Edible Solace

Lately this is all I want to do...

I need more time off.

(I Want) What Katie Ate...

Just came across this blog about five minutes ago and had to write up about it. What Katie Ate... essentially embodies all I love to see in food photography - accompanied by recipes! Everything is so beautifully captured in an authentic and (seemingly) candid manner, that I want to make every dish, dine at every restaurant and simply visit every location (some are not necessarily food-related) featured here. Katie Quinn Davies, damn!

Voro

Having the opportunity to shoot for Voro was really exciting as I've always loved the place.
Coincidentally, food photography is rapidly becoming a new favourite of mine.

The rest of the set can be found on their website.

Phở

Soba Noodle Prophecy

Number 5... OK, but what does that mean?

They Weren’t Kidding…

I’ve always picked coffee over tea. If I could have the stuff injected into my veins sometimes for quicker relief of morning trauma, I would. All of that changed on Saturday when I noticed the new David’s Tea next to my workplace (in Westmount) was finally open for business. The nice David girls were handing out free samples of luscious watermelon iced tea, one sip and I was begging to be converted into a tea drinker – ciao Starbucks! Once inside the snazzy tea joint, it didn’t take me long before I was completely smitten, discussing the health benefits of different varieties of tea with the David girls (they are incredibly nice – day and night compared to the Starbucks crew… *cough*). I left the place with a tin of coco chai rooibos, which isn’t an actual tea, but it’s antioxidant-filled and fights insomnia! I was so excited I spent the rest of the day telling people to smell it. The whole experience got me so hyped I went grocery shopping for the first time in three months and decided to start cooking again. Today a sweet David girl came by our store and dropped off some free tea coupons – and they read “it will change your life”… they weren’t kidding!

NB: No matter what anyone says, image is important, especially when you are trying to sell a product. Your staff is a big part of your image. David, congratulations, the ladies you hired on Sherbrooke are lovely.

Look Mum No Hands!

"We like riding our bikes and drinking coffee. We had an idea about combining stuff we like to make something special. We found a great space in a great location, cleaned it up and called it 'look mum no hands!'

We show films and cycle sport on our big projector screen. We have a workshop and two great mechanics who fix bikes. We have people who are really into making good food and coffee. We sell BEER!”

Yes and you also so happen to be on 49 Old Street, London, England – sigh.

Someone ought to start up something of the sort in Montreal or I will.

Images taken from their website.

Chocolate

When all else fails...

Street BBQ

Who needs a yard when you have a big quiet street?

Great way to end the weekend.

Food is Sex

I remember once cracking open a fortune cookie and the thin little paper inside having those exact words printed on it. To this day, it still is the most peculiar fortune I have ever been given.

When I came across the work of Monica Cook, I wondered if she might have cracked open a similar fortune cookie, from which would have sprouted this particular body of work.

Quote from the artist found on Atlanta’s Marcia Wood Gallery website:

"I am often carried away with the details, using the paint to describe a near-cruel, sometimes disturbing, objectivity of the figure, heightening various textures on the body, the translucency of the skin, how the veins surface and recede, the subtle sheen of the lips and slickness of the eyes. I love to paint flesh, fascinated by how history is trapped in the skin: the stories told in lines etched into faces, bruises and scars from their past. I find myself heightening the details on and in the flesh, which enhances the mortal presence of the sitter and creates a tension between the psychological complexity of the person and their raw humanness."

Cook points out that the figures in her work “wrestle with debauchery and virtue, control and liberation, logic and absurdity – the beauty and repulsion inherent in each of these extremes and the magnificent struggle in our search for balance.”

We don’t always realize it, yet food is a very intimate thing and the more I think about it the more I see the correlation between food and sex. In these images, the women are indulging in pleasures of the flesh, yet in this case “the flesh” isn’t exclusively human. “Comfort food” is a term used quite frequently to describe what one will consume with the purpose of being soothed. It is a form of self-gratification – perhaps I may even venture in saying it is a form of masturbation. When Monica Cook says “bruises and scars from their past” are visible in the flesh, we are shown that same flesh covered in what can be interpreted as a form of escapism: eroticized food. Fighting flesh with flesh - personally I couldn't envision a better way.

Saved!

My favorite place to have lunch on Mondays and Saturdays when I’m in Westmount (working).
Vic Market has a great selection of sandwiches and salads AND they carry all my favorite organic products. This little oasis helped me regain my long lost appetite – well worthy of a check-out.

Very Interesting Indeed

I have been doing a little research on nutrition due to the current lack of it in my life as of lately. To be more specific, I have been researching time efficient ways to ingest proper nutrients, protein, vitamins, etc., because time is something that never seems to work in my favor. Therefore aside from the regular supplements available at your local drugstore, sperm is supposed to contain all of the above. Way to kill two birds with one stone – now that’s what I call good time management!