rumtastique

An incredible portrait drawing from the early Dutch artist working in Haarlem, Hendrick Goltzius:

So some weeks ago, Favorite Professor D came up to me and said "I need you to make me a cake." Now this was something of a surprise, as he was still trying to eat the many, many pounds of cake derrangedferret had made him for his birthday (in the shape of the famous renaissance Villa Rotonda.)

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Today's painting: Perugino's 1481 fresco from the Sistine Chapel, Jesus presenting the Keys to St. Peter.




Fun Fact: Judas is the fifth to the left of Christ, and the scenes in the mid-ground are other scenes from the life of Christ.

Trivia: It is rumored that this fresco includes a self-portrait of the artist. Which is he?

Today's project: use up the butternut squash. Objective: roasted squash soup.

Here's the recipe:

2 butternut squashes (that's what we had)
5-6 cups chicken stock (this could easily be veggie for those that object to meat)
1/2 to 1 head garlic, cloves peeled
large sweet onion, cut into large pieces
olive oil
1 c white wine
sweet curry powder
salt
1 cup sour cream

heat oven to 350.
peel, seed and cube squash.
divide squash between two flat glass baking dishes, put half the onion and garlic in each pan.
toss with salt and olive oil, arrange in single layer.
Add 1/2 cup stock and 1/2 cup white wine to each pan.
Roast for about 90 minutes, occasionally checking to make sure it's not scorching. if it is, add more liquid.
put all roasted bits and liquid into large soup pot with 3 to 4 cups of stock.
Add 1 tbsp sweet curry powder.
cover and cook on medium to low heat for at least 20 minutes.
Run it all through a cuisinart or blender.
return to pot, add sour cream.
if you find it to thick, add more stock. if too thin, add finely crumbled ginger snaps to thicken.

the moral of the story: some people (like me) get really unpleasant contact dermatitis from something in the peel of a squash. it makes your skin turn deep yellow, dry out, crack and feel much to small. it's extremely unpleasant, and washing and lotion don't help. benadryl helps a little, cortisone apparently helps a lot, but I don't have any. What does seem to help is slathering it in lotion and wearing a rubber glove - it only hurts when it dries out, apparently. So, if you are going to work with butternut squash, just put the gloves on first, and avoid the whole mess.

I've always been a bacardi drinker when it comes to rum. reasonably priced, reasonably mixable. I'm now pretty offended by their most recent advertising campaign. take a look:

http://www.mccanndigital.co.il/Cannes09/Breezer_Minisite.html

basically, they are pushing this idea that the best way to look hot is to a) get an ugly girlfriend so you'll look hotter and b) drink bacardi. but the main thrust is absolute denigration of these women as "ugly". I just find the campaign pretty repellent, so i think it's time for me to find a new brand of rum...

This is related to a class I'm teaching next week:

What do you think of when you here the word "modern"? What is "modernity"?

Hmm. Monday again. Have some art( Cut for nude woman, out of consideration for those at the office... ).

Very shortly here, I'll be logging off and heading to the airport for my grand European adventure. Will be largely offline until my return at the beginning of September. Have a good time in my absence, mkay?

Hopefully, blogging will happen from Europe so you can get the juicy highlights as they happen.

Cheers!

I'm supposed to be studying for a final exam. I kind of don't feel like it, so I'm posting some other stuff I've been working with...
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"For indeed, the greatest glory of a building is not in its stones, or in its gold. Its glory is in its Age, and in that deep sense of voicefulness, of stern watching, of mysterious sympathy, nay, even of approval or condemnation, which we feel in walls that have long been washed by the passing waves of humanity. It is in their lasting witness against men, in their quiet contrast with the transitional character of all things, in the strength which, through the lapse of seasons and times, and the decline and birth of dynasties, and the changing face of the earth, and of the limits of the sea, maintains its sculptured shapeliness for a time insuperable, connects forgotten and following ages with each other, and half constitutes the identity, as it concentrates the sympathy, of nations: it is in that golden stain of time, that we are to look for the real light, and colour, and preciousness of architecture; and it is not until a building has assumed this character, till it has been entrusted with the fame, and hallowed by the deeds of men, till its walls have been witnesses of suffering, and its pillars rise out of the shadows of death, that its existence, more lasting as it is than that of the natural objects of the world around it, can be gifted with even so much as these possess, of language and of life."

John Ruskin, Seven Lamps of Architecture (this passage is from Lamp 6, The Lamp of Memory)