Inspirato.

Yes, we have all heard that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. And, on a base level and on the high-road level, I suppose it is. But, there is a fine line between imitation and inspiration.  Imitation versus inspiration is a perennial discussion in the art world and other worlds as well.  And, it is such valid dialogue.

Imitation:

Okay, so when Julie Esperes got her Coca-Cola shirt and acid washed, tapered, high-waisted Guess jeans in the sixth (or was it seventh?) grade, I really wanted them, too. But let's face it, it wasn't just Julie who had the Coca-Cola shirt or the acid washed, tapered, high-waisted Guess jeans in the sixth (or was it seventh?) grade. It was a trend. And yes, both Paz and I desperately wanted Johnny Depp as our boyfriend after watching the french-kissing scene in Cry Baby for the seventy-third time in a row. Again, I doubt we were alone.  Incidentally, while I do think I scored the jeans, I neither got the Coca Cola shirt nor Johnny Depp.

Occasionally, I have succumbed to and thoroughly enjoyed some trends and things I've seen my friends, or Madonna, do.  But the thing is, black rubber bracelets and all, I've known what works and doesn't work for me. No matter how many girlfriends of mine did it, I would never have dotted my i with a heart.

As I grew more and more into myself, the Me in me kept growing into more and more of Me.  More often than not I have marched to the beat of my own drum and had my own style, which admittedly has not always been super awesome (I didn't start shaving my legs until I was almost finished with college and I have given myself some truly atrocious haircuts/dye-jobs throughout my life).  My confidence in my passion and "wanting to to it my way" hasn't always worked.  Deciding on Film Noir as a 'major' in undergraduate school, or creating an independent study in roller skating for PE credit did not earn me points or make me too popular. 

Inspiration:

When I lived in Atlanta, I started playing with Polaroid cameras. All sorts. Then it moved into all plastic lens or toy cameras. I was fixated on the muted tones, blurred light, and the ephemeral quality of the prints. I was equally fixated on how what began as happy accidents, with light leaks and light streaks, could become purposeful and designed. Then certain artists began to stand out, almost like deciphering code for John Nash. I became enamored of photographers such as Nan Goldin, Uta Barth, Corrine Day, Terry Richardson and William Eggelston, to name a few. I was devouring publications like Purple, Big, Soma, Blind Spot and sweating publishers such as Steidle and Taschen.

And so I went back to school. To study photography. The funny thing was, though a very good school, it was an institution that focused primarily on advertising and professional photography - not art. From 35mm to 4X5 to medium format, from black and white to color, we studied every technical nuance of the science of light to the camera to the celluloid that went in it. I had to do mock Gap ads and even spent a week in the studio, with a house of cards of scrims and gels and filters trying to light a Michael Graves pepper mill in the style of German Expressionism. I called the final product The Pepper Mill of Dr. Caligari.

The thing is, throughout photography school, being taught technique and control, I really and truly grasped the concept of needing to understand rules before breaking them. And for one of my final projects, I cast aside the Hasselblad and picked up the Polaroid 600. I shot eight images, some of bright flowers and some of me and my then boyfriend nude and/or tangled up with one another. I then very coarsely sewed them together to create a Jacob's Ladder of sorts. I also had to also stand up and present and explain my work to a room full of wide-eyed, speechless classmates and teachers. I don't know that they quite knew what to do with it, or me, but I know they all appreciated my confidence in what I had created. It was the most personal and most beautiful piece of art I have made to date.

And now I have shifted again. For the past five years I have had this little food blog. Now I like to write. Now I want to write. Sometimes I write things that make me feel naked, or stupid, or trivial. Sometimes I write things that I know make my parent's toenails curl (like mentioning that Polaroid booklet). I don't know who's reading or what they think of what they see. But I know I need to do it. Whether it's understanding every frame of The Blue Dahlia, and talking about it, or taking pictures of pepper mills, Gap products or my sex life, or writing about what I eat, drink, cook or think about, I feel I have always had my voice.

And though I may have coveted my neighbors, so to speak, I have never emulated them. Nor could I. But without Nan Goldin, I don't know if I would have found the courage to be naked, be it on film or in words. And without Terry Richardson, if I would have understood the brilliance in the simplicity, and the validity, of a point and shoot camera with a built in flash. Without the publications that gave them a voice, I don't know if I'd keep making mine as loud as possible for so long.

