Nova Clutch

Marc Dennis at Hirschl & Adler Modern

You are probably going to ask yourself, what kind of person would not post about a friend's new show at Hirschl & Adler Modern until 16 days after it opened, and 15 days before it closes? My answer to you is an idiot like myself who can't seem to find the time of day to get a post or two into a foolhardy weekly schedule filled with travel, teaching, clients and excuses. But enough about me.

I met Marc Dennis through friends Richard and Penny down at DUMBO's General Store last spring. With Marc's long time association with the area, sharing studio space with an old college soccer mate of mine (that's you Manny), and a mutual admiration for a pint or two, I don't know how it was possible that we hadn't met years ago. Regardless, when we did meet, we bonded like two old sailors stuck in Kansas.

Unlike his paintings, when Marc is observed from a typical viewing distance, he appears unrefined, a rough around the edges blue collar type armed with an unforgiving Massachusetts accent. From this perspective there is no romance in his style, flair to his dress or an apparent necessity for social niceties. For those unwilling to look further or engage (if Marc so chooses) they will miss the beauty, intelligence, knowledge, cutting humor and quick wit of this man who has slashed a distinct pathway to considered vision and creative passion. 

As with Marc, his paintings are there for those who spend the time to engage. Taken at face value, his work seems simple and easy to understand as interesting subjects of nature's beauty deftly executed in a photorealistic manner. Both his large and small canvasses feature a rich pallete, powerful compositions and a depth that calls for the viewer to reach out and touch. BFD, right? No, not right. As with the person who sticks around to to discover the value and essence of Marc's words and character, so will the viewer who stays long enough to find the message and reward in his paintings.

For example, at the opening there was an older couple hovering around Diptych of Earthly Delights, an 2007 oil on canvas that measures 30 x 60 in, depicting an arial view of poppy flowers and buds. As the couple moved back and forth observing the buttock-like buds, the woman was overheard by Marc to say, "Are those anuses"? To which Marc replied in passing, "Yes, they are". Moving beyond gimmickry to deliver a dose of reality and humanity as evident in his Melodius Merrius Giganticus which transforms beautifully-rendered buds into a gaggle of curious pink characters with green snouts with the simple application of dots, or Venus Giganticus where mehndi/henna (Lawsonia inermis) styled stems lurk behind a foreground of gloriously patterned and detailed flowers.

I would be going out on a limb to state that to know Marc is to know his paintings or visa versa. However, I would say that in viewing these recent pieces that Marc has come to the conclusion that with all of his skill and artistry it would be a fruitless folly to try and fully capture the evolutionary beauty and intelligence of nature by applying pigment to canvas. By studying nature day in and day out he has found something most of us have missed. By dissecting and recreating nature he has discovered and connected his individual human nature and traits to his subject to create an intimate and knowledgeable relationship where the humor is an insider's joke between Marc and his subjects.

Anyway, my dad Bio Bob thinks Marc it the greatest thing since saprophytes and I don't think he is bad either. Marc, I owe you a few beers.

Shown above: Melodius Merrius Giganticus, 2007, oil on canvas, 50 x 50 in. Venus Giganticus, 2008, oil on canvas, 50 x 50 in.

Hirschl & Adler Modern, 21 East 70th Street, through March 15, 2008

Vietnamese Coffee

I am obsessed. This is the only time, apart from when I make dulce de leche, that I buy condensed milk. I know, it sounds disgusting, but you have to try before you baulk.

Vietnamese coffee is knock-you-over strong. Without the sweet condensed milk, it may well give you a seizure. Condensed milk is put in a glass, and the filter on top. You pour half a cup of coffee into the top of the filter, and pour hot water on top and it drips down onto the milk. We bought this beautiful silver coffee filter (don't worry, we bought the everyday aluminium ones from the supermarket too) and I am obsessed with it as an object. We got it from a shop just near our hotel in the Church Street area of Hanoi called Mosaique. It's one of the few places that actually have some decent things in Hanoi (and not just knocked off crap), and it's set in a beautiful old town house, not unlike Felissimo in New York.

