Art & Lemons

scenes from winter (plus a photo workshop)

January 22, 2013 | Filed Under: Uncategorized

Well, Winter.

Here we are again. Nestled in the pit of January. As often as I’ve grown tired of you in the past, something shifted this year. I mean just look at you in your chilling brilliance. You’re not so bad to have around after all. On these crisp snow speckled days, I’m floored, utterly floored by the heartbreaking light of the sun, oh the sun. Is this your secret weapon? Sure you can be moody and cantankerous, but aren’t we all from time to time?

I might venture to say, I kind of like you. Pure white wrapped in dusty blue. Face stinging wind slaps. Bone chilling cold. Snow top mountain castles filled with trolls (lots of Harry Potter these days). Long walks in the hills.

What’s next? I may even fall oh, shh. Don’t speak. Let’s not rush into anything…I don’t think either of us are ready for that.

p.s. Local (New England) Folks! I’m teaching a photography workshop at the Amherst Farmers Market this Saturday. I would love to see you there. You can find all the details below.

Saturday at the Market: A Mobile Photography Workshop For Food Lovers

In this workshop, we’ll explore the art of mobile photography by capturing the vibrant food scene at the Amherst Winter Farmers Market: the local farmers, their produce, and the market shoppers. You’ll learn photography basics (light, composition, framing, and exposure) along with visual storytelling techniques. You’ll also learn how to shoot, process, and later print your mobile images. Bring a mobile phone and your fabulous selves.

Date: January 26 (or sign up for the Feb. or Mar 9th dates)
Time: 10 am to 12 noon
Place: Amherst Regional Middle School, 170 Chestnut Street, Amherst, MA
Fee: $25.00 (per workshop, per person)

If you’re interested in joining, drop me a line by Friday (info[at]artandlemons[dot]com).

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Graceland

January 15, 2013 | Filed Under: Uncategorized

Memphis wasn’t the first place on my mind when I sat down to write this morning, but after looking at the negatives of Graceland left on top of the scanner on my desk, I couldn’t entertain the idea of sweet potatoes, smoky hummus, rice bowls or other recent happenings in the kitchen. Instead, I was shuttled back to the near two weeks spent last summer trip in Tennessee.

I couldn’t help it. The black-and-white photo of Elvis’ pool I shot last summer reminded me of the humid July day we spent immersed in his life and the objects that once surrounded him. It was my first trip to Memphis and to Graceland. I’ve been an Elvis fan (his early Sun Sessions and Gospel recordings in particular) since I was in second grade when I went with my friend Stephanie’s house after school one day. Her mom was in the living room listening to music and crocheting a sweater or maybe a hat. A stack of vinyl records leaned against the stereo and I remember hearing Elvis’ voice in a way that I hadn’t before. His voice was haunting and sultry. I’m sure I had heard Elvis sing before but standing there in the middle of their peachy orange and brown living room, I felt like hearing music for the first time. The metal crochet needles clicked away as Stephanie pulled on my sailor shirt to follow her down the hallway.

Graceland was a special sort of flashy madness. The same way The King himself could be on stage. It was part theme park, part time capsule, part mausoleum. The later is what interested me. I wanted to capture every detail with my camera but couldn’t. My camera was loaded with slow film and we weren’t allowed to use flash so shooting indoors wasn’t an option. I tried to hold my breath and casually lean my body against the green shag wall trailing down from the kitchen overlooking the sunken living room and down into the basement. As expected, the interior shots were a blur. As I steadily snapped away, the wave of tourists pushed me along and somehow I kept shuffling the tracks on my self-guided tour so that I was perpetually stuck at the beginning of the tour, in the formal living and dining rooms. Plastic covers on the white sofas, rooms roped off at the entrances.

I didn’t mind. I kept thinking about the staircase up to the second floor, the only part of the house and estate that was off limits. Elvis had requested it be so in his will to protect at least some of his privacy. I would have wanted the same but I couldn’t help wonder if the upstairs was really preserved like the rest of the house or if the rooms had been disassembled and stored elsewhere. Every other aspect of his public life was on display. That must have been tough to live with.

