Exhibition as the final part of my summer long residency at All One One All – A Regenerative Silvopasture Farm in Goshen NY .
Voilà! Live Cooking Videos – while confined
Friday April 24th was the finale our Live Cooking Videos—while confined.
First and foremost THANK YOU to all the viewers, & a very special thank you to all the regulars from literally all around the globe. During these 24 daily livecast rendez-vous, you provided sustained warm & joyful support which gave me a some sense of purpose in these trying times while we are all confined, waiting for the virus to pass.
By now, sadly most of us know someone who has succumbed to the coronavirus, and we are also all watching — or no longer watching in order to stay sane — the ineffective & disgusting political debacle. Even if most of us are safely at home, and in a somehow privileged situation — I sure feel mine is that — we still all go through the emotional roller coaster, so if the show helped make your ride smoother, I am super happy. You need to know that it sure eased mine tremendously, so gratitude to you all for watching & cheering! I really know that I also learned a lot from the whole process.
Do not hesitate to reach out via messenger at any point if you have cooking questions of just want to keep in touch; I would love that!
Meanwhile, stay healthy, take great great care & eat the best you can.
Much much love from the two of us.
P.S: The videos of all 24 videos from the last to the first below & they all have notes & links with useful information. Below the videos more cooking background info.
What do we eat/cook & why?
A few years back for serious health reasons we switched to healthier, low glycemic foods & adopted the 16/8 intermittent fasting method that involves eating only during an 8-hour window & fasting for the remaining 16 hours. So we eat a variety of foods but avoid pasta, rice, potatoes, sugar, processed flour & we favor veggies, legumes, eggs, healthy whole grains, & responsibly raised meat, poultry, & seafood, some fruits…Well, you get the idea & you will discover the details in the videos below. We will keep adding them as we go. Never hesitate to ask questions or request foods recipes you would like to see demonstrated or talked about.
Voilà! Bon Appétit, stay home & healthy!
“Voilà Lunchtime” were daily live-casted on FB & IG from March 24 -April 24 2020 M-F 12:00 EST
A little background:
Once upon a time I was a cook! I never liked the term chef, though I did run kitchens & was called one! I never really missed the restaurant business, but never stopped cooking. In the early years of this blog I posted more recipes & articles on food, I taught cooking & went as far as taping a demo cooking show, and filming several recipes. My aim has always been to empower people in the kitchen, not to impress them. I appreciate sophisticated techniques & truly enjoys highly skilled chefs but I was never into that kind of cooking. My background is in French regional Southwestern food but I have been in the US since 1987 and learned so much about food here. Getting together with Pierre Joris (here producer/dishwasher/husband) in 1989 was crucial for my artistic future but also for my cooking experience: it is through Pierre that I met Diane Rothenberg & Margie Byrd who are my mentors in many ways. Both are great cooks and had open tables for many years. Diane, an anthropologist, tremendously expanded my perspectives on the history of food; Margie taught me many American staples — the best corn bread ever! & then there is my childhood friend Ariane Daguin from d’Artagnan who is an inspiration has been incredibly supportive of my food related performance work. She was an early supporter of La Garbure Transcontinentale/The Bi-Continental Chowder, a performance that included texts, videos, cooking and sharing the result with the audience. Pierre & I went on doing more of these performance & a memorable one was at the Jardin des Cinq Sens et des Formes Premières in Provence; this performance included the making of a Primordial Soup, readings, vidéos, music by Denis Brun and a Karstic-Action Painting. Here are some pix.
But my cooking debut were really early! I was born in Luchon (French Pyrenees) into the 5th generation of a family of hoteliers-restaurateurs (Hotel Poste et Golf) & my very early cooking training started when I was 6 years old with my grand-father chef Joseph Peyrafitte (whose father Louis was also a chef). Later, when I took over the family kitchen, I went to intern at award winning restaurants in France –1982: Restaurant Vanel, Toulouse, 1991: Hotel de France, Auch. Both places had 2 stars at the Michelin Guide — then I got a few awards myself!
