M.T. by Studio Luc Derycke

M.T. texts Luk Lambrecht, Guessing at … p. 7 Éric de Chassey, Distant pleasures, immediate thoughts p. 25 recipes Michel Troisgros, Appetizers Parmesan biscuits with tomato p. 2 Colombières of Colombier p. 2, 3 Soups Celeriac soup with banana p. 3 Potato soup with rocket lettuce p. 3, 4 Creamed courgette with mint p. 4 Starters Raw beef with anchovy sauce p. 4, 10 Salted meat p. 10 Crépaze with tomato and basil p. 10, 11 Arcadian salad p. 11, 12 Sandwich bread terrine p. 12, 13 Eggs Omelet with saltimbocca p. 13 Soufflé omelet with Parmesan cheese p. 18 Scrambled eggs with Cantal p. 18, 22 Meat Vienna style veal piccata p. 22, 23 Stuffed tomatoes p. 23, 32 Rump steak in a tipsy red wine sauce p. 32, 33 Fish Vendace with dried fruits p. 33 Pike-perch ‘Hotel des Platanes’ p. 33, 34 Small fried fish p. 34, 44 Red mullet, striped with raw ham and bell pepper p. 44 Cuttlefish in scales p. 44, 45 Cod and saffron tajine p. 45, 46 Desserts Clafoutis with cheese p. 46 Michel Guerard’s milk bread p. 46, 56 Meringues of Colombier p. 56 Farm apple pie p. 60 Apple and nut pie p. 60, 61 Milk jars with muscovado p. 61 Sugar and buckwheat pie p. 61, 62 Sweet ’n sour strawberries p. 62

Preface

bkSM (visual arts Strombeek/Mechelen) is very pleased to present a wide panorama of the artist Mitja Tušek, who currently lives in Brussels. Apart from new in situ work, re-presentations of earlier interventions and clever integration of early works, we also show a sharp and fresh survey of Tušek’s pictorial production which fed on artistic humus in the mid-1980s. Within contemporary painting, Tušek’s work has a place “of its own”, because the work is inspired by a creative quest for the many possibilities of colour in the broad sense of verbal matter. Tušek creates sublime paintings with pigments and beeswax. The lasting “value” of his works of art have therefore to do with the intense perception and the care with which the works are treated and surrounded. Wall paintings, experiments on canvas with “metallic” enamel paint and mural interventions in which the word appears and disappears constitute the index of Tušek’s elastic relation with the art of painting — a relation that balances between reason and chance. bkSM wants to draw attention to the side roads of contemporary painting and think along about the present status of painting, just like we did with earlier exhibitions featuring the work of painters such as Philippe Van Snick and Walter Swennen. Koen Leemans Luk Lambrecht

APPETIZERS Parmesan biscuit with tomato Sablés Parmesan à la tomate 100 g soft butter 125 g flour 80 g grated Parmesan cheese 4 ripe tomatoes 1 pinch of salt 1 sprig of basil salt & pepper

Dough Preheat a fan oven to 150°C. Combine butter, flour, cheese and salt on a clean surface and knead to a dough using the heels of your hands. Roll out the dough between two sheets of parchment paper. Make sure the dough is evenly thin everywhere. Remove the top sheet and put the dough with the bottom sheet on a baking tray. Bake in the oven for 10 minutes. Cool on a rack and cut in leave shapes. Serve Remove the skin of the tomatoes, cut in segments and remove the seeds. Sprinkle both sides with salt. Garnish each Parmesan biscuit with a basil leave and a piece of tomato. Season with pepper. Colombières of Colombier Les colombières du Colombier Makes 20 colombières 150 g Comté cheese 125 g butter 75 g cream, 35% fat 1 egg 55 g cornflour 2 egg yolks 5 egg whites 20 thin slices Comté cheese, 14 cm long and 4.5 cm wide [20 food rings, 4.5 cm wide and 4.5 cm high]

Mixture Cut the Comté cheese (not the slices) in small cubes. Heat the butter and the cream on low heat. Pour over the cheese. Transfer to the bowl of a food processor and mix to a smooth paste. Add 1 egg and 2 egg yolks and mix again.

Add the cornflour. In the meantime, beat five egg whites until they hold firm peaks. Fold under the mixture. Serve Line the inside of the food rings with a strip greased parchment paper (14 cm long and 7.5 cm wide). Next, line with the slices of Comté cheese and cool the rings for 4 hours. Preheat the oven to 180°C. Divide the mixture among the rings and bake in the oven for about 17 minutes. Leave to cool outside the oven and remove the colombières from the rings when still lukewarm. Serve as a snack. This is a very personal interpretation of the gougère, which is a traditional Burgundian recipe.

