Friday night I did a small event for the opening party of a pop up shop in downtown Portland cloth/gold FACTORY. Unexpected, elegant, aromatic, and charming, the pizzelles were a complementary and whimsical edition to the stores’ beautiful merchandise. Four talented women are running the store together including two fashion designers, one knitwear designer, and one jewelry designer. All of their products are so original, delicate, feminine and modern, I designed the event to parallel their talents, not compete. Seeking a unique way to throw a party and keeping it within budget of course, they approached me to design their event which I was so excited to do! Thank you ladies, it was a blast.
Using gold luster dust, I brushed the middles of the cookies to give it the Midas Touch.
Gold Hershey’s kisses candy were arranged throughout the store, carrying the eye to different sections and tying the gold element throughout.
Everyone painted their nails with gold shimmer, including the guests!
I’m in the midst of putting together my portfolio plus a few proposals and recently made a few things for some pretty unique packages I’m going to send out. The first was wooden cutlery turned business card, my contact info laser engraved onto each fork, spoon, and knife. They won’t get lost in the stacks of other business cards and could actually be helpful. Imagine a potential employer forgetting silverware to eat their lunch with, but with my business-card-cutlery sitting on their desk they no longer have that problem. And while they are enjoying their meal, they might even notice my name on their spoon (or fork, or knife).
I also put together a small book of some of my event and food designs. There is a near complete list of projects right here on this site, but making this book was all about tactility and the resume/portfolio-as-an-act-of-gift-giving. Who doesn’t like to get books (and other small, fun, and useful things) in the mail? Wish me luck!
Happy birthday! You are two and I can hardly believe it.
We began on such simple terms, you and I. You were a place, a container more like, where I could document my eating design projects. I needed an outlet and you provided. You needed direction and I gave you several.
In the beginning, my projects ranged from simple meals to extravagant events. You were there as I peeped, squeaked, and squawked my way through prose that made little to no sense. But you understood they were part of the package, the necessary challenges, of finding my voice. You tolerated my bad grammar, my half thought out sentences. You tried to point out my spelling errors but got fed up and turned a blind eye to the numerous homophones and incorrect apostrophes.
Through my painful growth spurts and joyous changes, you were always flexible and encouraging. The terms of conditions for your existence have gone through multiple re-writes, but you never complained. Document eating design projects? Let’s do it. Host a cookie month or snack week? Bring it on. Focus on simple dinner menus? Absolutely. Talk about holistic health and primary food? Yes and yes. Looking back, I realize this was a lot to ask. Nonetheless, you were my platform, my foundation.
Your birthday is cause for celebration and from that, reflection. What have you taught me these past two years? What have I gained from posting week after week, month after month? Three things immediately come to mind: perseverance, communication, and manifestation. You have shown me that I, quite simply, can. You’ve held me accountable to my own passions, my own success, quietly (but persistently) nudging me along. The next post kept me alert to my own creativity. Your constant presence encouraged me to feel through projects more deeply, experiment with new recipes, and research new (and even crazy) ideas.
You have taught me what it means to communicate. It wasn’t enough that my aunt used to stress to me “words MATTER, Tricia” or that I used to clam up when asked to express an idea or thought (for fear of being misunderstood—because words mattered so much). I had to go out there and just do it. I needed to take the plunge headfirst into the world. Outside. Using my voice. Not in my head. And you listened. And I did indeed learn that words, in every way, matter.
Before you, I went through a long, hard slump of being unable to tap into my creative self and manifest any ideas. That time went hand in hand with feeling like I had no creative self, therefore nothing to offer to the world. That changed when I moved to Portland, finished my Master in Fine Arts, and for the first time in my life was able to focus on my own abilities—those innate talents each person holds, waiting to be uncovered, discovered, and then offered to the world. You were born out of these initial findings of myself. You sprouted so suddenly and only after I had tilled my creative soil a tiny bit. You were waiting to happen. And while I didn’t realize it at the time, I was waiting for you to happen too.
My excitement over holistic health did not deter you. In fact, you embraced it whole-heartedly. I know you understood before I knew how to put it into words, how it connected with everything else I was doing. The underlying concept of my eating design projects were to “connect to our selves and with each other through the action of eating.” Holistic health focuses on the whole person and better understanding themselves, utilizing the concrete avenue of food and nutrition. You allowed me to explore, and then see, that eating design was so much more than a fancy dinner or a simple recipe, it was an avenue to nourish the soul, to feed us on a deeper level. Everybody eats—so how can food (as the universal connection) be used to heal, to communicate, to connect? Holistic health does this by considering the whole person (physical, emotional, mental, physiological); Eating Design does this by considering the whole story (fact, fiction, emotive, historical…) of either a singular person or an entire community. People are made up of stories. In fact, their whole lives are a series of stories, memories, and experiences strung together. You gave me the space to become whole myself and to understand that my interests truly lie with the concept of wholeness, completeness, in a person, in a family, in a community.
