Gastro-Art

There has been quite a bit about the combining of art and restaurants recently. In the spirit of New Years trend spotting we predict, and hope, that these experiments with dining and art continue with full force, especially here in NYC. It feels exciting to be on the forefront of these gastro-art endeavors, with our partner Flatbread Affair. We have been truly inspired by all of the different models of combining art making and food making.

One of the things that seemed to stir the most attention recently was Marina Abramovic (one of our heroes) and Creative Times partnering with the seasonally organized, and design heavy restaurant Park Avenue Winter. Abramovic worked alongside chef Kevin Lasko to create a dessert, Volcano Flambe, which is eaten accompanied by an MP3 player playing Abramovic;s voice guiding you through the sensual experience of eating dessert, other artist are following- including another favorite of ours- Janine Antoni. Artinfo has a good (and fuller) description.

Then there is the pop-restaurant What Happens When that Frank Bruni wrote about recently, which opens this week! We think this is a really fascinating model for creating a dining experience. We cant wait to go and see how it works. Also covered by the NYTimes recently was the trend in Berlin restaurant/gallery spaces. The descriptions of some of these places are amazing, especially Zagerus Projekt, pictured above. Maybe it is time to plan  a trip to Berlin, it sounds like an amazing city to be an artist.
There also seems to be a small resurgence of interest in the work of Gordon Matta-Clark, one our biggest inspirations and hero. There is show at David Zwirner right now of his work that grew out the experimental art space 112 Greene St, which is reviewed in The New Yorker. Matta-Clark explored food and eating in various ways including at his artist run SoHo restaurant Food, which was located at 127 Prince, hence the name of the new online art journal where we were recently interviewed. FEAST Brooklyn comes to mind as another great example of projects inspired by Matta-Clark and Food. 
We hope that more places/projects like these develop in NYC. Where things like these have been happening in the West Coast and in Europe for sometime, it seems New York is on the cusp of embracing the gastro-art world, again.  We are as always especially excited to see what happen with Flatbread Affair as these ideas gain more currency here.

The New Year

It is mind-blowing that Sourced Material has only been around for half a year. We emerged out of this summer while Jake Levin sat anxiously surrounded by raw wool in a dirty metal shop at the MFA program at Bard College. Since then so much has happened. We have launched a gorgeous website developed and designed by Sourced Material co founder Silka Glanzman (along with diving head on into the world of social-media/web 2.0). We have exhibited Sourced Material: Wool at Bard and in Brooklyn at Flatbreadaffair, for their inaugural show. We have hosted several lamb-based feasts (with the help of Flatbreadaffair partner/chef Leah Rinaldi). Jake was interviewed about Sourced Material by Sierra Radio and by David Horvitz for 127Prince. We have successfully exchanged all of our wool products thanks to the overwhelmingly eager response from participants from all over the US. Jake apprenticed at Fleishers Meats for three months learning the craft of whole animal butchery from some master butchers. Now he and Sourced Material are ready to explore the whole animal! And now it is almost a new year.

Here are some of our thoughts, plans, and resolutions for the new year. We are definitely going to do some whole animal butchery demos/feasts this year! We are going to have a small show of all the objects made through the Wool exchange program. We want to explore making paper. KNIVES! We want to start looking into the possibilities of pop-up stores. We are always looking for new people to participate and explore with. We are interested in the idea of Sourced Material exploring a region rather than  a specific material- maybe the Southern Berkshire Hills. We are excited to see what surprises 2011 brings for us!
Mostly we want to wish you a happy New Years and thank everyone for supporting us!!!

Steer Slaughter

We attended our second slaughter this weekend. This time we came to witness a steer be slaughtered. It was less shockling to watch this time. For one I knew, more or less, what to expect. Als,o Hans Sebold (the one who did the killing and dressing and a master butcher) had us stand much further back when he shot it. It was also freezing out, so we were already uncomfortable and slightly distracted.

But there were some real differences in the process that had their own effect. One, maybe obviously, is that steer are much larger (1500 lbs vs 300 lbs.).  Another difference is that the steer must be skinned after it has bled out and before evisceration. Due to the large size- once the cow is shot in the brain, falls to the ground, and has bled out of the cuts made in its neck- the steer is propped up on its back (using large cement blocks) to start skinning process. Hans began removing the hide at the legs,  and then he slit the hide down the middle of the belly, from the hind-legs to the base of the skull. He then carefully removed the hide, in on large piece, by lightly cutting the layer of fat that connects the hide to the body. It is a surreal sight. There is little blood as it has led out and the heart is no longer pumping. Te hide is removed like a jacket. With confident movements Hans slowly had the hide removed fro the bottom half of the steer, and it was beginning to resemble what we see in the walk in of the shop.

