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0:57

O'Keefe, the famous auction house. We're

0:59

at their New York location talking about an

1:01

upcoming auction of items from the artist Georgia

1:03

O'Keefe. Yes, the auction will include

1:05

paintings likely to go for millions of dollars.

1:08

But I'm here to see something else up for sale. It's

1:11

not as valuable as one of O'Keefe's paintings, but

1:13

to me, at least, it's way more

1:16

exciting. It's her box of recipes.

1:19

You're not going to see this side of

1:21

Georgia O'Keefe anywhere else. People

1:24

who love Georgia O'Keefe are bound to love

1:26

this. And she's certainly her

1:28

fans are legion. And nothing

1:30

like this is going to come up again.

1:32

This is it. Justin

1:35

should know. Over the years, a lot of famous

1:37

people's papers have come across his desk. One

1:40

of his favorites was an early version of

1:42

Tennessee Williams' streetcar name Desire. I

1:44

say to him, it must feel sometimes like you're

1:47

communing with the dead. And he says,

1:49

when I look through these documents to me,

1:51

these people feel very much alive. It's

1:55

an amazing thing, I would think, to hold a piece

1:57

of paper in your hands and know. that

2:00

this famous person who did this incredible work

2:02

has held that same paper

2:04

written on that same paper. Yes, that

2:06

is a wonderful feeling. The

2:08

one thing I have learned over the years is

2:11

to put my cup of coffee somewhere else. This

2:18

is the Sporkful. It's not for foodies, it's

2:20

for eaters. I'm Dan Paschman. Each week on

2:22

our show we obsess about food to learn

2:24

more about people. Before we get

2:26

to the show, thank you so much to

2:28

everyone who came out to our Sporkful Live,

2:30

anything's possible, run of shows. It was so

2:32

great to meet so many of you and

2:34

hear how much the show is a part

2:37

of your lives. I really appreciate it. And

2:39

so thank you. And while the main live

2:41

podcast saving book tour extravaganza is

2:43

over, we have a lot more cool events in

2:45

the pipeline. Starting this very

2:47

Thursday night in Brooklyn, the folks at

2:49

Cafe Mars, which builds itself as a

2:52

very non-traditional Italian restaurant, they have put

2:54

together an entire menu inspired by anything's

2:56

possible. But with all kinds of dishes

2:58

that I could never conceive of, it's

3:01

this Thursday night, May 9th, two seedings,

3:03

one night only, see the menu and

3:05

make a reservation at sporkful.com/events. And

3:07

then I'm doing a virtual cooking class. So wherever you

3:10

are, you can take part in my virtual cooking class

3:12

with Milk Street on Thursday, May 16th. As

3:14

we get ready for summer, we're going to be featuring

3:17

two super flavorful, super easy dishes from the

3:19

chapter of anything's possible that's entitled Pasta Salad's

3:21

Redeemed, Fresh and Bright, Hold the Mayo. Come

3:23

and watch me cook or cook along with

3:25

me, ask questions, hang out, whatever you want.

3:29

Get more info and coupon

3:31

codes at sporkful.com/events. Finally

3:34

one more. If you want a more up close and

3:36

personal pasta experience, and I don't blame you if you do, come

3:38

meet up with me in Italy in November and eat

3:41

pasta with me. There are only two spots left. We're

3:43

down to the last two spots in my pasta pilgrimage

3:45

to Italy. Go to many of the same places I

3:47

went to on my cookbook research trip. Hang

3:49

out with many of the same people,

3:51

Katie Parla in Rome, Sylvestera Silvestor in

3:53

Lecce and eat spaghetti a la sesina

3:55

with me in Bari. It's going to

3:57

be a blast. Sign up at culinarybackstreets.com

3:59

slash. All right,

4:02

let's get to the show. Sotheby's

4:05

Auction House was founded in London in 1744. When

4:09

I visited their New York location last month,

4:11

I was expecting a big room with a

4:13

podium and a gavel, and hopefully someone pounding

4:16

the gavel and shouting, going once, going twice,

4:18

sold to the mysterious lady in the hat.

4:21

Or I don't know, I always imagine a mysterious lady

4:23

in a hat at fancy art auctions. So

4:26

at the actual Sotheby's, they do have

4:28

that room, but actually there's another part

4:30

where they display paintings and papers that

4:32

are coming up for auction. That's

4:34

where I meet up with Justin Caldwell, and

4:37

that area feels a lot more like a

4:39

museum. I'm there one

4:41

day before this massive auction of

4:43

Georgia O'Keeffe's art, writings, and personal

4:45

effects. As I said, I came

4:47

for the box of recipes. But

4:49

first, I will admit, I don't know

4:51

a whole lot about art. So if

4:53

you're like me, haven't been to an art

4:56

museum since your eighth grade field trip, prepare

4:58

yourself for a mercifully short art history lesson.

