Rebecca Horn on Eggs

The egg.  What an amazing object.  A symbol of femininity, food, and fragility.  Ms Rebecca Horn shares our enthusiasm for eggs; she has used them as a protagonist in her work for many years.  Machines often serve as the supporting actor - painting them, throwing them, or buffing their shells.  Other eggs rest perilously under boulders waiting to be crushed, cast into lead for safe keeping, or speared, somehow retaining their proud shape. In all of her works the eggs are made more precious, more fragile, their thin shells exposed and fetishized.

Without further ado, Ms. Horn on Eggs:

Rebecca Horn, Metamorphosis, 2012

Rock, Cast-Iron Skull, Steel, Egg, Light, Wooden Podest

Rebecca Horn, Lolita, 1997

Leather Glove, Ostrich Egg, Copper Rod in Plexiglass Box

Rebecca Horn, Oeufs d'Autruche, 1985

Charcoal and Colored Crayon on Ostrich Eggs and Metal

Rebecca Horn, Ostrich Egg Struck by Lightening, 1995

 

Rebecca Horn, To Sleep as Little Spoons, 1990

 

 

Rebecca Horn, Missing Full Moon, 1989

Copper Sculpture with Goose Egg Set in Lead

Rebecca Horn, Pendulum with Emu Egg, 1987

Aluminium, Emu Egg, Electric Motor

Rebecca Horn, Universe in an Ostrich Egg, 2008

2 Brushes, 1 Blue Coloured Ostrich Egg, 1 Funnel, Steel, Electronic, Motor and Pedestal

Your Morning Commute...

...just got a little more savory.

Cruising down the Double Fudge Chocolate Highway

A superior alternative to rush hour.

Haven't we all been down that road before?

See more of Christoph Niemann's charming graphics here.

Faye Dunaway Peels & Eats an Egg

That's all it is.

And that's all it needs to be.

Indelible/Inedible

If hankering over canvas is wrong, we don't wanna be right.

We've waxed cravingly over delectable art many times over, but the hyperrealistic oil paintings of Dutch artist Tjalf Sparnaay leave us with hyperrealistic hunger pangs.

Really, have you ever seen a sexier painting of a sandwich? Those yolks, those crumbs! Swoon.

"Broodje Gezond (Healthy Sandwich)" 2009

Sparnaay seems to have aced the details of eggs in general, judging from the mastery of this depiction of a fried version:

"Gebakken Ei (Fried Egg)" 2009

Ah, the palpable frustration of retrieving ketchup from the bottle!

"Ketchup 2011" 2011

And yes, we'd like fries with that.

"Patat (Fries)" 1999

We're dying to pluck a roast potato off of this piece:

"Draadjesvlees (Stew)" Undated

Now, if you'll excuse us, we're off to lunch. All of this art appreciation has made us hungry.

xxGG

via

HuffPo: Spring Cleaning! 5 Kitchen Tools Every Gastronomista Needs... to Throw Away

Ah, Spring! The sun is shining, the birds are chirping, our kitchen is...

A mess.

An overwhelming, drawer-bulging, disorganized mess. Our motto with food is often, "more is more," but when it comes to our kitchen, our cabinets overfloweth, and our anxiety groweth.

Thus we present to you a short guide to help other Gastronomistas separate the wheat from the chaff. We suggest you grab an Extra Large Hefty bag and get to tossing!

The Apple Slicer



We’ve got to hand it to this gizmo - it makes a pleasing sound when tossed backwards over our heads. Otherwise, we can’t see how this item is useful. When it’s new and sharp enough to actually cut through an apple, it will unfailingly leave you with at least 30% of the core. After 5 uses, though, it no longer even deigns to slice without prodigious elbow grease. Our advice? Pick up a knife. Or, hey, get a little wild - eat that apple whole!

The Rice Steamer



Ah, the Rice Steamer: a large, cumbersome, plastic device that takes up a lot of space and makes only rice. Guess what else is a rice steamer? A pot. A pot is also kind enough to agree to cook other things, from stews to pasta. Kick that rice steamer to the curb. Think of all of the cabinet space you'll free up for genuinely useful items.

The Tea Ball



This item is perfect for tea enthusiasts who love picking leaves out of their teeth. The concept is great, and we adore the lack of waste, but sadly, this item just never, ever works.

The Salad Spinner



We know we will incite the rage of many home chefs by insulting this item, but hear us out. Our kitchens just aren't that large. A Salad Spinner is. Use a colander and a kitchen towel to wash and dry your leaves, then reward yourself by buying a nice big salad bowl that you suddenly have storage space for.

The Egg Cracker



Cracking eggs! SO HARD, are we right? No... we're not. If you can't successfully crack an egg without a spring-loaded device, please, for the sake of us all, get out of the kitchen. Run, don't walk. The infomercial for this gizmo is very useful, though... for a laugh.

Exceptional Eggs

Early Spring always makes us nostalgic about decorating Easter eggs. We fondly remember the fizzy tablets, the tart whiff of vinegar, the nests of green plastic tinsel. But now that we are oh-so-sophisticated adults, it all seems a little, well, lo-fi to us.

Enter the Egg-Bot.

Created by "motion control" artist Bruce Shapiro in 1990, the Egg-Bot uses a Sharpie and rotating motor to create intricate, Escher-esque patterns on delicate eggshell. The results are a far cry from the pastel Paas of your youth.

