The time has come to completely empty the studio space after postponing a much needed makeover for far too long. I will patch, sand, and paint the neglected walls and woodwork that have served me so well for years. Although I will be doing the painting myself, I admit to being very uncomfortable giving up the studio even for what I hope is only a week. Gone will be the space I need to physically work out an idea, or problem solve a construction solution I have been incubating. But in a week, I will have a new space to celebrate a new start.

As a salve for my anxiety, I  have decided to do a visual walk through. It will remind me that, although all the ins and outs, pieces and bits, in progress and nearing completion work is sitting in boxes everywhere, I will soon be back in that space in which I am most comfortable.

(mouse over for descriptions)

Since there is never a good time to begin this, I am just diving in!

When I want a diversion from the kale and roasted veggie salads of winter, I start rummaging in my freezer.  I love the brilliance that Autumn gives us. It’s that last bright burst of color before the low gray sky and cold days of December through March. Yet I find Autumn bittersweet, because I know it offers the last local tomatoes of the year.

It’s my tradition to come home from the Farmers Market  at the end of Autumn carrying flats brimming with over ripe, slightly bruised, and imperfect end of season plum and heirloom tomatoes. I then dedicate a day to extracting that concentrated late summer flavor by roasting them. Although an all day commitment, it is so worth the hours! The roasted tomatoes then get parceled into portions and popped into the freezer.

It makes me so happy to be able to enjoy that bright, sweet, intense and slightly acidic flavor during the winter months.  I use my roasted tomatoes in every way possible: pasta sauces; on bruschetta as pictured below with my pesto, which I also make during basil season and freeze, and in soups.

Or I simply just plate this bright, delicious freezer find and finish with a drizzle of olive oil, a crumble of a good salty cheese like ricotta salata, and a sprinkle of fresh frozen parsley or the dried herbs we all turn to during winter.

On days like this, its no wonder roasting tomatoes for the long winter days ahead is a custom I always look forward to.

Late Summer Roasted Tomatoes

This recipe makes about 3 pounds.

Make as many or as few as you like and adjust the recipe accordingly.  I generally make 25 pounds of tomatoes and increase the other ingredients to taste.

On a baking sheet toss together:

3 lbs tomatoes washed, halved or quartered depending on the size of the tomatoes.
2 tblsp olive oil
2 cloves minced garlic
1-2 tsps balsamic vinegar

Bake at 425 for 15 min or until tomatoes are brown and starting to caramelize.

Remove skins after baking. They slip right off.

We all have a personal palette.  Fashionistas say all colors are a go. But there are those colors that make us want to sink right in, and relax. Although my painting palette is a rainbow of color, my personal palette is earth tones, accentuated  with the warm side of the color wheel: reds, oranges and grays.

My palette also includes the color that contains all color, black, and the absence (so-called) of color, white.  Just look in your closet and around your interior spaces. You will  immediately recognize your personal palette.

I know that my fondness for cardboard grew from my personal palette: it’s the color.  I even see my palette in culinary choices. I love bringing as much color as possible to the food I prepare. But once in a while it startles me when I recognize the subtle overlay of my personal palette settling in, even in the kitchen!

These bars are a good example. An old fashioned cookie translated into a  simple, comfortable sweet treat in my personal palette. Perfect!

Snickerdoodle Bars

2 1/3 cups flour
1 1/4 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla

Cinnamon Filling

1 tablespoon sugar
2 tablespoons cinnamon

Glaze

1 cup powdered sugar
1-2 tablespoons milk
1/4 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat oven to 350˚.
Spray the bottom only of a 9 x 13 pan.

Combine flour, baking powder, and salt in a small bowl. Whisk slightly to mix. Set aside.

Beat butter on high speed until creamy.
Beat in sugars.
Gradually beat in eggs and vanilla until combined.
Add dry ingredients and beat on low speed until combined.

Spoon 2/3 of the batter into the pan, and spread evenly.

Sprinkle evenly with the Cinnamon Filling.

Dollop teaspoons of the remaining batter evenly over the cinnamon filling. Gaps will show, but the batter spreads to form a marbled appearance with the filling showing through.
Bake 20-25 min, until golden and a tester inserted in the center comes outclean. Try not to overbake these.  Cool completely for 1 hour. Cut before glazing, but leave in pan.

Prepare glaze in a small bowl, stirring ingredients until smooth and adding more or less liquid as necessary to creat a consistancy that will drizzle.
Drizzle over bars, and let the glaze set.

