Fiona Leahy Design

Archive for June, 2010

Jun
17
2010

The Joy of Jelly – Bompas and Parr Book Launch

b&Pbooklaunchmontagenew

I love Jelly. I particularly love the spectacular jellies that are the signature of Bompas and Parr. An inspirational pair that I have had the joy to work with on many fun filled projects. When I first came across Bompas and Parr a few years ago I had to pinch myself. I walked into their architectual Jelly Banquet at UCL and what lay before me was my personal version of heaven. A long wobbling fluorescing stretch of illuminated pink architectural jellies. The perfect merging of food, architecture and art. Delightful.

B&Pboklaunch18-1

They are a genius double act. Well spoken, incredibly knowledgeable and often exquisitly dressed. Sam at one of our first meetings arrived dressed in a smart suit with a bow tie, pink socks and wielding a giant spoon. Most importantly they have the most infectious enthusiasm, they believe anything is possible and with them it truly is…Breathable alcohol, scratch and sniff cinema, architectural punchbowls and the recent phenomenally sucessful parliamentary waffle house. They really are revolutionising our perception of food in a dizzying fashion.

Last night we went to their book and studio launch. Their studio is somewhere I want to loiter in…occult jams in one corner, levitating strawberries in another and fridges full of delicious quivering jellies.

The book is wonderful and I urge you all to buy one. It’s beautifully shot, informative and dare I say it the perfect antidote to the growing legion of  ”serious” cookery books. Food is fun, this is fun and this coming weekend I’m inspired to make the rosé and rhubarb jelly. Maybe I can persuade the boys to show me how to make it levitate. A levitating rosé jelly in my garden…Pure Joy.

It’s worth mentioning their next adventure happening in July. The Complete History of Food . Go boys!

B&Pbooklaunch11

Mark Ronson’s birthday party. We got Bompas and Parr to do an architectural jelly table which ended up in a decadent jelly fight (the best parties do!)

B&Pbooklaunch15

Aphrodisiac jellies

B&Pbooklaunch8

Levitating Strawberries. What could be better than levitating food?

B&Pbooklaunch15

Some of the infamous jellies.

B&Pbooklaunch10

Laura and Phoebe get heavily involved in the breathable architecture. And inhale……..

Post to Twitter Tweet This Post

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Events, Food Design, Inspiration | No Comments »

Jun
11
2010

Back to Black

_HHH7925-1

Beautiful concrete figurines by Kathy Dalwood

I have a fascination with the colour Black. I am told it is not really a colour so I have a fascination with a non colour…just to be difficult. My Interest in Black food was first realised when a few years ago I went on a Valentines date to my favourite Italian restaurant.

I devoured an inky black pool of squid ink risotto accompanied by copious amounts of red wine. Divine. At the end of a very romantic evening I looked into the bathroom mirror to find my mouth transformed into a liquorice smile…My mouth was black, my teeth were black. Valentines night and my seductive pool of black risotto had morphed me into a black toothed Mary Queen of Scotts. We cried with laughter at the Valentines chefs revenge. I am sure my tears of laughter were black too (and we did go out for four years after that so it wasn’t really a disaster)

Since that moment I have had a black food obsession. Caviar, Black truffles, Black rice, Cuttlefish, squid ink…all delicious and all very very black. There is something dark and slightly unsettling about eating black food. Perhaps it is the association with darkness and thereby death? I love the idea of a monochromatic dinner with all of the dishes and drinks being black. So much so that when I went to a supperclub thrown by a A razor, a shiny knife and we realised or mutual interest in black food we decided to throw a dinner with precisely that. Bompas & Parr who we collaborated with researched and found that Black banquets were not a new thing and did in fact have a glorious history. Of course! One of the most remarkable was hosted by Grimod de la Reyniere in 1783.

Inspired by the feasts of the past we devised an eight course menu of all black food. We found the perfect venue in the Quintessentially charitable pop up club in the House of St Barnabas. A beautiful Georgian house in Soho complete with a garden and it’s own chapel (from which we served black vodka and jellies)

I designed the tables to have contrasting black elements in a variety of materials. Black concrete figurines, shiny liquorice towers and Black matte ostrich eggs. Black object filled with the blackest flowers nature can provide…Black Dahlias, Black Calla lillies and clusters of blackberries,  blackcurrants, Black grapes (grown in my very own garden)

Let them eat black! And we did.

