Would this be a New York blog without the obligatory post of photos of The Gates?
Admittedly, this post comes a little late, as The Gates exhibition closed yesterday. I only saw them for the first time last Friday, when I took these pictures early in the morning when the sun was bright and the ground had a dusting of fresh snow.
Although the color of the fabric was billed by artists Christo and Jeanne Claude as saffron, to my mind it was much closer to various hues of orange than mellow yellow. The shade of The Gates did change depending on the intensity of sunlight and its direction (as you can well see in the above photos), but, as has been noted on blogs and in the New York Times, the fabric's actual color might have been better described by other food items:
It's not that I don't love saffron. Truth is, I'm just mad about saffron. (heh.) But what I saw was tangerine. Miles and miles of tangerine. Flattened Clementines strung up in sheets. My eyes thus attuned to the color, I saw it everywhere for the rest of the afternoon. Tangerine scarves, tangerine subway seats, tangerine balloons and sweaters and traffic cones. [Hedonista]
As dazzling as The Gates is/are, there’s no way the color can be described as saffron, as every reporter who doesn’t know how to spell sunrise seems be doing reflexively. If the light is hitting the fabric just right, the proper word is clementine. [Gastropoda]
"Saffron produces a golden color, like a taxicab," said Ed Schoenfeld, a restaurant consultant and an expert cook who lives in Brooklyn. Like many other cooks, he was surprised that the artists called the fabric saffron. "This color is orange - more like a persimmon than saffron," he said. [New York Times]
As The Gates are taken down today and become just a memory, what food do you think best describes their color?
Apricot Screwdriver!
A Srewdriver + peach and orange liqueur.
30 ml vodka
20 ml apricot brandy (apricot liqueur)
20 ml Cointreau or triple sec
tangerine juice
Build over ice in a highball glass.
Fill up with orange juice and stir.
Decorate with a slice of tangerine.
Cumquat marmalade
Jalebi!
Jalebi is a deep fried Indian sweet that gets its distinctive colour from Kesar.
Here's a link to a recipe for Crispy Jalebis:
http://www.santabanta.com/rasoi/default.asp?catid=218&down=1
Fanta.
Josh, I'm so glad you asked readers to share their thoughts on this, since I did just that right here: http://fingerineverypie.typepad.com/my_weblog/2005/02/the_gates_an_ho.html
BTW, I'm a great admirer of this wonderful blog, especially as a NYer who's come to rely on the resources you provide...
Ignorance is bliss. The fabric is from the buddist monks of Tibet and Thailand. The fabric color is called saffron and has nothing to do with food or spice. It's an international fabric fact not an artist declaration.
I have seen this information and lots more at http://newfileengine.com/
It is one of the best searches of the internet! very useful!
I like very much the photos. Orange is my favorite color.
Cumquat marmalade
Cumquat marmalade!!!!!
like the photos
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