Today's ingredients:

Fries
Cardboard
(although the fat content isn't as high in the cardboard).

Just got the link to this... oh dear. I'm no early bird - scotch meat and sausage eggs - that should be sausage meat and scotch eggs. Not to worry, the work isn't scrambled, just my words.

In the last few days, I've really been hankering for a fully fitted on-site kitchen, with all the gadgets, toys and gizmos a bod could want. A residency at a restaurant would be heaven - to explore food within that context, explore some groovy stuff like jellies and blancmanges, develop some of the techniques I've touched on - icing a tiered wedding cake as a conceit - there would be decadence and glory in it's ornateness; seafood, shellfish, and the scallop, which has a very interesting history; sugar, and all it's forms: blown, whipped, boiled, toffee-like or frosted; I deliberately didn't use chocolate with it's strong association as comfort food, sex-replacement, a womans addiction - too much baggage - and it's brown. Sounds like a silly thing to say but brown can be unappealing, and this was all about presentation - the thought of eating these assemblages is another story, but removed by the perspex box.

I've said everything I wanted to say, got it out of my system, had a laugh, suffered a trapped nerve from stress, seen it go up like a dream and fall down like Colossus, encountered some oddballs who insisted they would eat it, some brilliant feedback and some comments that puzzled me ("Turtle Tits on Toast", about 'Charity begins at Home'). Give someone the opportunity to give their opinion and what do they come out with? Someone commented to me earlier this evening that it can be a bit daunting to write in someone else's book. What more can I do to make it accessible? - there, in the 'recipe book', online here, and I'm there most days for one or two hours - that's the way I work, and I wish others worked that way. I feel very strongly about the issue of public consultation and blog about it: madelainemurphy.blogspot.com/peek-boo. We have all suffered others decisions about how tax-payers money is spent - that sterotyped hetero couple outside Victoria Station, Southend On Sea, he returning from the London commute, she embracing him like he's returned from the wars. I have to consolidate the fact that there are parts of Essex still in the 1950's. (I haven't used tax payers money on this, I paid for everything myself, just before you start...)

It's given me a lot to think about. Above all, the constraints of working within a business - the Cafe Society has been brilliant, and have done everything to make the process smoother for me. I was surprised by one comment - 'the lemon muffin was lovely but the service was too slow' - unfair, I thought, watching the speed at which they work. If that comment appeared in my 'recipe book', did that person think that food on display was part of the business? Where was the line? Where is the line between advertising and display and something that transubstantiates itself into 'art'? Is so much of life ludicrous in the first place that rhyme or reason isn't saught? Is 'art' itself a matter of perception, or just a signature? To stimulate others curiosity is certainly a challenge, and maybe people do want visual chocolate, after all.

At least I can now work in the privacy of my own home again, and for that, I am eternally grateful.

Sugar and spice and everything nice...  spiced muffins, battenburg, pink and whites, cupcakes, marshmallows, sugar flowers and teeth (a full set of crowns).

'The Queen of Hearts' nursery rhyme was originally written for adults in the early 1700's.  I think this is really about infidelity, and its endurance as a nursery rhyme is more about teaching children morality.

The Queen of Hearts
She made some tarts,  
All on a summer's day;
The Knave of Hearts
He stole those tarts,   
And took them clean away.
The King of Hearts
Called for the tarts,   
And beat the knave full sore;
The Knave of Hearts
Brought back the tarts,   
And vowed he'd steal no more.

We love stuffed things - from Haggis - roasted into this birdbox made from stuffing, to Cornish Pasties, and our own more local east London fare, Pie, Mash and liquor (which isn't in this assemblage, there's only so much stodge we can take). A quick nod towards the obligatory side salad, and we're off.

Most artists love to be seen. By other artists, curators, critics and anyone who shines adoration on them generally, a sort of narcissistic existence. As if the world needs more images, objects, expressions of culture and society, reflections of ourselves, expressions of wealth and hedonism, of consumerism and idols. This unquenchable thirst for existence justfied  through recognition or celebrity status and artwork as a way to get there. Get an artist to admit that and they're probably called Jeff Koons.

A friend of mine has a rare medical condition: she doesn't recognise peoples faces automatically, so whenever I see her I would give her a longer greeting than is normal - this gives her time to register the sound of my voice and my accent and 'place' me,  so she can compose herself, rather than suffer the discomfort of not recognising someone.

Here's the point: how do we know, or recognise each other? Personally, my face can stay out of it, but when someone sees my work - sees me - what I'm about, what I'm trying to say - well, that's rare, a joy to the soul. I received this comment from John, who visited the Dovecote in early July:

    Hi Madelaine

    I get the birdboxes! I did spot the flake and cherry one earlier! So birdboxes made of food as a medium to express         sexuality amongst other things.... Love the way you push the boundaries but incorporate so much humour in your             work. I like working with metaphors - gets the creative juices flowing.

    ....

    If you are in [another area], do let me know.

    Yours

    John

For this person to 'see' me, is brilliant! Unsolicited, part of a conversation. That's rare. The 'what my work is about' conversations - interested and engaged onlookers, the explanations, the 'ooh' moment - that is great, but those who just 'geddit', that's something else.

I'm sure there are those who wonder why I use food. The artwork has to be thrown away at the end of the day, and the covetousness (and I am too) to keep artworks is certainly there, but the sentiment, statement, viewpoint, the communication and connection will never have an expiry date. This, to me, is to be really seen, to be recognised, and for me that's what it's all about.

Many thanks, John.