SOUPS Celeriac soup with banana Soupe de celeri à la banane 300 g celeriac 2 star anise 700 g milk salt & pepper 1 banana a few drops of lemon juice

Celeriac Peel and cube the celeriac. Add with the star anise and the milk to a casserole, bring to the boil and simmer for 40 minutes. Remove the star anise and shake off excess milk over the pot. Mix to a soup and check the seasoning and the fluidity. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve Thinly slice the banana and sprinkle with lemon juice. Let the slices float on the soup. Potato soup with rocket lettuce Soupe de patates à la roquette 1 kg potatoes (type BF 15) 1 large onion 5 cl olive oil 3 l milk 200 g rocket salad fine salt & white pepper

Potatoes Peel, rinse and cube the potatoes.

Peel and chop the onion. Fry the onion in olive oil and add the potatoes. Add the milk and cook until tender on low heat for 45 minutes. Serve Drain and mix the soup with the rocket lettuce. Season with salt and pepper. Add mineral water if the consistency is too thick. Serve immediately. Creamed courgette with mint Vélouté de courgettes à la menthe 8 courgettes extra-virgin olive oil 20 mint leaves mineral water fine salt

Courgettes Rinse the courgettes and cut in big chunks leaving the peel on. Boil in water and drain. Serve Transfer with the olive oil and the mint to a blender and mix. Check seasoning and consistency. Add mineral water if necessary. Serve immediately.

STARTERS Raw beef with anchovy sauce Bœuf cru, sauce à l’anchois Serves 8 1 kg beef sirloin (Porterhouse steak) 1 handful flat parsley 1 tbsp of capers in vinegar 16 anchovy fillets in oil 20 cl extra-virgin olive oil 1 clove of garlic 1 tsp strong mustard white pepper celery leaves

Meat Trim the sirloin and slice very thinly with a sharp knife. Arrange in a single layer covering a plate. Cover with cling film and cool in the refrigerator.

Guessing at … Luk Lambrecht

In art, freedom is a vulnerable thing. Artists, and painters in particular, prefer to adhere to a certain style or to a something the world out there can hold on to — “their” patented way the paint keeps “in step” and cuddles the needs of the art market, which considers the work of art the equivalent of stock. Artists are the jesters of times bygone, who dance perfectly in tune to the rhythm of the logic of the art world — a system that is pervaded by the same longing for soaring value, generated and navigated from flashy drawing rooms, galleries and art markets, which all rival with the lounge lofts of people with money in their pockets. Artists have become “dependent”: their own pursuit of autonomy has turned them into puppets. In art, autonomy means that art has no longer a say about society and the world. At most, autonomy lets art speak to itself and for itself. For society, art then is merely a glittering frill; it is overwhelmed by a sense of abandon at the thought that art has become an integral part of the society of the spectacle. Part of Mitja Tušek’s bkSM project Pantalone is the presentation of the video What’s My Line, a popular American TV programme from the 1950s and 60s in which a blindfolded panel has to guess which famous man or woman is sitting next to the moderator. The mysterious celebrity and Spanish all-round artist Salvador Dalí answers all questions and comments dryly with yes of no. The artist’s trademark — his moustache — finally helps the panel to guess the artist’s identity. Through such artists as Marcel Duchamp and Salvador Dalí, the moustache has also turned into a “logo” for other artists, e.g. Karel Appel, but in the end the artist’s trademark or theatrically staged recognition/appreciation can also be a pipe, a cane or a felt hat. The 1952 video What’s My Line is a hilarious persiflage that mocks the clichés about artistry. Being an artist in this context is not considered as a profession, but as a social appendix/service that makes life easier through the production of beauty. Tušek’s artistic production is not a streamlined artistic corpus. His art meanders through a liberal imagination that generates images from matter or steels itself against the might of the word that turns into a (plastic) image. Reasoning, calculation and chance are the stakes of an artistic programme in which art becomes wordless and displays a logic of its own, a logic that is unrelated to the artist’s particular intentions and ruminations. Mystery is the heart of the artistic process — not the romantic or quiet element of mystery but the moment in which there is a short circuit: the instant art eludes the control and rationality of its maker. Tušek introduces ready-made videos, paintings with pigmented beeswax, experiments with metallic pigments and wall paintings for which he uses the technique of stamping

and stencilling. He shuns artistic one-way traffic: the varied, colourful story of the creation clears the way for associations with the domain of psychology and with numerous precedents from the (recent) crowded history of art. Good art plunges the public — in its quest for coherent “meaning” — in an atmosphere of subtleties, amidst art. Good art always remains a “guessing at”, and thus it keeps confronting humans with the mystery inherent to life. Art behaves as if it were a fiction of and about life. Asked whether he could be considered a “leading man”, Dalí unhesitatingly answered yes. However, as the host intervened he had to admit he wasn’t — rather, he was a “misleading man”. It is in this context that Tušek refers to Sun Tzu: “All warfare is based on deception”. He continues: “Of course all art is based on deception, too. This does not mean that art is war.” As You Like It (2009) comprises seven monumental paintings that feature a schematic representation of life, starting from seven catchphrases. These words are presented on different wooden walls that are placed in a circle and express the endless echo/emanation of the fanciful motif of the parrot in the frail series of paintings Répétition. The bright yellow walls with six question words that are mirrored/stamped in themselves, remain unanswered in the exotic, recurrent image of the parrot. And deep in the wide, white walls concepts lurk such as “imagination”, “inspiration” and “originality”… as statements that can hardly endure daylight and disappear into their own reflecting (pictorial) materiality. It is an art to keep the personal artistic gesture “aside” for an art that exemplary fixes the mystery into the fabric and vibrations of its meaning. March 2, 2010

