drawing on inspiration; an appeal for beauty to abound

I see the words crème fraîche and pumpkin together in the same recipe title...

Vanilla beans are dispersed into a milky infusion of spices;

Someone mentions they are on to their next cookbook project;

Someone else expresses their love of Campari;

Intricate pattern and lace are carved out of newspaper;

Burrata tenderly torn apart on a plate of tomato juices and breaded eggplant takes me back to my first taste of this decadent cheese -- in my first real job post-college;

A pineapple fragmented behind the glass of a punch bowl, all graciously layered and brushed into life by the hand and sight of an artist;

Gathered ingredients for a simple vinaigrette suddenly look like they belong in a frame -- similar hues of pink, grey, and varying yellows and neutrals bring a torn seal, the wispy skin of a shallot, and a cutting board together.

Sometimes it is too tempting as an artist to spend so much time surrounded by inspiration that we neglect to put our own creativity to use. Inspiration is essential (and it's delightful), but there are times when the busyness of intake overwhelms all opportunities for output.

Just yesterday, one of my young art students sat at her desk bent over a colorful palette of oil paint. She had taken her canvas from its easel and rested it on her lap. Cross-legged, she cradled a little story of life and motion as it came into vibrant clarity through her touch. I was jealous, in the best of ways.

I am beginning to map out a series of artwork through sketch and watercolor application, and I can't wait to share it with you as it unfolds. (Even more so, I can't wait to begin its unfolding and be surprised, myself, with the parts of the process that I can't predict.) Process from start to finish on artistic endeavors is full of unknowns, and I love how often these things start out with one aim or goal in mind and then take on a life of their own. Or how they require life and action to begin even before any sort of end hope is in sight.



Last summer I spent a lot of time painting to get ready for an art show. The timing was burdensome and yet also perfect as I battled my way through the emotions of a break-up. Often times my energy felt sapped, and I wanted to be out in the sun doing nothing. Simultaneously, I wanted to be constantly within close reach of people so loneliness could be kept in check and silence wouldn't surface anything unwelcome. Many of us have been through this sort of thing, I know.

I stumbled upon some writing I had done in that time in my studio and thought I'd share a bit of the artist process that helped me move along, sometimes haltingly so.

In recent days, I have finally chosen to lift up a weapon of resistance to these doldrums, to the weight that keeps me burying my nose in my pillow as my body stirs to morning light. In daylight hours my paintbrush has become a sword wielded in defense of the nighttime emptiness deep in my belly, when a pillow pressed close and long against my body serves to temper the ache.

As subtle of a defiance and as mild of a fight as I have the strength to entertain, taking paint to canvas holds hope. I do not understand how it will help these days pass into a further-healed state, but I am aware that placing a slender piece of wood between my fingers, bristled end wet and coated in deep hue, emotes worthwhile action.

This small measure of being entirely and utterly surrendered reduces down to a basic routine: Fill water cup, squeeze bent small paint tube, select paintbrush tip. Smear colors together, reach, dip, apply to canvas. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. 

Rhythm helps my mind to ease and my breath to release. Rhythm seems so simple, an elementary, intuitive step. But daily rhythms of grace and renewal have been few in number. Of my own selection and impulses, their presence near me has diminished as I have turned and twisted and responded both wisely and foolishly to the unpredictable emotions of being utterly tender...

As I rise up and lay down, as I go to work and cook my meals, as dishes are washed and grief is forgotten in sweet pockets of genuine laughter, I’ll let time move forward. I will wait in hope and in forward motion. I will blink my eyes open at a new day and wonder if memories will be a little less raw in the coming hours. I will attend to my canvases and paint the beautiful details around me and appeal for Beauty to abound. It will again.

Maybe, just maybe, as I am inspired by the links at the beginning of this post and by the reminder and reflection upon putting my artist impulses into action, you will be as well. That is why I share this today.





On a closing aside, a beautiful little space in San Francisco to find inspiration is at the corner of Gough Street at Oak. I popped in with my cousin on a quiet Friday morning at ten o'clock. At that point only a small table was occupied (by three middle-aged grizzly-bearded men in Carhartts sipping Blue Bottle, I might add). This place is pristine (a wonderful juxtaposition to the casual trio customers). That is the word that kept coming to mind, as natural light poured into the space, highlighting each intentionally placed detail. Beautiful lighting, rich fabrics, and authentic vintage decor, 20th Century Cafe has already received press for its interior design by the owner, Michelle Polzine.

We each ordered a cappuccino and split an irresistible slice of the Russian Honey Cake that sat tall and elegant on its cake stand on the corner of the bar. I will certainly be back to try the apple strudel and was left wishing this place was close enough to home to make a regular stopping point.





{In case you missed it, each of the sentences at the beginning of this post does link to a blog very worthy of your time. Promise.}

Equally Amazing Feats

It has been a tumultuous week, to say the least. Never one to readily own the characteristic of being "dramatic," nevertheless, the passionate, artistic side of me does swing in stronger sometimes and paint life's moments with additional flair. But always while keeping my feet close to the ground, or so I hope.

