RENDERED 29
Looking back at 3 years of RENDERED
Happy Holidays, everyone. I hope you're keeping well. It's a season of supposed-to's and ought-to's. Plenty of things to do, hullabaloo and high expectations. I can smell fatigue, and a general desire for rest. Or is that just me?
In the spirit of cultivating rest, I'm fortunate to be with family and spending many hours at the table. This very missive is set to send at 11:59pm, when I will be in festive company saying goodbye to 2023.
Thus, this month's dispatch is a retrospective on some past essays, and new content will resume in 2024.
Please enjoy this curation of previous essays. Or swipe through my archive and look at the illustrations!
"Still A Work in Progress (hi.)" (Watercolor, Colored Pencil) A new illustration! I wanted to revisit the eel, giving vibes I can get behind for 2024. It's okay to be a work in progress!
On eels and their strange lifecycles, gender-ambiguous until they mate, then die. Born in saltwater and raised in fresh, they are highly prized but little understood.
My most recent essay, I talk about the mystical side of the potato. What does 19th-century spiritualism have to do with it? I didn't expect to be researching post-Civil War emotional upheaval while writing about potatoes.
On the correlation between social class and bread loaf shape, and the development of the idea of "French gastronomy." I also wrote about French food history in my essay on acras de morue. France's colonial history, of course, plays a big part here.
An oldie but a goodie, I talk about a unique recipe that comes from the Futurist movement in the time of Mussolini, and the place of women within it.
Researching the history of food is rewarding and mind-opening, but it is time-intensive. As such, I'm only able to do about 1 essay per month. I do look forward to bringing you more visual content in 2024, in the form of periodic art dispatches.
Thank you to everyone who reads, shares, and supports this newsletter. Thank you for 3 years! Happy New Year.