Posts Tagged ‘Culinary’

Visual Relish or Le Porte-Couteau

What if I didn’t hold my silverware – okay, flatware – like a shovel at the ready to plow through a meal toute de suite?

There’s something deeply wrong with the way I carry out my dining aesthetic, I must confess. This grand admission had its unveiling through a gift of small proportions:  Le Porte-Couteau. Courtesy of my darling younger sister who now lives French-side, these knife rests remind me that I have not been savoring the day’s journey with delight.  A meal is a time to slow down, share stories, talk about roads less traveled or overly trafficked.  Elsa Maxwell would have groaned, and I’m sure audibly, at my ostentatious displays of insignificance.

I am now in possession of a loyal set of Basset Hound knife rests that will, I assure you, be used on more than the rare special occasion.  They will be used on the special occasion of the everyday.

Cheers to the art and craft of lively, daily entertaining!

Below is a selection of rests for those that enjoy the simplicity of the minimal to the prismatic light of the maximal (Cristal Baccarat).  Amusez-vous. . .

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Posted in Social | 12 Comments »

Zippy, Pithy Elsa Maxwell Quotes for Thanksgiving

Enjoy the abundance of the season with an earful (and if things get messy, an arsenal) of Elsa Maxwell’s musings on the Art of Lively Entertaining.

Wishing you a supreme gustatory gathering!

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Serve the dinner backward, do anything – but for goodness sake, do something weird.

Someone said that life is a party. You join in after it’s started and leave before it’s finished.

Under pressure, people admit to murder, setting fire to the village church or robbing a bank, but never to being bores.

Bores put you in a mental cemetery while you are still walking.

A bore is a vacuum cleaner of society, sucking up everything and giving nothing. Bores are always eager to be seen talking to you.

I make enemies deliberately. They are the sauce piquante to my dish of life.

Giving parties is a trivial avocation, but it pays the dues for my union card in humanity.

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Posted in Candid, Confident, Playful, Quirky, Snarky, Social, Witty | 20 Comments »

Crafting Coupledom

View of Manhattan from Brooklyn's Fulton Ferry Park

View of Manhattan from Brooklyn Flea Market

When Friday dawns, we are both so glad to wipe the week’s sweat off our brow and settle into the expanse of the weekend.  It’s a time of endless opportunity.  A time to stroll to our favorite neighborhood brunch spot and refill the larder with Manhattan’s abundant, unique delicacies.  Life seems so rich, unstructured and open for adventure.

It’s also a time to fight.  Oh yeah.

Because, despite it all, we are still individuals who have slightly different concepts of what an ideal Saturday should be.

My Ideal Saturday

Pop up at 7:30am to the magical sound of the sleeping city.  Put on a pot of coffee and venture to the front door to gather the weekend edition of the New York Times.  Hubby wakes up a bit later and meets me in the living room for side-by-side reading and talk of the day ahead.  New York’s news, neighborhood doings (any gossip? Love it!), and deep musing into the future of career, family, and any fantasy punctuate the crisp black and white perfection of my ideal Saturday morning.

His Ideal Saturday

Wake up whenever his body is healed and rejuvenated from the arduous week.  6am or 11am, what does it matter?  Roll around, yawn, lull in and out of sleep, stretch, sigh, move one leg, find glasses, find me.  He’s up and a happy camper! The day ahead?  Whatever we want!

What do we want? Do we want to kick around on our own, thinking and doing things in proximity yet separately?  Or do we want to walk the city in sync, enmeshed within the other? Neither one knows exactly what the other wants or needs at that very moment.

It changes.  We change.

Ah yes, we’ve changed since day one of our marriage, we changed yesterday and we will be changing tomorrow.

I now let him sleep in (sometimes) and, well, he refills my cup of coffee while I read the paper.  I know – he’s a great guy. He also makes the best oatmeal pancakes and that is one thing we both adore!

Some weekend ways we crafted coupledom.

Saturday ~ Ventured to the preview of an auction of works on paper at Swann Galleries.  Together we studied the prints and read the catalogs, trying to listen to and learn what the other finds meaningful and visually pleasing.  If we were to one day start an art collection, what would it look like?  Could we compromise, come to an agreement on aesthetic values?

Sunday ~ Hopped over to DUMBO’s waterfront for the Brooklyn Flea, a small market with an array of vintage clothing, ceramics, furniture, and other delightful odds and ends.  It also boasts the sweetest, melt-in-your-mouth Connecticut Lobster roll (brushed with drawn butter, not mayo) that both of us have ever laid claws on.  And, get a load of those pizza margheritas handcrafted on the spot in that elegant pizza oven!