With that preface, I can still honestly say that looking back over the last seven days, I've felt a whole lot of gratitude, anxiety, triumph, and despair. It's always a good exercise of humility to put oneself in situations outside of our full competence, and I felt despairingly incompetent as I struggled to smoothly shift gears and keep my car's engine running in the manual vehicle I was so graciously given in this time between owning vehicles. It was a good place to be in the long run, and it's a place I'm glad to have moved beyond...now maneuvering through parking lots and accomplishing other equally amazing feats.



I hopped on the Bart and enjoyed a day and night in one of my favorite cities, exploring it sans vehicle, which is my preferred manner. The smells of San Francisco's streets are sweet, sour, filthy, and homey depending which street you wander down, and I always leave inspired for future kitchen endeavors by what I eat and drink. I recommend Absinthe for a cocktail (but don't stop at the drink menu), Contraband for a cappuccino and morning pastry, and a donut from Bob's, especially if you see them pulling the buttermilk variety fresh out of the oil as you're passing by. Even (especially?) if it is past ten o'clock at night, and you know they're going to turn around, dunk it in that maple glaze and hand it to you so hot that you almost have to alternate it between each hand for a couple minutes. I've never really raved about a donut, and generally can pass them by without much regret, but this was worth every sweet bite.



A recent cake I baked turned out so well, I'll surely return to it and do wish there had been enough to share a slice with you. Half of it made its way to a brunch with some ladies who are fast becoming essential friends in my new city, and the other half went to work with me, where it quickly disappeared down to crumbs in the break room.

The base recipe is from Dolce Italiano, a cookbook I was introduced to at my pastry station at Ciao Thyme. I know it will eventually make its way into my personal cookbook collection because every recipe I've made and heard others have made from Gina DePalma's pages is worth sharing and repeating. Her recipe titles alone make my mouth water.

This zucchini cake is moist enough to improve over a day and last up to two or three. The original recipe includes walnuts and a crunchy lemon glaze, but I had my heart set on adding in blueberries. Whole grain spelt flour was hanging around my pantry, so I substituted it in for part of the flour and added toasted coconut. I was excited about the blueberry-coconut combination as well, but my coconut strands were so small and my measurement of half a cup so gentle that it hardly came through. Nothing was lacking without, though; this cake can stand well on its own without any tinkering. (If you want to fancy it up, though, go for that crunchy lemon glaze or a drizzled glaze of salted caramel and sprinkling of pine nuts.)



Zucchini Blueberry Cake
Adapted from Dolce Italiano

1 1/3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
2/3 cup whole-grain spelt flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg
3 large eggs
1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
1 cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups grated zucchini (about 2 small zucchini)

1 cup small wild blueberries (fresh or frozen)

Preheat oven to 350 F. Butter and flour a 10-cup capacity bundt pan.

Combine both of the flours, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and spices into a medium bowl, whisk, and set aside.

In an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the eggs and sugar until well combined, about two minutes. Slowly add olive oil while mixer is on medium speed. Keep mixing until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes, then beat in the vanilla extract. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed.

Beat in the dry ingredients all at once on low speed until they are thoroughly combined, then switch to medium speed and mix for 30 seconds. Mix in the zucchini on low speed until just incorporated. Thoroughly incorporate zucchini in this final step by folding in blueberries and giving it all a final gentle stir.

Pour the batter into the prepared cake pan, smoothing the top with a spatula. Bake the cakes for 40 to 45 minutes or until a tester inserted in the cakes comes out clean and the cakes have begun to pull away from the sides of the pans.

After 10-15 minutes of rest on a cooling rack, poke down along the edges of the pan and the inner tube with a butter knife, invert, and de-pan.

Beginnings and Endings

It really wouldn't be fair to skim over the last few weeks, as much as I like to keep this blog current. Those days deserve better. After all, they marked the end of my time with Foodzie, an internship and life in San Francisco that I will always treasure. They hosted a reunion with a childhood friend from my years in New Zealand; this reunion took the form of a road trip down the winding, cliff-hugging Pacific Highway to Santa Barbara. There the days were spent revisiting memories from a life that seems so long ago, but in fact only three years ago laid significant foundations in my art education.

And that education has officially ended! As of Thursday, I have completed all my course requirements and am awaiting my final grade and then my diploma.

Here are some pictures to chronicle the endings and beginnings in the past two weeks...



Ending of life in San Francisco (my last breakfast, eaten on a bench by the ferry building). Beginning of my love affair with Blue Bottle cappuccinos and Frog Hollow fruit...



...the sunlight was brilliant that morning.



Beginning of road trip.



Nearing end of road trip...in a much drier climate.



Beginning and end of Santa Barbara photo shoot, just a detail from an antique wagon on the sidewalk in Summerland. I was not in tourist mode.



Beginning of a happy return to Washington food. A peak at my fig danish, still inside its bag and fresh from Columbia City Bakery on my first morning back in the Northwest. I'll be around here for about three weeks.

What My Eyes See

Pictures say it best when the sky has long been dark and the amount of words that could be spent catching up on the last week(s) threaten a further lapse into silence. Here is what I have to give tonight, friends.