Mosaique is at 22 Nha Tho St, Church Street area, Hanoi, Vietnam

Shell necklaces

You know, for the kids. I still can't bring myself to wear jewelry but when I saw these shells on the Beach in Nantucket how could I not make them into necklaces? I used gold thread from Bocage and bought some tiny gold clasps from the little jewelry making store that I can't remember the name of on Mott Street just off Houston. They took about five minutes to make and are perfect for all the little girls our friends seem to keep having.

Blood orange and spices – a winter trio

I haven't had a chance to capitalize on the blood orange this season, something I normally go crazy for. I might make more blood orange liqueur and certainly more marmalade (if I can remember the recipe this time) but what else?

Wracking my brains I couldn't think of anything, nor could I find any interesting recipes. Claudia Flemming had only blood oranges in caramel or sorbet. But I did find two recipes that required oranges, so I thought I would just substitute.

Gourmet yielded orange cardamom cookies in which I used blood orange zest instead and fresh cardamom instead of ground, cutting the sticky dough into heart shapes, in defiance of the week after Valentine's. The trusty magazine also offered up clementines in ginger syrup, and I think you can guess what I used instead of the clementines. As a designer, I'm partial to the balance of a trio, so I needed a foil for my two spice-ridden desserts. As the New York Times had just published what seemed like a remarkably easy pudding recipe I thought I would have a go at that.

The cookies were sublime and there's a lot of them – I froze half the dough and who knows if it will hold up to freezing, but I didn't need to make that many cookies. I added more cream than the recipe calls for (having read the reviews on Epicurious) and they were really, really delicious. I have a great love of cardamom, probably because it is in the Sri Lankan food that I grew up on, and the bitter blood orange zest married perfectly with it. The cookies also went very well with the pudding, but that's probably because I chucked a cardamom pod into the steaming pudding for five minutes because I thought it tasted very sweet and plain. But sweet and plain was perfect with the tartness of the blood oranges and the not-too-sweet cookies.

The syrup should be called star anise syrup and not ginger. That is the resounding flavor, certainly not the ginger. But the combination of spices is amazing and perfect with the tart citrus. You can see from the picture that the blood oranges dyed the syrup a scarlet red, which was beautiful spilled over the quivering lily-whiteness of the pudding. I know, it all sounds like a bad horror movie. Who says you can't have drama with citrus?

Faygo

In Portland, Oregon in the early 80s there was one goal in every child’s mind: win the smile contest on “Ramblin Rod”. Ramblin Rod was a children’s television show hosted by a local car dealer, which in retrospect is quite odd. Each episode, Ramblin Rod would host a smile contest and all the kids in the audience would grin their hearts out trying to win. Five kids would get pulled out of the audience, lined up next to the wooden ship (which was the one homage to set decoration) and the finalists would be given one last chance to smile. Why were kids so desperate to win? Because the prize was amazing. Winners of the smile contests were given a certificate for a free case of soda pop from the Pop Shop, a local manufacturer and bottler of pop. The warehouse was huge and filled with soda of every make and model: sassafras, strawberry, black cherry, grapefruit, pineapple, lime, orange, chocolate, maybe even a bubblegum. Since we weren’t normally allowed sugar and certainly not sugary pop, it was truly heaven. Not that I ever won the smile contest. Luckily I had generous brothers with winning smiles.

Local soda pop is primarily a thing of the past. As with almost every other product, nationalization of sales and distribution of major players, here Pepsi and Coke, eventually lead to the downfall of the local manufacturer. One company, though, has managed to hold out and hold on to the local flavor. Detroit’s Faygo is the real deal. The company has been in business since 1907 and every kid who grew up in Detroit can sing the jingles. They have flavors as standard as root beer and cola but get wild with Rock & Rye (sort of cream soda flavored) and Red Pop (which is purportedly strawberry flavored). They are vestiges of the past and distinct hometown favorites. Perhaps with all the talk of eating locally, we should also consider drinking locally. Faygo is a great place to start.   

