Antwerp 2014, Erik Vernieuwe and Kris De Smedt, a wildly creative food stylist and a renowned fashion photographer, go to the opera for the very first time. Blame it on Richard Strauss’ Elektra. They feel right at home in the limitless universe. It’s a match that almost instantly makes them part of the house, like pieces of furniture. They haven’t missed a production since Elektra.
All those hours spent in the red velvet seats made their brains do a crossover to other creative disciplines. Research into the opera pieces and the time and place they were originally set in brought to life historical recipes, adapted to the now. During the creative process they kept thinking about a classic French and Saunders sketch, where the two brilliant comedians play demanding opera divas that grind Kylie Minogue’s ‘I should be so lucky’ into a symphonic monstrosity. When the Dawn French character keeps asking for food, she says she needs ‘a layer for my throat’. Hence the name of the book.
Brain food turned into real food in this unique publication that entwines the Aviel Cahn years at Opera Vlaanderen, images made in the opera house Antwerp, a playlist to accompany the recipes and exquisite design by Novo Typo (Amsterdam).
This publication is a vegetarian and vegan feast for the eyes that keeps both food and opera lovers interested. It’s red chili pepper hot, so to say.
This book is limited to 365 numbered copies, printed and published by Stockmans. Designed with Japanese binding where the reader peeks between the pages and finds the English translation of the recipes.
For sale at the Stockmans Art Books webshop! Find it here.