PEOPLE ARE

TALKING ABOUT
P H O T O G R A P H Y: G A S PA R T R I N G A L E

{ JOHN DINGLER }

CREATIVE FORCE

TOP CHEFS:

Sara Huston and Leah Di Bernardo

earless canine hero Rin Tin Tin returns in a fascinating new nonfiction book by author Susan Orlean. She spent weeks in Riverside researching the movie star dogrescued from a World War I battlefieldand his TV actor descendants, trying to figure out the myth and the reality. "Riverside is so important to the book," Orlean says. The dogs owner and trainer, Lee Duncan, raised dogs and horses at Rancho Rin Tin Tin, near Riversides Fairmount Park. After Rin Tin Tins character became an international celebrity, the ranch attracted a stream of visitors hoping to meet Duncan and his dogs. Duncan also trained World War II military dogs at Camp Haan. Duncan kept a Memory Room in Rin Tin Tins honor, and after Duncans death, many of its contents were donated to Riverside Metropolitan Museum after a narrow escape from the trash bin, as Orlean explains. The museums collection of Rin Tin Tin material includes pictures and TV scripts, which museum staffers hope to have on display this fall. Orlean, author of The Orchid Thief (made into the movie Adaptation), plans to return to Riverside for a Rin Tin Tin: Th e Life and the Legend signing. Information: susanorlean.com. BY: JEANNE BOYER

A DOGS LIFE

{ SUSAN ORLEAN }

KITCHEN HEAT

{ WINNING CHEFS }

48

S EPTEM BER 2011

INLAND EMPIRE

P H O T O G R A P H Y: T R I N A G O N Z A L E Z

Temecula chefs Sara Huston and Leah Di Bernardo beat the boys in a recent cooking competition at Leonesse Cellars. Their dinner from provided ingredientsincluding kumquats and short ribs wowed the audience. Di Bernardo, executive chef of Delytes Catering and EAT Marketplace in Temecula, is now focusing on her Farm To Table dinner series, featuring locally produced ingredients. The first dinner menu included arugula, organic grape and Nicolau Farms goat cheese salad with pancetta vinaigrette; mushroom agnolotti; heirloom tomato and syrah-braised short ribs with English peas and Crows Pass mini fat potatoes, and upside down blood orange cake with Nicolau Farms goat cheese whipped cream, with Europa Village wines. Future events include a September Temecula in the Vines dinner at Palumbo Winery, an Oct. 1 Fall Harvest Supper in the pumpkin patch at Petzer Pumpkin Farm, and a Nov. 14 Farmer, Chef & Winemaker dinner at Europa Village. Dinner tickets: (951) 694-3663, eatmarketplace.com

iverside artist John Dingler was born in Gorizia, Italy and incorporates some of the elegant architecture of that country with a pop art sensibility in his 3-D creations, now on view at the Riverside Community Arts Association in downtown Riverside. Dingler says the combination of classical influence and irreverance became evident when he and his brother tossed stones at statues of Venus and Apollo at the Castello di Miramare in Trieste. Dingler moved to Washington, D.C., then Maryland as a child, became a U. S. citizen, and later joined the U.S. Navy. He studied at UC Berkeley, has art degrees from UC Irvine and the University of Maryland, and exhibits his work internationally. He makes moviettes for YouTube as well as paintings. Politics and social issues infuse much of his work, including his Neo-Cons series, and Dingler is working on politically themed pieces for an upcoming exhibit. While he sees the entertainment value in politics, hes passionate about the impact of politicians and Wall Street tycoons on peoples lives. I take life very seriously, Dingler says. His latest project is Diaphanous Geithner, a portrait of U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, whose silhouettes are filled with a sheer fabric with metallic dots. The Diaphanous Geithner rests on a colonnade of Doric columns that mimics the Treasury building facade, half submerged in an aquarium. Miniature Monopoly-style houses float underwater. A motorized hand between the Geithner profiles represents Dinglers effort to influence Geithners thoughts (he describes it in a more colorful fashion). His work often combines photos, drawings, classical figures, and news headlines. Its important to look closely at the images making up the background on an eight-foottall hand called Sex is to Bowling as Violence is to Parachuting, or a sculpture called The Consumer. While his shaped canvases were inspired by the minimalist work of Frank Stella, Dinglers examples include figures inside the tool- or gun-shaped outlines. Dingler has taught college classes, but finds they distract from his work. You can never do any deep, multi-layered art when you teach, he says. BY: JEANNE BOYER

P H O T O G R A P H Y: A U B R E Y N O E L L E

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