Artists do it better. Eating that is. Find out the culinary secrets of some of Australia's top artists in this exclusive extract from The Artist's Lunch, recently published by Murdoch Books.

Over three years writer, Alice McCormick, and photographer, Sarah Rhodes, journeyed into the homes of Australia’s most pre-eminent artists and unearthed captivating stories of their lives and work. Over lunch, and in their own words, artists from John Olsen to Dorothy Napangardi, Nell to Tim Storrier, discuss how food influences their work and reveal their unique personalities, beliefs, histories and habitats, as well as the processes and philosophies behind their art-making.

Alice McCormick talks about the process of creating The Artist's Lunch:

"Food can be nothing, and everything. It can be fast, a culinary one-night stand, evanescent as a drunken midnight feast. Or it can be slow, slower than paint: that special bottle cellared for so long it's older than your grandchild.

Whether to cook fast or slow was just one of the questions I took to each of the artists. I wanted to know things such as: Are artists as creative in the kitchen as they are on canvas? Does good taste in art follow through to good taste in food? Will the maxim 'tell me what you eat and I'll tell you who you are' hold true?'...

...What [is contained in the book is] eighteen invitations to dine with the most surprising and engaging selection of bon viveurs. Like that game about who you'd like to invite to your ideal dinner party; forget the high-minded nonsense about wanting your companions to be Aristotle, Voltaire, Jefferson, let me assure you that you want to dine with artists. Artists do it better."

The Artists

John Olsen
Born in Newcastle, John Olsen studied at the Julian Ashton School in Sydney before travelling to Paris to continue his education at the Orban School. The National Gallery of Victoria curated a major retrospective of his work in 1991. The worthy recipient of many accolades throughout his career, Olsen has won the Wynne Prize twice, in 1969 and 1985, and was awarded the Archibald Prize for Self Portrait Janus Faced in 2005. John Olsen received an OBE in 1977 for his outstanding service to the arts, and was further acknowledged with an Order of Australia in 2001. For The Artist's Lunch he cooked poulet Picasso.

Jeffrey Smart
Adelaide-born Jeffrey Smart is one of Australia’s most celebrated artists. He studied at the South Australian School of Arts and Craft from 1938–1941, and furthered his art studies in Europe from 1948–1950, including a period in Paris under Fernand Léger. In 1951, Smart was awarded the Commonwealth Jubilee Art Prize and from 1952–1954 was the art critic for Sydney’s Daily Telegraph. Smart became a permanent resident in Italy in 1963, and has continued to show regularly in Australia, holding over forty-five exhibitions between 1967 and 2006. The Art Gallery of New South Wales held a major retrospective of his work in 1999. For The Artist's Lunch he cooked poulet Vermouth.

Margaret Olley
Margaret Olley is regarded as Australia’s most important twentieth-century still-life painter. She is also among the country’s biggest art benefactors and established the Margaret Hannah Olley Art Trust in 1990 to purchase works for public collections. Olley has received five honorary doctorates from Macquarie University, 1991, the University of Queensland, 1999, the University of Sydney, 2000, Griffith University, 2006, and Southern Cross University, 2007. A biography by Meg Stewart, Far From a Still Life was published in 2005. Olley was appointed Companion of the Order of Australia in 2006, and declared an Australian National Treasure the year after. For The Artist's Lunch she shared a delicious recipe for leek sauce.

Tim Storrier
At the age of nineteen, Sydney-born Tim Storrier became the youngest artist to be awarded the Sulman Prize in 1969. After completing his studies at the National Art School the following year, he continued to make an impact on the Australian art scene, and has more recently been recognised in Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States. Represented in many prestigious exhibitions, including the Australian Bicentennial Exhibition at Fischer Fine Art, London, 1988, Storrier has been collected by all major Australian art museums and is included in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. In 1994, he was awarded Member of the Order of Australia for services to contemporary Australian art. Tim shared his recipe for Fez lamb pie.

Anne Zahalka
Anne Zahalka is one of Australia’s most highly regarded photographic artists. A recipient of numerous awards and commissions, Zahalka’s achievements include winner of the Leopold Godowsky Photography Award, Boston, 2005, and the Sydney Airport commission, Welcome to Sydney, 2003. In 2007, the Centre for Contemporary Photography in Melbourne mounted a major retrospective of her work, Hall of Mirrors: Anne Zahalka Portraits 1987–2007. Anne cooked up baked duck with caraway seeds for the book.

Jason Benjamin
Jason Benjamin was sixteen years old when he won a scholarship to study at the Pratt Institute in New York. He first exhibited in New York in 1989 and he has since given over forty solo exhibitions in Australia, London, Tokyo, Singapore and New York. Benjamin won the hailed Kings School Art Prize for landscape painting in 1997 and is three-times winner of the Mosman Art Prize in Sydney. Benjamin’s clients include celebrity personalities such as, Brad Pitt and Kevin Spacey.