Modern Art Desserts

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[modernartdesserts]

Striated Turret Stands

Today, SFMOMA is hosting a Topping Out event in Jesse Square park, where everyone can witness the highest beam lifted into place on their expanded building.  It's hard to believe that over a year has passed since the SFMOMA ground breaking ceremony, where we marked the occasion with a site-specific cookie wall.   While we won't be participating in today’s events, we wanted to share these photos taken on a shoot in July, commemorating a building that today reaches new heights, always deserving of a celebration, and happens to look great as a dessert.

photo by Leah Rosenberg

Originally, we created this layered dessert, inspired by Mario Botta’s iconic striated turret, for a press event introducing Snohetta’s plans for  SFMOMA’s expansion.  Alternating layers of black cocoa cake and whipped cream topped with a chocolate sable were diligently stacked in these perfect glass votives that Caitlin found on a whim.

photo by Clay McLachlan

We were adamant about getting the dessert turret documented with the architectural turret it was inspired by.  So we packed up the camera, a pint of whipping cream, and a whisk and headed downtown where we whipped the cream and assembled the dessert on site.  Which happened to be outside at the fountain area just across the street from the museum we remember and love.  And now whenever I pass it, I think of all the amazing art-inspired desserts we got to make within the building, and how much fun is yet to be had outside of it.  Like whipping cream in situ.

photo by Clay McLachlan

[modernartdesserts]

Auer-crack-ers

by Leah Rosenberg

Two of our favorite and most frequent visitors to the rooftop coffee bar were curators of Architecture and Design, Jennifer Dunlop Fletcher and Joseph Becker.  They would come up for their morning espresso drinks, sometimes again for a meeting in the afternoon and if the timing was right, I would poke my head out from the kitchen to say a quick hello and inquire about any creative endeavors.  In their open and generous manner, they would update us on what they were working on next or who they were meeting while they waited (never too long) for their drinks. In exchange, I would usually give them a taste of what we were working on.  These brief exchanges would often turn into collaborations on a special event or a dessert.   On a tour with Jennifer through the Buckminster Fuller exhibition, as it was being installed, the creation of the Buckminster Fuller Hot Chocolate was finalized when we saw the magazine cover of the proposed floating village in a vitrine.  

It was always a treat to correspond with people who reply to emails with enthusiasm and in some case with thoughts they might have on art that would make a good dessert.  Like these from Joseph:

Claes Oldenburg (too literal?) 

Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, ‘Dropped Cone’ (2001)

and Le Corbusier…too architectural? But what about a chocolate meringue Ronchamp? Yum!

Chapelle Notre-Dame-du-Haut de Ronchamp, 1954

This time two years ago,  Field Conditions opened.  This exhibition of “spatial experiments”, included nearly 30 works by artists and architects, and entirely in black, white and shades of grey.   For the opening event, the A+D department partnered with SFMOMA’s education team who had scheduled a program in conjunction with the San Francisco Electronic Music Festival to celebrate John Cage.  

Field Conditions installation view, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 2012; photo: Matthew Millman

We were already fans of Tauba Auerbach’s work, from the 2009 SECA exhibition which was up when we first opened the rooftop coffee bar, so it was no surprise that her “50/50 Floor” appealed to us.   The giant floor-tile installation, (coupled with a kinetic light installation by Rafael Lozano-Hemmer) is made of 50% black tiles and 50% white tiles, which are randomly distributed over the floor in a QR code–like pattern.  Could we do a Mondrian-style cake that when cut into could be photographed with a QR code reader and take you to a website? We dreamed in black and white. 

Tauba Auerbach, 50/50 Floor (detail) installed in Field Conditions, 2012;  photo: Rocor

As the installation of the 50/50 floor neared completion, we got word at the side kitchen door that there were a few square feet of the black and white tile left.  I asked Joseph if we could use it for the event to serve the series of black and white crackers we were working.  In minutes we had them in the kitchen and started working on some spreads for the crackers.  I acquired some squid ink from our friend Stuart at State Bird Provisions and waited for Tess, (a vegan whom I care for dearly and who, I was afraid would never come back to work if she had to witness squid ink in our sweet little production kitchen), to leave for the day before I attempted to color match our house-made ricotta to the black tile.

photo courtesy of Lanlian Szeto of SFMOMA, thankfully she took this, because it’s the only documentation we have of the whole process/event!

Here, Tess Wilson and I are setting up what we like to affectionately call Tauba’s “Auer-crack-ers”.  We set up black and white tiles that functioned as serving plates for the crackers buttermilk (white) and black charcoal (black).  Guests were invited to choose their own spread (which we couldn't help ourselves refer to as grout) from a selection of housemade squid ink ricotta, white bean hummus, black sesame spread and whipped ricotta.  Everyone was entertained at the thought that they were essentially "eating off the floor" and delighted to get to take their tile home as a memento.

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Mike Mills and Bags of Biscuits

I just learned that today, August 26th 2014, is National Dog Day! In lieu of bombarding you with videos of cute dogs eating cake, I thought this would be a perfect occasion to share some photos of the time we made dog biscuits for humans.   Last January, the Roxie Theater screened Mike Mills' 2011 film Beginners as part of an event for SFMOMA's Live Projects series. As frequent SFMOMA collaborators, we set up a table at the front of the theatre to serve ticket holders New Orlean's Iced Coffee and bags of dog treats to eat at specific points throughout the film. 