And to be honest, this particular blog post is, in part, inspired by two other blog posts: one with words that are so profound, elegant and straightforward, that I feel I must run off to write every time I read a new post, and another one that had a beautiful and inspired looking recipe, that propelled me straight into the kitchen. I know I don't, and couldn't, write like Ellisa, even if I wanted to. Which I don't. Because, as I've said, I am me and I have my own voice. And I had no way to make the recipe Olga posted, because I did not have the time nor the ingredients. Instead, I took the two the parts of the dish that my eyes landed on in the photograph of the food, and the baking method (roasting), and figured out something of my own.

And it was delicious. And what's more, amazing food for thought.


Click here to check out and enter an inspirational giveaway!

Roasted Chicken Thighs with Blood Orange

*inspired by Sassy Radish's Roasted Chicken Thighs With Clementines

which was inspired by Jerusalem, by Ottolenghi and Tamimi

Ingredients:

3 tablespoons olive oil

1/2 tablespoon kosher salt

1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

2 pounds (approximately 6) bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs 

1 medium shallot, thinly sliced

3 cloves of garlic, chopped

3 tablespoons fresh sage, coarsely chopped

1 medium blood orange, cut into very thin slices

3 tablespoons of blood orange juice

A splash of champagne

The juice of 1 Meyer lemon

Directions:

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

In a large mixing bowl combine the olive oil, blood orange juice, lemon juice, champagne, shallot, salt, and pepper with 1/4 cup of water.

Add chicken to bowl and give everything a nice stir, so that the chicken is well-coated in the marinade, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for a few hours or overnight. If you didn’t plan ahead and don’t have a few hours (or overnight) making this on the go works out perfectly fine.

Position the baking rack in the middle and heat the oven. Divide the chicken and all the marinade across (9x13x2-inch) roasting pan, so that there is enough room to accommodate everything comfortably in a single layer. Make sure the chicken skin is facing up. Wedge the blood orange slices among the chicken, throughout the pan. Sprinkle the sage and garlic equally over the chicken. Roast for about 45 minutes or until the chicken is nicely browned and cooked through, basting 3 or 4 times during the first 30 minutes. The edges of some of the clementines will start to look burnt. Check on the chicken about 35 minutes into the roasting process and if you think that the liquid is beginning to dry up add a splash more water (or use your judgment).

Serve chicken with some of the caramelized orange slices an a drizzle of the drippings from the roasting pan.

Printable recipe.

One year ago: Grilled Oysters with Garlicky, Lemony, Buttery Sauce

Two years ago: Avgolemono Soup

Three years ago: Lasagne Bolognese

Five years ago: Angelini Osteria

Churning Things Up.

My house flooded a couple of weeks ago. There was some damage, but not a ton. Mostly it was a big pain and a big bummer. But, after a week, most of the repairs had been completed by the workmen , the clean-up had been done (by me), and save for the warped hardwood floors and the stench of mildew, all was back to normal.

And another week passed. The mildew smell was not getting any better. In fact, it seemed worse. So I looked up mold on the internet. The words fungus and lungs (in the same sentence) popped out at me and I promptly freaked out. I emailed the landlord that he needed to bring over a dehumidifier tout suite and that he, himself, come check out the situation. That didn’t really happen.

Then one evening Fred was ribbing me about the lack of photos of us and moreover, the fact that I hate him trying to take my picture all the time, so I ran into my room to grab one of my old photo albums to illustrate the fact that many pictures of me actually exist. And well… the source of the mildew stink was unearthed. My precious photo albums had fallen victim to the flood. And they reeked.

I’ve often stated that, if I were only able to save one thing from my burning house (living things aside), that it would be my pictures. Though I’m not entirely certain I still feel that way, this made me quite upset. And so began the process of saving the pictures. It was kind of late at night following a few glasses of wine and Fred helped out. We started with High School. I pulled the pictures out of the album and he laid them out on any flat surfaces he could find in the dining nook. It took about an hour or so and it all looked very strange when we were done. There was High School – a mosaic of snapshots – covering every surface in the room. It appeared very abstract.

The next day I was trying to find space in the kitchen to put away the new cast iron items my mom gave me. There is a serious dearth of space in my kitchen. In this process we found my ice cream maker. We decided we should definitely make ice cream. Well, It was mostly Fred’s brain flower. So for the entire day we dug up crazy ingredients around the house and garden and made batch after batch of ice cream!

