It was an accident
June 29, 2005
Puffed quinoa is delicious and has a surprising texture. I heated it in an a lightly oild pan but a paint stripper will do a better job in the future. The plan was a chapati with a puffed quinoa 'layer'. That plan still needs a bit of work and I'm hoping that Harold McGee's On Food and Cooking will help me sort out the differences between quinoa, sorghum and millet, water absorbtion, and the gelatinization of starch.
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Lolly Lab
June 28, 2005
Imagine my delight last Sunday when the very first work I see at Arnhem's exam show is Bas Kools' Lolly Lab. Kools is a freshly graduated designer with fine prospects for the future. He'll attend the RCA in London next year.
What I loved most about Kools' setup was that he put the prototypes into a playful context. He seemed to have thought of everything; the playful array of lolly sticks, sugar melting copper pans, ceramic pots and recepticals, the vessels containing the flavours and colours, palet dishes, a working lab unit with gas burners (water?), air blowers, lolly holders in metal and rubber, bottle stops, display, etc... Kools has an interest in finding ways to make 'design' 'accessible'. But some of the sexier shapes of the lolly holders and the rubber slings reminded me immediately of the details hidden (and thus showcased) in a Matthew Barney work. Not bad.
And this leads me to my wee critique of the work. Kools designed a lolly laboratory, a perfect context for his range, so where are the experimental lollies? It is a pity that in this instance, Bas used standard flavours, colours and non-designed shapes for the lollies themselves. It would be worthwhile investigating working with a chef or someone with a developed and outspoken culinary aesthetic to create flavours, colours, textures and shapes as alluring and expressive as the other parts of this lab and installation. The well-designed utensils, if they are meant to be accessible, should serve and even contribute to the experimentation that is going on in the lab. There is still plenty of space for this to happen in the future. I certainly would be willing to give it a go; the Lolly Lab gave me itchy fingers.
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I would have been satisfied with less
June 27, 2005
Café Dudok in Arnhem prepared a special menu in honour of the Arnhem Fashion Biennale. Dutch Art Institute student, MuXue and I were visiting Arnhem for other reasons entirely but we did manage to end the day with an hors d'oeuvre and dessert at said café. The starter, a smoked turkey avocado and edible flower 'wrap', was printed in a floral pattern with cherry red pigment. It was most unfortunate that the pigment had no additional flavour because it would've been great if the pattern was made out of salsa picante for example, with an overlay of patterned guacamole and maybe cutout smoked turkey in pretty tailored shapes. Bring on les ruches!
Also the California-Dutch in me always feels inclined to let folks know that 'wraps' (let's just call them white flour tortillas from now on) really should be served warmed up to arouse the subtle flavours of the nutritional void that is white flour.
The dessert of this fashion menu was presented rather simply and therefore I reacted to the lack of pretension with less venom. Visually it reminded me of Allsorts licorice candy. It was a dessert of blocks and a worthwhile array of textures, had some of the flavours not come from directly out of standard bottled essences. MuXue and I felt we were served far too much food, but that's something that seems to be inescapable these days. The service was great by the way, and this is a rarity in a café in the Netherlands.
Squares from top left and top to bottom: walnut fudge brownie, bitter almond pannacotta, raspberry bavarois, dark chocolate-raisin fudge, cake au mousse au chocolat, coconut snowball. The finger pokes in the mousse and in the raspberry bavarois are the author's own.
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Claiming my feed at feedster
June 19, 2005
No Need to Click Here - I'm just claiming my feed at Feedster
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Sometimes I'm irreverent and I take the easy way out. Here's how...
June 15, 2005
Granitas shown clockwise from 10 'o clock; duoi uoi nuoc hot e (let's just call this, banana and acceptably gelatinous seed drink), ice coffee, green tea tofu, lychee soda, passion fruit&juniper berry&ume boshi, mango tofu. Center; guava disk.
The motivation behind this granita sampler was the desire to make some recipes that involved little more than ripping open a can of Chinese soft-drink, freezing the contents for two and a half hours and then giving it a good scratchin'.
