Chaos Order

This is a quadripdych (I'm proclaiming this a legitimate word) I did for an art show in 2008 with Montauk Project.

leaf

Frank Burns eats worms

Major Franklin Delano Marion "Frank" Burns

Artistic Biscuits: Laundry Biscuits (or Biscuits de Noix de Coco, et le Chocolat Lavande)

Instead of doing laundry tonight, I made these biscuits.The coconut and chocolate add some nice texture and "meltiness" and the self-rising flour provides just the right hint of saltiness to keep it from being too sweet. What makes these unique, though, is the lavender.

The french word for lavender is lavande, with a possible origin in the 10th century latin word lividus, which means "bluish." Around the 13th century, lavender was added as a fragrance to soap and the french word laver, to wash, was born. The word laundry is from the 16th century and is related to the french word lavanderie, which comes from the Latin word lavandarium or "things to be washed." I should have brought the lavandarium down to the basement to do the wash tonight, but alas, I was biscuit-inspired.

So while no laundry was done, I did learn a little about the origin of the word.

Laundry Biscuits

Preheat Oven to 400°F

2 cups self-rising flour
4 Tablespoons butter, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
1/2 cup shredded coconut (I used sweetened but it's up to you)
1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 Tablespoon dried lavender3/4 cup low-fat buttermilk

In a large mixing bowl, blend self-rising flour and butter with your fingertips until mixture resembles coarse meal. Add remaining ingredients, pouring in the buttermilk last, and stir until just combined.

Coat 2 baking trays with butter and spoon mixture into 18-20 piles, about 2 inches apart.

Bake for 6-8 minutes or until lightly golden in colour. Remove from trays immediately to prevent the bottoms from burning and put them on a cooling rack.

Listen to this while baking:
"Laundry Room" by the Avett Brothers

Watch this lovely Disney animation compilation (accompanied by Burl Ives' singing) while eating these:
"Lavender Blue"

Tasters:
Jeremy Beck & Me

Yeoman Janice Rand

Simply put: if you have a blog, you should have a portrait of Janice Rand on that blog.

Swizzle Sticks

Fran Krause spent an afternoon at my apartment painting a mural on the nursery wall... I drew swizzle sticks that remind me a little of Ed Emberly's drawing books. Remember those?

The term swizzle stick was coined in 1933 after a drink called the Rum Swizzle. Here's the Food Network recipe for how to make one:

Ingredients
4 ounces dark rum
4 ounces amber rum
2 ounces triple sec
2 lemons, juiced
5 ounces pineapple juice
5 ounces orange juice
2 ounces simple syrup
4 dashes bitters
cracked ice

Directions
Add all ingredients to a pitcher with a tight-fitting lid. Shake vigorously until it froths. Strain into cocktail glasses and serve.

Guilty Wife Almond Basil Biscuits

These biscuits name their own occasion (ahem) and are custom-made for Jeremy who fancies almond pastries. I added the basil on a whim, thinking that it seemed to be a good companion for the almond flavour. They're a lovely pair.

This is different base recipe than what I usually use as it contains self-rising flour, which I happened to have on hand. (You can easily find this in any grocery store.) It was invented in 1845 by an English baker named Henry Jones, and has baking powder, the leavening agent which adds tiny gas bubbles and makes your baked goods more airy and soft, and the salt already mixed in. Here's a fascinating article from The Bristol Illustrated News (thanks to the flickr blogger for this!) that explains Jones' trials in getting his self-rising flour into popular use by the Admiralty. Interestingly, Florence Nightengale's advocacy of his invention during the Crimean War was a major reason for its popularity and success.)

Guilty Wife Almond Basil Biscuits
Preheat Oven to 450°F

2 cups self-rising flour
4 Tablespoons butter, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
2 Tablespoons almond paste, chopped into small chunks
1 teaspoon sugar
3 Tablespoons fresh basil, cut into thin strips
1/3 cup coarsely crushed whole or slivered almonds
3/4 cup low-fat buttermilk
1 Tablespoon pure almond extract

In a large mixing bowl, blend self-rising flour and butter with your fingertips until mixture resembles coarse meal. Chop almond paste into small chunks. (I keep my almond paste block in the fridge, so it's easier to chop up.) Add almond paste chunks and remaining ingredients, pouring in the buttermilk last, and stir until just combined.

Coat 2 baking trays with butter and spoon mixture into 18-20 piles, about 2 inches apart.

Bake for 8 minutes or until lightly golden in colour. Remove from trays immediately to prevent the bottoms from burning and put them on a cooling rack.

Some almond fun facts from wikipedia:
A sample of the almond fruit was found in Tutankhamun's Tomb (c. 1325 BC), having made its way along the Mediterranean to Northern Africa.

