My friend Annie does not wear shocking pink nail polish often. Only, it seems, when she lets her mom pick the color for her wedding day.

A day picked a week or so before, when the groom casually called to say they would be in Chapel Hill, North Carolina the following weekend and had decided to be married. Like the bride’s elegant upswept hair, the couple’s circle swirled into town to celebrate these two we hold dear.

I’ve known the couple since they first started dating in college seven years ago, when they used their shared prowess in typography, content curation, and editorial direction to shepherd the most interesting campus publications to glory and legibility.

It was a perfect occasion for all of those skills, from the bold ‘A’ for both their first names on the wedding programs to the thoughtful compression of the service itself, officiated by the groom’s poised sister Caroline.

And while Andrew waited in the sitting room,

Annie’s mother attached the pearl clasp upstairs,

the best friend since grade school zipped up the dress,

and we followed the path of candles outside.

Andrew strode in with his parents under the soft, hanging lights;

Annie navigated the steps with her parents.

And throughout the service where the two read the vows they had written (Andrew’s full of energetic, scientific metaphor, Annie’s an honest and straightforward promise) and the family read literary pieces that did inspire (Andrew’s father also read a sonnet he had written long ago), all of us couldn’t stop smiling.

Caroline gracefully took us through the service, pronouncing Annie and Andrew married.

The couple kissed, and Andrew’s brother Xander played us into the living room (in the foreground, his parents look on).

I assembled family for pictures, as you do,

pulling all the guests in for the big, crazy shot.

We toasted to the couple,

and ate delicious things (the bride’s mother makes quite a sausage roll bread!) Pictured at left.

then we ate more delicious things at favorite local restaurant Crook’s Corner,

all of which led to toasts around the whole table, each of us standing to say how we knew the two would support each other, as they always have.

They bring out the silly in each other (more evidence from Andrew’s 2009 talent show birthday party),

and they love each other something fierce.

Congratulations, you two. Thanks for letting me photograph your day. It felt, like everything you do, magic to be part of.

If you’d like to support the couple, both work in education and care deeply about issues of literacy. Andrew is currently running the Read, Write, Rock project that you can learn more about on the RWR site.

Related posts:

1. Swift Seasons Roll
2. tall, proud, and progressive as a rainbow birthday cake
3. a blue christmas

The theme was peacock feathers. And so the programs being powdered (before embossed with a special gun) were cut into feather shapes, secured with a fastener, and then decorated so they could function, cleverly, as a fan in the extreme summer heat.

That night, a few days before the wedding, my youngest sister Kassandra, returned to the house, filled with her amazing friends from all corners of the world wrapping the wedding hotel guest gifts, to regale us with stories of her own about her recent adventures with her fiancé, Sean.

Surprises dictated the week, as a dear family friend continued to cinch the wedding dress in tighter for the big occasion.

The bachelorette party, 14 strong, each shared a story over dinner; Kassandra defended, Sierra winced, and David covered his face.

Until Sierra took her turn and almost made the bride fall out of her chair with laughter.

The bachelorettes called Kassandra ‘The Tay,’ and that became the bride’s codename for the week, adorning cupcakes for the bowling party that followed dinner,

where their bowling warm-ups revealed how many dancers were in the mix.

And how many performers.

We all wore our pink sashes proudly; Kassandra has surrounded herself with a group of individuals that are delightful to be around bowling, dining, or wielding embossing guns.

(Kat took this picture and many below. I’ll indicate her photography underneath; one of her many talents is a very fine way with the camera).

And the following groggy morning (dancing continued late into the night), we all gathered at Kassandra and Sean’s beautiful new house to picnic and toast to the two days ahead.

photo by Katrina Taylor

Following the picnic, the bridal party headed over to set up the venue space and place the bride’s handmade candles and vintage cameras on the tables,

photo by Katrina Taylor

and a few hours later, the rehearsal began.

photo by Katrina Taylor

photo by Katrina Taylor

photo by Katrina Taylor

photo by Katrina Taylor

and Grampa made everyone laugh in agreement at his approval rating for the wedding.

photo by Katrina Taylor

photo by Katrina Taylor

photo by Katrina Taylor

The following morning, the bridesmaids and mother of the bride assembled in her childhood room to pin the veil,

and then we all dressed and met Kassandra, with her wonderful college roommate Caitlin doing her duty and holding the train above the grass,

photo by Katrina Taylor

while I chased antebellum umbrellas across the plantation house’s lawn,

photo by Katrina Taylor

and then dashed off to meet the talented musicians: Amber, who was also the Mistress of Reception Ceremonies (and who you will recall from family holiday videos), and my handsome Facebook husband Stewart Pillow who composes and sings. The two sing well together, which is another happy happenstance of the weekend.

