The Senses


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The winter 2018 Senses issue of Gather is a journey through sight, smell, taste, sound, touch, and intuition with food as our guide. We dreamt up fantasy sensorial menus inspired by particular nuances of sight (shiny), smell (burnt), taste (bitter), and sound (crunch); explored the profound link between cooking and touch; and considered the intersection of food and our most abstract, but fundamental, sense: intuition. Plus, you’ll find musings on everything from the development of taste in utero to color-blindness and cooking, the eternal appeal of the notoriously stinky durian to our collective need to knead.

 Cover: Photograph by Grant Cornett, Food Styling by Maggie Ruggiero





Contributors


Grant Cornett

Photographer Cornett resides in the Catskills with his family, three standard poodles, and bees.
Your favorite sensory food or drink experience? A mug so cold that the root beer ices on top mixed with the smell of hot tar from the Texas summer sun, greasy cheeseburgers, and the car’s a/c.



Gentl and Hyers

Partners in photography and life, Andrea Gentl and Martin Hyers have been collaborating for over twenty years. Focused on food, travel, interiors, and portraits, their clients include Condé Nast Traveler, Coqui Coqui, Bon Appétit, The New York Times, and Häagen-Dazs. The pair have launched a photography workshop series called This is the Wanderlust, that focuses on visual storytelling and creative travel stories from the ground up.
Your favorite sensory food or drink experience? Martin: Man cannot live more than four or five days without water but he can live for weeks without food. We are traveling to the outer reaches of space to find a trace of it and all life on the planet owes its very existence to the element. So, many times a year, as I put a giant bottle of fresh, pure water to my mouth I think of the countless people who prayed to the heavens for just one drop of this magical liquid.
Andrea: My favorite place is to be in the middle of a market in India or Burma or Morocco, chaos swirling around me like smoke, spices clinging to my clothes long after I return home.



Laila Gohar

For the inventive Egyptian-born, New York-based chef and artist, food is her medium. Gohar draws inspiration from a wide swath of historic food preparations to conjure up the singular eating experiences she throws around the world, which are part art exhibit, part cultural commentary. Her clients include Comme des Garçons, LVMH, Instagram, Shiseido, Everlane, and Creative Time. Gohar was the recipient of a 2016 ADC award. See her work at lailagohar.com.



Ruby Goss

The Melbourne-born writer and editor has lived in Italy and Malaysia and currently calls Berlin home. She’s held positions at Snore magazine and Freunde von Freunden, and contributes to Saveur, Suitcase, Four & Sons, and Companion. Her strongest trivia category is “famous books I’ve never read.”
Your favorite sensory food or drink experience? The transporting waft of frying onions and sausage from the quintessential Australian “sausage sizzle.”



Patricia Heal

Born in England, Heal studied art and theater, receiving a degree in photography before moving to New York to pursue a career in the eld. Heal’s clients include Williams Sonoma, Anthropologie, Neiman Marcus, Calvin Klein, Bloomingdales, WSJ, Bon Appétit, Real Simple, and Martha Stewart. She’s received numerous photography awards including ones from Fuji lm, Nikon/PDN. Communication Arts, and IPA International. Heal regularly shows at New York’s Robin Rice Gallery. She splits her time between a studio in Soho and a farmhouse in upstate New York. See her work at patriciaheal.com.
Your favorite sensory food or drink experience? As Julia Child said, “I always give my bird a generous butter massage before I put it in the oven. Why? Because I think the chicken likes it... and more importantly I like to give it.”



Jiaxi & Zhe

New York-based photographer duo Jiaxi & Zhe have become known for their conceptual, minimalist approach and their styling and art direction skills. They have a variety of commercial and editorial clients including WSJ magazine, Wallpaper, and Vogue China, and recently photographed James Turrell’s first retrospective in China. They’ve been the recipient
of American Photography and Surface Avant Guardian awards. See their work at jiaxiandzhe.com.
Your favorite sensory food or drink experience? Our favorite bar in Chicago, The Aviary, has this cocktail called “Loaded to the Gunwalls.” The cocktail is presented in a bottle with a boat inside. The server sprays “mace” into a clay cup then lights it with a candle. The subtle smell coming out of that flame is quite mesmerizing.



Stephen Kent Johnson

New York-based photographer Johnson has shot for Rizzoli, WSJ magazine and Architectural Digest magazine. See his work at stephenkentjohnson.com.
Your favorite sensory food or drink experience? When you bite down on a Sichuan peppercorn and it’s like tonguing a 9-volt battery and getting Novocaine at the same time.