5:00

Georgia O'Keeffe is one of the

5:03

great American modernists. O'Keeffe

5:05

spent most of her adult life in New Mexico.

5:08

She's best known for her modernist paintings of

5:10

the area's flowers and landscapes. Here

5:12

she is talking about her love of the desert. As

5:15

soon as I saw it, that was my country.

5:19

I've never seen anything like it before,

5:21

but it said it to me exactly.

5:24

It's something that's in the air. It's just

5:27

different. The sky is different. The stars are

5:29

different. The wind is different. The

5:32

size drawings of bones, the

5:34

vegetation, which is infused, I think, with

5:36

just a little bit of surrealism, a

5:39

steer skull hovering in

5:42

the clear blue sky over New Mexico.

5:46

It's a break with the kind

5:48

of realism that was established in

5:50

the Renaissance and was dominant

5:53

up until a late 19th

5:55

century, early 20th century. in

6:00

this movement, for centuries most painting

6:02

was, people were painting pictures of

6:05

things they could see with their own eyes. Yes.

6:08

Whether it's a person or a field of

6:10

flowers. And this was

6:12

sort of the first movement of people painting

6:14

things that you might only be able to

6:16

see with your imagination. Well, subjective views of

6:18

things in the real world is certainly what

6:20

O'Keefe was doing. Moving

6:23

into another way of looking at things. And

6:25

I think in O'Keefe's particular case,

6:27

she is able to make you

6:29

see what's unusual or otherworldly about

6:31

some of the things she finds

6:34

on this world. And

6:36

in the world of art auctions

6:38

in particular, I

6:41

gather Georgia O'Keefe is a giant. She

6:44

is a giant. She is the

6:46

highest earner for a female artist.

6:48

Her painting, Jenson Flower Weed, sold

6:50

here at Sotheby's a couple of

6:52

years ago for $44 million.

6:56

That's a world record for a female artist.

6:58

And this is a painting of, she was

7:00

famous for her paintings of flowers. Of flowers,

7:02

yes. She had paintings very zoomed in on

7:04

one petal or one blossom. Which,

7:07

yes. You know, it's

7:09

a hyper-realist painting and that somehow

7:11

gives it a surrealist feel. You

7:15

seem like you really like Georgia O'Keefe. I

7:17

do. That's just the vibe I'm

7:19

getting here, Justin. Yes. So what is it

7:21

about her in particular? What stands out for you personally

7:24

about her and her work? Well

7:27

I like the fact that while

7:29

she is a very strongly American

7:31

artist, but it's American art as

7:34

we've not seen it before her

7:36

time. You know,

7:38

it's not folksy. It's not down

7:40

home. It's

7:42

clean and it's severe and

7:45

it's very serious. But

7:48

it could not be mistaken for the art of

7:50

any other country. And

7:53

what draws you to her as

7:56

a person? The fact that she was

7:58

very much her own person. control

8:00

of almost every aspect of her

8:02

life. You see this not

8:04

just in the paintings but she chose

8:06

where she would live, how she would

8:09

live, what she would

8:11

eat for dinner was very carefully planned,

8:13

what she wore, she was meticulous about

8:16

her clothes. She

8:18

was knew how to control

8:21

her image, you know,

8:23

she wasn't simply the

8:26

subject of a photograph but

8:28

she commanded and took

8:30

control and it's what she wanted you

8:32

to see of her and how she

8:34

wanted you to understand her. Many

8:37

of the best-known photos of Georgia O'Keefe were

8:40

taken by her husband Alfred Stieglitz, a

8:42

famous photographer. If you've never seen a photo

8:44

of her, picture one of the nuns

8:46

from Sound of Music but in the desert

8:48

looking sternly off into the distance. O'Keefe

8:51

and Stieglitz lived in New York in the 1920s. O'Keefe started

8:55

spending more and more time in the

8:57

New Mexico desert and eventually moved there

8:59

full-time after Stieglitz's death. All

9:01

along she kept track of her daily

9:03

life in meticulous notes which ended up

9:05

at this auction at Sotheby's. We

9:08

have her address book and

9:10

we know that this address book is from the

9:12

late 1920s, early 1930s and

9:17

the whole artistic scene in New York

9:19

which is where she kept this address

9:21

book comes alive because you have the

9:24

names of poets she was

9:26

in touch with, the Museum of

9:28

Modern Art which had just been founded, Frida

9:31

Callow, the poet Edna

9:33

St. Vincent Millay, art critic Henry

9:35

McBride and so this is her

9:38

world as seen through the people she

9:40

telephones. You can look

9:42

at her recipes and you'll see another

9:44

another side of her world. Now

9:47

we get to the item in this auction that has

9:49

brought me here today. Here

9:51

it is the recipe box. Yes. Wow.

