Not too long ago, I was innocently browsing online when a jar of Bonne Maman Strawberry Preserves spoke to me:
Don’t you love my beautiful lines and shading? Look at my luscious rosy watercolors, my checkered lid. Do I not stand out from the hundreds of food illustrations you see every day?
The jam was spreading it on thick, but it had a good point. There was something pure and serene about its singular beauty. Detailed and realistic, it had that charming handmade quality I always fall for.
“Bonne Maman” is by Boston-based artist, illustrator and graphic designer Kendyll Hillegas,whose work “focuses on capturing the emotional and narrative significance of food and everyday objects.” Using a combination of colored pencil, gouache, and ink, she creates a delectable world of ooey gooey cakes, cheery popsicles, tempting doughnuts, cupcakes, and reach-out-and-bite-me muffins, breads, and bagels.
She invites us to appreciate anew the pleasing design of a bottle of San Pellegrino or Heinz Ketchup, the rumpled comfort of a bag of King Arthur Unbleached Flour. A bowl of soup, a stack of pancakes, a double scoop ice cream cone — we all have emotional connections to these familiar foods and like to hear and share good stories about them.
Crocheted food? Why not? Brighton based knitting genius Kate Jenkins is famous for it.
And no wonder — what a delectable feast she creates with wool and yarn, served with a good side of cheekiness.
Some of these pieces are from Kate’s New York shows. “Kate’s Diner” featured iconic food and drink items associated with NY eateries, and “Kate’s Café” was a full-blown café gallery with many British favorites. Also thought I’d whet your appetite with a few of her “fishy” creations.
Indulge in these calorie-free treats to your heart’s delight. Yum!
She believes food should be healthy, tasty and fun. Most of the breakfast plates featured in her book take between 5-15 minutes to prepare, require simple equipment and available ingredients, and all are meant to be eaten. What started on a whim one morning has turned into a great food adventure (100,000+ followers, international media coverage, columns in newspapers and magazines, special projects).
I love that her first ever creations were a bear and a fox. She also includes a few tips and recipes for pancakes, hot cereal, granola, scones, and nut butter. Check out her blog for behind-the-scenes pics and background on her Instagram features. Fun for all ages!
BIG APPETITES: Tiny People in a World of Big Food by Christopher Boffoli (Workman Publishing, 2013). This is a collection of Boffoli’s internationally-known series of photographs featuring tiny people posing in real food environments. Amusing, outlandish, snarky, and handily skewing our sense of perspective, Boffoli’s photos tease the imagination, whet the appetite for worlds beyond our own, and enable us to see common food items as never before — for their beauty, intense color, and wonderful textures. Readers of all ages will be drawn to these fascinating scenes, but the tongue-in-cheek captions will likely go over the heads of most kids. Have you ever dreamed of playing golf on a split papaya, mowing an orange peel, bathing in blue Jell-O? Feast your eyes!
” If you have extraordinary bread and extraordinary butter, it’s hard to beat bread and butter.” ~ Jacques Pepin
Ah, butter! Slather it on a slice of warm crusty bread, watch a pat slippy slide down a stack of fluffy pancakes, feel it grease the corners of your mouth as you bite into a cob of corn.
Rich, smooth, creamy yellow — butter kisses your toast and ensures you will rise and shine. Ninety-nine percent of my cookie batters start off with creaming softened butter with sugar, beating till it’s nice and fluffy and ready for vanilla and eggs. There simply is no substitute: butter always promises superior flavor.
(Click for No-Knead City Bread recipe with Brown Butter Spread via Always . . . Leave Room for Dessert!)
Elizabeth Alexander’s soul-nourishing poem, “Butter,” makes me think about my parents. My mother loves butter, but my father won’t touch it. If you dare offer her margarine, be prepared for a haughty, “I want real butter.”
Recently sniffed out Stephen Fowler’s wonderful illustrations at Gemini Studio Art. His current collection contains 1000+ designs inspired by the many dogs in his old Wrigleyville, Chicago, neighborhood, his former day job designing labels for whiskey and tequila bottles, and his fascination for big graphic artwork, vintage/urban design and advertising posters. Pretty fetching, I say.
Jama's Alphabet Soup 