HOST: Throughout
history, food has served as subject
matter, inspiration, and of course,
sustenance for artists. Food has also been the art
on a number of occasions. Today, we're going to
talk about an instance when an artist's work and
cooking life intertwine. And we're hoping
it's an antidote to the terrifying futurist meat
sculpture we made last time. We're back in the
kitchen and we're going to be talking
about the art and cooking of the mighty Georgia O'Keefe. And we'll be working
from two cookbooks-- "A Painter's Kitchen"
by Margaret wood, who worked as her companion
and cook for five years, and "Dinner with
Georgia O'Keefe" by Robyn Lea, who thoroughly
researched her cooking life. Although strangely used this
photo of pastels on the cover, a material that O'Keefe
didn't really use. Anyway, we're going to
make breakfast today, including whole wheat
bread, a smoothie called Tiger's Milk, and green
chili with garlic and oil that we'll serve
with fried eggs. It's going to be great. What you must know
from the start is that O'Keefe was a serious
health food enthusiast, and lived to age 98. Homemade bread was a part
of daily life in her house. And she ground her own
wheat to make flour for it, using a countertop
mill kind of sort of not really like this one. And, heck, if it
worked for O'Keefe, we should probably try it too. But it's going to take a while. So let's have story time
while this is happening. Georgia O'Keefe
was born in 1887, and grew up on a dairy
farm in Wisconsin, where they made their
own cheese and yogurt, grew their own fruits
and vegetables, and where she learned how to
make bread on their cook's day off. O'Keefe had staff at various
times throughout her life and wasn't afraid to
call them into service. So I'm going to go
ahead and do that, too. OK. So she went to art school in
Chicago and then New York, learning realist
painting from the likes of Kenyon Cox and
William Merritt Chase, who taught his students to seek
to be artistic in every way. O'Keefe evolved her
own distinct style, breaking onto the
New York art scene with a series of abstract
charcoal drawings begun in 1915. This was aided by photographer
Alfred Stieglitz, who was also an art dealer and
showed and promoted her work. Phew. This is really hard work, guys. Not too much more to go. O'Keefe became part of
Stieglitz's inner circle of early modernist, including
Arthur Dove, Charles Demuth, and Edward Steichen,
among others. In the 1920s, she painted
pictures of New York City architecture. And then, in 1924, began
the extreme closeup views of flowers that you
probably recognize. Enlarging these tiny bits of
nature onto large canvases transforms something very
real into something abstract. It also must be said that
she denied again and again the reading of these
pictures as representations of female genitalia. Her interest in depicting
nature and landscapes was sparked by the trip she
took to Lake George, New York, with Stieglitz, whom
she had married. Their relationship was rocky. He cheated. And she began to spend
more and more time in New Mexico, where
she moved permanently in 1949 after he had died. Whoa. OK. So finally, we have the flour. And now we can actually
start making our bread. First, she wants us to scald 2
cups of milk, which basically just means bringing
it to a slight boil and then turning it off. The internet tells me this
step is now unnecessary because of more reliable milk. But we're trying to be at least
a little historically accurate here. While that cools,
you're going to dissolve 1 tablespoon of dried yeast
into a 1/4 cup of warm water. They said 110 degrees,
but I just sort of estimate it hot but not
hot enough to burn you. To that we add 1 teaspoon
of honey and let it stand for five minutes
or until foamy. OK. Looks foamy. Then, we added 2
tablespoons of honey. My hands are clean. I promise. 2 tablespoons of canola oil. 3/4 teaspoons salt. And
then, the cooled milk. Give that a little mix. And start adding the
flour one cup at a time until it becomes
difficult to stir. This is also the
time that you're supposed to add 1/2 cup of
wheat germ, which I forgot. But I milled my own flour. What more can you expect? Then, turn the dough
out onto a surface and knead it,
working in more flour as you go until it's
smooth and elastic. I don't have a tremendous
amount of bread experience, but my arms are tired and I'm
going to say that we're there. Then, get out a large bowl, oil
it, and place the dough in it, and cover it with a cloth. Mine has chickens,
but this recipe will work with differently
decorated towels, too. Then, put it in a warm spot
and let it rise for an hour. Now we're going to reward
all of this physical labor with some energizing
Tiger's Milk, which O'Keefe drank regularly and also
pushed on family and friends. The recipe comes
from Adelle Davis, a popular mid-century
nutritionist who O'Keefe followed. So, into a blender you'll
throw 1 cup of plain yogurt, 1 teaspoon of brewer's
yeast-- rich in vitamin B, and which I now have a giant
jar of-- and 1 cup of milk. I tried to use as many
local products as I could in the spirit of O'Keefe, who
kept a large organic garden next to her house in
Abiquiu, New Mexico. The banana I added next
certainly wasn't local and neither were the frozen
raspberries that went in after. O'Keefe did grow her own berries
and most of the produce used in the household. Then, we add 1 tablespoon
of local honey, 1 tablespoon of protein
powder, and 2 teaspoons of the copious amount
of wheat germ I should've used in the bread. There are a bunch of
optional additions that I went along with,
including 1/2 cup apricot nectar, 1/2 cup pineapple,
and 1 tablespoon of blackstrap molasses, which
contains valuable nutrients like calcium, iron,
and magnesium. We are also asked to add 1
teaspoon of calcium gluconate. I went to a health food
store and they gave me these, which I think are kind
of close to what she asked for. But heck, nutritional
supplements are regulated by the FDA, right? Then we blend it
all up and await the elixir that served O'Keefe
so well all these years. She firmly believed that good