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Space food
June 14, 2005
(image courtesy of ESA Directorate of Human Spaceflight and Alain Ducasse)
A former colleague of mine, aerospace engineer Alexander van Dijk, sent me this link about chef Ducasse and his staff developing food for manned missions into space. Check out the space food experiments from the directorate of human spaceflight right here. The article talks about aiming to produce 40% of the food locally for astronauts on long term missions. The nine basic ingredients that ESA plans to grow on other planets are: rice, onions, tomatoes, soya, potatoes, lettuce, spinach, wheat and spirulina, a blue-green algae, very rich in protein (65% by weight), calcium, carbohydrates, lipids and various vitamins.
Although I love to develop recipes based upon a highly restricted diet as much as the next guy, I really miss seeing bean and seed sprouts in the descriptions Ducasse experiments. it's so easy to do and you have within 4 days food healthier than when you just had a hill of beans.
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Hibiscus flowers
June 12, 2005
One million years ago, when I was a little girl, I had a piano teacher called Miss Pierce. She was an elegant and graceful woman, and ancient, as far as I was concerned. She was the secret girlfriend of Mr. Greenjeans, from the chilluns' TV show, Captain Kangaroo! We lived in a university town full of orange and date orchards on the edge of the desert, and Miss Pierce was probably one of the few people there that fulfilled for me, in her own wierd and spinster way, the notion of what it is to be 'fabulous'.
I used to arrive at her strangely decorated house for lessons with my neighbour Michelle, who was even more of a tomboy than I was. The two of us played so rambunctiously that Miss Pierce decided to give us 'lady-lessons' at no extra charge. We agreed to the lady-lessons because we just loved listening to Miss Pierce blather on and on about table manners and gentlemen as we sipped hibiscus tea and nibbled girlscout cookies, all the while kicking eachother surreptitiously under the table.
Miss Pierce liked her hibiscus tea incredibly sour but I never added sugar because sugar was 'white death', and I was trying to get my head around enjoying sour things. Hibiscus flowers in their wet form, alive and still on the tree, are forever connected in my mind with my father and his battle against vast herds of aphids. But hibiscus flower in its dry form and as a tea still reminds me of my piano teacher, Miss Pierce, patiently battling to turn me and Michelle into ladies.
Today I'm experimenting with using hibiscus flower as a souring agent in a batch of quick pickles and a vegetable broth intended for a summer borscht although 12°c doesn't really qualify as summer.
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Kaprow's fluids
June 11, 2005
Art online or e-flux sent me this. It's tomorrow so rush on down to Basel if you don't want to miss out.
Allan Kaprow: FLUIDS, 1967/2005
International workshop of the Applied Arts Universities at Art Unlimited Basel
June 13, 2005, from 14.00h
To mark the opening of Art Unlimited in Basle, Allan Kaprow‚s Happpening FLUIDS will be reinvented for the first time since 1967 by an international workshop, in co-operation with the Department of Art and Design at Basle‚s University of Applied Sciences and the University Basle.
Father of Happenings‚ Allan Kaprow was born in 1927. Nearly 40 years later, the art form he created continues to provoke questions about time, community and collective structures. His Happening FLUIDS involved constructing enclosures with ice blocks at various locations in Pasadena and Los Angeles. Kaprow recruited participants using billboards that displayed the FLUIDS score: „During three days, about twenty rectangular enclosures of ice blocks (measuring about 30 feet long, 10 wide and 8 high) are built throughout the city. Their walls are unbroken. They are left to melt‰.
Groups of young people made his work a reality. They stacked blocks of ice, delivered by the Union Ice Company, into rectangular structures. Over the ensuing days, the ice structures melted. Photographs, film, the billboard score, the artist‚s notes and drawings, letters and press clippings document the ephemeral event.
Now FLUIDS will occur for the second time. Ice structures will be built at three different sites across Basle, including Art Basel‚s headquarters building and the roof of the adjacent parking structure. Co-operating in the Happening are the Department of Art and Design at Basle University of Applied Science (Creative Art ˆ Media Art Department), the art history seminars of Basle University, Basle and Lucerne University Departments of Art and Design, the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich and the University of Weimar and Vienna. At the artist‚s request, students will spend two days in a workshop, devising strategies to realize the work. They will determine such particulars as how to co-ordinate delivery of the ice blocks, secure the necessary equipment and design of the structures. Thus they will create a Basle-specific, contemporary variant of the Happening, this time without the artist's direct involvement.
