Today we’ve got the third and last recipe we’re sharing from the “Simply the Best” article published in Issue No. 11. This dessert was a staple for photographer Liz Clayman during her childhood summers in Maine. After a day of berry picking, her mom would often make a cobbler with the sun-warmed fruits. Now Liz is continuing the tradition in her Brooklyn home by making her mom’s recipe for friends. Whether for a special occasion or a quick afternoon treat, this cobbler is ideal for the strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, and raspberries that are flooding markets right now.
Berry Cobbler
Ingredients
2 tbsp unsalted butter
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/4 cup cake flour
2/3 cup + 1 tbsp white sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup milk
2 cups berries, fresh or frozen (blackberries, blueberries, raspberries, sliced strawberries all work great)
Preheat the oven to 350°F. In an 8-9” cake pan, melt the butter in oven. While the butter is melting, combine all dry ingredients (reserving 1 tablespoon of the sugar) in a medium bowl. Add milk and whisk until smooth. Pour 3/4 of the batter into cake pan on top of melted butter. Place the berries into the batter, top with remaining batter and the reserved tablespoon of sugar. Bake for about an hour, until a knife or toothpick comes out clean.
Liz Clayman is a Brooklyn-based food, lifestyle, and event photographer. A native of Maine, Liz brings both the calm influence of rustic life and the bustle of the city to her work. When she’s not behind her camera, Liz can be found in the kitchen or riding her bike through Brooklyn.
I recently had the privilege of attending a lovely event in Raleigh, North Carolina, celebrating the launch of Clyde Oak. The garden design company makes and sells rustic gardening tools and accessories (like “urban farm” seed kits and gardening bags), as well as their own line of organic garden-based cocktail mixers called White Whale. The dinner was the brainchild of Clyde Oak founder Corey Mason and his wife Shelley (pictured below), and Mike and Megan Gilger, the husband-and-wife duo behind The Fresh Exchange blog and Wild Measure design studio. The Gilgers regularly host Simple Evening dinners in their home state of Michigan, collaborating with local chefs and artisans, and they decided to take the show on the road to create a farm-themed Simple Evening in Raleigh.
The party was held at Videri, an airy brick-walled bean-to-bar chocolate factory in downtown Raleigh, with farm-to-table fare by Chef Jake Wolf of Capital Club 16. All ingredients were sourced from Commonplace Cooperative farm, and the tables were handcrafted from reclaimed wood by Justin Johnson and Matthew Cronheim of Arrowhead Collective. The amazing Jenn Elliott Blake styled the table; in lieu of floral centerpieces, she planted herbs in an assortment of antique glass bottles, and for each place setting, she included a piece of slate with Clyde Oak’s motto (borrowed from a Woody Guthrie song) “This Land is Your Land” handwritten by Megan. Natural wood stumps were used as chairs and torn strips of denim strung above the table. A vintage American flag completed the look.
Before dinner, Corey’s friend and business partner Dave Staples (pictured below) mixed White Whale cocktails, each with tongue-in-cheek names like Auntie’s Old Fashioned, The Filthy Liar, and Your Older Brother. The cocktails were served with Jake’s fantastic hors d’oeuvres: crostini with classic Southern pimento cheese and another with sauerkraut and sausage. Everyone sat down at the communal table for a buffet-style meal, including German-inspired dishes like schnitzel sandwiches, spaetzle with wild mushrooms, cucumber dill salad, shaved carrot salad, and an all-American grilled cheese with farm-fresh kale. For dessert, everyone enjoyed Videri’s fabulous hand-made chocolates (and more cocktails!) and danced to tunes spun by local DJ Masokix.
The evening was certainly a labor of love, pulled together by a tight-knit group of friends and co-collaborators. I left inspired—to get my hands dirty, to start my own urban garden, and to take Raleigh’s creative, communal spirit back with me back into my day-to-day life.
Mind your manners when checking out these plates by Pen and the Pixel! London-based illustrator and designer Emma Houlston created these plates as an homage to scenes from the Harrow Ladies Luncheon Club from John Betjemen’s 1973 documentary Metro-Land. While I don’t quite grasp all of the references, I do adore the sentiments on each plate. After all, how many times have you been chastised by your horn-rim bespectacled grandma about your elbows?
Valerie and Katie, the duo behind the Vietnamese street food operation Rice Paper Scissors, tipped us off to The Perennial Plate when they shared A Taste of Vietnam with us for the Screen Play column in Issue No. 11. The Perennial Plate is a weekly documentary series focused on socially responsibly and adventurous eating. Each week, chef Daniel Klein and producer Mirra Fine take viewers on tours of the culinary scenes in locations like Sri Lanka, and India in addition to Vietnam. The videos are a beautiful, face-paced glimpse of each location. And we have to agree with Valerie and Katie when they say the five-minute look at Vietnam’s food culture—from the markets full of fresh fish and exotic vegetables to the food carts winding through the city—left them wanting to book a flight. We’d like to go, too!
San Francisco-based artist Jen Garrido can be described in one word: effervescent. And I mean that both personally and artistically! I had the great joy of meeting Jen in her studio, where she regaled me with stories about her beautiful baby daughter, spilt paint, and the adventures of balancing motherhood and art. Jen is bubbly and happy, qualities which I genuinely believe can be witnessed in her work. A real go-getter, Jen rarely sketches first. Instead, she prefers to dig right in and just get started painting. When I visited her studio, she had stacks upon stacks of hand-bound sketchbooks full of her vibrant, undulating work. I think I could spend hours sifting through them all … and still never decide which is my favorite! Using oil and acrylic paints, Jen often pairs neon brights with muddy, toned down colors. Nature-based forms are almost rhythmic in feel, but also very modern. Jen pulls a lot of inspiration from vintage prints and artwork she finds at flea markets. She is also inspired by other artists, such as Keltie Ferris, Amy Sillman, and Charline Von Heyl.
