eat; mexican inspired avocado boats

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I am loving the idea of a 'salad boat' and so for this week, I couldn't resist but post my latest creation! Here in California, we have Mexican food in abundance, but I have not been a fan. Maybe because it is based around meat, or maybe I don't like my food looking like it's a dogs breakfast, either ways, I cannot help but associate it has 'hang over' food or 3 am food! I have been taken to everyone I know 'favourite' Mexican restaurant as a way to introduce me to 'the best'. Nup. Still haven't found what I'm looking for in Mexican food. So this week I decided to create my own Mexican inspired amazingness that even a true Mexican would be impressed with. And here it is!

Serves 2

What you need;
1 ripe avocado
1 organic tomato
1/4 red onion
1/2 yellow capsicum (bell pepper)
big handful of fresh corriander (cilantro)
1 can of black beans
4 Tbs olive oil
1/2 garlic clove
juice of half a lime
pinch of cayenne pepper
salt to taste
good quality corn chips that are unsalted (health store quality)

Chop up the tomato, red onion and capsicum into small pieces. Place in a bowl. Roughly chop the fresh corriander and place in the bowl with the other vegies. 

Open the can of black beans and drain in a colander. Rinse under running water and drain well. Add to the vegies and mix together.

Mince the garlic into a small bowl and add oil, lime juice, salt and pepper. Mix and set aside.

To prepare, lay out as many con chips on a plate as you would like to eat. Slice the avocado in half and remove the seed. Gently peel away the skin. Be careful not to destroy the shape. Gently place on the corn chip base aiming to keep the avocado level.

With a spoon, add small amounts at a time until, piling as high as you can get without it collapsing into the corn chip bed.

Drizzle the dressing evenly over the top of the salad with a teaspoon. Vola, an avocado boat fit for the king of Mexico!

Eating this can be a challenge. I suggest serving with a knife and fork so you can slice small pieces of avocado and scope up the salad onto a corn chip and eat it in a similar way to a chunky dip.

Buon Appetito!!!

pink; surrounded islands

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Between 1980 and 1983, something special was happening among artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude and a whole army of people including engineers, seamstresses and marine biologists. That something was a plan to 'wrap' eleven islands in Miami's Biscayne Bay, in 6.5 million square feet of pink woven polypropylene fabric.

Christo and Jeanne-Claude have been wrapping things since 1969, when their first attempt was to wrap the coast in Little Bay, Sydney, Australia. Since then, they have created a 400 meter curtain in the Rocky Mountains, a 40 kilometer fence in California, wrapped a bridge in Paris and a building in Berlin. They are definitely a result of the hippy movement from the sixties and their ephemeral works draws our attention to the environment and changes our perception of it. The artists do not leave their footprints on the earth with their works, as once the works have been exhibited for a period of time, nothing is left except for photos, drawings and plans created for the project.

So why choose the colour pink to wrap the islands with? Well, why not really! It has been noted that the artists chose pink because it is a Latin colour, to highlight the flora on the actual islands, because it is an "extremely sensitive" colour and so highlights the evironmental issues around these islands and because it reflects the different tones in the earth and water it surrounds. But ask Jeanne-Claude about their work and she states, "Our art has absolutely no purpose, except to be a work of art. We do not give messages." Ahhhh got to love that straight shooting French attitude!

Whatever the reasons Christo and Jeanne-Claude chose pink, I think the aesthetics was a perfect choice and the eventual completion of the project does highlight environmental issues no matter what colour they would have chosen. It is a beautiful project having cleared out some forty tons of varied garbage: refrigerator doors, tires, kitchen sinks, mattresses and an abandoned boat that had been on or around the island. It is definitely a work that was ahead of it's time and a real pleasure to be able to imagine experiencing this feat in 2011, almost 30 years later.

love; ten things i loved this week

Last week, I was still away from L.A so below are some things I loved about visiting a small area in Arizona.

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1. Australian Shepherds, affectionately known as 'Aussies'. The bed and breakfast we stayed at in Beavers Creek had two of these dogs. I'm not much of a dog person but they were soooooo cute and affectionate! Loved them! It is funny that they are named Australian Shepherds when they actually did not originate there. LOVE!

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2. David Singing Bear. David was introduced to us by the bed and breakfast people and we organised for him to take us around for the day. David is of Eastern Band Cherokee decent and had lots to share with us. What a warm fellow! LOVE!

