martha stewart living

Thank you, Ayesha Patel, of Martha Stewart Living magazine, for including my little porcelain cheese board in this beautiful story photographed by Maria Robledo!

donna hay black and white issue

I'm delighted to see one of my ceramics in the recent Black and White issue of Donna Hay Magazine!  The image is gorgeous!  If anyone knows who the photographer is kindly let me know so that I can credit them.

Below are "behind the scene" images taken during the shoot of this collector's edition of the magazine.  Look carefully at the table of white props and you will see a bunch of Elephant Ceramic pieces that Donna Hay purchased from me for this issue! Thank you to Matt Armendariz of Matt Bites blog for bringing this to my attention in his post!

dinner by chef david levi of vinland

Last week I hosted a very special event at my home.....a dinner by David Levi who will soon be opening the much anticipated restaurant, Vinland, in Portland, Maine.  Vinland will be the first restaurant in the United States to serve 100% local, organic food. 

David is a very passionate about the restaurants mission and you can read The Vinland Manifesto here.  David intends for his restaurant to be part of a food revolution "which is part of the broader revolution of our time, a revolution in consciousness, politics, and society."  This is a chef that truly cares about the food he will be serving you at his restaurant.

The menu, cooked that evening by David, Kate and Alex, was one amazing dish after another.  David and Kate had foraged quite a few of the ingredients the day before.  My husband and I even foraged for young milkweed pods along our road which David incorporated into two of the dishes.  As each dish was served and consumed my guests excitedly talked about ingredients that they had never tasted before and how surprising some of these ingredients were.  Beach radishes!  Have you ever had them?  We had not and now it's one of my favorite flowering greens that I hope to find on my next beach excursion. How about Reindeer Lichen cooked in duck fat?  So delicious!  You can see the menu below.  

David was a history teacher before starting on his journey to becoming a chef.  It's quite apparent that David is very comfortable with sharing his knowledge about the ingredients he uses, their nutritional value, his cooking methods, the benefits of fermentation and much more.  In his journey to open Vinland he spent time at both Noma in Copenhagen, and Faviken in the northern region of  Sweden as an apprentice chef.  

I wish I could have taken more photos of David's food that really did justice to the beauty of each dish.  Thank you to David, Kate and Alex for making this a very memorable dinner for all of us!  We await the opening of Vinland with much anticipation!

Vinland Tasting Menu: July 24th, 2013

Snacks

Mahogany clam with lambs quarters and ramp

Reindeer lichen

Hardfiskur with butter and nori

Kohlrabi chip with strained yogurt and cucumber

Grilled carrot with Olga and sage

Squid chip with coral emulsion and green onion

Mains

Lobster in broth with chanterelles and beach mustard, Chive, tarragon

Summer vegetables, raw, grilled, with 63°C egg and purslane herbed lardo

Raw beef with escarole juniper grass juice, sorrel, yarrow, pine and beach radish

Tomatoes with squash, summer corn, snow peas, basil butter and tomato syrup

Halibut with yogurt whey, new potatoes, scape, nasturtium and beach goosefoot and goosetongue

Juniper and Hay smoked leg of baby lamb on squash hay with mint oil, and broth onion

Honey goat Kefir granita with blueberries

Parsnip crepe with raspberries, and maple whipped cream