Sauce Rinse the parsley and chop finely. Drain the capers and chop finely. Drain the anchovy fillets and melt with olive oil in a hot pan. Mix these ingredients with the chopped garlic and the mustard. Season with pepper Serve Spoon the anchovy sauce over the meat. Garnish with some celery leaves. Salted meat Carne salada Serves 8 4 unwaxed lemons 4 bay leaves sprig of fresh rosemary (just the leaves) 35 g coarse salt 10 g black peppercorns 800 g rump steak (trimmed) hazelnut oil pepper & salt 3 heads of escarole (broad-leaved endive)

Meat Grate the lemon zest. Chop bay leaves and rosemary finely and combine with coarse salt, crushed black pepper and the lemon zest. Roll the meat in this mixture and cover in cling film to protect the meat against oxidation. Leave to cure in the refrigerator for at least a fortnight. Vinaigrette Whisk together the juice of 1 lemon and walnut oil. Season with pepper and salt. Serve Thinly slice the meat with a sharp knife. Put the slices one by one between two layers of firm plastic foil or cling film and flatten out by tapping with the side of a chef’s knife or a meat hammer. Toss the endive with the vinaigrette and divide among plates. Arrange the meat on the salad adding some volume to the dish. Crépaze with tomato and basil Crépaze à la tomate et au basilic 1 pie (serves 8) 2 kg tomatoes ‘coeur de boeuf’ 1 bunch of basil (ca. 15 stems) 10 g olive oil juice of ½ lemon 250 g cream pepper & salt 50 g olive tapenade

450 g milk 7 egg yolks 75 g flour 55 g butter 7 egg whites [1 frying pan, 27.5 cm | 3 frying pans, 19.5 cm | ladle]

Tomato puree Rinse the tomatoes the evening before and cut – unpeeled – in wedges. Mix in the blender, bring to the boil and reduce by half. Sieve. Reduce again by half or till you reach a firm tomato puree. Cream of basil Puree basil, olive oil and the lemon juice in a blender. Add cream and season with pepper and salt. Mixture Bring the milk to the boil. Whisk together the egg yolks, flour and melted butter. While whisking the mixture, add the boiling milk. Transfer back to the pot and continue to stir over medium heat until the mixture covers the back of a spoon. Transfer to a bowl. Beat the egg whites until they hold firm peaks, adding a pinch of salt. Whisk half into the lukewarm mixture, then use the rubber spatula to fold in the remaining egg white. The mixture is ready now. Crepes Preheat the oven to 180°C. Use a pastry brush to apply the butter on the insides of the pans. Heat the pans. Pour four ladles of the mixture in the small pans and six in the large pan and cook for 20 seconds in order to give the crepes some colour. Transfer the pans to the (dry) oven and cook for 8 more minutes. Put the crepes on a plate. Start with the small crepes. Spread tomato puree over the crepe, cover with a second crepe spread with olive tapenade and add a third one spread with tomato puree again. Finish off with the large crepe, cover with a clean moist cloth and press gently to mould the pie. Serve Cut the lukewarm crépaze in eight. Arrange on a plate and garnish with the basil cream and a splash of olive oil. Season with freshly ground white pepper. Arcadian salad Salade bucolique Serves 6 a selection of fresh salad leaves from the market 5 oranges 36 asparagus with green tips 2 red onions smoked ham 4 Fjord yoghurt (or a mixture of natural yoghurt and fresh cheese) ½ tbsp strong mustard salt & pepper juice of 1 lemon olive oil

fresh herbs (chervil, chives, tarragon, basil)

Salad Rinse the leaves and compose a balanced salad. Peel the oranges, remove the pith and cut along the inside of the membranes that separate the orange segments (peler Ă vif). Trim and peel the asparagus and cook in salted water until tender. Peel the red onion and slice in rings. Slice the smoked ham and arrange on a plate. Mix the Fjord with the mustard and season with salt & pepper. Vinaigrette Whisk together salt, pepper, lemon juice and olive oil. Serve Drizzle the vinaigrette over the leaves. Scoop a spoonful of Fjord sauce on a plate and put some salad leaves on top. Arrange the slices of smoked ham, asparagus tips, onion rings and orange segments. Sprinkle with fresh herbs. Sandwich bread terrine Terrine de pain-ĂŠponge For 1 terrine (serves 8) 8 tomatoes fine salt olive oil 2 red bell peppers 5 fresh eggs 50 g homemade mayonnaise 15 anchovy fillets in oil 1 cup basil leaves 2 ripe tomatoes mature red wine vinegar olive oil freshly ground pepper 300 g white sandwich bread [rectangular terrine of 18 cm]