BB1

Our Black banquet menu

BB7

Black Pyramid Jellies by Bompass and Parr

BB53

A tower of Black Jellies in the Chapel at the House of St Barnabus

BB12

BB5

Deliciousness

BB61

We raided all the local charity stores for object…then sprayed them black.

BB51

Liquorice and Black Jack towers and Black Waterford Crystal glasses make the table setting complete.

BB57

Liquorice strands as napkin rings. Nice to play with pre dinner

BB59

BB6

Paul Glossop our very talented in house Director of Balloon artistry…Aren’t we lucky?

BBcrop

BB15

BB50

Dita Von Teese came to show her support… we love Dita.

BB60

The fun bit is getting to take the balloons home. Taxi?!

Post to Twitter Tweet This Post

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Events, Food Design | 3 Comments »

Jun
01
2010

Chelsea Flower Show – Secateurs in the City

I think that the Chelsea Flower Show is one of the most inspiring shows around and I look forward to it every year. It is slightly surreal to be jostling with crowds of flower fanciers, necks craning to catch sight of a rare bud like groupies at a concert. I love the frenzy around giveaway free packets of seeds and the floral outfits that stopped me in my tracks on a few occasions.

CF40

There are no words…

I also think you can tell so much about the state of the world through it’s gardens. A few years ago when I started going to the Chelsea Flower Show a lot of the gardens were seriously manicured. Uber modern & structured and although interesting to look at they were unobtainable/undesirable in the way that the overly groomed always are.

Interestingly it seems to have softened and become much more natural and relaxed. A lot of the gardens had pleasingly morphed from stepford wife show garden to tousled “Cider with Rosie” style meadow featuring abundant stretches of wildflowers such as cowparsley,foxgloves, bluebells, poppies…all my favourites.

I guess environmental concerns, financial woes and the ensuing shifting of values is of course going to filter down to the nations gardens. Personally wild unmanicured gardens where you can lose yourself in chin high daisies are my favourite. Another element which was prevalent was the focus on growing your own everything. From salad leaves and wheatgrass to urban hens laying the household eggs. I hadn’t previously seen a designer hen coop or for that matter a portable bee hive. Now they are top of my list of desirable things to have. I welcome the change. I never really cared for a water feature…

CF13

Nice and Wild

CF4

A cow parsley frame. Divine.

CF15

This was genius. An Eco greenhouse made from plastic bottles by Sustainable Communities Initiatives

CF3

Lock Stock – Loved this Lock. Wildflowers from Leeds

CF23

Love the idea of someone’s sleek black glossy kitchen being over run with flowers. Why cook? Let them eat flowers.

The Urban Plantaholic’s Kitchen Garden designed by Tony Smith

CF21

CF20

This is a more manicured number but very much liking the misty love seat behind a screen of ferns.

CF11

Hampshire carnivorous plants. Strangely intriguing

CF38

We are totally growing our own salad. We calculated we spend £1300 on salad leaves at our studio a year

No more. Watch our salad grow. Watch our Louboutin collections grow.

Access Garden Products
CFtemp

Cloches, Victoriana hits the garden. How gorgeous?

CF24

Another garden another cloche…Don’t try this at home. I nearly suffocated a foxglove under a bell jar!

CF12

25 ladybirds for £10. I nearly bought some. I was stopped firmly by my mother who coming from rural Ireland thought buying ladybirds was the height of madness.

Still I love the fact that they are feasting on Cheerios

Agralan Ltd

CF33

A replica gothic folly from Red Wood Stone. I could really do with one of these…

CF31

And no replica folly is complete without a baptismal font. The perfect garden wine cooler

CF26

The Green & Black’s rainforest garden. Made by Cameroonian indigenous women to raise rainforest awareness

CF25

http://bakagarden.wordpress.com/

Post to Twitter Tweet This Post

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Events, Inspiration, Lot's to Love | 1 Comment »