Soon, it was time for Kassandra to take up her bouquet of vintage brooches that our aunt Pamela Aiken created,

photo by Courtney Rosen

and for the exchange of vows and music in a ceremony the two wrote together (including music that Sean composed and his sister played during the procession).

photo by Courtney Rosen

The bride and groom beamed at each other, at the family and friends in attendance, and then entered the hall,

photo by Courtney Rosen

and after dinner, I started the toasts (look how dashing Stewart is at his piano on the left!),

photo by Courtney Rosen

shocking the groomsmen with Kassandra’s impressive pull-up record in elementary school – proof that she has always been fierce.

photo by Courtney Rosen

The dancing went on and on, as it will in a room of dancers and instructors, and the couple ran through sparklers (note Kat’s choice of alternate fiery accessory) to pull away in a beautiful vintage car.

photo by Courtney Rosen

Happy wedding, and happy marriage, Kassandra. Know that no matter what, your bridesmaids are here for you as your special police detail…in sickness and in health, as long as we all can steal mirrored sunglasses off boys…

photo by Courtney Rosen

All the images (except those by Courtney Rosen) are in this Flickr set. Thanks to Kat for taking such stunning photos, as always, and being there for me during the week too.

Related posts:

1. confectionary christmas
2. A Twenty Hour Tour
3. Clean-licked ears, slicing sharply

This story begins with biscuits and blackberry jam, and then eggs and bacon and sausage and hash brown casserole,

all at the Loveless Cafe, which I cannot recommend unless you are with a friend so wonderful it almost doesn’t matter where you go on a food road trip.

In the drizzling rain, I drove from seeing old friends Michaela, Stewart, and Michael who live in Nashville to Jackson, Mississippi, where I picked my friend Laura up from the train station, and we drove off the mapped roads onto a gravel one,

that led us to dogs, and an annual family reunion that we secured an invite to, showing up just in time for fiery conch salad from the Bahamas (the most wonderful people from the Bahamas bring it to the event every year), and a little later, a pig that had been roasting for 48 hours.

For this occasion, many of the extended family sleep in little tent rows dotting the back yard of the five-acre propery,

lined with magnolias and near a grove of two hundred acres of uncut forest.

The next morning began my first Crawfish Boil, and a stunning sequence of food throughout the day started with biscuits and savory country ham that is colloquially spread with jam.

Out back, everyone was looking into three kiddie pools,

where 335 pounds of crawfish were doing the wave as they danced and were watered into the afternoon.

Our friend Yann’s dad Alan wielded the Cajun Crawfish Paddle with skill, letting the initial boil brew simmer and reduce,

as the guys shucked ears of corn ready for the enormous pots.

There was time for playful crawfish racing,

to admire Laura’s new battle scar from an old bike injury surgery,

and in a flush of excitement, everyone followed the first batch of crawfish onto the table earlier than usual,

where they were covered with newspaper and allowed to steam and rest briefly.

Yann’s brother Ky taught me the correct technique for eating them: loosen the tail, pull it off, push the meat up, dip it in Tony’s (saltier) or Old Bay (less salty) and then – “Don’t cheat,” he admonished – crush and suck the head juices.

It is incredible experience, as everyone is drawn to the table, eating their fill and laughing and wandering away, only to return for a later batch.

Pictures were taken on all kinds of cameras,

and bubbles filled the long driveway,

stories were told around the fire,

and our friend Yann was one of the last at the table, as the Captain of Team Peel (completely peeling the remainder of the crawfish to bag and use later as opposed to my team of tail poppers, also known as Team Progress).

Thanks, Yann, for letting me be an honorary member of your amazing extended family. And thanks to Laura for getting me into yet another adventure.

The music started as the crawfish were sealed into containers and continued into the night, with spoons and drums,

and an accomplished singer-songwriter serenading everyone crowded into the kitchen in a moment too perfect to record.

I realize it was my first, but damn, are Yann’s parents Sandi and Alan ever the lovely hosts, and my, but is a boil a perfect way to bring family together to stand beside each other at a table…

More photos from the crawfish boil will appear in the summer issue of Saucy Mag, my new food magazine. Find the spring issue here.

Related posts:

1. kthread cooks: hot buttered biscuits
2. the great portland snowpocalypse
3. Lemniscate

I have spent the spring impatiently waiting for warm weather in New York, hopping a flight in late March to wander sunny Barcelona streets,

and its long stretches of parks, and the elaborately encrusted Sagrada Familia,

with its Gaudí figures and ornamentation,

including a Magic Square on the outside of the unfinished basílica.

The inspiring inside is filled with light from the stained glass playing off itself and the organic columns, and ushers in a curious sort of local and tourist reverence.

In nearby neighborhoods, there are plazas also filled with light and the sounds of guitarists practicing before standing just outside restaurant patios,

and in April, chocolate shops filled with Easter houses (characters sold separately).

