The Artist and the Cookbook

I told this story to a few friends who said I should have posted it when it happened, that you would have liked the story about the synchronicity that sent The Spit  to Austria.  Better late than never?

In early 2019, Galerie Centrum in Graz, Austria found us.  This is how.

Going way back to what seemed like minutes after WWII, my newly married mother was leaving Austria. As a parting gift, her mother gave her a beautifully bound and illustrated cookbook by Katharina Prato.  To understand the importance of this book, think Austria’s Julia Child (a hundred years before Julia) meets Irma Rombauer (The Joy of Cooking).  Besides its significance as a kind of cooking Bible, the cookbook was given to her the last time my mother would ever see her mother.  So, now you have an idea of how devastated my mother was when the shipping crate that carried our belongings was looted while travelling by rail from Quebec City harbour to White River Ontario.  She often mentioned that cookbook over the years, mourned its loss and the connection it had carried.

 Many years later, I found a copy of the cookbook, (right publishing date, but not nearly as beautiful and illustration rich as the original) through an online Austrian antique bookseller.  I had the book restored and a case made for it and then presented it to my mother. Eventually she had to transfer to a nursing home.  What to do with that Prato cookbook?  Recycle bin was NOT an option.

The first return on a Google search was a culinary competition in Graz, Austria named for Katharina Prato.  A sign, yes? Graz is the culinary capital of Austria -- perfect home for the book.  I had forgotten to delete my automatic signature with link to this blog, before sending my email inquiry.  It turned out that the lead organizer of the event was a curious person and became enchanted with our Leslie Street Spit.  He also happened to be a close friend of the curator at Galerie Centrum, who in turn was a curious person and became enchanted with our Leslie Street Spit.  The exhibition opened December 26, 2019.

A few exhibition images:

Until next time. Stay safe and be careful out there.

The Stealth Art Collective