2. Montezuma Castle in Arizona. What an amazing site to see these dwellings created into the side of the cliff, standing well preserved, to instigate the imagination. They were built around 700 AD. LOVE!

3. Montezuma Well. This is a sinkhole in Arizona and is a sacred place amounst the Yavapai people.  It was such a beautiful place to visit and I could definitely feel why it was considered a sacred place. LOVE!

4. Jerome. This old mining town has now become a tourist town and is set up high on a hilltop. It is such a cute looking place that was dotted with snow and has a history of whore houses, hotels and wealth. It has mines drilled throughout it's hillside and is a wonder the buildings haven't caved in! LOVE!

5. Old sign for a Whore House in Jerome. I'm not sure if it is the original sign but it sure does look like it! David did mention that this building was once a Whore House, but is now a gift shop. LOVE the stripy socks!

6. These pink flamingos! Seriously, I have no idea what they were doing there (St Pat's day?), but set against the back drop of the hills surrounding Jerome, they were very impressive indeed! Brought a smile to my face. LOVE!!!!

      

 

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7. Driving along the historic Route 66. I will do the drive one day from L.A to Chicago, but for now, I can proudly say I drove along for five and a half hours on this amazing stretch of highway and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. I do LOVE to drive!

8. These signs along Route 66. They are really cool with a vintage feel to them, advertising local businesses and some made of wooden slates. Nice to see advertising that is not for major corporations! LOVE!

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9. I've said it before and I'll say it again...I LOVE TRAINS!!!!! I took the train from L.A to Santa Fe and back, which was a 19 hour train ride one way. Sunsets and sunrises are pretty spectacular on the trains. LOVE!.

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10. The Feminine Mystique. This is the book I took away with me and I read almost all of it on my train travels to and from Santa Fe. What an amazing book! If you don't know of it, or you do but haven't had the chance to read it, do yourself a favour! LOVE!!!

eat; raw falafal served in a salad boat

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This alternative to the deep fried greasy falafal, will send the reluctant falafal eater crazy!!! I followed the recipe from bittersweet blog but have adjusted it to my liking. They are made with nutritious raw sunflower seeds and dehydrated to lock in the goodness. Gotta love that!

I served the falafal in 'salad boats' which make for fun eating!

Makes 20 falafal

What you need;
1 1/2 cups raw sunflower seeds, soaked overnight, rinsed and drained
1/4 cup fresh continental parsley
1/4 cup fresh coriander (cilantro)
1 tsp cumin powder
1 tsp coriander powder
2 cloves of garlic
1/2 onion, chopped
2 Tbs tahini
1/4 cup lemon juice
salt and pepper to taste

Dry the soaked sunflower seeds a little between two layers of a kitchen towel. Add half the amount into a food processor and all the other ingredients and whiz until it is a paste. I like my falafal with texture so with the other half of the sunflower seeds, I pulsed it in the food processor until the seeds were just broken up. If you like your falafal smooth, simply put all the seeds in together with the rest of the ingredients and whiz until you get a consistency you like.

Combine the paste mixture and the sunflower seeds into a bowl, mix it thoroughly with a spoon. 

With two teaspoons, form small balls and place on a greaseproof sheet and spray the falafal with olive oil. They should be about bite size.

If using a conventional oven, place the falafal into a very slow oven for about 6 hours to dehydrate, remembering to keep the door ajar with a wooden spoon.

To serve, prepare each serving plate with two Roma lettuce leaves. Sprinkle with grated carrot and cherry tomatoes that have been cut in half. Place three falafal to each salad boat. Drizzle with a tahini sauce made by mixing 1/4 cup tahini, 4 Tbs water, 1 Tbs olive oil, 1/2 tsp apple cider vinegar, 1 tsp soy sauce, 1 tsp lemon juice, 1/2 tsp sesame oil, salt to taste.

Buon Appetito!

pink; take care of yourself

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This work by Sophie Calle is technically not a pink work in itself, as it is a stamped pink metallic front cover of Calle's book that followed her exhibition at the 2007 Venice Biennale titled, Take Care Of Yourself. I have chosen this book cover after showing my work last week, which combines video and performance and following my post on Tracey Emins text works the previous week.

