Hamentaschen!

I had a lovely time creating/sculpting/baking Hamentaschen. I don't usually cook or bake - particularly not in the summer - so although it was only a small dessert, this was quite an experiment for me. The shopping alone felt like a ritual! Then late saturday night - technically sunday - I started gathering and mixing and rolling and cooking. (Not entirely unlike a late night studio session!)

As I mixed and stirred, I honestly wasn't sure it would work out. I didn't know when the dough was ready, versus just ingredients. It was almost like that moment where you wonder - is it art? I scorned sifting, whisking, and power mixing! This was the labor of my hands alone! (Well, ok, I don't have any of that equipment...) And soon enough my fiance fell asleep so I was on photo and baking duty.

The first batch came out tasty, but a bit bulky. I rolled thinner dough and used more jam (usually this would be poppy seed filling but I wanted to improvise with the jams I rarely use). It was fun to shape the triangles, like little hats. Once baked, I feasted first, then in true asynchonous/digital fashion, arranged future feasts for 1. my fiance 2. our friend who ran a marathon and was STARVING afterward 3. a friend in New Jersey.

Text/in person/phone responses: "Tasty treats!" "Can't wait to eat these" and "I wish there were more!"

Teaching Learning- Food and Collaboration

Suzanne Lacy, "Crystal Quilt photographs," 1987, 1 of a series of 36 photographs, 16 x 20" each.


Jonell Pulliam's last post- describing chance and inclusive creativity, made me think about the happenings of 1960’s and Suzanne Lacy. As luck would have it, I found this post on U Tube which documents parts of a conversation between Suzanne Lacy and her mentor Judy Chicago. Both women are known for merging creative acts with social relevance.

Four Simple Ingredients: A Happening for Cyberfeast II continues this synergy. The gathering together of inter generational people, involving food and encouraging an open creative space are entwined in Serve & Project’s mission.
-Io Palmer

Four Simple Ingredients: A Happening for CyberFeast II

I was really excited to participate in CyberFeast II. Four Simple Ingredients: A Happening was inspired by Appetizer - The Wine Tasting that Became my Banquet; an event from CyberFeast I. As an avid bread maker and visual artist, I was particularly interested in the idea of Amish Friendship bread – a key element in that event. I liked the idea of simple elements coming together to create a delicious outcome. I also appreciated the notion of chance that was an element of that event. Chance is a part of my art making process.

Four Simple Ingredients was based on process of making friendship bread: simple materials, basic instruction, sharing creative energy, and collaboration. Our charge for the evening was to create a work of art that was somehow inspired by the food, conversations, and diverse artistic perspectives assembled at the Happening. Participants were invited to set up shop anywhere in the house, work individually or collaboratively, and use any materials available.

Ten people - artists, young designers, educators, and parents - attended the Four Simple Ingredients. The event began with a pot-luck dinner, that was collaboratively prepared or served. The menu included:

Appetizers:

Fruit Salad with homemade yogurt dip

Assorted Cheeses, Dips, breads

Entrée:

Green Salad

Pasta with Italian Sausage and Garlic

Red Rice

Lime Roasted Chicken

Variety of Wines

Dessert:

Dump Cake

After dinner, the group organically divided up into the various spaces of the house and began creating art. The resulting work included ink and paper assemblage by artist Lynne Riding; a Bomb Pop painting by Andre Barbosa; a found-fabric skirt by Anika and Egyptt; an ink and graphite drawing by artist Kimberly McHenry-Williams; photo embroidery by Donna Hurt; a food painting by creative Germaine Jenkins; and an embroidered paper collaborative project by Amy Reed. I am currently working on the next phase of the project - napkins - inspired by the experience of the evening.

        

   

        

Everyones Favorite Table Setting

Judy Chicago's Dinner Party was produced between 1974 and 1979 is an elaborate project that pays homage to actual and mythical women in history. At the table are 39 table settings that include a range of crafts, plates, runners, and eating utensils. In Judy's words, this project started as a simple homage to "twenty-five women who were eaten alive".

Happy preparing !

(quote source Wikipedia)

Rirkrit Tiravanija- an artist known for his food

Rirkrit Tiravanija, a contemporary artist born in Buenos Aires, Argentina , is known for the lavish meals he prepares in gallery spaces and served to viewers. Through cooking and serving, Tiravanija's work explores the role of artists in society. The artwork then becomes the making, production and serving of food. While the end result may be a photograph or a memory.
Relational artists such as Rirkrit explore a range of social relationships by producing art that questions and blurs boundaries that exist within art production.

Visit: http://newarttv.com/Rirkrit+Tiravanija

Cyberfeast II Confirmed Participants

Michel Auder. "Dinner is Served"
27 February – 14 March 2010

_________________________________

We are excited to of gathered together the following cyber feasters.

Below includes each participant thus far with websites. Check out all the creative work being done by each participant. We welcome you to post any work in progress or articles of interest and we look forward to Skyping with you all in the coming months.
Sincerely,
Io (Pullman, WA) and Lisa (Boston, MA)
Serve & Project,

CyberFeast II: Participants (as of July 12)

Erik Benjamins

http://erikbenjamins.com/Main/index.html.html

Calcagno Cullen

www.telephoneheart.com

Cyberfeast I reference: Con You Bing

Bill Fisher

http://billfisher.dreamhost.com/nohate.html

Liora Kushner

(professional caterer)

Cyberfeast I reference: Hamantashen

Jonell Pulliam

www.jjpulliam.com

Cyberfeast I reference: The Wine Tasting that

Became my Banquet, Amish Friendship Bread

Courtney Lee Weida

http://sites.google.com/site/courtneyleeweidaresearch/

Cyberfeast I reference: Hamantashen

Call for Participation

Cyberfeast  II– Call for participation (FREE)
serveandproject@gmail.com
 
Call for artist participants in a multi-disciplinary art project that  engages community in dialogue about the making, production and consumption of food, through workshops, gallery exhibitions, and new for 2010,  a series of "cyber feasts".
 