Thank you, Eating Is Art, for being the place I can grow, change, push, and refine myself in. Thank you for sprouting when you did and silently encouraging me all along the way. While it’s only been two years, it feels more like ten—and I am forever grateful.
And thank YOU my wonderful readers, for making these past two years unforgettable and wonderful. You are the reason I blog and keep blogging. You have created such a lovely community of support and encouragement that I never expected, but am delighted to be a part of. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.
Much Love, Tricia
What does your life taste like? In any given moment, the flavors can change, meld, swirl, and morph. But concentrate on just that one moment. Maybe you can’t help it–that one moment has been all consuming for you and your thoughts for quite some time now. Or maybe you’d rather pluck that one particular flavor out of life’s-stream-of-many to discern, to hold, and to savor. People ask me, “what is your pie?” and my answer is always the same, “which day?”
Pietopia, on all fronts, was a success this year. It was fun, it was quite big, and there was a ton of pie. However, I’ve realized that the definition of success for myself doesn’t necessarily lie in any of these outward factors. Instead, it’s success lies in what this contest has taught me these past three years. Pietopia has been a lesson in illuminating the vast potential, complexity, and beauty of human life.
Not long ago, a friend of mine hit the nail on the head by saying, “there are THREE things certain in life: death, taxes, and uncertainty in itself.” So much of life is uncertain that there really is no time to dwell on the fact that we just don’t know what exactly is going to happen at any given moment. Sure, we can plan, project, and create frameworks, but in the end, do we ever really know how things will turn out? This is where human potential (and complexity) comes in. We all have the ability to grasp those unpleasant or life-altering situations by the horns and grow–embracing them by finding a sense of purpose, having faith, and getting through them with grace, gratitude and finding an unexpected richness in life. Shit happens. And we all know this from experience! But what Pietopia has shown me is that people do indeed take hold of their lives and turn the bitter moments into moments sweet with new knowledge, maturity, and experience.
I’ve been waiting for a terrible tasting pie and have yet to see one entered. This may be because it’s hard for many to imagine submitting and winning for a “bad-pie”, or we have been trained sub-consciously through cultural grooming that pie contests are delicious, or people genuinely do find the good and beauty amidst life’s hardships. There is a conundrum of learning from life’s hardships: when things do get hard, many people tend to lean more towards rigidity–to find that control–than simply letting go, allowing themselves to think outside of the box for a moment, and moving forward. And there is a reason for this–sometimes we just need to hold on a little longer to get to the heart of what it is we are learning for ourselves. I wanted to take this regular, human process and make learning from ourselves more accessible to our selves. Pietopia creates a playful structure that gives people room for deep contemplation and self-connection, that also satisfies all our needs to grow during a time of hardship or great joy. I love the reflective nature of the stories, built in with something so tangible like taste. And I love that people embrace this concept with me!
I am happy for Pietopia not only because we raffled off a ton of pies so wonderfully donated by a few lovely local bakeries (so much fun), but because the contest celebrates our lives as they are. Here and now. In the present. In all their imperfect and beautiful glory. Sometimes our present situations really are hard to swallow, much less someone else’s. But it is interesting. Imagine the feast that could unfold if everyone approached the table with the flavors of their lives, ready for each other to consume, commune, and connect through.
You can find the winning stories and recipes of Margit Beerlie, Caroline Ford, and Hannah Kane by clicking on their names. I had been writing a series for the semi-finalists, and it turned out that the first three pies I made for the semi-finalists series, also happened to be the winners! Those stories and recipes were compelling not only for me, but the judges as well.
22×30 silk-screen and watercolor print, by Karen Berger.
The art work this year was stunning. Vanessa Kauffman, Robin Miliken, and Karen Berger’s prints are breath taking–if you’d like one, take a look at the Eating Is Art shop, they’re on sale there. Chris Baskin out did himself with some of the most beautiful pie plates imaginable. He donated enough for the winners, but make sure you take a look at the rest of his beautiful collection on his website. In the end, I feel blessed, excited, and exhausted. It was a great event, but also I’m looking forward to being able to focus more on the personal and individualized work I do with my clients at Joyful Life Wellness.
