April normally brings spring showers to announce to the world that it is time to rejuvenate your home and accessories. Last month, I spoke about how we can change our art and accessories to announce the new season into our homes.
It’s our annual food issue, and the art of presenting meals is just as important as the food itself. When plated creatively, that food can excite your visual as well as your taste palate!
Whenever my husband and I are on one of our trips, he can always find me if I’ve gone missing for a while.
First, he checks the art galleries, as I love to explore what those talented people have created with brush or camera lens.
If he doesn’t find me there, he looks for the nearest kitchen store. It’s not that I cook, I leave that up to him. I love dishes! I love glassware! I love fabric that I can create table cloths or place mats and napkins from.
I love to change the look of my dining table often. It sparks my creative juices, and helps me visualize what I may want to do in my customer’s color scheme.
So, there is a New Year’s table, a spring table, an Easter table, a summer picnic, early fall, Thanksgiving, early winter and Christmas!
If you have not seen the advertisements for all the cute Easter décor, you have not been reading the magazines flooding into my office. But also, the newest craze, and something I can really get into, is the Blue Apron and Plated companies. They advertise sending a box to the consumer with all the fresh food to provide a beautiful meal.
When my generation was growing up, and moms took off their aprons and entered the work world, what the food industry came up with to feed us growing kids was…. frozen dinners in aluminum trays. Remember those? Who could ever consider those frozen, tasteless offerings as good food?
Not my mom. She would get up early every Saturday and she would prepare the coming weeks meals for her family. As we got older, she tried to initiate her daughters into the art of food preparation.
It worked on one of the three of us. My older sister, Cathy, is an expert in the kitchen and loves it.
I gravitated toward the sewing machine and my design heart took flight. With the right amount of encouragement, and fabric, I would design the table cloths we would use for our meals. When mom had one of her many parties, she was always proud to show off her pretty tables.
So, let’s grab this spring and summer by the colorful accessories offered in our local stores, and let’s get cooking!
Also, see my newest four book series: The Lost Series available on Amazon and Kindle! Author and Interior Designer Carol Townsend