Around the Table

By Andrea Blum ( @myamericanpantry ), Montalvo Culinary Artist Four nights a week at the LAP, we gather around the table for artist dinner and experience the taste of place. The Montalvo grounds provide endless foraging possibilities to add local flavors to our meals. The California Bay Laurel ( Umbellularia californica ) is a favorite of mine. Its leaves are much more pungent than the dried leaves we find in the stores, and it’s a variety never found in the spice aisle. I pick the leaves directly from the trees and add them to soups, sauces and even desserts. The…

By Lori Wood, Lucas Artists Residency Manager ​In December, Bay Area arts magazine Art Practical reached out to arts leaders in the South Bay and invited them to a specially-curated dinner on December 11 at the Lucas Artists Program at Montalvo. Their invitation: “Build community. Share resources. Discuss methods and experiences that you or your institution has had in creating visibility, forming leadership opportunities, and engaging audiences to advance cultural equity in the arts.” Arts leaders from a number of South Bay arts organizations arrived, ready to share experiences, including leaders from the San Jose Museum of Art, the deSaisset…

By Lori Wood Around the table with theater maker Simón Adinia Hanukai on December 7th, we spoke about inclusion. Where can we even begin? We started with questions: How do we undo whiteness? How do we share blame? How do we find acceptance? How can humans protect one another’s human rights? How do we have the courage to take responsibility for our role in creating an open and accepting society? How do you circumvent/short-circuit the audience’s defenses in order to get them to be honest about their complicity? Artists and other participants around the table wrote their opening questions on…

By Lori Wood On a cold day in December, composer Byron Au Yong welcomed our guests to a special dinner in the Lucas Artists Program (LAP) dining room as a conductor would orchestrate a choir—hand in the air, commanding. The guests fell silent, surprised. Then Au Yong started with a sound, one long tone that rose in volume as he handed it off to us, and we took it up and carried it as Au Yong introduced new musical lines, layer over layer, and conducted our untrained voices in an extemporaneous composition. For many of us, it was the first…

By Andrea Blum ( @myamericanpantry ), LAP Culinary Arts Fellow ​ Photos: (left, middle) Wild golden chanterelle found on the Montalvo grounds; ​(right) Wood-oven roasted chanterelles ​No better ingredient represents the taste of place, or terroir, as the golden chanterelle that pops up near the Montalvo grounds. Some years, chanterelles are plentiful and some years nil. This year is somewhere in between, as the rains have been paltry and the weather warm compared to last winter's deluge. This wild, uncultivated fungi is found under oaks and bay trees, bursting through the duff of the forest floor. It also seems to…

(Clockwise, back to front): Kalisolaite 'Uhila, Henry Threadgill, David Benoit, Andrea Blum, Dario Robleto, Danez Smith, Monica Sok CONVERSATIONS ON... Learning about musi c with Henry Threadgill Usui Khmer voices Monica The ethics of translation: Mohamed Choukri’s For Bread Alone Lori Cooking on mesquite Andrea Maggie Nelson’s Bl u e ts Lori Memorialized: Cambodia's Killing Fields Monica ​ Wasting time well Ite Colonial thinking Dario What an artist can do with an endoscope Kio Mandarin oranges Andrea ​ COOKED By Andrea Blum , Culinary Artist Tonight I used fire to cook the meal. I wanted a vegetable - centric meal.…

CONVERSATIONS ON... The poetry of Shuntaro Tanikawa Kio Eating crab All For hours, conducting the ocean Ite Shall we visit Usui in Japan? Howard Orange trees dropping fruit in Montalvo’s Italianate garden Monica The film Jiro Dreams of Sushi Monica The sound of a beatless, mechanical heart Dario Humans often take over without sharing space with other living creatures Ite Renaming the Temple of Love: The Temple of Greed & Lust? Howard Cracking crab legs, everyone head down in crab All Adam and Eve are missing toes in the garden Monica Does love survive the death of cells? Dario Eating…

By Andrea Blum ( @myamericanpantry ), Montalvo Culinary Artist Above: Shirisha Gopisetti cooking in the kitchen of Montalvo's Lucas Artists Program. Some of my best kitchen memories are from cooking with women in home kitchens around the world. I am especially excited when some of these worldly women (and men) come to the culinary kitchen at the Lucas Artists Program and share their life stories and food. The kitchen here is a magnet, and I can travel through those who come here to visit. On Friday, Shirisha Gopisetti, a volunteer in the Montalvo gardens, came with her daughter Manasi to help…

By Andrea Blum ( @myamericanpantry ), Montalvo Culinary Artist   LAP residents (left to right) Kalisolaite 'Uhila, Will Calhoun, Henry Threadgill and Culinary artist Andrea Blum This week, magnolias are in bloom. It’s one of my favorite flowers and I look forward to finding them in the landscape each year. Even when the spent flowers tumble to the table, I still love the branches! I adorned the table this week with flowering magnolia branches, and as you can see, the conversation around the table happened under, around and through them.   Artist and designer Sebastian Bellver peers through the magnolias…

By Andrea Blum ( @myamericanpantry ), LAP Culinary Arts Fellow ​Fifteen pounds of carrots arrived at my doorstep last week. It was a mistake delivery and a bit alarming to have so many carrots piled on my kitchen island. So what to do? Cook everything orange for the artists! The first dish I made was a bright and simple carrot soup. This was made from carrots, onions, a bit of cumin, chipotle and water. The result was a rich sunset blast of orange and the flavor was divine. So said those happy faces around the table. ​ ​The only thing missing were…