Bodegón

 Although still life painting was practiced in other European countries, only in Spain did it transcend its traditional status and rise to the same heights as other genres. Bodegón is the Spanish term for still life (from bodega, a storeroom or tavern). Taken more generally, bodegón refers to the representation of common objects of daily life, frequently including food. The still life image may contain piles of fruit, silvery fish lying on a plate, game birds hanging on a wall, or arrangements of flowers. Still lifes may also contain shiny pewter vessels, transparent glasses, woven rugs, books, jars, pipes, a writer’s inkwell, or the painter’s brush and palette. There are works that display the ingredients for an upcoming meal. All manner of inanimate objects are suitable subjects for still lifes, for the painter’s skill suddenly makes us aware of the artistic properties of ordinary things.    - Guggenheim Museum

It is easy to imagine an edible commodity as a talking point in cookery but challenging to convey with a visual art intent as a message in prose. But poetry can be tweaked (or tricked), and this is what I have learned in writing all these years using my kitchen as canvass. I don't know if I would admit to "overcooking" my blog to say more than what I'm eating verbatim (a recipe is a recipe is a recipe), but I suppose it's the same principle manifest for turning the ordinary to extraordinary on the brush of Diego Velasquez, the famous 17th century Spanish still lifer, who I'm evoking here as teacher chef. The food become symbols. I would argue that photography is like a cousin to poetry: hoping her craft would elevate my message. A cook is a laborer of composition using heat and ingredients, and the magic is in the saying and taste served between the lines. The first bodegón painting I saw at the Prado in Madrid was an afterthought - it impressed me the last minute - yet a eureka happened that evening and I hadn't seen my daily food since (more than fifteen years ago) any other way. Part of it was love. It was my ex who actually pulled me out of the abstracts by Miro to check out the sardines, olives and bread at the adjacent gallery over of still lifes. And I was hooked - because I saw an image vicarious to the eyes of love. So, yes, this picture I took this morning of green bananas and French press is worth a thousand words. Memories aren't perishable as are victuals after posing on the table and taken away and make me a better cook. Today I'm showing you the roots of my "food-flowers" cutout and framed with hunger to satisfy in the end. But I cannot write with food alone. Corollary is food is not the true reason I eat but it is so I write. And that's why I made coconut herb soup perfumed with blistered tomatoes and listened to old songs of the Carpenters to feed my heart. "'Tis now many years since that my thoughts have had no other aim and level than myself, and that I had only pried into and studied myself: or, if I study any other thing, 'tis to apply it to or rather in myself... There is no description so difficult, nor doubtless of so great utility, as that..." (Montaigne).