Can be frozen with glazed.

“Eat! Design With Food” documents the results of creative projects that “in their own way have an impact on culinary tradition”.

“Eating is a cultural asset that reflects the spirit and lifestyle of a society, so there is great aesthetic interest in the preparation, display and marketing of food. Reason enough to feature this subject in the 6th edition of the EIGA trend diary series.
The design calendar documents the exciting results of creative work which, in turn, influences food culture. Be it product, graphics or interior design, an architectural project or fine art.”

Editors: EIGA Design, Henning Otto, Elisabeth Plass

I’m honored to be be included, along with 53 other designers, artists and typographers, in this beautiful calendar. Oysters On The Half Shell is the  featured art the week of May 21-27.  From the elegant laser cut and embossed silver cover, to the creatively delicious art and design, Eat! Design With Food:  it’s completely yummy!

When I was young, I would sit in the kitchen and watch while my Mother prepared meals. It seemed to me a very mysterious process. There were so many parts required: kitchen tools, books, time, and of course ingredients. I was  left to wonder how did it all fit together to create a meal.

Of course it wasn’t long before I jumped in too. I began by arranging the ‘parts’ into pleasing patterns on the table. These were abstract collections of books; spoons; knives; wrapped and fresh ingredients; pots and pans. Today I would  call this a still life set up! This early influence can be seen in my kitchenscape paintings.

I have never outgrown my love of kitchen bits and pieces. To my eye they are artful. And the only reason I haven’t over collected is budget and space. But that doesn’t stop me from looking.

One of my favorite ‘parts’ places  to look, and poke, around is Home Cake Decorating Supply Co. This is not your average kitchen store. It looks like a rather nondescript strip mall shop from the outside. But once you walk through the doors, it instantly becomes a magical place full of nooks and crannies with treasures waiting to be discovered. It’s also a  well kept secret  that this shop is visited by most of Seattle’s food professionals!

The owner, Greil, is the second generation of this family to run the shop. She happily dispenses  all manner of baking and pastry advice, while opening boxes and stocking unending shipments of products she receives from all over the world.  If you have been looking long and hard for special sized dragées, unique colored sanding sugars or ‘never been seen’ cupcake papers, this is the place. There is no web presence, email, or answering machine. But if you call, Greil knows every item in the shop and she ships worldwide.

Look what I couldn’t resist from the shop! I’m sure my Mother would understand.

Home Cake Decorating Supply Co.: 206-522-4300

I was recently contacted by Miss Heaton, a secondary art school teacher from the U.K. Her class wanted to create sweets as a project, but were finding it a challenge to draw two dimensional cakes and sweets.

Miss Heaton explained that although it was a challenge for the class to draw sweets, they found  “cardboard sculpture exciting and creatively freeing”.  After viewing The Cardboard Kitchen online, the class was inspired to set up their own Cardboard Kitchen.

So with a few tips from The Cardboard Kitchen cookbook, these young artists created an elegant selection of yummy desserts. I think you will agree, these beautiful treats are amazing!

Congratulations to all, including the gifted teacher Miss Heaton. It takes a talented teacher to inspire gifted young artists!

Above: Ahmed, age 13 (left); Shan, age 13 (right)

Above: Jack, age 13

Above: Tom, age 13

Above: LeShae, age 13

Above: Charlotte, age 13

Miss Heaton's art class bakery display!

From the perfect selection on a trolley that’s wheeled around ‘fine dining’ establishments, to the orange day- glow product extruded from an aerosol can, when it comes to cheese there is something for everyone.

Be it artisanal or lowbrow, melting creaminess or plastic wrapped slices, the variety of  choices is seemingly endless. And most astonishing of all: it originates from the same product, milk.

For the artist, all the usual descriptive qualities are present: color, texture and shape. If I then mix in the interpretive characteristics, such as creamy; sweet; complex; rich; sharp; etc.,  this ancient food that crosses all cultures becomes a still life subject of infinite exploration, deserving of canvas and paint.

The cheese, as they say, stands alone.

Warning all ‘Trekkers’: this is about blasting off but not from terra firma. It’s about space in the studio, and why I may not be as active on my blog in the coming months.

One of my favorite blog posts is by Smitten Kitchen, in which she describes how she maximizes, organizes and utilizes her less than galley sized kitchen.