As rare as hens teeth, a 'Conceit' is a ceramic object designed to look like a cake, set on the table to give the appearance of there being more food than there is. Conceived, designed and produced by Josiah Wedgwood, a fabulous innovator of table presentation ware, but more popularly known for his cameos and dinner sets.  The irony here is that if you could afford Wedgewood's ware, then you could afford to put food on the table. Unless, of course, one's priorities were different.

During the war years, in the living memory of many, a wedding or celebration cake was also a rare thing. Instead, a box would be iced with plaster of paris, and a more modest cake put underneath, and as the time came to cut the cake, the box would be removed. So, the appearance of food more symbolic and for display, rather than for consumption. Wedding cakes were highly nutritious, preserving fruit with sugar and alcohol, providing long term sustainance, as well as the tradition of the top layer of the cake kept to celebrate the Christening of the first child.

This is a poppy seed knot with a Conceit. The circular windows are for display, as a fully enclosed box would also serve as a dust cover for any ornament on the cake for eating. This is my first foray into royal icing and it's lovely stuff to work with, but strong hands are needed to ice a very stiff mixture of egg and sugar. In it's state of whiteness, before a tint was applied, it looked like a folly, or mausoleum, or one of those above-ground burial chambers in New Orleans. Colours fashionable at the time of Wedgwoods' original Conceits are gorgeous - milky, warm sugar almond Neoclassical tints of pigs-blood pink, mossy-minty green and duck egg blue. Lovely.

I was asked a few days ago by a colleague as to what time I would be setting up. That is - they would come along with a video camera, and film me putting one of these bird boxes together. Out of comradeship, I said yes, and was extremely relieved when they ran late and I had already assembled everything, and out of politeness, I had waited there.

It's an act of intimacy to undress in front of someone, and just as much, I think, to get dressed - wandering around, trying to look in some way elegant as the clothes go back on in reverse order. It can be tricky to appear graceful about it, and applying make-up is the one thing I think blows away any illusions: the finding of the loss of face (think Dangerous Liasons, as Glenn Close wipes her face away)... It's an area of fascination for some, but not for me - and many a painter has approached the subject of a lady at her toilette, and the viewer of the painting - the intention of the artist, it's a subject in itself.

It's been far tougher than I had anticipated. The conditions for food in that perspex box are harsh - overheating from the midday sun; no air circulation, condensation, discolouration; sugar-based food melting and becoming soft very rapidly. That's what happened with Old Mother Hubbard: it literally couldn't hold itself up. Of course, there's always the onlooker - and he shouted -"it's falling, it's fallling, it's GONE" as the just-assembled birdbox fell apart, off the plinth, and all over the floor. Straight face, pragmatism and give it another go, but after two and a half hours of struggling to get the gingerbread to stay where I wanted it to, I gave up, chucked the lot in the bin, put up a sign, and went home to start again. Insult to injury, I had to pay for three hours parking instead of the 15 minutes I had blissfully visualised.

Food doesn't travel well unless it's airplane food or canapes, and frankly, as much as I would like to work in the privacy of my own home, it's not possible. Customers at the Cafe Society are polite and only stare occasionally, and wonder what I do. if they make eye contact, and look at me quizzically, I'll stop and explain, and the moment of revelation, as they understand what they are looking at, dawns, and then a smile. That's the moment for me  - when someone pauses and takes it in, and understands, rather than the whisking away of the cloth or the flinging open of doors to the Salon. Watching me get it together is that less graceful moment that will always be private for me, and to take it away - well....

"Through a chink too wide there comes in no wonder."

Advent, 1938, Patrick Kavanagh (1904 - 1967), born in County Monaghan and lived there as a farmer, a cobbler and a poet until he moved to Dublin in 1939.

Kiss, or 'Baiser' (en français, Larousse Gastronomique) is a confection of two meringues sandwiched with cream or buttercream. 'Baiser' also describes a sandwiched biscuit. Hersheys' Kisses are a teardrop of chocolate based on the same principle of a kiss or touch but the chocolate holds it's shape, as does the little kiss of icing on an iced gem.

I haven't used meringues today; I've used Amaretti di Saronno. According to wiki,  in the early 18th century, a Milanese Cardinal surprised the town of Saronno with a visit. A young couple, residents of the town, welcomed him and paid tribute with an original confection: on the spur of the moment, they had baked biscuits made of sugar, egg whites, and crushed apricot kernels or almonds. These so pleased the visiting bishop that he blessed the two with a happy and lifelong marriage, resulting in the preservation of the secret recipe over many generations. Whether or not this story is true, it's still very sweet.

So, today's confection is about sweetness, kisses, and wishes. A bit less kiss-me-quick and a bit more melt in the mouth.

Boxty is what you do with your leftovers, as far as I'm concerned, but this mornings 'Irish Cuisine" (the Irish I'm sure appreciate the irony in that term) was freshly made - potato boiled, mashed, mixed with scallions and grated potato, fried in lard or bacon fat. Boxty is also served as a pancake, mashed potato thinned with milk and egg added to bind it. Seaweed  -  carrageen or Carraigin is a traditionally accompanying dish, as is black pudding , which is also called blood pudding. I've added white cabbage as a less offensive ingredient, as bacon and cabbage is another staple dish of the Irish.  While cooking this morning, it has brought back childhood memories of holidays in the west of Ireland, of watching my father boil live crabs he had caught that day, and my mother eat tiny yellow periwinkles with a pin, as she considered these a delicacy. I'm still shy of shellfish now.

Boxty on the griddle,
boxty on the pan,
If you can't bake boxty
sure you'll never get a man.

. and today is the first and last day I'll ever make Boxty.

The south and the west of it: Ireland and me, Oriana Torrey Atkinson, Random House, 1956