Call 'em up!
Phone +41 (0)44 446 80 50
http://www.hauserwirth.com
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Fortunately the food was slow and dry
June 10, 2005
When the 'slow' is the Slow Food Movement and the 'dry' is Dutch design agents Droog Design, the combination of slow and dry is a good thing. In Dutch, droog means 'dry', and it refers to the dry humor of many of their designed objects. Droog is celebrating their Amsterdam Staalstraat location by hosting a temporary 'fastfood' restaurant to showcase their food-related design items (open until Sunday 12.06). The menu is quintessential fast food; burgers, chips, shakes, but all the ingredients are sourced from local ingredients, made by artisanal suppliers and prepared with the love and attention of Slow Food Movement volunteers. I decided to be a lady who lunches and give their grub a try.
The foodstuffs arrive in round-bottomed ceramic bowls - all of which you may take home with you after eating! The strawberry shake contained a goodly portion of fresh, local strawberries. The burger bun was made from brioche dough, the burger, real chopped all-organic beef, dripping real meat juices! And so the story goes, good ingredients prepared with love from barnyard to burp. The restaurant is primarily about letting folks try out design objects in a real food context so not surprisingly the portions are mini-petit. This sweet and small design choice reminded me of the way Pee Wee Herman used to eat baby corn on TV; kernel for kernel typewriter style! After finishing my slow fastfood lunch, I wasn't hungry but I did have a little hunquering to take home some more of those cute little round-bottomed bowls.
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Strawberry stories
June 09, 2005
I took home some of those organic strawberries from Brabant last Sunday and by Monday morning I had turned eating strawberries into a yoga breathing practice. Inhale; pop a strumberry in your mouth and squish it against the roof of your mouth with your tongue, wait. Exhale; get high off the strawberry flavour. I got so good at doing this that I could eat one strawberry per breath!
The berries were sitting in a bowl on the counter and I was wandering around the house when all of a sudden I heard a huge BANG coming from the kitchen. (You can see the mark on the window in the image above.) Apparently a bird spied the strawberries and thought, 'mmmmmmmmmmmm breakfast', and smashed headlong into the window! Ouchy!
Normally I don't even like strawberries. They're like tomatoes in that they usually don't taste good unless you grow them yourself, but these strawberries were amazingly aromatic and tastey. Peter, from Artis said that when he went to pick up the two crates at the farmers' market last Sunday, the farmer insisted upon carrying the crates home for him. And so they went, side by side, the farmer proudly displaying the crates of jewel-like strawberries all the way home.
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Art is, art was fluid last Sunday
June 08, 2005
Due to the good company and delightfully engaged audience, artist initiative Artis in Den Bosch showed this Sunday (05.06.2005) that they really know how to throw a happening. Margriet Kemper opened the salon with a presentation of her book, Speak, Image! (unfortunately only in Dutch) in which she talks about how the image is actually a performer. Kemper cited Allan Kaprow, the Daddy of the Happening, explaining to us the choice of the title of the event, Art Fluid.
A.K.: 'I want the line between art and life to be as fluid as possible'.
A presentation of culiblog was next on the menu followed by a breathtaking poetry reading by Robert Gray (AU) and the Dutch translator of Gray's work, Maarten Elzinga. Wafts of rosey caramel in-the-make were the only distraction as both Gray and Elzinga read for the better part of 42 minutes to a rapt audience.
Now there's only so much reflection and interior thought that an audience can take, and just when we thought we would forever be living inside of our heads, the shy noise band, SPASM performed invisibly from the guts of the cavernous gallery. It was just the lightness that the moment needed and everyone started to beam with smiles so broad they barely fit on their faces. Everyone except the young children who ran around annoyed with fingers in their ears.
What could be a better follow-up to a poetry reading and a concert of noise than a cookery presentation! Together with my fabulous assistants, Stefano and Kaj, I rejoiced in showing other Dutch people how to make the traditional Dutch 'hang-op'. The hang-op had been dripping whey all the livelong day in linen bags hanging from pink string, defining the space of the kitchen. Stefano removed the linen bags from meathooks and helped Kaj scrape out the 'hung' yogurt from within. Kaj then proceeded to beat to a satiny smooth consistency, the yogurt with rose flavoured whipped cream. I know, it was very, very sexy.