The audience, fully caffeinated and captivated as they listen to director Mike Mills in conversation with SFMOMA's Gina Basso about the film and his recent commission for Project Los Altos.

In Beginners, Oliver (played by Ewan McGregor) inherits a Jack Russell, Arthur (played by Cosmo), from his father after he dies. For those who haven’t seen the film, Arthur has subtitles. This could be taken for him “talking,” but Mills suggests that the dog’s subtitles throughout the movie are “a way to externalize a character who was sometimes non-verbal.”  

While we are huge Mike Mills fans, nothing gets our attention like a cute dog and the delight at what ensues when that cute dog "talks":  the sound of 150 bags of cookies rustling at various points throughout a film.  

[modernartdesserts]

The Glamorous Wall of Cookies

by Tess Wilson

When Design*Sponge approached me about building a photo backdrop for their book release party, I instantly arranged a meeting (drinks at Locanda) with Leah Rosenberg, my dear friend, boss, and partner-in-cake-crime. Though Leah's an incredible painter, and I like to dabble in embroidery and flower-arranging, when we work together there's generally baking involved. Leah's the head pastry chef for Blue Bottle Coffee in SFMOMA's Rooftop Sculpture Garden, and I'm her assistant, and we're happiest when we're working up there in our little 6'x6' kitchen. Our brainstorming session yielded quite a few excellent, edible ideas that we would need serious grant money to pull off, but our favorite reasonable one was the notion of a wall of cookies. The Glamorous Wall Of Cookies... Guests could have their picture taken, eat a cookie, and feel at peace with the world.

  We went to work. I made a test batch of cookies just to play with sprinkles and such. I had the invaluable help of an enthusiastic 11-year-old, obviously a sprinkle & lustre-dust prodigy (she also took the photo).

Using the random marker colors we had on hand, Leah & I did a (very, very rough) sketch of the cookie wall, to entice the Design*Sponge team. They liked it! The Glamorous Wall of Cookies was a go.

I created a game plan in an Excel document to keep us on track. I don't know if you can read my writing, but the only thing checked off is "Make a pointless Excel document". 

Next, I grabbed a piece of wood and a few nails from home and brought them to the tiny kitchen. We experimented with making holes in the cookies and hanging them from the wood, creating what I like to call The Hobo Wall Of Terror.  Don't be scared, it's all part of the process.

Now that we felt confident that it was possible to hang cookies on a wall, we crunched the numbers and got started making 500 cookies. Remember: 6'x6' kitchen. Our mixer can handle enough dough to make about 60 cookies, so we would be making 9 or 10 batches. As you can tell from her paintings and art cakes, Leah is incredibly skilled at creating and combining colors so she tinted her cookies confidently, but I still have so much to learn.

I tinted small amounts of dough at a time, scared I would ruin an entire batch.  This actually ended up working fine, as we were so inspired by Julia Rothman's book tour illustrations. We wanted to capture all the subtle colors she used, as well as the d*s ribbons and the gorgeous book cover.

We rolled and cut the dough.

We punched holes in each one (we discovered that old-fashioned paper straws worked best).

And once all the cookies were baked, carefully layered them in Cambros, labeled with their quantity & (occasionally questionable) colors.

All the while, the task of building an actual wall (that could hold 500 cookies and wouldn't fall on people) loomed. We admitted we're really more cake-bakers than wall-builders, so we outsourced to our immensely talented friend Sam of Synth Island, who whipped up an elegant, sturdy design.  The three of us took a fieldtrip to Discount Builders, where every single person working helped us. They were all patient, efficient, friendly, and truly helpful.

We'd brought cookie "swatches" which we intended to share with all the employees....until I set them down in the wet color sample the nice paint boys whipped up for us. You see, it's not enough to see what the cookies look like nearby the paint color- they really need to be all up in it. From the beginning, I'd been envisioning colorful cookies on a gold background- gold to reference the book cover and to add plenty of glamour. Leah gently reminded me that no paint would create the true-gold background I dreamed of- for that, we would need to gold-leaf the wall (we would still love to do this, so please contact us if you need a gold-leafed wall full of possibly edible-gold-leafed cookies. It would be gorgeous..). Instead of settling for a trying-to-be-gold-but-really-yellow effect, Leah had the great idea of using the pretty grey of the Design*Sponge website. When I put the cookies in the paint, the colors really popped, so we were satisfied.

  We found everything we needed, and loaded it up in a Zipcar (one of 4 vehicle rentals involved in this project- none of us have a car, and I don't even have a license).

  The actual wall had to be built on the sidewalk in front of Sam's apartment, as San Francisco apartments cannot accommodate very much lumber. Leah & I gridded out the holes for all of the nails (that took a few attempts), deciding to hang 2 cookies on each nail so the colors would change throughout the night of the party. I drilled, I broke the drillbit, she drilled, nailed, and painted, and I tried not to break anything else.  The day of the party arrived and Leah baked the hundreds of cookies in our little oven (referred to affectionately by guests as our Easy-Bake Oven). Our friend Kelly volunteered to be Leah's lovely cookie wall assistant at the party, since I would be out of town. Excitement was running high! We love Design*Sponge, we love baking, and we love outlandish projects- I hope everyone at the event had as much fun as we did making the cookie wall!