Not just for him, but for his family as well. There were so many elements I wanted to capture there, beyond the estate. Another reason to return…

6 Comments

A Sunny Winter’s Day Salad

January 9, 2013 | Filed Under: Recipes, salads

Hearty winter greens and chicory are spread on the marble slab topped cabinet that sits beneath the south facing kitchen window. I’m flipping through last year’s library copies of Dwell, Martha Stewart Living, and O Magazine. A renovated Brooklyn brownstone plus heirloom apples and reviews of Wild (currently on my reading pile but am still smack in the middle of Day of Honey. Where do the hours go?). Between pages and bites of sweet bitter greens, I’m also snapping photos of radicchio, fennel fronds, and aging pomegranates.

You can probably guess where I’m going. More salad talk.

To be clear, I’m not usually this nauseatingly healthy by eating a daily salad for breakfast. Salad just happens to be around lately. You know how it is when you have a drawer of radicchio, frisee, spinach, kale, pomegranates, lemons, mint, and parsley threatening to wilt under your nose lest you make haste and find a way to properly slice, dress, and toss them in a bowl with a bit of other leftovers.

So another day passes with a crisp and perky salad that I need to tell you about. Hear me out though. This salad is the sort to part cloud draped days with bursts of summer sun. It’s true. I’ve seen it happen. One minute the sky is a set of heavy gray drapes and the next, blood orange, pomegranate, mint, and fennel shine through.

It’s so good that in the hierarchy of morning, this salad comes before the often sought after chocolate chip cookies dunked in coffee snack. New year, new cravings. Nutrient dense dishes highlighting iron, calcium, Vitamins A and C, potassium, protein, phosphorous. What can I say? Purity has little to do with this habit, since there will always be cookies later.

As titled, the recipe comes from a longing for a burst of summer amidst these cold but nonetheless stark and chipper winter days. I’ll leave you with photos of the variation I made today. To get the full recipe and see my TV clip on Mass Appeal, click over to A Sunny Winter’s Day Salad.

Happy Salad Days! Um, yeah. I promise, my salad craze won’t last forever…scratch that, even if it lasts, I promise to change it up a little more.

11 Comments

breakfast for one (salad with honey-mustard dressing)

January 3, 2013 | Filed Under: Recipes, salsas, relishes & salad dressings

Happy New Year!

There’s snow on the ground, coffee on the counter, and salad for breakfast. Yep, normal stuff. Sure I get some looks and eye rolls from my better half, but for whatever reason, even on frosty mornings, I like a good salad to start the day. I’m not sure where I got turned around. Salad for breakfast. Pancakes for dinner. Or for how long.

More often than not, breakfast happens in the quiet crook of mid-morning. Coffee lingers, the writing begins and I thinking ahead to lunch. Luke is usually at school and David’s at work, and I’m left alone at the kitchen table. Dishes in the sink, cluttered countertops, sauce splattered stove. I reserve the more rigorous cooking for later, opting instead for dinner leftovers or chopped vegetables to arrange into a salad.

Some days I write as I crunch away. Most often, I read a paragraph or a page from whatever book I’m currently into then take a few minutes to do nothing. Staring out the window without any thoughts or intentions of what’s next does wonders for one’s writing. Those idle minutes help charge the mind and trick it in some way to relax and find the meandering path to an empty page.

I drift into a daydream. Forgetting to add dressing to the salad, I read the next chapter in Day of Honey, Annia Ciezadlo’s beautifully rich memoir about food, love, and war in the Middle-East. “Afterward, whenever anyone asked me what Baghdad was like, I would tell them about the topiary,” Ciezadlo writes at the beginning of chapter six.

I’ve never been to Iraq, and like the author, I’ve built a series of mental images of the country from news footage and film clips that consist mostly of palm trees, bombed out buildings, tanks, and stretches of sand. I wouldn’t have expected to find topiary either and this is the sort of detail and unraveling of ideas and history and truth that Ciezadlo excels at. Her prose happens to be lush as well, sentence after sentence, nimble and satiating.

