Food as Art

Once one starts to do some color theory you tend to wax on about all sorts of color discoveries and sometimes from the most mundane source.

I have always thought food in and of itself is beautiful. The fact that it can both set an ambience and act as decoration is evident in the way so many mags have food as part of the photo layout. This makes cooking all the more fun as a color study.

Country Breakfast...

Each weekend my hubby and me have a country style breakfast (meaning large). This is both fun and of use. If we are going off for the day it is great to have a solid breakfast - that way one need only stop off and eat later in the day.

The menu varies, but usually we do something as a side to our standard turkey/soy bacon and eggs fare. This past summer it was biscuits and I became an expert in biscuits (the scratch kind). Mmmm, slathered in blackberry jam and butter melted and drizzled. But I linger too much on the food description.

Lately, we have been cooking waffles. I wanted to health it up a bit and made whole grain waffles (from scratch - I rarely use a mix). I added a lot of blueberries (this is a super food). Many recipes have you leave out the juice, not me, I make sure it goes in the batter. When it is stirred you have the most beautiful blue shade of blueberry batter! (Picture to be included when I figure this out).

For such fantastic waffles I must have a good syrup. To my dismay I read the contents of my favorite syrups we buy. They all had corn syrup and high fructose corn syrup listed as ingredients.

My hubby, a Cajun whose family business was a grocery store, knows his food. He quickly remedied the situation by getting some Steen's cane syrup. Ah, this tastes wonderful. Not anything added. The Cajuns are very serious about their food. Pure cane syrup. It even pours a nice thick, gooey pour. Not any of that thinned out high fructose, low flavor, corn syrup.

Well I had to umph this up a bit. Which, for me, usually includes something with berries. I took some raspberry jam (with the seeds - another super food) and mixed it with my Steen's syrup. Oh, the color was a deep, molassy, rich burgundy.

Recipe: Two Tablespoons Steen's syrup and 1 tablespoon berry jam. Blend and pour into your syrup dish. I have a pic of that too.

Anyway, that and soy bacon and eggs made for a great breakfast and a quick color study. If I sound a bit too enthusiastic about food that is because I diet rigoursly during the week. This makes any food occasion very exciting and the holidays absolutely thrilling.