22×30 silk-screen print, by Robin Miliken.
22×30 silk-screen print, by Vanessa Kauffman.
Plates by Chris Baskin.
I love that name for a business! I worked with the wonderful women at Be Nourished to do something a little different at their open house. They just moved to a new space in an actual house which is so appropriate for the work that they do. It is so wonderful to work with people who’s philosophy and ideas are in tune with yours–a treat actually. Their approach to food and healing is absolutely nourishing:
We believe that the capacity and potential to change is within every person. Our passion is helping people explore how an enjoyable relationship with food happens naturally when the focus is more on nurturing the body and mind and less on dieting. We encourage a non-diet approach to food, weight, and health. Our approach helps people heal from the side effects of chronic dieting. People who repeatedly diet often experience a “diet backlash” – increased rigidity regarding good and bad foods, restriction leading to increased binging, reduction in trust of self with food, feelings about not “deserving” food, social withdrawal and shortened duration of dieting episodes.
Dana came to the luncheon I did this summer for one of her clients who is also my friend, Lacy. It was a serendipitous meeting and the pieces kept falling into the right places and I am now working with Be Nourished more frequently. For the open house they wanted a new twist on hour d’oeuvres and a way to incorporate all the senses to demonstrate mindfulness with food through an experience–as opposed to only setting out nice little canapes. So I re-created a taste-station based on the 6 Ayurvedic tastes (salty, sweet, sour, pungent, bitter, astringent) and had samples of all those foods for people to taste what they were. Then, I collaborated with my friend Nicole to come up with a variety of small canapes and snacks that would incorporate these tastes together. It was a big hit and the food was all fantastic.
I baked bread, whole wheat pitas, and made a wonderful Indian Vegetable dish (see recipe below). We used the bread I made for the canapes which included: goat cheese, salmon, and dill; goat cheese and pickled raisins; blue cheese, marionberry jam, assorted crackers, and a piece of rosemary; gluten free brown rice bread, salmon, a slice of meyer lemon, microgreens. I’d have to say the crackers with blue cheese, jam, and rosemary were my favorite–a fantastic melody in my mouth! But it was all truly good.
(goat cheese, capers, salmon–mmm)
(picked raisins, goat cheese, scrumptious)
(These sweet/savory crackers were aromatic and my favorite)
The Indian Vegetable dish actually incorporates all of the tastes in it making it extremely satisfying. This recipe is fairly simple and really hits on all the flavor notes in your mouth. Serve it with some coconut rice, spicy brown rice, or a whole wheat pita (or naan) and you will be good to go!
(Sushi rice–or sticky rice–balled up and rolled in toasted coconut! Can be served sweet or savory, so good!)
Indian Vegetables via The Modern Ayurvedic Cookbook by Amrita Sondhi
*This is actually a recipe for Samosa filling, so feel free to use it in that capacity as well! But I found I loved it over rice or with a pita too–a great addition to your vegetable recipe collection!
1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
2 teaspoons black mustard seeds
1 cup onions, chopped
1/2 teaspoon tumeric
8 curry leaves (optional–you can find them at most international or indian grocery’s)
3 cups potatoes, parboiled and cubed
1 1/2 cups peas, parboiled
1 1/2 cups carrots, parboiled
juice of 1/2 a lemon (I used a whole one, it was good)
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon garam masala
2 teaspoons salt
1 small bunch cilantro, finely chopped
1/2 fresh green chili, minced
In a large saucepan on high, heat oil, then add black mustard seeds and cover with a lid until they all pop, about 30 seconds. Stir in chopped onions, then reduce the heat to medium high and sautee for about 4 minutes, until the onions start to brown. Add turmeric and curry leaves and continue to sautee for 1 minute. Stir in potatoes, peas, carrots, lemon juice, cayenne, garam masala, and salt. Mix well and cook for about 3 minutes. Turn off heat, add cilantro and green chilies and mix well. Remove curry leaves and enjoy!
I love that name. Not only because there is a character on the Simpson’s with that name, a Lovejoy street here in Portland (in which the Simpson’s character was named after), and a new bakery here in town which also dons the name (because of the street is is located on), but they are two words we don’t hear enough. I once did a project on the meaning of Joy and Love (as well as Passion, Anger, Fear, and Pain)–I was making meditation cards for one of my yoga classes as one of my first letterpress experiments:
is a sense of warmth for the self or another that motivates us to treat ourselves and others well. It gives us a sense of inherent worth.