Well, mostly Fred did that. I had to deal with putting High School into a new album and beginning the same process with College.

It took a few days but I finished dealing with all the photo albums and the stinky is almost all gone. But what a mixed bag that turned out to be. I am usually prepared for what I am going to see and feel on the rare occasion that I bust out the old picture pages. I also can select which ones I will see. But seeing my life, my past, laid out in pictures across two rooms of my house like an in-progress ChuckClose piece… well...

Friends I hardly remember anymore, friends I think about all the time, friends that have died, friends that are still my friends, old loves, old likes, family – alive and dead, me with bad hair,  mom with bad hair, dad with the same hair, where I used to live, where I used to play, what I used to do and the people I did it with. All of this thrown up on itself all over the house over an innocent ice-cream-making weekend with Fred.

A mixed bag, I tell you.

But it was a good thing, really. I edited. Put some of the pictures away elsewhere, reorganized the albums, tightened them up, and all the while I remembered. It was a surprise gift, when I think about it. All of these images, people, places and events are part of the mosaic that is me and my journey. Pretty much exactly like a Chuck Close piece.

And when I was done, I got to sample what Fred was up to during this process:

Fresh Mint and Ghiradelli Chocolate Chip Ice Cream

Blood Orange Ice Cream with Vanilla Bean & Fresh Orange Thyme

Toasted Coconut and Thai Basil Ice Cream (pictured below)

The boy was busy! And, as it turns out, he is very talented in the ice cream making arena. The mint chip was my favorite as I like the classics. The garden-freshness of the mint added an energizing quality. The blood orange one ended up being very sherbet –like to me, but was my mom’s favorite. The coconut was probably the most interesting and successfully quirky-yet-also-delicious one of the trio. Amelia, from Lindy Grundy, was over the moon for that one.

Fred used a standard recipe for the basic ice creams and riffed when it came to the various flavors and textures. Here I am providing you with David Lebovitz's mint chocolate chip recipe. Why? Because I have the most memories attached to that ice cream flavor. It was one of my favorites as a kid. And still is. I’d even go so far as to bet there is a picture of me eating a scoop of it in one of those photo albums.

Fresh Mint & Chip Ice Cream
(recipe from David Lebovitz)

Makes about 1 quart

1 cup whole milk

3/4 cup sugar

2 cups heavy cream

pinch of salt

2 cups packed fresh mint leaves

6 large egg yolks

1 vanilla bean, split and scraped

For the chocolate chips:

5 ounces semisweet or milk chocolate, chopped

In a medium saucepan, warm the milk, sugar, 1 cup heavy cream, salt, vanilla and mint.

Once the mixture is hot and steaming, remove from heat, cover, and let stand for an hour to infuse the mint flavor.

Remove the mint and vanilla bean with a strainer, then press down with a spatula firmly to extract as much mint flavor and color as possible. Once the flavor is squeezed out, discard.

Pour the remaining heavy cream into a large bowl and set the strainer over the top.

Rewarm the infused milk. In a separate bowl, whisk together the egg yolks, then slowly pour some of the warm mint mixture into the yolks, whisking constantly, then scrape the warmed yolks back into the saucepan.

Cook the custard, stirring constantly with a heatproof spatula, until the mixture thickens and coats the spatula. If using an instant read thermometer, it should read around 170ºF.

Immediately strain the mixture into the cream, then stir the mixture over an ice bath until cool.

When mixture is thoroughly cold, churn using your method of choice. Add chocolate chips to the ice cream when there are about 5 minutes left in the churning process. Transfer to a freezer safer container and freeze for several hours before serving.

Printable recipe.

One year ago: Yerp: Part 1

Two years ago: Strawberries, Chocolate Mint & Chantilly Cream with Cornmeal Shortcakes

Martha Graham vs. The Keystone Cops

I am accident prone. I just am. In fact, I always have been. When I was a little girl I skinned my knee and proceeded to fall and hurt that same exact spot countless times. It finally got super gross and mom had to take me to the doctor. On the way to the car heading to the doctor, I tripped over a tree branch and fell on it again. I have a scar to prove it.

Another time, when I was even younger, like a toddler, mom tells me she walked into my room and found me with a coat hanger wedged in my throat (the hook part - go figure). She panicked but very gingerly managed to remove it. I also opened the tremendously heavy front door of our house over my foot, which caused a huge cut. Mom put me up on the kitchen counter and told me I was very brave as she poured peroxide over it. I have a scar to prove it.