The Closest Thing

Over the weekend I was able to obtain a pan for my faulty little stovetop and last night cooked my first meal in this apartment - a little space that truly is the closest thing to home I currently have on this earth. I'm very grateful to have it, and now that it's been warmed with the scents of marinara sauce and browned butter over the past two evenings, it carries a certain comfort and ease.

Oh but please don't start thinking that I'm spending all my time within these walls. In fact, this weekend I got to spend an hour or so on a sailboat beneath the Golden Gate Bridge, which was shrouded in fog. It is so wonderful to live near the water again.

On Sunday I walked up one of San Francisco's many hills to Grace Cathedral and lay on the grass of a small park across the street to do some reading. The views from there were spectacular, and the sun was shining warmly on grateful locals and tourists alike.

Since then the sun has disappeared, and I'm still figuring out how to gauge the weather each day. I love getting to wear scarves and sweaters and crave hot tea but find that it's still warm enough that whatever layers I add become too warm in my twenty-minute walk to work. However, they're perfect once indoors and sitting beside a window that looks out to the overcast sky.

I'm continuing to enjoy my internship, especially getting to know the people better and catching the vision of Foodzie. I've lost track of the number of hours I have stared at photographs of food in the last two days! At least eight, surely.

Surprisingly, all those pictures of buttery shortbread and chocolate truffles haven't sent me on a sugar spree. Largely it has to do with my budget, of course, and also knowing I have enough things in my fridge that I should be eating. Fava beans, for example. I bought about seven fresh pods at the farmers market on Saturday, and have been itching to try them, since I've only ever eaten them dried.

Tonight's dinner came together around the concept of coating them in a bit of brown butter, and so I took my small batch of blanched and shelled legumes and tossed them in brown butter on half of my single pan while an egg cooked in the other half. The vibrantly green favas only needed a small amount of time in the pan, so I soon replaced them with a slice of Acme Bread's Whole Wheat Levain, to toast, and sprinkled Broncha goat cheese over the egg. Granted, it's not much to look at, but its homeliness holds a certain charm, I think. And, if at all relevant, it was quite tasty.

Here are a few shots taken inside my apartment as well as with half my body out the window.

Thanks for following in this journey, dear reader. I hope you enjoy the photographs and get something more from this blog than the narcissistic journal of a nomadic twenty-something year old. Certainly, that is not what it's supposed to be.

A New City

It is quite difficult to backtrack just a week in my life and try to remember those sensations and activities because they are so very different from what I'm facing at present.

I spent last weekend wading through my belongings, sorting and simplifying, until I was down to two suitcases and a small box of winter clothes that got shipped to my mom's garage for future convenience. I struggled to enjoy this process, knowing I was missing precious time with friends who I needed to share some indefinite goodbyes with on Tuesday.

Tuesday afternoon I arrived in San Francisco, which I am embracing as my new home for the three weeks that I am here. This city is entirely different from Abilene, Texas, and I really don't think that statement requires any elaboration. You understand what I mean, right? Where are the gas-guzzling Ford pickups? And where did all the ethnic restaurants come from? All in all, I love it. I love that I can use my own two feet and the sidewalk to do errands or simply get from place to place and have innumerable companions. I love that I constantly hear snippets of conversations in different languages and, like tonight, encounter a man in full pirate attire - a plastic handled sword and all - simply crossing the street with his ordinarily dressed friends.

There are so many small details of my time in just the past three days that I would love to share, but I mainly want to talk about food and then close my eyes and get some sleep. Hopefully I'll be able to update this blog frequently to share the little moments too, but tonight you simply get an overview, my friend.

Foodzie has been an incredible place to intern and earn my last three university credits. I get to shoot photographs of food and help artisan food producers make their products available online, and through all of this, work with an incredibly intelligent, fun team. My first photos posted on a producer's site were granola bars by Olympic Granola, and they were easy to shoot because of their naturally aesthetic appeal (check out the strip of chocolate in the middle of the Mocha Mint one!) and delightful to sample in their post-photo-shoot state. I'd love to have a stock on hand for those times when a snack or breakfast on-the-go is necessary.

The Foodzie team and I went out for a spontaneous dinner at Delfina last night and enjoyed sitting outside on a gorgeous evening with good wine and satisfying pizza (my favorite was the broccoli raab). We also stopped by an event hosted by 18 Reasons, where I got to meet some more food-loving people.



The night was concluded with famous Bi-Rite ice cream, and I couldn't resist trying Sam's Sundae: chocolate ice cream with bergamot olive oil and sea salt on top with a dollop of whipped cream.

This evening we concluded the workweek at the ferry building over Humphry Slocombe's Salt & Pepper and White Miso Peach ice creams. They were both delightful in my opinion, possessing plenty of intrigue without sacrificing a fresh, subtly sweet flavor.

Tomorrow I'm taking my ol' 35mm to the farmers market bright and early and hoping to build up some good multiple exposure shots from my two rolls begun last week in Abilene. Fresh local fruits and vegetables seem like the perfect glimpse of San Francisco to add to these rolls of film that are traveling with me for the next two months. Can't wait to share the results!