That’s where I’m at this morning anyway. Lost in a wealthy Baghdad neighborhood (circa 2003) with neatly trimmed green Joan Miro-like and a naked spinach salad off to my side.

What do you eat for breakfast when you’re alone?

Honey-Mustard Dressing
makes ¼ cup of dressing

1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1/2 teaspoon honey
1 small garlic clove, minced
fine sea salt
freshly ground black pepper

Combine all ingredients in an empty pint-size jar with a lid (or place them all in a bowl and whisk). Cover tightly and shake until the dressing is silky smooth.

p.s. A bit of news:

The Art & Lemons January newsletter is out with a recipe for homemade vanilla extract and 5 creative ideas to kick off the new year. (If you’re not already a subscriber, you can sign up in the box at the top of this page). One of the creative ideas is to start a 365 phone-ograph project and to track your photo a day with Collect (a free app that sends you daily reminders and helps you organize your photos in a monthly calendar).

For those of you in New England, I’m starting the new year off with another photo workshop series that will take place in Amherst, Massachusetts at the Winter Farmers Market. Details in the shop.

Last thing, I recently made my vegan sweet potato chili with spicy pepita oil and cornbread croutons on Mass Appeal, our local 22 News cooking segment. You can check out the recipes and watch the tv clip here.

11 Comments

Holiday Mix 2012

December 24, 2012 | Filed Under: Uncategorized

Dear Friends,

First off, thanks for your support and love on my last post. You’re all completely amazing!

We’re in Vermont for a few days. Big bountiful snowflakes fell yesterday, the sort you can reel in with your tongue. On our way to the movies yesterday, David and I stopped by Vergennes Laundry (an oven-fired french-style bakery) for kombucha and two lemon tartlets to go.

The place is exactly as I imagined, quiet steamy windows, clean lines, warm bread loaves, and a token deer head. Utterly Vermont, utterly romantic. It’s worth the drive. So is seeing The Hobbit, although go caffeinated and not to the later shows if you’re tired at all, and bring chocolate.

Long walks on back country roads, puzzles, pages from Ondaatje’s recent novel “The Cat’s Table”, and kale chips lie ahead. Plus we’re listening to our latest holiday mix. I have a thing for repeating songs this time of year, and looking back on the 2010 mix, Chuck Berry, Pink Martini, Sufjan Stevens, Nancy Wilson, and Victoria Spivey are on repeat. I tried to change it up a bit. Victoria Spivey, whose songs I want to include on nearly every mix, had to stay.

I discovered Victoria Spivey’s music ten years or so ago on college radio of all places. Her voice was arresting, it drew me in immediately. It was a snow drenched Sunday morning and as was my habit back then, I listened to a weekly show featuring old time American music.

Spivey rocked. She was an American blues singer and songwriter who recorded music from 1926 to the mid 1960s. She worked with Louis Armstrong, Lonnie Johnson, Bob Dylan and others. Noted songs include “Black Snake Blues”, “Dope Head Blues”, “Organ Grinder Blues”. Spivey started her own record label in 1962, Spivey Records.

I should go. There’s food to prep and presents to wrap. Hope you like the mix. Catch some snowflakes (if you can) and have a Merry Christmas!

Holiday Mix 2012 from artandlemons on 8tracks Radio.

Holiday Mix 2012
Tracklist

1. “Who Took The Merry Out Of Christmas”, The Ultimate Staple Singers (Disc 1), A Family Affair, The Staple Singers
2. “Blue Christmas”, Elvis’ Christmas Album, Elvis Presley
3. “A Snowglobe Christmas”, Joy to the World, Pink Martini
4. “Just Like Christmas”, Christmas, Low
5. “A Snowflake Fell (and It Felt Like a Kiss)”, Glasvegas, Glasvega
6. “Christmas Without Santa Claus”, Woman Blues!, Victoria Spivey
7. “Jolly Holiday”, The Reprise Studio Recordings – Disc V, Duke Ellington
8. “Sugar World”, Holiday, The Magnetic Fields
9. “Holiday in Waikiki”, The Kinks in Mono, The Kinks
10. “San Francisco Holiday”, Evidence, Steve Lacy
11. “Christmas Celebration”, Merry Christmas (100 Christmas Songs), B.B. King
12. “Christmas Bop”, Messing With the Mystic, T. Rex
13. “Merry Christmas”, More Unreleased Tracks, Ramones
14. “Santa Baby”, Christmas Songs, Marilyn Monroe
15. “Up on the Housetop”, Silver & Gold Volume 10 – Christmas Unicorn, Sufjan Stevens
16. “Mrs. Claus’ Kimono”, The Fine Print (A Collection of Oddities and Rarities 2003-2008), Drive-By Truckers