Slowly sundried tomatoes Prepare four days ahead. Make a cross shaped incision at the bottom of the tomatoes and put them in boiling water for 15 seconds. Remove them and arrange in a large bowl of ice-cold water to stop the cooking. Remove the skin, quarter and remove seeds. Arrange on a plate or tray, sprinkle with fine salt and drip some olive oil on each quarter. Leave to dry outside in the sun for two whole days and keep in the refrigerator overnight. After two days of non-stop sunshine, the tomatoes are ready. Use immediately or keep in olive oil in a hermetically sealed jar in the fridge for a couple of days.

Speedy ‘sundried’ tomatoes By lack of non-stop sunny days, or time, the tomatoes can be dried for two hours in an oven at 90°C. Preparation Prepare one day ahead. Put the bell peppers on a plate and sparsely drizzle over some olive oil. Cook until tender in an oven at 180°C. Gently remove the skin and seeds and set aside. Boil the eggs for 10 minutes. Peel, separate whites from yolks and chop both. Whisk together with 1 tbsp of mayonnaise. Drain the anchovy fillets. Rinse 2 tomatoes, peel and run through a chinois strainer. Season with pepper, salt, vinegar and olive oil. Remove the crust from the sandwich bread and cut in 6 slices of 1 cm thick. Soak in the tomato vinaigrette. Terrine Line the terrine with non-stick parchment paper. Cover the bottom with 2 slices of soaked sandwich bread. Cover with a layer of basil leaves and candied tomatoes. Cover with 2 slices of soaked bread. Spread with egg mayonnaise, anchovy fillets and bell peppers. Finish with a final layer of the remaining slice of soaked bread. Fold over the paper and press gently. Leave in the refrigerator overnight. Serve Remove the terrine from the dish the next day and cut in 8 thick slices (use an electric knife if the terrine is fragile). Arrange on plates and serve with an olive oil vinaigrette.

EGGS OmeletTE with saltimbocca Omelette à la saltimbocca Serves 6 12 very fresh eggs salt & pepper butter 8 thin slices raw ham 24 sage leaves

Omelet Beat the eggs in a bowl and season with salt and pepper. Heat the butter in a large frying pan till foaming. Pour the eggs in the pan. Continuously draw the eggs away from the edges so the omelette cooks evenly. The eggs must be cooked but have to remain smooth. Turn off the heat and fold over. Transfer to a buttered plate and shape. Serve Melt the butter together with the sage. Turn the ham in the butter and add to the pan. Arrange the slices of ham and the sage on the omelette. Drizzle with the sage butter.

any way to come back to the actual source of the imagery. Contrariwise, the Naked Women are the results of a processual enterprise : first, patches of colors are applied to one canvas and then pressed on to another, reduplicated by transfer in a purely abstract way, until some forms suggest full rounded faces or naked bodies, which are then emphasized on purpose. The process of laying down the pools of lacquer and reduplicating them is repeated until a balance between an obvious iconography and the chromatic composition is achieved. The results are then showed side by side, enabling a reading that can go back and forth between the image and the process, picture and painting. In this case, the viewer is obviously invited to participate in a certain kind of pleasure, as if echoing the famous statement by Willem De Kooning : “flesh was the reason why oil painting was invented” (1950). The fact that the “cold” medium of lacquer instead of oil is used here is not the only way to indicate that pleasure is both acknowledged as a possibility and kept at bay by Tušek. While nude paintings are traditionally the results of a more or less direct encounter between an artist and a naked model, or at least between an artist and his or her fantasies, the emphasis on their being born of a reduplicative, semi-abstract, process enmeshes the viewer into a more complex kind of pleasure. It breeds together the pleasures of the image and the pleasures of paint as such, making sure at the same time that some distance is always maintained, the distance of thought so to speak. The 2009 series, Hobbes and Pantalone, somehow play both games at the same time. Their obvious subject — their object matter to use a phrase coined by Barnett Newman — is subjectivity, but their means are falsely subjective. They consist of words that describe the different phases of the subject as established by Thomas Hobbes in Leviathan and by William Shakespeare in As You Like It. The philosopher describes the life of Man in his “Natural Condition” as “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short” (Leviathan, part 1, chapter 13). The playwright distinguishes between “infant”, “schoolboy”, “lover”, “soldier”, “justice”, “pantaloon”, and “oblivion” (As You Like It, Act II, Scene 7, verses 139-167). Each of these states, each word that embodies these states, is painted on one canvas, reduplicated vertically and symmetrically by transfer. They have been inscribed in liquid paint on the right half of a folded canvas, then transferred by pressing this half onto the left one, the halfway crease being later flattened out although it still shows at closer viewing. Abraham Bosse’s 1651 frontispiece for Leviathan opposed the two states of society in symmetrical columns of symbols : here the words are just mirrored ; no progression, no symbolical meanings can be inferred from them (which is not the case of an unfinished series which pairs with the same means two opposite concepts, such as freedom and slavery). The means used to present the words, and their very form, evoke Rorschach tests, an apt tool for descriptions of subjectivity, apt if somewhat outmoded (Tušek has always been very conscious of the fact that we interpret what we are presented with, through the filters

