by Katherine Tomlinson

Joanne Renaud is a graduate in illustration from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. Before moving to Southern California, she studied graphic design at Central Washington University and art at the University of Ulster in Belfast, Northern Ireland. She presently lives in Los Angeles, and is agented by Tugeau2. Recent clients include Simon & Schuster, Random House, Houghton Mifflin, Harcourt Inc., McGraw Hill, and Trillium Publishing.

GFG: Where did you experience your most memorable meal?

JR: It was at the Ciudad de Tui, on the Viejo de Cizur in Madrid. It was the last night in Spain for me and my friend Erika, and we’d had a long and exciting trip traveling around Andalusia and Castile (with a day’s excursion into Morocco as well). We’d been eating thriftily during the entire trip; so for our last supper we wanted to go all out, with sangria, tapas, the whole shebang.

GFG: What was on the menu?

JR: We ordered their tapas menu, and small little plates of empanadas (stuffed pastry), croquettes (fried cheese and ham), jamon Serrano and iberico, fried calamari, and patatas bravas. They brought bread and olives for our table along with an entire pitcher of sangria. The waiting staff was very friendly. They obliged our crazy American wishes, not clearing the table until I sketched everything and Erika took pictures with her digital camera.

This is the sketch of the dinner I drew:

It was really delicious, and we stuffed ourselves. The staff winked at us repeatedly while bringing back the check and gave us 10 euro extra when we asked for change.

GFG: How’d you meet your dining companion Erika Vause?

JR: We met because we’re both interested in the French Revolution. (Yes, the French Rev has spawned its own fannish subculture.) She is currently a grad student in Paris, studying debt imprisonment. She also has turned into a major foodie. She was just telling me the other day how she was enjoying cooking doe meat and boar.

GFG: You just provided the cover art for Joan Betty Stuchner’s book Honey Cake, which is at its heart a story about traditions and family and food. If you had only one recipe to pass on to posterity, what would it be? And why?

JR: Well, I know I wouldn’t pass on Mom’s old recipe for broccoli tuna roll-ups. Ugh. Her ginger beef recipe was pretty good though, although I haven’t had it in ages. The one recipe that I’ve always been obsessed with actually came from my sister’s ex-roommate. It’s a Japanese chicken curry dish, and it’s delicious.

GFG: When you’re working, do you ever forget to eat?

JR: Occasionally, although it doesn’t happen very often.

GFG: If you could share a meal with an artist, who would they be?

JR: The one artist I would really love to share a meal with Trina Schart Hyman, my favorite illustrator growing up. She passed away from cancer a few years ago, sadly.

GFG: You seem to be a fan of Roman history. Who among the Romans would you like to break bread with?

JR: Nero, of course! We could discuss the difference between liquamen (Roman fish sauce) and nam pla (Thai fish sauce). I could tell him that he looked fabulous, and he’d play something catchy on the citharaa. Then we would watch bad toga porn movies and make snarky remarks about the terrible costumes… Hopefully I’d stay on his good side so he wouldn’t poison me, what with his family’s penchant for killer mushrooms and all.

GFG: Do you have a favorite comfort food?

JR: Mrs. Grass’s noodle soup, with its golden nugget of awesomeness! I can eat it for days on end and not get tired of it. The only thing it lacks is matzo balls.

GFG: What was your staple diet when you were in art school? Were you a Ramen noodles and cigarettes girl?

JR: Not really. For the first few years I ate a lot of Art Center cafeteria food, then got sick of it. During my senior year, I started eating healthier, and became a major Trader Joes’ convert. I lost a lot of weight that way, but I wasn’t really thinking of that when I changed my eating habits; I wanted to eat foods that tasted good and made me feel better.

GFG: You studied in Ireland and have traveled widely. Do you have a favorite city?

JR: My favorite city in Ireland would be Belfast! There are hundreds of cheap eateries across the city that serves the Ulster Fry (a glorious way to clog your arteries) and my personal favorite, the curry and chip.