Here are some photos taken at the event at Anthropologie.  You can see  Blair Sneddon's photos of guests posing in front of the wall eating their cookies here!

    Cookie wall by Leah Rosenberg and Tess Wilson. The cookies were dyed in custom colors to match the book. Everyone was invited to take a cookie and a photo! Proceeds from this event benefited the local arts charity Children’s Art Center.  Images by Blair Sneddon. See more cookie wall photos here!

[modernartdesserts]

The time we made a Cartagena for Cartagena.

Alejandro Cartagena, Fragmented Cities, Juarez #2, from the series Suburbia Mexicana, 2007  // Cartagena Ice Cream + Sorbet Trio // ©Modern Art Desserts

We featured our Cartagena Ice Cream and Sorbet Trio in Modern Art Desserts, but didn’t get to include the story (or picture) of when we fed Alejandro Cartagena (the artist, himself!) the trio of ice creams and sorbets. He and Pablo Lopez Luz, another artist featured in the Photography in Mexico exhibition, were in town for the opening celebration, and we were delighted to invite him up to try our finalized (just in time for the opening!) dessert.

 Alejandro Cartagena and Pablo Lopez Luz eat some ice cream!

[modernartdesserts]

Mary Heilmann takes the cake (back to NY)

by Leah Rosenberg

We learned earlier on that it is best to get a sense of an upcoming show ahead of time, to talk to curators as they are planning the exhibition, to get inside scoops from the museum install crew, to make the most successful rendition of a dessert based on an artwork.  Often, extra time was needed to get the approval of the artist, or to work out serving details, or to order ribbon...from Canada. 

But none of this mattered when I discovered one Wednesday night in April that Mary Heilmann was giving a lecture downstairs at the Wattis Theatre the following night.  Mary Heilmann  is my favorite artist. I could go on about how her work got me through grad school, but best to cut to the part about cake.

I didn’t sleep that night – Mary Heilmann’s paintings playing like a slide show through my head – each one a possible dessert.  I thought about just going to the lecture, sitting on the edge of my seat and on her every word, but it would be a dream come true to meet her in person.  And if I met her in person, I would have to make her a dessert.  This is, afterall, why we were there doing what we did in the tiny kitchen at SFMOMA.  For moments like this. And this, and this, and even this.  

Mary Heilmann, Fire and Ice Remix/ sketch by Leah for Fire and Ice dessert

I had to carefully plan the following day, already packed with regular production, meetings and whatever else comes up in a day, in order to make something for Mary with the time and resources available.   Maybe all this sounds a bit crazy-making.  Or maybe, it sounds a bit like art-making.  Whatever it was, on April 11, 2013, thanks to some fancy facilitating by SFMOMA Public Programs Associate, Gina Basso, I got to meet Mary and Mary got an impromptu dessert based on her painting Fire and Ice Remix.   This Red Hot Red Velvet Cake with crème fraiche-spiked cream cheese frosting and buttermilk ice milk was made once and never again, what one might call an Artist Proof in the printmaking world,  I suppose. 

In the time between a tech run-through and her lecture, Gina brought Mary Heilmann up to the rooftop for a cake and ice cream remix of her Fire and Ice Remix.  

While the dessert might not have been perfect, it was eaten and now is gone.  Which thankfully, is not the case with the painting that inspired it. One week after her lecture, I received this sweet note in my inbox from Mary (herself!).  Even her emails turned to art. 

"Leah   Thank you  again  for the beautiful  Fire and Ice Dessert.....  

I even saved some and brought it                                                                                                               home to new york and ate it when I got home.

Hey here it is I 'll never forget   Love Mary H"

[modernartdesserts]

Ice Cream for Guglie

by Leah Rosenberg

For years, Tony Cragg's Guglie was the first artwork we would see as we emerged from the elevator and out into the SFMOMA rooftop pavilion.  For months, we had been thinking about building a striped frozen mousse using a cone shaped mold, but we had to be practical about time and freezer space.  With the Robert Frank show about to come down (and therefore our float), another ice cream based treat to replace it was on our minds.

Tony Cragg, Guglie, 1987; wood, rubber, concrete, metal, stone, and plastic; dimensions variable; The Doris and Donald Fisher Collection at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; © Tony Cragg

Sometimes the artwork would tell us what it needed to be and this time it begged us to be an ice cream cone.  In this case, the perfect flavor and hue of ice cream already existed, so it didn’t take much to call up our friends at Humphry Slocombe to send over a couple of buckets of their Strawberry Sorbet (Salted Caramel replaced this in the winter) and Malted Milk Chocolate to match the sculpture. Our true work would lie then on creating a custom cone wrapper (and eventually, on the warm days, non stop ice cream scooping).

Here is Caitlin's first test. Turns out some extra math was required, as we needed the stripes to match up just right.

Where we would often find ourselves toiling away in the kitchen testing recipes, trying to get flavors and textures just right, this time we brought out the paint box to engineer a custom sleeve so we could transform what was once was a brown sugar waffle cone into... a Cragg cone!

Photo:  Charlie Villyard

Before Modern Art Desserts (the book) came along, a photographer from the SFMOMA had been the primary chronicler of our desserts. Charlie Villyard, member of the installation crew and talented photographer, would come up every few months and document all of the goodies we had been making. And one of our very favorite shots he ever took was this one of our Tony Cragg ice cream cone.