9:59

It's bigger than I expected. Well,

10:01

there are big note cards there. Some

10:03

of the recipes are quite detailed, and

10:06

many of these recipes have been

10:08

written out by O'Keeffe, and

10:10

then at a later date on large note

10:13

cards, an assistant has typed them out. Of

10:15

course, it's much more fun to look at the ones which

10:18

are in her hand. But

10:21

you get what you get here

10:23

in almost everyone's recipe box. There

10:25

are many things in her own

10:27

hand. Modifications she's made on

10:29

other people's recipes. Then you have

10:32

things she's clipped from newspapers and

10:34

magazines. Recipes in other people's hands

10:36

think that they have given her.

10:39

For instance, local things such as

10:41

chicken flautus. There is a

10:43

recipe here for the St. Peter's cocktail. Now

10:46

that is on the letterhead of

10:49

the famous hotel in Santa Fe, the

10:51

Fonda. This is from the

10:53

bar, and the bartender has written out the

10:56

recipe for the St. Peter's cocktail, which is

10:59

four parts gin, splash

11:02

of absinthe, and

11:04

there may be one other ingredient.

11:06

The full St. Peter's cocktail is

11:08

four parts gin, two parts lime

11:10

juice, one part sugar, then splash

11:12

of pranoe or absinthe. That's

11:14

going to have you flying right there. You

11:16

don't need another ingredient. That sounds like a

11:18

perfect drink right before going out into the

11:21

desert and painting some cow skulls. Oh yeah.

11:23

Or after a

11:26

busy day of painting in the desert. Something like

11:28

that. That may give

11:30

you a false impression of this collection

11:32

of recipes. Though most things

11:34

here are very healthy. They

11:37

depend on fresh food, fresh vegetables,

11:39

fruits, things that she could grow

11:41

in her own garden. For instance,

11:44

right here, the thing that pops up

11:46

is freezing peaches. She froze

11:49

food. She canned food. She made

11:51

sure she had delicious things all

11:53

year round. She planned this

11:55

out very carefully so she could have the

11:57

best. So when this first came

11:59

across your desert, What did you think? Well,

12:03

I wasn't sure what to think until I sat down and

12:05

kind of went through it. And

12:07

then I started finding the

12:09

recipes in her own hand and so

12:12

on. And the pattern started to emerge

12:15

of good, simple food made

12:17

with fresh ingredients. O'Keefe's

12:22

first home in New Mexico was at Ghost Ranch,

12:24

about an hour north of Santa Fe. When

12:26

she moved down the road to Abacue, part of what

12:28

drew her to the new property was that it had

12:30

space for a garden. Many of the fruits

12:33

and vegetables she ate were grown there in her yard.

12:36

At Sotheby's, as I said, most of

12:38

the auction items are displayed in what

12:40

looks like a museum exhibit. But there's

12:42

one narrow room with glass cases along

12:44

both sides, like jewelry cases. This

12:47

is where O'Keefe's papers and letters, and the

12:49

recipe box, are on display. As

12:52

I flip through the recipes, I'm struck by

12:54

O'Keefe's handwriting, thick lines ornate

12:56

and twisting. Justin says it

12:58

reminds him of the vines she often painted with

13:00

her flowers. And almost nothing's

13:02

crossed out. If she ever made a mistake on a

13:05

card, she must have just started a new one. As

13:08

Justin says, she was very exacting. So

13:11

I know that a lot of letters, documents,

13:13

manuscripts come across your desk. How

13:16

is seeing someone's personal collection of

13:18

recipes different from seeing other kinds

13:21

of documents? Well, you

13:23

know, this takes you into someone's kitchen,

13:25

which we don't get to go into very often.

13:28

We're more likely to be

13:31

in someone's study or even in someone's

13:33

bedroom before we're in their kitchen with

13:35

the manuscripts, the letters, and things we

13:37

deal with. I

13:39

can't think of another time

13:42

when I've gotten to do this. Now,

13:44

I can remember years ago seeing a

13:47

coconut cake recipe of Emily Dickinson's in

13:49

the letter, that kind of thing. But

13:51

this, you can almost feel the

13:53

pots and pans rattling when you look

13:55

at these. It's

13:57

very immediate. And

14:00

I suppose we don't have as many handwritten

14:03

recipes as we used to. I

14:05

still have a few in my mother's hand and that

14:07

kind of thing, but. Right, we don't have as many

14:09

handwritten anything as we used to. No, I think most

14:12

people now use their iPad in the kitchen and prop

14:14

it up and they've got a recipe in front of

14:16

them. But so like 100 years from now, the person

14:18

who has your job, might get like

14:21

a hard drive, drop it in their desk.

14:23

Yes, also this is quite different too,

14:25

in that it's hard for

14:27

me to imagine someone actually

14:29

writing recipes in a kitchen with a

14:32

fountain pen. And most

14:34

of these are written with a fountain pen.