Visiting for a few days, I started a wonderful habit of Cava and Jamón ibérico from the nearby La Boqueria on our roof deck, reading into the late afternoon before meeting friends for very fresh fish and crispy Pan can Tomate.

From Barcelona, we went to Cannes, where I discovered Margalet, a cheese much like Camembert, at the fabulous Ceneri – the sort of cheese shop you feel you cannot make a mistake in, the selection is curated so thoughtfully.

A perfectly ripened cheese makes for such quiet happiness.

While in Cannes, we were part of a small but determined expedition to the famed Colombe D’Or, the restaurant with early art from those later collected by museums. The trip there and back was just as entertaining (hairpin turns!) as the witty conversation at the table, and we were the last to leave the dining room and walk back through the picturesque town.

And a few weeks ago, back stateside, we celebrated a family birthday on the charming boyfriend’s side in New Orleans, that city where the trees grow beads in season,

and where it is possible to source a glittery birthday cake on short notice.

Near our hotel in the Warehouse District, I walked to Cochon for an Abita and a glance at the menu, watching as the heat melted the butter for the rolls,

and unable to resist, I ordered their Cochon de Lait that arrived on top of braised cabbage and with a cracklin’, a good omen for a snappy city I try to wander through on my travels as often as possible…

More pictures and stories from these trips in the next issue out this summer of a food magazine I’ve started called Saucy. You can buy the first issue (it used to be called Culinaesthete) on Magcloud in print or digital formats. Your support of the magazine so far (hello, new Australian friends!) means the world to me.

Related posts:

1. You Have to Believe We Are Magic
2. 2011: the best of a lesser year
3. Everything was Alliuminated

I know what you’re thinking.

["She misspelled the title of this post. Should I tell her?"]

I meant to put ‘gournet’ in the title–and not because this post concerns the fish of the family Triglidae (though there are fish. Shiny ones.)

A few weeks ago, my friend Dan and I galloped off to Chinatown to see his noodle dealer. I can’t show you the noodle dealer, of course, but perhaps you can ferret out the location with the background clues.

We bought five packets of beautiful, fresh noodles.

Then, a new vegetable enthusiast friend (who sets up shop on the street) gleefully packed mounds of long Chinese greens and baby bok choy for us in lucky red bags, throwing in extra handfuls for good measure–so many that the bags weighed us down as we made our way toward the fish.

I like shiny things. So unsurprisingly, the fish that caught my eye were pink and shimmery.

Scaled and gutted, the pink fish still sparkled in my kitchen a few hours later;

while Dan stirred his wonderful black bean sauce into the noodles, and we sautéed the greens, I whipped egg whites and salt to create a crust that baked around the fish.

By then, our guests had started to arrive: Dan’s sister, who lives in the neighborhood, and then my friends LJ, Sarah, Tricia, David (who lives in Mexico City), Mario, Revaz, and Dean.

Dan, who is a gluten-free chef, made sizzling parsnip cakes with Chinese sausage as everyone shed coats and boots, and we began to celebrate The Year of the Rabbit together.

Looking at our birth years on the Chinese calendar, we read the Engrish predictions for our year ahead as I portioned out pieces of the whole fish.

In years past, my favorite part of Chinese New Year parties has been making fortune cookies with my friend Mica, but this year I decided to finally make tea eggs.

Boiled hard, the eggshells are cracked and the eggs simmered with 5-spice powder and tea bags, then cure for up to a few days, chilled.

Just after the eggs were Dan’s lovely individual chocolate cakes (recipe), Tricia’s pistachio macarons from Michael Allen, and raucous revelry, but before that, the kitchen went silent for a few minutes, as we unpeeled the marbled eggs and considered the possibilities in the months ahead…

Related posts:

1. All your cookies are belong to us
2. cooking for communitp
3. tuna roll noodles

After roping a dummy steer the night before, everyone went to sleep early so that we could rise before dawn and head to the zoo,

where Karen’s uncle Steve (also known as El Hefe Mucho at the San Antonio Zoo) has created a really special place that feels much more like walking among the animals. These below were skittish as the light began to steal over the trees,

And Karen and I watched a joey emerge from a mother kangaroo,

amazed to watch the little kangaroo stretch its legs and hop about its business.

Then Karen’s uncle joined us and directed our wanderings,

taking us up close to the elephant being fed,

(elephants are hairier than you think! I discovered while petting this one—thanks to Karen for taking this picture so early in the morning,)

and ushering us inside the hippo exhibit with another keeper,

that we later saw from the outside as a visitor usually does. It’s a beautiful space for these very intense animals, and fun to watch the bright fish swim near the windows.

