The Knish Konnection Knotted our Kishkes
By Alissa Merksamer and Katharine Schub


Sweet potato knish ice cream. Photo Katharine Schub

        Single, hedonic, and hungry, the romantic dames of insatiable-critic.com never pass up opportunities for love and free food.  So when artists Phoebe Joel and Joy Tomasko invited us to Knish Konnection studio for blind dates and free knishes, we instantly accepted. There in the mockup of a laboratory in the cellar of the Allegra LaViola Gallery on the Lower East Side, we found Tomasko in her white lab coat. The surrounding show “Be Meat and Drink” is a multi-sensory experience meant to challenge viewers’ relationship to food and each other. Visitors are invited to engage in a “30-minute meal” with Joel in which they learn about her oppressive diet of purified food chemicals. Alternatively they can make their own postmodern knish using a nubby baked potato and a flat piece of fried dough.  Or they can do what we did and seek romance in Tomasko’s “blind pairings.”

Umami condoms hang like bats in the gallery fridge. Photo Katharine Schub

       While the two of us are wait for our dates to show up, Tomasko pops a sweet potato knish from Yonah Schimmel’s into a toaster oven.  Why a knish, we ask Tomasko. “They’re simple and portable,” she responds.  

As the knish warms, we wander around the studio observing the yonic and phallic kiwis, bananas, apples, and parsnips carefully arranged on the floor. We peek inside the refrigerator to find four beige sausage-like sacks flecked with green hanging from the top shelf. They are umami condoms, Joel later explains, made with potato, mayonnaise, and parsley. In the afternoon, there will be tofu condoms rigged with vibrators which participants must eat without using their hands. As tempting as that sounds, we opt for Joel’s sweet potato ice cream instead.  It comes in a small carton emblazoned with a knish and costs $11.99 per icy, bland scoop.

The only choices on this date are ketchup, mustard or Japanese mayonnaise. Photo Katharine Schub

        Our designated dates eventually arrive and seem shockingly normal.  One is tall, dark, and handsome with an indefinable but nonetheless sexy accent.  The other is short but solid and is rumored to be from France. We can’t prove it. He didn’t say much. Our knish-connected quartet sits on cardboard boxes, nibbling knishes as Tomasko hands us note cards dictating our conversation. Alas, even with her help, there is an awkward disconnect. Then an egg timer buzzes us out of our captive embarrassment. We drown the last of the vodka Tomasko has kindly provided and watch our guys bolt for the door. Smashed potatoes is not an aphrodiasiac after all. The exhibition is open on April 9 and 16 from 12:00-6:00. Email potato@knishkonnection.com for reservations.