Moto Pizza's ornate, mobile wood burning oven

Moto Pizza's ornate, mobile wood burning oven

Succulent lobster roll from Red Hook Lobster Pound

Succulent lobster roll from Red Hook Lobster Pound

Sitting next to each other, lobster roll and warm slices in hand, we knew we had come to one understanding of what blissful coupledom could look, smell, and taste like.

What do you do?

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Posted in Reflective, Sentimental, Spiritual | 16 Comments »

Armed and Aproned

Terrified I would be imprisoned by a virulent strain of the Betty Draper Disease, I for months shied away from this project.  Apron equaled apathy.  Apron equaled anxiety.  Apron equaled Anger.  Apron equaled adultery.

The only Betty I wanted to be is Betty Friedan, but with the blonde bombshell body of TV Betty, of course.

Necessity got in the way.  I love to cook, to play with culinary concepts of balance, precision, and chance.  This evening,  I’ll be working on the braising technique for  a homemade veal Osso Buco.  All this fun can get messy, though, and a mess always leads to cleaning.

Apron

I needed an apron to be effective.  I needed an apron to do battle in the kitchen without reservations.  I wanted to be armed.

By reshaping the significance of the apron, I no longer feared it.  In  my world, the apron would be armor.  A rather colorful form of protection, yet a worthy and kitchen-capable one nonetheless.  Most noteworthy element of its design? It’s my hand craft.

Etsy Labs’ Church of Craft (first Sunday of  the month) provided the sewing machine and  fabric remnants.  In line with efforts to green the globe, the apron has also come to symbolize a dedication to my belief system.  I’m a recycler! Not a drippy Draper!

bath-towel-apron

The closeup doesn’t show it, but I’ll fess up.  The stitching is slapdash at best, zig-zaggy drunk at worst.  I used directions to get the basic format and dimensions of a typical apron, but from there I flew wildlike into the unknown. Improvising is a great quality, but patience and an ability to decipher directions would be a plus.

Seizing the moment, without judgment, is an intoxicating high.  Armed with my apron and a the scent of an apple pie bubbly baking, I’ve crafted a high that never ceases to pleasure.  If only Betty Draper were armed with this aroma.

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Posted in Confident, Creative, Witty | 7 Comments »

Tom Colicchio’s Real Craft

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I doubt New York City’s Craft restaurant, chef-owner Tom Colichhio’s flagship on E. 19th Street in Manhattan’s Flatiron District could have come at any other moment in culinary history than when it did.  Nor could his Craft empire which presently includes Craftsteak, Craftbar, and ‘wichcraft and spans the US from Atlanta to Las Vegas have thrived the way it has.  William Grimes, then restaurant critic now Obit writer for the New York Times captured the essence of Craft in a December 2001 review.  Here’s what he had to say:

“Craft invites diners to take a trip.  The destination is a simpler, cleaner, more honest America, a place where the corn is bright yellow, the bread exhales clouds of yeasty sweetness and the fish swim in water as pure as Evian.  It’s a vision of food heaven, a land of strong pure flavors and back-to-basics cooking techniques.”

And when was this written?  Mr. Colichhio’s restaurant opened shortly before the terrorist attacks of September 2001; Mr. Grimes’s words flow from the open wounds of a country struck by an incredible catastrophe, and its hopeful longing for resolution.  Food is the remedy here, which Colicchio crafted up not a minute too soon.

Colicchio’s return to a simpler way of treating food, one that defers to its innate qualities was a refreshing practice in the era of vertical food.  The 1990s was a decade when on trend chefs were plating increasingly tall visual presentations, as if a perfectly balanced tower would suggest that the elements comprising it would be, by proxy, just as harmoniously balanced on the human palate.  Colicchio eschewed “culinary theatrics” in favor of an ingredient-driven approach to food and dining.

In suit, the menu at Craft attests to a pared down dining experience, where the diner selects a meat or fish by its preparation and a side from a no-frills list.  Nowhere does an inflated description distract from Craft’s credo:  skillful preparation sympathetic to once again elevating food to the starring role.  While Colicchio’s craft may seem simple, perhaps obvious, he is actually part of a long lime of crafters that have confidently “revolted into the past” to offer the jaded something seemingly new.  Like a good crafter, Colicchio seeks integrity in material and form.