Outside Ireland, I’m very fond of both Glasgow (home of the Ashoka West End restaurant, where one can sample haggis pakora) and Madrid. Stateside, I like New York a lot. I try not to go crazy eating out whenever I go there. My favorite restaurants there include Il Corallo Trattoria in Soho, the Mill Korean restaurant near Columbia, and Mexican Radio in the Bowery. And speaking of nam pla, there are lots of great Thai restaurants in Queens, especially Sripraphai. Try the papaya salad, or the kao-soy with chicken.

Honey Cake by Joan Betty Stuchner (Random House) is available in bookstores today.

To see more of Joanne Renaud’s art, check out:

http://www.joannerenaud.com/
http://www.tugeau2.com/
http://suburbanbeatnik.deviantart.com

by Katherine Tomlinson

I celebrated my 21^st birthday with two cakes. One was devil’s food with German Chocolate icing that my mother made and sent to me by way of my younger brother. The other was a pound cake with pink, lemon-flavored fondant icing, an old-fashioned confection baked by my great-aunt Helen who lived in the small North Carolina town where I was going to college.

One birthday, two cakes—that’s just about the right ratio. When I moved to Los Angeles the next year, I ate my birthday meal in a now-defunct coffee shop called The Copper Penny. I ordered a slice of carrot cake. It was good. I ordered another slice to take home to the tiny studio apartment I rented in the middle of L.A.’s Korea Town. I’d been in the city for six weeks. There was no one in Los Angeles who loved me enough to make me a cake.

I felt pretty sorry for myself until I discovered that most of my new friends had never actually tasted home-made cake. Never. They were familiar with bakery cakes that come with thick, lard-laden frosting that coats your tongue with a sweet slime. Some had made cakes themselves from mixes and been happy with the results. (And really, the chocolate cake mixes on the market are great. If you weren’t raised on home-made cake.) The idea of someone actually … baking … a cake for them was an exotic concept.

Poor deprived children. As Benjamin Franklin once said about beer, “cake is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.”

I baked a cake for my best friend’s 25^th birthday. It was chocolate with a chocolate mousse and raspberry filling and chocolate fudge frosting. Her response was the kind of rapturous appreciation master chefs dream of.

I make her birthday cake every year now. Because I love her and because making a cake is a way of saying, “I love you.” When my brother and sister and I were little, our mother used to make these incredibly elaborate cakes for us. There was a rocking horse for my brother one summer; a butterfly for my sister; a train for me. At Easter there would be coconut cake with the coconut dyed green with food coloring and little jelly bean “eggs” hidden in the “grass.” She invented a cake filled with walnuts and sour cherries to celebrate George Washington’s birthday. (It was served warm with cherry syrup poured over it. But it was also good cold, sans syrup.)

As we grew up, I started baking more and more. Bread and sweet rolls, brownies and cookies. And cake.

I once made my sister a Buche de Noell for her birthday because that’s what she wanted. No one in France makes their own; and there’s a reason why. By the time you make the cake and the filling and the syrup to brush the cake layers and the frosting—you’ve used up every pan in your kitchen and had to borrow some from your neighbors. I have to say, though, it was pretty tasty. And she was pleased that someone had gone to all that effort to please her. Which made me happy.

There’s an old expression, “If I’d known you were coming, I’d have baked a cake.” I grew up in a house where that could have been embroidered on a sampler. Food isn’t love, but making food for the people you love is an act of love. And there’s no sweeter way to say you care about someone than making them a cake.

by Katherine Tomlinson

Sometimes, you’re just in the mood for a little something sweet.

You could satisfy that craving with a frothy frappe from the nearest coffee shop, perhaps, or a black and white cookie from the corner deli. In a pinch, you could even have some bread with jam.

I would have been happy with any or all of those sweet solutions until I met Severine Trannoy, an elegant Frenchwoman who thinks nothing of making her own gnocchi or going to a small neighborhood bakery just to purchase croissants.

She introduced me to these mouth-watering morsels one rainy afternoon and let’s just say, I may never be satisfied with a Fig Newton again.