Reluctantly leaving San Antonio, Karen and I headed out of Texas by way of a small diner far off the highway,

where the pancake quest continued,

I ordered biscuits and sausage gravy,

and then we ordered a slice of each type of pie:

coconut with crunchy bits on top of the meringue,

and chocolate silk, acknowledging that pie for breakfast is an excellent thing.

Driving through Houston we found a building of air,

and we watched as the landscape shifted into the blue of the bayou,

arriving at the famous Columns Hotel in New Orleans that Thursday night.

A meandering walk took us past a cluster of pastel buildings,

a workshop with music as loud as the creative energy waves that rolled over us as we paused,

leading us to happen upon good food and great cocktails (we started with Sazeracs, of course, and then discovered the classic French 75) at Coquette.

The next morning, we recalled sitting on the lively porch for a late round of champagne as we took the stairs at the grand old hotel down to breakfast,

before meeting up with my friend Brian, a wonderful ambassador of community and the goodness of local lore, as we continued our tour of the Deep South, full of things and people that are keepers…

Related posts:

1. ride it like you stole it

I spent Saturday afternoon surrounded by the flowers of Esalen, an institute and retreat center in Big Sur.

The flowers are near the gardens,

and visitors are encouraged to take a sweet pea or two with provided scissors,

There is incredible energy in this place where those seeking to learn arrive for workshops and seminars,

to see parts of themselves unfold in brilliant colors.

From the gardens, I could hear the poets on stage as part the day’s Arts Festival, so I left the orange dahlias,

to see what words were being spoken—

beyond impressed with Dr. Thema Bryant-Davis’s performance, especially her (famous) “An Upbeat Black Girl’s Song” that rang out over the grounds.

I wandered over to where hula hoops revolved near the mineral baths,

and plantings of succulents,

and returned to watch the opposite stage as someone chalked a peaceful heart in blue near my feet,

as the tribute to to Francisco Aguabella (1925-2010) with Jesus Diaz & Pedro “Muñeco” Aguilar began, and I was inspired by another fierce female artist, Kati Hernandez, who commanded the audience’s attention.

Kati was joined by another dancer who left his microphone to dance in front,

until she appeared in a different costume (the blue costume symbolized the maternal force of water, known as Yemayá in these traditions).

Then, the two danced together after the different types of Afro-Cuban rumba (Rumba Yambú, Rumba Guaguancó, and Rumba Columbia) were explained,

and the group’s performance on the bright stage hung with prayer flags ended with a huge audience conga line around the space and everyone on their feet (also, the drummer in the center with the cap was phenomenal).

As they finished, the festival founder and creative director Jayson Fann (here in the hat) was readying the next performer, Viviana Guzmán—part of a seamless string of talent that graced the stages throughout, and not an easy feat with an entire day of different acts.

As Viviana’s set started, beautiful local food began to be served:

a local halibut, local corn, and three salads with lettuces grown at Esalen ( “greens that haven’t seen a mechanized vehicle!” a proud server crowed).

Grateful to my friend Bella Shing for alerting me to the event (she’s lovely, and ran a filmmaking intensive as part of the festival), I left the celebration of artists and food and nature to drive into the sun around Big Sur,

inspired by all the views of the day on the misty drive back to my cabin…

Related posts:

1. an island of chapels near cannes
2. where the wild trees are
3. rosy gardens in Brooklyn

I heard the sea spray as our little ferry rocked to and fro last week on the way to Île Saint-Honorat.

One of the Lérins islands close to Cannes, Île Saint-Honorat is dotted with small chapels and a modern monastery.

One resident monk (there are thirty in this Cistercian community) was on the ferry with us, perhaps to officiate the service later that afternoon, or returning to tend the island vineyards.

There is a grand archway that stands alone near where the ferry docks, and beyond it lay mostly trees and native plants;

butterflies flutter everywhere in the tall grasses in a way that feels eternal.

Leaving the shoreline,

and the blue, blue water of the Mediterranean,

I ventured into some of the vineyards (please don’t tell the monks),

and then headed toward the abbey beyond.

Somehow, it felt strange to see cacti in this quiet place,

but the island has fended off invaders for centuries, and some paths are pricklier than others;

ducking into the wide space under this tree branch,

I found a startling view.

And then I saw the fortified monastery and took off (it’s probably a lovely swim too) in that direction.

Inside, there are the small openings that let in the breeze,

hint at the blue water surrounding,

a chapel within, beautifully signed,

and the archways provide shade on the lower levels,

but climb the structure’s single spiral staircase for the view from higher archways,

and to see the entire island.

I watched the shadows below, thinking about what it must be like to live as part of the order here,

and to see each afternoon the lavender bend in the wind, filling the air with its peaceful fragrance.

Near the lavender, carefully planted beds flank the path to the abbey,

with leaves shading the walkways,

and I heard the gentle swish of robes before I saw them as time for afternoon service approached. I wandered back toward the ferry, through the archway, past the flowers that seem imbued with meaning.

