Cherries in the sun
It’s not every day that I get to wallow in what is now my avocation (vs. when it was my vocation – however poorly paid), but I have done so today. Thoroughly. And now I feel compelled to share.
I dropped Keifel at work this morning early and then wended my way over to Crema on Hermitage Avenue to have breakfast solo. A small group of travelling friends was ordering in front of me telling their story of being directed to Crema for latte art. Crema’s lattes are art but I would say more in the drinking than the deftly done heart in the silky foam. I got a latte, too, and a tasty lemon-raisin scone from Dozen Bakery, found a sunny window and enjoyed my quiet breakfast looking out over one of Nashville’s newest “it” neighborhoods. I ordered a coffee soda to go and bought a half pound of Yemeni coffee that smells like perfume in the bag and headed out the door to my next foodie adventure for the day. By the way, if you haven’t been to Crema and haven’t had the, seasonal, coffee soda – go now. It’s worth the drive over. I promise.
My next stop for the day was a class on food styling for food bloggers. I think calling myself a food blogger is slightly aggrandizing considering the (in)frequency of my posts, but we’ll roll with it for our purposes. Teresa Blackburn, food stylist and food blogger, taught the class assisted by Lindsay Landis.
Teresa had laid out several different table top looks for staging a picture and then mixed and matched a new one to put together a beautiful salad with figs, blackberries and preserved lemons. The new wrinkle in my brain on that score was using cold, pre-made mashed potatoes as “ice” under the leaves to keep them cold and act kind of like a flower frog to support the leaves. Some strategically placed figs, a couple blackberries on toothpicks and some pipette-drizzled dressing later, the salad was ready for its closeup.
The class was great but by far the best part was chatting with other local food bloggers, including Teresa, and meeting some incredibly talented, passionate women and men. Hence, part of the reason I felt compelled to step it up for the day, at least, and post. I’ve been chatting with Keifel about reskinning the blog. The purchased “harvest” theme is wearing thin on me and I’d like to clear up the clutter and pull in some of the info from the currently on extended hiatus supper club site, arsculinaria.net. I’d like to hope the fire will burn for a bit but it’s summer and there’s a lot going on, including but not limited to Nashville’s growing number of farmers’ markets and the abundance of beautiful local produce to enjoy.
As it’s the weekend and there are two young adults in the house with hearty appetites burning through the contents of the cupboards and fridge, a shopping trip was due. I missed out on my usual Saturday morning downtown farmers’ market run so had to hit Whole Foods a little harder than I usually do. There was a sale on cherries prompting clafouti (recipe from the Joy of Cooking with a slash of Trinidadian rum) for tonight’s dessert after a dinner of baby potato, leek and ham hash.
So wrapping up my foodie porn kind of day will be dinner surrounded by the lovely faces of my family, preceded by this blog post and some summery baking. I snuck in a photo, though I don’t think it stands up to the photos out of today’s class. I’ll get there, maybe. As much as I love playing with my food and taking pictures, I really prefer writing and that’s why there’s this giant block of text then my sunny picture of cherries at the top.
