JULY 4, 2016

Boiled potatoes, still hot...with skins, or without...

...diced celery...

...lemon juice...

...olive oil...

...mayonnaise...

...all together give you

*Fourth of July Potato Salad*

YUM!

IT'S JUST A COOKIE

For last year's winter holidays I decided I was going to do things up brown. Or green and red, as the case may have been. That meant, among other things, baking and icing ginger cookies for my Christmas tree. I managed the baking part, but when I got to the icing---well, it takes forever to paint on all those little stripes and buttons and eyes and noses and mouths. And I was meeting a work deadline. So I came up with what I thought would be the perfect solution: mix up one large batch of red icing and paint all the cookies that one color. No one would notice the difference, right?

Onto the tree they went. Looks great, you think? Sadly, this perfectionist of an artist DID notice the difference. Those monochromatic cookies stuck out like an entire orchestra of sore thumbs (pardon my melange of metaphors). All that night I tossed and turned. My tree did not look right. I was in agony. 

By morning, I had bowed to the inevitable. I would ice my cookies over again. Off the tree they came. I mixed up icing, but this time in multiple colors. I iced...and iced...and iced...

Back onto the tree they went. Ahhh! Success! My perfectionist heart was satisfied. And the unfortunate moral of this story? It doesn't matter to me whether I'm working on a commissioned piece of art, or on "just a cookie": it has to be perfect.

TAKE A CHANCE!

I've spent an entire afternoon trying out two new recipes. Bread and soup. I'm about to sample the results. "This had better be good!" I'm thinking. But I know from experience that new recipes are often not good---or at least not as good as my old stand-by recipe for whatever it was. So I'm prepared---even expecting---disappointment.

Surprise. It was good!

What does this have to do with art-making?  Well, I'm working on an illustration right now, figuring out how to handle it, using my usual media, and not thrilled with what I've come up with so far. Maybe I'll try out that new technique I've been considering. I might be pleasantly surprised---again.

A STONE IN THE BEANS

This morning I was preparing dried beans for baking, and found amongst them a good-sized stone. "Ah," I thought, "there must some connection between a stone in the beans, and art-making." All through breakfast I toyed with this idea. Finding a stone in the beans was like...finding a mistake in my spelling? Finding a clumsy line in my drawing? No, the stone in the bean wasn't just a mistake.  It was totally out of place. It could even be dangerous---if an unwary diner bit down on it with tooth-cracking gusto. So---the stone was like a flourescent color in a painting of pastels? Or like a brand-new character suddenly popping up at the end of a story---so jarring that an editor would reject the entire project out of hand?

Bother! I couldn't come up with anything I liked. Besides which, it was time to put the beans into the oven and sit down at my drawing board. So there's no moral or piece of wisdom attached to this posting. Except...

Sometimes a stone in the beans is . . . just a stone in the beans. 

As a consolation prize, here's my mother's baked bean recipe, slightly altered by me:

MOM'S BAKED BEANS

Soak 1 pound Maine Soldier beans overnight in plenty of water. The next morning, drain them well, discarding the soaking liquid. Cover with fresh water, bring to a boil, and simmer until the skins of the beans split when you remove a few from the pot and blow on them. Put a peeled, quartered (or chopped up, if you wish) medium-sized onion in the bottom of the bean pot. Strain out the beans from the water and add them to the pot. Pour over the top 1/4 cup maple syrup, 1/4 cup olive oil, 1 teaspoon ground mustard, and 1/4 teaspoon black pepper. Add enough hot cooking liquid to reach the top of the beans. Cover and bake for 6 hours at 300, adding boiling cooking liquid or boiling water occasionally to keep the liquid near the top of the beans. 

For Mom's version, omit the olive oil; instead lay a chunk of salt pork, fat side up, on top of the beans before you put the pot into the oven.

THANKSGIVING

This was my Thanksgiving illustration from the book FATHER FOX'S PENNYRHYMES, a collection of poems written by my sister Clyde Watson.  Much of that book---both words and pictures---alluded to Clyde's and my childhood experiences as we grew up with six brothers and sisters in a rural Vermont setting.  This illustration was no exception.  The long table here was the table, made by my father, that we all sat around (and sometimes squabbled around) at mealtimes.  The captain's chairs in which Mother and Father Fox sit are the same chairs that my own parents used.  The piano in the background, the interrupted sewing project on the rocking chair, the bulletin board festooned with fox kits' art, even some of the clothing---I took all of these details verbatim from my own childhood.  In fact, the only real difference I can now see between my childhood reality, and my illustration, might be that our ears weren't quite as large and furry---and if we had tails, we kept them hidden.

