Dear reader,
I’ve been busy this summer - teaching art, writing and public speaking across several summer camps here in Bahrain. Each camp has different challenges: kids who are too scared to speak, kids who won’t keep quiet, kids who are bored easily, others who don’t want to learn, but only want to come up and hug you. Introducing bits of the world to new souls is a weird space to be in sometimes.
One of these camps however - takes place on the ground floor of a supermarket. As you would expect, it’s noisy, chaotic, and a little bizarre. But I get to walk across the grocery aisles right after and unwind in that calm familiarity.
It’s the same opera every day - the security guards in their blue uniforms greet you as you walk in to the discount section. I walk slowly, past staff hurriedly stocking shelves, and sticking on labels. Warhol’s canned soup prints have nothing on this place: for an island as close knit as Bahrain is, the sheer rows and rows of food is incredible. It’s like traveling the world on one floor: moving from the soft fragrance of coriander shipped from India, to the cardboard smell of packaged toothpaste and other toiletries. Suddenly this world turns cold, and I’m surrounded by an army of milk jugs, boxes of salted butter, bottled Starbucks, and buckets of local yoghurt. Across from here, is the freezing, almost sterile section of fish & meats. They are laid bare, on their bed of ice - the closest I’ve ever come to seeing snow. Snapper, pomfret, and other things with blank eyes, coming to me from the depths of the Arabian Gulf.
Other things arrive from all over the world: supersized ginger from China, tiny Indian onions that look almost like rose petals from afar. It’s a sensory rollercoaster: from the aroma of just-arrived lemongrass to the pots of honey available for tasting - you can learn about the global economy in here if you want to.
But why am I, an artist, this obsessed with the culinary? It shapes my art fundamentally: you could take a hundred courses in classical oil portraiture - but they will always ask you to start by sketching a bowl of fruit. In our history, the harvest isn’t just a symbol of wealth and abundance - it’s also the best way for the studio’s apprentice to exact texture, shape, and colour. Check out the work of one of my favourite food illustrators, Sanika Phawde (I’ve never seen so much personality in a painted slice of cake).
Sometimes food is the only thing in the world that makes sense. I was always a skinny child, underweight, the last to get up from the dining table. I preferred salads to chocolate, and wasn’t allowed anything cold or fizzy because of health issues. That’s what makes this newfound love affair with food so strange. But after thinking and teaching ideas day in and day out, making a nourishing meal for yourself in the quiet is a physical experience like no other.
What Else I’ve Been Eating:
Earlier this year, I read a memoir on food called Eat Up! by Ruby Tandoh. It’s lived in my mind ever since I finished the last page, and I just finished a book review of it, which you can find here. If you just want a teaser, check out these quotes from the book collated by Trivarna Hariharan.
One of my favourite sections in the book is about food and film - if you like your food on screen, The Bear has been one of my favourite shows to binge - emotional, delicious, and very rock ‘n roll.
For the nervous cook (like yours truly): Kitchen Stories is a life jacket in the form of an app. Get it on iPhone or Android.
What have you been eating? What’s a meal you’ll never forget? I’m curious. Let me know in the comments - on Substack or on my latest Instagram post.
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Wishing you a full tummy,
Kaav.