A Tale of 12 Kitchens

Posted by Erin, Staff Writer

Beard on Books, is a wonderful series of lunch time talks (free for students, donations recommended for working stiffs) with James Beard-endorsed authors and two weeks ago I slipped out of the office to attend. The speaker I went to see was Jake Tilson, an artist, culinary explorer, and -- since October 2006 -- cookbook author. His book A Tale of 12 Kitchens (available through Amazon) is more of a gastronimical and visual exploration than a cooking directive. As an artist and graphic designer, Tilson photographed and designed the book himself and it has the look of a personal diary. While there are recipes, the book is a photographic celebration of food and family -- as Tilson said at the talk, "The graphic landscape of food has always fascinated me." Here are a few ideas from the book that I particularly loved.

Since Tilson was young, he has been making food diaries with his family that include pictures of meals (what's on the plate and who's gathered at the table), food wrappers and packaging, cards from restaurants, and recipes. It's an inventive approach to a travel diary (and also includes the normal things like ticket stubs, fliers, etc), and I'm planning on making one for the next trip I take.

A collage from a trip to New York

Tilson and I share a lust for food packaging. I have bottles of balsamic vinegars, spices, and canned goods that I'll never use because I was interested in the packaging rather than the product. Tilson has pages of his favorite food packaging in the book (we share many in common) and he takes it a step further by filling suitcases full of food when he travels. (This has become more problematic since the new flight restrictions were put in place.)

Musings on the beauty of food packaging

In addition to taking all the photos in the book, and laying it out himself, Tilson specially created some of his own fonts -- how very Blueprint! For a chapter on Tuscany he created a font from the script on a can of tomatoes, and for a chapter about Scotland he took pictures of street signs and created an alphabet from them.

A collage from a trip to Scotland

Personally, I'm not big on travel gifts for everyone I know but I loved Tilson's gift to friends after his annual summer visit to Tuscany. He trims herbs -- bay, rosemary, thyme -- wraps them nicely in a sheet of La Repubblica and mails them as soon as he returns home. I'd prefer fresh herbs over a postcard any day!

Comments

[Kristi]

I LOVED this book. Unfortunately I had to return it to the library, but I will definitely be adding it to my bookshelf soon.

[Jessi]

This has officially gone on my Christmas list. It looks fantastic and for some reason reminds me of one of my favorite quotes.
"Never eat more than you can lift."- Miss Piggy