Professor Butter Beard and Teaching Vincent
“I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream.” - Vincent van Gogh in a letter to Theo, 1889
How do I begin to explain my passionate connection with Vincent van Gogh to a room of iPhone-obsessed, Spring-fevered, dangerously over-caffeinated, but easily crashed into a nap as the lights go down, college freshmen?
Storytelling.
If I breathe and listen, I can still hear and witness the star-like twinkle of a smile in my slowly disappearing father’s voice. “Michael. When teaching, you must tell a story. Use that insane obsession of yours with theater and just share the story.”
But, which one, Dad? Do I begin with the story of an unhappy child born into an upper-middle class Dutch family with a fanatical Reformist minister for a father and a perfection-obsessed lost-money-heiress for a mother? Or the story of the intensely loving connection between two brothers, and the thousands of daily letters written by Vincent to Theo, sharing his every whirling thought in order to release them, allowing more to be born. Or the story of a young man bouncing between stints as a minister’s assistant, supply teacher, art dealer, bookseller, and missionary before finally realizing his volcanic passion was truly to be a painter?
For this group, I choose the story of an intensely troubled man who dreamt of stars.
Set against a backdrop of craggy limestone hills, the market town of Saint Remy-de-Provence is an enchanting cluster of buildings nestled together within a web of cobbled alleyways. A tapestry of olive groves, vineyards and waving cypress trees, smelling of wild thyme and rosemary, all serenaded with the cicadas’ summer song. On the southern outskirts of the town lies the former monastery of Saint-Paul-de-Mausole, a place of sanctuary for over a thousand years.
This former monastery turned psychiatric hospital was the chosen home of Vincent for 374 days, from May 1889 to May 1890. The artist had withdrawn to this sheltered retreat after mutilating his ear, the horrific episode which ended his fiery friendship with Paul Gauguin in their studio of the south in nearby Arles. His “auditory hallucinations” were more commanding than ever, and his only release was to physically force them from his thoughts onto the canvas via explosive swirls of oil paint.
Vincent was a keen observer of the night sky, as he had written to Theo: “The sight of stars makes me dream.” There was very little artificial light at Saint-Paul, and the night skies must have been truly aglow with starlight. “Peering through the iron bars of his (asylum) window,” writes his biographer Martin Bailey, “just before climbing into bed, must have represented blissful moments of escape for the artist.”
In June of 1889, Vincent’s soul captured his churning thoughts in oil paints as he gazed out that one window and witnessed the rising moon. He then added the planets and stars, featuring Venus, the brightest planet, which appeared just before the dawn of the new morning. He invented the sleeping town with the one stoic church whose spire stretches to touch the sky. His retained memories of having seen countless night skies through the iron bars merged into one image, allowing his impressive imagination free reign to create a stunning, highly personal vision.
“I dream my painting and I paint my dream.” – Vincent to Theo, 1889.
There’s my key. My connection to share. For like Vincent, I dream my baking and I bake my dream. I wake tasting fresh thyme and lemons. Basil and strawberries. Caraway and apples. Five-spice and parsnips. And today, roasted bananas and honey.
Thank you, Vincent. Our souls recognize the same desires, but you phrased it best: “I want to touch people with my art. I want them to say, ‘he feels deeply, he feels tenderly.’”
Professor Butter Beard’s Roasted Banana, Honey and Blueberry Cupcakes
Two Dozen Cupcakes
½ cup almond slices, toasted and cooled
4 ripe bananas
3 cups all-purpose flour
¾ tsp baking soda
¾ tsp baking powder
1 tsp fine sea salt
½ tsp freshly grated nutmeg
12 Tbsp ( 1 ½ sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar
5 large eggs, separated
¾ cup buttermilk
1 tsp vanilla paste
1 cup fresh blueberries
Honey Buttercream:
4 cups confectioner’s sugar, sifted
1 ½ cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
½ tsp fine sea salt
¼ cup (4 Tbsp) honey
Freshly grated nutmeg to taste
1) Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Line two muffin tins with liners. Toast the almond slices and set aside to cool. Sift together the flour, baking soda and powder, fine sea salt and nutmeg. Place the four bananas on a baking sheet and roast them for 15 minutes until the skins have completely blackened. Set aside to cool and reduce the oven temperature to 350 degrees.
2) In a standing mixer with the whisk attachment, whisk the five egg whites to soft peak. Use a spatula to slip the beaten whites into a large bowl. Set at the ready. Return the mixing bowl to the mixer and add the paddle attachment.
3) On high speed, cream the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Lower the speed and add the five egg yolks, one at a time. Add the peeled roasted bananas and vanilla paste and beat to combine. Add the dry mixture in three batches, alternating with two additions of the buttermilk. Remove the bowl from the mixer and gently fold in the egg whites, then the toasted almonds and fresh blueberries.
4) Divide the batter between the lined cups, filling them ¾ full. Bake for twenty minutes or so, rotating the pans halfway through. The cupcakes are done when the tops are set and spring back to the touch. Cool completely on a wire rack before piping on the honey buttercream frosting.
5) For the honey buttercream, beat all ingredients in a standing mixer with the paddle attachment until smooth. Use immediately.
