The advice I like to give young artists, or really anybody who’ll listen to me, is not to wait around for inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightning to strike you in the brain, you are not going to make an awful lot of work. All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself. Things occur to you. If you’re sitting around trying to dream up a great art idea, you can sit there a long time before anything happens. But if you just get to work, something will occur to you and something else will occur to you and something else that you reject will push you in another direction. Inspiration is absolutely unnecessary and somehow deceptive. You feel like you need this great idea before you can get down to work, and I find that’s almost never the case.
— Chuck Close
In her vegan cookbook “The kind diet” Alicia Silverstone shares a great pizza recipe we often prepare in our own kitchen: Radicchio Pizza with Truffle Oil. Actually I don’t like either of the components (radicchio is just so bitter and truffle oil so strong and predominant), but in this very composition it’s genious.
For the original recipe you need:
1 large head radicchio
olive oil
salt, pepper
white truffle infused oil, to taste
1 pizza crust, fresh or frozen
For the spinach and bell pepper variety you need:
2 big handfuls of spinach
1 red bell pepper
salt, pepper
olive oil
1 pizza crust fresh or frozen.
Lately I tried a variety of Alicia’s original recipe. Instead of heaping sliced radicchio on the pizza crust I took fresh spinach leaves and finely sliced red bell pepper.
I dressed the spinach and the bell pepper with salt, pepper and olive oil, scattered it on the pizza crust and then put it into the preheated oven at 200°C.
After about 15 to 20 minutes, when the crust has turned golden and the spinach is smooth with crispy tips, the pizza is ready. It is best when served immediately!
In case you like to prepare the original radicchio pizza, it is essential that you first toast the pizza crust, then you add the dressed radicchio only for the remaining 3 to 5 minutes until it is warm and just starting to wilt.
On sunny days I try to do it like the plants and soak up all the light. I hope the green has the same uplifting effect on you as on me. Have a lovely weekend of Pentecost!
I totally love to pass by Sylke John’s flowershop “Blumenschnecke”. I met Sylke a long time ago when she still worked in another flower shop. Now she has not only a loving husband but also a sweet little daughter, two super cute kittens and her own flowershop at the family’s B&B. And happily she brought along all her creativity and sense for colours and surprises.
The little snailshells inspired her for the flowershop’s name.
I initially dropped by just to get some peonies (my own ones in the garden are still a bit lazy- no surprise with the cold temperatures) and I left the shop with an armful of white and cream gillyflowers, some historical roses emanating a dazzling scent and all the deep red peonies there were.
Asparagus with cucumber-tomato-rocket-mushroom vinaigrette
500g green asparagus
a piece of cucumber
1 tomato
a handful of mushrooms
a small bundle of rocket leaves
olive oil, vinegar, salt and pepper
Boil the asparagus (about 10 minutes) until it hangs slightly curved over the fork when you lift it.
In the meantime prepare the vinaigrette with the chopped vegetables.
Pour the vinaigrette over the warm asparagus, serve and enjoy!
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