Cookbook: The Artist's Table

The Artist's Table

Beautiful New Cookbook Pairs
Master Chefs with Masterpieces

Gloriously laden dining tables, generous bowls of fruit, celebretory feasts, and intimately shared meals are favorite subjects of both painters and art lovers. Now, as great food inspires great art, great art has inspired great food. In THE ARTIST'S TABLE (November; $28.00; clothbound) fourteen contemporary master chefs pay culinary tribute to twelve masterpieces in Washington, D.C.'s National Gallery of Art.

Julia Child imagines the couple in Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec's Partie de campagne are on their way to meet friends for a country picnic, and she fills their basket with delicacies like Cold Roast Pheasant with Parma Ham and Fresh Figs, Celery Remoulade, and Chocolate Lace Wafers. Chicago's Rick Bayless creates a menu as "homey and elemental" as Walt Kuhn's Pumpkins, including Jicama Salad with Tangerines, Eggs with Mexican Sausage, and Prickly Pear Ice. For dessert, Nancy Silverton of Los Angeles' Campanile, offers Animal Cookies, Devil's Food Cake, and a classic Ice Cream Sundae as sweet and dreamy as Wayne Thiebaud's Cakes. Nine more works of art depicting food are interpreted in delicious recipes by Patrick Clark, Marion Cunningham, Deborah Madison, Mary Sue Milliken & Susan Feniger, Lorenza de' Medici, Joel Robuchon & Patrica Wells, Alice Waters, Jeremiah Tower, and Paula Wolfert. Included with the recipes are wine and beverage suggestions and tips for achieving picture-perfect results.

With the twelve masterpieces selected by the master chefs, THE ARTIST'S TABLE contains 65 full-color reproductions from the National Gallery of Art. Among these are works by Renoir, Monet, Cezanne, Van Gogh, Matisse, Braque, and Picasso. From Vollon's Mound of Butter to Manet's Two Apples, the images enhance this unique celebration of the art of fine food and food in fine art.

The National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., houses one of the world's finest collections of Western art, and represents great masters from the early Italian and Northern European artists to those of the twentieth century. Founded around a bequest by Andrew W. Mellon and opened in 1941, the National Gallery of Art is visited by over five million people annually. Carol Eron is the managing editor of the National Gallery's Studies in the History of Art series.

Recipes From The Artist Table

Devil's Food Cake with White Mountain Frosting

Celery Remoulade

La Bouillabaisse Chez Panisse

THE ARTIST'S TABLE
Images from the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC
Edited by Carol Eron
$28.00 (clothbound)
Publication date: November 1995
ISBN: 0-00-225071-3
55 recipes; 65 full-color reproductions
10" x 10"; 144 pages

This page originally published as part of the electronic Gourmet Guide between 1994 and 1998.