For Cyberfeast II artists Io Palmer and Lisa Link invite people to participate through our Blog and Skype .  Artwork on the blog will be presented as part of the project  " Here, There and Everywhere: The Art of Collaboration –"  during the TransCultural Exchange’s 2011 Conference on International Opportunities in the Arts in Boston, 2011.
 
If you are interested in participating,write to us at: serveandproject@gmail.com
We will send you a specific set of pre-banquet art activities developed out of the "menu" developed in Cyberbanquet #1, February 2010.
 
Formats for the creative pre-cyberbanquet activity may include sculpture, painting, drawing, performance, and documentation of ingredients/food vendor sources all based on the "menu" theme that will be discussed with participants prior to the Cyberfeasts.
 
CyberFeasts  will take place during the summer of 2010, TBA depending on time zones of participants.  Requirements include access to Skype, an interest in collaborative art, connecting with other artists, food, and internet art "happenings".

serveandproject@gmail.com


 

Cyber Banquet Festivities from Pullman, Washington

Our Cyber Banquet, in the small town of Pullman, Washington became a festive space for entertainment, dialogue, history, and humor.

My thanks to dinner guests, artists
Reza Safavi and Kevin Haas.

Joyce's Cyberfeast in North Dakota

Serve & Project Cyberfeast #1
Williston, North Dakota, Chinese New Year Celebration, at the Nadolny-Shui Home
guest starring "The Purple School" rewards system

Introduction of Evening
Joyce's welcome





Appetizer
Cong You Bing



Dinner

Steamed lemon chicken on a bed of spinach | Recipe >>
Cucumber salad which Joyce forgot to serve | Photo >>
Homemade spinach dumplings with handmade dough





Homemade pork dumplings ( partial video on how to make them)

Asparagus, shrimp and pork stir-fry (we forgot to photo this sorry!)
Peanut noodles | Recipe >>
Dou-ban-yu (to represent the concept of "nian nian you yu", i.e. abundance year after year)
(again, we forgot to take a photo, but click here for a beautiful photo of someone else's "failure" - it seems way too beautiful to have been a failure)

Happy New Year!

So many of the kids remembered how to say "xin-nian-kuai-le" that we needed a tie breaker. There were 10 kids at the get-together. All were girls except for Connor. Connor got the prize for being the only boy at the event (and surviving!).

Dessert

Oranges (Chinese desserts are often "just" fruit)
Sticky cake "nian gao" recipe >>

The Small But Mighty Meal

Napkin Depicting Dinner Objects by Io Palmer

Napkin Book by Kevin Haas


Dinner Napkin by Reza Safavi


So many people were out of town the night of our first Cyber Feast.
Two dear friends and colleagues came over to my apartment to celebrate and support Serve and Project.
The three of us, we traveled first to Chicago for Patrick's soup feast.
Then we went to Boston where Lisa was hosting a dinner ala Hamentashen cookies.
After we surfed to Minneapolis where Priscilla was hosting a grand and colorful potluck !

Back at my place, my friends and I feasted on:
Lamb Burgers with Melted Blue Cheese
Roasted Potatoes
Tomato Salad
and
Stir-fried Greens

An understated and wonderful feast.

The Wine Tasting That Became My Banquet

I love when things come together. They are little coincidences. In my head I see them as atoms and when they collide, they become molecules...or maybe, just something bigger. They aren't really big things. Nothing like discovering penicillin, but more like when your first angel food cake finally turns out right or the first time you make a loaf of bread that is nothing short of wow. The relationship just seems to fit together like a recipe or a puzzle.

When I received the invitation for the cyber banquet I also received an invitation by an acquaintance for food and wine at the appointed time. It was really a wine tasting with food, but we didn't want to decline. So, it became the banquet. At the same time, I also received a starter for Amish Friendship Bread. Since it appeared that the food end of things was completely covered, I didn't make the bread for the banquet. But I did do a lot of searching on the internet about it and somehow I feel that that story makes sense in this context.

I had never heard of Amish Friendship Bread, so when I got a starter from a friend I looked at the recipe and declared "there's enough leavening in here to make this, so what does the starter do?" And off I went to the internet to learn about the history of this bread.

Amish Friendship Bread is not Amish, nor is it what I would consider real bread. The starter is yeast based and is fed with enough milk, sugar and flour, so that every 10 days, the owner shares it with 3 friends. One person commented that it was a chain letter of sorts. Another person said that they made the bread recipe with and without the starter and the breads tasted the same. So, ultimately, it all seems to be about sharing with friends. And this blog and project is about sharing and friends.

Here are photos from the gathering hosted by Dan and Laurie Crooke who live 20 or so miles east of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

Laurie's Soup Story

Jeremy's Bread Starter Story

More Minnesota Doodle

The Doodlers in Action...

Minnesota Doodle

Cyber Banquet Hosted in Minneapolis

at Priscilla And Chris's House

Cheryle Melander and Sarah Weiben

An homage to the baked potato

Sarah Pedersen Byrnes tells us how we make her feel...

John Byrnes

a Cheryle Melander original

Sarah W. draws Sarah B.

The Mona Lisa as we've never seen her before...by Mike Toohey

something scary by Chris Weber