Feist’s latest album PLEASURE was recorded in Stinson Beach, California; Upstate New York; and Paris, and for that California session, Adrienne Amato came to cook for the musicians and crew. The recording studio and the kitchen were separated by a thin wall, which meant that Adrienne cooked very quietly. The experience in Stinson Beach led to the creation of a cookbook, PLEASURES: THE MEALS OF AN ALBUM, and all profits from the sale of the book go to Community Foods Centres Canada, an umbrella network that funds food security and food justice programs all over the country.
Come hang out with us in Adrienne’s kitchen as Feist and Ade make South African Seed Bread and Ariel Engle’s Halloumi Soup, both recipes from the book. We ended up sitting there all afternoon, talking about family meals, Adrienne’s vinyl-listening room in her childhood home in Zimbabwe, algorithms, butter tarts, Feist’s favourite restaurant on earth, if she has a listener in mind when she writes, and music they listen to when they cook. This is a wonderfully intimate conversation, and it’s full of surprises and insights.
Adrienne has worked in mental health for over 25 years and is currently a psychotherapist in private practice. She has also made several arts/culturally based documentary films, and is a regular curator of musical events. Her films have won numerous awards, screening at prestigious festivals such as Rotterdam, Clermont-Ferrand, and Doc Leipzig, as well as being broadcast on TVO and CBC. Her filmography includes Forgotten Mother (1989), A Brief Life (1992), First Break (1997, National Film Board), National Anthem of Nowhere (2007), Side Girl, (2012) and To the End of Poverty, (2013) which was made for TVO as part of the international Why Poverty? Series. She is currently completing a feature length documentary film, Mbira Talks, in collaboration with Fifth Town Films.
Other goodness:
The Heat: A Kitchen (R)evolution, a documentary film by Maya Gallus
