Creativity At 5,260 FT

People lie. Art should not. ~Daniel Richter

The sis took me to the Denver Art Museum where I fell in love with the paintings of Daniel Richter. I wasn't permitted to take photographs of the paintings themselves, but the security guard allowed me to take this one.

Then I went to the permanent collection of Western Art (sponsored by Coors, of course).

Down in the Corral.

Turn of the Century Bronze

Painting by Daniel Sprick. The detail is amazing in part because it's slightly out of focus. I sat and stared at this for a long time.

Detail from same painting

mmmm. Claes Oldenburg. His piece Typewriter Eraser is in the outdoor sculpture garden in Seattle.

Earlier in the day the sis took me to Savory Spice Shop, where I found some really incredible spices to experiment with in caramels. Here is the booty I gleaned from Savory, including different chiles, Honey powder, Mexican Cocoa, Himalayan Pink Sea Salt, Murray River Flake Salt (from a river! In Australia!)

Tonight I made a batch of cane juice/brown rice and maple syrup caramels with fleur de sel. They came out very hard, which I think is a result of being in Denver at 5,280 feet, and the fact that it's sub-freezing temperatures and therefore very dry. However, the taste is incredible, and we're using splinters of caramel to dip into the different peppers and spices to see how they marry.

It's humbling to go into a spice shop and discover spices that you did not know existed. A picture of three chile peppers:

The dark one is Urfa, also known as Isot pepper -- earthy and smoky and moderately hot. The red flakes are Aleppo, they have a fruitier flavor that is described as "a cross between cumin and cayenne". The threads are korean chile threads, which I thought might be a nice visual as well as flavor addition to a batch of caramels.

The Sis, reading to me from Cookwise: The Hows & Whys of Successful Cooking about caramels as I'm making them:

I also knitted a cozy for my G1 cell phone. All in all, a productive day.