I wish you all a Thanksgiving full of love, the community of family and friends, and "cake upon the table."

MY PARADISE

I'm painting and inking my finished art samples...my CD player is on (Julian Bream, Baroque Guitar, in this case)...kitty-cat Elijah is asleep on the bookshelf...there is homemade apple pie waiting for my reward at the end of my day...sheer heaven.

REMEMBERING LUCHOW'S

I've been researching some older New York City buildings for a current project.  I came across an entry for Luchow's, the German restaurant that was located at 110 East 14th Street at Irving Place, near Union Square(http://www.toquemag.com/food/luchows-americas-most-famous-german-restaurant).  The restaurant was moved in 1982 to the Theater District in an effort to revive its business, but closed in 1986.  The building on 14th Street was torn down in 1995 after it had been gutted by a fire.  I indulged in a fit of nostalgia as I read all of this.  Very early in my career, I began to publish with Thomas Y. Crowell, a relationship that lasted for many years.   

On one of my visits to the city, Robert Crowell, the president of Thomas Y. Crowell, invited me out for lunch. He took me to Luchow's.  This room is where we sat and talked business.  I don't remember what I ate that day.  But I'll always treasure the care with which I was nurtured, mentored, educated, and supported at Crowell:  by my publisher Robert Crowell; my editor Ann Beneduce; my art director Jack Jaget; and my production manager, John Vitale.  I learned so much from all of them.  That was the way it worked in those days.  I am deeply grateful that I was able to be part of those earlier days of publishing.

TOO MUCH CURRY!

Recently I got out my old Joy of Cooking and opened it up to the recipe for Mulligatawny Soup.  It had been one of my favorites in the past, and I had a hankering for it.  But when, after several hours of chopping, dicing, and simmering, I sat down to a bowl of the soup, I was unpleasantly surprised.  Too much curry!  Either my taste buds had changed, or my curry powder was far stronger than what I had used previously.

Unpleasant surprises can happen in the illustration world as well.  I was recently on a very tight deadline, concocting a small illustration.  I started out, as I often do, with an India ink line drawing.  But when I began to add my watercolor washes, the black ink lifted slightly and bled into the color, adding an unplanned somber cast to the image.  Either I had not let the ink dry long enough; or the ink was too old (it does contain shellac, and deteriorates over time.)

There are often ways, in both cooking and art, to salvage an unfortunate situation.  For the Mulligatawny, I added more chicken broth, diced chicken, and rice to the pot.  This diluted the curry to a manageable level.  And for the illustration?  It's difficult to brighten subdued colors, at least in watercolor washes.  And I didn’t have time to purchase new ink, or re-do the art.  But artists do also have the option of changing their minds.  I realized that the muted colors and blurred ink lines of my piece were just fine.  Quite nice, in fact.  Fortunately, consumers of both soup and picture were happy with my results.

HAVING FAITH

It’s a rainy afternoon---a rarity  here in Phoenix---and I decide to celebrate by making a batch of my friend Denise’s “Soft Gingerbread.”  It’s a recipe I have made many many times, always with complete success.  As I read over the recipe I glance at the cautionary note I jotted down many years ago:  ‘It looks as though it will overflow while baking but it won’t.”

I assemble my ingredients and think about the first time I made this recipe.  During that initial trial, I watched through the glass window of the oven door as the batter quickly rose higher…and higher…and higher.  “The pan’s too small!  It’s going to overflow!” I muttered to myself.  “The texture will be ruined!”  I agonized:  Should I snatch the batter out of the oven, quickly divide it into two pans, and return it to the oven?  Or should I allow it to overflow? Either choice would lead to failure, I was convinced. 

Today, as I slide the pan (which as usual is filled perilously close to the top) into the oven, I realize that in spite of my written reminder comment, and in spite of my many successes with this recipe in the past, I am once again afraid that the batter will overflow. 