Here he is, doing whatever needs to be done to get the shot right. But quickly, before the ice cream melts!

Since the Cragg piece was installed in the pavilion and not the main galleries, it was one of the rare occasions in which you could eat the dessert you ordered right in next to the artwork that inspired it.  An even rarer occasion was purposefully scooping ice cream directly onto the floor!

After a visit to SFMOMA from LA, a relative of mine gave me this.  He had saved his cone wrapper, collaged it onto a photograph he took of the Tony Cragg piece and put it in a frame.

Sometimes a sculpture inspires an ice cream cone.  Sometimes an ice cream cone inspires a collage.

You can see the Cragg Cone (in its upright state) and the recipe on page 155 of Modern Art Desserts. And in case you want to dress your cones this summer in stripes, we made a template that you can download here.

[modernartdesserts]

Celebrating Ice Cream

by Leah Rosenberg

Today we celebrate National Ice Cream Day with a couple of art-inspired ice cream sandwiches! You can thank President Ronald Reagan, who in 1984, designated the third Sunday in July as National Ice Cream Day.  Clearly exhibiting his good sense when it comes to sweets, he carried on to proclaim the entire month of  July as National Ice Cream Month.  In the proclamation, President Reagan (who also had an affinity for jelly beans!) called for all people of the United States to observe these events with "appropriate ceremonies and activities."

Photo by Clay McLachlan.

Joel Shapiro, Untitled, 2008 (Pastel and charcoal on paper) Photo by Clay McLachlan

Caitlin's sketchbook detailing Joel Shapiro Ice Cream Sandwich recipe and flavors.

We designed this dessert- a layer of strawberry and then lavender ice cream sandwiched between two vanilla ice box cookies (one with a black stripe and the other with a yellow stripe) for the  2011 SFMOMA Art Auction.  When SFMOMA asked us to do a special something for the upcoming art auction, we explored a few ideas before settling on this ice cream treat based on Joel Shapiro's 2008 Untitled pastel drawing.  Earlier on, we mocked up thoughts for  Liz Larner chocolate dipped potato chips in which house-made potato chips would be dipped in a black cocoa-tobacco chocolate shell.  We considered a mondrian-style cake that reveals a colorful Mark Grotjahn burst.

Leah's sketchbook brainstorming desserts for SFMOMA 2011 Art Auction.

The Joel Shapiro ice cream sandwich was a rendition of our Agnes Martin version we created  in 2010 while her paintings were on view for the exhibition, Calder to Warhol,  introducing the Fisher Collection and celebrating the museum's 75th anniversary.  Subtle bands of cream, parchment and a glaze of creamy yellow inn Martin's painting Wheat were translated into delicious, quiet layers of rose mastic ice milk, chamomile ice cream contained between two buckwheat biscuits. 

Photo by Todd Selby

Over the years, we created a few more art-inspired ice cream-focused treats, which can all be found with inspirational stories and recipes in the Modern Art Desserts book.  Hopefully there are enough of them to get you through to the end of this ice cream focused month... consider it your patriotic duty to enjoy them!

[modernartdesserts]

Jay DeFeo Floating Island

by Leah Rosenberg

Not long ago, I mentioned baseball in a post and assured you it would be the only time you would catch me referencing sports.  Since then,  I have attended two Giants games at AT&T park and a few days after that listened to the Mets playing the Giants in the kitchen, while I was playing with cookie dough. 

At the stadium, watching the game live,  I had a bit of a hard time following the innings and strike outs, as I found myself more taken by the bountiful bouquets of cotton candy bouncing up and down the stairways across the stadium.  Or the way a vendor would hand a churro to a customer as if they were passing the baton in an Olympic relay.  The best , though, was the fellow, armed with a holster of whipped cream around his waist, who floated up and down our row suited with a back pack of hot chocolate.

Surely by now you are wondering where this is going or get to the part about baseball already.  Perhaps by now you are imagining Modern Art Desserts taking their Pop Art Corn to the bleachers? Or the Mondrian Cake served up alongside garlic fries and beer?   As these thoughts fleeted around between innings, so did the image of the late San Francisco artist, Jay DeFeo flying a Giants banner from the fire escape of her Fillmore Street apartment while “The Rose” (1958–66) is removed via forklift.   

The Jay DeFeo Trust posted this gem right as the Giants sweep the World Series in 2012 and DeFeo’s masterpiece was about to go on view at SFMOMA for her revelatory retrospective. During the exhibition walk through, one SFMOMA curator noted were DeFeo, an avid Giants fan, still with us today, you can bet she would have skipped the exhibition opening for the Giants homecoming parade. 

Although we have yet to make desserts (marshmallows!) based on baseball bases, we did create a dessert, our version of an Ile Flottante, based on one of DeFeo's works that we offered while it was on view at SFMOMA. 

The Illustrated History of the Universe is an oil painting featuring a deceptively simple white disc floating asymmetrically against an impasto grey ground. Its complexity lies in how the layered textures convey three-dimensionality.  I love that you can see the artist's handprint on the bottom left. 

So, although I can't give you a play-by-play of the nine innings of the Giants game I attended since my attention was drawn to other things, I can give you step-by-step instructions on how to knock this DeFeo dessert out of the park.  The photos that follow were all taken by Willa Koerner - at SFMOMA (San Francisco Museum of Modern Art).