The image above is of Calle herself, her identity removed by the cropping of the photo at the base of her nose suggesting a universal image of a women. Her bosom peeking through the top of her dress creates a strong image of femininity, sexuality and sensuality, whilst the focus of the image is on the position of the heart, our emotional center. The words projected onto her face, neck and chest are the words of a breakup e-mail she received from her lover the day he ended their affair, in particular, the words he used to end the email 'perenes soin de vous' meaning 'take care of yourself'.

Not only are the words 'perenes soin de vous' projected onto Calle's chest but they are also pressed onto her skin. Similar to the process of livestock branding, which is used for marking livestock so as to identify the owner, it seems Calle is branded with these words, suggesting her ownership by her now ex-lover. In ancient Roman times, the technique of branding was used with particular symbols as part of a magic spell ceremony to protect the animal from harm. Is Calle giving us this image to suggest that she is protecting herself from the inevitable harm a relationship breakup leaves behind or is the image suggesting that an ex lover will always 'own' us in one way or another?

Delving into what lies behind this book cover one would assume we will find the answer, but instead Take Care Of Yourself gives no real answer as to how Calle herself, overcomes these cutting words. She says "What can I do to suffer less?...once I got the idea, it took over, and I didn’t care about the therapeutic aspect anymore."  Calle gives us an investigation of love and loss through a process of asking over 100 women to interpret the break up letter she had received. The women were asked to interpret the letter through their professional position, to analyze it through it's words, and to not include sentiment within their responses. "For example, I wanted the grammarian to speak about grammar—I wanted to play with the dryness of professional vocabulary. I didn’t want the women expressing sentiment for me. " says Sophie Calle. This work could have been seen as a knee jerk reaction to being dumped by email but Calle states the "...work was not about revenge." 

Even though there is a removal of Calle's personal response within the resulting video installation work which was exhibited at the Venice Biennale, the book's cover is more revealing as a  personal response by the artist to the letter itself. Presented in the colour pink, and created on pressed metal, it suggests some kind of strong determination to the resolution of a painful and vulnerable experience, probably more akin to the ancient Romans use of branding, so we hope. 

Calle's work is an investigation into human vulnerability, and examines identity and intimacy through interactions with strangers and estranged lovers, including one work she created recording her mothers dying moments. Calle's use of image and text  provokes an intense emotional response from the viewer and we feel the emotional exposure and the vulnerable position that exists within the roles as 'Calle the artist' and as 'Calle's subjects'.

Jessica Lott, winner of the Frieze Writer's Prize for her review of the piece, wrote: "Calle took the e-mail, and the paralyzing confusion that accompanies the mind’s failure to comprehend heartbreak, and distributed it to 107 women of various professions, skills and talents to help her understand it – to interpret, analyze, examine and perform it. The result of this seemingly obsessive, schoolyard exercise is paradoxically one of the most expansive and telling pieces of art on women and contemporary feminism to pass through (the major art centres) in recent years". You can read the full essay here.

love; ten things i love about santa fe

photo by Chris Fitzpatrick

1. This sign! How lully to have come across it while walking around Santa Fe on my first day here! Made me feel very special indeed! More LOVE to the world!

2. These leaf prints in the concrete along a path in Santa Fe. I imagined a team of big strong men laying down the concrete with all their strength, then taking time to gently press a leaf or two into the wet concrete. LOVE!

photo by Chris Fitzpatrick

3. Champagne foam! Recently, a friend described the snow in Colorado as being like Champagne foam. I never thought I'd experience it but I did this week in Santa Fe! You can blow away a handful of snow with your breath! LOVE!!!!!

4. The Museum of International Folk Art have a permanent exhibition that is a MUST if visiting Santa Fe. It is Alexander Girard collection of toys and folk artifacts from around the world he collected throughout his life, titled Multiple Visions: A Common Bond. My favourites were his collection of tin toys that wind up. Pity I couldn't play with them though! LOVE!

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5. The interiors of the restaurants in Santa Fe. The adobe houses here not only look great on the outside, but they are amazing on the inside too! White walls with a rustic finish, wooden tables and exposed beams makes eating out a real pleasure. LOVE!

photo by Chris Fitzpatrick

6. When I was  kid, my brother had an electric train set that I was soooooo jealous of. It had Santa Fe Railway written on it but no-one in my family actually knew what that meant. Well, now I can say my brother may have had the train set and egged on my jealously by not letting me play with it as a kid, but I now have one up on him as I have come to visit the place his train set was inspired by!!!!! LOVE!!!!

