This page takes a wee while to load thanks to the 140 odd images in the cookbook Table of Contents you can skip to at the bottom. Your patience please, and my apologies…

“Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” ― Michael Pollan

Art inspired by food

Let’s get reconnected with real food a little more. Let’s become better acquainted with nature, seasons, and flavours via that eating thing we do several times a day. Let’s make this fun!

This is an art meets recipes project where I perfect seasonal recipes that ‘happen to be vegetarian’ and use these as the inspiration for an accompanying painting. Both are for you to enjoy.

There will be 140 recipes at the end, each with an artwork. 35 per season. All the vegetarian recipes are or will be available online for you to use. Even carnivores should enjoy them. The artworks for each recipe are originals that aim to capture something of the essence of the dish – the taste or origins or history or mythology or ingredients. On completion, all the recipes and paintings will be compiled into a real-world-printed-on-paper cookbook which will be available to purchase.

Why vegetarian? Well, in summary, it’s better for the planet, it’s usually better for your health, easier on your budget and it’s certainly better for the animals that aren’t slaughtered!

Why seasonal? Because supermarket convenience has resulted in us being so divorced from our food. Oranges from California in Sydney (and vice versa!), potatoes shipped into Melbourne from South Australia instead of from growers only an hour away, tomatoes in winter. How about becoming reacquainted with the rhythms of real seasonal (and hopefully) local food.

Why art; why not photography? Why not? Most cookbooks feature luscious photographs and the latest styling trend. Some cookbooks feature black and white line drawings of ingredients or food on plate. But food and art have a long history together and why shouldn’t there be a cookbook filled with a feast of visual artistic inspiration?

“This magical, marvelous food on our plate, this sustenance we absorb, has a story to tell. It has a journey. It leaves a footprint. It leaves a legacy. To eat with reckless abandon, without conscience, without knowledge; folks, this ain’t normal.” – Joel Salatin

There will be 140 recipes at the end, each with an artwork. 35 per season. All the vegetarian recipes are or will be available online for you to use. Even carnivores should enjoy them. The recipes are designed with (for the most part) easy to obtain ingredients, have been tested on eaters of all persuasions, and (for the most part) are on the simple to prepare end of the cooking spectrum. If you need to prepare a vegetarian meal, they are there to make your life easier – complete instructions and tasty enough for everyone at the table. No need to make two dinners to cater for vegetarians and everyone else.

The project is currently the main subject for my blog (along with my artist studio updates), so you can easily follow the progress, dish by dish. On completion, all the recipes and paintings will be compiled into a real-world-printed-on-paper cookbook which will be available to purchase.

Latest details

There has been an unintended extended hiatus of years instead of weeks (that’s burnout for you). The final 50 food paintings are still to be created.

All 140 recipes are done, barring last minute switch-ins (Bibimbap anyone?) or edits (who put fresh mushrooms in a spring recipe? Tut tut). And 90 or so paintings are done, barring some of the really early ones being given a facelift because I can paint better now than five years ago.

When the book goes on sale, the purchase details and link will be here.
When the artwork is being exhibited, the details will be here.

All the completed recipes-with-paintings are available for you to try out and to share in the Table of Contents at the end of this page. Click or scroll on down. No link means the blog post detailing the recipe and painting is still to come.

Freebie

Measure. Convert. Cook. Ever been driven mad with trying to figure out out what the conversion of cups or grams or pints is into your cooking language? Download this handy dandy pdf of conversion charts for every cooking measuring system I could find. It should make your life easier.

About the Art Filled Cookbook

For those who don’t know, this project has been underway since 2010. Though the idea germinated about 20 years earlier! A go-to cookbook of seriously tasty seasonal vegetarian recipes from easy to obtain ingredients. Each recipe has an original accompanying artwork.

The recipes are not just for vegetarians. The aim is to have people swoon with yum and not care if the meal was vege or not. Because pretty much everyone knows a vegetarian nowadays. If a raving carnivore needs to cook a vege meal, they usually don’t know where to start. This collection is for them as well as the full time non-meat eaters and those looking to reduce their meat consumption (a la Meatless Mondays).

The artworks for each recipe are originals that aim to capture something of the essence of the dish – the taste or origins or history or mythology or ingredients. They are all a modest size of 30 x 30cm that will fit onto a wall in even the tiniest modern flat. All the original artworks are available to own.

And at the end will be the book. A real physical book that will be made available through a print on demand service.

Tell the world

Vegetarian cooking does not have to be difficult or tasteless! Please pass this page around as much as possible. Most people need good vege recipes at some point and these are all personally tested and passed by myself. Foodie friends. Vego friends. Friends and relatives of vegetarians. People you know interested in reducing their meat eating. And art lovers. Designers. Artists. Creatives. Spread the word far and wide!!

Keep in touch

Facebook. Like the project? ‘Like’ my page.
RSS feed for the blog where all the recipes are posted.
Email newsletter. An occasional newsletter that will keep you up to date. See the yellow box in the footer to sign up.
Twitter. I’m not active on here, but you can follow along.

Cookbook Table of Contents

No link means the blog post detailing the recipe and painting is still to come.