When we interviewed Hey There, Cupcake! author and this blog's inspiration Clare Crespo, she told us about her new cooking show. The Los Angeles Times has the scoop:
photo by Eric Staudenmaier/Melcher Media from Hey There, Cupcake!
At a time when the kitchen has become the home's ultimate statement of style and status, Crespo's space speaks to her idea of the room's role in the home. At its heart, she says, cooking is about creativity, and that's why she has made this kitchen her stage for a lifelong dream, a kooky cooking show called “Yummyfun Kooking,” which rolls out as a DVD series this month. (View the trailer at www.yummyfun.com.)
On the set of "Yummyfun," Crespo can turn a Twinkie into a realistic-looking piece of sushi. Right now she is busy fashioning potato slices and green beans into a pair of flip-flops. Off to the left, the indoor terrarium's candy tree is in full bloom, and inside the neon-lighted refrigerator, a faux bird's nest is filled with real organic eggs.
It may all sound a little bizarre, but Crespo already has a cult culinary following. Perhaps you've spotted her roving bake sale, Treat Street, some weekend on the streets of Silver Lake? Or maybe you're familiar with her out-there cookbooks, "Hey There, Cupcake!" and "The Secret Life of Food," a fun-filled guide to transforming food into edible art. (Think caterpillar cupcakes and Jell-O filled aquariums.) "Amazing Magical Jell-O Desserts" is her favorite book, after all. Crespo, a graduate of California Institute of the Arts, spent much of her childhood in Louisiana torturing her family with weird Jell-O concoctions...
She says cable networks wanted to water down her ideas, so she took matters into her own hands -- rather, her own garage. With her husband, Hollywood production designer James Chinlund, she brought her fantasy to life.
"Yummyfun," appropriately, is about dreams. It centers on Una, a little girl who imagines adventures with the woman who lives in her wall, a culinary superhero named Yummy Clare with a sequined strawberry power belt. The stories all take place in Crespo's kitchen, where recipes are sprinkled with whimsy, bananas hang out in miniature hammocks, and bugs (made of candy, of course) are always welcome. When the cooking is done and it's time to party, a disco ball descends from the ceiling and the house band, the Tastebuds, takes to the stage fronted by Eastside indie rocker John Gold in a multicolored, striped top hat.
photo by Eric Staudenmaier/Melcher Media from They There, Cupcake!
I took this photo of Clare's spaghetti and meatballs cupcakes at the Duncan Hines lunch:
photo by Eric Staudenmaier/Melcher Media from Hey There, Cupcake!
At a time when the kitchen has become the home's ultimate statement of style and status, Crespo's space speaks to her idea of the room's role in the home. At its heart, she says, cooking is about creativity, and that's why she has made this kitchen her stage for a lifelong dream, a kooky cooking show called “Yummyfun Kooking,” which rolls out as a DVD series this month. (View the trailer at www.yummyfun.com.)
On the set of "Yummyfun," Crespo can turn a Twinkie into a realistic-looking piece of sushi. Right now she is busy fashioning potato slices and green beans into a pair of flip-flops. Off to the left, the indoor terrarium's candy tree is in full bloom, and inside the neon-lighted refrigerator, a faux bird's nest is filled with real organic eggs.
It may all sound a little bizarre, but Crespo already has a cult culinary following. Perhaps you've spotted her roving bake sale, Treat Street, some weekend on the streets of Silver Lake? Or maybe you're familiar with her out-there cookbooks, "Hey There, Cupcake!" and "The Secret Life of Food," a fun-filled guide to transforming food into edible art. (Think caterpillar cupcakes and Jell-O filled aquariums.) "Amazing Magical Jell-O Desserts" is her favorite book, after all. Crespo, a graduate of California Institute of the Arts, spent much of her childhood in Louisiana torturing her family with weird Jell-O concoctions...
She says cable networks wanted to water down her ideas, so she took matters into her own hands -- rather, her own garage. With her husband, Hollywood production designer James Chinlund, she brought her fantasy to life.
"Yummyfun," appropriately, is about dreams. It centers on Una, a little girl who imagines adventures with the woman who lives in her wall, a culinary superhero named Yummy Clare with a sequined strawberry power belt. The stories all take place in Crespo's kitchen, where recipes are sprinkled with whimsy, bananas hang out in miniature hammocks, and bugs (made of candy, of course) are always welcome. When the cooking is done and it's time to party, a disco ball descends from the ceiling and the house band, the Tastebuds, takes to the stage fronted by Eastside indie rocker John Gold in a multicolored, striped top hat.
photo by Eric Staudenmaier/Melcher Media from They There, Cupcake!
I took this photo of Clare's spaghetti and meatballs cupcakes at the Duncan Hines lunch:
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