Dahlia Lounge 2010 Calendar/by Shelley Lance, Blog Editor
When we came up with the idea to produce a small desk calendar for Dahlia’s 20th anniversary, it was obvious we had to have a Dahlia-esque recipe for each month. So we chose 12 recipes ranging from Tom’s favorite tomato soup with brown butter croutons, to Loretta’s oodles of noodles (situated in March, her birthday month), to Steven Steinbock’s perfect panfried petrale sole. I assumed we’d be taking a food photo of each recipe for the calendar, but, instead, Jackie Cross had what I consider to be a rather brilliant idea. Since Tom and Jackie have been collecting art all these years from their favorite local artists to decorate the walls of their restaurants, Jackie asked each of these artists to create an original illustration matched to an assigned recipe for each month. The illustrations these artists came up with are pretty amazing. (You can also see the calendar images framed and hanging on the wall in Dahlia’s private dining room.) Some are literal minded, like the pudgy little creme caramel with a drip of caramel created by artist John Randall. Others take a more oblique approach to the recipe, like the hooded, print-covered, April-showers-rainy-day bicyclist by Sherry Karver which decorates the potato gnocchi recipe.
All in all, a pretty sweet little item to celebrate something that’s only coming around once- our 20th anniversary. Full disclosure: I bought 30 of these calendars for myself and my husband to give as Christmas and Hanukkah gifts. Of course, the Dahlia is very special to me. If the Dahlia is a little bit special to you, you might want to pick up at least one for yourself and a couple for gifts. They’re available at the Dahlia Bakery for $15, and $5 of that is a donation to Food Lifeline. Don’t you love a holiday gift that’s also a donation to a good cause?
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