White Lies

I bought a bouquet of tulips the day before Easter. I had gone to Pike Place Market to peruse and buy flowers to bring to my parents for the holiday. It was a usual early spring day in Seattle, balmy and damp but the sun was attempting to fend off the clouds and make itself known. I was ducking and dodging my way through the crowds, trying to stay light on my feet as I glanced over stands of fresh vegetables and handmade crafts, tasting honey straws and infused olive oils, smelling seafood and rain in the air. I love this market. Its crazy and packed with tourists, but its like a concentrated microcosm of Seattle - people, fresh food, art and culture situated on Puget Sound.

I scanned the bins of fresh cut spring flowers, every bouquet being artfully flung together by the H'Mong flower vendors. Daffodils, tulips, cherry tree blossoms, irises. After walking the covered corridors I found a bouquet for my parents and grabbed an assortment of tulips for myself. Every gorgeous color of spring.

But wait...take a closer look

If you couldn't tell at first, you probably can now. These flowers did not start as they are here. After being inspired by an incredible living art installation by Alexa Meade, I borrowed from her concept. Using acrylic paint to replicate a natural look and feel of tulip varieties, I attempted to transform plain white tulips and give the illusion that they are a rainbow of colors.

So that is my little white lie.

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NEW THEME -- WEEK 3

Just a re-cap of the themes so far:

WEEK 1 -- MAYONNAISE

WEEK 2 -- "WHITE LIE"

WEEK 3 ..... get ready for it..............

VELOUR JUMPSUIT!!

Mayonnaise Country

mayonnaise mademoiselle?





If you've never lived in Japan, what kinds of foods come to mind when you first think of the country? Sushi? Rice? Soy Sauce? Miso soup?
Now, if you've lived in Japan, I guarantee the answers will be entirely different. Fermented soyabean pasta, octopus pizza, shredded cabbage as a salad, hamburger rice balls, hot dog naan dog (that comes in a pita with meat sauce), deep fried fish paste with seaweed flavoring and stuffed with artificial cheese.... the list of totally odd, unexpected, but completely normal for the Nihonjin (Japanese people) goes on and on.
There are however a few consistent odd items. If I had to choose one, it would definitely be mayonnaise.

Japan loves mayo. Mayo is in EVERYTHING. Every rice ball, on seafood, every sandwich, on hamburgers, as salad dressing, as dip for your vegetables... I'm not even kidding. Most people I know are not picky eaters but the one thing they've either had to learn to accept or know to ask about in a restaurant is added mayonnaise.

With that in mind, my choice for picking mayonnaise (and also that it's the funniest word ever!!) is unsurprising.

Japanese mayo is a little different from American mayo. Not so thick and a little sweeter, it always comes in a squeezable bottle.

I've included some supermarket photos of mayo for some fun background. (Half of the super market aisle is all mayo bottles. My friend wanted to buy a 1kg squeezable bottle of mayo yesterday... just because he could.)

On the left is corn mayonnaise. On the right is tuna mayonnaise. obvs.




The left is shrimp mayonnaise. The right is sesame mayonnaise.



And this is clearly the salad dressing mayonnaise section.



This is actually my favorite kind. It's pretty good. Wasabi Mayo.




When I was trying to decide what to do for my project only one thing came to mind when I thought of mayonnaise:
a portrait of Michael Jackson. I don't know why and I'm being totally honest, but it's all I really wanted to do. It proved slightly more difficult than planned, so I had to add a few more food ingredients.

Squeezey the mayo!!



Rough outline:



Final product: "Michael in Mayo"
-- ingredients: mayo, coffee, hot chocolate powder, a little bit of aubergine skin, and chili peppers for the lips

Mayonnaise

An RGB Mayo Menu:

Krissy started the theme selection off strong with "Mayonnaise" for our first challenge theme. I decided to go the route of cooking an entire three course menu, each compontent somehow containing mayo. Normally I don't like the stuff. It's gloppy and fatty and causes a certain gag reflex. However, I tried to step it up and the result was quite tasty - my dinner guest guinea pigs would agree with empty plates and 2 thumbs up.

To amp up the flair, I organized each course into the classic RGB color palette. Its pretty fun to play with your food, even when its mayonnaise.

Green Course:
Green Goddess Salad with peas, edamame, asparagus, chives
Pine Nut Pesto Spaghetti with chicken and toasted pine nuts
Use of Mayo - dressing and pesto

Red Course:
Grandma's Potato Salad with Russian dressing, green olives, roasted red pepper, smoked salmon, scallions tomato
Salmon Burgers with arugala, tomato and lemon-cayenne aoli
Use of Mayo - dressing and aoli

Blue Course:
Coconut Vanilla Ice Cream with berry compote
Use of Mayo - berry compote