The Painter In The Kitchen

Voices of laughter and comic relief are a timeless, vital aspect of Hispanic culture. In this book practical jokes, pranks, slips-of-the-tongue, hyperbole, and slapstick are given in English and regional Spanish.

I hate winter. It probably is the result of having been a child in southern Holland and having to bike to school, always against the wind, pedaling through snowdrifts and sleet. Early on I vowed that when I grew up I was moving to a warmer climate. So for years I spent six months of the year on the top floor of a building from where I could see beautiful old churches in the centre of Rome and I lived the other half of the year perched above Darlinghurst in Sydney, looking towards the lights of the city. Some people think is the perfect life, and in some ways maybe it is. You get the best of both worlds -baroque and Bondi. And summer twice a year. The one thing is that you need two of everything -two houses, two studios and two wardrobes. And of course two fully equipped kitchens. As a painter, I worked in both places, literally migrating from summer to summer. Both in Rome and in Sydney, I spent my day in the studio, taking the occasional walk down the corridor or up the stairs to the kitchen to stir a cooking pan to retain my sanity. Sometimes I even invented recipes. I might be a painter but I can't explain art. However, I can write down recipes for the things I cook while I paint. Of necessity, the food I eat is quick and easy to prepare, since I don't have the time to stand patiently next to the stove for long periods and I do paint a lot. Although many of these recipes have Mediterranean origins, this is not an Italian cookbook. Nor are all my ideas entirely original - rather, they have evolved over the years from the dishes eaten in good restaurants or in the houses of friends, from dishes my mother made and from recipes found in cookbooks, all gradually altered over time to become new favourites. I'm a great believer in the therapy of cooking. I also strongly believe in making things easy for myself, buying seasonal vegetables fresh from the local shops whilst not being averse to using stock cubes or other harmless shortcuts. Essentially, I cook what looks good in the market on the day. Having lived in Italy for the past twenty-five years -in rural Umbria, Florence and since 1983 in Rome- I have come to understand that the perfect dish relies on just a few basic ingredients. Like traditional cooking, which uses an onion, some tomatoes, virgin olive oil, garlic and the odd egg, the best recipes are simple. I don't even attempt a dish that calls for a kilogram of sliced onions marinated in brown sugar for three weeks. That is why all the recipes in this book are either quick 10-minute jobs or slow cooking dishes which take hours on the stove or in the oven and don't require my constant presence. I have left out any dish that I've burned more than twice or that has been ruined when I was applying a coat of varnish to an oil painting in my studio at the other end of the house. The same selection process applies to the way in which I have ended up with certain plants on both my terraces- certain plants survive and are easy to look after, while others need too much attention and never last through the winter. I reckon life should be simple. So from the outset, this has been a painter's cookbook. I want to paint and cook my favourite dishes. This is the result. Sydney, December 2003 Since then, I have exchanged Rome, a city which became too boring for my liking, for Bangkok, so now I live between Bangkok and Sydney with frequent visits to Europe where my roots still lie, somewhat worn out, but they still are there, gnarled or not. I have added some more Asian recipes to this updated version. Enjoy,

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the national bestselling author of The Dog Stars comes a "carefully composed story about one man’s downward turning life in the American West” (The Boston Globe). After having shot a man in a Santa Fe bar, the famous artist Jim Stegner served his time and has since struggled to manage the dark impulses that sometimes overtake him. Now he lives a quiet life ... until the day that he comes across a hunting guide beating a small horse, and a brutal act of new violence rips his quiet life right open. Pursued by men dead set on retribution, Jim is left with no choice but to return to New Mexico and the high-profile life he left behind, where he’ll reckon with past deeds and the dark shadows in his own heart.

Diego Velázquez’s portrait of Juan de Pareja (ca. 1608–1670) has long been a landmark of European art, but this provocative study focuses on its subject: an enslaved man who went on to build his own successful career as an artist. This catalogue—the first scholarly monograph on Pareja— discusses the painter’s ties to the Madrid School of the 1660s and revises our understanding of artistic production during Spain’s Golden Age, with a focus on enslaved artists and artisans. The authors illuminate the highly skilled labor within Seville’s multiracial society; the role of Black saints and confraternities in the promotion of Catholicism among enslaved populations; and early twentieth-century scholar Arturo Schomburg’s project to recover Pareja’s legacy. The book also includes the first illustrated and annotated list of known works attributed to Pareja.

A new interpretation of the development of artistic modernity in eighteenth-century France What can be gained from considering a painting not only as an image but also a material object? How does the painter’s own experience of the process of making matter for our understanding of both the painting and its maker? The Painter’s Touch addresses these questions to offer a radical reinterpretation of three paradigmatic French painters of the eighteenth century. In this beautifully illustrated book, Ewa Lajer-Burcharth provides close readings of the works of François Boucher, Jean-Siméon Chardin, and Jean-Honoré Fragonard, entirely recasting our understanding of these painters’ practice. Using the notion of touch, she examines the implications of their strategic investment in materiality and sheds light on the distinct contribution of painting to the culture of the Enlightenment. Lajer-Burcharth traces how the distinct logic of these painters’ work—the operation of surface in Boucher, the deep materiality of Chardin, and the dynamic morphological structure in Fragonard—contributed to the formation of artistic identity. Through the notion of touch, she repositions these painters in the artistic culture of their time, shifting attention from institutions such as the academy and the Salon to the realms of the market, the medium, and the body. Lajer-Burcharth analyzes Boucher’s commercial tact, Chardin’s interiorized craft, and Fragonard’s materialization of eros. Foregrounding the question of experience—that of the painters and of the people they represent—she shows how painting as a medium contributed to the Enlightenment’s discourse on the self in both its individual and social functions. By examining what paintings actually “say” in brushstrokes, texture, and paint, The Painter’s Touch transforms our understanding of the role of painting in the emergence of modernity and provides new readings of some of the most important and beloved works of art of the era.

A collection of recipes from Georgia O'Keeffe. It features tasty recipes paired with details of her outlook on food, philosophy, life, art, and the world.

An artist on the Spanish island of Majorca goes to terrifying lengths to achieve greatness in this thriller by the author of Eden Burning. In a desire to impress those who visit his studio, renowned artist The Painter employs a gardener to create an inspirational landscape which includes a labyrinth, an orange grove, and Moorish-inspired fountains. They develop an intimate relationship, and The Painter, whose life and talent had become increasingly dissipated, finds himself slowly recovering his original talent. However, the relationship is tainted by The Painter’s jealousy when visitors express more interest in the magical garden than in his art. As the jealously blossoms into deadly rage, The Painter will stop at nothing to pursue his dreams, even if it means murder . . . Deirdre Quiery’s compelling thriller explores themes of love, life and deceit, and examines the lengths we will go to pursue and protect our passions.