5 Comments

Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookie In A Jar Mix

December 18, 2012 | Filed Under: cookies, pastries & cakes, Recipes

So far, December has been a total heart breaker.

I’ve been quiet about this for good reason. I’m not ready. To talk.

Silence offers rest and stillness. It allows us to tune in, radios off, and settle in.

December brought loss, grief, and letting go. In my family, in Newtown, in nameless places around the world.

I’m not alone in this. None of us are.

We must learn to lean into ourselves and each other.

Be vulnerable.

Share stories.

Hold and let go.

We must find comfort and solace in our beautiful messy lives. Love each other exactly as we are. Be grateful, always so grateful for what we have.

Wishing you and yours lots of love during this holiday season!

For Christmas this year, I’m giving a number of homemade gifts as presents—all food related. I came up with this lacy-edged soft chocolate chip cookie recipe as one of the gifts. There’s also a duo of salts (vanilla, lemon), daily granola, super chocolatey brownie mix, chocolate chip scone mix, vanilla extract, whole-grain pancake mix, and chai tea mix. Our kitchen is overrun with chocolate and flour right now. It’s also covered in jars. Here’s the full cookie recipe. To give the cookies as a jar mix: get 1 quart-size jar; whisk the flours, baking powder, and together together in a bowl. Add this mixture as the first layer in the jar. Next, layer the brown sugar then the cane sugar. For the last layer, add the chocolate chips. Put the lid on. Make a gift tag and copy the jar mix baking instructions below. You can also halve or double the recipe with good results.

Full recipe:
Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies
makes about 2 dozen cookies

Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookie Mix
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup white whole wheat flour
1/2 cup oat flour
1/2 cup almond meal
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1/2 cup natural cane sugar
1 cup chocolate chips

Liquid ingredients
1/2 cup canola oil
1/2 cup almond milk
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper.

Combine the vegan chocolate chip cookie mix in a large bowl, stirring well. In a small
bowl, combine the oil, almond milk, and vanilla. Pour the liquid ingredients
into the dry, and stir to combine. Do not overmix. Fold in the chocolate chips.

If time allows, make the cookie dough ahead and chill it in the refrigerator overnight so the almond and brown sugar notes have time to develop.

Drop by the tablespoonful onto the prepared cookie sheets. Bake until slightly browned around the edges, about 15 minutes.

Jar recipe:
Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookie In A Jar Mix
makes 2 dozen cookies

1 batch Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookie Mix
1/2 canola oil
1/2 cup almond milk
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Combine all the ingredients from this jar in a large bowl, stirring well. In a small
bowl, combine the canola oil, almond milk, and vanilla. Pour the wet ingredients
into the dry, and stir to combine. Do not overmix.

If time allows, make the cookie dough ahead and chill it in the refrigerator overnight so the almond and brown sugar notes have time to develop.

Drop by the tablespoonful onto the prepared baking sheet. Bake until slightly browned around the edges, about 15 minutes.

Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookie Mix contains: all-purpose flour, white whole wheat flour, almond meal, oat flour, baking powder, sea salt, light brown sugar, natural cane sugar, vegan chocolate chips.

11 Comments

Gingery Rum Soy Nog

December 12, 2012 | Filed Under: Drinks, Recipes, Uncategorized

Four days after Thanksgiving scooted out the door, we dressed in woolen layers and drove up to Pieropan’s tree farm for our annual December ritual. Set in Ashfield, the farm is about thirty minutes from our place.