14:36

What do you think that says about a

14:38

person? A certain

14:40

formality. And that's absolutely true of

14:42

Georgia O'Keeffe. I'm

14:45

sure that there was no, you know,

14:47

sitting with a plate on her lap in

14:50

front of the television. Not the usual

14:52

American thing. What are some

14:54

of your personal favorite recipes in here? My

14:57

own favorite, because it's

15:00

a recipe from the past that you

15:02

don't see anymore is tomato aspic. Aspic,

15:05

that's like a savory jello. Yes, it

15:07

is. Like a jello mold, but it's more like. Yes,

15:10

it's certainly fancier, nicer than

15:12

that. Right, right. But

15:14

I do like the fact that some of

15:16

these are things you don't see anymore, such

15:19

as Maryland fried chicken. That's a term that

15:21

doesn't come up, I

15:23

don't think. And the desserts,

15:25

they're not many, but they're very

15:28

old fashioned. Like what, what's one

15:30

that's in there? Floating islands or

15:33

Ille Flautant. What's that, how

15:35

do you make that? It is an island

15:37

of meringue, floating in a little

15:40

lake of custard. Oh. A

15:42

custard cream. And very pretty. Did

15:44

you bring that back to you? Yes, yes. If

15:47

some of those dishes sound weird, you probably missed

15:49

season four of the Great British Bake Off, where

15:51

they make floating islands. As for

15:53

Maryland fried chicken, that's like chicken fried

15:55

steak, but made with chicken. So it's

15:57

shallow fried, served with white gravy. You

16:00

can read more at marylandfriedchicken.net. I

16:03

know I did. The recipe

16:05

box also has instruction manuals for kitchen

16:07

tools like a pressure cooker. The

16:09

page on how to use it to cook vegetables

16:11

is splattered with grease stains. A sign of how

16:13

much O'Keefe used it. All

16:16

right, so this one is fresh apple sauce.

16:18

This is the fresh apple sauce which

16:21

does have yogurt which is unusual

16:23

to me at least. Right, so it's

16:26

fresh apple sauce. She's not cooking the

16:28

apples here. No, no, it's not cooked.

16:30

8 ounces of yogurt, 1,000 milligrams of

16:32

vitamin C, 2 tablespoons of honey. You

16:35

put that in blender, add apples one at

16:38

a time, 5 to 7 peeled cord apples

16:40

and there's a note here, don't let blender

16:42

run too long, little at a time till

16:44

smooth. Yes. I'm

16:46

sure that most Americans in the 50s,

16:48

if they knew what yogurt was, they

16:51

probably associated it with what,

16:53

beatniks, people with sandals

16:56

and white socks. That

16:58

kind of thing. What

17:01

connections do you see between the recipes

17:03

in this box and Georgia O'Keefe's art?

17:09

I see that they're both, I've used

17:12

the term before but very American. You

17:15

know, this is not a Frenchified

17:17

collection of recipes. These

17:19

are all American things. You find spoon

17:21

bread, corn cakes, all

17:23

those things. A

17:26

nice fancy dessert every now and then. Most

17:28

things are plain, they're

17:30

completely unpretentious. Also,

17:33

with an appreciation for

17:37

the natural world, natural ingredients, it

17:39

comes across in her paintings, which

17:41

are not really

17:43

that much about human beings as much

17:45

as the things that human beings are

17:47

seeing. I am sure

17:50

that she had the same appreciation for the

17:52

fresh fruits and vegetables that went into her

17:54

kitchen as she did for the ones that

17:56

went to the studio for her to paint.

18:03

As Justin and I are talking, there's a steady

18:06

stream of visitors coming into this narrow room where

18:08

the papers are on display, and

18:10

everyone wants to see the recipe box.

18:13

One woman asked what I'm taping for. We get

18:15

to chatting, and it turns out she wrote a

18:17

whole book on Georgia O'Keeffe and feminism. Linda

18:20

M. Grosso, I'm the author of

18:23

Equal Under the Sky, Georgia

18:25

O'Keeffe and Feminism. And

18:28

you were just saying, you have a theory

18:30

as to why people are so interested in

18:32

this recipe box in particular. Yes, I think

18:34

that the part of the fascination is that

18:36

O'Keeffe is such an iconic figure and

18:38

there's always a conflict with gender. They

18:42

always associate her as painter,

18:44

and being painter and woman

18:46

and domestic are still

18:48

these diametric oppositions. Do

18:51

you think it also has something to do with, maybe this

18:53

is an oversimplification, but I feel there's like a positive and

18:55

a negative way to read it. There's one

18:57

reading which is like, she

19:00

was this woman who broke through all these

19:02

gender norms, who was strong

19:04

and powerful, had an extraordinary career and made

19:06

her own choices and blazed her own trail.

19:09

Right, so you don't associate her with cooking.

