#superfoods

Bonnie’s Super Food… for the Super Bowl

Chef Bonnie outdid herself for the family 2018 Super Bowl Party. Since the entire menu was paleo, I could eat everything. So could Laura (except she hates mushrooms…).

You can get the idea of how thoughtfully Bonnie planned the menu from her Super Bowl Whoopie Pies, which she served in the 4th quarter for her showstopper. I’m salivating as I think about them. What’s impressive is the Whoopie Pies taste so fantastic and are paleo. Thank goodness for leftovers!

Super Bowl Whoopie Pies

Super Bowl Whoopie Pies

Bonnie lived up to her Instagram handle @bonniesbitesoflife by proudly delivering flavorful bites in such complementary menu combinations that we couldn’t stop eating! Our family’s Thanksgiving motto, “Let’s Get Stuffed”, certainly applied to this year’s Super Bowl.

Part of the fascination of the day is watching Bonnie’s orchestration of the game day meal so she serves new recipes for each quarter. She has a plan in her mind and just systematically works to execute it. And that was after baking brownies for her school’s Super Bowl Pizza Party the following day! 

When I came downstairs Sunday morning, I found Bonnie standing on her favorite step stool working on the Whoopie Pies, which had to set before doing the piping later on. Bonnie also sliced the zucchini to get it into the oven for her Zucchini Pesto Roll Ups. She looked relaxed and happy, like she was having a great time!

Starting with the Whoopie Pies

Zucchini for the Zucchini Pesto Rolls Ups

Once Laura arrived, the food started appearing during the Pre-Game Show.

Bonnie’s opening bites included 4 different chips, 3 dips (salsa being the only store bought item), and Zucchini Pesto Rollups. One at a time, each item magically appeared on the table.

Trader Joe’s 3 Seed Beet Chips and Sweet Potato Chips

Our two favorite Multigrain Chips by Food That Tastes Good

Healthy Mexican Layer Dip (Vegan) with Beans, Yukon Gold Potatoes, and Guacamole

You can see the layers of her Healthy Mexican Layer Dip. The beans are at the bottom.

3 Dips and 4 Chip Varieties

The color combinations were striking, and I had fun arranging my first of many plates.

My Dip and Chip Sampling

At this point, I didn’t have the heart to take a Zucchini Pesto Roll Up, one my my favorites, and ruin Bonnie’s artistic design. I made sure to get this photo first. (FYI. My contributions were the pesto for the Roll Ups, and the template Bonnie used to pipe the Whoopie Pies.)

Zucchini Pesto Roll Ups

More delicious bite size morsels came along in the 2nd Quarter.

 

Butternut Squash Fries

Baby Pizza Bites

Sweet Potato with Guacamole and Pomegranates

Bonnie kept telling us to pace ourselves. Did we listen? No. We were busy stuffing our faces way too early. This became clear as we watched Bonnie prepare her protein bites for the 3rd Quarter. We realized we were filling ourselves up, and slowed our eating pace down since the best was yet to come.

Making Meatballs

For Spaghetti and Meatball Bites

Sweet and Sour Chicken Meatballs

2 Kinds of Meatballs

Sweet and Sour Chicken Meatballs

Meatballs for the Spaghetti Squash Bird’s Nests

In the 3rd Quarter, Bonnie finally sat down with her own plate to dig in. It didn’t take too long before a smiling Bonnie became a member of the clean plate club, and posted her bites of life on Instagram.

The Chef’s Tasting Plate

Bonnie earned a well-deserved break. She was a dynamo all day, moving around the kitchen all day. She developed a rhythm as she moved – leaving numerous pots, pans and ingredients in her path. That’s where Jay and I came in. Cleaning up was a small price to pay for such a unique eating experience.

But wait – there was more to come. The surprise of the evening was the Skillet “Corn” Bread – that didn’t use any corn. I saw Bonnie mixing up the batter, but I couldn’t figure out what it was since she poured it into a skillet.

Skillet “Corn” Bread (made with almonds)

The skillet went into the oven – something I was concerned about since I had never done that before. I was afraid the whole thing would explode and blow up our double oven! However, Bonnie assured me that our All-Clad skillet was built for this. To my relief, Chef Bonnie was right.

Skillet “Corn” Bread

To my amazement, this Skillet (Non-Corn) “Corn” Bread actually tasted like corn bread, texture and all. And of course, let’s not forget the showstopper, The Super Bowl Whoopie Pies. Their delicious taste and textures brought back memories of times gone by. Bonnie and Laura both insisted they tasted like Hostess Devil Dogs – despite the fact that the Whoppie Pies were made from healthy ingredients. Quite an accomplishment, Bonnie! 

Super Bowl Whoopie Pies

At this point, I was having so much fun eating that the game (as exciting as it was!), the commercials, and even Justin Timberlake took second place to Bonnie’s super food – at least in my eyes.

