The Artful Kitchen: Julian Merrow-Smith

Lemons on a French Cloth

Inspired by A Painting A Day pioneer Duane Keiser, Julian Merrow-Smith has quietly and successfully been maintaining Postcard from Provence since 2004-- the year that high-speed internet access became available to Crillon-le-Brave.

Julian bought a one way ticket to Provence ten years ago, having taken redundancy from a job running art cinemas in London. Once there an old friend, writer Joseph Geary, who was living near Bedoin with his French wife, quickly found him somewhere to live. Julian started selling paintings soon after he arrived and has never looked back.

Still Life with Cup, Cherries and Apricot

I first found Merrow-Smith's work as I was surfing around the many, many Painting A Day blogs looking for paintings of food, as is my habit (and addiction). I was immediately taken with all of his work, which includes landscapes and portraits, and commissioned works, as well as the lovely postcard-size still life paintings included here. Julian tends toward still life because he loves the control he can exercise in setting up the composition, but adds that he likes painting landscapes for the opposite reason.

Fig Half and Goat's Cheese

When asked about selling over the internet as an alternative to gallery representation, Julian explained that the ease and universality of access is the main advantage, adding that it costs very little to build a web presence. He added that his ideal situation would still be a good dealer and/or galleries, but acknowledges that bypassing them gives some real freedom.

Green Bowl and Provencal Vegetables

Julian and his wife, Ruth, both love cooking, as is reflected in the lovely paintings included here and in Ruth's blog-- often featuring posts on the local food and markets-- as well as by their social life. They had Paul Levy and wife here to dinner last summer (a little scary, Julian admitted) and went to Lydie Marshall's Christmas party in Nyons (also Patricia Wells' home town) last month. Julian and Ruth count Jo Killeen and George Germon of Al Forno, in Rhode Island, as two of their closest friends and spent most of 2006 testing recipes for their new book. With credentials like these, of course I asked Julian for a favorite recipe, which is included at the end of this post. I certainly intend to try it!

Sleeping Kitten

Julian and Ruth share their home with three cats-- Oscar, Manon and a new kitten (as yet unnamed and known as "baby").

Most of the paintings in this post are available as prints. You can view more paintings at Postcard from Provence by category, from the Archives page. You can also subscribe and receive a postcard daily by email. And finally, if you find one of Julian's paintings irresistible you can register to bid at auction.

For a delicious pasta recipe, click the link.

Homemade Pasta with Truffles
Pasta dough ingredients taken originally from Jamie Oliver

6 oz strong flour or ordinary bread flour - ideally durum wheat flour
10 oz of Semolina flour (I use De Cecco semolina di grana duro, rimacinata-176 which is widely available at Italian delis)
2  large whole eggs
8-10 large  egg yolks
One truffle  weighing min. 20-30 grams (ideally as big as your budget allows)

Mix the flour in a large bowl and make a well in the center and add the eggs and yolks. Beat lightly and start to bring in the flour from the walls. As you get to the stage where you need to use your hands, work it in to a ball and then knead on a hard surface for a couple of minutes until it feels smooth and elastic.

Let the dough rest in the fridge wrapped in cling film for an hour.

(Note: much of this can be done in a food processor)

Meanwhile clean your truffle with a dry brush (we use black Perigord truffles in winter or white summer truffles when available).

This next stage can be done by hand or in a pasta machine if you have one (invaluable!).

Divide the dough into 4 and make into small balls. If using a machine its easiest to make the balls into sausages and then feed them through at the widest setting folding the resulting elongated
flattened shapes onto themselves three times (i.e., one third onto the middle, third and the final third on top). Repeat this until the dough feels very elastic and then using the settings on the machine to start making it thinner and thinner, repeating the folding until have put it through the thinnest or second thinnest setting (your choice).

If rolling by hand, follow the same principal, dusting regularly with flour and finally rolling out a long oblong-ish shape about 1/8 inch thick (it should be semi transparent).

Either way you should end up with a very long thin oblong of dough. Lay this out on a tea towel and finish the other three balls. When all is done let them sit for ten minutes or so, and dust liberally with flour. Roll each rectangle up fairly tightly, like a swiss roll (longways) and slice through the roll with a large sharp knife at quarter inch intervals, unravelling each strand as you cut it from the roll. Dust the strands with flour to stop them from sticking. You should end up with  a pretty large pile of tagliatelle
which will serve 4 as a large main course or 6-8 as a starter.

The pasta can be cooked straight away and will take 30 seconds to a minute. You will need a large pan (5 litres ) with about 4-5 quarts of boiling salted water or do it in batches in a smaller pan. The pasta will rise to the surface when cooked 30-90 seconds. Drain the pasta leaving just a little of the cooking water in the pan (or at least don't drain it to dry as the pasta will take up a little of the water - experience
helps here) and return the pasta to the pan and a add a dollop of Creme Fraiche.

Slice the truffle finely and chuck any small bits/crumbs and the less successful slices into the pan. Toss the pasta, adjust the seasoning and serve, laying truffle slices on top. Serve with fresh parmesan and
good  olive oil as required.

Comments

[frenchtart]

these are wonderful! i can't wait to browse through his other works.

[Pasticcera]

I can see why you are so taken with them, they're wonderful...

[Lisa]

Love these.......particularly the kitten. Lovely work.

[Cakespy]

Oh, I love this artwork!! It is always so inspiring to see painterly work like this. Such beautiful brush strokes, but you can see movement and looseness. Awesome find, Ann!

[Julie]

What wonderful pictures. I've had to scroll up and look at them again several times now.

[katy]

those are gorgeous!

[Adele]

Oh, these are lovely. I particularly like the one with the fig and the goat's cheese (though that might just be a subconscious longing for summer.)

[Michelle]

Mmm...truffle pasta AND several wonderful paintings - I can't imagine a better littlre reading break from work. Thanks!!

[Ann]

So glad everyone enjoyed this!