Anyway! forwarding to today: like everyone else we are trying to make the best of this imposed confinement & I always find solace in cooking & eating well. So Pierre & I decided to share the prepping of our simple & healthy home cooking live. We are live both on Facebook & Instagram Monday-Friday from 12 to 12:30 —sometimes a bit longer. Sharing & live-casting our cooking is really in line with our Domopoetic* practice.
* Domopoetics is our collaborative attempt to think, feel & make us respons/able to this/our world & it responsive to us. We do this via our private lives & public actions & performances that meander dialogically between Nicole Peyrafitte’s drawings & videos, voice-, textual & cooking work & Pierre Joris’ poems, translations & essayistic thinking.
Memorabilia:
Occitan Trobadors in NYC: a Symposium, a Banquet, a Performance
On Saturday, November 23, Poets House, in partnership with City Lore and NY’OC Trobadors, hosts a landmark symposium celebrating and bringing the riches of southern French poetry and culture to the American public. The symposium gathers international and local poets, artists, scholars, and performers to share the fascinating history of the region and bring to life the songs of troubadours past and present in the endangered lenga d’òc (Occitan language). Chef and foodie favorite Ariane Daguin, owner of gourmet purveyor D’Artagnan, will host a reservation-only Gascon Buffet with a short historic overview of Occitan cuisine and cooking demonstration. The evening will culminate in a music and poetry performance featuring accomplished bicontinental artists Joan Francés Tisnèr (project director), Jakes Aymonino, Domenja Lekuona, Pierre Joris, and Nicole Peyrafitte. Other presenters include New York University scholars Deborah Kapchan, Sarah Kay and Richard Sieburth, and director of Fondacion Occitània Alem Surre-Garcia.
The 11th century trobadors and trobairitz of Occitania, a region spanning the entire southern half of France (Bearn, Languedoc, Auvergne, Limousin, Provence) and encompassing the Occitan Valleys in the Italian Alps and the Aran Valley in the Spanish Pyrenees, have long inspired American poets, most notably Ezra Pound, with their lyrical, secular, and often subversive verse-commentary on the culture, politics, and love affairs of their time. Mythologized as wandering mystics, these professional poets set the stage for everything from poetic forms like the cantata and sestina to the passionate and carefully-wrought works of Joan Baez and Bob Dylan to Top 40 love songs. The Trobadors symposium celebrates and bears witness to a millennium of Occitan culture and influence around the globe.
Symposium Schedule
Opening Remarks: Richard Sieburth
2:00–3:30 PM: Topologies of Occitan Language & Culture
Languages & their Territories with Nicole Peyrafitte, Domenja Lekuona, Alem Surre-Garcia; Occitan & the Orient with Deborah Kapchan; Participatory Introduction to Occitan Language & Songs with Joan Francés Tisnèr
4:00–5:30 PM Occitan Literature Through the Ages:
Troubadour Poetry: The Classical Moment with Richard Sieburth; Occitan Literature: The Middle Ages with Sarah Kay; Occitan Poetry: The 20th Century & Beyond with Pierre Joris & Alem Surre-Garcia
5:30–7:00 PM: Gascon Dinner with Ariane Daguin and D’Artagnan (Space is limited: Reservations Required)
Buffet Gascon offered by gourmet purveyor D’Artagnan, with short historic overview of Occitan food and cooking demonstration by Ariane Daguin and Nicole Peyrafitte. Gascony is a region in Occitania known for its “sweetness of life” and is home to foie gras and Armagnac brandy.
Dinner admission (includes evening performance): $25 per person.
Reservations REQUIRED! please contact Joe Fritsch at (212) 431-7920 x 2832 or [email protected].
7:00–9:00 PM: NY’OC Trobadors Multimedia Performance
Journey through a millennium of Occitan culture in music, images, and bilingual poetry. With Joan Francés Tisnèr, Jakes Aymonino, Domenja Lekuona, Pierre Joris, and Nicole Peyrafitte.
Partners:
D’artagnan, Région Aquitaine, Cirdoc, InÒc, DRAC, CG64, Ville de Pau Produceurs: Lo NAu (Occitania), Ta’wil Productions (USA)
Additional donnors:
André Spears & Anne Rosen, Margo & Anthony Viscusi, Jason Wise, anonymous
En Route Again!
