what to eat: brussels sprouts
It’s mid-November and all of a sudden, sprouts are the ‘stalk’ of the town. Brussels Sprouts are part of the brassica family, which also include broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage. And yes, they may just look like tiny cabbages, but never tell that to a Brussel Sprouts’ many little faces. They’ll immediately point out that they grow on stalks in rows, not as singular heads like cabbages.
You can find full sprout stalks at the farmers’ market or buy sprouts off of their stalks all over the city. Avoid sprouts that are soft to the touch. Look for firm, shiny heads with zero or minimal spotting and brightly colored leaves. The smaller the sprouts, the more tender and sweet they will be. Larger sprouts lean towards their cabbage counterparts in flavor.
Here are some ideas for your next encounter with brussels sprouts: Make a refreshing large raw salad or slaw and skip cooking them altogether, cook them like Rawia Bishara, the chef at one of my favorite middle eastern restaurants in Bay Ridge, Tanooreen, or luxuriate in a batch of sweet pickled, brussels sprouts from my dearest pickle resource - the pickle guys in the LES.
what to see: going dark: the contemporary figure at the edge of visibility at the Guggenheim
Make the trip uptown to explore Dr. Ashley James’ large-scale exhibition at the Guggenheim which features 28 ‘multigenerational, multiracial group of artists who address pressing questions around what it means to be seen, not seen, or erased in society, through formal experimentations with the figure.’1
Dr. Ashley James ‘arrived at the phrase “going dark” one night when scrolling on her phone, jotting exhibition title ideas in her Notes App. “We know if somebody says, ‘You went dark on me,’ they’re saying, ‘You didn’t reply to my text,’” she tells me on a recent afternoon at the Guggenheim’s Financial District offices. “It’s also resonant in terms of darkness as a concept. The darkness that is literally Blackness. I’m well aware of the cheekiness of ‘going dark’ and what it means for it to be a Black rotunda show in the museum that does not have a track record of having Black artists at all, let alone in the rotunda. It clicks.”2
crushing on: the empty chair at Cildo Meireles solo show One and Some Chairs / Camouflages at Galerie Lelong & Co.
The installation Uma a sete cadeiras (One and Seven Chairs), (1997-2023) begins with the structure of a simple kitchen chair, then reconfigures its presence in different materials: acrylic, sawdust, ash, and canvas. In one iteration of the chair, Meireles foregrounds the absence of the object, presenting an acrylic tower with an interior that reveals the emptiness of the chair itself. “I am interested in this evanescent thing, that is, a kind of dissolution of the object. There is a desire to play with the faculty of seeing through a sort of invisibility of invisibility,” says the artist of the enduring theme of emptiness throughout his practice.3
https://www.guggenheim.org/press-release/the-guggenheim-museum-presents-going-dark-the-contemporary-figure-on-the-edge-of-visibility
https://www.thecut.com/2023/10/ashley-james-guggenheim-going-dark-interview.html#_ga=2.73260560.2016759457.1699933647-1994702940.1698324962
https://www.galerielelong.com/attachment/en/57eac8ed87aa2c6e4b7d0574/TextTwoColumnsWithFile/651c5cf6429e844b2e046bd2