food would assist artists in making their best work. To her, food provides
a constant stream of multi-sensory information. And she also believed that
specific foods like this would power the creative mind. Magically, the
kitchen cleans itself. And we pour tall glasses and
historically accurate straws from Ikea. These are actually pretty
good, although the yeastiness takes some getting used to. This serves two. And you should share the other
one with a reluctant visitor, as O'Keefe would have, or you
know, your camera operator. Duly fortified, we now
check on our bread, which has doubled as
we hoped it would. And which we are then
instructed to punch down, divide into two loaves, and
place into oiled loaf pans. These get covered
again with the chickens and put back into a warm
spot for another 30 minutes or until doubled. Now we're going to get
to talk about New Mexico while we're preparing
the green chiles. This recipe calls for 4 or 5
long, healthy green chiles. And I'm using poblanos,
which are quite mild. We put these on a cookie
sheet and place these under the broiler, rotating
until all sides are blackened and the skin is bubbling
away from the flesh. Then you can pop these into a
pan with a tight-fitting lid or wrap them in wet paper towels
so they can steam for a minute and become easier to peel. While that's
happening, let's peel and mince 2 cloves of garlic. The recipe tells you
to use a garlic press, but I don't have one. So I give them a good
whack to remove the skin, and then set about
chopping them. O'Keefe believed in the
nutritional benefits of garlic, which she grew in
her garden along with abundant green chiles, a
vegetable high in vitamins A and C. They're a staple
of New Mexican cooking, and she used them a lot. Now I remove the skin from
the flesh of the chilies, along with the
stems and the seeds and the major veins
along the interior, where most of the heat lives. If you're using
hotter chilies, be careful not to touch your
eyes during the process. This is kind of tedious. So let's get back to the story. O'Keefe was enamored with
the landscape of northern New Mexico-- the vegetation, the terrain,
the quality of light, the vivid colors. And she found endless
subjects to paint. She owned two homes there-- one in Ghost Ranch, where
she spent the summer, and the home in Abiquiu, where
she spent the rest of the year, had her garden, and rehabbed
an existing Adobe home to suit her. It's here you can really
see her dedication to an austere but
beautiful simplicity that pervaded her art, personal
style, and her cooking. OK. So now we cut the
chilies into strips and arrange them on a plate so
that they mostly don't overlap. Then spread the crushed
garlic evenly over the strips. Pour a couple of teaspoons of
olive oil over top and dust lightly with herb salt.
This didn't seem sufficient, so I followed with more
sea salt and-- ta-da-- it can sit until we're ready. Then we check on our bread. And it has, indeed, doubled. It's ready for a
350-degree oven, where we wished it luck and sent
it to bake for about 45 minutes or until the base of the loaves
sound hollow when tapped. Then pull them from the oven. Awkwardly turn them out
onto a cooling rock. And admire your successful
but admittedly a little flat first attempt at
truly homemade bread. While those are cooling,
fry yourself up some eggs, however you like them. I use a little olive oil
and opt for over easy. And they almost always keep
to themselves in the pan, but not when you
guys are watching. So let's just make
that guy get back to where he's supposed to be. Then, when they're ready,
flip them over confidently, because hesitation will
result in disaster. And when they look
good, they're done. At long last, and now that
it's solidly lunchtime, we're ready for breakfast. Let's cut some
slices of our bread, which smells really
delicious, plate an egg, serve some green
chili next to it, and place some bread alongside. And homemade bread
deserves as much butter as you're feeling like. This is fantastic. It's not surprising
that something prepared with attention and care
with fresh and nutrient-rich ingredients would
also taste good. O'Keefe's reverence
for nature, precision, and experimental
attitude suffused her art and her everyday life. The independent life
she made for herself, living in tune with
nature, was where she found happiness, creative
fulfillment, and ultimately, an indelible legacy. This episode is supported
in part by viewers like you through Patreon, a
subscription-based platform that allows you to support the
channels you like in the form of a monthly donation. Special thanks to our
grandmaster of the arts-- Indianapolis Homes Realty. Hey, guys. We have some announcements I
wanted to share with you today. Item one is that
this summer we'll be shipping the first in our
installment of limited edition prints to our patrons who are
supporting us at a $50 a month level. Yes. That is a lot of
money, but not really when you're receiving
this amazing print series by Nathaniel Russell, who
you may remember from his art assignment. Or maybe you've seen some of his
incredible work around the web. This is a really
special opportunity, both to collect good, meaningful
art and support our channel. Item two is that my friend and
fellow PBS Digital Studios host Vanessa Hill has released
a documentary called "Mutant Menu," which
you can check out over on her channel BrainCraft. In it, she travels the world and
explores the science and ethics of editing our DNA, which
is becoming increasingly possible through new
gene editing technologies like CRISPR. It's fascinating. And in it, Vanessa even eats
CRISPR-modified cabbage. There's a link in
the description. Item 3 is more exciting
PBS Digital Studios news, and that's their new
show "Above the Noise," which takes a deeper
look at the science behind controversial and
trending topics in the news. Myles Bess and
Shirin Ghaffary dig into the research to find out
what's hype and what's fact. Like the recent video
on gerrymandering, which explains extremely clearly
how our political districts are drawn and how these
practices affect your vote. Go check it out. [MUSIC PLAYING]