Step 1: sift the powdered sugar.

Step 2: beat powdered sugar with egg whites. //  Step 3: pile the sugar + egg mixture into a piping bag- and also fold caramelized cocoa nibs into fluff before loading the mixture into the piping bag- details, details!

Step 4: Pipe the meringues (an Ateco 808 tip is what we used).  // Step 5: Bake meringues at 200 degrees for 1 hour and let them cool in the oven overnight.

Step 6: Dip the meringues in (all organic) chocolate magic shell.

Step 7: Allow the shell to harden in a cool spot and remove from sheet tray.  Store in freezer until ready to serve.

Step 8:  Spread the the creamy base (which is a black sesame creme anglaise) like you are applying an impasto layer of paint to a canvas.

Step 9:  Float the meringue on the creme anglaise and sprinkle with charcoal sea salt.

Step 10:  Eat, enjoy!  And then maybe take yourself to a ball game.

[modernartdesserts]

Donald Judd's Birthday Suit... I Mean SOUP!

by Leah Rosenberg

When one thinks about art and tomato soup, Warhol's screen prints of soup cans probably come to mind.

Here is Caitlin pointing them out when we were visting MOMA during our visit to New York last spring.

Warhol's screen prints might also come to mind when one thinks about themes of seriality and repetition in art.  So too might Minimalist artist Donald Judd's  stack pieces that focus on "real materials in real space" and their purity of form.

Donald Judd, Untitled, 1973; stainless steel and oil enamel on Plexiglas, 114 in. x 27 in. x 24 in. (289.56 cm x 68.58 cm x 60.96 cm); Collection SFMOMA, Purchase with the aid of funds from the National Endowment for the Arts and Friends of the Museum; © Judd Foundation / Licensed by VAGA, New York; photo: Ben Blackwell

Last year when his painting Untitled 1962 was on view as part of the Permanent Collection exhibition on the 4th floor of SFMOMA, we made a minimalist soup in reference to the minimalist work.   Donald Judd's birthday was last week and I wanted to make this soup for the occasion and float a candle in it, but it has been outrageously warm here and it didn't seem right to post about a hot soup.  That said, word on the field is that Dirty Girl Farms just got their second wave of tomatoes in the ground this weekend that will be ready for harvest in August.  If you can't wait until then, or are eager to make this soup for someone's birthday like we were, you could use the whole peeled tomatoes by Jovial.

The day we photographed this up on the SFMOMA rooftop last year, was a perfect day for soup. 

And while this soup does a lousy job at holding a birthday candle it really does look like Judd's Untitled!  Have a look for yourself!

Epilogue:  It occurred to me that Donald Judd and Andy Warhol have more in common than repetition in art.  They also have tomatoes...or would have had tomatoes in common had we actually gone through with this Bloody Mary Jell-o we were testing in response to this savory palette self portrait. 

This sketch by Caitlin is far more delicious than the Jell-o itself.  Trust us, eating paper would be more delicious than eating this particular Jell-o.  And although this is a place where we will share other failed attempts at creating edible artworks, this is the only time we will ever speak of this particular (and epically disgusting) Jell-o.

[modernartdesserts]

The 77-year-old Golden Gate Bridge deserves desserts.

by Leah Rosenberg

Firstly, I wanted to let you know that all went well at the CUESA Art of the Drink event last week, where we matched cookies to color and color to flavor. 

You can check out some of the other art-inspired offerings by local chefs and bartenders from the evening here!

It is fitting, I think, to continue this discussion on the topic of color matching since the Golden Gate Bridge, famously known for having it's own paint color dubbed "International Orange" (similar to safety orange, but deeper and with a more reddish tone) just celebrated it's 77th anniversary.  

Two years ago, on the grand occasion of the Golden Gate Bridge's 75th anniversary, SFMOMA organized all sorts of bridge related activities to celebrate and asked if we could participate with a special bridge-inspired dessert.  We had the brilliant idea/ intense desire/ ludicrous dream to make a cake as long as the bridge.     We would visit the bridge with our tape measures and cake pans to plot out what is would take to bake and install 8,980 feet of cake.  We soon realized this was indeed a ludicrous dream.  It's shockingly windy up there on the bridge and our calculations revealed that to cover the length the bridge we would have to make over 7,000 cakes, which meant we would have had to start baking two years prior.  Not what one might refer to as "a piece of cake" at all!

For several months the whole city was celebrating this anniversary, even City Hall was illuminated in a color that could pass for International Orange.  To be honest, I may have taken this photo of San Francisco's City Hall during the  2012 World Series that the Giants won (and to be honest again, this might be the only time you will ever catch me referencing sports in a post!)

Some say the bridge is painted once every seven years, others say from end to end each year. The truth is that the Bridge is painted continuously.  And now whenever I cross it, I can't help but think of it as a never ending painting.

The For-site Foundation put together an exhibition called  International Orange at Fort Point where contemporary artists had the opportunity to respond with new work to the bridge as icon, historic structure, and conceptual inspiration.  Bay Area artist Stephanie Syjuco created a commemorative store which was recently acquired by the San Jose Museum of Art and is currently on view through August 24th as part of an exhibition of new works from their collection.  I mention Stephanie's piece here because she stocked the souvenir shop with all sorts of things and every single item was treated with the famous color of the bridge.   And it was this piece that inspired a series of treats we produced for the closing reception of the For-Site International Orange exhibition. 