A few years ago after some openings and cocktails in Chinatown, a friend and I thought it would be fun to give me a piggy back ride – while running – back to the car. He tripped and I flew over his head and slid down the sidewalk on my face. No scar, thank God, but I do have a picture to prove it. I believe Heather entitled it “Eyeface”.

I have wrecked more bikes, stubbed more toes, and had more concussions than I’d like to count or admit. I bonk into corners of coffee tables, bed frames, door frames, you name it. I sometimes even close my own foot in the car door. I am, simply, a klutz.

But not in the kitchen. I wield large, sharp knives, juggle heavy pots and pans over high flames, I pivot and swirl with all sorts of dangerous kitchen equipment and delicate foods with nary a glitch. Why is this, I wonder? 

On Oscar night, my mom came over to bake bread, and cake and cook dinner and watch the awards with me. It was pretty over the top, the amount of action going on in my little kitchen. We baked a rustic loaf and a Parmesan-black olive loaf of bread. Dinner was a salad of shaved fennel, thinly sliced white mushrooms, Parmesan cheese, over mache, with a dressing of Meyer lemon, walnut oil and sea salt, and slices of pork tenderloin sautéed in ginger, garlic, soy and fish sauce over jasmine rice. For dessert we baked a polenta cake with a citrus glaze and homemade vanilla whipped cream. Everything was perfect.

Then, later in the evening, I was outside, lost my footing and had a colossal wipe out causing my knee, elbow and wrist to eat major concrete. It looked horrifying (and still does), and I have been having a hard time with movement, in general, ever since. And I’m sure I will have the scars to prove it. I guess I’m not surprised. I suppose I was overdue. It had been quite some time since the last incident, as far as I can recall.

How bizarre is it that I am like Martha Graham in the kitchen and then a Keystone Cop once I go out  into the world? 

I don’t have the answer, but I do have the recipe for that polenta cake.

Rosemary-Citrus Polenta Cake with a Rosemary-Citrus Syrup

1 stick unsalted butter

1 ½ cup all purpose flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 scant tsp salt

¾ cup polenta

5 eggs (at room temperature)

¾ cup sugar

zest of ½ Meyer lemon

zest of ½ small orange

2 tsp fresh rosemary, finely chopped

Preheat the oven to 360 degrees and prepare a 9-inch spring-form cake pan (buttered and floured).

Melt butter and set aside to cool.

In a large bowl combine flour, baking powder, salt and polenta. In a separate bowl, using an electric mixer, whip together eggs and sugar until they are airy and have more than doubled in volume. Add the lemon and orange zests and rosemary.

Carefully fold in about a third of the dry ingredients and half of the melted butter, and repeat until everything is incorporated. Scrape into the cake pan and bake for 35-40 minutes; the sides should come slightly away from the pan and a toothpick inserted in the center should come out clean. It will appear dry but moisture will be added soon.

For the syrup:

1 big branch of rosemary, chopped

½ cup water

1/3 cup sugar

zest of ½ Meyer lemon

zest of ½ small orange

Juice of 1 Meyer lemon

Make this syrup while the cake is in the oven. In a small pot, cook water and sugar over medium-high heat until the sugar has dissolved. Add the rosemary and the lemon and orange zests. Bring to a boil, and let it steep, simmering, for 15 minutes, then strain and reserve. Before using, add the lemon juice.

When the cake has cooled for 10 minutes, spoon the syrup evenly over the cake (still in the pan). Let it soak and cool in the pan, then remove. Serve at room temperature, with vanilla whipped cream, either spooned on top or sandwiched in the middle.

 Vanilla whipped cream: 

1 cup chilled heavy whipping cream
1/4 cup chilled crème fraîche
4 teaspoons powdered sugar
1 1 1/2-inch piece vanilla bean, split lengthwise

Combine whipping cream, crème fraîche, and powdered sugar in medium bowl. Scrape in seeds from vanilla bean; reserve bean. Using electric mixer, beat mixture until soft peaks form. Add reserved vanilla bean to cream mixture; cover and chill at least 2 hours.

DO AHEAD: Can be made 4 hours ahead. Keep chilled. Remove vanilla bean and re-whisk cream mixture until thick before using.