Hi Food Note subscribers! Forgot about this newsletter? Honestly, me too. So much so that I literally just went back and read all of it. I have so many internet time capsules — terrifying, but also fun and strange. For the record, I still love food and cooking. That passion has been the most steadfast thing for me in my adult life. It’s comforting to remember that because I often feel like I’ve spread myself too thin over my interests and convince myself that I don’t actually like anything at all. The world has so many amazing options for interests to choose from and I refuse to have just one!!!
Since I last sent a food note, I moved to a special house, found a new kind of best friendship with my roommate Piper, got an art studio, started hosting movie screenings every week there, got a new job researching nature and fell deep into my love for environmental history because of it, learned a lot about perfume, got another cat named Ribbon, became obsessed with yoga, traveled, deepened friendships, and ate a lot of delicious food. Anyways, this is all not really why I’m emailing you, but it felt unfair to co-op a former newsletter subscriber list without giving you a short update. Why I’m really writing is because yesterday I launched a special project that Matt and I have been working on for a long time called Stone:
Matt and I began talking about this project many months ago after I got my perfumery certificate from Pratt (which really was just an introduction). Collaboration between us now feels second nature. Making things with Matt is such a irreplaceable life fuel for me. Born of that in the past year came Stone: a limited edition box set filled with candles and collaborations. Every element of this box has been carefully considered and hand-touched. We had several artist friends who we admire contribute to the project, which really became the core of why I feel it’s so special.
I worked on scenting the candle for over 7 months landing on notes of mint leaf, soil, vetiver, frozen stem, cashmeran, ambrette seed, ambers, and smooth wood, with a hint of beeswax as the candle is a mix of beeswax and soy. To me, it is comforting, resinous, and earthy. Like lighting a stone that has mixed with the richness of thawing earth and time. I’ve been wearing a perfume all year that has an unexpected use of mint, so I took inspiration from that scent following me around while making this. Each box is edition numbered out of 100, mirroring our thought of this as a little art object.
A set of scented tealights and intention candles housed in a custom box. Ten hand dipped beeswax candles paired with four perfumed tealights, poured in studio. The set includes a poem by Kodi Frabricant, letterpress printed on mulberry paper by Morgan Whitehead, and a matchbox handprinted with artwork by Julia Sachs. A small candle holder and heat resistant felt pad complete the set.
Our friend Allison, aka outsidenightair, made a mix to complement stone, to listen to while candle burning and contemplation. Everything Allison makes is just so beautiful.
I’ve learned a lot through making this project. I realized my own potential to learn something really hard — scenting a candle with raw perfume chemicals is easily one of the most difficult and frustrating learning experiences I’ve ever had (shout out to the Institute of Art and Olfaction seminars). It pushed me in a new way creatively and, on a personal level, made me confront a lot of self-doubt that I was holding too close to the chest. And, it taught me the importance of adapting to new challenges and being flexible with timelines. We thought we were going to have this project launched back in December. It looks so much different than it did back then and I’m glad we waited. Anyways, I’m really proud of this project and I’m happy to share it.
If you want to purchase a box, you can find it on Matt’s candle website Candle Object.
Anyways, that’s all for now! Who knows? I may show up here again.
— Liza