19:11

Right, and then to associate her with cooking

19:13

and to picture her in the home making

19:15

dinner somehow undercuts or diminishes that. Or

19:19

it expands the idea of what it

19:21

means to be female and to

19:23

be a woman. It makes

19:26

women feel better about being domestic

19:28

and artistic. Why is it that

19:31

there are so many women still, if you

19:33

go to an exhibition it's mostly women

19:35

that you see coming in. Why

19:37

does she appeal to women so

19:40

much and generation after generation

19:42

after generation? And I

19:44

think that recipe box gets

19:46

to some of the answers. Just

19:49

then, Linda spots a friend walking by, another

19:51

O'Keeffe scholar. Turns out I stumbled into a

19:53

goldmine of guests for this episode. Linda

19:56

introduces me to Roxanna Robinson, author of

19:58

Georgia O'Keeffe, a In

20:01

my book I have a photograph of her

20:03

in her pajamas and bathrobe in the kitchen

20:06

and we see her handwriting saying this

20:08

is how to make fajitas. And

20:12

there's a note here that I saw

20:14

the other day saying Margaret Prosser and

20:16

I learned to cook. We bought a

20:18

cookbook and Margaret Prosser, who was a

20:20

housekeeper at Lake George, we learned to

20:22

cook together. Georgia O'Keefe grew up in

20:24

a farmhouse in a big family and there was a

20:26

cook there. There were hired hands, there were 9 or

20:28

10 people to cook for every day. But she was

20:31

infinitely adaptable. When the family lost money

20:33

and moved on hard times, she could

20:36

do anything. She could clean a house,

20:38

she made her clothes, she

20:40

could plant vegetables. And so the

20:42

idea of this person who can

20:45

inhabit the world that all women know,

20:47

the day to day world of making

20:49

breakfast and sweeping the kitchen, and also

20:51

this surreal, mysterious

20:54

and deeply fascinating

20:56

and comforting on some level, the

20:58

world of her paintings, the

21:01

idea that she can inhabit both those

21:03

worlds is a matter of such enormous

21:05

import to women. Georgia

21:12

O'Keefe lived in Abecu, New Mexico until she died

21:14

in 1986. She was 98.

21:17

Since then, these recipes and all the

21:19

other items up for auction tomorrow have

21:21

been in the possession of Juan Hamilton.

21:24

He was a close friend, confidant and

21:26

sometimes caretaker of O'Keefe's who was himself

21:28

an artist. So

21:31

Justin, as we record this, this

21:33

box of recipes along with the other

21:35

paintings and documents that are part of

21:37

this collection are going to be auctioned

21:40

here at Sotheby's tomorrow. Tomorrow, yes. What

21:42

are you expecting for this recipe box at that auction?

21:45

Well, we put a conservative estimate

21:47

on this recipe box,

21:50

$6,000 to $8,000. Now, I

21:52

would be very disappointed if it didn't

21:54

make more because there's just too much

21:57

in here. And it's way

21:59

better than $40. 4 million? Well,

22:01

yes. Yes. This is a little

22:03

more affordable. Coming

22:09

up, we'll talk with someone who cooks

22:11

for and with Georgia O'Keefe almost every

22:13

night for five years. We'll find out

22:15

what O'Keefe taught her about cooking. Then

22:18

later, the auction. How much are these recipes going

22:20

to go for and who will be the one

22:22

to get them? Stick around. And

22:32

now, a delicious word from our sponsors. Welcome

22:54

back to this work full. I'm Dan Paschman. Last

22:56

week on the show, I talked with music producer

22:58

Benny Blanco, who has worked with stars like Katy Perry,

23:00

SZA, Rihanna, and Justin Bieber. He's also obsessed with food.

23:02

And he learned early on that food was a great

23:05

way to connect with the artist he was working

23:07

with in the studio or at least a good

23:09

way to make sure they show up for the recording

23:11

sessions. The first time I was

23:14

working with SZA in the

23:16

recording studio, we were at my house and she went

23:18

down to get a drink and she saw something in

23:20

the fridge and she was like, what's that? And I

23:22

was like, oh, it's like banana pudding.

23:24

She had one bite. It was in a

23:26

big sheet tray and

23:28

then by the end of the day, there was

23:30

no more banana pudding. You just like sneak down

23:33

for a bite. Then it was like, oh wait,

23:35

what else do you make? And I was like,

23:37

and it's on yet. And I was like, there

23:39

was a time when SZA said, I'm not coming

23:41

over unless you have spicy

23:44

rigatoni cooked

23:46

for me. Now Benny has published

23:48

his first cookbook. It's called Open Wide, a cookbook

23:50

for friends and such as a collection of recipes.

23:52

It's also a manual for throwing a great party.

23:55

It's a great topic that Benny takes very seriously.