Anna Kovel

Kovel, Gather’s contributing recipe developer, learned the culinary ropes in Boston restaurants like Biba, Upstairs at the Pudding and The Blue Room. She went on to France where she interned at La Varenne École de Cuisine and Ecaille et Plume and cooked at a family-run restaurant in Paris, then to California for a position at Chez Panisse, before moving to New York. For over a decade she was a food editor at Martha Stewart Living where she created and styled magazine stories and produced cookbooks. Now a freelance recipe developer, food stylist, and writer, Kovel’s work has been featured in Martha Stewart Living, Vogue, and Better Homes and Gardens, where her Fast and Fresh recipes are a regular feature. She’s currently working on her first book. See her work at annakovel.com.
Your favorite sensory food or drink experience? I love dark and bitter flavors, and crunch, like well-toasted nuts and crunchy brittle so deeply caramelized it’s almost burnt. In the test kitchen I used to pick out the cookies that were too dark to serve and eat them myself.



Fabrizia Lanza

A former art historian and museum curator, Lanza is now the owner and director of Sicily’s Anna Tasca Lanza Cooking School where she brings the joys and knowledge of Sicilian food and culture into people’s lives around the world. The author of two books, Olive, A Global History and Coming Home to Sicily, Lanza has also produced a short documentary, Amuri: The Sacred Flavors of Sicily, and is working on a new film, Amaro, that will explore the role of bitter in Sicilian food culture. She also runs a 10-week program, Cook the Farm, for 12 international students interested in experiencing the Sicilian food landscape from the ground up.
Your favorite sensory food or drink experience? Baking and then eating warm bread with olive oil, garlic, and oregano.



Heami Lee

Born in Seoul, South Korea, Lee moved with her family to Queens, New York when she was five. Now Brooklyn-based, the photographer’s images focus on food, travel, interiors, and still-lifes. Lee’s work recently earned her a PDN Taste Award. See her work at heamilee.com
Your favorite sensory food or drink experience? Miyuk Gook. It’s a seaweed soup that many Korean-Americans call birthday soup. My mother usually makes it with ground perilla seeds. It has a slippery, slimy texture that I never really noticed until I started introducing it to friends who had never had it. Their reactions are always priceless.



David Malosh

Brooklyn-based photographer Malosh was raised in rural Wisconsin, the son of a robotics engineer and a hairdresser. His formative years were filled with such epicurean wonders as Blatz beer, fish fries, and hot dogs eaten straight from the freezer. He photographed Martha Stewart’s Appetizers, The Essential Oyster, and Egg Shop: The Cookbook, and regularly shoots for various publications with the word food in the title. Whenever he can he tries to get out for long bicycle and camping tours. See his work at davidmalosh.com.
Your favorite sensory food or drink experience? Anything cooked over an open fire in the wilderness. There’s smoke, ash, heat, and that sense of something just beyond the firelight.



Ayesha Patel

Born in India, Patel’s passion for and approach to visual storytelling has been influenced by the places she lived and visited while winding her way to New York. After studying art history and printmaking, and working in film, she became style director at Martha Stewart Living, where she informed the brand’s aesthetic. Now, as a freelance stylist, Patel constantly strives to unearth beauty and to create worlds both familiar and unique. See her work at ayeshapatel.com.
Your favorite sensory food or drink experience? The forbidden pleasure of eating street food in India as a child. Pani puri was my favorite: crispy, wafer-thin puffed puri filled with sprouted mung beans, boiled potatoes, date tamarind chutney and spicy minty water. To be eaten in one mouthful, the bursting sensation of each orb exploding with spicy, salty, sweet and sour crunch mixed with herby liquid was unforgettable. All the more because eating it had a whiff of danger—most parents, including my own, forbade street food for fear we would get sick. But pani puris proved irresistible—masterpieces of flavor and texture sold for virtually nothing on street corners.



Katy Peetz

Gather’s co-recipe editor grew up in the Cornhusker state, where her love of food started with fresh corn and runzas. After attending the International Culinary Center, she was the pastry chef at Brooklyn’s Roberta’s and Blanca. Peetz has been named one of Zagat’s 30 Under 30, and Star Chef’s Rising Star Pastry Chef. She splits her time between working as a chef consultant and yoga teacher, spreading wellness in the kitchen. See her work at katypeetz.com.
Your favorite sensory food or drink experience? I’ll never forget eating freshly churned, silky lemon verbena ice cream straight from the machine during my pastry chef tenure at Roberta’s.
Home machines just don’t do ice cream justice.