Except for the family who runs the farm, the place was empty when we arrived. We parked on the side of the road near the path. I honestly can’t tell you who was more excited to trek uphill through the balsams with walking sticks and a camera, Luke or I.

We stopped by the tree at the entrance. There’s a sheet of instructions stapled to its bark along with a set of hacksaws nailed to the side. Here’s how it works. You pick up a hacksaw and a slender measuring branch wrapped with red tape so you know about how much stump needs to be left behind (four feet or so).

The thrill is in wading through the maze of trees, drunk off the balsam spiked air and fending off thorny branches wont to hit uncovered cold skin. It’s also in finding that magic combination of nostalgia and meaning symbolized by the ideal tree, equal parts Norman Rockwell and Charlie Brown.

An hour later, we found our tree. David and I took turns hacking into the trunk. The tree fell in a soft heap then we hauled it down to the car. Tied to the roof of the car, the tree made it home and then into the house where we lavished it with water and felted ornaments as we toasted to soy nog.

Luke, of course, had an alcohol-free vanilla version while David and I emptied our gingery rum flavored ones.

My camera battery died at the farm so this story will have to do.

Happy merry everything to you, Cheers!

To make a non-alcoholic vanilla soy nog version, leave out the rum and ginger. Increase the ground nutmeg to 1/2 teaspoon and add 1 tablespoon of vanilla extract or the seed pods scraped from 1/2 vanilla bean.

Gingery Rum Soy Nog
makes 4 servings

1 1/2 cups vanilla soy milk
1 1/2 cups vanilla vegan ice cream
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 to 2 tablespoons finely chopped candied ginger, to taste
3 to 4 tablespoons rum, to taste
1 tablespoon brown sugar

In a blender or food processor, combine all the ingredients and blend until smooth and thick.

Pour into 4 cups, powder with a little extra nutmeg, and serve. Or prep the soy nog ahead, refrigerate it until ready, then stir and serve.

8 Comments

Eat Boutique Giveaway: New England Gift Box

December 3, 2012 | Filed Under: Uncategorized

Hello December.

Now that the low slung clouds from the weekend have cleared leaving an empty soup pot and jar of homemade soy nog in their wake, we can settle into a new month. To celebrate, I have a little treat for you today. Maggie of Eat Boutique offered to send a hand selected gift box to one of you (US residents only) lucky readers to celebrate the holiday season.

Presenting the New England Gift Box…

Inside you’ll find a sampling of the region’s best edible goodies: Nutting Farm Maple Syrup from Vermont, Lark Burnt Sugar and Fennel Shortbread, Fat Spice, Sweet Lydia’s Apple Cider Marshmallows and Q’s Mexican Chocolate Nuts.

If you’re new to Eat Boutique, they’re a magazine and market that specializes in small batch seasonal foods by boutique food makers. They also host tasting events and local markets with food makers, cookbook authors and small batch food fans. The products featured on Eat Boutique are top notch and the shop itself defines small, local, independent. All good qualities in my book.

TO ENTER (US RESIDENTS ONLY) THE GIVEAWAY:

For a chance to win a New England Gift Box from Eat Boutique, leave a comment here before Friday, December 7th at 5 pm (EST) when I’ll select one winner at random!

For extra chances to win, sign up for my monthly newsletter (see box at the top of this page). You can also follow/like me on one or all of my social hangouts: twitter, facebook, pinterest, google + and tell me that you did so at the end of this post.

Good luck!

*****The contest is now closed. Thanks to everyone who joined in and spread the word. Congrats Ly, you’re the randomly selected winner (check your email about the details…)!

The December Holiday Edition Newsletter is out today with a round-up of creative reads, honey-pistachio chocolate bark, 2012 holiday gift guide, Steal Like An Artist, plus Saturday at the Market photo workshops in Amherst, MA.

47 Comments

the yellow notebook

November 27, 2012 | Filed Under: Uncategorized

A thin layer of snow collected on the ground this morning. Snow, finally. Fine white flakes tucked into golden brown grass. I watched it cling to the pine trees outside the kitchen then office then bedroom window. I followed the snow from room to room. Too cold to step outside.

