slides: Culinaria Vol. 5 with Chef Aaron Barnett at Disjecta

Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Byron Beck, GoLocalPDX Features Editor

Developer Randy Rapaport and Chef Aaron Barnett at Culinaria. Photo by Byron Beck.

Disjecta Contemporary Art Center director Bryan Suereth held another installment of his savory and successful Culinaria on Monday night.

The chef-driven dinner series brings food lovers and art lovers together around the table at in support of Disjecta's Curator-in-Residence program.

Far from Disjecta (the art center is located in the heart of North Portland's Kenton neighborhood) the situation in Ferguson was coming to a boil at exactly the same time of the dinner.

A few of the patrons, waiting to hear the decision of the grand jury, were a few minutes late for dinner. And the explosiveness of what was happening on the streets Ferguson couldn't help but seep into the conversation that night.

That said, the dinner provided a calming distraction from what was happening outside of Portland. Art has a way of doing that some time. The current show, SIGHTINGS, featuring artists Kevin Cooley and Jessica Mallios and curated by Rachel Adams, transfixed the room by transporting its participants away from the madness of the world to a more translucent space full of blue skies and bright sun and moonshine.

The show was the perfect starter to the dinner. Culinaria Vol. 5 featured Chef Aaron Barnett of St. Jacks.

See slideshow of Culinaria below

Pairing chefs, the curator and the artists, Culinaria offers intimate access to the creative process culminating in a unique menu created specifically in response to the exhibition. Seating is limited to just 40 guests, and wine and cocktail pairings are key to the experience.

For the dinner —entitled "A French Canadian in L.A."—Barnett, who was born in the Great White North but spent many of his formative years in sunny Southern California, prepared dishes such as his "Canadian Tostada" featuring foie gras, pork rinds and maple syrup, as well an entree that featured heart, bone marrow and squid ink that was meant to evoke a ribeye steak and caeser salad.

Ambitious to say the least (and very tasty) it also reflected Disjecta's mission to showcase the best that contemporary art and eating has to offer. Bravo.

Disjecta curator-in-residence Rachel Adams and Nick Miller with their son Copernicus at Culinaria, the chef-driven dinner series bringing food lovers and art lovers together around the table in support of Disjecta's Curator-in-Residence program.

Photo by Byron Beck.