Noticing an ancient little chapel tucked in near the archway, I thought perhaps with views so grand, only a tiny place to kneel is needed, if only to study the contrast.

Related posts:

1. green on and off the island
2. an island beach in maine
3. vibrant artistry at esalen

This recipe remains one I make again and again, partly for the way the salty and sweet balance, and mainly because creating it is an act of joy—credit goes to Jamie Oliver and his wonderfully boisterous kitchen style.

To make this, toss mixed greens with olive oil and balsamic vinegar (the balsamic brings out the mozzarella) and plate. Then, take a ball of fresh mozzarella (if you can find good buffalo mozzarella, damn the food miles and use it—you’ll find it a different thing entirely) and gently break small soft bits off and let them fall on top of the greens.

Break apart a very ripe peach with your hands, removing the pit, and tear into sections of similar size (do this over the greens to catch all the juice that will also run down your arms). Take a few slices of prosciutto (try to find the packaged La Quercia brand from Iowa, recently profiled in Art of Eating; their speck is also a fine product and can substitute here) and tear into thin pieces on top, moving as quickly as you like—there is no wrong size or amount here, though equal amounts of these three work nicely.

I like a little squeeze of lemon and a bit more balsamic over the top at the end, and to eat this with my hands, in the sun. This is a summer salad for these ingredients at the height of their flavor. The peaches at the market will remind you…

Related posts:

1. a path strewn with yellow flowers
2. the salad you have been waiting for
3. kthread cooks: avocado salad

On Saturday and Sunday night, the Storefront space held a banquet in six courses exploring quarantine, containment, and nourishment, led by underground food mastermind Michael Cirino of A Razor, A Shiny Knife (with others from the small expeditionary force of the food collective); the afternoon prep drew frequent passersby, popping in to ask about the curious equipment, watch trout roe suspensions in petri dishes.

The Sunday night guests began to gather in the late afternoon for demonstrations by Michael (poster design by Demian, who also cooked quietly and gracefully),

and after trimming the meat,

Michael explained the dry ice in a cooler finishing the spheres for the night’s final course.

and I began to see edible landscapes of quarantine.

The sparkling bits were whisked away in egg cartons as a different sort of bubbly sprayed from canisters to begin the first course.

course 1: the proliferation

Mike and Jonny filled test tubes with effervescent vodka amid murmurs,

the cooks donned white suits,

the guests found their seats and talked excitedly,

and the cultivated petri dishes were sent out with steelhead trout roe, angelica, licorice, and juniper,

and a bit of Meyer lemon powder that dissolved.

course 2: the fumigation

While a Dr. Unger Ried Silberbugel 2004 Riesling was poured, the kitchen area was filled with flowers,

Hirame slices topped the mache, sliced lardo was added, then petals,

assembled on jar lids to be smoked,

on the busy Manhattan street,

and presented in the smoky jars,

that guests opened, looking sideways at each other, as their sense of smell was engaged.

course 3: the isolation

For a course with Keith Tulloch 2007 Semillion, guests scissored into sealed bags,

saucing their own ravioli and releasing a tiny sprig of thyme from its plastic pouch.

course 4: the passage

I do hope for wedges of salad in an emergency situation (especially topped with bacon and cleverly paired with a 2005 Gigondas Les Espalines Cuvee Romaine),

and for steak that has been contained, dry-aging for 24 days, seared to a crisp crust and plated next to creamed spinach and potatoes in an appropriate violins-on-the-Titanic sort of culinary stroke.

course 5: the frustration

Shifting to a less giving course of waxen bread, cheese, and grapes arranged like a still life,

one guest unpeeled parts, expressing the title of this course, to create a very different look for the plate.

course 6: the revelation

Jonny poured Appleton Rum, the careful pairing for the final course,

a dessert tray of drinks imagined in solid form including a Daiquiri, Old Fashioned, and my favorite, the Cuba Libre (in a wonderfully moist cake of Coke and rum).

Those who had cooked were introduced,

and everyone in the room smiled—I think we all wondered what Michael might come up with for the next event…

Thanks to all involved for letting me take part; it was an honor to cook beside you.

For even more, I really like Mike Lee of StudioFeast‘s timelapse of the entire event and see the ARASK site for upcoming events:

Related posts:

1. cassoulet, brunch, and the underground food collective in brooklyn
2. slow food miami dinner at creek 28
3. spheres of influence

to a farm on a roof in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

The 6,000 feet of garden still held the remaining chard, glowing in the morning sun,

and baby purple lettuces I bent to inspect—and later, I left with a bag full of tiny, soft leaves.

The radishes and beets, equally small, might make an appearance in a salad on Thursday; the volunteers selling Rooftop Farms’ produce were smiling at the fresh vegetables that shared the table with pickled peppers and herb bundles too.