Americans were ready for Craft.  The 90s culinary scene bombarded diners with empty promises:  food that was too often too difficult to eat, if physically satisfying at all.  The aftermath of 2001 required a craft that was sensitive enough to offer succor to the wounded spirits and palates of Americans.  The last thing New Yorkers wanted to digest were bits and pieces of a toppled tower of shaved tuna draping over a single fava bean.  The food had to work on the human plane — a safe distance from the verticality of skyreaching food that all too easily can crumble to an indiscernible mess.   Craft gave the people what they didn’t know they needed.

I am including links to a few video interviews and articles covering the rise of Craft.

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Posted in Aspirational, Creative, Intellectual, Reflective, Spiritual | 3 Comments »

Not a Julia Child

So absurd, I had to share.

Grotesque, but I hate wasting anything, especially when the economy is in a frightful state. Because I decided to multi-task last night by preparing an elaborate dinner with a slew of ingredients and tackle making the next day’s pizza dough, which unsuprisingly wound up a goopy mess.  I had a feeling the pizza dough project was doomed for failure when I attempted to divide a whole wheat pizza dough recipe in half because I only had 1 packet of yeast.  Now, I’ve made a few swell doughs before this, and it really is easy if you have patience, the ability to follow directions precisely, and proper ingredients.  As I had none of those assets to speak of, I anticipated a flop.

I pulled all types of shenanigans to get the yeast to react to the way-shy-of-115-degrees luke warm water, placing the bowl inside a warm oven, covering and recovering the bowl with plastic wrap and pot lids, and finally STIRRING it.  Amazingly, the dough did rise half way and I decided to work with it.  There was no way I was going to try to make a pizza out of it and risk wasting beautiful ingredients on a floury, flat crust, but why not dough muffins. Mmmmm… a crafty solution to a crappy situation?

I really do applaud my creativity and my willingness to expose this sloppy execution to my husband (nice way of saying I fed it to him!).  It tastes kind of yucky, but with a lot of butter and a good toasting it is palatable.  The albino dough muffins will again make an appearance at tonight’s table, an indomitable testament to the power of persistence, lack of shame, and what a perilous economy will push us to.

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For Every Failure, a Triumph

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Above, a sweet reminder of the soul-fulfilling joy of the handcrafted

Yesterday, in the midst of baking cupcakes soaked in a simple sugar of Grand Marnier (shameless plug) for the evening’s Badger Book Club, I experienced a renewed sense of self that I had feared died with the art fair fiasco.  In the kitchen where I was the leader of my own domain, calling upon stand mixer and sugar thermometer to work harmoniously in favor of a common goal, I was bowled over by the scent of power.  As the cupcake batter rose, so did I.

While I am not exposing anything new, it is amazing how often we forget what power rests in our own hands, that the manipulation of a whisk can correlate to a repaired sense of self.  I believe that is how, as I cautiously surveyed a boiling pot of sugar, I came to remember this event:

First In-Person Interview of a Crafter:

Leah Parkhurst’s Studio, Rustbelt Fiberwerks
Friday, July 10th
Milwaukee, WI

As I develop and refine the thrust of thecluelesscrafter.com, which is indeed a work in-progress, I have revamped several of my initial ideas.  The first iteration of this site was to be an online journal devoted to my musings upon crafting from a person who has little experience in the matter.  It quickly came to be that I would need to understand craft from crafters and non-crafters’ perspective.  Truth be told, I knew I would need to substantiate my thoughts, sometimes blathers, with experts in the area.  Which brought me to the Interview a Crafter, Artisan, Artist idea, or Phase II of thecluelesscrafter.com.  Ideally, I wanted to play to my passion and strength in relationship building.  Although I flubbed at the fair, I most often find that I listen well to others.  Leah was the first in-person interview before the online Interview form was posted;  I was reminded why I care about what I am doing.

Much like myself, Leah is pursuing a career, one might say a way of life, that hinges upon the betterment of the self and those around her.  She crafts to enrich the everyday, reminding us that we share a history greater than ourselves.   Through the stitching together of found fabrics important to her life or once important to another’s, her aprons ground us in an aesthetic experience that enriches the present.  Leah also runs a business selling her craft, one that she says is becoming increasingly successful as the economy has grown increasingly unstable.  All this seems to suggest that the general population is looking to craft from a different angle.  So am I.

