“Art is its reason for being!”
“Reason to be?” I repeated: “What is that?”
Rolling her eyes at my naivety, my design school roommate said, “her basic reason for existing.”
“Oh I see.” I answered. But what I really saw was how much I had to learn to try to fit into my new life in New York City.
“I like your invitation. It’s kind of avant-garde different,” I said as I laid the long, quirky zebra-striped invitation to my first evening in Manhattan on the overcrowded surface of the standard bedroom dresser. .
I took a look at the photo next to it that had been taken six months earlier. My eyes clouded over at the photo of graduation caps flying in the air in front of the chapel at Cottey College, the small private women’s college near the Ozarks of Missouri that had been the setting for my previous college life.
But during this particular time period, he was in an environment where the eyes were not supposed to blur and where little time was left for nostalgia. I was on a fast track, trying to acclimate to four seasons of culture shock in a concrete jungle.
The artistic invitation was my first clue that this party would be far removed from everything I had experienced up to that point in my young life. Imagine if you wish, a SOHO loft in the 1970s where fashion, art, safari and theatrical delicacy come together for a good cause in a fun, fabulous and outrageous evening.
Perhaps it was at that event and other posh parties afterward during my New York City design school days that the first true beans were planted in my imagination for a lifelong attraction to food and entertainment as art, and by the skillful mixing of contrasting mediums in different ways. that surprise and delight the senses.
Waiters in old-fashioned artist dresses with pallets as trays, served up elegant hors d’oeuvres that tasted like they had fallen from the skies. Tour guides dressed in safari drawings discussed the media used to create the largest representations of wild zebras, tigers and elephants that roamed the loft’s jungle walls. Three-dimensional ceiling sculptures of monkeys hung from a whimsical forest canopy as unusual and surprising sounds floated through the party space.
The piece de resistance and grand finale were the intricate spun sugar sculptures adorning decadent chocolate, displays of exotic fruits and forbidden sweets arranged in a gorgeous star-studded candlelit rooftop garden. Hidden in this dream of spun sugar, the surrounding city seemed like an enchanting harmless fantasy out of this world of dazzling sequin lights.
The takeaway lesson for me came from witnessing the host’s stroke of brilliance at the UN caging his creativity to benefit a cause greater than life. The night came alive and roared with its own unique art, its own reason for being.
More about spun sugar
That event marked my first conscious memory of spun sugar. But spun sugar is by no means a 20th century invention. As early as 16th century Italy, intricate spun sugar sculptures were all the rage in the dining rooms of the wealthy. In hindsight, it’s no wonder my artist friend, a tall, dark, and stunningly handsome man of Italian and French descent, dabbled in spun sugar sculpture.
Visually, spun sugar is a gastronomic ornament that will create a WOW feeling on your next evening out.
Just a whisper of these shimmering golden strands of spun sugar will add a spectacular artistic flair and a trendy highlight to a delicious basket of edible white chocolate with fresh strawberries or just about any spring dessert. Good Life!
Spun sugar is pretty easy to create. Instructions for making spun sugar in your own kitchen can be found on my blog: http://www.entertainwithkathipantry.blogspot.com
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(c) 2007 Kathi Dameron, Kathi Dameron and associates, http://www.writingboutique.blogspot.com
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