This is the first time I’ve posted about Bonnie’s Super Bowl extravaganza, clearly an oversight on my part. I’ve talked about Mother’s Day and Thanksgiving (2017, 2015, and 2014) but never the Super Bowl. I won’t make that mistake next year.

Now it’s time to go downstairs and have “leftovers”, but that term doesn’t do justice to the all super food I’m about to eat.

Don’t be jealous….Maybe next year you’ll score an invitation!

Anatomy of a Series

Working in a series is often more complex than you might think.

Take my candy vending series, for example. On a whim, I decided to add a panel with the largest piece of broccoli I have ever painted – almost 2 feet tall. Here it is before I painted in the vending machine rings.

Since I wanted it to mesh with the rest of the series, I put it up on the mantle to compare shading, color and size of the dark rings going any further. The mantle ended up doing double duty as an easel.

This worked for a while as long as I was painting near the bottom. Eventually I got the kitchen step stool out.

Here I am looking happy – right before I got black paint on my newly painted fireplace mantel… Now I know why artists keep so many easels in their loft studios.

I’ll have to look for a better strategy if I want to keep the pristine look of my newly painted studio, which you can check out this coming weekend.

Here’s the finished painting. 

Vending Machine Broccoli

It fits in very well with the rest of the series visually. Maybe a little paint on the mantel is a small price to pay.

One thing is certain: The addition of the broccoli sure does make me think differently about the whole series. It will be interesting to hear what people have to say about it.

What do you think? Feedback is much appreciated.

Day 30. Super Foods

What’s your first thought when you look at this? What would you name this painting?

“Super Foods” by Beverly Shipko, Oil on cradled wood panel, 5 x 7 inches

Seriously, I would love to hear from you. So please jot down your initial thoughts about this image before you read the rest of this blog and you’re biased by my perspective.

Of course, I’m sensitized to vending images since I’ve painted quite a few, such as Icons of the Chip World and Icons of the Candy World. Then there’s my single candy bar vending series of five 20 x 10 inch paintings – so far.

And to think these paintings were inspired by my first vending machine painting during the September 2015 Challenge. If you read the original blog post about the process, you’ll see how difficult the first one was and how conflicted I felt about using so much black. I wrote about my lessons learned from that long, frustrating day. I’ve come a long way.

Did I ever mention that my husband Jay’s first marketing job was in the Food Service Division of Kraft General Foods, where he worked on… vending? Then he went to Pepsi and where he was in charge of several vending initiatives.

Back to the painting itself. Super Foods is a working title. At first I was just going to call this Broccoli, setting up different expectations. Then I tried include the word vending. Webmaster Laura came up with More Green Makes Cents. Very clever but not me.

I wanted to capture the conflicting emotions a person might feel when confronted by these vending choices in real life. How would you feel? Maybe:

  • Disgust at the thought of eating broccoli at all.
  • Guilt at choosing candy over healthy food.
  • Giddiness at the absurdity of it all.
  • Happiness at saving 25¢ by passing up sugary candy in favor of a healthy super food, which no kid would do in their right mind (unless they’re a vegetarian or never had candy in their life!).

Last year I came across a poorly stocked vending machine and took photos of the empty rows. I used one as my base. Then I bought a stalk of broccoli, took more photos, and made a little collage – which goes to show how low tech I am. Luckily I prepared everything in December since this was time consuming.

I began with a detailed drawing, eliminated the white labels, and decided on a broccoli price. (Is price an indicator of quality here?) Then I painted the background black.

The masonite board on my easel looked a little different this time. It included larger broccoli shots and my first vending painting as reference materials.

Good thing I saved this painting until the last day. I suspected it was a 2 day painting. Here’s where I stood at the end of yesterday (with an eye doctor’s appointment! No dilation after all).

Today I got a late start since I had a haircut in the morning (my lady is taking a 3 week vacation). Real life is now officially interfering with my painting life. The M&Ms wrapper took a long time with all the detail and variety of colors (translation: lots of brush cleaning to keep the colors clean). I earned my dinner break.

There were little kinks along the way, like the Twix metallic paint dried unexpectedly fast while I was eating, so I had to repaint areas. Getting the rings right was hard since they were so thin. A moment of unsteadiness would turn into 20 minutes of repairing a misstep.

While some of you may have been expecting me to end the Challenge with a gooey cake, this choice feels right to me. In a way, I came full circle. Yet I feel like Super Foods opened up potential new conceptual avenues to explore, which is one of my objectives for this Challenge.

Certainly Super Foods moves you away from the nostalgia of an Oreo Cookie. I’m not sure if that’s good or bad. Thoughts?

Tomorrow I’ll be putting together a collage of all 30 Challenge paintings. Hope you stop by to see it. It’s almost a piece of artwork in its own right.