Design Public

Do you have something that holds a permanent spot on your inspiration board, that has helped your ideas flow for years and years? I loved this charming piece on the author Douglas Coupland in Sunday’s New York Times. It figures that the author who captured the zeitgeist of Generation X and the technology bubble (Microserfs - personally I liked that one better, maybe because I am a member of Gen X, I don’t know), chose this cusp-of-the-eighties postcard from Fiorucci 1979. It did seem a sign of everything that was to come, and it affected Coupland so deeply that he dumped science for art then and there. I don’t think a postcard has ever done that much for me, but I do know that are quite a few images from bulletin boards that seem to make the cut during every clean-out and every move. Care to share yours?

photo from Bayne Stanley for The New York Times 

Pim “was raised in Bangkok, educated in other places, now lives in San Francisco” where she authors her blog, Chez Pim. She offers up a brief entry, but there’s lots more to feast on in her Flickr photostream, so be sure to check that out.

Her entry is the final entry of our ‘Pass the Mic: Delicious Design’ event that brings together food bloggers and designers to mark the Thanksgiving holiday and the launch of our new Modern Tabletop category. We’ve also created a Flickr group “Aesthetics of Food” to make your mouth water. Enjoy!

What is more beautiful than a plate of pristine fish, so fresh they were practically alive? So fresh, it would have been a crime to cook them. We parted the filets from the finicky bones and buried the little pieces in a mound of gray salt. A few hours later, the glistening flesh retired from the salty interment, they were placed in neat rows on a plate. White, of course. Colors would only be a distraction. Now, all that was left to do was to give a generous splash of fragrant olive oil, and perhaps decorate with fennel pollen, freshly picked from the garden. Dig in with your fingers, letting the oil gently drip down your wrist. When you are done, don’t forget to wipe the plate clean with a chunk of crusty bread.

Beautiful food is elegant design: complex in conception, masterful in workmanship, simple in presentation, and, at the heart of it all, a utilitarian soul.

It’s UK Friday! OK, actually our second Brit blogger actually lives a stone’s throw away here in SF, but she is an English Girl-Abroad. She writes Becks & Posh:

And when Sam isn’t blogging, she’s working as a visual effects artist at George Lucas’s ILM. Her entry is the ninth of our ‘Pass the Mic: Delicious Design’ event that brings together food bloggers and designers to mark the Thanksgiving holiday and the launch of our new Modern Tabletop category. We’ve also created a Flickr group “Aesthetics of Food” to make your mouth water. Enjoy!

The Height of Edible Fashion!

Fêted by the world’s fooderati and darling of the Parisian Pâtisserie Circuit, Pierre Hermé is a man who clearly epitomizes good taste. A trip to one of his stylish French or Japanese boutiques will illustrate the ease with which he satisfies the visual senses as much as the palate. (more…)

It’s UK Friday! Keiko lives in Suffolk, UK, and writes Nordljus — one version in English, one in Japanese.

Her entry is the eighth of our ‘Pass the Mic: Delicious Design’ event that brings together food bloggers and designers to mark the Thanksgiving holiday and the launch of our new Modern Tabletop category. We’ve also created a Flickr group “Aesthetics of Food” to make your mouth water. Enjoy!

This is the first recipe I’ve tried from my recent purchase target="_blank">The Accidental Foodie by Neale Whitaker. He has been the editor of target="_blank">Vogue Entertaining + Travel (my all time favourite magazine) for a while - but as he writes in his introduction, he never set out to be a foodie - he became one accidentally. My good friend Cheryl, who is an old friend of his, describes him as a passionate perfectionist and his careers in fashion and PR led to magazine editorships. Before he moved to Australia (he is actually English and grew up in the culinary wasteland that was 60s and 70s England), he edited the beautiful target="_blank">Food Illustrated (another of my all time favourites) magazine.

More than just a recipe book, this is about his journey to becoming the foodie that he is now - the book features recipes from his own food heroes, those who he has personally worked with, hence the absence of perhaps more obvious choices such as Nigella Lawson, Gordon Ramsay, Rick Stein or Fergus Henderson.

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Oliver & Nicky live in Munich and write Delicious Days, which is not only a great food blog but also one of the most aesthetically beautiful websites we’ve ever seen. (If you haven’t yet, surf over there and check out the photography). According to the two:

It would be the understatement of the year to say we like to cook. In reality, we are addicted. We love to dive head first into shopping sprees for new kitchen equipment, reading and (of course) buying new cookbooks and continiously growing my amazon-wishlist - which will be hitting it’s maximum number of items anytime soon.

Their entry is the seventh of our ‘Pass the Mic: Delicious Design’ event that brings together food bloggers and designers to mark the Thanksgiving holiday and the launch of our new Modern Tabletop category. We’ve also created a Flickr group “Aesthetics of Food” to make your mouth water. Enjoy!

Shopping lists rarely work for me. To be more specific, in the sense of adhering to what I actually had in mind when I wrote the list. Often times I change things on the fly or end up with more than I had planned. One thing I have successfully managed to avoid, is to go shopping with an empty stomach. Bad idea. Regardless of any list, walking by a well assorted food stand is what always gets me in trouble. I fall for any eye-candy-qualifying fruits and have to know what they’re like. Fortunately not all exotic fruits are as expensive as pink pitayas.

