each person who shared a pot with me, fell hard. We dreamt of growing it back here and laughed as our interest hit a fevered pitch. There was the simple brew that I had first encountered in Russia a decade ago. Every day was different, though. Sometimes there was the surprise of fresh raspberries, mint, orange slices, tiny strawberries or even rosemary. Here’s to enjoying something fanatically with others!
Who tells the stories? Legend has it that the Greek god of the Underworld, Hades, desired the young Persephone, goddess of Spring. So he asked his brother, Zeus, if he could have her as his ”bride”. Will it surprise you to know that Persephone was …
When friends become friends because of the most (un)likely series of events. As always, it began with coffee and seeds.
During my three-month artist residency in Pullman at the mosnart visiting artist project, I challenged myself to be leisurely in a neighborhood defined by labor.
I posed questions to myself: do we value labor over leisure? Has leisure become labor? Must we produce perpetually? Do we enjoy the fruit of our labors?
What to do?
Absolutely nothing?
I recently completed a three-month artist residency in the lovely Chicago neighborhood of Pullman. After considering a number of ideas of what I planned to do during my stay, I landed on contemplating the idea of leisure in area known for labor. This was not …