It’s not working so smoothly in the Art On The Menu space. Here I have divided my space into stacks of cardboard; bins of colored cardboard pieces; an easel space which limits me to rather small scale paintings; paint storage; odds and ends of reference files and my lovely large pneumatic  drawing table

upon which I create all of my cardboard sculpture. I also bring up extra tables from the basement  which I then use for photographing sculpture and food. When photographing in the studio, all else gets pushed to the wall in order to create a clear center space for lights, table, and action!

It’s now so full,  I have expanded and I am currently packing art for shipping in the basement. My office is relegated to a 40 sq.ft. area previously used as a mud porch.

Alas, it’s time to move. The rest of the year will be spent prepping, painting, and remodeling bits and pieces of my current house. Between my regular posts, I will keep you all informed with updates.

Space is the final frontier in this little abode. But this  1,000 sq ft house has served me well.

Artists, musicians, writers, chefs and home cooks, or anyone in the midst of a creative endeavor would agree, inspiration is a mystery.

It can feel like floating through a delicious cloud, straining just a little to see an image that suddenly appears above the haze. Or, it can become a thick veil in which we become entangled. We thrash around with obscured vision until we break free and the image, word, flavor combination, musical notes, or theme becomes crystal clear.

So it goes in the cardboard kitchen. I recently found this lovely, deep cherry colored wine box.

What I envisioned was a towering, ambrosial multi- layered torte. My first inspiration was definitely the delicious cloud variety!

However, if there is a consistent theme in using recycled material, it is that cardboard is unpredictable. This beautiful cardboard would not cooperate. I was suddenly thrown into the thickly veiled cloud of inspiration, thrashing  around for another image.  Just when I was about to put this cardboard aside for another day, a friend gave me a box of Italian cookies. The cookies were so-so, but the box was the epitome of chocolate and vanilla, dusted with gold.

The solution: a scaled down version. I combined these two confection-flavored cardboard ingredients, and baked a ‘Swiss Pastry”.  Inspiration also works in mysterious ways.

And, I have lots of the  dark cherry cardboard left over, to bake with in the future!

The Cardboard Kitchen was featured in the April issue of Jalouse, the French style magazine!

Many thanks to my friend Otilia for providing the translation, and to Florence Valencourt for the virtual interview. Next time I would like to be interviewed while sipping café au lait along the Champs-Elysées!

To get the American version of the recipe, and to see the homage from the Cardboard Kitchen, be sure to read my next post!

Translation:

CHEF, HERE’S THE RECIPE!

IT’S CARDBOARD CHIC!

Everything that comes out of artist’s Patianne Stevenson’s kitchen is recycled, eco-artsy, and calorie free! A real dream come true for foodies who are concerned about their weight.

“Everything prepared in the Cardboard Kitchen is made from recycled ingredients”, says Patianne Stevenson. “I visit wine stores for boxes with colors, grocery stores for the perfect textures, and art supply stores for that certain thickness. Everyone is very happy to have me remove cardboard boxes, and I love stocking the cardboard pantry! I begin my recipes with an organized work plan. I layout the utensils I will need for each recipe: various sizes of scissors, utility knives, glue brushes, and erasers. I then take a look in The Cardboard Kitchen pantry. I had stored a piece of peanut butter colored cardboard. Mixed with vanilla and chocolate colored cardboard, cut to fit and assembled, I knew this would become a sweet creation. I decided on a cardboard homage to one of my favorite cupcake recipes, Peanut Butter Brownie Cupcake With Peanut Butter Frosting and Chocolate Dipped Cherry. What’s nice about The Cardboard Kitchen is there no waiting until the cupcakes come out of the oven! But sadly, you can’t lick the bowl!

For the gourmands, here is the real recipe:

Makes 12

Cupcakes:

50g butter
100g creamy peanut butter
256g broken chocolate bar
little vanilla extract
3 eggs
175g of flour
200 grams sugar
10g baking powder

Preheat oven to 180C
Melt butter and chocolate in bain marie, stirring to mix
Add peanut butter, blend well
Beat in eggs one at a time, until smooth
Stir in vanilla

In another bowl mix sugar, flour and baking powder.
Add to chocolate mix. Stir until smooth.

Fill muffin cups two thirds full.
Bake 20 min. Cool.

Peanut Butter Cream:

50g butter
100g peanut butter
150g icing sugar
20-30 cl cream

Use a pastry sock to decorate the cupcakes.

Chocolate covered Cherries:

12 cherries in syrup
75g dark chocolate
20g butter
Remove cherries from syrup and pat dry
Melt butter and chocolate in a bain marie
Dip cherry and place on parchment to set.

Place  cherry on top!