What made me stop this time where limequats. Miniature limes or the green equivalent to the kumquat, in fact they are a cross between the two. Had to have them. Didn’t want to go overboard and in an attempt to control damage I only took a handful of each, limequats and kumquats (which I had before). (more…)

Caryn is a screenwriter and filmmaker living in Los Angeles, California. Since early childhood, she has loved all things related to food and she loves to make up stories. She designed her blog — Delicious! Delicious! – as an opportunity to practice her chosen craft (screenwriting) and her beloved hobby (cooking).

Caryn’s entry is the sixth of our ‘Pass the Mic: Delicious Design’ event that brings together food bloggers and designers to mark the Thanksgiving holiday and the launch of our new Modern Tabletop category. We’ve also created a Flickr group “Aesthetics of Food” to make your mouth water. Enjoy!

I’ve heard that food stylists shellac, glue, tease and torment their way to the perfect photo of the dish they are commissioned to capture. Because we home cooks have to actually eat what we prepare, our tools for food enhancement are perhaps more limited. Still, I firmly believe that with a little talent, a bit of skill and a lot of luck, you can make just about anything appetizing. To demonstrate the point, I present to you, Deviled Eggs.

Ah, the egg. Crack it open and what appears? An almost clear mass with a bright yellow blob in the middle. Appetizing? I think not. Eggs, like almost any food product of animal origin, need a little help before they take on the appearance of something edible. How, then, to enhance the egg? (more…)

Zarah Maria is a student in Denmark who writes Food & Thoughts* (”…because it might be “just food” - but you have to eat every day, so why not do it well??”). Her signature dish? Grilled Asparagus with Sauce Gribiche. Her nemesis? Custards.

Zarah’s entry is the fifth of our ‘Pass the Mic: Delicious Design’ event that brings together food bloggers and designers to mark the Thanksgiving holiday and the launch of our new Modern Tabletop category. We’ve also created a Flickr group “Aesthetics of Food” to make your mouth water. Enjoy!

I am no art connoisseur. I wouldn’t be able to tell my Gauguin from my van Gogh, or my Picasso from my Miró. Okay, maybe Picasso. People that can spend hour after hour in a museum, walking up and down aisles, standing still in front of a painting for ages, slightly tilting their head to get the best lighting on the object in front of them amaze me. How do they do it? How do they keep seeing new things, new angles, new colors and brush strokes? And why oh why wont it jump out at me? (more…)

From her Paris apartment, Clotilde writes Chocolate & Zucchini. Her philosophy? We like how she puts it:

Clotilde’s entry is the fourth of our ‘Delicious Design’ event that brings together food bloggers and designers to mark the Thanksgiving holiday and the launch of our new Modern Tabletop category. Enjoy!

Eat Art is an offshoot of ephemeral art that uses food as its primary inspiration or material: the artists’ work focuses on food and our relationship to it, be it emotional, aesthetic, philosophical, social or cultural. This can take a variety of forms — photography, painting, video, sculpture, scenography, installation, performance, object design — and it is, more often than not, a multisensory experience. Some of the exhibitions are edible and are meant to disappear into the visitors’ stomachs, to be rebuilt and recreated the next day.

Un Sandwich pour le Dessert (a sandwich for dessert) is a project I worked on for Fraîch’Attitude, a Parisian art gallery that specializes in Eat Art. (more…)

Based in San Francisco, Cooking with Amy publishes original food writing providing recipes, restaurant and product reviews, interviews, essays and insight into culinary news.

Amy’s entry is the third of our ‘Delicious Design’ event that brings together food bloggers and designers to mark the Thanksgiving holiday and the launch of our new Modern Tabletop category. Enjoy!

Someday scientists will discover the genetic marker that makes people like me think about food all the time. I’m sure of it. Then perhaps we can be rewired to not be quite so obsessed. In the meantime, most everything I look at reminds me of food. Buildings, cars, clothing. You name it.

Take a look at the contemporary organic pattern of the Spice Saphron pillow. What do you see? Dividing cells? Poached eggs? Wooden spoons? A broken vinaigrette? I see something warm and delicious. Granted the name “spice” combined with pillow leads me down this cozy path.

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Our next blogger lives in Singapore and muses on food, wine, and marriage. His blog? Chubby Hubby. His photography? Like all our food bloggers, amazing. His take on “delicious design”? Below.

His entry is the second in our ‘Delicious Design’ event that brings together food bloggers and designers to mark the Thanksgiving holiday and the launch of our new Top of Table category. Enjoy!

My darling wife S and I are both devoted design fans. It’s one of the things that we bonded over very early on in our relationship. The fantastic thing is that we also have amazingly similar tastes; we often find ourselves drooling over the same items in our favorite stores, be they chairs or cake stands. Over the half-decade we’ve been together, (and once S successfully got rid of my “bachelor stuff”) we’ve amassed a wonderful array of beautiful things to serve food on and with. And, from what I can tell, we’re still adding to our collection.

So, I was very excited and flattered when contacted recently by Design Public, a very cool online design store that also maintains its own blog, and asked to take part in “Delicious Design”, a week long blogging event it’s hosting during which invited floggers are asked to write on the theme, “the aesthetics of food.” This is a great topic. (more…)