Culture

Weekend Reading: Dazzling Egg Illustrations, Lunch with the Literati, Colorful Food Parings, and More

A look at what we’re reading, cooking, and clicking this week

• Flipping through a recent issues of Time Magazine my eyes (unconsciously seeking out anything food related) got caught on a photo of an egg-in-a-nest [pictured]. Looking closer, it was not a photo at all, but a stunningly realistic—and gorgeous—illustration. Literally hungry for more, I was happy to find out that AnOther Magazine has a whole slew of examples of Fiona Strickland's illustrations from the cookbook How to Boil an Egg, _by Rose Carrarini of Paris's Rose Bakery. _—Elsa Saatela

• What do the writers W. H. Auden, E. M. Forster, Philip Larkin, and William Empson have in common (other than their British maleness)? They all had lunch with Steven L. Isenberg at one time or another. Isenberg, who was until recently the director of PEN America (an organization advancing writerly freedom), writes movingly about his meals with literary giants over at the American Scholar. —Karen Shimizu

• Jerusalem chef Moshe Basson is making lemons into lemonade—or, more specifically, locusts into locust risotto. The Guardian writes about how the chef is turning this week's bizarro locust infestation in Israel into an unconventional kosher and halal feast. —Gabriella Gershenson

• Though the Pantone color sample is trending all over the internet this month, it seems like no one has harnessed the true potential of the medium like Minneapolis-based artist David Schwen. Pantone Pairings, a series of photographs featuring favorite food pairs like macaroni & cheese or peanut butter & jelly, avoids the expected presentation of complementary colors and instead offers aesthetically balanced swatches of snacks, condiments, and seasonings. —Michelle Betters

• Lena Viddo, an American-born artist of Swedish and Colombian descent, uses her classical training to depict a dark world of natural human sin in a whimsical light. I appreciate that she is open to discussion of the roots and meanings behind her pieces, stories as intriguing as her paintings. My favorite paintings, "God Save the Queen" and "Alice in the Garden of Earthly Delights," give a perspective on food I'd never even thought of before—originality at its best. —Juliya Madorskaya

• I've had kibbeh, both the tartare-like dish and the croquette ofground meat and bulgur. But I'd never known about the Iraqi-Jewishdish called kubbeh until I read this story about a New York Citypop-up restaurant trying to bring the close to extinction dumplingsoup back from the brink. —Gabriella Gershenson

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