"Laid By a Chicken, Not a Bunny"

Escher Egg

At $195 - $220, available at Evil Mad Science, the Egg-Bot is not a wallet-friendly way to upgrade your huevos, but the machine will decorate most small, spherical objects, so you can use it to create custom Christmas ornaments, too. So that's more like $100 dollars per Judeo-Christian holiday! How could you ever resist???

Eggzact definition

Additionally, the kit is open-source, which means the upgrades and expansions you could apply are basically endless. Code is available to stretch your designs, fill in hash marks, and even create tiny mazes on your eggs. More fun than an Easter egg hunt? You decide.

Amazing stipple self-portrait by dnewman2010 via Flickr

Via swissmiss

Photos via Flickr

A Simple Guide To Eggs

Eggs can sometimes be perplexing - I mean what's all this free-range business versus cage free versus certified humane...all of these different certifications can give a girl a nervous breakdown at at the market!   Thanks to Culinaut you can refer to this nice info-graphic for all your egg based questions.  We always love a good info-graphic!

Click for a bigger, and thereby better view.

Eggs on Wry

In November of 1972, socialite and Warholian muse Maxime de la Falaise requested a recipe from her friend, famed author Vladimir Nabokov, to include in her upcoming tome, Seven Centuries of English Cooking. His submission was never included, but was discovered later in his archives, along with the note, "Never acknowledge(d) by Maxime." Perhaps the wit was too dry, or the recipe too elementary? Regardless, the entry is gleefully, irrepressibly Nabokov.

Eggs à la Nabocoque

Boil water in a saucepan (bubbles mean it is boiling!). Take two eggs (for one person) out of the refrigerator. Hold them under the hot tap water to make them ready for what awaits them.

Place each in a pan, one after the other, and let them slip soundlessly into the (boiling) water. Consult your wristwatch. Stand over them with a spoon preventing them (they are apt to roll) from knocking against the damned side of the pan.

If, however, an egg cracks in the water (now bubbling like mad) and starts to disgorge a cloud of white stuff like a medium in an old-fashioned seance, fish it out and throw it away. Take another and be more careful.

After 200 seconds have passed, or, say, 240 (taking interruptions into account), start scooping the eggs out. Place them, round end up, in two egg cups. With a small spoon tap-tap in a circle and hen pry open the lid of the shell. Have some salt and buttered bread (white) ready. Eat.

Via

Photo via TheStoneSoup

Enric Rovira's Incredible Edible Eggs

Yesterday, while watching Anthony Bourdain traipse around Spain, we were introduced to the most incredible chocolate eggs by Barcelona-based cocoa artisan, Enric Rovira.


Oh, how we wish that the video were available online for all of you to watch, but it seems to have been yanked from every public site. Please trust us when we say, run to your TiVo and record every upcoming episode of "No Reservations" so that you can one day catch this man's genius in action.

To construct a single egg, Rovira nimbly leaps through innumerable steps to source the chocolate, create a mold, melt said chocolate, mold said chocolate in said mold, temper an exterior, and fasten four perfect pieces together to form a beautiful upright egg. Then - then - he takes the picture-perfect eggs outside to melt in the sunshine, each being pierced by the direct light and ambient heat, and degrading until it nearly crumbles in on its own weight. Thereafter, each egg is brought inside, retempered to hardness, and dusted with a velvety matte coating.

Rovira's energy and genius cannot be contained, and he has produced many collections of incomaprable beauty. The following are some others that we find most elegant.

And remember, they are all meant to be eaten.

Fabulous Eggs by Fabulous Birds

And how fabulous they are.

These gals are looking faboo in the new advertising campaign for Clarence Court premium eggs by WFCA.  The company specializes in eggs across the pond in England, selling Quail Eggs, Duck Eggs, Pheasant Eggs, Ostrich Eggs, Goose Eggs, and other rare-breed chicken eggs that are "proud to be delicious".  So for the new campaign, these Mad Men decided to show off the birds au-naturale.  

These ladies are totally hamming it up for their big photoshoot:

We also adore the behinds the scenes footage, proving that these chickens really are fabulous.

 

Also, check out the Clarence Court website - it's very nice, and there are recipes and fantastic instructional videos that teach you how to prepare eggs 8 different ways - ie learn to poach - finally. 

Humpty Dumpty Had a Nice Ride

We adore these ink drawings by the Dutch artist Merijn Hos.

 Merijn Hos, China Ink on Paper Series 2

Merijn Hos, China Ink on Paper Series 2

 Merijn Hos, China Ink on Paper Series 2

Merijn Hos, China Ink on Paper Series 2

Happy Easter from Gastronomista!

We love eggs, from our heads down to our legs. In celebration of Easter, we've put together a round-up of our very favorite egg images. We hope that the bunny hopped right over to your house and dropped off some goodies.

Please, please, please visit Crappy Taxidermy Blog for so many crazy goodies,

the very least of which is Peter Cottontail.

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Eggstaches! via Kimby on Flickr. She's got a nice set.

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An absolutely gorgeous egg and graphite illustration
by the famed tattoo artist Scott Campbell. Skills, man. Serious skills.
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Now, ain't that the truth.
Paloma's Nest on Etsy is a terrific source of preciously illustrated white clay eggs.
Paloma made this one in celebration of Abraham Lincoln's 200th Birthday.
The egg arrives in it's own next for a mere 22 bucks.

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Handmade white porcelain egg salt and pepper shakers by Rou Designs, also on Etsy.

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Eggs with legs!

We're sorry to say we can't find our original source -- a Russian site via GoogleReader

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Egg Carton Couch via Foundshit

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Egg Abuse from the adorable Eggventures series by ReRe on Flickr.