of history and previous knowledge). In a 1984 famous series of pictures entitled Rorschach Tests, Andy Warhol had created images of ink blots that were already questioning abstract painting’s possible link with subjectivity after the demise of Abstract Expressionism, in the age of mechanical reproduction. Tušek’s paintings somehow go one step further and one step backward. By emphasizing the relationships of his reduplicated images with subjectivity not as image but as meaning, he blocks any possible retreat into identifying oneself with what is seen. By creating inkblots from words, he questions the connections between images and language and forces the viewer into asking himself or herself whether the categories or persona summed up by these words still make sense, not only for society as a whole, but for each individual — including the one who confronts the actual paintings. The wit and humor that obtain from these series are increased by their handwritten calligraphy and their vertical arrangement, which transform them into some kind of ornamental patterns that lead back to a previous series — Plombs (1990-1991), which reproduced views of rococo interiors on lead plates — or to that historical moment when, amidst art conventions that stressed iconography and narrative representation, artists such as Albrecht Dürer could use the arabesque in order to insert, in scenes otherwise full of objects, some lines devoid of any figurative if not symbolical meaning (as in the extraordinary 1522 Triumphal Chariot of Maximilian woodcut, where the meaning of each arabesque that graces most of the women figures in the image relies on the word attached to it). In the Hobbes and Pantalone series, what seems meaningless at first glance is always part of a word. If this were not enough to render their legibility difficult, Tušek’s inscribing of the words always starts at full monumental scale and then forces the word into the picture’s dimensions, ending with barely readable scribbles in the case of the longest words. In fact, the shorter the word is, such as the word “short” precisely (in one of the Hobbes), the more monumental, balanced and readable. The longer the word, the less decipherable, the more creature-like at the same time as the more abstract, the image it creates. On the occasion of his exhibition at Cultuurcentrum in Strombeek, in FebruaryMarch 2010, Tušek also showed two wall drawings which echoed some of the principles that govern his recent paintings. Right at the entrance of the exhibition he placed a series of words in interference pigments, so that they were glistening in rosy or bluish shades against the light grey wall. These words ironically list the traditional components, both material and intellectual (aquarelle, intuition, inspiration, imagination) of the work, also counting the points that top the is in each one of them (0 point, 3 points), points which are highlighted in black. From afar, only these black points are legible, thus composing an abstract pattern of dots, before the words begin to register because the light has changed or the viewer has made a move, as the interference paint used is soft, pastel, hues of rose or blue. This piece, of which the first version was created in 2009 for the staircase of a private house in the

village of Doel near Antwerp, builds on a previous series of word pictures that Tušek has intermittently created for ten years : it makes even more explicit the relationship of images with words and with sounds, as the comment “n point(s)” calls for a loud voicing of the kind one hears when listening to the Eurovision song contests or figure skating competitions. In Strombeek, this intertwining of high culture with commercial entertainment was played out again in the final piece, a screening of a US TV game from the 1950s, What’s My Line ?, where Salvador Dalì was the guest meant to answer questions with simple yes’s or no’s. The second wall work was placed in a back room — closing the room onto itself when the previous large room where the Pantalone paintings were shown was opening voids and passages between the pictures, between the stages of life that the individuals who entered the room has to pass by and through. On a vivid yellow background, the words where, what, who, when, why and how were traced in black vertical calligraphy, symmetrically transferred as they were in the adjacent pictures. The “five Ws and one H” of news writing and police investigation which are taken in classical rhetoric and journalism classes as the basic questions one has to formulate in order to check the validity of a story, thus appeared by and for themselves. By including among them two older pictures of a parrot in wax, Tušek suggested that these word-images were again to be voiced aloud, not in an accurate system of meaning but as a commonplace of popular western philosophy that mechanically repeats the same patterns over and over again. The pleasure of recognition thus plays with the frustration of meaning, another way to activate the subject/object, abstract/figurative false oppositions. In Tušek’s painted pictures the distance of thought and the immediacy of sensory pleasure are contradictorily evoked. His subject paintings are obviously eschewing subjectivity while courting it, both as a means and as a subject, but their objecthood never closes itself on itself. He employs means of distantiation, so that each mark cannot be construed as a trace but presents itself as a construction — even when rather direct. But through these very means, he creates pleasure. It’s not because we are presented with the recipes that we cannot enjoy the dishes.