Here they are in order of appearance:  Orange blossom meringues, vanilla bean + orange striped sables, salt-kissed shortbread w/ orange liqueur marshmallows, International Orange travel cakes w/ fruit leather flag.

On the very right of the above photo you can spot trays of small vials we filled with salt we made with water we collected from the Bay under the Golden Gate Bridge.  Caitlin recounts the story on page 195 of Modern Art Desserts of our excursion with Bay Voyager Captain Charles from Jack London Square to the Golden Gate Bridge.

If you want to see us in life vests rather than chef coats and on a boat (and a bit of a laugh)... do watch this!

[modernartdesserts]

CUESA Evening Party!

by Leah Rosenberg

Please join us tonight 5:30-8pm for a springtime art-inspired evening party in the Ferry Building's Grand Hall!

 CUESA and USBG, collaborated with SFMOMA for The Art of the Modern Drink:  Spring Cocktails from the Farmer's Market, enlisting a talented line-up of renowned bartenders & chefs who will offer cocktails and small bites based on a work of art of their choosing from the museum's collection while using seasonal ingredients from the Farmer's Market.  Tickets are available here for $45 which includes just about as much food and drink as one might find in a Dutch still life painting.

We procured lemon verbena, mint, rosemary, rose geranium from Eat Well Farms to infuse the sugars for the various cookies we were making. 

Modern Art Desserts is known for creating dessert, food, and drink inspired by SFMOMA exhibitions and collections. Color, taste and display were crucial to our project at SFMOMA and all of these things are prevalent throughout the Ferry Building Farmer's Market.  We were invited to create an edible offering (sorry no coffee orange liqueur yet!) and considered remaking one of the desserts from our repertoire, but since what we did at SFMOMA was so much about site-specificity, we decided to  reference the colors and flavors from the Farmer's Market and make a work of art ourselves!  And then we made a series of cookies pairing flavors with color based on the artwork, which, depending on how the cookie crumbles, might one day be part of the SFMOMA's collection???!

One might wonder what comes first?  The color or the flavor, the cookie or the art?

Above:  Color Pairings by Leah Rosenberg

Below:  Two-toned ice box cookies, each color a different flavor!

We will have the Modern Art Dessert books on hand for sale, to showcase the work we have done with the SFMOMA, basing food and drink on pieces from the museum's collections and exhibitions.  Caitlin will be there to sign books, so this is a wonderful opportunity to get a signed copy! 

Hope to see you there... in full color!

[modernartdesserts]

Jasper Johns Grilled Cheese

by Leah Rosenberg

Around this time last year, we mentioned the grilled cheese sandwich which was a quite literally inspired by Jasper Johns' lead relief "Bread" that was  part of "Jasper Johns: Seeing with the Mind's Eye" exhibition.

This year, in honor of his 84th birthday (tomorrow!), we are going to show you how it's done.  Not how a Jasper Johns lead relief is done (I wouldn't eat that), but rather how a Jasper Johns grilled cheese is made.  Ready?

Step 1: Slice the bread, which is a sweet loaf from Acme Bread Company – the perfect texture for grilled cheese.

photo:  Willa Koerner, SFMOMA

Step 2:  Add layers of cheese and butter. After an arduous cheese tasting to see which two cheeses paired best, we in the end decided on a Vella Daisy Cheddar + goat Cave Aged Gruyere.

Step 3: Press it, press it good. I usually sing this as I put the sandwich into the press and then let it be for 3 minutes until golden.  You see, the whole process of making a grilled cheese based on a famous artwork is super fun, but what makes it even more fun is if you make up a ridiculous song about making it in the process

photo:  Willa Koerner, SFMOMA

Step 4: Gently place grilled cheese on slate.  Jasper Johns's "Bread," is a lead panel with a piece of bread on it, so we made the grilled cheese to serve on a to-scale board painted to look like lead. It was a giant, oversized board people would carry back to their table.  Curator Kate Mendillo actually escorted us down one day to see the piece before the show opened so we could measure the "bread" piece to figure out where exactly to place the sandwich on the board. We wanted it to be as true to size as manageable.  Can you tell which is the real 'wich?

Jasper Johns, Bread, 1969; lead relief with laminated embossed paper, hand-colored in oil, ed. 19/60; The Doris and Donald Fisher Collection at SFMOMA // Johns Grilled Cheese sandwich on painted board.

Step 6:  Admire your craftsmanship and consider Jasper Johns' words:  "Take an object. Do something to it. Then do something else to it."  Whether you knew of Johns' work or not, I will assume you need no help figuring out what to do with this object next.  Enjoy it!

In addition to SFMOMA having one of these pieces as part of the Don and Doris Fisher Collection, I have also noticed it is part of The Nasher Collection in Dallas, Texas.   So while you are eating your grilled cheese, you might want to peruse their site where you can view their entire collection.

[modernartdesserts]

A taste of surreal

by Leah Rosenberg

Salvador Dali was born today in 1904.  He is best know for his participation in the Surrealist movement with his paintings, films, and performances.  Oh, you might also know him by his mustache.

