Illustration: Margalit Cutler
Ever since Chloe Wises infamous Bagel No. 5 Chanel moment in 2014, food and humor have pervaded the Canadian artists work and life and together, those elements comprise a sort of ethos. For me, it was never really a question: What should I paint? Should it be people?, Wise explains. It was just, like, I paint people Im a lover of humans. We have sex, and food and shelter and sleep but sleep is boring.
Wednesday, December 2Coffee, which I have every morning and which I make at home with whatever I have this time it was Peets and soft-boiled eggs with focaccia I made around 11 p.m. because Im into sourdough, as we all are in 2020. This particular focaccia had sesame seeds in the dough. It was a cute one. This was also lunch.
Ive always been into cooking. I hope I dont get into trouble for saying this, but I dont have a real kitchen; Im not supposed to have one in my studio. What I do have is a Breville smart oven and induction burner, and I have been cooking on that for years in the studio. COVID has gotten me into baking cause I hadnt done sourdough previously. So Im in full sourdough mode, which is very funny when you dont have a real kitchen.
My oven is essentially a glorified toaster oven, but it does the job. I can only cook such small amounts, so Ive learned how to paint and, honestly, with oil-paint-covered hands, I throw a bunch of vegetables in the oven, go back to painting, hear the beep, beep, and then I come back and take it out. But things are often room temperature, and Ill do them throughout the course of the day. If I dont have a friend over for dinner or a reason to cook dinner, I probably will just paint until four in the morning, and then my back will hurt and I wont have eaten and its a whole nightmare, so its good when a friend is like, Im coming over for dinner.
That means I have to stop painting, and I have to wash my hands because Im feeding someone else and I dont want to feed them oil paint unless they want it but, you know, its about consent here.
Baking has been cathartic in a way, but its also been really useful because I dont find sourdough to be that time-consuming. I mix it, and then I paint, and then I fold it a bit, and then I paint, and then I have enough dough that I make a couple of mini-loaves, and then all week I have bread for myself. So you heard it here first sourdough is a time-saver. Thats my hot take.
I made dinner for my friend Carly. She loves my cooking, and I cook for her all the time. Salmon on top of fennel. Its kind of like the Alison Roman recipe because I love that cookbook Dining In, which has proved to be useful during COVID. So its like a cast-iron skillet with shallots, fennel, capers, butter, salmon, and then I put that in the oven, and then I serve that to my friend with my sesame focaccia. And some organic Swedish Fish called DelishFish.
Thursday, December 3I had coffee. Skipped breakfast. I had a weird brunch-lunch, which was prosciutto with figs and mozzarella. I just put them into little rolls while I did work, basically. I love figs, and then it was my assistants birthday, so I ordered her some cupcakes from Mollys Cupcakes.
I got her a bunch of different kinds. I told her to take them home, but I shared one with her safely, by the way that was blueberry cheesecake.
That night, I went out for dinner if you can believe it. I went to the Odeon, which I missed so much. My week that Im recording doesnt necessarily reflect my normal weeks because I hadnt gone out at all, but I went out twice on this weekend.
I went with three friends and we had the kale Caesar. I had the burger and too many martinis. Im a rare or medium-rare for the burger. Im not a sicko. Well-done is messed up. And fries as well. Naughty day. There was like a corn-flake cookie for dessert, and then we had whiskey at my house afterward, which as a combination is not ideal but, you know, I was fine. I dont want to set a bad example.
Friday, December 4Woke up late. I usually wake up at nine and have coffee the second I wake up and then start working, but this past week I went to bed at four many of the nights because I was either staying up super-late painting, or Id have dinner with a friend and theyd leave and Id keep painting, or Id have, like, the Odeon night and stay up super-late.
So this morning, I baked. I usually make a big batch of the sourdough and then Ill separate it out. I made a big loaf, a little loaf, and I made myself a little squiggle baguette, a squiggly little S.
Thats all I ate all day cause I woke up late, and that night I actually went to the Odeon again because it was Jenna Gribbons exhibition at the Journal Gallery and they had a dinner for her. To make it COVID-safe, it was very few people just the artists she had painted. The premise of her exhibition was she painted other painters. I was so honored. I was brought to tears. She did a painting of me. Its so lovely, especially because she painted my paintings in the background. Shes so talented.
I hadnt been to an opening and gallery dinner in so long, and it was just other artists because the gallerists sat at a different table. Like, we were at the kids table, so it was refreshing to be with people that I hadnt seen, even though we had to first take our safety very seriously. Everybody else had martinis, but I had tea because I was hung-over from the martinis of yestereve.
I had roast chicken with a side of broccoli rabe. I will say that Im usually much more vegetarian than I was this week. Then we had the sugar doughnuts for dessert. Theyre like brown-sugar-coated little doughnut dudes with a caramel dipping sauce. Really good.
This week was a lot of meat for me. I was vegetarian for ten years, and my mom is an amazing cook, so from the time I was 13 years old onward, Id be in the kitchen while she was making dinner, and Id be making a vegetarian version of whatever she was making. I was never gonna go into food or anything, but I had to cook a lot when I was younger, and a lot of the food sculpture I do is not only because food occupies a really important space in terms of community and identity, but also because I love food.
Theres this amazing girl, Paris Starn. Her Instagram is incredible. Were doing a dinner together next week actually for Hannukah. Shes amazing. I just was shown her Instagram, and I started being this absolute stan, and I went to this pop-up she had. Shell post recipes which is very generous of her, and Ill screenshot them and follow through and ask her questions.
I feel like whether its baking bread or painting or anything you want to learn, were so blessed in the digital-information age. Setting aside all the problems it gives us, were really blessed to have a lot of information at our fingertips if we want to find it. My ultimate procrastination is thinking, like, I should be painting, Ill start cooking. I should be cooking, Ill keep painting. But cooking comes up quite a bit.
In the summer, I learned to fish and forage. Baking sourdough and fishing and foraging theres a pattern here. I love to learn a thing that makes me not have to order. For me, it was never really a question: What should I paint? Should it be people? It was just like, I paint people because I love faces, I love people. Were social beings. Im a lover of humans, and so that was never a question. Similarly, food. It wasnt a question.
Saturday, December 5I had some sourdough bread and butter and coffee. I keep my butter at room temperature on my table next to a big bowl of Maldon salt, so I can take bread and just do dippers while Im having coffee.
I went to go see some art uptown also very rare for me but I left the house and I was hungry. My friend and I stopped at this bougie, organic-y spot that I had never seen before. Im thinking its called Biologique, but thats literally a moisturizer brand. It was something like that. I had a raw key-lime pie a little circle made out of, I dont know, chickpea flour or grass or something, and a charcoal latte, which sounded healthy but was just hot sugar.
That night, I went to Virginias with my friend Paul and my boyfriend, Eric. Virginias is a really good, sneaky spot. Amazing burger, which I had, even though I couldnt believe I was having a burger twice in one week. But I had to. Its so good there. I split it with my friend, and we also split the burrata and fries. I had a Moscow Mule, and, later, at midnight, it became my birthday, and I turned 30.
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Excerpt from:
Chloe Wise Keeps Her Butter Warm and Close - Grub Street
