Soup is Such a Comfort
Soup is Such a Comfort
Georgia O’Keeffe: A Painter’s Kitchen and Dinner with Georgia O’Keeffe
The most ambitious thing I did in my kitchen last week was open cans of Campbell’s Chicken Noodle Soup and heat their contents.
Then it was back to my own grown-up Land of Counterpane (link). My bed strewn with books and tissues and my sweet sleeping cat, who, frighteningly, became very ill herself later in the week. A different set of ailments, but she is now thankfully on the mend.
One of the books that kept me company between snoozes and emergencies was A Painter’s Kitchen: Recipes from the Kitchen of Georgia O’Keeffe, by Margaret Wood.
Ms. Wood was 24-years-old when she became Miss O’Keeffe’s cook and paid companion at her New Mexico ranches between 1977-1982. At age 89, Georgia O’Keeffe’s eyesight was failing and she needed help in the kitchen and around her homes.
She was born in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, in 1887 and grew up on her parent’s dairy farm. She was no stranger to the outdoors. She loved her garden in Abiquiu, New Mexico, growing her own fruits and vegetables and herbs for her meals since the 1940’s. And she loved to cook.
“Soup is such a comfort,” Miss O’Keeffe would sometimes say. Soups were generally the focus of the supper menu, often served with a salad, bread or crackers and a dessert.
— Margaret Wood, 2009
Ms. Wood was asked on her interview for the job if she could cook and said yes. But within just a few days of being hired, Georgia O’Keeffe became her mentor for cooking and gardening.
She had very distinct tastes. Within three days she was instructing me.
— Margaret Wood, 2009
There’s another book I’m dying to get my hands on, Dinner with Georgia O’Keeffe: Recipes, Art & Landscape by Robyn Lea. I believe it’s out of print, but I’ve been seeing some used copies online, so I’ll keep you posted.
It was published in 2017 and there are several great articles about it, including this one: Link. There are also recipes attached and a discussion of the lunch Georgia O’Keeffe, Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera shared in Mexico. Can you imagine?
One of the recipes in the link above is for a Creamy Carrot Soup and last night I was back in my kitchen actually cooking again. The soup is absolutely thick but not heavy, delicious and flavorful, with carrots and onions and garlic and cream, and it lives up to Miss O’Keeffe’s mantra about food, that it should have:
“the spirit of fresh flavor and good health.”
The recipe calls for a small amount of white pepper, which I didn’t have on hand, so I substituted a little ground ginger which worked perfectly and added a sprig of rosemary for garnish. This would be great as a Thanksgiving starter soup course. Try it, so good, and definitely click the link above not just for the recipes, but for the story of the book, it’s fascinating.
Georgia O’Keeffe loved when the food she served was bursting with color set against her striking, stark table settings.
For O’Keeffe, color was a life force, an elixir, and a deep-seated visual language that she was compelled to express through her work.
— Robyn Lea, 2017
“Color is one of the great things in the world that makes life worth living to me.”
— Georgia O’Keeffe
The Next Stop for “my New Yorks”
Georgia O’Keeffe: my New Yorks which has been here at the Art Institute of Chicago all summer is closing today. It’s a beautiful show and if you live in Atlanta, it’s on its way to you next.
For many years, Georgia O’Keeffe was a New Yorker. Beginning in 1924, and during the next dozen years, the artist lived seasonally at the Shelton Hotel, a spectacular residential skyscraper on Lexington Avenue. — The Art Institute of Chicago, 2024
These are O’Keeffe’s urban landscapes.
In collaboration with The Art Institute of Chicago, a skyscraper at 900 N Michigan Avenue has a digital art installation in “The Canopy at 900” that is celebrating the cityscapes of Georgia O’Keeffe featured in “my New Yorks.”
I’ve so enjoyed sitting in the coffee shop on the lobby floor of 900 this summer looking up at this. Click on the post below to see a short video and get a sense of just how lovely it is.
I have done nothing all summer but wait for myself to be myself again.
— Georgia O’Keeffe
Save The Date: The Snacky-Drinky Salon is Thursday, Oct. 24, 5pm CT
A virtual cocktail-mocktail party on Zoom for Time Travel Kitchen’s paid supporters is happening on Thursday, October 24, at 5pm CT, 6pm EST, 3pm PST, for friends in Ireland, 11pm IST and in the UK, 11pm BST. (This really is time-travel-ly — I hope you can stay up to join us!)
Co-hosted with the wonderful
of A Tiny Apartment, it’s a chance to get together, chat and share what we are eating and drinking, and maybe get some ideas for holiday gatherings.I already have my drink and snacks planned and I’ll be sharing with you along with other cocktail-mocktail ideas as we get closer to the event. Yearly subscriptions to TTK are $35 and $5 for monthly subscriptions. Hope you’ll join us, it will be fun. ✨
The Last Word: What’s in a Name
My adorable, good-natured 14-year-old rescue, Tillie, has had a rough week. But she’s recovering and my best and possibly only laugh of the week came when I was able to fill one of her prescriptions at Walgreen’s Pharmacy. I guess so as to not confuse her with their human clientele, she is forever in their system as “Tillie the Cat Handy.”
And the delivery system for this liquid prescription so Tillie will actually take it? Soup, of course, for the comfort.
I think Georgia would approve.
See you soon.
Jolene
I’m so glad you can make the party, Ruth! 😃
I REALLY need to visit NM, have never been and it’s about time I do! So glad you are going again in November and to visit Abiquiu (she said she bought it because of the garden!)
I had “A Child’s Garden of Verses”, too! I remember not knowing what ‘counterpane’ meant and not mother said ‘blanket’ 😂
About carrot soup: Domenica just wrote that butternut squash gets all the glory, but carrot soup is so great and colorful and sweet! Hope you and Jeff are well, thanks for well wishes! 🥣🥣🐾🧡
That carrot soup photo is so beautiful it looks like a painting.