He was also quoted to have dreamed of being a chef when he was six years old and that those iconic melting pocket watches that appeared in many of his paintings were not inspired by the theory of relativity, but by the surrealist perception of a Camembert cheese melting in the sun.  In 1973, Les Diners de Gala, an eccentric cookbook written and illustrated by Dali,was published featuring 136 off-kilter recipes in 12 categories. It included entire chapters devoted to aphrodisiacs, exotic dishes, snails and frogs, and the appropriate uses for “atteletes” (meat jewellery). An alternative to your standard gift of flowers on Mother's Day perhaps?

Salvador Dalí. (Spanish, 1904-1989). The Persistence of Memory. 1931. Oil on canvas, 9 1/2 x 13" (24.1 x 33 cm). © Salvador Dalí, Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS)

Rather than sharing a recipe for melting wheel of already soft cheese on this occasion, I thought we could share this recipe for Salvador Dali's Toffee with Pine Cones, which we had the chance of recreating for an event at Kadist two years ago.

In September 2012, artist Ben Kinmont presented "An Exhibition in your mouth", at Kadist.  For this multi-course meal of recipes selected from an array of historical sources, we contributed the Eighth Course (to be served with coffee or tea):   an edition of 170 pieces of toffee inspired by his 1973 recipe.

Toffee with pine cones by Salvador Dali, 1973 2 1/4 lbs of sugar 1 cup of water 1 teaspoon of butter 1 slab of marble 1 tablespoon of pine needle oil* 7 oz of pine nuts In a saucepan, combine the sugar and water and cook over medium flame. Be careful: you have to watch the process since the sugar is turning to toffee (or caramel, however you want to call it). It can burn very fast. When it turns brown and has started to smell like something burnt, remove quickly from the fire. Add the tablespoon of butter which will melt right away. You don't have to stir. Grease the slab of marble with oil; pour the toffee on it. Using a spatula or wooden spoon, work it, combining it with the pine nuts. Soon it will be cool enough for you to use your hands. Watch it: don't let it harden too much. Squeeze tin the palm of your hand and form little sausages which you will cut to candy size. Allow to thoroughly cool.

*Pine needle oil:  Place some needles into a mason jar one quarter full; add olive oil until all the needles are covered. Let infuse for 3 weeks (out of direct sunlight), then strain. 

[modernartdesserts]

Frieze-ing. From afar.

by Leah Rosenberg

For four days in May, art fairs take over New York City and The Frieze Art Fair, held on Randall's Island May 9th-12th, is the week's main event.  With over 190 galleries, seven dynamic site-specific artist projects and an esteemed line-up of speakers, I believe the only way one could aspire to get through it all is with the help of exceptional coffee.  And shortbread cookies.  

Modern Art Desserts joined the Blue Bottle Coffee Bar at the Frieze Fair last year for the first time.  We embarked on an East Coast adventure as we set up our art-inspired sweet production at the Blue Bottle kitchen in Williamsburg.   We all worked together tirelessly to transport a selection of desserts by ferry and set them up on pedestals as if they were a show of their own.

Selection of art-inspired treats for Frieze New York 2014

We offered the racy, yet delicious Robert Mapplethorpe chocolate covered frozen banana, which we delighted in serving to the occasional art dealer or collector (who I'm fairly sure would get one just for the sake of weaving through the crowds of people waving a banana on a stick!)  Or perhaps, (and even more likely) they just needed some sustenance.

We worked with Wendy at La Forêt ahead of time to produce a limited edition of Takashi Murakami chocolate eyeballs, just for the fair, culled directly from his iconic series of "Superflat" paintings.

This year though, we had the grandest of plans.  We proposed a Mondrian cake assembly booth.  Here,  visitors could order a slice of Mondrian cake at the Coffee Bar, watch it being made through the clear acrylic display booth and pick it up at the walk-up window that was just big enough to serve a slice of cake through.  It would have been a perfect site for this cake spectacle, but there are times when, as you know, our pie-in-the-sky ideas don't always take off... on the ground.

Just look at this masterpiece of a sketch, mapping out our dreams of supplying a steady production of Mondrian cake to the artworld, like a Krispy Kreme factory delivers donuts.

Sadly, there will be no Mondrian cake assembly line this year at Frieze.  But, you can certainly count on Blue Bottle Coffee Co. being there, serving artful designs on cappuccinos, taking orders like it's a performance piece and pulling shots as if it were a choreographed dance.

Blue Bottle Coffee Bar, Frieze New York 2013

And for those of you who, like me, will be holding down the fort on the West Coast, I have a treat for us.  I call them Friezees.  We were going to serve them at the "cake booth" for a fun frozen pun, but since Modern Art Desserts won't be there, I thought I may as well share it here.  So long as we can pretend that here is a little window you walk up to in a clear acrylic booth amidst a Big Apple art fair.

NOLA Friezees

100 grams cream

55 grams agave

30 grams unsweetened nola concentrate

Prepare the unsweetened NOLA concentrate using this method. Combine cream and agave, then mix with concentrate.  Chill in fridge until cool and pour into popsicle molds.  Or, if you had your heart set on an authentic freezie you might consider acquiring a Zipsicle, in lieu of the Warhol print you might have acquired had you attended this year's fair...