7. The fire place in our adobe. They are called Kiva and are typical in the adobes of New Mexico. LOVE having a fireplace crackling while writing away at my computer!

photo by Chris Fitzpatrick

8. Santa Fe at night. It is a quiet town right now as it is the winter season, so there aren't too many people walking the streets. I'm staying near Canyon St where street lights don't exist, so the only source of light for the evening is from the restaurants and galleries.  Very romantic indeed! LOVE!

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9. Pomegranate Margarita! YUM! Chris and I enjoyed a night of drinking one too many of these after a lully dinner at The Compound. LOVE!!!!

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10. The blue doors with strings of chili. Apparently the blue on the painted doors is an old Mexican practice believed to prevent evil spirits from entering the house and the chiliies drying are to eat. LOVE the colour combo!

eat; eatpinklove meets kumquat kitchen

I had the absolute pleasure of spending the day in Megan Davis' Kumquat Kitchen on Thursday gone by. She was introduced to me by my housemate Natalie, who has insisted for a long time we must meet. And it was a meeting made in eating heaven! We talked about our upbringings and the similar focus on foods our families shared. She even told me a cute story of her mum finding one her most favourite books from childhood called Old Witch And The Polka-Dot Ribbon, which she realised had a recipe in the back, thus discovering her love of cooking starting as a child.

Some of Megans books

Megan is a thirty-something woman based in Los Angeles who lives with her cat Henri and dogs Charlie and Bella (the dogs belong to her housemate) and runs her business from home. She has a commercial kitchen set up in her house which has a surprisingly warm, rustic, homely feel to it. The afternoon sun poured in through the curtains over the kitchen sink, flooding the room with a warm orange glow. Oh how I do miss having a kitchen window facing west!

Megan has a long history of managing restaurants within the U.S.A and Europe and her background within the food industry has allowed her to create a successful business of her own and the freedom to express herself through her food.

In this photo,  Megan is spreading the raw Zucchini Bread onto a ParaFlexx sheet, especially designed to dehydrate 'wet' mixtures. The Zucchini Bread will take up to 24 hours to dehydrate.

Kumquat Kitchen pantry

Kumquat Kitchen works to service clients on a daily basis with special needs diets, busy people who want a healthy meal option or people who simply want to lose weight. She is a personal chef to the stars and the wanna be stars here in L.A. But Megan's passion really shows when she talks about creating themed dinner parties for her clients who are celebrating a special event in their lives. She told me she meets with her clients to get an overview of who they are and then creates a 'portrait menu' of their lives. Through several courses and wine matching,  Megan creates an 'image' of the hosts  through food, for the guests to enjoy.

Even though Megan herself is an omnivore, she really does appreciate a good raw vegan meal (and can prepare an amazing raw dish or three!). Her website has a link to her own blog where her goal is to educate people about nutrition and health, food combining and natural remedies. Check it out here.

Bits and pieces on the shelf

BLT with a bite out of it!

So what does an amateur home cook and a nutritionist chief do when they get together? Why, cook and eat of course! Megan was starting to make a few things for an event on Saturday held at the Hollywood Towers, to promote her business to new clients. We made a Raw Mexican Chili, individual servings of Raw Spinach Quiche, Raw Fennel Soup, got some eggplant marinating to dehydrate into Eggplant 'Bacon' and a Raw Zucchini Bread to make BLTs. I sampled EVERYTHING and we ate  Fennel Soup and a BLT sandwich for lunch. I almost forgot to take a photo of the sandwich as Megan talked it up so much that I couldn't wait to bite into it! OMG!!! It was HEAVEN! (I hope you sung the word 'heaven', lol!)

Mexican Chili Mix 1 & 2, Raw Zucchini bread, three bowls of marinating amazingness, Raw Fennel Soup, Eggplant marinating

Below is the recipe for the yummy fennel soup we made. It is light and fresh yet creamy and filling. I'm planning on spending a day a week with Megan at Kumquat Kitchen until I leave this fine city for a return trip home to Australia at the end of March. But have no fear Angelinos, I will be back! In the meantime, I will post up some of the recipes I make with Megan over the coming months.


Raw Fennel Soup
Serves 4

What you need;
2 fennel bulbs
1 avocado
1 can full fat coconut milk
1 jalapeno, de-seeded
1 green apple
1/2 red onion
a good handfull of fresh dill
salt and pepper to taste

Simply blend everything up until its all smooth and lush and serve with a sprig of the fennel fern. YUM!

Buon Apettito!