23:57

As you will hear, I had a ton of

23:59

fun talking with him. We bonded over our love of

24:01

clean countertops and a lot more. I think you're gonna

24:03

love this episode. It's up right now. Get it wherever

24:05

you got this one. Now

24:08

back to Georgia O'Keefe. We'll

24:10

get to the auction, but first, Georgia

24:13

O'Keefe lived in that secluded home in rural

24:15

Abbacue, New Mexico towards the end of her

24:17

life. But O'Keefe wasn't alone. She

24:19

had a team of help with her. Margaret

24:21

Wood worked there in the late 70s and early

24:23

80s. Margaret was in her 20s, and

24:26

Miss O'Keefe, as she was called by all but

24:28

her closest friends, was in her 90s. Margaret

24:31

got the job through a friend who gave

24:33

her a warning before she started. She just

24:35

told me that it would require a lot of patience

24:38

because Miss O'Keefe was

24:40

extremely particular and although

24:43

kind, but it

24:45

was a challenge for several

24:47

months to make that adjustment

24:49

to do the different

24:52

duties I had to her liking. Is there

24:55

a specific example you can give me of something

24:57

that took you a little bit of

24:59

time to learn to do to her liking? Well,

25:02

to start off with the food. So she

25:04

said, do you like to cook? And

25:07

I said yes, I certainly do. So she

25:09

said, well, let's give it a try. And

25:12

after two days of my hippie

25:14

health food, she said, my dear, let

25:16

me show you how I like my

25:19

food. My

25:22

first way of trying to cook for her

25:24

was a lot of brown rice and chopped

25:26

vegetables with chicken added, and that was not

25:28

what she liked. What did

25:30

she not like about chopped chicken and brown rice? It

25:34

just was too much of a mash of a mixture.

25:36

Interesting. So she likes sort of clear lines between

25:41

components. Yes, for example, we

25:43

might have a meal of a

25:46

very nicely roasted lemon chicken,

25:48

and beside it, we would have

25:51

steamed broccoli. And then

25:53

we might have fried potatoes with that

25:55

and a nice green salad with lettuce

25:58

from the garden and fresh herbs

26:00

in the dressing. But each thing

26:02

would be kept separate on a plate. Yes.

26:05

Like everything in its right place. Correct.

26:09

So this sort of current trend that what

26:11

I think sort of thing was you know

26:13

the bollification of the American restaurant

26:16

scene where like everything is just sort of start with

26:18

a bowl put some rice or some quinoa or some

26:20

greens in it and dump a bunch of other stuff

26:22

on top. That

26:24

would not have been to her liking I gather. Not

26:27

at all. No that would

26:29

be the opposite of what

26:31

she would enjoy. Margaret

26:33

worked the overnight shift from five in the evening

26:35

till about 8 30 in the morning.

26:37

So it was just her and O'Keeffe. Margaret

26:40

would read books and newspapers to O'Keeffe who

26:42

had macular degeneration so she couldn't see well

26:44

at this point. They'd go for walks and

26:47

they'd have dinner. In 2009 Margaret

26:49

published a cookbook called A Painter's

26:51

Kitchen Recipes from the Kitchen of

26:53

Georgia O'Keeffe. One of the

26:56

anecdotes that you've shared that I loved is that she had

26:58

a specific instruction for you

27:00

for how to stir a pot. That's

27:02

right. To not scrape the

27:05

sides, to dig down and lift up.

27:08

She would give me some instructions like that

27:10

yes. And to

27:13

chop the herbs very carefully and

27:15

finally not to kind of destroy

27:18

them in the process. After

27:21

several months we really did have quite

27:23

a nice time cooking and trying some

27:26

new recipes from time to time. Do

27:29

you still stir pots today the way she told

27:31

you to? I

27:33

don't really know if I think about that very much

27:35

but I still eat often.

27:39

I eat the way that she liked

27:41

to with lemon

27:43

chicken and the simple vegetables and

27:45

there are a couple desserts in

27:47

there that I fix quite often.

27:49

Like what? Well there's

27:51

an apple pie cake that's just

27:54

delicious. Then there's a recipe

27:56

that I tried on Miss O'Keeffe

27:59

from my dorm mother

28:01

in college. It's a lemon

28:03

pecan fruitcake, and it has

28:05

pecans and golden raisins

28:07

and lemon extract, and it's just delicious.

