Category Archives: Online

Artist Christian Boltanski Tours ‘Les Archives du Coeur’

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Published on Dazed Digital on 16th August 2010:

The 65 year-old French artist takes his inspired collection of human heartbeats to a remote Japanese island

Christian Boltanski is the critically acclaimed French artist whose primary purpose in art has been to remind us of our own mortality. The 65-year-old veteran has been exhibiting since the 70s and his current touring project, Les Archives do Coeur, has been globetrotting for the last five years, receiving contributions from the public and celebrities alike. The same ongoing archive has also formed part of other notable exhibits such as Personnes at the Grand Palais, Paris, and No Man’s Land at Armory, New York. The latest installment has just been exhibited at the Serpentine, London, and will be heading to Finland next year on its whirlwind tour. But right now, it’s happily taking a breather on the remote Japanese island, Teshima, as part of Setouchi International Art Festival.

Dazed Digital: What’s the inspiration behind Les Archives du Coeur?
Christian Boltanski: The idea came about six or seven years ago. You always try to capture people you love with photos: you know, you take a photograph of them to keep as a memoir? The recording of the heartbeats are like photographs: they capture a part of someone. Two or three years ago, I was asked by Mr Fukutake of Benesse Art to visit this island in Japan. I was inspired to make a library of heartbeats because it was so beautiful. It was very quiet and isolated, and you could hear the heartbeats of the person you love in a very quiet way.

DD: So are the heartbeats constantly playing on this island?
Christian Boltanski: There are two parts: one is like an office and you can record your own heart if you want to. The other is like a corridor where you can listen to your own recordings, and you can hear the heartbeats of other people.

DD: Who was first person to have their heartbeat recorded for the archive?
Christian Boltanski: I think it was a Swedish man. The first time I did it was in Stockholm. A man called me and said: ‘I love my dog so much, please can you put his heart in the library?” Now I have around six thousand Swedish heartbeats and one Swedish dog.

DD: What does the future hold for this project?
Christian Boltanski: It will just travel all over the world. It has been to Korea, Sweden and London, and it’s going to Finland next. The heartbeats will just be stored together in a big computer in Naoshima. After a few years, when you go to Naoshima you will find that the heartbeats all belong to dead people. Naoshima will become the island of death in fact. The idea of the piece is that it’s impossible to preserve something: you can record the heartbeat of somebody, but you can’t stop them dying.

DD: Are you planning to destroy the archives when it’s completed?
Christian Boltanski: No, this will be a permanent piece of work and it will be ongoing.

DD: Have you given any thoughts to your final project and your legacy?
Christian Boltanski: I think this project will be my last, because it will not finish until I’m dead.

Les Archives do Coeur is currently at Japan’s Setouchi International Art Festival

What’s for dinner? – Romilla Arber

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Published on Foodepedia on 14th August 2010:

“What’s for dinner?” That’s a question asked approximately two minutes after the confirmation of lunch on the table in my house. The answer to that question isn’t a light one. At least not for Romilla Arber who tried to address it with her 656 page début, ‘what’s for dinner’.

On first look, the book has everything – seasonal recipes, weekly shopping lists, helpful hints and a handy bookmark, complete with conversion tables. With a book of this scale, would you ever need any other cookbook? And it’s not just a simple cookbook either. The profits from sales goes towards funding Arber’s charity, the Food Education Trust, which aims to teach children and adults basic cooking skills as well as the benefits of healthy eating. Not a bad concept.

But upon closer inspection, it’s hard not to question the contents of the book. It’s certainly surprising, given the charity the book supports, that oddly enough there’s no explanation of any basic cooking skills.

As a time-saving meal planning bible for the family, it should definitely be applauded. For starters, there are just so many recipes to choose from. Arber has also recognised that no family meal would be complete without puds and treats so each week there is a recipe, or two, for a little something sweet.

With the book divided into months, albeit nominally, it’s easy to stay seasonal without worrying about what may or may not be on the shelves. The weekly shopping lists will certainly come in handy for anyone too busy to work out what they need to buy from week to week. That said, if you don’t have a family of six like Arber, you will still need to scale the recipes, and therefore the shopping list accordingly.

This book is one woman’s recipe binder, a book by a home cook, for the home cook.

Buy on Amazon

Le Bouchon Breton

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Published on Foodepedia on 9th August 2010:

Old Spitalfield Market, 8 Horners Square, London E1 6EW www.lebouchon.co.uk

There’s something profoundly old fashioned about Le Bouchon Breton as I discovered on a recent visit with a friend.

With plush red seating and a well stocked high bar, it was the epitome of retro French glamour. Outside, little oases of botany separated deck furniture and a live band played gently in the background, all a part of the Breton’s August jazz nights. It almost gave the illusion that we weren’t sitting on the wooden floored second level of Old Spitalfield Market.

Décor aside, there were also the mannerisms. As we were seated, the wine list was placed in front of my friend, the gentleman. When the waiter explained the menu it was to my friend, the gentleman. The sommelier decided “the lady” required a better matched wine than the gentleman until, that is, he chanced upon one which was equally suited for both. And who else to haver the first sample but my friend, the gentleman?

I suddenly found myself feeling a little bit 50s house wife à la Betty Draper. Or maybe it’s just the city lawyer oozing from my friend.

Naturally, the gentleman choses the fillet steak. He tells me it’s possibly one of the top five steaks he’s had in his life, cooked precisely how he liked it.

Switching from my usual sirloin to try something decidedly French, panfried veal sweetbread with tartar sauce caught my eye, along with a side of fries. For sweetbread virgins, it is the thymus gland of an animal and as offal goes, the veal sweetbread is considered a bit of a delicacy. The sweetbread was very tender with a texture similar to heart or liver but smoother and richer like paté. It also didn’t have the usual strong taste of offal which was rather refreshing.

