Stories Collected While Living in France

French la Vie

Kinfolk: A Community of Artists

 

French-serving-plate

 

 

 

"Kinfolk is a growing community of artists with a shared interest in small gatherings. They recognize that there is something about a table shared by friends, not just a wedding or once-a-year holiday extravaganza, that anchors relationships and energizes. They have come together to create Kinfolk as their collaborative way of advocating the natural approach to entertaining they love.
Every element of Kinfolk – the features, photography, and general aesthetics – are consistent with the way they feel entertaining should be: simple, uncomplicated, and less contrived. Kinfolk is the marriage of appreciation for art and design and love for spending time with family and friends." Kinfolk.

 

 

 

French-silverware

 

Each Saturday I will feature a blog/video/artist that I admire.

Today is the first Saturday of this new trend of mine.

Kinfolk has an artistic and soothing approach to living life well.

With each video I feel as if I am feasting on prayer, and want to dive in to the calmness their photography provokes.

Simply, utterly beautiful.

 

 

Dutch Oven Bread from Kinfolk on Vimeo.

 

Isn't this video clip wonderful?! The art of making bread. The gentleness of time spent with awareness of action as poetic movement. Giving example to slow down and enjoy the moment at hand.

Have you ever made bread before?

I was living in a monastery. I remember the first time I made bread, was for the community and the retreatants who were gathered, nearly a hundred that day. I had never made bread before… I prayed and pretended to know what I was doing. Talking to the flour, and yeast, as if it were a baby to be born.

The bread rose, smelled like perfume, and melted in our mouths, it was a miracle. I can see myself still standing in the monastery's kitchen, a minor ingredient to the feast at hand, feeling very pleased.

 

 

White-French-Linen-Napkins

 

Kinsfolk's Manifesto:

 

"Bring yourself,

Take your time,

The food will bring minds together,

As foriegn as they might be,

Friends will be found in a shared experience,

Without history or gestures known,

If you have a bit of hunger, bring that as well,

We will not wear our masks here,

Come with a word,

Think about a story,

But come to eat,

We are far from peril or strong,

We are here, We are here together." Kinfolk

 

http://mynewroots.org/images/kinfolk.jpg

 

 


Kinfolk magazine's can be found here.

 

 

Comments

18 responses to “Kinfolk: A Community of Artists”

  1. Zosia

    Very peaceful, calm, and serene. Beautiful little film.

    Reply
  2. Jackie

    I’ve taken bread baking classes and can attest to the one and only demand of bread…slow down, take your time and the yeast will slowly rise. There is a wonderful blog, by a professional baker (now American, formerly European,) in the Northeast usa, (breadhitz.com) and he has classes at his rural studio. Heaven on earth it is…

    Reply
  3. Bev

    i love to make bread and do it a couple of times a week if time allows. Of course, my bread does not turn out nearly as beautiful as the video!

    Reply
  4. Debra

    C, I just tried to make havest spelt bread last weekend. Some of the directions didn’t make sense to me and I ended up with two flat loaves (but, my kids did eat it!). This video showed me exactly what I did wrong . . .looking forward to trying again the right way. thanks

    Reply
  5. annechung

    How sweet. I do have bread proofing in the kitchen right now. So that’s how you split the bread by making those knife marks. Hmmmm, I learned something today.

    Reply
  6. carol

    I used to make bread in college. I have such fond memories of fresh bread from the oven with honey and butter and friends to eat with. Makes me want to go make a loaf right now!

    Reply
  7. martina

    Grandma’s molasses bread. The smell of the loaves just out of the oven, waiting for them to cool and seeing how the butter just oozed on the slices before we ate. She would make two loaves at a time, the first loaf disappeared under an hour after it was out of the oven.
    Just saw an article about that cast iron bread at Mother Earth News. I have a bread machine but am thinking of selling it. It is far more rewarding to make, knead and bake bread from scratch.

