Around the Table

By Andrea Blum ( @myamericanpantry ), LAP Culinary Arts Fellow For Passover last week, I made the artist residents an Ashkenazi lunch with most of the fixings of a Seder, the symbolic meal that recounts the story of freedom from slavery for the Jewish people.  We had matzo flatbread, a cardamom matzo ball soup, brisket and haroset that we sandwich  between the matzo with a bit of horseradish, one of those things from childhood that sticks with you as a favorite food throughout your life. At this lunch, instead of recounting and practicing the normal ritual of the holiday, I asked…

By Andrea Blum ( @myamericanpantry ), Montalvo Culinary Artist Foraged wild garlic flowers This week, I transformed a Tuscan meal into a Northern Californian one--a typical meal like I would find in the place I call the home of my heart--the Chianti region, just 45 minutes south of Florence in San Casciano in Val di Pesa. I would often go to lunch at the Ponte Rotto (Broken Bridge), a small grocery store on a country road with a room in the back turned osteria during the lunch hour. Everyone from farm worker to bureaucrat would come there to eat. It…

By Andrea Blum ( @myamericanpantry ), Montalvo Culinary Artist A traditional cassole , glazed on the inside (left) and burnt on the outside (right). Some tools of the trade stay with you all your life. While traveling in France almost 20 years ago, I acquired a ceramic dish that as has become part of my quiver for cooking. It’s known as a cassole , a traditional earthenware dish where one cooks a cassoulet. The outside of the dish is rough and still burnt from the firing, while the inside is glazed smooth. It’s a piece of earth I cherish like…

By Lori Wood, Lucas Artists Residency Manager   (Left to right) Augustina Woodgate, Sebastian Bellver, Kalisolaite 'Uhila After dinner in the LAP Commons, a season of dominoes. With the fireplace lit and the lights down, the Commons is filled with the sound of dominoes clicking, subtle boasts, and bursts of triumphant laughter. The tiles stretch out in patterns across the redwood table. The patterns change. The poet likes straight lines for a time. She lays down tiles and laughs in trills. The novelist initiates sharp corners and lays tiles at right angles, commenting drily, always a straight face. The playwright…

By Andrea Blum ( @myamericanpantry ), LAP Culinary Arts Fellow Photos: Water2Table Who knew I didn’t know? That is, the incredible taste of sablefish! The taste of place is really about the flavors that are native to place. The deep canyons off Monterey Bay is the place for sablefish—otherwise known as black cod—and the bay is one of the most prolific fisheries on the West Coast. It is also a local and sustainably managed fishery. This means that rules put in place by a variety of stakeholders ensure that the area is not overfished and that the local economy will benefit.…

(clockwise) Kalisolaite 'Uhila, Roman Fileu, Tran T. Kim-Trang, Derek Corns, Howard Hersh ​ Photo: Tina Case CONVERSATIONS ON... The peppery smell of fresh wisteria Lori ​ The Case for Reparations , by Ta-Nahisi Coates Jennifer ​            The difficulty of archiving artists’ work Cassils Wild Seed , by Octavia Butler Jennifer It was a winter of lions and tigers and bears Lori Octavia Butler was without question made by the Lord Jennifer The global power of textiles Tran The Fire Next Time , by James Baldwin Jennifer Looking for a chair that goes high when you…

By Andrea Blum ( @myamericanpantry ), Montalvo Culinary Artist ​ Have you ever had a fresh anchovy? Most people only experience anchovies packed in oil and preserved with salt on a common Caesar salad. But this fish, this tiny, unassuming, guppy-like sea creature, is a love of mine—eaten fresh or preserved. ​ I first experienced the importance of the anchovy and its economic significance while living on the Amalfi Coast in Italy near the town of Cetara, which is the anchovy center of Italy. Cetara itself is as tiny as an anchovy and splashed with color. Each morning, the little row…

By Andrea Blum ( @myamericanpantry ), Montalvo Culinary Artist I didn’t know I would be pairing fava beans with distilled mezcal last week, but I did. And it was under the auspices of the SETI Institute, the scientific organization dedicated to exploring and understanding the origin and nature of life in the universe. How wonderful that one can combine food, drink, and our relationship to the universe--all in one meal! ​ Alejandro AisMar, founder of Agavache and the collaborator of composer and SETI Artist in Residence Felipe Pérez Santiago (who is being hosted by the LAP through a partnership between…

By Andrea Blum ( @myamericanpantry ), Montalvo Culinary Artist   Tongan visual artist Kalisolaite 'Uhila and his daughter Nia. Tongan artist Kalisolaite ‘Uhila has family at the center of his practice. “The importance of family in my work signifies being grounded and community,” he told me recently. Before leaving Montalvo at the end of April, after a three month stay at the Lucas Artists Program (LAP), Kalisolaite, who prefers to be called Ite, invited his extended family and LAP residents for a Tongan feast. This meal of sandwiches and barbecued chicken took place at his studio, which was filled with…

By Andrea Blum ( @myamericanpantry ), LAP Culinary Arts Fellow ​ Visual artist Kija Lucas came for a visit last week. We have been working on a project for over a year, documenting the seasonal ingredients I use in my meals, with the goal of creating a unique Montalvo-centric book with recipes and stories that play off her incredible images. Those special ingredients come from my travels to the farmer’s markets, from excursions into the woods, from dives into the sea, from walks on the beach, from my garden, and sometimes from the side of the road or plucked from a tree…