The Thing thing in Houston, Part 1

I'm really stoked about being invited to an upcoming workshop at the Menil Collection on Byzantine materiality. The workshop is in conjunction with the 2013 exhibition "Byzantine Things in the World", which seeks out new ways of understanding the Byzantine viewer's relationship to objects and phenomena. This is a provocative question that many historians struggle with: how can we recover exactly what it meant to "see" in different periods, particularly periods that pre-date modern scientific ideas about vision and materials? (I think that it's going to be useful for my own work, since I'm asking a lot of questions right now re: what exactly people in the mid-20th-century got out of looking at a drawing. Did they feel the texture of the paper, or sense the graphite as a "quieter" medium than paint, or simply get a general sense of the depicted form? An oblique connection, but useful nonetheless.)

The presentations look fabulous, and range in scope from studies of ecstatic vision in Byzantium to examinations of individual objects (1000-year-old locket engraved with a duck, anyone?). My paper is an inquiry re: images of Christ's face in Byzantine architecture using the Menil Byzantine Fresco Chapel as a model (see above). I can't wait.

How to turn your blog into a Food Blog

I've been making a lot of pies lately. My housemate's 2-year-old daughter is obsessed with pie, as it's one of the few one-syllable words that doesn't allow for ambiguity. You want it, you say it. She draws out the last vowel as though it's an extra syllable: Pieeeeeeeee.

Today's pie was spiced peach in a Safeway pre-bought crust. As I made it, I fantasized about consuming all my fruit in pie form. This feels very American South or pre-famine British Isles or post-famine immigrant New York to me: maybe you're living in a region where high-quality fresh fruit is hard to come by, so you hide fruit's imperfections with sugar and a crust. I don't put much sugar in my fruit pies because the fruit here in California is perfect. It's better to make my pie recipes with perfect or near-perfect fruit, because you need less sugar that way.

Spiced Peach Sex on the Beach Pie

3 large peaches or 4-5 medium peaches, cut up

juice of 1/2 lemon

1 T cornstarch

1 1/2 T sugar

cardamom (not too much)

ground ginger (or fresh, not too much)

cinnamon

store-bought pie crust*

*I know they have trans fats. Fuck you.

Mix all ingredients together in a bowl and let them get juicy and runny. Pour into pie crust and bake for 1 hour. Try and do something productive during that hour so that you don't feel bad about eating half the pie for dinner later.

I think I'm going to experiment with cooked fruit recipes so that I can get the sensation of pie PLUS the ability to eat it anytime. In other words, not too carby and not too sweet. My girlfriend makes an amazing crumb topping and then bakes fruit and lemon juice and a little sugar in ramekins til the tops are browned. I like this method but right now I want to groove out on a crust. What are some good pre-made crust brands? Furthermore, how do I make a good crust without feeling like an ape or a pre-industrial housewife who spends all day in the kitchen?

Also. I tried to forage for fruit to put into this pie using www.neighborhoodfruit.com, but it was a Big Fat Fail. This website/app only maps fruit trees in the area; the app can't confirm whether there's actually fruit on the tree. There is some mint growing down the street from my house, though.

Next topic: what is the public perception of food foragers? All yupsters, or...?