California is the only place in the USA where almonds are grown for major commerce. Nearly 1 million beehives are brought by truck to the groves annually to pollinate the trees.

Listen to this while eating these:
"I'm Sorry" performed by Brenda Lee


Tasters:
Jeremy Beck and yours truly

Artistic Biscuits: Grandparents' Day Biscuits

Theme: Grandparents' Day

Grandparents' Day was named an offiical holiday in 1973 in a proclamation by our 39th President, Jimmy Carter. Although generally considered a Hallmark Holiday, its founder, Marian McQuade, had noble intentions in designating a calendar day to remember and celebrate the wisdom of our distinguished matriarchs and patriarchs both in and out of our country's nursing homes. She hoped that that this day would encourage young people to investigate their heritage.

This year, we happen to have some proud, new grandparents visiting which offered up a good excuse for some more biscuit experimenting.
I wanted this recipe to be slightly citrusy with a spicy, woody overtone. I chose orange and cranberry as the base and allspice as the compliment. Allspice is the berry that grows on the pimento tree; an evergreen exclusive to the western hemisphere. Once ground, it loses its flavour very quickly on the shelf. I bought whole allspice and ground it myself with my mortar and pestle and could still barely taste it in this recipe even after sprinkling in about one and a half tablespoons. I shudder to think that the allspice I purchased had been sitting in the grocery store for years and therefore lost its will to be aromatic and flavourful, but I suspect that to be the case.
The first bite of this biscuit was supposed to invoke memories of old wooden spice cabinets and pocketwatches, but what comes to mind is afternoon tea in a sun room looking out on a brisk fall day. Not a bad transportation at all - the biscuits are tasty! - just not exactly what I had aimed to create. Cooking did not help to pronounce the allspice. My advice: taste the batter and if there's no sign of the woody spiciness, add ground cloves to taste.

As they are, these biscuits are deliciously citrusy but, as biscuits should be, not too sweet.

Grandparents' Day Biscuits

2 1/4 cups All Purpose Flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons sugar
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
6 Tablespoons (3/4 stick) cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
1 1/2 Tablespoon ground allspice
3/4 cup dried cranberries, chopped into tiny bits
1 cup reduced-fat well-shaken buttermilk

1 whole orange, zested and then cut in half
1/2 lemon

Preheat oven to 450°F.

Zest orange and set zest aside.

Place half lemon with its rind and the already zested orange in a pot and fill it with water so that both are covered. Add 1/4 teaspoon of salt, which will tame the bitterness of the rind. Bring to a boil and drain. Cut orange and lemon into manageable pieces and transfer to food processor. Pulse until still slightly chunky.

Whisk together flour, baking powder, sugar, baking soda, salt, and allspice in a bowl, then blend in butter with your fingertips until mixture resembles coarse meal. Add orange zest, cranberry bits, and buttermilk and stir until just combined. Add processed orange and lemon.

Spoon dough into mounds (size depending on quantity desired. I think I made about 22 biscuits total.) about 2 inches apart onto a buttered large baking sheet. Bake in middle of oven until golden, 12-14 minutes.

Listen to this while you're making these:

"Grandpa Was A Carpenter" by John Prine and performed by John Prine & The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band

Listen to this while you're eating these:

"How Many Biscuits Can You Eat" performed by Dr. Humphrey Bate & His Possum Hunters, 1930's

Tasters:
Actor Jeremy Beck, Grandpa R. Beck, "Yoyo" (Grandmother) S. Beck

Psychogeography - Woodside, Queens

Sabba Park's Compass

Psychogeography - "a slightly stuffy term that's been applied to a whole toy box full of playful, inventive strategies for exploring cities. [It] includes just about anything that takes pedestrians off their predictable paths and jolts them into a new awareness of the urban landscape." - Utne Reader
Location: Woodside, Queens
Method: 25 coin flips at corners: tails - turn left, heads - turn right
Participants: Jeremy Beck (who researched almost all of the links below for me), Phineas Beck, and Linda Beck
Inspiration: Create Culture (click to join! You should!)

1. START @ Windmuller Park, named after a German immigrant who prospered in banking and summered in Woodside until his death in 1913 and once remarked that "a good rule to make your tramp a really enjoyable pastime is to be careful and not walk too fast.". Tramp is an underused word - especially in this context. tails - left on 52nd Street. Nice cool breeze and whispering leaves in the trees.