Fig French Kisses

Wash and dry two small, fresh figs.

Cut them in half.

Put a small piece of goat or feta cheese on each half.

Sprinkle with a little salt and a little pepper.

Garnish with fresh thyme.

Add a drop or two of walnut or olive oil.

Finish with a drizzle of honey on each slice.

Arrange in a glass baking dish and roast at 275 degrees until the cheese begins to bubble and melt.

Serves two.

These luscious treats are as uncomplicated to make as a piece of cinnamon toast, but as rich and gooey as a Cadbury Caramello. They’re also versatile. You could serve them to guests at a dinner party as easily as you could pass them around at a backyard family barbecue.

One taste and you’ll know why the French invented the phrase Mon Dieu.

by Katherine Tomlinson

I am never alone in my kitchen.

If I reach into my silverware drawer, my hand passes over the three iced tea spoons that are all that is left of my great-grandmother Julia’s silver service. The pattern is beautiful, elegant, 19^th century. I never use the spoons, but their shape never fails to please me when I notice them.

Hanging on a magnetic hook from my stove is a pot holder my Aunt Helen crocheted in the shape and color of a slice of watermelon, complete with the shiny black seeds. I’ve had it since I was a kid and it’s now a little grubby from hanging on a hook near the stove. My aunt used to crochet wonderful little whimsies—my favorite being Christmas tree ornaments—little red and green wreaths, tiny ice skates of white yarn with paperclip blades. I do not know how to crochet and wonder if that skill, like hand-milking a cow, will be lost to future generations.

There’s a set of elegant wine glasses in a cupboard above my sink. They were a gift from a beau and despite their delicacy, proved more durable than the relationship. When I use them, I think of him and my thoughts are fond but not regretful.

The Revere ware pot I use for making soup was a wedding present to my parents, as was the tiny cast iron frying pan I use to make single-serving scrambled eggs. These two items are the backbone of my batterie de cuisine, enduring through the decades as cheap pots come and go. They’ll probably bury that cast iron skillet with me.

My brother gave me the pretty cut-crystal vase that sits on my kitchen table. He brought it back from a trip to Ireland. I love the way it catches the light and like to keep it there even when it’s not filled with flowers. Fresh-cut flowers make me really happy. My mother grew roses in our yard when I was a child, heavy, fragrant blossoms in sunset colors (never white). The scent of garden-grown roses is like an olfactory time machine for me.

I have a stack of platters on a back shelf. My sister made two of them on a visit to Color Me Mine. The designs are pop-art jolly, a stalk of bananas on an orange background, a bunch of grapes on a green background. I use the platters for summer barbecues and smile as I load them up with turkey burgers and chicken pieces.

My cookie jar is a mid-century McCoy in the shape of a pineapple. It is in perfect condition—bought on eBay to replace the one I took from my mother’s kitchen that had gotten chipped and cracked and fractured over the years as it was filled and refilled with peanut butter cookie and raisin cookies and chocolate chip cookies. (The only store-bought cookies I can remember eating as a child were Oreos and Fig Newtons. And Girl Scout cookies.)

I have many wooden spoons and even more bowls, some of them vintage designs from my grandmother’s mid-century kitchen. I don’t like a lot of machinery between me and my food and bowls and spoons, I find, are sufficient for most tasks. I won’t have a bread maker in the house. It’s not so much that I am clinging to the old-fashioned technique of hand-kneading bread as it is my fear that the machine would make bread-making so tempting I’d make a new loaf every day. And eat it. With butter. And unless you’re a farmer or a construction worker, those calories are going to catch up with you. But I love fresh-baked bread and butter. My paternal great-grandmother, Granny Franklin, made her own butter. It was ambrosial. You will never catch me cooking with margarine.

My kitchen is the soul of my house because it contains memories of all those who are dear to me.