Sherry Shakes, Port Shakes

Very adult, pure decadence.

Natasha, Michele, Jen and I stopped by The Chocolate Room in Brooklyn in the mood for something unusual to satiate our post-dinner sweet tooth. On a whim, we made a special request for vanilla milkshakes made with Sherry and they graciously indulged us, although we ended-up with Port shakes on account of an untimely Hidalgo Sherry outage. No matter, they were delicious and provided a perfect hybrid of dessert and digestivo - all in one divine, blended package.

According to the manager, our Port shake experiment will now be appearing as a special on this weekend’s menu under the moniker “The King of Shakes” after my jokingly gratuitous suggestion that they name it after me was [rightly] dismissed. It’s actually a derivative of my nickname, but that’s neither here nor there.

The beauty of this very proper dessert is in its simplicity and the meld flavours. Key to this combination is excellent-quality Sherry or Port and homemade vanilla ice cream, or at minimum an ultra-premium vanilla from your favorite gourmet outlet. Plus the topping of a simple dollop of unsweetened whipped cream or panna, and a very civilized straw. 

This weekend, Nova Clutch cellars will be titrating the perfect Amaro milkshake, most likely made from Averna due to its balance of bitter – for which it is named – and sweet finish. This is in honor of Ben, my handsomer half who fell under the spell of Amaro one night at a desolate masseria [fortified farmhouse] in Puglia during our road trip through southern Italy last October...

Snow Day! Valenkisrus

A snow day means that Michael will probably get stuck at the Annual Conference of the College Art Association, but that's ok because I'm happy playing in the snow in my beige Valenkisrus. I can't tell you where to get a pair as the website, www.valenkisrus.com seems to be down. They must be inundated with orders on a day like this!

Image via Swissmiss

Oven mit apron from Design Within Reach

I'm a product designer (or that's what it says on my résumé anyway) and even I think that Design Within Reach is far from within reach. I normally spurn the threshold of their stores but this apron reeled me in. I've also resisted getting an apron for this long, thinking it a purely suburban accoutrement. But seeing as I spend most of free time in my kitchen, it was time to invest.

And oh, was it worth the wait. Worth the countless pairs of jeans I've ruined with chocolate stains. Yes, all for the über-Apron. This apron by Ontwerpwerk has built-in oven mits. Yup. No rushing around looking for the oven gloves you put under the baking tray anymore and no flour-covered shirts. Plus, this isn't a fussy floral number my mum would wear – well she wears a lab coat to cook. But that's another story.

Full photo by DWR, detail by us.

A giant stick of cinnamon

It happened because Michael and I were walking around a market in the far North of Vietnam, and had retreated into the dry goods section of the market in fear of seeing another dog head for sale. We found some interesting things in our place of retreat, mainly strange dried medicinal goods. There were bags of dried lizards (named only "medicine" when I asked) that I considered buying for a second but realized a) I didn't really have a use for them and b) that might prove a problem with immigration considering what else I was bringing into the country. I opted for this giant stick of cinnamon instead, which cost me all of a dollar and with which I may make a big vat of mulled wine or cider.

I photographed this with a regular cinnamon stick by its side so there's a sense of how massive this thing actually is!

Japanese Kanji Work Gloves

After successfully making it out of the 80's and 90's without branding myself with some sketchily translated form of calligraphy on the back of my milky neck or delicately inked onto my ankle, this winter I have donned a far a less permanent, yet equally foolish option. Unlike the questionable tattoos designed to ward off bad spirits and alert people to the fact that the wearer is an insecure and unimaginative round eyed devil that believes their "tat" is an edgy addition to their business casual persona, my new Kanji emblazoned Japanese working gloves unapologetically reek of jackass.

Made and purchased in Japan, these lovely additions to my winter attire can easily be worn face up or face down depending on how foolish or brave I am feeling. Although they are clearly labeled "Japanese Kanji", I have not had the inclination to have them properly translated. Until I do, I will be certain not to wave to anyone I suspect of reading Kanji for fear of insulting their mother, or requesting them to cut my hands off.