Then, over the bridge, I walked past P.S. 2 and her murals,

watched skaters glide,

and looked up at the bridges,

and out at the water as I walked to a packed New Amsterdam Market, between Beekman and Peck Slip.

Mine was the penultimate Porchetta sandwich with garlic pesto (and oh, was I envied that sandwich by those behind me),

and I wandered, impressed, with Sweet Deliverance‘s goat cheese tart with roasted pears and fried sage leaves;

finally, I stopped for the “Thanksgiving Triumvirate” from Saxelby Cheesemongers, which will be a nice finish for the meal that I have tried to source locally.

From that market (where I also found a dessert wine I’m saving to surprise my guests), I journeyed back across the water to the Brooklyn Flea, with its giant and yet appropriate apple,

and wonderful vintage glasses with 14k gold paint (apparently, it was more plentiful middle of the twentieth century) for that final beverage—only the first of many holiday toasts, I hope, this season in Brooklyn. And now, to polish my grandmother’s silver…

Related posts:

1. sweet beets and food of record
2. sunday supper at salt water farm
3. milkweed, cider, and dancing at the Camden Farmers’ Market

And so began five food-filled days in Southern California as I relaxed into the sound of the ocean you can hear softly from Laura’s apartment. We both look for food preparations to adapt to a home kitchen, and this Turkish squash had a beautiful savory hit of rosemary and crunch of salt.

We headed from our early lunch into the AFI DigiFest in Los Angeles to see public and private media collaborate on mobile applications, low-budget production, and short content. And later that night, I presented to the estimable Dr. Ben Bateman’s class at Cal State LA on online identity, representation, and asymmetry.

The next day, Laura and I walked the Venice boardwalk, watching the skaters and those aspiring to be skaters,

spying someone who might be part of the nearby Cirque show practicing on the rings,

on our way to tapas and the shops of Santa Monica. With very different orders at Bar Pintxo, I ordered classic wrapped dates, pine nuts in wilted spinach, and crab ringed in salmon and roe,

while Laura started with a pumpkin-apple soup,

and then a tossed Niçoise salad (that we’ll both recreate, as I find composed salads tedious and this clever version piqued my interest).

On the way back, we passed the Santa Monica Community Garden (more on that next time I visit),

just in time for the sunset.

(Later, we went with Laura’s friend (and now mine) LJ to The Foundry on Melrose, where they serve extraordinarily large scallops on the tasting menu.)

….

The Venice Farmers’ Market makes for a nice Friday tradition, with the sprouts you expect,

the Asian date called jujube fruit, you do not,

and then, the baby bok choy that inspired dinner for seven,

that combined with beautiful mushrooms from an inspiring and civically-engaged forager for a rice dish made perfect by Dr. Bateman’s (it’s too much fun not to include the title, Ben) punctilious rice technique and by conversation in the kitchen spanning wigs, karaoke, and terrible dancers before the dinner party progressed through Venice’s First Friday galleries.

Before all of that, though, there was a bouquet with eucalyptus,

and a surprise tour of secret Venice. Laura explains:

A tour complete with wildlife and speckled flowers, of course.

On to hipster Silverlake, we spotted Chloë Sevigny in hush puppies (yes, we groaned) while engrossed with burgers at The Local—this is their pork burger and special sauce of roasted chiles.

The requisite celebrity sighting complete, we traced the Silverlake Fallen Fruit Map to find oranges, limes,

a golden couch on the side of the street,

and a pomegranate tree that wowed us.

I had no idea that pomegranates begin like Dr. Seuss blossoms.

….

Recovering from Friday’s adventures, we began Saturday with a hearty brunch (steak was appropriate as Laura is soon to vacation in Argentina),

and we wandered the Venice vintage troves (ask me about trying on a diaper dress sometime), then took in the Pacific Coast Highway on our way to Malibu’s Sip, the wine tasting room for Cielo Vineyards:

Meeting new people from old places we have lived, we sat around the fire pit as the sun sank,

and decided fried seafood at Neptune’s Net biker bar was in order (listen to what our research uncovered their chowder is as good as) before discovering why men stare at goats:

I walked more slowly to the Santa Monica Farmers’ Market on Sunday morning as if to prolong my last day in Southern California, and just past the circling ponies,

there were persimmons, pomegranates, and dragon fruit,

bundles of herbs,

carrots and parsnips,

dried plums,

and yielding Halawy dates that I am portioning out, a few a day. We resisted the large pancakes,

to order savory crêpes from a line with fascinating rhythm,

and I boarded the plane that afternoon, shaking the sand out of my shoes, wondering what the next adventure with Laura will hold…

More pictures of our adventures in the Flickr set.

