Hello artistic readers! In this issue:

• Too pretty to eat: Focaccia art

• Tour to focaccia gallery

• The unplanned photo shoot of Robin Williams

• Inspiration from Bob Ross

Too Pretty to Eat

Dough, veggies, and friends are all you need to host a fun and fabulous focaccia art party.

What is focaccia art?

Using nature’s vibrant palette, focaccia art uses dough as its canvas, and vegetables and herbs as the medium. This is pure culinary artistry… a joyful pursuit that lets your guests use their imagination to create stunning, edible masterpieces. 

This is a fun way to bring friends together. Purchase disposable baking sheets and asks guests to bring either a bottle of wine or an appetizer to enjoy during the activity. Not in a partying mood? Focaccia art offers a moment of solitude with a rewarding finish. Consider it your one-man show!

For inspiration, go online and search “gardens”, do a Google search, look through your photos, or flip through magazines for ideas that can be used as a guide for your creation. This will also help guide to you the best vegetables to achieve the results you want. We suggest starting with a fairly simple image for your first venture. Think about what translates best into the colors of herbs and vegetables and feel free to interpret any way you want.

For the dough, no worries If the thought of making dough from scratch doesn’t float your boat. There are some easy options:

• Mixes are available online and at stores, including:
  Crisp & Airy Focaccia Mix from King Arthur
  Gluten Free Bread & Pizza Mix from King Arthur (use pizza dough recipe)

• Use one pound of store-bought pizza dough (note: Trader Joe’s sells plain pizza dough and gluten-free dough):
  Lightly coat a standard baking sheet with olive oil.
  Stretch the dough out as best you can to fit the sheet. 
  Cover with plastic wrap for an hour before decorating.

• There are easy “from scratch” recipes, too:
  Overnight, Refrigerator Focaccia
  Big Bubble No-Knead Focaccia

For your “palette,” you have a veritable garden of choices waiting in your local produce department. And don’t forget about the different colors many vegetables come in, like purple and yellow cauliflower, heirloom cherry tomatoes and the like.

From Liz of Sugar Geek Recipes, she suggests:

• Red onions - thinly sliced to look like flowers

• Mini bell peppers, sliced vertically (so they stay round) to look like small flowers or sliced horizontally (in strips) to make big sunflowers

• Scallions for flower stems or seaweed

• Parsley for leaves

• Basil for leaves or seaweed

• Cherry or grape tomatoes (any color) sliced in half lengthwise and dried with a paper towel for flower centers or seed pods

• Olives to create rocks or centers of flowers

• Capers for seed pods

• Rosemary for small plants

• Thyme for small plants

• Pepperoni to cut into shapes

• Sausage for flower centers or seed pods

• Shredded Parmesan as sand or dirt

• Tomatoes to make roses 

Remember: 

• There are many other veggies to experiment with, so use your imagination 

• Black or white sesame seeds, celery seed, or poppy seeds can be used to add some visual interest

• Meats like pepperoni and sausage can be used

• Add grated Parmesan for textures like sand or dirt

The process

First, prepare the vegetables and other ingredients so they are ready to go.

Prepare the dough. If you’re making it from:

• A mix: prepare according to package directions 

• Scratch: follow recipe directions. Proceed after the second rising if called for

• Pizza dough: follow first step below and proceed

 Be sure the dough is at room temperature before beginning.

Stretch the dough on a pan lightly greased with olive oil. Shape it in the middle of the pan and stretch it outward as best as you can. Dimple the dough with your fingertips and brush (or spray) with oil.

Now you’re all set to decorate. Follow these next steps we adapted from Sugar Geek:

While you’re decorating the focaccia, preheat oven to 450º. Bake focaccia for 20-25 minutes until the bread is golden brown.

Be sure the dough is bubbly before you start decorating so that the dough doesn't cover your veggies during the baking process.

When your masterpiece is ready for the oven, coat the herbs with a layer of olive oil to prevent burning during baking.

Bake focaccia for 20-25 minutes until the bread is golden brown.

Enjoy! 

Tour the focaccia gallery

From beautiful landscapes to recreations of Van Gogh’s famed paintings, there are no limits to the imagination or the raves your focaccia will get. Prepare yourself to see the spectacular culinary achievements below:

Starry Night Focaccia

Vineyard Baker

Lavender and Lovage (recipes, too!)

Winter Wreath

Living to Cook

What the Focaccia?

Today’s fun fact: The Waldorf housekeeper that saved the photo

In 2002 Robin Williams was set to do a photo shoot at the Waldorf Astoria. The photographer, Martin Schoeller, had a very physical aesthetic in mind with Williams hanging from a chandelier. But the comedian’s recent surgery had other plans in mind.

Fortunately a housekeeper at the hotel saved the day, leading to an iconic photo even better than what the photographer had planned.

What art do you want to eat this weekend?