It was, then, time to hang it from the gantry and remove the rest of the hide as well as the head, and guts. Hans removed the rest of the hide from the steers body and then removed its head. It was at this point that we were looking at beef and not a steer. Hans went on to split its gut open letting the them spill out on pasture below it. We still can not get used to how abstractly beautiful the guts are when they spill out. 

Hans cut the steer into manageable quarters (front and hind), so that they could hang for at least a week before being further broken-down into cook-friendly cuts and proportions. It was once again a profound experience and we are grateful for the opportunity to have participated in it.

For more photos click here:

steer slaughter

Wool Exchange

We are so excited that all of our wool material-objects  have been exchanged. Now we wait and see what people make. Hopefully we can organize a show of it!!
Thank you to everyone who participated!!!!!!

Interview about Sourced Material

Read David Horvitz's interview of Jake Levin about Sourced Material in 127Prince.org:
http://127prince.org/2010/11/26/interview-with-jake-levin-of-sourced-material/

Pig to Pork

This weekend, thanks to Fleisher's, we had a profound experience. We participated in our first slaughter. There is no real way to prepare for such an event. So, we arrived- anxious and excited- on a perfect autumn day, at a gorgeous small family farm. After some coffee and muffins, we walked through an idyllic Hudson Valley pasture to get to the pig and to start the slaughter process.

Leading us through the process were the Smother Bros. of butchery- Joshua Applestone and Tom Schneller. As we stood at the edge of the pasture one couldn't help thinking- "this is how every slaughter should be conducted." The temperature was cool enough so that one didn't have to worry about spoilage, the sun was bathing us in warm light so no one was uncomfortable, and Tom (the one doing the acutall killing) stood there confidently (a twinge of apprehension on his face) talking us through the process, while Josh threw in jokes here and there, easing the tension we all held.

The first two steps were, one- to make sure the cauldron of water was hot enough to scald the hair of the animal but not hot enough to par-boil it. And, two-  to get the pulley and gantry ready- the metal bar from which the pig is lifted off the ground and hung upside down, making the bleeding-out and eviscerating easier and quicker. As the water reached the correct temperature we all walked over, apprehensively, to where the pig lazily lay. Tom walked over to it, .22 in hand, gave it some food, held the rifle to its forehead and pulled the trigger. Knocked out- the pig rolled over, and with precision Tom stuck his 5" blade into the jugular allowing the animal to bleed out as quickly as possible. The animal's unconscious body spasmed for a few minutes and then stopped. Four of us picked up the still warm body of the pig, put it in the pack of ATV and brought it over to the cauldron and tree where it would be scalded, hung and eviscerated.

 For us, that was the most intense moment. The actually killing was not as upsetting as we thought it might be. This was due to Tom's skill and poise as well, as the evidence that surrounded us attesting the wonderful life that this pig had led. But during the journey from the kill spot to the gantry we watched the pig go from being an animal to being a large piece of meat.

Once the pig had been scalded in the 150˚ f water  we all took turn scraping off the hair. Scraped clean, we raised the gantry, a metal bar which is hooked into the tendons in the pigs feet, and Tom eviscerated it. As he slit the underside of the belly steam poured out and the organs easily slipped into the bucket below. We saw evidence of how humade the kill was as the bladder of the pig was full (under stress the pig would have expelled it bowels).

The 300 lbs pig was now about 270 lbs of pork.

For more images go here:

Pig Slaughter

Consumer Edu.

Wednesday is one of our favorite days for the NYTimes because it has the Dining section. Our favorite food related article today was about celebrating the butcher and offal.  It was particulalry fun to read as Jake was breaking down and lamb and pig and working on some head cheese!

But the aricle that made us start talking was about  candy and a Samira Kawash, PhD aka the Candy Professor. Its not just that we love chocolate and candy corn, but it was the ways in which the article and  Kawash talk about the strange contradictions, misconceptions, dogmatic rule people have about food. Somehow somewhere we got it our mind that sugar is bad for us, especially children, and thus candy is bad. While it is true too much sugar is and for anyone, candy is not inherently bad.

What is even more interesting to us is that people will vehemently oppose candy for their children and then feed their children Tyson chicken, Gatorade, and Nature Valley Organic Granola bars with out blinking an eye. These things have as much if not more chemicals and sugars as most candies. People now are insisting more and more on organically labeled products, which is a good impulse. But few people really ask what that means, and whether it is what they think it is.