Confusingly, the sweetbread was served on top of a slice of toasted bread causing a moment of perplexity. Has I misread the menu and order panfried veal on sweetbread? Confusion aside, the sweetbread was certainly different and rather moreish. However, the slice of bread was slightly burnt and very soggy and better fries have been had elsewhere. It seems I had passed on the opportunity of having medium rare perfection to have something that was really quite average.

The wine was brilliantly matched to the food and also very enjoyable on its own so bravo to the sommelier. It would have been nice to know what we were drinking but alas, only the gentleman gets to see the label. Although in fact with the wine separate in its own ice bucket and the glasses regularly topped up by the sommelier, neither of us saw very much of the bottle.

For the summer season, Le Bouchon Breton has also launched a series of ice cream coupes. Having eyed up the coupes on the next table, my friend decided that he could handle one all to himself so a Frozen Mess and a Frozen Smith were ordered. When you spot vanilla seeds in the ice cream, you know that it’s going to be seriously good. Both of the coupes looked spectacular but there was a mountain of cream to get through to uncover the ice cream and even then, as my friend laments, there was an unfortunate shortage of meringue.

Overall, the experience was not unpleasant. The meal was on the pricier side of things but not unreasonable. Perhaps the fabulous wine even made up for it. However, if our seats were the cosy ones inside along with the jazz accompaniment then so much the better. It might have gotten a little heated but that can only add to the authenticity of the atmosphere.

A rum do at No 5

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Published on Foodepedia on 5th August 2010:

I’m drawn to new things like a magpie to shiny objects so how could I resist the opportunity to attend the launch of a very exclusive rum? Especially when there’s the opportunity to taste a bottle of £125 rum?

Monday night saw the launch of the Mount Gay 1703 into the UK at the rather swish No. 5 Cavendish Square. Of course you’ve probably heard of Mount Gay rum before, and why should you not have? Mount Gay’s reputation precedes it, by over three hundred years in fact. They say that it is the oldest brand of rum in existence.

Mount Gay Rum has been around the UK in various award winning guises from the Eclipse to the Extra Old. Now the 1703, a blend of rum aged between 10 to 30 years, has arrived and it is deliciously smooth with an intoxicating aroma. In fact, it smells so good, it’s almost a shame to drink it.

Drinking Eclipse based cocktails and eating canapes aside, there was the opportunity to mingle with the top bar owners and distributors in London town. All in all, it was a jolly good shindig, but perhaps a bit tame by Caribbean standards.

To find out more about Mount Gay Rum, go to www.mountgayrum.com

Pizzas with Fire and Stone

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Published on Foodepedia on 4th August 2010:

To mark the opening of Fire and Stone’s fifth restaurant, I was invited to try out Fire and Stone’s extensive pizza menu. I’ve often wandered past their Covent Garden branch but never had the opportunity to go in; it always looked so busy and I’m always hurrying from here to there. I’ve read reviews that say all sorts about their combination of flavours, but then I wonder how right those are if they’re doing so well all the time. Naturally, I was intrigued to see what they had in store for us.

The little demonstration took place at the new restaurant at Old Spitalfields Market. Of course by little, I mean something quite impressive really. The key ingredients that went into making Fire and Stone pizzas were laid out across three tables, akin to that of a farmers market except I was without a basket. To the right, is a sample of meats from big joints of beef to minced lamb; across the middle is a selection of cold meats, cheeses and olives; and to the left is a selection of vegetables and fresh herbs that would make Jamie Oliver proud.

Clearly Fire and Stone felt that simply looking at the ingredients wasn’t enough to tickle the senses and I’m inclined to agree. As they guided us through the ingredients, the very polite staff offered us a selection of pizzas from their menu for tasting.

Two of them stood out for me, Acapulco and Koh Samui.

The Acapulco is really a beef burrito in a pizza and it works. Imagine a tortilla wrap loaded with incredible chilli beef, mozzarella, sour cream and guacamole; except you don’t have to worry about it falling out the other end because it’s all flat. Perhaps I’m just biased because I’m all about the burrito.

The Koh Samui sounded quite dubious when I was browsing the menu. As a pizza traditionalist, curry sauce on a pizza just sounds like it should not happen. Admittedly it’s a bit like a vegetable korma with naan but it’s so incredibly fresh that the vegetables still have bite.

Maybe I’ve cheated a little by choosing two pizzas that are basically a re-hash of other dishes, the way that I always imagined pancakes and French toast to be interchangeable ingredient-wise. But however questionable the ingredients, potatoes included, it actually taste pretty good. I am a little disappointed by the lack of rocket on the menu though. After the assault on my taste buds, it would be quite nice just to have a simple smoked salmon and rocket pizza. But then again, I suppose that’s not really what Fire and Stone had set out to do with their pizzas.

After a small tour to see the dough boys rolling out the bases, we were invited to get stuck into making our our favourites from the menu. Head Chef Stuart made one to demonstrate, but it was exponentially harder when the time came to make our own. While chomping on my hard labour, I also sampled the desserts on the menu as well as a selection of wines, smoothies and milkshakes. Given this all took place before 11.30am, a whole two hours since I had breakfast, I was feeling more than a little nauseated.

Luckily I was able to escape with my barely touched pizza and a bag of Fire and Stone ingredients without too much damage. I am happy to report that back at the office at a suitable lunching hour, the pizza wasn’t half bad.

To visit the new branch and see the restaurant opening offers, head to 4 Horner Square, Old Spitalfields Market, London E1 6EW www.fireandstone.com