Art Riddled Day at the Fango Mango

Back in my hometown yesterday, I received a special invitation from one of my favorite friend families to come and join them for an afternoon of art making and food. Now this is no ordinary trio. Leslie, one of my closest friends who has that uncanny ability to make me feel and act twelve again whenever I am around her, is the brilliant mastermind behind Tea With Iris. Her company, inspired by her pet turtle Iris, is all about taking life slow and reusing materials and upcycling fabrics to make clothes, house wares, jewelry, purses and a variety of other DIY-chic groovy things in her back yard studio that faces a desert garden full of herbs and greens. Her husband Tim, also equipped with a lovely Peter Pan-esque joie de vivre, is a noted artist whose conceptual pieces in bronze and other fabricated materials evoke an utter love and passion for life and constant reflection. Their daughter Elle is a hipster in slippers, already knowledgeable about farming her own food and inspired by cooking and painting. As a matter of fact, a tray of Meyer lemon peels fresh from drying in the oven, sat cooling on a counter when I arrived as Elle explained that she had been juicing tons of freshly plucked fruit just the day before. Nothing goes to waste in this household.

She also told me that her kitchen restaurant called Fango Mango was now open, and with apron on and order-taking pad in hand, asked what she could do for me. I handed over a bag of Satsuma tangerines and a voluptuous butternut squash from the Cute Gardener’s back yard and said, “Let’s make something!”

To take advantage of the crisp and cold arid desert climes underneath a lemon yellow sun in the backyard, we decided to make the meal simple and healthy, as pre-fuel for an afternoon of painting. We split the squash in two lengthwise and roasted it in a 400-degree oven for about 40 minutes until it blistered and the skin peeled naturally off. Then we put the flesh into a blender and poured in a cup of heavy cream and stripped five sprigs of fresh thyme into the mix before pureeing the soup. A thin baguette was heated in the oven and then quartered for dipping into the soup. Elle made a nice plate of mango and avocado, peppery salad dotted with tiny slivers of cucumber to accompany our meal. Some red wine for the adults topped off the outdoor lunch as I recalled how much I loved looking at the Santa Rosa Mountains in the middle of a bright winter day.

 

Afterwards, we each got to work on one of our own art projects while Big Audio Dynamite Pandora spun on the laptop. Leslie worked on a new series of coasters for her company made out of vintage book illustrations, used CDs and felt. I worked on a small still life painting on cardboard for a large, overall art piece in progress. Tim worked on two sculptural wall pieces, which will be going into a restaurant in Laguna Beach. And Elle painted small labels for her mother’s beet plants in the garden.

At the end of the day, to work off the creamy soup and clear our heads from the wine, Leslie and I rode old-fashioned bicycles up the mountain near her home. Thigh burn and giggles were the perfect way to end a whimsical day of creativity and play.

Garden Topped Margherita Pie

Tea With Iris' spokesmodel Elle in one of the company's new upcycled bows!

Yesterday I was visiting the desert for some business meetings and had an hour to kill between them. I have been missing my beautiful friend Leslie of Tea With Iris and her garden that used to provide my weekly doses of homegrown goodness. So, I gave her a call and she invited me over for an impromptu pizza lunch.

The beautiful thing about having a garden in your backyard is the multitude of additions you can throw onto a Trader Joe's pre-made, frozen margherita pizza. 

Ours was topped with diced yellow squash and new, ripe, gloriously-purple eggplants freshly plucked. 

 

Diced red tomato provided a nice crunch and after the pizza cooked on went chopped up pieces of fragrant basil, cilantro and arugula!

The end result produced extremely pungent, crispy, crunchy, and cheese-gooey slices of wonderful pizza pie to enjoy our catch up time alongside!

Tabouleh Scramble in the Garden

I recently returned from a three week trip to Austria as the beginning of my new global art piece called The Gypsy Project. As much as I love this idea of roaming the world, the one thing I missed the most while gone was my tribe. I am very lucky to have a group of very close friends that I would call my family. In a book out a few years back called Urban Tribes, I read about my generation's creation of urban families, filled with like-minded people who care about the same things. I realize how lucky I am to be surrounded by people like this and upon my return home to my base and my studio womb, the first thing I felt myself craving were soulful visits with my friends.

Today, I got back to my routine of visiting my friend Leslie in her garden and as always, found a place of solace and vitamins for my soul. As usual, I was welcomed into her kitchen as she served me coffee with honey and her daughter Elle stood on her kitchen block stool to help mommy tear up fresh lemon thyme from the garden and slice cherry tomatoes for our breakfast that was cooking on the stove. I was measured for one of Leslie's new upcycled fabric dresses that she makes from old sheets, doilies and napkins. I chose a maroon paisley print with brown striped lining and look forward to wearing it when I visit Morrocco in August.

We sat in the garden with the spring breezes and discussed staying true to our heart's missions in our work and our world. Leslie reminded me that it was okay to be a wandering artist and I reminded her that it was okay to try to persuade the whole world to reuse-reduce and recycle. Quartered oranges for dessert provided energy for the rest of the day.

Before I left I filled my tote bag with fresh items from the garden including lemon thyme, kale, cilantro, and arugula. And of course, I had to get the recipe for the amazing egg scramble created by Leslie's husband Tim, that we had enjoyed with the birds.

Tim's Quinoa Kale Scramble (Adapted)

Saute chopped kale, cherry tomatoes halved, pesto sauce and cooked quinoa in a pan with butter. In a bowl, combine eggs and lemon thyme and whisk for two minutes then add to the mixture in the pan. Scramble until done. Chop up feta cheese and add in at the end to stir and melt among the other ingredients. Salt and pepper per desire.