Pass through a sieve using the back of a spoon. Reserve the juice in a bowl and cool. Whisk the tomato purée with the cooled juice. Add the red wine vinegar and the olive oil drop by drop whisking continuously. Season with salt, pepper and tarragon. Shank Season the shank with salt and pepper. Peel the onion and carrot and cut onion, carrot and celery in rough pieces. Brown with some butter in a large frying pan. Add the shank. Add water till the shank is covered and bring to a boil. Remove the foam on the surface. Simmer for 3 to 4 hours till the meat is tender and pulls away from the bone easily. Cool, debone and cut in small cubes. Tomatoes Preheat the oven to 85°C. Rinse the tomatoes, cut off the top and empty with a spoon. Season with salt and pepper. Put upside down in an oiled oven dish and bake in the oven for 1 hour. Stuffing Boil the eggs for 10 minutes. Discard the yolks and chop the egg whites with a knife. Rinse the white mushrooms and quarter. Chop the shallots, fry with a little butter, add the mushrooms and the white wine, cover and simmer for 3 minutes. Leave to cool and chop with a knife to duxelle. Combine in a stainless steel bowl with the shank, egg whites, the chopped clove of garlic, Parmesan cheese, grated orange zest and cream. Season with salt and pepper. Serve Preheat the oven to 180°C. Put each tomato in a matching food ring in an oven dish to keep the original form during cooking. Fill the tomatoes with the stuffing and drizzle a dash of olive oil around them. Cook in the oven for 10 minutes. Serve the tomatoes upside down on a plate and garnish with the tomato sauce. Rump steak in a tipsy red wine sauce Rumsteak de boeuf, ivre de vin rouge Serves 6 300 g shallots 3 l red wine 1 tbsp meat extract (Maggi) 50 g butter + extra for frying salt & pepper 6 pieces of rump steak, 150 g each tomato cubes chives

Sauce Peel the shallots and slice in rings. Transfer to a cooking pot, together with the red wine and reduce. When done, remove the shallots and reduce the wine further to ½ l. Add the meat extract and

thicken till the right sauce texture is reached. Whisk in the butter and season with salt and pepper. Chop the chives. Add to the tomato cubes and season with salt. Put aside till the sauce is finished. Rump steaks Season the rump steaks with salt and pepper. Fry in foamy butter to taste. Serve Add the shallots, tomatoes, and chives to the sauce. Heat lightly. Arrange the rump steaks on a plate and pour the sauce over the meat.

FISH Vendace with dried fruits Fera aux fruits secs Serves 6 3 vendace (European cisco), 500 g each 50 g barberry 100 g sliced almonds 50 g pine nuts 50 g green pistachios (Iran) 125 g butter ½ lemon salt & pepper

Fish Remove the entrails and head and fillet the fish. Carefully remove remaining bones using tweezers. Season with salt and pepper. Lightly toast the almonds in the oven. Mingle with the pine nuts and the pistachios. Peel the lemon and slice the zest into a fine julienne. Blanch. Heat the butter in a large frying pan. When the butter has foamed and subsided, put the fillets in the pan skin down. Turn the fish and cook on the other side without burning the butter. Serve Transfer the fish to a hot plate. Put the dried fruits in the remaining butter in the pan and heat for a couple of seconds. Spoon over the fish and garnish with the julienne of lemon zest. Serve with spinach leaves cooked in butter. Pike-perch fillet «Hotel des Platanes» Filet de sandre «Hotel des Platanes» Serves 4 1 pike-perch (zander) about 1.2 kg 150 g firm white mushrooms 1 shallot 15 cl dry white wine

flour salt & pepper

Fish Scale the fish, remove the entrails and head. Rinse with cold water and fillet. Carefully remove remaining bones using tweezers. Cut in 4 portions of 160 g each. Clean the mushrooms one by one using a damp piece of kitchen paper. Cut into medium sized slices. Peel and cut the shallot into rings. Heat butter in a sauté pan and sweat the shallots. Add the mushrooms and the white wine and reduce until all liquid has nearly evaporated. Brown some butter in a non-stick frying pan. Fry the fillets skin down for a couple of seconds. Turn over and fry for two minutes on the other side. Turn off the heat and cover with a plate to keep warm. Serve Transfer the fillets to a hot plate. Put the pan back on the heat and fry the white mushrooms in the remaining butter. Arrange on a plate and put a fillet on top. Spoon some brown butter around the fish. This straightforward recipe is inspired by a recipe for whiting created in the 1970’s. The Hôtel des Platanes was the original name of Maison Troisgros, when my granddad bought it in 1930. Small fried fish Fritures Serves 6 1 kg small sweet water fish ½ l milk ice ½ l mineral water 3 l grape seed oil 1 clove of garlic flour salt & white pepper 3 lemons

