Discovering Tunisian Cuisine

Judith Dwan Hallet, Raoudha Guellali Ben Taarit, Hasna Trabelsi

Discovering Tunisian Cuisine is awesome and authentic both visually and content wise—my favorite kind of cookbook.  Judith Dwan Hallet, a videographer, ethnographer and daughter from a great culinary tradition — her late mother was longtime restaurant critic of the LA Times — has nailed Tunisian cuisine,  little known by Americans.  I can’t wait to cook every single recipe!!!……..Joan Nathan  Julia Child Award for Best Cookbook of the Year. Most recent cookbook, King Solomon’s Table

“We sat down each night to a delectable feast that delighted all our senses. Hasna’s meals were delicious, and her presentations were as colorful as the country’s carpets, ceramic tiles, flowering plants, and the azure skies above the Mediterranean Sea. “

“In Tunisia, women are generally the cooks and reign in the kitchen. Raoudha and Hasna are no exception.  They love to cook, and they took great pride in sharing their family recipes with me. In many ways, this cookbook is a personal journal recording my time with two fabulous women in their kitchens.” ….Judy Hallet 

Publishers: Spirit of Place/Spirit of Design, Inc., Washington, DC, USA, http://www.spiritofplace-design.com

Printed in China under the supervision of Raoul Goff President of Insight Editions

Stitched Hard Cover 147 pages First Edition 1019
ISBN Number:   978-1-7923-1830-6

$34.00 per copy

From Groucho to Gauchos

Adventures of a Documentary Filmmaker

Judith Dwan Hallet

Judith Dwan Hallet, an award winning documentary filmmaker, has been making films for nearly 50 years. She was a Peace Corps volunteer in Tunisia (1964-66), where she met her husband, Stanley Hallet.  They moved to Salt Lake City where Judy joined the documentary unit at the NBC affiliate, KUTV and later its weekly magazine show, EXTRA.  In 1986 they moved to Washington DC where Judy soon became Senior Producer for National Geographic Television’s weekly magazine show, EXPLORER.  After five years at National Geographic, Judy formed her own documentary film company. Judy's documentaries have received widespread acclaim as well as many prestigious awards including the DC Mayor’s Arts Award for Excellence in an Artistic Discipline and The Woman of Vision Creative Excellence Award from Women in Film and Video of Washington DC.  Judy also received an Emmy from The National Capital Chesapeake Bay Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences in recognition of her contributions to the industry. Judy earned a BA from Sarah Lawrence College and an MA in French from the University of Utah following graduate studies at UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television. Judy and Stanley Hallet live in Washington DC. 

Enter the world of award-winning documentary filmmaker, Judith Dwan Hallet, as her dramatic behind-the-scenes encounters unfold during the making of eleven` extraordinary documentaries. Based on her daily journals, From Groucho to Gauchos: Adventures of a Documentary Filmmaker describes the life of a woman filmmaker and the unique peoples and cultures she documents during a five decade-long career. When Hallet began making films, it was a man’s world. Never deterred, always determined, Hallet’s passion for recording the stories of people and their cultures, documenting their lives, concerns, joys and disappointments, drove her to continue, despite the obstacles placed in her way. Through dramatic narrative and outstanding photography, Hallet shares her life as a filmmaker. 

Her  films are diverse: ranging from the return of the buffalo to the American Indians, to the Gauchos in Argentina, and Pope John Paul II.  In Tanzania we meet Jane Goodall and her wild chimpanzees.  On the island of New Guinea, Hallet treks through the rain forest to film the Korowai, who live in tree houses and within memory practiced a form of ritual cannibalism. Hallet’s fundamental philosophy shines through her writing. She believes by understanding people’s differences, cultures and beliefs, our planet becomes smaller, less frightening, less absurd, and hopefully, one day, more peaceful and tolerant. 

For a single high quality copy of this limited edition book, the cost is $70.00 plus shippiing.

For an equally high quality dvd of the book, this is available through Blurb.com and will cost $14.99

https://www.blurb.com/b/11308093-from-groucho-to-gauchos-adventures-of-a-documenta

ISBN 978-1-7923-1830-6

Évolution d’un habitat: le monde BerbÉre du Sud Tunisien

André Louis et Stanley Ira Hallet

Évolution d’un habitat: le monde Berbère du Sud tunisien, documents a remarkable group of villages found in the mountains of Southern Tunisia where the Berbers many centuries ago sought refuge from the invading Arabs who were occupying the plains below. Prepared by the distinguished ethno-anthropologist Père André Louis and me, the initial publication by the French research group, CNRS, was interrupted by the untimely death of Père André Louis in 1978. Much of the original material was believed to have been lost during the process of publication in the late 1970s. Over the last two years I have reassembled the original French text and scanned over one thousand 35 mm Kodachrome slides taken over forty years ago. 

 These photographs have become a rare record of the state of the Berber villages at that time. I also found and restored the accompanying conceptual drawings and an original set of black and white photographic prints taken with a large format camera. The collaboratively written text provides the historic, geological and cultural context that ultimately transformed and defined the village forms we encountered. I have also added a prologue and epilogue in English and French written by me today.

The book presents a unique approach to studying traditional village form, one that stresses the radical changes the village forms underwent during their descent from their once defensive mountain peaks. Even if you do not understand French, you should find the drawings and photographs self-explanatory as they are a great value to those studying traditional architecture.

IISBN 978-1-4507-6449-0

160 pages, hardcover dust jacket, standard paper at $110.00 hardcover dust jacket, premium paper, One-off on Digital fabricator Blurb.com retail cost is $184.20 plus tax and shipping.