I clean up the kitchen, and glance nervously every few minutes through the glass window of the oven door.  And I ponder the parallels between baking gingerbread, and creating a picture book.  Having written and/or illustrated around 100 titles, I should surely know exactly how to go about it, and what to expect.  Except that sometimes I don't.  I can still arrive at the place where I am sure that a word/line/page/spread/project I am working on is not going to work out.  And I can be tempted to grab in a panic at what seems the only solution:  interrupt its gestation; scrape it into a different-sized genre; hastily stir in a new medium; get out the power-eraser . . . 

I take a deep breath.  I re-read my recipe and my cautionary note, and decide not to open the oven door mid-bake.  I will have faith.  And if my current work seems, at this moment, headed for a similar disaster? I remind myself once again:  This process has worked before.  I will not sabotage it.  I will have faith.  

I will also have a generous square of warm gingerbread.

MY SENDAK PIECE...AND RAGNAR

One of my artist friends, Ragnar Naess http://www.ragnarclay.com/welcome.html, is a clay artist who lives and works in a Brooklyn brownstone.  Behind his studio, as part of his work, he has created a breathtakingly beautiful flower and sculpture garden (frequently opened to the public).  When I received my two complimentary tickets to the BEA Auction to which I had donated my Sendak piece (http://thewendywatsonblog.blogspot.com/2013/04/book-expo-america.html)  (http://thewendywatsonblog.blogspot.com/2013/05/my-sendak-piece.html)  I thought immediately of Ragnar.  Over the years he had expressed much interest in my world of children's book illustration; and I was not able to be in NYC for the auction.  I queried him:  Would he like to use my tickets?  Yes! was his reply.  Good, I thought.  I had happily supported the fight against censorship by donating a piece; Ragnar would happily support it by attending the auction.

But that was not the end of the story.  When the auction was over, I received an email from Ragnar.  I opened it eagerly, expecting a  detailed description of the event, perhaps of the refreshments (since Ragnar and I both like to cook).  I was not disappointed.  But then followed a completely unexpected sentence:

We are the proud owners of one Wendy Watson drawing/watercolor, your Sendak piece, which delights us. 

When I've donated pieces for fund-raising auctions in the past, I've not usually known who has won pieces that I've donated; in fact I've never known.  But it gives me very great pleasure now to know that my Sendak piece is part of Ragnar's world...along with his luxuriant gardens and his stunning clay creations.  If you are in New York, attend his open studio June 8th and 9th; view one of his shows---enjoy his very beautiful work in every way. http://www.ragnarclay.com/welcome.html

CHILDHOOD NOSTALGIA

When I saw the Jiffy-Pop at the supermarket, I just had to buy a Pak.  I hadn't used one since I was a kid.  This would be fun---I'd revisit my childhood.  My sister agreed to take the trip with me.

I didn't bother to fetch my reading glasses.  Neither did my sister.  So we couldn't read the teeny-tiny text of the directions on the lid.  In fact, we didn't bother to read any of the text on the lid, large or teeny-tiny.  We didn't need to.  After all, we were revisiting our childhood---we already knew how to do this.

"You pry this cardboard off all around the edges," said my sister.  She began doing so.  "No, wait, wait," I said, "won't it all pop out?  You do it this way."  I began bending the foil rim back.  "No, no, don't do that," said my sister.  "This is how you do it."  "OK, yeah, maybe you're right," I said.  We finished bending and prying.  We then put the Pak over an open flame and began shaking it.

Suddenly the Pak burst open and popped kernels began exploding everywhere, catching fire as they did so...

...they kept exploding as we rushed the Pak from the stove to the sink...

...they continued exploding all over the dirty dishes in the sink.

What little popcorn we could salvage tasted okay, I guess...but I don't think my sister and I remembered our childhood correctly.  Or did we?

STRAWBERRIES AND DEADLINES

As I sorted through a basket of organic strawberries the other day, I thought of a strawberry experience from many years ago.  I had signed a contract for a dream book project: Wendy Watson's Mother Goose.  Before this, the books I had illustrated were almost all 32 pages in length.  A few were 48 pages; one or two were 64 pages.  But the Mother Goose would be 150 pages in length, almost all of those pages heavily illustrated.  After signing the contract, I kept putting off the project.  It was going to take so much time...where to begin...how to go about it.  Five years went by.  I still hadn't started on the Mother Goose.  

