Professor Butter Beard and David Halliday’s “Carrots Entwined”
“If you truly get in touch with a piece of carrot, you get in touch with the soil, the rain, the sunshine. You get in touch with Mother Earth and eating in such a way, you feel in touch with true life, your roots, and that is meditation. If we chew every morsel of our food in that way we become grateful and when you are grateful, you are happy.” - Thich Nhat Hanh
I couldn’t agree more. One of my happiest memory bursts is sitting in my grandparents’ vegetable garden in my wet bathing suit on one of the hottest days in late summer eating a ripe carrot that I had just pulled from the ground – dirt and all. I must have been no more than ten years old and had run away from a loud afternoon at the swimming pool my father managed every summer to the natural quiet of my grandparent’s heaven on earth. I had eaten at least ten of the wonderous roots when I mistakenly discovered parsnips, but that is another completely different journey!
Discovery appears to be a theme for me this week. I don’t often allow myself to discover new artists. I tend to cling to my Medieval Scots, my Dutch Old Masters and a certain ginger Impressionist, but just yesterday a contemporary photographer knocked on my soul and I recognized the call. It was simply a photograph of carrots. And then I looked again. And again.
Warm light falls on an old country table, illuminating two entwined ripe carrots in soothing earthy tones. The light shimmers and reflects on the worn platter like an antique mirror sharing its tale. It is a tranquil scene, artfully and painstakingly arranged, sensual, and sublime. And I can taste it.
In his teens in rural Connecticut during the 1970’s, David Halliday enrolled in photography and ceramics classes at a community art center. His photo teacher made quite an impression on Halliday as he had very specific ideas about photography that included the exclusive use of “Agfa Portriga Rapid” - a warm tone art paper favored by many artists of the period. A short time later, Halliday was accepted by Syracuse University into their fine art program but somehow along the way was seduced into the communications department on a photojournalism tract. He became discouraged by the change from an art focus to a commercial one, and left photography behind and made his way to New York City and later Hudson, NY, where he spent the rest of his twenties completely immersed in cooking as a chef.
In 1991, he made the move to New Orleans at the behest of a friend to work at the award-winning Bistro Maison de Ville in the French Quarter. He took up photography again and began to develop what was to become his signature style. Halliday shoots on film (although he computer-edits, comparing the process to a traditional darkroom), and has devoted his energy to focus into and highlight eye-popping color and composition.
In 2009, David Rubin, curator of contemporary art at the San Antonio Museum of Art, gathered thirty-one of David Halliday's images of edibles including highly orchestrated scenes of fruits, vegetables, eggs and fish, into an exquisitely gorgeous exhibition titled “Culinary Delights.”
“It's like an Old Master painting, Caravaggio or something,” says Rubin, almost reverentially, as if he's in church. I agree. Halliday’s photographs invite the viewer in for quiet, prayerful contemplation.
“I'm certainly not trying to make paintings, although I do look at a lot of paintings,” says Halliday. “I see them (his food subjects) as beautiful, intimate objects and treat them that way. I do objectify them ... I try to focus on the content before the medium, but I want the viewer to ask, as a secondary question, “Is that a photograph or a drawing?”
You have inspired me, Mr. Halliday. This week I took a fresh look into my overly-familiar recipe for carrot breakfast muffins. I re-invigorated them by concentrating on the earthy richness of the carrots themselves and then dressed them up with bursts of warming ginger, sassy orange marmalade and the temptation of dark chocolate. They might just be a step on the path to “get in touch with a piece of carrot, and get in touch with the soil, the rain, the sunshine.”
Carrot, Chocolate and Marmalade Muffins
Makes one dozen muffins
2 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
½ cup granulated sugar, plus additional for sprinkling before baking
1/3 cup dark brown sugar
1 Tbsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp fine sea salt
2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cinnamon
2 large eggs
¾ cup buttermilk
2/3 cup vegetable or canola oil
½ tsp vanilla paste
½ cup orange marmalade
1 ½ cups grated carrots (should be about 3 carrots)
½ cup mini-chocolate chips
1) Preheat your oven to 400 degrees and line your muffin tin with muffin wrappers (you want something slightly taller than the tin).
2) In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, two sugars, baking powder and soda, fine sea salt, ginger and cinnamon.
3) In a medium bowl, whisk together the two eggs, buttermilk, oil, vanilla and marmalade.
4) In another medium bowl, grate your carrots.
5) Add the wet mix to the dry and fold together just until no clumps of dry remain.
6) Fold in the grated carrots and mini chocolate chips.
7) Divide the batter between the muffin cups (they will be full). Sprinkle the tops with a bit of granulated sugar.
8) Place the tin in the oven, close the oven door and reduce the heat to 375 degrees. Bake the muffins for roughly 25 minutes until tops are dry and cracked.
9) Remove the tin from the oven and let sit on a wire rack for 10 minutes before removing the muffins to slightly cool the chocolate before eating.