I am never alone in my kitchen.

by Katherine Tomlinson

The best meal of all, the meal that I still remember the flavors of, is one that was created by my friends Amy and Wes Gillingham in their home. It was a cold snowy winter night and I was suffering from fresh food deprivation. I live in the woods outside a small town in the Catskill Mountains. It is gorgeous here but we definitely lack food choices. The only time I can cook with locally grown foods is during the summer and fall season when wild strawberries, ramps, watercress and blackberries are abundant in my garden. So that winter night’s meal at Amy and Wes’ was a total surprise. The meal began with plates full of home-grown carrots, beets and rutabagas lightly salted and served fresh from their root cellar. These weren’t ordinary carrots but thumb carrots, oddly shaped but very sweet and crunchy. Then the dilly beans and kimchi were brought out for tasting with fresh sourdough bread and fresh-made sweet butter.

As we feasted on the succulent root vegetables and the picked salads, Amy was kneading the pizza dough. Did I mention that my friends live off the grid, are organic farmers and are committed to living with a very small “footprint?” This pizza dough was absolutely smoky delicious as it was pulled from their Finish brick oven. The raw cheese came from a cow down the road, the sweet onions, oregano and garlic that topped the pizza came from their garden. The dessert was an amazing carrot cake made with fresh-laid eggs and milk and yogurt from Susie the cow.

It was a simple meal eaten with friends topped with laughter in the dead of winter when the temperature drops to the single digits. That meal helped me remember spring and its bursting greens; and reminded me why breaking bread with friends is an essential part of my life. Sabrina Artel’s radio show Trailer Talk has been described by the New York Times as “an unusual blend of theater, activism and broadcast journalism.” Broadcasting from a vintage trailer, she is “live on the road,” encouraging the democratic tradition of public dialogue on issues of importance to all Americans. Her program originates on WJFF Radio Catskill, the nation’s only Hydro-powered radio station. Podcasts are available on her website (http://www.sabrinaartel.com/) and on iTunes. She is the recipient of the NYSCA 2006 Individual Artist grant for her project, “In These Mountains” focusing on the complex and diverse community surrounding her hometown of Liberty, New York and a 2007 Puffin Foundation Grant for her project, “Liberty and Justice for All…?” exploring ideas around animal rights and advocacy.

***Photo by Ted Waddell

by George

Fall is a time that evokes memories of delicious food…at least for me it is. The nippy temperature drop always evokes memories of certain special foods that haven’t been eaten in what seems like years. What’s even worse is that I usually don’t realize how much they have been missed. One of my favorite fall foods is undoubtedly a glorious bowl of homemade chili. No two bowls are ever the same and no two batches ever come out the same. Slightly different ingredients and cooking factors will produce a completely different tasting chili. Ahh, the complexity balanced with simplicty. The slight tangyness, the spices, the kick. Here’s one of my favorite chili recipes. Of course, you can substiture some of the ingredients with your own favorites. I’m a meat man so i like my chili meaty. My wife is vegetarian so she likes to do the vegetarian chili with tons of veges.

My Favorite Chili Recipe

Makes 12 Servings - Cooking time 2 hours

1 lb Skirt Steak (or substitute with your favorite meat)
1 Can Dark Red Kidney Beans
1 Can White Beans
1 Whole white onion
3 Garlic Cloves
1 Green Pepper
Chili Powder
Spanish Paprika
1 Zucchini
3 Cups Favorite Tomato Soup (I use a store bought soup)
1 Can Diced Tomatoes (sometimes these come with jalapeños)
1 Can Whole Peeled Tomatoes
1 Jalapeño
Pepper
Salt

Add olive oil to pot and heat until hot. Add skirt steak and cook over medium to high heat until slightly browned. Slice garlic and onion and add to chili pot, stir in with meat and cook 3 minutes. Season with salt, pepper, chili powder and paprika. Add green pepper and zucchini and cook for 5 minutes. Stir every other minute or so making sure that vegetables cook evenly. Add red beans and white beans and stir in evenly. Add whole peeled tomatoes and diced tomatoes. Cut Jalepeno into slices and add to chili. Add tomato soup and bring to a boil. After chili has boiled lower heat to low, cover and continue to cook on low for 45 minutes. Add salt & pepper to desired taste.

by George

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