While the audience enjoyed a film by Annika Ström and a presentation of Jan van Toorn's (re)releases from the oldies but goodies of avant-garde sound-art, Kaj and Stefano prepared the banquet table with rose petals, rosey caramel, organic local strawberries and little bowls of hang-op.
Aan tafel, I sort of whispered into the microphone.
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Recipes without words
June 05, 2005
Image: olive oil, green tea powder, ume boshi vinegar, © Debra Solomon 2004
The images above and below are from a cookbook of mine in-the-making titled Recipes without words. Or rather, with very few words. More later. I’m about to do a presentation about culiblog in the ‘s Hertogenbosch artists’ initiative Artis. This Sunday’s programme is titled Art Fluid and culiblog is just one of several interesting programme pieces. We will be making Hang op with rose caramel and local strawberries.
Image: olive oil, grass powder, ume boshi vinegar, © Debra Solomon 2004
Image: sugar, soy sauce, shrimp powder, © Debra Solomon 2004
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Recycled tetraware and even more leafenware
June 03, 2005
The image on the left shows (clockwise from 10 o'clock) a repurposeed surplus tetra-pak plate, a banana bark pressed bowl, a paper plate made out of 'surplus' film poster and the underside of the tetra-pak plate showing its origins as a tomato paste container for an arab-speaking country. In the centre is the underside of a banana bark bowl.
The image on the right shows a beautiful sewn leaf platter (~50cm diam) backed with surplus printed plastic originally produced for juice packaging. Alternating layers of leaf and plastic make the platter just sturdy enough to carry a few things as long as those things don't happen to weigh anything.
Please read more... "Recycled tetraware and even more leafenware"
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Leafenware is everything but the squeal
June 02, 2005
A banana leaf is a plate in Bangalore. The uppermost image shows a Ghandi bazaar (Bangalore) plate maker producing and selling leafenware on the street. The waste products of his production are eaten by noshing cows. This is 'everything but the squeal' vegetarian-style.
But Delhi is far far away from the banana climes of the South and an artificial banana leaf plate seems to be a logical substitute. This fabric photoshop job was doing duty as a placemat at drinking club, the Standard at CP before we procured it from the owners for the culiblog packaging archive.
Faithful culiblog readers are familiar with the entry just a few weeks ago of the pepesan sans pep dish, wrapped in bamboo leaves. I am curious about whether bamboo leaves bought at a Chinese supermarket in Amsterdam, imported from somewhere deep in the guts of PRChina qualify as ecologically sound plate choices, but I would like to hear from someone with a strong opinion - or better yet - some actual knowledge on this subject.
Q1: Is a one-use banana leaf plate a more sustainable choice than a ceramic plate in a place where banana trees are harvested?
Q2: Is a pack of dried bamboo leaves a more ecologically sound dinner party option than ceramic plates when the bamboo leaves are imported from PRChina and the dinner party is in the Netherlands? or Occitania?
Q3: Is a re-usable (maybe 100 times) fabric plate more ecological than a ceramic plate if the fabric plate is produced locally? (The plate can be rinsed in soapy water and rinsed clean.)
Q4: Are recycled paper plates like the ones shown in this culiblog entry or the tetra-pak plates more ecological than the different sorts of leaf plates if all of the materials come from local sources?
Pictured above are images of leaf plate and other vegetable (and non-veg) trash on the streets of Delhi.
How does one calculate the sustainability of a given object? Ceramic or stainless steel plates are produced under industrial conditions, raw materials possibly imported, packaging distribution all factor in. Imported dried bamboo leaves do quite a lot of travelling. Banana leaves seem ecological (if locally grown) but what are the conditions of the banana plantation and how are the leaves harvested? And what if you already own some plates? And what if you live in the city and don't have a compost pile or animals with four stomaches roaming the streets?
technorati tags: leafenware, Delhi, sustainability
Please read more... "Leafenware is everything but the squeal"
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