Fish Clean the fish or ask the fishmonger to do this. Put the fish together with the milk, ice and mineral water in a bowl and cool for 3 hours in the refrigerator. This makes the fish firmer. Remove from the fridge, drain and pat dry with kitchen paper. Heat the oil to 180°C. Peel the garlic, remove the fold from the centre of the clove and slice very thinly. Fry till crispy. Quickly toss 1/3 of the fish in a light dusting of flour. Shake off the excess and drop them into the hot oil. Fry them until they’re crispy and golden brown. Remove from the oil and drain on paper towels. Season with salt and pepper and keep warm in an oven at 70°C. Heat the oil back to 180°C and fry the second and third portion. Serve Put a napkin on a large tray. Arrange the fried fish on the napkin and garnish with garlic slices. Serve with lemon wedges.

Red mullet, striped with raw ham and bell pepper Rouget, rayé de jambon cru et de poivron Serves 4 4 red mullets, 250 g each 4 slices raw ham 2 red bell peppers 2 tbsp olive oil vinaigrette of olive oil

Red mullet Scale the fish and remove the entrails. Fillet and carefully remove remaining bones using tweezers. Stripes Cut the slices of raw ham in strips 2 cm wide. Put the bell peppers on a tray and add a dash of olive oil. Bake in an oven at 170°C. When done, remove the skin and seeds. Cut in strips the same size as the ham. Cover the skin of each fillet with alternating strips of ham and pepper for a stripy result. Serve Heat some olive oil in a non-stick frying pan. Put the fillets, stripy side down, in the pan and fry slowly. Turn over and turn off the heat. Let the remaining heat cook the fish. Arrange two fillets on a hot plate. Serve with a vinaigrette of olive oil. Cuttlefish in scales Seiche en ecailles Serves 4 4 pieces of cuttlefish, 150 g each (net weight) 400 g broccoli 4 grey shallots 2 cloves of garlic 1 handful of flat parsley 1 small Spanish pepper 2 Fjord yoghurt (or a mixture of natural yoghurt and fresh cheese) fine salt 1 lemon poppy seed oil freshly ground white pepper flour

Cuttlefish Rinse the cuttlefish under running water. Score the best side of the cuttlefish with diagonal slices, first one way, then the other to create diamond-shaped cuts. Keep in the refrigerator. In the meantime Cook the head of the broccoli ‘al dente’ in salted water. Put on a plate. Peel and chop the shallots.

Sauce Chop the garlic, parsley and Spanish pepper (remove seeds) and whisk together with the Fjord. Add salt and lemon juice. Scales Heat a splash of oil in a large frying pan. Season the cuttlefish with salt and pepper and toss the scored side in the flour. Fry both sides for 15 seconds in the smoking oil and remove from the pan. Serve Arrange the hot broccoli on plates and sprinkle with chopped shallots. Add the cuttlefish and serve with the sauce. Through contact with the hot oil, the scoring will generate a scaling effect. Cod and saffron tajine Tajine de cabillaud au safran Serves 6 1 orange 1 lemon 4 tomatoes Âź preserved lemon 1 red bell pepper 1 yellow bell pepper 3 onions olive oil 2 tbsp dried sultanas saffron 25 cl mineral water 6 pieces cod fillet, 150 g each (with skin from the best part of the fish) salt & pepper

Preparation Remove orange and lemon zest and cut in fine julienne. Remove the pith and cut along the inside of the membranes that separate the segments (peler Ă vif). Rinse the tomatoes and quarter with skin and seeds. Cut the preserved lemon in tiny cubes. Peel the red and yellow bell pepper and remove the seeds. Cut in julienne. Peel and chop the onions. Fry the peppers and onion with some olive oil on low heat. Add the preserved lemon, the orange and lemon segments, tomatoes, raisins and a pinch of saffron. Cook for a couple of minutes, add water and simmer for 20 minutes. Cod Season the cod with pepper, salt and lemon juice. Pour the sauce in a casserole (bake) and arrange the fillets, skin down, on the sauce. Serve Preheat the oven to 170Â°C. Bake in the oven and sprinkle halfway with the julienne of orange and lemon zest. Coat regularly with juices to keep the fish moist. Serve right from the oven.