2. heads - right on Skillman

3. tails - left on 51st Street: Fire House for Hook & Ladder 163 / Engine 325 Firehouse, built in 1939. Charming facade.
4. tails - left on 43rd Avenue. There are a number of these moving barber shop poles around the neighbourhood. There is only one company in the United States that manufactures them.
5. heads - cross 43rd Ave
6. tails - cross Roosevelt; under 7 train tracks (running since 1915, designated "7" since 1948; Straphangers 2nd best train in NYC, 2007)
7. heads - right on Queens Boulevard: Past Irish Apostolate, VFW (Veterans of Foreign Wars) Post 2813 (established in 1933), and the Puritan Hall of Education
8. tails - straight on Queens Boulevard (no actual right turn). Passed by Boston Market with illegitimate-looking font. Me to Jeremy, "Why would we ever do Boston Market when everything they make, we make better?"
9. tails - left on 50th Street: across the Boulevard of Death* (from 1993 to 2000, 72 pedestrians were killed trying to cross the road). This rollerskating risk-taker tempted death by showing off his skating skills in the middle of traffic.
Then, continued down past a very noisy bird who was on a window sill in a cage, and then to "Chez José," Jeremy's former home, named after the landlord. Jeremy and our dear friend, James, had a lease there from September 2000- September 2002. José was from Columbia and spent months at a time there, leaving his family (who lived in the basement apt.) in charge of turning on the heat (which they rarely did). The place looks like it has enjoyed a fair amount of landscaping since they moved out.
10. heads - right on 47th Avenue: a peek into the back alley. These semi-detached homes afford quite a few amenities to the owners in garages, parking, storage space, etc.
11. heads - right on 49th Street
12. tails - left on Queens Boulevard. Peace has been abandoned on the sidewalk here. 13. heads - straight across Queens Boulevard to Sabba Park, named after Joe Sabba (1916-1999), a WWII vet and long-time editor of the Woodside Herald.
14. tails - left across Queens Boulevard
15. tails - left onto Queens Boulevard
16. tails - left back across Queens Boulevard to Sabba Park again (circle)
17. tails - straight on 48th Street
18. tails - continued straight on 48th Street (no actual turn), where, instead of loud birds, people keep lawn trolls in window cages.
19. heads - right on 47th Avenue
20. tails - left on 47th Street. Apparently, this is a barber shop with a secret.
21. tails - left on 48th Avenue
22. tails - left on 49th Street
23. tails - left on 47th Avenue, where competing laundry mats attempt to lure customers with different laundry accessory awning characters from a seemingly different era.
24. heads - right on 47th Street. This barber shop has some rad, vintage chairs:25. heads - right on Queens Boulevard to head back home!

*This link (see number 9 Boulevard of Death above for context) is from a terrific blog that I highly recommend, that explores and investigates "forgotten" places in New York.

Artistic Biscuits: Coal Mine Labour Day Biscuits Part Two - Sweet

Theme: Labour Day


I've created this post as a part two to my original Coal Mine Labour Day Biscuit post, as I forgot to mention this interesting tidbit:

Some Cornish coal miners' wives intended the Coal Miner Pasty to serve as a two-course meal. According to Ann Pringle Harris' 1988 New York Times Piece:
It was filled at one end with meat or fish and whatever vegetables happened to be in the kitchen,'' Betty Bucknell explained, ''and at the other with apples, plums, cherries or any other fruit that was in season.

Although I can't find a source, as the Coal Miner Pasty appears to be derivative of the Cornish Pasty, I assume the above to be the case for at least some U.S. miners as well.

My original intention was to make my Coal Mine Labour Day Biscuits half-savoury and half-sweet; split right down the middle like a Black & White Cookie. However, I only had enough flour for one, so I chose to make them in two different batches instead, starting with the savoury batch.

Here's the recipe I came up with for the sweet variety. I wish I could post the aroma of these subtle and lovely biscuits. They are just delightful. I think the strawberries add just the perfect amount of sweetness. These are biscuits, not scones, and therefore I didn't make them overly sweet. You could add more sugar, though, if that's your preference.

Coal Mine Labour Day Biscuits - Sweet

2 1/4 cups All Purpose Flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons sugar
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
6 Tablespoons (3/4 stick) cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
1 Tablespoon dried tarragon leaves
1 1/2 teaspoons fresh rosemary, chopped into small bits
2 Tablespoons wheat germ
1/2 cup dried strawberries, chopped (I extracted these from the Trader Joe's dried berry medley)
1 teaspoon lemon zest
1 cup reduced-fat well-shaken buttermilk

Preheat oven to 450°F.

Whisk together flour, baking powder, sugar, baking soda, salt, in a bowl, then blend in butter with your fingertips until mixture resembles coarse meal. Stir in tarragon, rosemary, wheat germ, and lemon zest. Add strawberries, breaking the pieces apart if they're stuck together. Add buttermilk and stir until just combined.

Spoon dough into mounds (size depending on quantity desired. I think I made about 22 biscuits total.) about 2 inches apart onto a buttered large baking sheet. Bake in middle of oven until golden, 12-15 minutes.