Joy
gives us hope and a sense of abundance or “I have enough”.
. This is why I think it is a wonderful name for a bakery. A bakery feeds us physically, but sharing a good baguette, croissant, or slice of cake also feeds us in another way. Food has a way of connecting us to ourselves through memories and tastes. It is hard to feel full of anything when hungry!
I was super excited to have been asked to do an installation for Lovejoy Bakers opening, which was today. They were looking for something playful and interactive. I wanted it to be colorful, fun, and incorporate their fundamental passion and foundation of starting their bakery: a love of good bread. Really good bread. I also wanted to keep it simple and playful–so I came up with the Sample Board.
I bent spoons and hung them with colorful duct tape. On the spoons (of reaching height of course) samples will be interspersed throughout the day as a new bread or pastry comes out of the oven and is featured. Tea lights, sprigs of herbs, fresh olives, or other nibblies could be interspersed for a special event or just on a gray afternoon! The possibilities are endless for what could be put on the spoons and displayed. I wanted to set up a simple framework for them that they could interject what they needed to put on there or have nothing at all, and it would still look good.
If you are in town, have yourself a treat and a look at my installation at Lovejoy Bakery!
939 NW 10th Avenue | Portland, Oregon 97209
Yesterday, I had the pleasure of going into a classroom to give a lecture about Eating Design. I collaborated with the professor in creating a wacky, zany, and definitely strange still life for her class to draw! It was a ton of fun. The concept was to modernize the still life. Her class has been looking at historic dutch still life’s, many of which incorporate food. So we modernized the food still life with an eating design twist. The day before, I had made long baguettes, ginger cookies, apple muffins, and molasses muffins to incorporate. These were foods made with ingredients that I had around–another important aspect for this project. Something that this particular class has been focusing on all semester is using what they have, re-looking at what already surrounds them, and re-appreciating what they currently possess. This theme was prevalent in the still life because nothing used was bought, it was collected from around the school and our homes.
Throughout the class, the students were given timed segments to draw what they saw. Then, they were to come up to the still life and take some of the food to eat. This constantly changed what they were drawing, forcing them to think abstractly and use their erasers a ton! Eating, incorporated into drawing, incorporated into a still life, it was really neat to see in action. The students did an incredible job keeping up with both their drawings and the eating . I was very glad to do it!
pictures via plainMade
One of my very dear friends, the lovely Chelsea, had a birthday last week. I decided a while back that she needed a surprise party–but a surprise party that was especially about her! So I set about making it happen. It was so much fun because she has so many fun interests and wonderful qualities. It was hard to pick just one. Chelsea is an artist, designer, and a wonderful gardener. She spends hours in her garden delicately tending her nasturtiums, lettuces, figs, and squash. She, like many of our generation, has had a pretty mobile life–moving from one place to the next, across the country and back, then back again, looking for a place to be for a while. But each place she settles, roosts in for a while, she immediately starts growing things. Sometimes they are in pots and if she stays for a while longer, they get a piece of her yard. Gardening grounds her. It is a way that she literally places roots in a place for herself. Therefore, the food that she eats inexplicably connects her to the very earth she lives on in that place.
Taking this love of gardening, I asked each guest to bring a botanical-reinterpretation of her. I was thinking of those old Victorian era associations and meanings they had with flowers: if you give someone a yellow rose, it means friendship, etc. One friend brought a daisy crown (perfect for Chelsea’s obsession with wearing floral crowns!), another a hand-made pin of an over sized sunflower (mirroring the ones in her garden) that she can wear, and another a painting done with scented oils. I made her a cake .
For her cake, I went with the never fail Mary Todd Lincoln recipe for a lovely white cake. This cake is amazing, light, and aromatic. I usually omit the almonds in this recipe so Andrew can eat some, but I do add extra vanilla in its place which I believe to be even better! Chelsea loves all things vanilla and really doesn’t like dark chocolate. I wanted the cake to resemble a garden of sorts (making dark chocolate perfect for icing–to resemble healthy dirt!) but I knew this would not do. So, I compromised and made a milk-chocolate french butter cream frosting. Then, I dusted the top of it with cocoa to give it a bit more of an earthy look . I even raided her garden that afternoon and clipped some lovely nasturtiums, Thai basil, and chamomile to decorate it with. Flowers on a cake always bring out the inner-fairy. When we eat flowers, it usually has nothing to do with nutrition of our bodies. Rather, it is more of a decadent act; it makes you feel special in ways that other foods can not, feeding other aspects of our selves. Flowers nourish the spirit .