Mitja Tušek wishes to thank Luk Lambrecht and Koen Leemans for their invitation and their generosity, Michel and Marie-Pierre Troisgros for their generosity and their sense of humor, Michel especially for agreeing to participate in this project, Éric de Chassey for his long time interest and for his text, Willem Oorebeek for his easy help, E.T.A. Hoffmann for his novel Lebensansichten des Katers Murr nebst fragmentarischer Biographie des Kapellmeisters Johannes Kreisler in zufälligen Makulaturblättern, Alain Cueff for his book Warhol à son image, William Shakespeare for his play As You Like It, Philip Nelson for everything and what is left of it, the gallery Nelson-Freeman for what is right of what is left. Marie José for her forbearance, and Svetlana for her imprudence (and the Them Crooked Vultures; talking music I don’t agree on The Ramones). And also thanks to all the women who accepted silently, speechless, to be painted naked, the way they are, without ever reflecting on my haircut. With special thanks to Herman Verwerft, Peter Wamback, Anita Wellemans, Kris Leemans, Sophie Van Weert, Ursula Wijnants, Kevin Suetens, Chris Vanderbeek, Salvador Dalí, Jacques Morrens, Hubert Swalens, Johannes Marx & Miki

Pantalone — Mitja Tušek A project by bkSM (beeldende kunst Strombeek/Mechelen) Cultuurcentrum Strombeek: 26.02 … 25.03.2010 De Garage in Mechelen: 03.04 … 06.06.2010

Curator Luk Lambrecht, Koen Leemans Artistic coordination Luk Lambrecht Technical realisation Cultuurcentrum Mechelen: Sam De Wit & technicians Cultuurcentrum Strombeek: Wim Maes & technicians bkSM education/coordination Gerda Debuck bkSM education Anne Vandevoorde business coordinator Stefaan Gunst

Photographic credits Kristien Daem: pp. 5, 6, 9, 14 — 17, 19, 20, 21, 24, 27, 28, 31, 35 — 43, 47 — 53, 67, 69 Sven Laurent: pp. 50 — 53 Florian Kleinefenn: pp. 55, 57, 58, 59, 63 Texts Éric De Chassey, Luk Lambrecht Recipes Michel Troisgros Translation texts Dirk Verbiest, Astrid Wittebolle Translation & editing recipes Edward Vanhoutte Copy Editing Mieke Mels Graphic Design Luc Derycke & Thomas Desmet, Studio Luc Derycke Lay-out Bart Hebben, Studio Luc Derycke Printing & binding Cassochrome, Waregem Distribution Exhibitions International, Leuven

ISBN 9789077193280 D/2010/0797/050

Cultuurcentrum Mechelen De Garage Onder den Toren 12, 2800 Mechelen T. 015 29 40 00 www.cultuurcentrummechelen.be cultuurcentrum@mechelen.be Cultuurcentrum Strombeek Gemeenteplein z/n, 1853 Grimbergen T. 02 263 03 43 www.ccstrombeek.be info@ccstrombeek.be

With the support of

M.T. works Mitja Tušek, Intuition … dimensions variable, 2009, installation view CC Strombeek p. 5 As you like it installation view CC Strombeek pp. 6, 9 Infant acrylics on canvas, 240 x 205 cm, 2009 p. 14 Schoolboy acrylics on canvas, 240 x 205 cm, 2009 p. 15 Lover acrylics on canvas, 240 x 205 cm, 2009 p. 16 Soldier acrylics on canvas, 240 x 205 cm, 2009 p. 17 Judge acrylics on canvas, 240 x 205 cm, 2009 p. 19 Pantaloon acrylics on canvas, 240 x 205 cm, 2009 p. 20 Oblivion acrylics on canvas, 240 x 205 cm, 2009 p. 21 installation view CC Strombeek pp. 24, 27, 28, 31 installation view CC Mechelen p. 35 Big Easy acrylics on canvas, 1500 x 200 cm, 2004 – 2010, installation view CC Mechelen pp. 36 — 37 installation view CC Mechelen pp. 38 — 41 Gisele sans poils (l) acrylics on canvas, 170 x 130 cm, 2009 p. 42 Gisele sans poils (r) acrylics on canvas, 170 x 130 cm, 2009 p. 43 Kate, called (l) acrylics on canvas, 200 x 150 cm, 2006 p. 47 Elisabeths shared feelings acrylics on canvas, 140 x 180 cm, 2006 p. 48 Elisabeths mixed feelings acrylics on canvas, 140 x 180 cm, 2006 p. 49 Big Easy 2004 – 2010, detail pp. 50 — 53 Meidonna acrylics on canvas, 140 x 120 cm, 2006 p. 55 PET acrylics on canvas, 100 x 110 cm, 2006 p. 57 Cire n°60 wax and pigments on canvas on wood, 58 x 72,5 cm, 1992 p. 58 Cire n°63 wax and pigments on canvas on wood, 58 x 72,5 cm, 1992 p. 59 Twins f. acrylics, oil, pencil on canvas, 150 x 110 cm, 2001 p. 63 Ta 66 wax and pigments on canvas on wood, 210 x 300 cm, 1994 pp. 64 — 65 Répétition 1 wax and pigments on canvas on wood, 55 x 68 cm p. 67 Répétition 2 wax and pigments on canvas on wood, 55 x 68 cm p. 69