28:09

I make that every year for my

28:11

friends by Christmas. That sounds really

28:14

good. One of the

28:16

things that was interesting to me when I went to

28:18

Sotheby's, I spoke with a couple of O'Keefe scholars. One

28:21

of the things they felt was especially

28:23

meaningful about this recipe box was

28:25

that here is a woman who rose to

28:29

the very highest heights of the world of

28:31

art, and that

28:34

she could achieve so much

28:37

and also be

28:39

domestic, care about food and cooking. It

28:42

was very meaningful to those scholars that I

28:44

spoke with. Is that something

28:46

she talked about? No, I

28:49

think she just was that. She

28:51

would say to me, do you think others

28:53

eat as well as we do? She

28:57

was very pleased about how

28:59

we ate. It

29:01

almost sounds like she was a little bit cocky

29:04

about it. Oh, very. Very. I

29:07

love the idea of her

29:09

being cocky about the food that is

29:11

served in her house, because I

29:14

think it's the kind of thing that people who are good

29:16

at cooking and take pride in food, that you're not supposed

29:18

to be that way. Especially

29:21

like society says women aren't supposed to

29:23

brag. They're not supposed to give credit

29:25

to themselves. I like

29:27

that she's just like, no, no, I know exactly what

29:29

I want to eat,

29:31

and I know what's good and what we eat in this house is

29:33

good. After

29:44

our conversation, Margaret emailed me a few

29:46

of her favorite quotes from Miss O'Keefe,

29:48

including one about soup. If it

29:50

doesn't taste good, it wasn't made with love. And

29:53

O'Keefe's overall life motto, it's not enough to

29:56

be nice in the world. You've got to

29:58

have nerve. Now,

30:02

the moment we've been waiting for, the

30:04

auction. As Justin from Sotheby

30:06

said before, the recipe box was listed at a price

30:08

of $6,000 to $8,000, but

30:10

he was hoping for more. I

30:13

was ready for the bidding back and

30:15

forth, the drama, the excitement, the sideways

30:17

glances, the mysterious lady in the hat.

30:20

You know, something like this. Lot

30:22

number 30 for the Georgia

30:24

O'Keeffe Nature Forum's gas pay. We

30:27

will start the bidding out here at $3 million, $3

30:29

million, $200,000, at $3 million, $200,000. Here

30:34

with me at $3 million, $4 million, $100,000, $5 million, $100,000. Here

30:38

in the room, $5 million, $2 million, $5 million, $250,000, $5 million, $300,000. $5

30:43

million, $400,000. $5 million, $800,000 then. We

30:47

all done. Fair warning now at $5 million, $800,000.

30:51

Sold for $5 million, $800,000. Thank you

30:54

all. Whatever. $5.8

30:56

million, you still don't know how to make tomato aspic. But

30:59

when it came time for the recipe box, you're

31:02

not going to believe what happened. We

31:04

are pleased to announce that the

31:06

Beinecke Library, Yale University, has acquired

31:08

the following 11 lots, which

31:11

will be joining the library's already

31:13

renowned collection relating to Georgia O'Keeffe

31:15

and Alfred Stieglitz. Lots

31:17

13, 46, 57. Lot

31:21

57 is the recipe box. The

31:23

night before the auction, just hours after I

31:26

had been at Sotheby's, someone straight up bought

31:28

it. Apparently, that's a thing you can

31:30

do. If you offer enough money, the auction house might

31:32

agree to just sell it to you before anyone else

31:34

gets a crack at it. Now

31:37

Sotheby's, I know you've been

31:39

around since 1744, so I don't mean

31:41

to auction-splain you. But

31:43

if you sell an item to someone for an

31:46

agreed upon price, that is not an auction. It's

31:48

just a sale. Where are

31:50

our gavels? We were promised gavels. Well,

31:55

once I got over my auction disappointments, I

31:57

wanted to learn more about who snagged those

31:59

recipes. Turns out it

32:01

was Yale's library of rare books and

32:03

manuscripts, which maintains an archive of Georgia

32:05

O'Keeffe items started by the artist herself.

32:08

I called up Nancy Kuhl, one of the curators

32:11

of that collection. So where

32:13

exactly will these recipes be kept? Help

32:15

me picture their home. Sure. Well,

32:17

they will be in the

32:20

stacks at the Bioniki Library, somewhere nearby.

32:23

Well, there are 259 boxes

32:26

in the Georgia O'Keeffe and Alfred

32:28

Stieglitz papers. They'll be filed somewhere

32:30

nearby. The

32:32

Bioniki Library has one of the largest collections

32:34

of Georgia O'Keeffe's papers in the world. Forty

32:37

of those boxes are letters between her and

32:39

her husband, Alfred Stieglitz. Nancy

32:41

says part of the reason the library wanted

32:44

the recipes in particular is that these days

32:46

scholars are more and more interested in filling

32:48

out the whole world of a person they're

32:51

studying. They want to understand all the ways

32:53

an artist's creative sensibility is formed and

32:56

how an artist expresses herself not just

32:58

on a canvas, but also in the

33:00

kitchen. Of course, artists

33:02

aren't the only ones who express themselves in the kitchen.

33:06

I imagine like librarians a

33:08

librarian's cookbook party. Librarians

33:11

cook Georgia O'Keeffe. Like you know, nowadays there's cookbook

33:13

clubs, which are like book clubs except you get

33:15

a cookbook and everyone in the group cooks a

33:17

different dish in the cookbook. I myself

33:19

am not a cook. So I will

33:21

be eagerly there with my napkin

33:23

tucked under my chin. But

33:26

it's hard for me to imagine actually rolling up my sleeves.