Related posts:

1. the secret life of foodpaths (my ars electronica presentation)
2. two if by ocean
3. artichokes, breaded and trimmed

In my next post, I’ll detail my Austrian adventures with this great group of digital activists and, of course, the food. For now, below is the video of my talk (also here), the slides, and a rough transcript.

You should definitely read through and watch the other presentations, particularly David‘s and Ethan Zuckerman‘s (Thank you to Ethan for also blogging my talk.) As I tweeted from the festival (all tweets on the symposium are tagged #arscloud), I was humbled to be part of this group and found presenting incredibly fun.

The Secret Life of Foodpaths

(this a rough transcript of what I said and a few things I wish I’d said)

I was out to dinner the other night with some friends from MIT, and they said “Kristen, why food?” And I responded that I think food has a lot to do with cloud intelligence. I always think of Clay Shirky and Kevin Kelly‘s work where they talk about how the internet runs on love. And that’s very different from lust, which is what we think of sometimes when we think about food representation online.

I am also a food pornographer—please don’t tell my mother that I just told you that.

What I want to talk about today is how we make online food back into real objects. If we have the internet running on love, and we have food lust happening online, and I really want to talk about the social future of food (for more food eye candy, check out tastespotting.com, the food porn aggregator that has attracted many copycat sites).

So we’re going to step away from food fetishism to talk about cooperative [food] communities. Stephen [Downes] talked this morning about moving away from collaboration and into cooperative communities. If you think about food coops, we’ve been talking about cooperative activity and food this way for a long time.

In the NYT a few weeks ago, Renato Sardo, an urban homesteader, was trying to explain the importance of food, and I’ll point you to the end, where he says, “food is the thing you do most.”

We’re not going to talk about politics today, though there is a lot of food politics and some food politics communities online (Civil Eats is a great one); we’re going to talk about politics in this way, instead: Yes We Can Food. What I’m really interested in is the how the products are often quite mobile, but the processing is local [and DIY food processing reclaims the word for food communities, another interesting topic for another time]. That’s what’s on the stamp—be it technology or food, we tend to read labels for where something is from, to have a sense of its place.

While not talking about government, we are going to talk about a government building. This is the official government building of Wellington, New Zealand: the Beehive, which has a great url, http://www.beehive.govt.nz/; I want to talk about honey today, and how honey can be a model for online activity.

This is another beautiful image, also of a beehive, but this beehive has CCD, Colony Collapse Disorder. It’s beautiful and tragic, because if you’ve been following the ‘Save the Honeybees’ movement, you know that the honeybees are in quite a bit of trouble. We use honeybees to pollinate many of our crops; this is a global problem. The honeybees become like a traveling circus, and the same set of bees will be taken around a country, used to pollinate different things, and they become very weak and they die. This image is of a hive that’s been abandoned.

We see similar patterns in online activity; many of us belong to many online communities and as we distribute our attention, there often isn’t cooperative action as an outcome [of our participation]. The real promise of cloud intelligence may be the possibility of cooperative action. We don’t want to become like the [weakened] bee.

Two current buzzwords in food are relevant to our discussion–the first is “single origin”, and single origin honey comes from one specific place. When you buy honey, it says on the label what type of honey it is, like tupelo, wildflower, clover, avocado, which indicates what the bees ate, mostly. What you may not know about honey is that it is most healthful [note: this is unproven, but there is much compelling evidence indicating the benefits increase the more local the honey] if you consume honey produced closest to where you live. Although honey from around the world is wonderful, it won’t give you as many benefits as the honey produced on your block, on your street, in your town.

I live in Brooklyn, New York, where it is illegal to keep bees. There is an aboveground movement and people are keeping bees on rooftops. I have a rooftop. It’s sort of an open secret. Everyone is very into knowing exactly where the product, honey, has come from.

The other term I want to talk about is “source-verified” food. I think it indicates our deep level of distrust of labels, and it sounds very scary, almost governmental. This isn’t on genetically-modified food, this is on slow food, the kind of artisanally-produced food that we think of as the highest caliber of craftsmanship or craftswomanship. We need to focus on what we eat as well as where what we eat is from, on a more granular, local [geospecific] level. We have an alienation from production, and I think that’s one of the reasons for the DIY excitement in online food communities.

I found this image last week; the idea of mapping and elevation, and then pie and cake. We’re familiar with layers in a cake, but this made me think about Cory Doctorow’s article in the Guardian last week about cloud computing and using Amazon as a way to archive data in terms of the layers of data that we have.

Many of us have been online for some time now, and we have generated a lot of material that is out in various places online. If we start to think about this data as sedimentary layers, it will help us start to generate data that can have cooperative actions associated with it. This is my pie-in-the-sky question: how do we want to backfill the sky [the cloud]? What really is worth archiving? If the data never has actions or adds up to anything, where are we going?

Cloud intelligence may be your aggregated actions in context of coordinated, cooperative activities.

