Wednesday, January 21, 2015

A Georgia O'Keeffe Cookbook


Following up my posts about Southwest cookbooks, I want to dedicate this post to the cookbook A Painter's Kitchen: Recipes from the kitchen of Georgia O'Keeffe by Margaret Wood. In the last years of O'Keeffe's life, Wood was her companion, and often cooked the dishes that O'Keeffe loved, learning O'Keeffe's favorite recipes. At that time, O'Keeffe had lived in New Mexico for around 40 years. She had two homes, one in Abiquiu, and one at Ghost Ranch not far away.

A vegetable and herb garden provided much of the produce for O'Keeffe's table, and she obtained other foods from local farmers, shops, and gatherers of wild plants. Thus, although O'Keeffe's culinary background was from the midwest and New York, food at her two homes was very much local. For holidays such as Christmas, O'Keeffe served traditional foods such as tamales to her neighbors. Throughout the book, Wood provides background on the origins of O'Keeffe's recipes and ingredients. Photos included show O'Keeffe working in her kitchen or serving coffee or food in her home.




The Abiquiu home is now a very popular museum, while Ghost Ranch offers a variety of places to stay and activities to longer-term visitors. I once visited this area, and I was overwhelmed by seeing the landscapes that O'Keeffe painted -- unfortunately, no artworks by O'Keeffe are included in Wood's book.

My photo of Abiquiu
My photo of Ghost Ranch showing Pedernal,
the mountain near Ghost Ranch.
Brooklyn Museum: Red Hills with the Pedernal
O'Keeffe's very famous 1936 painting of Pedernal:
Brooklyn Museum

As I'm fascinated by the relationship of food and art, I also wanted to share
the above images of two other artist cookbooks from my collection.
Cookbook Wednesday is inspired by
Louise at Months of Edible Celebrations.

4 comments:

~~louise~~ said...

Wonderful Mae! Just wonderful!!! It's so funny that you chose this book today. My daughter and I are planning a trip to New Mexico this year and I had mentioned to her that I was wondering whether the museum was still opened. I'll have to check.

I'm so glad you decided to share this book with us today and the other food and art books too. I LOVE Monet's Table! But now I have two others to add to that ever growing list.

Thank you so much for sharing Mae...I hope the weather is cooperating in New York...You are all linked up!!!

Marjie said...

I'd never have thought of a cookbook by Georgia O'Keefe. I suppose artists and artsy food go together, but I'd never contemplated the relationship. I'd love to get hold of Monet's cookbook; he is one of my favorite artists ever. I love the delicacy of Pointellism.

You do have some of the best cookbooks, Mae.

Debra Eliotseats said...

My absolute favorite. Love the apple sauce recipe in this. You know I love tan paintings here. I have a photo of that exact same canin

Cakelaw said...

How interesting! It's great that she used lots of local produce and made locally orientated dishes.