[modernartdesserts]

To trifle with a trifle

by Leah Rosenberg

One of the desserts we offered quite consistently at the Blue Bottle Café at SFMOMA, was the Diebenkorn trifle. We were familiar with and drawn to Richard Diebenkorn's iconic Ocean Park series, which he created when he moved to Santa Monica from Berkeley in 1966.

Richard Diebenkorn, Ocean Park #122, 1966, oil on canvas / Diebenkorn trifle

Upon seeing Ocean Park #122 in person at SFMOMA for the 75th anniversary exhibition back in 2010, it was clear to us that if this painting were to become a dessert, it would be a trifle. And so, we took Rose Levy Beranbaum's beautiful Saint-Honoré Trifle from her freshly released Rose's Heavenly Cakes and mixed it up a bit! Genoise cake, lemon mousse, lemon curd and pomegranate gelée

You can make these yourself by following the recipe on page 92 of Modern Art Desserts.  Feel free to experiment with a variety citrus and gelée flavors.

The same month that the museum closed, "Richard Diebenkorn: The Berkeley Years, 1953 - 1966" opened at the de Young Museum.  It was a significant exhibit because it shows how Diebenkorn moved from Abstract Expressionist work to work relatively more representational (landscape, figure, still life). There is such an elegance to his abstractions that I think he brought to the more figurative work.  At the end of that same year, the show traveled to Palm Springs Art Museum.  I happened to be there on vacation with my family and I was telling my mom about the time we made the Diebenkorn trifle in a large dish for Rose's Book signing event and recalled the trifles my mom would make for special occasions.  Richard Diebenkorn would have been 92 years old on April 22nd and I hope he would be happy to know we developed this trifle just for him.  And if he were still alive today, I believe he might be moved to make a whole series of paintings based on my mom's trifles. 

Caitlin and I made this large scale trifle for Rose's book event in 2010/ My mom made this trifle for NYE this year.  She pours sherry over that trifle like she's making sangria, but as you can see she also really know how to pack a glass dish with fruit.

I thought it would be nice to make a trifle for his birthday this year and maybe have a go at incorporating some of the components of my mom's recipe while I'm at it.  There was one problem.  I didn't have a trifle dish.  Rather than rushing out to buy one, I considered Diebenkorn's Notes on Beginning a Painting, which reads as sort of a  manifesto that can be applied to just about every creative or intellectual endeavor. 

If there is one thing you do today for one minute and fifty three seconds,  let it be to watch this.

Without a trifle dish on hand, I guess you could say I "besmirched" the pristine trifle. 

Deconstructed Trifle:  cantaloupe granita, campari fruit compote, lady finger with stripe twist, meringue with apricot pate de fruit, cherry + citrus jelly with blanc mange, whipped cream with candied pecans.  (Not so sure how moved Diebenkorn by all these components on one plate.)

Handpicked poppies for Diebenkorn / Richard Diebenkorn, Poppies, 1963, oil on canvas

If you don't have a trifle dish or the desire to trifle with a trifle, then maybe just go out and pick a poppy for Diebenkorn in honor of his birthday and his work.  While you are out there, take an extra minute to feel the Diebenkorn around you.  Unless of course you are, like my mom, living in the Paris of the Prairies where it has continued to snow into April.  You, then, might just be better off staying in... eating trifle.

[modernartdesserts]

Flavor Pairing: COFFEE + ORANGE

by Leah Rosenberg

I have been making my way through Niki Segnit’s brilliant book The Flavour Thesaurus.  It has been so useful and inspiring that I started to do  drawings based on some of the flavor pairings throughout the book.

Not twenty one pages in, I came across the coffee section and under it, a recipe for orange and coffee-bean liqueur.  Adapted from one by Patricia Wells, who I admittedly had to look up, only to discover that she is so my kind of lady:  dividing her time between Paris and Provence and dedicating a whole book to salad as a meal.  

The recipe calls for an orange, 44 coffee beans, 44 sugar cubes and 500ml of a clear high proof alcohol.  And then you let it sit in a jar for 444 days.  Niki Segnit describes the recipe calling for such particulars with "marvelously arbitrary bossiness".   So I respected all of these measures and sourced the finest of ingredients.

The oranges I used were from the citrus trees at Montalvo Arts Center where I am currently staying.

Now, with all arbitrary bossiness aside, here is what you do: 

Take the orange and make 44 slits in it.  Put a coffee bean in each (this part is extraordinarily satisfying and sticky!)  and you should have what looks like a work of art. 

The coffee I used was Giant Steps, but you could try a variety really.  I towered the sugar cubes.

Put 44 sugar cubes in a jar and place your masterpiece in the jar atop the sugar tower and pour in the alcohol.  You can use brandy or rum or vodka.  (I used Hangar 1 Vodka, which is quite a nice vodka with quite a nice story and made inside a hangar in Alameda).  Then leave it for 444 days, agitating it from time to time to be sure the sugar dissolves.

I don't know what the folks at Hangar 1 would think of what I have done to their Straight Vodka, but it is what it is now.

I was going to try to wait for 44 days to post this (because clearly there is some significance to the number 44), but today is Friday.  And it might rain tomorrow. And March is the last month that oranges are in season here until November.   And it's almost 5 o'clock somewhere, so maybe you are already getting your bar on and want to try something new.

This batch will be ready on May 29th, 2015.  So mark your calendars. We hope to launch this magic orange liqueur in a cocktail on the rooftop at SFMOMA if all goes according to plan.