I don’t want to take this too far lest it become trendy; some of you may remember tall food from a few years ago. Chefs were creating dishes that were sometimes so tall that you could not see the person you were dining across from. The kitchen would cook ingredients that were then stacked in ring molds that were removed and the top garnish was added, heightening the drama as the dish is sent out. This gives little indication of what the food ingredients actually look like, as everything has been forced into this cylindrical container, this parameter [much like proprietary software, but that's another topic entirely].

To return to the ideas of movement, mobility, and maps as Ethan [Zuckerman] spoke about this morning, this is a map from Fallen Fruit.org of a neighborhood in Los Angeles with the different kinds of fruit trees. You can discover the fruit on a given street that, without the map, you might not see. The fruit becomes the treasure.

Thinking about fruit tree maps along with guerilla gardening and the fact that if [in the U.S.] food is planted on public property, the bounty is yours for the taking. That is, of course, if you are mobile; in contrast, the food itself can be mobile.

In New York right now, we have a food truck movement (this is also happening in a big way in Portland, Oregon); about a dozen or so popular, high-end food trucks. This is the French food truck, Le Gamin, and this is their lamb burger with strawberry ketchup, that I think is worth seeking out (told you I was a food pornographer).

The way to find these trucks is through Twitter. And when the food trucks tweet, they sometimes ask for help with parking, so this is your way to be a fan and to take an action (another very popular group of trucks on Twitter is in Los Angeles, the Kogi Korean BBQ trucks on Twitter here). The trucks also tweet at each other, creating a supportive community of mobile food vendors, and they often park near each other, raising the visibility of mobile food in a given area [that can, rather swiftly, relocate if necessary].

I had schnitzel the other day, this image is from the @schnitzeltruck–I was prepping for Linz, for Austria. The Schnitzel Truck shows up near where I work on Fridays, and we have the Dumpling truck come on Mondays, and the Cravings truck came on a Wednesday (they do Taiwanese fried chicken with secret pork sauce).

I was walking around the same area on a weekend with a friend who said, “You know, it’s such a shame. I used to work around here and there’s really not that many places to go for lunch.”

And I looked around, and the streets were sort of empty, and I though “hmm.” When I look at the same street, I know that the Schnitzel Truck usually parks on this corner. And the Dumpling Truck parks over there. Oh, and there’s an ice cream stand that sets up between these two buildings.

In the social future of food, we are the cooperative mapmakers.

Thank you.

I collect interesting examples of food, currency, and shelter experiments on culturemodding.com.

Related posts:

1. dear mom, this is what I do
2. jujubes, falling fruit, and secret Venice
3. envisioning sugar plums

just the thing for yesterday’s pancakes or this morning’s oatmeal, as the fruit throws off a beautiful syrup (recipe) that can be stirred into drinks or a savory sauce with mustard.

My close friend Ben and I found the sugar plums on Saturday morning at the Prospect Park market,

one of the first places I wanted to show him on his trip to Brooklyn. We then perused books, clothing, and fantastic retro clock faces on streets and stoops on our way through Park Slope to the food coop, the dumpling truck (Ben recommends the Watermelonade),

and finally the waffle truck, where we saw someone from the dumpling truck recognize us and smile, writing his favorite drink on the chalkboard next to mine—I like how the different trucks support each other and often park nearby.

Into Manhattan for one of our many train rides that day, we heard tapping in the Union Square station,

laughed off a terrible movie with very good burgers at Dumont in Williamsburg, before meeting Solana on a rooftop where we learned how the gendered ice sculptures were created,

and chatted with mustachioed men before dancing until three at a neighborhood club…and a few hours later, we met Solana (who unfailingly glows with energy) and other Global Voices (Lova, Juhie, Jillian, Anas) for a Superfine brunch in DUMBO,

wandering the market near the Brooklyn Flea,

where I found a new vintage dress (for the next kthread cooks where I warble and (for Amanda) introduce you to the new kitchen), liked the shiny bottles,

and decided Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory’s vanilla was as good as spending the afternoon with information activists I respect and almost as good as a weekend with an old and very wise friend who is off soon to new adventures near other bodies of water…

Related posts:

1. and dessert will be simple
2. flatirons, palm sugar, kumquats in cauliflower
3. sparkly morning at the greenmarket

The event with the six community leaders in design, urban homesteading, neighborhood installations, community service, and storytelling in L.A. last month?

Voilà. (Also posted on the GOOD site, and more background in the GOOD recap.)

I watch this and smile—hope to be out that way again in early June and meet up with some of the lovely people in this video, including the wonderful Max Schorr of GOOD and my wise friend John, who attended the event to support this really interesting work—

Related posts:

1. a few good community leaders
2. announcing knight pulse
3. and who will deliver the news tomorrow?