Planet X Cafe Blog

When growing up in Washington DC, a friend of mine had a painting hanging in his family’s home titled “Arundel XXXIC” by the artist Ann Truitt. I was very taken by that painting and thought of it many times over the next 25 years. Maybe it was the simplicity of the pale colors or perhaps the complexity of the thought behind it. Recently, when contemplating a mid winter menu, I was again reminded of “White on White”. It began with a perfect cauliflower, pure and flawless. Bright and white with tight curds surrounded by pale green leaves. All, by way, characteristics of a fresh and perfect specimen.

I remembered a recipe I had found in a thrift store cook book I had bought in my early twenties titled “Cooking with the Surrealists”… (Where is that book?)  In that book there was a recipe for Blue Cauliflower, a recipe that an art patron in New York had created for her dinners with Picasso or another of his equally as hip contemporaries. I wanted to be her. I wanted to have Picasso to dinner and make blue food. In those days I was not a chef but I tried to cook. I lived in a tiny apartment and had turned a rusty metal door I had found into a dining table on the floor with the help of a few cinder blocks. I invited some friends that were art students at the Corcoran School of Art. We drank cheap wine and tried to fry fish in olive oil. The blue cauliflower was pretty bad not to mention really hideous to look at even though I had retrofitted my few, small lamps with blue bulbs. In spite of these mishaps it was a great dinner party. We formulated the ideas that night for a performance piece my friends were required to do for school. I can remember how easy and freely the conversation and ideas flowed. I am pretty sure the blue cauliflower, albeit inedible, was the impetus.

These days I am a bit more of a purist. Don’t get me wrong, I still firmly believe that a life without art is not worth living and that the right food, guests (and proper lighting) can be the seeds from which some amazing and thought provoking ideas can grow. I just don’t want to have to eat soggy fish or blue food coloring. I do, however, still have a soft spot for an inexpensive bottle of wine. I’ve just gotten better at finding good ones. With this in mind I had the idea of a winter white menu. First, that perfect cauliflower. I had recently been working a lot with raw foods and raw menus. One of the many successes was “mashed potatoes”. There are no potatoes, but rather raw cauliflower combined with cashew milk, sea salt and a bit of garlic or herbs to your tasted in a blender. The cashew milk is simply raw cashews soaked in filtered water then blended to a milky consistency. A perfectly beautiful and healthful ending for my perfectly beautiful curds not to mention it would be lovely served with some cold crisp slices of sliced white radish and parsley. Then it dawned on me that my guests may want something warm. Maybe it was the 20 degree weather or the 72 hours of dark nights turning to grey days, but I realized that fires needed to be lit, food needed to be cooked. Pots and pans were going to have to clang to make this winter dinner work.