After I wandered through the house and noted how the light changes during New England’s colder months, I decided to unearth something bright. Something yellow and new. A notebook. An 8 x 8-inch blank paperback: gold cover, white pages, flexible spine. It reminds me of a field of stilled goldenrods, folded into a portable square. It also reminds me of the art store in Nashville where I found it.

As perfect as the notebook is, I hadn’t until minutes ago, written a single word in it. I was holding out for an idea or story worthy of its idealized form as if I could possibly write every story I’ve ever played out in my head into 240 pages with pencil. It’s silly to think that way. Notebooks are meant to get wrecked, run over, stomped on, and to emerge wholly transformed with color and life. Or not. It doesn’t matter either way. A notebook is a container for ideas, story fragments, pieces of time. A place to remember and to forget.

I sharpened my pencil, opened the notebook, and wrote one word. Pool. I imagine the notebook will continue on with the photo series I’m working on around swimming pools. Photos and writings and pieces I collect as the project develops will be taped, stapled, glued, and folded into the pages. So what’s my point? Start now. With whatever project or ideas that are already in your head. Choose a subject for your notebook and fill it with everything you know and don’t know about your subject. It doesn’t matter how rough or disjointed the notebook reads at first. Eventually, you’ll fill the pages and discover that you’ve somehow created a version of a book that you’ve always wanted to read. This is my hope anyway.

12 Comments

where I am (iced pumpkin spice cookies and a poem)

November 21, 2012 | Filed Under: cookies, pastries & cakes, Recipes

I woke up at 4:45 am and baked iced pumpkin spice cookies. Two and a half cups of coffee later, I’m ready to nap.

Before I tuck in, I’m slipping you the cookie recipe and a Jack Spicer poem.

The poem has little to do with cookies or the upcoming holiday, but I like it and it’s where I am today.

Cookie, poem, sleep (in that order).

Happy Thanksgiving!

Improvisations On A Sentence By Poe by Jack Spicer

“Indefiniteness is an element of the true music.”
The grand concord of what
Does not stoop to definition. The seagull
Alone on the pier cawing its head off
Over no fish, no other seagull,
No ocean. As absolutely devoid of meaning
As a French horn.
It is not even an orchestra. Concord
Alone on a pier. The grand concord of what
Does not stoop to definition. No fish
No other seagull, no ocean—the true
Music.

Iced Pumpkin Spice Cookies
adapted from Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar

makes 4 dozen cookies

1 cup nonhydrogenated vegetable shortening (I like Spectrum Organic Vegetable Shortening)
1 cup natural cane sugar
1 cup packed light brown sugar
1 cup roasted red kuri squash (you can also use sweet pumpkin or butternut squash as well), drained and mashed
2 to 4 tablespoons unsweetened coconut milk (start with 2 tablespoons and if the batter looks too thick and is difficult to stir with a wooden spoon, add 1 tablespoon at a time until you can easily stir it. the amount of milk can vary depending on the moisture content of your squash.)
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup oat flour
1/4 cup corn starch
3 teaspoons ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon sea salt

Preheat the oven to 350F. Line two baking sheets with with parchment paper.

In a large mixing bowl, use a hand mixer to cream the shortening and sugars together until light and fluffy. Mix in the squash, coconut milk, and vanilla.

Sift in the dry ingredients and mix to combine. Spoon onto cookie sheets in rounded tablespoons of dough, flattening the tops with your hand.

Bake for 12 to 15 minutes, until the cookies turn golden brown on the bottoms. Cool on the cookie sheet for 5 minutes. Transfer the cookies to wire racks to cool completely. Cover each cookie with icing. Store the cookies in a sealed container. Freeze extras.

Icing
makes enough to frost 4 dozen cookies

2 cups sifted powdered sugar
2 tablespoons unsweetened coconut milk
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Whisk all the ingredients together in a large mixing bowl until smooth. Spread or drizzle the icing on the baked and cooled cookies with a butter knife.

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