What I most notably derived from the interview is that craft as an art form and as a business is complex, more so as the economy undergoes intense fluctuation.  As it is no longer on trend to laud those that funnel bundles of cash into the pockets of dealers representing the current blue chip artists, crafters appear to be more in tune with our current reality.  When I asked Leah if my assumption that there exists a tension between artists and crafters was founded, her response was intriguing.  She recounted an event before a recent craft fair in which a large discussion was held over the topic of whether the exhibitors desired to be called crafters or artists.  It was apparently a heated debate with many taking opposing sides.  It seems clear that our definition of art and craft in our culture is undergoing serious reassessment.

Just how I tap into this world and garner its respect means that I need to devise a viable business model.  How do I fuse my quest for self actualization by delving into the handmade with my passion for understanding the broader implications of craft today with a revenue generating plan that will allow me to continue on this path?!

The only way I can think to get nearer to the root of the question is to step inside the craft world and make something.  I’ve been intending to try my hand at glass etching or candle making…

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Posted in Ambivalent, Analytical, Aspirational, Candid, Puzzled, Reflective | No Comments »

Baking Up Friendship

I have been craving the time, energy, and right to spend some of my day indulging in a read of my choice since I was in middle school.  When I closed the last required text of my graduate education this spring, I had hit a milestone in my life.  I had finally come to that day of freedom!  As of that moment, I have been peppering my days with a myriad of books from the classics to chic lit.  It is hard, however, to justify what I am doing.  We are in a deep recession; I am still without a career, waiting on the deafening silence from human resources to be broken by the words “You’re hired!  The work you did during the internship here at (domestic maven) is so valuable, we couldn’t pass it up”; and, reading for pleasure makes me think that I just may be two steps away from being June Cleaver.  Although, I doubt she really would be allowed to fill her head up with reading nonsense.  Does anyone think that the name cleaver conjures up a whole lot of heinous thoughts of women and the oft-stifling American suburbia??  Anyways, I digress?  Simply put, I have been uncomfortable with my newfound freedom.

A book club is the remedy, I thought!  Right after our wedding, in October 2008 I had contacted the Wisconsin Alumni Association to suggest that a New York City chapter of our Association, or the Big Apple Badgers as we call ourselves, start such a club.  When I recognized that I seemed to be its only ardent supporter, I put it on the back burner. Shortly thereafter I got THE internship at the company of my dreams through sheer perseverance (yes, I had applied for a full-time job as a stylist at its publishing arm, the weddings magazine in late August, which never came to fruition), the one for which I am now on eggshells in anticipation of whether the sweat and tears will translate into a permanent, paying position.  At my core I have never been a wait-and-see woman; instead, I put the discomfort about my joblessness into a flurry of productivity, instituting the first Alumni book club in recent memory in the NYC area.  It wasn’t easy rounding up different generations of alums, all who have different expectations from the reading arrangement, some more complex than others. Nonetheless, last Thursday evening I flung open the doors to my home and welcomed in my fellow schoolmates. Above all, I sought the cozy sensation of our shared histories.

The sentiment of camaraderie that I hoped to elicit from the book meetings has been greatly enjoyed by others.  I wanted to share one note I received, as I believe that it speaks of the life and career I want to build for myself:

“A very belated thank you for hosting our first Badger Read-In.  (My mouth is still watering over that biscotti!)

It was so much fun meeting you, a fellow Madisonian!  I find the academic and professional course you’re choosing an interesting one and enjoyed talking about the merits of working at home.

I’ve started to read our book, think it was a great choice, and am looking forward to some spirited conversation!

all my best … see you on The Quatorze Juillet!”

The woman who penned this note graduated in the early 70s and since then has been making her way as a freelance writer.  From the moment I met her, I knew she was a bright, kindred spirit.  She has made a career of and for her life; there is little separation from what she is and what she does.  Or, what I should say is that she has been vigilant about crafting her life into something that honors the integrity.  I would like to think that the letter she sent along suggests that she knows exactly what journey I am on.

I guess it was all worth the hot tears I shed during the preparation of the the biscotti dough and the buffing of wine glasses.  I had supposed myself to be in a domestic hell, bound for meaninglessness and years of housewifery while my husband ascended the corporate ladder.  What I had not tapped into, though, was that I had made something.  I had kneaded the heck out of a cornmeal dough and out of the oven came a delicious opportunity for friendship.  Now . . . that’s just witchcraft.

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Above, cornmeal-currant biscotti from Baking with Julia

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Book cover of baking recipes based on Julia Child’s PBS Series

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