The picture above was taken on September 28-29 at The Taste of France where I had the pleasure of MC’ing the main stage for the entire weekend. The event took place at Bryant Park in NYC & one of my favorite moment was to be on stage with my occitan acolytes: Ariane Daguin (d’Artagnan) & Pierre Landet (Executive chef at Chez Felix, in NYC). Here is Ariane showing an aiguillette de canard, or the little tenderloin part found on top of the magret de canard that you’ll never find on your plate because it’s the cook who always eats it!
Throughout the weekend many artists & chefs were featured on stage, among them Julie Andrieux (Les Carnets de Julie), an important delegation of the Maîtres Cuisiniers de France, The Metropolitan Opera singers & their director Peter Gelb. I want to thank Abby & Guy René from the New England Culinary Institute in Montpelier, Vermont, without whom the cooking demos & tasting could not have happened so smoothly; also, a big thank you to the volunteers & a special mention to Alexis!
Voilà, we can move on to the next events & that will be a reading at The Shed Space in Brooklyn on Thursday — & Friday we are off to our old stomping ground in Southern California for two weeks! Check out details below .
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The D’Artagnan 25th Anniversary Art Show
Wow! Since I returned from Chicago I have not had a chance to post to the blog. It has been insanely busy:
There is the ongoing work on Augustus Saint Gaudens with the documentary script writing advancing slowly but steadily. I am trying to clarify some aspects of his father’s life —Bernard Saint-Gaudens— in their early years in NYC. It is quite fascinating to dig into the history of this period and discover that there was a lot of French political immigrants in NYC. They all mingled at a German tavern called Pfaff’s. I found some evidence that Bernard was among the patrons. A famous client of Pfaff’s was Walt Whitman! Chances are the two men crossed paths. Now that is exciting to me! But this week I had to put Augustus and Bernard on the back burner as I prepared to hang a painting show for the D’Artagnan 25th Anniversary Art Show.
Ariane Daguin, president of D’Artagan, is celebrating the 25th Anniversary of her company and it is quite a grand affair. 200 native Gascons have flown over the Atlantic to assist in the celebration. It all started by a beret toss contest on 14th street an 9th Ave on Thursday at noon. The passersby had never seen such an event. Two festive bands —we call them bandas in the south of France— animated the competition. I was proud to participate and tossed my beret really far …we all took gold, silver and bronze and that was a glass of delicious and crisp Colombelle white wine, tasty Saucisson & hearty paté — provided by d’Artagnan, of course! Ariane and her company have brought a whole new line of food products to the American table. In many ways she is a role model both as a friend and as an entrepreneur.
Photo 1: Nicole tossing the beret.
Photo 2: Ariane Daguin directing the strict contest sponsored by Saint Mont Wine
I can’t really get into the details of all the events, but the one I am most involved with is the art show. I am honored to be one of the Three Gascon Musketeers of Art picked by Ariane. I am also honored to show in the company of celebrated sculptor and rugby player Jean-Pierre Rives and famous Toulousain painter Michel Calvet. I will show large canvases that have never been exhibited in the US before. I hope to see you at the public opening on Tuesday February 23rd from 5-7 pm at:
The Musketeers Are Coming!
D’Artagnan 25th Anniversary Art Exhibition
You are cordially invited to a reception with the Gascon artists
Michel Calvet Nicole Peyrafitte Jean-Pierre Rives
TUESDAY FEBRUARY 23
5:00 PM until 7:00 PM
at
THE WORLD BAR (reception)
& DAG HAMMARSKÖLD PLAZA
Complementary appetizers by d’Artagnan & Cash bar
MICHEL CALVET & NICOLE PEYRAFITTE PAINTINGS AT:
WORLD BAR AT THE TRUMP WORLD TOWER
NEW YORK CITY’S PREMIER INTERNATIONAL COCKTAIL LOUNGE
845 United Nations Plaza
New York, NY 10017
JEAN-PIERRE RIVES SCULPTURE:
DAG HAMMARSKÖLD PLAZA, Sculpture Platform
“THE GATEWAY TO THE UNITED NATIONS”
47th Street and Second Avenue, South East Corner
MERCI ARIANE AND D’ARTAGNAN
“UN POUR TOUS, TOUS POUR UN!”