For an equally high quality dvd of the book, go to Blurb.com for a total cost of $10.40

A Forest Garden on Some Pond Mt. Desert Island, Maine

Stanley Ira Hallet with accompanying text by Judith Goldstein

I became friends with Judy Goldstein and her brother Jon Stein over many years of summer vacationing on Mt. Desert Island. They purchased their family property in the same year that my wife Judy and several friends bought our house. The year was the same, but everything else was different. We were in Bar Harbor in a mansion, an aging monument from Bar Harbor’s long past golden age and Judy and Jon shared a compact Bauhaus like cottage built in 1952 on the other side of the island. From a cleared, flat, grassy setting, we looked out on the immense expanse of Frenchman Bay. They were in a completely different part of Mt. Desert, on a small pond touching close to Somesville, Mt. Desert Island's most modest and picturesque town. 

 The typical Maine woods is often an impenetrable tangle of underbrush, the result of criss-crossing dead branches from the fir and spruce trees. It appears that only the top of these deciduous evergreens are alive as they block out the sun in its attempt to penetrate the forest floor.  The acidic needles that fall, form a thick forest floor where little new growth stands a chance of surviving. The resulting thicket hides everything including sizable boulders called glacial erratics that haphazardly fell to the earth when thick glaciers retreated from the island. Through a patient but strenuous act of editing, of careful removal, the once impenetrable forest became an ever-expanding refuge for plants as well as people.  

The Mosques of Djerba Les Mosqués de Djerba

Stanley Ira Hallet with additional text by Ali Djerbi

In 1989, architectural students from The Catholic University of America (CUA) and three students from l’Institut Technologique d’Art, d’Architecture et d’Urbanism de Tunis (ITAAUT) traveled to the Island of Djerba in Southern Tunisia with Professor Stanley Ira Hallet. With the assistance of Professor Ali Djerbi, they documented the extraordinary white mosques that dot the landscape of Djerba, thought to be the mysterious island of the lotus-eaters in the tales of the Odyssey.  While on the island, they selected five mosques to record. The resulting hand drawings document these complexes where the profane, poetic and sacred exist side by side.  These neighborhood mosques sit in the middle of carefully irrigated gardens with their minarets reaching up over the surrounding palm trees. Constructed of humble materials, the monolithic forms melt to form a single undulating surface containing the traditional prayer spaces and raised platform that defines the outdoor sacred space. 

http://www.blurb.com/my/book/detail/1530394 105 pages hardcover, normal paper, $53.95 premium paper, lustre fiinish, $61.29

Sketches from Mount Desert Island

Stanley Ira Hallet

From 1980 to 1994 Stanley sought refuge to draw along the coast of Mt. Desert Island in Maine. The pencil and pen sketches in this book document his time sitting on a rock deconstructing the landscape in front of him. Part meditation, part observation, the drawings record that special zone where water and land meet as well as the structures that were built nearby. Disappearing into a body of rocks, trees and sky, he  captures with simple lines the never-ending erosion of the coast revealing the forces of nature as well as man's interventions that have defined this very special place.

“Quite often, I could be found sitting on a rock, taking out a lone pencil and an elementary school metal pencil sharpener. On a single pad of heavy sketch paper I began to draw.  To this day, I admit I remain the anal-compulsive type, a prerequisite in the field of architecture where so much can go wrong.  Thus, for me, the act of drawing was nothing less than a form of deconstructing the landscape in front of me. The only way I could comprehend my surrounding was to realize the very rules that governed it, that defined it.  Throughout the summer, it was through these mini-escapes that I began to understand the underlying realities of geology and the forces that eroded it.”

His work is carried by Artemis Gallety in Northeast Harbor, Maine

JON STEIN’S COLLECTION THE CENTER HOUSE

STANLEY IRA HALLET

WITH ACCOMPANYING TEXT BY JUDITH S. GOLDSTEIN

Over many years Jon Stein honed the art of collecting beautiful photographs, textiles, furniture, ceramic and prints. He started with the innate gift of looking that he turned into a discipline and finally into the art of collecting. The first plunge into collecting came with his fascination with 19th and 20th American and European landscape photography.  He studiously studied the development of the craft from its inception. He looked at thousands of photographs and then bought. By the 1990s, he had built a significant collection that was exhibited at the Currier Museum of Art in Manchester, New Hampshire.  The Museum is now in possession of many of the finest works that Jon collected.

From photography, he moved on to a fascination with the decorative arts. His love of landscape, particularly in Maine, led him to collecting crafts of Maine artists.  Summer after summer he traveled the state to look, procure pieces and develop friendships with many artists. He was an itinerant or traveling figure in search of beautiful objects not just in Maine and New England but also on his travels throughout the world.

He died prematurely but just at the time when he had assembled his collection in the house that he redesigned and loved.  

A collector may never find absolute peace but Jon surely found a sense of purpose and fulfillment in collecting art. The joy of his life, the collection now gives joy to many others. It is unique in its diversity of forms and crafts. His home is now a place where artists and writers find inspiration and a testament to the creativity and beauty of so many artists.

This book is a testament to Jonís art of looking and collecting.  Since there are no photographs of his photographs, paintings and prints, this book illustrates only a part of his collection. 

IISBN 978-1-4507-6449-0 © 2017

127 pages, hardcover dust jacket, premium paper, lustre fiinish Web price at $55.00 Blurb.com at $82.79