    Reply
  8. Kathie B

    When I was little, my mother once(!) attempted to make whole-wheat yeast bread from a mix; the resulting loaf would have doubled nicely as a door-stop, and to my youthful tastebuds tasted simply awful. It’s a wonder I’d ever try to make my own bread after that trauma, rather than just leaving it to the professionals!
    Yet in my late teens I did try, following a basic white-bread recipe in my beloved “Fannie Farmer Cookbook,” and it turned out fine — especially when freshly out of the oven, and dripping with real butter. I even got brave enough to make homemade bread while visiting my maternal grandmother in the Redwood wilderness, who cooked with a wood-burning range (a very romantic notion, although adjusting the the temperature was trickier because one had to deal with a real fire).
    When Farmboy Husband and I were impoverished newlyweds, I baked a lot from scratch out of economic necessity. In particular, we couldn’t afford to go out for (or buy take out) pizza, so I’d make the dough during the afternoon and (just before dinner, after it’d risen once, then I’d rolled it out in order to rise again) he’d top it, then we’d bake it (although a gas range can’t possibly approximate commercial oven temperatures).
    Over the decades, even when baking was no longer a necessity, I made different kinds of yeast breads — challah, focaccia, pita, bread-sticks, Julia Child’s French bread recipe, cream-cheese-filled-chocolate-covered “Lincoln Log” (every Feb. 12, in honor of Farmboy Husband’s birthplace), Belgian waffles (actually a yeast-batter) — and accumulated a number of interesting-shaped bread pans. I miss having the energy to do this so much any more…
    I really like the flavor from SAF-Instant French yeast, which I store in the freezer so it doesn’t lose its potency.

    Reply
  9. Kathie B

    BTW, Corey and family and anyone else here who’s ever been to the Azores: The fresh breads from the padarias there are just wonderful! Some of the most popular kinds, especially the large rolls called Papo Secos, are also made/sold in shops in ethnic-Portuguese immigrant neighborhoods in the US (California, SE New England) and Canada (Toronto, Montreal)
    I discovered inadvertently on my last Azores trip that the rolls called “Pão d’Água” (or “Pão de Água”) — literally, water bread — taste like a dead ringer for the tea rolls sold at Foster’s bakeries in the San Francisco Bay Area in the 1950s and ’60s that my mother would occasionally buy. Yes, I realize that Foster’s was famous for their English muffins (which in hindsight are a bit like São Miguel’s trademark Bolo Lêvedo), but I’ve been wondering ever since if this was no coincidence and perhaps the eponymous Foster was, despite the Anglo name, actually a Portuguese-descendant. Does anybody here know for sure?

    Reply
  10. Kathie B

    Forgot to mention how much I adore that asparagus plate at the top, which brings to mind the selection at the produce market near our hotel in the 6th Arrondissement: Huge arrays of fat green and white spears, plus dainty bundles of wild darker green asparagus (which I’ve never had). Pass the Hollandaise sauce, please!!!

    Reply
  11. ste

    Yes, making bread is almost spiritual. I love it. I thoroughly loved the link to Kinfolk. Thank you!!It is exactly what I have been thinking about. Have you read the book One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp? http://www.aholyexperience.com/
    I think you would love it. She writes about living fully, with JOY, right where you are. Simply and with beauty. Check it out and thank you so much for your blog. I read it daily. Bless you.
    Stephanie

    Reply
  12. Kathie B

    Nothing spiritual involved, just science! See, e.g.:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread#Yeast
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread#Sourdough
    More broadly:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermentation_%28food%29
    (Bean-based, Grain-based, Vegetable-based, Fruit-based, Honey-based, Dairy-based, Fish-based, Meat-based, Tea-based)
    Bon appétit / Bom apetito!

    Reply
  13. Kimberly

    I make Challah bread for my neighbors each year for Christmas. This year I made 7 braided loaves. I wrap them with twine with a little note on each loaf. We have just been in our new house for a year so this was the first time my new neighbors received my gift of time and love. The best part, my boys make the deliveries to the front doors and the neighbors love visiting with them. Blessings, Kimberly

    Reply
  14. Marilyn

    Beautiful! Oh the peace and meditation was definitely seen in that video. I am sure the magazine would be divine.

    Reply
  15. Tongue in Cheek

    Hello Ste
    Yes, I know Ann’s blog: A Holy Experience. Ann’s writing is beautiful, heartfelt and her book is equally wonderful.
    C

    Reply
  16. ellen cassilly

    So Corey, I just got back from vacation and am completely out of touch. Are you publishing your images in this magazine? Strangely enough I was making bread today!
    Ellen

    Reply
  17. Corinne

    Magnifique assiette!

    Reply
  18. spunkyyella

    So beautiful to watch! I have made bread before but it never looks this beautiful.

    Reply

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