Then one morning I experienced a reckoning:  was this book ever going to come into existence?  Or was I going to allow it to die on the vine?  On top of that, visions of having to return the contractual advance danced through my head.  Of course I was going to illustrate it!  I set up a "schedule of completion."  My quota was one double-page spread per working day.  Five working days a week.  Fifteen weeks total.  I work slowly, and this schedule was going to be impossible for me.  But somehow I had to do it.

It was strawberries that saved the day.  Strawberry shortcake, to be more exact.  Even more exact---strawberry shortcake with homemade biscuits and heavy cream.  Each night of those one hundred and fifty working days, I ate strawberry shortcake for dessert.  As I labored through each double-page spread, I knew that strawberry shortcake was waiting for me when I had finished.  It was the only thing that enabled me to complete that wonderful project.  

ARTISTS AND FOOD: MY GRANDFATHER

Ernest William Watson was a pencil artist, watercolorist, print maker, author, and teacher.  He co-founded Watson-Guptill Publications; the magazine, American Artist; and The Berkshire Summer School of Art, in Monterey, Massachusetts, one of the first summer art schools in the country.  (Click here for two of the many links for Ernest: http://www.americanlegacygallery.com/artistPage.php?aid=102&cid=6 OR http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/results/page=1&num=10&image=0&view=0&name=&title=&keywords=&type=&subject=&number=&id=5255)

    Ernest was not content to simply practise his art.  It seemed to me his entire career demonstrated that, besides his passion for art and art-making, he had a tremendous desire to communicate and pass that passion on to others.  He continued that tradition with me. From the time I was a child, and I began to visit him in New York, he followed my artistic development with interest and encouragement; took me to the city's many museums; presented me with special books that he thought would interest and intrigue me.

     But he didn't stop at art.  On those visits he also gave me my first cup of tea.  Shared with me his love of blueberries.  Introduced me to crystallized ginger.

     And his impish humor shone through in all of our encounters. A ritual of my visit was always when, climbing up steep cramped stairs under the circus striped awning he had painted onto the ceiling, he would escort me and my suitcase to the guest bedroom.  Then he would throw open the door of the tiny adjacent bathroom and announce, "Don't mind her; she's just leaving."  Playing my part, I would peek inside and glimpse the pink backside of the Rubenesque nude, disappearing amidst clouds of steam behind a trompe l'oeil door, that my grandfather had rendered beautifully in classical style on the plaster wall. We continued this game through my very last visit with him.

  My father (Aldren Auld Watson, author of WATERFRONT NEW YORK: Images From the 1920s and 30s to be published by David R.Godine fall 2012) often told of how, when he was young, he and his father initiated a Saturday morning challenge for themselves:  together they would make biscuits for breakfast in as short a time as possible---and they would attempt each Saturday to beat their time from the week before. With my father's permission, I reproduce here his account, and his sketch, of one of those Saturday mornings:

Biscuits:  Rolled or Dropped

     Father pulls out his Hamilton railroad watch: "Five of seven Saturday morning; let's do it."

     I already did most of it---yesterday afternoon.  I had split a load of special kindling and thin firewood and filled the woodbox with it.  All bone-dry chestnut from those telephone poles.  Enough for two or three ordinary days.

     I nod, life off the left-hand stove lid, jab the cold ashes with the poker.  I wad up a couple sheets of newspaper, drop them into the firebox.  Then I build a criss-cross pile of kindling with skinny pieces of the chestnut about the thickness of your little finger, thicker ones on top.  Strike a wooden match, drop it into the pile, slide the stove lid back into place and open the damper to quick-start the draft.  Three minutes later shut the damper, add a handful of chestnut.  It snaps and crackles like firecrackers.

     Father is ahead of me, ahead of the fire, too.  All the makings are in the big brown crockery bowl and he's beating away with a wooden spoon.  I take a look and see that the oven needle is creeping up, 250 now.  Lift the front stove lid, shove in another bunch of chestnut sticks.  Fire is really popping.  The teakettle, always sitting on the back of the old Glenwood, starts to hum her tune.  Needle is almost touching 400 now, almost time.  Lift the lid, drop in six or seven sticks, clap the lid back in place.