Laura Regensdorf

The Brooklyn-based beauty editor at Vogue traces the start of her magazine career to an interview in Martha Stewart’s Bedford kitchen (as chronicled in a recent issue of Apartamento), but an interest in the culture and commerce of food goes back further: to backyard calamondins and reruns of Supermarket Sweep. The most revelatory street food she’s ever eaten is a golden banana-coconut fritter in Hue, Vietnam.
Your favorite sensory food or drink experience? When hell froze over at Noma Mexico—by way of a smoky Mixe chile filled with local Jaguar cacao ice cream.



Maggie Ruggiero

Gather’s food stylist and co-recipe editor entered the gastronomical world after selling her East Village bar and using the proceeds to attend culinary school. She logged time in some of the city’s most esteemed restaurant kitchens before shifting her focus to food styling and recipe development. Represented by HelloArtists, you can see her work on HelloArtists.com. And don’t forget to call your senators and congressmen every day till they do the right thing.
Your favorite sensory food or drink experience? As a child I awoke daily to the smell of toast burning and the sound of my mom trying to scrape off the burnt edges. I love burnt toast in all its carbon glory more than almost anything.



Stephanie Sarley

The California-based artist’s current mediums of choice are painting, drawing, film and photography but her background is vast and multi-faceted (including fine art illustration, painting, intaglio, lithography, stone sculpture, digital and tattoo art). Sarley’s artistic approach is informed by Surrealism and her work re-casts familiar material in a new and wildly creative light, while also confronting issues like the male gaze and censorship, all with a sense of humor and whimsy. She was named the best artist in the East Bay in 2016. See her work at stephaniesarley.com.
Your favorite sensory food or drink experience? Around the holidays last year I was making mashed purple potatos and decided to squeeze some lime on top and suddenly the rich purple turned bright fuchsia. It felt miraculous and undiscovered!



Martyn Thompson

The New York-based image maker created avant-garde clothes before deciding to document them instead, first working as a fashion photographer in Paris then moving to London, where his scope broadened to include interiors and still lifes. Author of Interiors and Working Space: An Insight into the Creative Heart, he recently launched Martyn Thompson Studios, creating textiles, murals, and other works based on his photographs. See his work (and sign up for his newsletter) at martynthompsonstudio.com.
Your favorite sensory food or drink experience?
Two words: tea time.



Michael Harlan Turkell

Turkell is an award-winning food photographer and cookbook author. He’s photographed many prominent chefs’ cookbooks and is the host of The Food Seen podcast on Heritage Radio. Turkell’s latest book is Acid Trip. He lives in Brooklyn. See his work at harlanturk.com.
Your favorite sensory food or drink experience? A capful of puckering smooth Gegenbauer PX Noble Sour drinking vinegar 15 years ago set me and my palate on my first acid trip.



Amy Wilson

Born in California and raised in a renovated barn in Pennsylvania, Wilson got her start as a financial reporter before becoming the style editor at Real Simple. Now a prop stylist, her clients include Bon Appétit, Williams Sonoma, Condé Nast Traveler, Whole Foods, and The New York Times Magazine. Wilson has worked on the books Bringing Nature Home, Gjelina: Cooking from Venice, Dinner at the Long Table and Dining In. She also works as a garden designer with The Organic Gardener, focusing on rooftops and other urban spaces. See her work at amyelisewilson.com.
Your favorite sensory food or drink experience? Burnt things are strangely appealing to me. Burnt toast? Yes please. The burnt skin on a roasted squash? Also a favorite. Burnt cookies; don’t trash them, I’ll eat them. I’m not sure if that means I’m deficient in something!





And Also…
Alia Akkam, Rebecca Bartoshesky, Molly Beauchemin, Lara Belkin, Belly, Emily Beyda, Bennett Bistline, Michelle Blade, Sylvie Morgan Brown, Sara Cardace, Chris Clayton, Nika Danilova, Rebecca Willa Davis, John Derian, Damon Dhanens, Katie Dickens, L. Sasha Gora, Sophie B. Hawkins, Beatrice Helman, Rod Hipskind, Lindsay Maitland Hunt, Emily Kastner, Melissa Liebling-Goldberg, Rajni Lucienne Jacques, Simone Kitchens, Josh Lee, April Long, Heather Long, Nate Martinez, Adrienne Matei, Kendall Meade, Leah Mennies, Nicole Michalek, Gabriella Mlynarczyk, Randy Moon, Richard Morgan, Sarah Moroz, Ellen Morrissey, Liz Pearce, Rebekah Peppler, Alex Redgrave, Anja Riebensahm, Charlotte Rudge, Jonathan Shipley, Natalie Shukur, Brady Sprouse, Clair Sprouse, Rachel Stern, Will Talbot, Natalie Toren, Piercarlo Valdesolo, Matt Walker, Jessie Ware, Tommy Werner.

Contributing copy editors: Sara Cardace, Heather Long