33:29

So the person who bought Georgia O'Keeffe's recipes isn't

33:31

a cook? Well, I mean,

33:33

I'm not the person who bought them. They

33:36

were acquired by the collection of

33:38

American literature at the Bioniki Library.

33:42

And I'm an enthusiastic eater of all

33:44

different kinds of things. One

33:46

can, yeah, cooking is just one way to enjoy food

33:48

I think. That's fair. That's

33:51

fair. I know, Nancy, when

33:53

I stopped, because I went to Sotheby's, I saw the recipes.

33:56

Maybe this is an old feeling for you because you work

33:58

in a prestigious library. library, but

34:00

just holding the papers in your own

34:03

hand and knowing

34:05

that Georgia O'Keefe held these same pieces

34:07

of paper and wrote on these same

34:09

pieces of paper. And now I'm holding

34:11

them, I think is always, to me,

34:13

that's a very cool and obviously tangible

34:15

connection to somebody. It really

34:17

is. And I'll tell you, it never gets

34:19

old for me. It can feel like being

34:22

in a time machine. It can

34:24

feel as if we are getting a message from

34:26

the past in some very

34:28

direct way. And that

34:30

doesn't get old for me. And I think

34:32

Georgia O'Keefe's very distinct handwriting

34:35

and her handwriting is very beautiful,

34:37

even if it's sometimes difficult to read.

34:42

And so you always know you're looking at

34:44

the work of Georgia O'Keefe's mind when you

34:47

see her handwriting. Now I

34:49

know when I talked to the folks at Sotheby's, they

34:51

said that the asking price for the auction was $6,000

34:53

to $8,000, but they were hoping to get more. Can

34:57

you give me some idea of what you paid? You

35:00

know, I'm sorry, I can't really. At

35:02

the library, we don't disclose what we pay

35:04

for our acquisitions, and so I can't speak

35:06

to that. I can't

35:08

say anything about the price. So we can't play like

35:10

warm or colder? Nope. Well,

35:16

that sounds good, Nancy. I'm glad that the recipes

35:18

will be in a place where people will be

35:20

able to see them and have access to them

35:23

online or in person. It

35:25

certainly feels better to me than them

35:27

just ending up on some billionaire's mantle.

35:30

Yeah, we prefer that too. I

35:33

mean, it's our real honor and privilege

35:35

to be able to make these things

35:37

available to scholars and to the general

35:39

public and to play a role in

35:41

promoting the legacy of such an extraordinary

35:43

artist. That's

35:51

Nancy Kool, one of the curators at the Yale

35:53

Library's collection of rare books and manuscripts. Now, Nancy

35:55

couldn't tell us what they paid for the recipes,

35:57

but on the Sotheby's website, there's a bid for

35:59

price of $11,250. So

36:03

the reason says this is not the sale price. It's

36:05

a bid that went in before the auction was withdrawn.

36:08

It won't tell us any more than that. But we're

36:10

going to go ahead and speculate that the final price must have been

36:12

higher than that bid of $11,000. Since

36:14

Yale acquired these recipes, they've digitized them and posted

36:17

the images on their library website so anyone can

36:19

see them. We'll post a link in our show

36:21

notes. Next week on

36:23

the show, I talk with actor Claudia Jesse, best

36:25

known for playing Eloise in the steamy period drama

36:27

Bridgerton on Netflix. But Claudia doesn't

36:30

live the typical Hollywood life. She's not on social

36:32

media. She doesn't live in a big city. In

36:34

fact, until recently, she lived in a houseboat in

36:36

a canal three hours north of London. So

36:38

what does Claudia eat while living on her boat? And

36:40

how does she feel about traditionally English food now that

36:43

she's vegan? We'll talk about all that and a lot

36:45

more next week. While you wait

36:47

for that one, check out last week's episode with

36:49

superstar music producer Benny Blanco. We talk about his

36:51

tips for hosting an incredible dinner party and why

36:53

he sometimes feels like a duck on a pond.

36:55

And what's up now? Get it where we got

36:57

this one. This

37:00

episode was originally produced by me along

37:02

with Emma Morgenstern and Harry Huggins. It

37:04

was edited by Tracy Samuelson and mixed

37:06

by Jairad O'Connell. The Sporkful team now

37:08

includes Emma Morgenstern, Andrei Sohara, Nora Ritchie

37:10

and Jairad O'Connell. Music helps

37:12

from Black Label Music. The Sporkful is a

37:14

production of Stitcher Studios. Our executive producers are

37:16

Colin Anderson and Nora Ritchie. Until

37:18

next time, I'm Dan Pashman. And this

37:20

is Larkin from Ithaca, New York, reminding you

37:22

to eat more, eat better, and eat more

37:24

better. And if you like

37:26

making and supporting videos, subscribe

37:28

to our YouTube channel, and tell

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