Listen to this while baking:

"Paradise" written by and performed by John Prine.

Watch this while eating:

"Coal Miner's Daughter"

Tasters:

Jeremy Beck, B. Conaty, & The Sultan Family

Artistic Biscuits: Coal Mine Labour Day Biscuits Part One - Savoury

Theme: Labour Day


As this is Labour Day Weekend, Jeremy proposed that the theme of my first official Biscuit Project biscuits be just that: Labour Day. Labour Day in the U.S. is a "celebration of the economic and social achievements of workers" and was started in 1894 as a reaction to the Pullman Strike (a conflict involving cut wages for railroad car workers). Having just watched the documentary Harlan County, USA, about the 1973 coal miners' strike in Kentucky, I was inspired to focus on this part of our hardworking, energy source-providing American workforce.


Our first American commercial coal miners descended into the mines in the 1700's in Midlothian, near Richmond, Virginia. According to various accounts, thankfully preserved online by the daughters of coal miners, meals were generally prepared by the coal miners' wives and packed into a metal pail with a cover, sometimes customized with stickers or, by the more artistic, painted with scenes. While the coal miner's meal varied from place to place and day to day, I've come across a few trends:

Last night's leftovers

A sandwich and fruit

The Coal Miner Pasty, (pasty is pronounced PASStee, not PAYstee) also known as the Traditional Cornish Pasty and introduced by emigrants from Cornwall, a little filled pastry purse, made with potatoes, turnips or rutabaga, onions, and ground beef.

I chose the pasty as my biscuit spring board, leaving out the meat because I'm a vegetarian. Here's what I came up with. They were DELICIOUS.

Coal Mine Labour Day Biscuits - Savoury

2 1/4 cups All Purpose Flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons sugar
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
6 Tablespoons (3/4 stick) cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
3/4 teaspoon fresh rosemary
2 scallions or green onions, minced
1 turnip, chopped into 1/2 inch pieces
2 red potatoes, chopped into 1/2 inch cubes
1 cup reduced-fat well-shaken buttermilk

Preheat oven to 450°F.

Bring a medium saucepan of salted water to a boil. Add potatoes and turnip and cook for 10 minutes or until potatoes are tender. Drain.

Whisk together flour, baking powder, sugar, baking soda, salt, and rosemary in a bowl, then blend in butter with your fingertips until mixture resembles coarse meal. Stir in scallions. With a potato masher or a fork, mash in potatoes and turnips until still slightly chunky but evenly mixed in. Add buttermilk and stir until just combined.

Spoon dough into mounds (size depending on quantity desired. I think I made about 24 biscuits total.) about 2 inches apart onto a buttered large baking sheet. Bake in middle of oven until golden, 17 to 20 minutes.

Tips:

Don't skip the turnips, even if you're afraid of them. They add a sweetness and a lovely texture. No need to be afraid of a turnip.

Listen to this while you're baking:

"The Mountain" performed by Steve Earle and The Del McCoury Band

Check out one of these documentaries while you're eating:

Harlan County, USA
Burning the Future: Coal in America

Tasters: Actor Jeremy Beck, John Rouse, one of the creators of Createculture.org, and Amy, his culturally adventurous and very pregnant wife.

Artistic Biscuits: Artist's Statement

I've been devastated for the past few months, maybe longer, by what I consider a state of artistic paralysis. I have sketchbooks of all shapes and sizes, but for the most part, they remain empty, even when I carry at least one of them with me at all times. I've tried switching from pencil to pen, from plain paper to Canson, and still: pages as naked as a jaybird.

I have, however, been notably creative in instituting obstacles and excuses for my lack of output:

I have to clean the apartment first.
I'm getting off in four stops.
I'm not having a good drawing day.
I just can't draw anymore. (part one)
Maybe I could never draw? (part two)
I can't think of a thing on Earth to draw.

I've always loved to cook, never resisting the temptation to alter a recipe to my whimsy. The other day, while concocting a recipe for biscuits with cracked pepper and Muenster cheese, (here's my recipe, which I photographed and posted on animator Jene Wallace's food blog, Fill The Belly) I recognized an artistic rush, similar to how I feel when I achieve "the spark of magic" on a pencil drawing that qualifies it as particularly remarkable.

What's magical and liberating about art is that it can manifest itself in any form; a simple statement, but one I forget all too easily. To be art doesn't necessarily mean to be made of oil, marble, metal, or any of the other traditional materials you can buy at an over-priced art shop.

So, I've decided to start a new "series": The Artistic Biscuit Project. Each recipe will be inspired by something, for example: a word, historical reference or figure, holiday, etc. If they are delicious, I will say so. If they are disgusting, I will also say so. If you choose to make any using my recipes, please give me your feedback!