On the table, I drew her favorite flower, the Paper White and wrote quotes from different poems about gardens and gardening. Some were really funny. Others, were quieter, more soft, and beautiful. I also made a ratatouille (it doesn’t get much more vegetable heavy that that!) out of Mastering the Art of French Cooking, some toasted slices of baguette with olive oil, and a nice, fresh ricotta mixed with fresh thyme herbs and sea salt. We ate it all!
Mary Todd Lincoln’s White Cake
Adapted from “Lincoln’s Table” by Donna D. McCreary
Ingredients
1 cup blanched almonds
1 cup unsalted butter (2 sticks)
2 cups granulated sugar
3 cups all-purpose flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 cup milk
6 eggs, separated (best when eggs are cold)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Confectioners’ sugar
Method
Using a food processor or a spice grinder, pulverize almonds until they resemble coarse flour.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a Bundt cake pan.
With an electric beater or stand mixer, cream butter and sugar until light yellow in color and fluffy.
Sift flour and baking powder three times. (I don’t make a rule of this practice, but with three cups of flour, it seemed like a good idea to incorporate some air and help make this cake as light as possible.) Fold flour mix into creamed butter and sugar, alternating with milk, until well blended. Stir in almonds and beat well.
In a separate bowl, beat egg whites until they have stiff, firm peaks. (Use egg yolks for another use – French toast, possibly?) Beaters must be washed and dried thoroughly before whipping egg whites or they will not stiffen properly. Fold egg whites gently into batter with a rubber spatula. Add vanilla extract.
Pour batter into prepared pan and bake for one hour, or until a skewer inserted comes out clean.
Cool for at least 20 minutes before inverting, then allow to completely cool before serving. Sift confectioners’ sugar on top.
Makes about 12 slices.
The Eat My Story event in Seattle was so much fun and went really well. The space was incredible–open, light, and a huge family style table. The cacophony of stories and ingredients were like eye candy. The colors and textures of the food, the sounds of our guests both filled the room with a whole new personality. They looked great with the personalized pizza peels I had made for each story too . BRITE made some great signs for the window as well as mini pins everyone was able to wear–they were so amazing to work with! I look forward to future collaborations with them!
(The pizza peels with each story’s ingredients piled on them:)
(BRITE made little pins everyone wore–I loved them!)
Each person took one of the peels–not their own story but someone else’s–and built that person’s story with the ingredients depicted on it. They were then able to prepare (chop, cut, and arrange) their ingredients, shape their pizza dough, and then have the pizza baker put it in the oven for just about one minute. Then as each pizza came out, we read the story that went with it aloud, sliced it up, and tasted it.
There was so much food there was a point most of us were sitting together at the table, waiting for the next round of pizzas to come out, and we were almost silent–like after a huge thanksgiving meal–in a food coma. We snapped out of it, looked at each other, and started to laugh–how can we possibly eat the next three rounds? Another 12 pizzas? ha! It was a ton of food.
The restaurant we had the event at was incredible. Via Tribunali is a local chain of pizza places in Seattle but originated in Naples. The recipes for their dough, their home-cured meats, pizza sauce, and even cheese is all from the original restaurant in Italy and is all made right on site. They do an excellent job! If you find yourself in Seattle, you should definitely stop by and eat there .
Cheers!
I’ve been busily preparing for a few events happening this weekend, one of which I mentioned earlier this week. Eat My Story in Seattle is taking place this Saturday and there has been a lot of great prep for it! I am making some neat pizza peels out of a stiff card board. They are an abstract version as they do not have the traditional rounded tip, but they are cute.
The basic low down for this event is: how would you tell a story on your pizza? Think about not only how it looks, but also tastes, textures, smells, sounds, and history of the ingredients you choose effects the over all story. We’ll be building each others stories, but if there is a question or a someone feels a need to add or subtract an ingredient on someone else’s story, you must ask the original story teller first. Tell them why you want to change it and how you think it would add to their story, then see if they agree! Finally, we’ll all be able to taste each others stories, creating a link between taste, tactility, other people’s ideas, and creating a memory of our own through the senses.
Jean posted some great pics of the place we will be having the event, Via Tribunali which I wanted to share with you. Thanks, Jean!
The second event–well, you’ll just have to wait and see for that one . I’ll post about it next week though for sure!
Hope you are having a great week!