     Father stands by, biscuit cutter in one hand, and in the other his cookie sheet with eighteen biscuit cutouts lined up on it.  I'm watching the oven door thermometer.  So is he.  The needle hits 450, and with the pot holder I grab the oven door, Father slides his cookie sheet onto the top rack, claps the door shut.

     "Seven fifteen," he says.  "Right on time."

     Every couple of minutes I lift the stove lid with my left hand, and with my right, quickly slide in a few thin sticks of chestnut, and quickly replace the lid.  I look at the oven door.  Just a whisker below 450.

     "Seven twenty-three," says Father.  The fire sounds like popcorn popping.  Father has to have a look.  He opens the oven door, glances inside, then pulls out the cookie sheet, looks at the Hamilton, and exclaims,

     "Thirty minutes, start to finish.  And golden brown, too!"

I don't know what recipe my grandfather used, so I include here my own favorite from my old JOY OF COOKING:

Buttermilk Biscuits

Sift before measuring: 1 3/4 c all-purpose flour (or 2 c cake flour), 1 tsp salt, 2 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp sugar, 1/2 tsp soda.  Cut in: 5 Tbls butter.  Add: 2/3 c to 3/4 c buttermilk. Mix very lightly, turn out onto floured board, knead very slightly and gently---only 5 - 6 turns.  Pat dough to thickness of 1/4 inch. Cut out. Bake 10-12 minutes at 450 degrees.

As I make biscuits---or art---I like to remember my grandfather's beliefs:

You can always improve

Food and art are both important

Have fun

ARTISTS AND FOOD: MY GRANDMOTHER

Eva Auld Watson was a painter, muralist, and print-maker.  (http://woodblock.com/encyclopedia/entries/011_01/part_3_b.html---and many other Google sites.)  Eva's forbears were people of business: entrepeneurs. As with so many other artists, Eva's career was the exception rather than the rule in her family.    

The roots of her interest in food, on the other hand, seem to me perfectly obvious.  Eva was born in Bandera, Texas, where her father, Cassius C. Auld, owned a gigantic cattle ranch.  It was there that Eva spent the first nine years of her life.  Ranch  life was rugged, outdoors, and self-sufficient.  The Aulds made their own soap; repaired their own machinery; made their own harness.  Except for staples like salt and sugar, they most surely provided for all their own food and drink.  Surely this was where Eva began her life-long enchantment with the art of culinary creation.

Eventually Cassius discovered that his partner had been fiddling with the ranch's financial books.  The family returned to Pittsburgh--the city.  Later, as a young woman, Eva went to study art at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York---another city.  One of her instructors at Pratt, Ernest W. Watson, became her husband.  When Ernest co-founded the Berkshire Summer School of Art in Monterey, Massachusetts, and the Watson family began spending summers at Greywold, their summer home in the Berkshire hills, I feel certain that Eva must have been ecstatic to be once more intimately connected with a rural landscape.

Greywold became the Watson's print-making studio.  Here they created their editions of prints---carved on linoleum blocks by Eva or Ernest, then printed jointly.  

And as with all artists, life and art were often commingled.  Here in this photo of the empty studio it is clear that Eva's prized cherry table, under the draped fabric, has been commandeered to provide an extra surface for the print run. It is the perfect metaphor for the coming together of art and food that was so prominent in Eva's life.

In the summertime, visitors could visit Greywold on Sunday afternoons to peruse the latest Watson prints, and perhaps purchase a few.  But for Eva, no open studio was complete without refreshments; and so after visiting the studio, guests would adjourn to the terrace and partake of delectable cakes, iced tea, and lemonade.  (And take note of the boy sitting in the center of the photo: my father.) 

I have a handful of Eva's recipes, written out in her vigorous hand on large index cards.  One card reads:  "Dry Cooking Wine and the Ingredients for a Savory Sauce. [The recipe for the dry cooking wine is on another card.] Cooked in the same dry wine with a handful of spring onions, a bay leaf, a slice of lemon, and a sprig of thyme, a fish (or any desired meat) came to the table with a flavor of indescribable delicacy."  Another card reads "Rhubarb Dedicated to Bacchus.  When past its first tender succulence, charged slightly with one capsule of carbonic acid gas, the wine by winter became somewhat like champagne.  A ham constantly basted in it is an Epicurean masterpiece."  A third recipe is for Orange-Cream Cakes, perhaps something that she served at one of the Greywold open studios:

2/3 c butter 

1 1/2 c sugar

3 eggs

rind of 1 orange

rind of 1 lemon

2 1/2 c cake flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

2 Tbs lemon juice

5 Tbs orange juice

2 Tbs water

Cream shortening, beat in sugar til creamy.  Add eggs one at a time.  Add lemon and orange rind. Sift flour, baking powder, and salt, add alternately to butter mixture with lemon juice, orange juice, and water.  Bake in small or large cup cake tins at 375 degrees for about 15 minutes.  5 dozen small cakes; or 2 9-inch layers.  When cool, cut out centers and fill, then replace top and dust with confectioners sugar.  Filling:  Combine 1/2 c whipped cream, 3 Tbs honey, 1 tsp grated orange rind.  [Eva's notation reads: "Small and filling."]

Eva's prized cherry table is now mine.  I keep one leaf up for my everyday meals.  When company comes, I lift the other leaf for additional seating.  And like my grandmother, I sometimes press the table into extraordinary service when I am working on an art project that overflows my usual working surfaces.  Food, and art: it is impossible to separate one from the other.  They are both served with the same heart...by the same hands...and from the same table.

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ARTISTS AND FOOD: MY FATHER

Aldren A. Watson is an author and artist.  Among other accomplishments, he has published  175 books.  In addition to illustrating many books for other authors, he collaborated with my mother, author Nancy Dingman Watson, as the illustrator for the list of distinguished children's books  they created together.  He also wrote and illustrated several children's books himself.  And he is the author and illustrator of a group of adult non-fiction titles that are still in print, many years after their publication.  Now 94 years old, he is looking forward to the publication of his 176th title.  David R. Godine, Publisher (http://www.godine.com/) will be bringing out WATERFRONT NEW YORK: Images From the 1920s and 30s in the fall of 2012.   

My father has always been adept in the kitchen.  He can produce a good meal as well as the next cook---and does.  During my growing-up years, he was always the breakfast chef.  He called our orders into the cupboard where the short-order chef reigned---"Harry!  Adam and Eve on a raft!"  He then whipped up the order at the stove---two poached eggs on toast.  And lastly, he  served it to the designated recipient with a flourish---"Your breakfast, Miss!"

But I remember him most often as an aide and abettor to cooks.  He designed and built the cabinetwork in our kitchen, with customized areas for cookbooks; spices; implements.  He installed the marble slab that my mother wanted for candy and bread making.  Was a tool  broken?  Or did you crave a yet-to-be-invented implement?  He would mend or create it. 

At this time of year I think especially of the unique cookie cutters that my father---always the inspired food collaborator---made for my mother's holiday baking.  My brother Peter and I helped to bake and ice the cookies.  (Or at least I thought we were helping.)

Peter and I watched as my father decorated wooden sugar buckets.  My mother then filled the buckets with the homemade cookies (though hopefuly not with the ones Peter and I had licked) and they were distributed as gifts.  It was a true creative collaboration between my mother and father, whether the medium was books or food.

These memories are inspiring me to do some holiday baking of my own.  I get out my recipe box, the one my father made for me years and years ago, and retrieve the recipe that we always baked for Christmas tree cookies.

RICH ROLL COOKIES (from an old edition of The Joy of Cooking)

Cream 1 cup butter, 2/3 cup sugar.  Beat in 1 egg.  Combine and add 2 1/2 cups flour, 1/2 tsp salt, 1 tsp vanilla.  Chill dough at least 3 to 4 hours before rolling.   Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Roll and cut out [this makes a tender dough---keep chilled, handle quickly].  Bake for about 8 to 10 minutes or until slightly colored.  Icing:  mix confectioner's sugar with milk and a little vanilla, then separate into small batches and color with food coloring. [Our modern flours are more refined than they were 50 or 100 years ago, when this recipe was first concocted. You may need to increase the amount of flour slightly to make a workable dough.]

Next I get out my own cookie cutters.  My father made a set for me over the years, just as he did for the rest of his children---a new cutter each Christmas.  I'll mix up my dough.  Roll it out.  Cut and bake the cookies. And ice them using my worn-out and thoroughly washed Winsor & Newton series 7 watercolor brushes.  The perfect melding of art and food.