In Season: Seashells + Pearls
On the moodboard and the menu + a recipe for rhubarb-stuffed madeleines
I have come to believe that a lot of things–if you look at them for long enough and in just the right light–begin to resemble a pearl in a shell. This sort of fixation is how most seasons start for me: a single image colors everything I cook, wear, and notice.
This month’s obsession kicked off last year when Frieze asked me to select five favorite works from their art fair. Here is what I said about Aya Higuchi’s work, eggs in the backlight (2024):
“I have seen this scene many times in my own dining room: a hard-boiled egg perched on a cream-coloured plate. Yet, through painterly brushstrokes and bright white light, Aya Higuchi transforms this mundane and monochrome moment into an ethereal scene. Here, the humble breakfast egg is like a prized pearl, emphasizing the beauty in the little things (and the importance of eating breakfast).”
I really do love the notion that if you look at something just a little differently, or alter the light/your position ever so slightly, what once felt mundane can become something special, something to treasure. Just like a pearl, hiding in plain sight at breakfast.
And so, this month, this artwork (and the many other items on my moodboard) inspired me to make every meal look like a pearl in a shell, treating my food like the nourishing gem that it is. This meant turning my breakfast, lunch, and dinner(s) into shells, in addition to developing two pearl-in-a-shell dessert recipes this month: choux-shell profiterole-pearls and tiramisu shells.
Below is the full moodboard that started it all - the curation that spurred the creation: shells in art, architecture, cookbooks, and century-old ceramics. Then the main course, the menu: every pearl-in-a-shell meal that came from the obsession, from a boiled egg on a sourdough muffin to handmade pasta stuffed with mascarpone. Plus a rhubarb madeleine recipe for dessert.
On the Moodboard
Lily of the valley in my mother’s Lenox nautilus bowl.
Simone Rocha egg pearl tote bag.
A window crown in Paris (I notice that if I look down while walking, I tend to think about myself/internal things far too much, but if I look up, I’m constantly struck with new ideas, beauty, and wonder).
