Masson and Wilson
While everyone is getting their fix of pumpkin-spiced everything, Dodie’s is armed with a menu of thoughtfully curated wines for whatever is served at the holiday table. Next door, Fluff Bake Bar is rolling out its annual parade of seasonal pies, tarts, cookies, and dessert party trays.
Fluff’s limited-edition Christmas Treat Box, on sale Dec. 6 until sold out, is always the star of the season. The collection of playful treats includes four each of gooey butter cookies, “Christmas Unicorn Bait” cookies, chocolate-peppermint cookies, and ginger-molasses cookies. Additionally, two DIY hot chocolate kits with housemade vanilla marshmallows are included. Boxes will be shipped on Dec. 13; pick-up and delivery will be available Dec.14.
For her part, Wilson stocks the Dodie’s shelves with a focus on rare selections from small, family-owned vineyards and female-founded wineries, breweries, and cideries. Her unfussy approach to recommendations and food pairings mixes knowledge with a dash of fun and sass. Wilson’s mission is for guests to leave her shop with something they love. “If you don’t like it, come tell me!” she says.
“Holiday meals often have a broad combination of flavors on the plate, so I try to find something dry with light fruity notes that can be versatile, complementary and celebratory,” Wilson explains. With turkey, she suggests bubbles, which can be served from start to finish, like the Jean Vesselle-Oeil de Perdrix brut from her shop. For a still white wine, she recommends Domaine Gondard-Perrin-Viré-Clessé 2018, calling it a “powerful wine that matches up to hearty stuffing and other rich sides.”
And while red is the go-to wine for meat, Wilson loves mixing things up. For something unexpected, she suggests a rosé and/or Brazilian brut with roast, brisket or tenderloin to balance the richness and match the heft of the flavor, fat and texture of red meat.
“For desserts, ideally your pairing should be sweeter than the dessert, so I love a good late bottle vintage port — the older the better.” Wilson also pulls cider and beer out of her hat to marry with holiday treats. “Cider is fermented apples, so it has an inherent sweetness making a great match. Texas Keeper Cider’s Golden Russet has light effervescence and complexity, so it complements pies, cookies, and tarts,” says Wilson. She makes and exception to her “sweeter pairing” mandate by recommending darker beers and stouts with holiday pies. “Something about the crust and the filling works wonderfully with creamy, rich stouts and ambers.”
Who knew?
Fluff Bake Bar's Christmas Treat box
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A detail of Casey's 'Untitled' (photo by Chris Becker)
Founded by artist-educators Michelle Barnes and Sarah Trotty, the organization this year celebrates 35 years of providing support for African American artists, as well as educational programs in art appreciation, and workshops in all artistic mediums, including quilting.
On view through Nov. 19, this year’s Hearts, Hands, and Heritage is a captivating exhibit of beautiful, skillfully made quilts by members of The Collective’s Jubilee Quilt Circle, which was founded in 2007 for participants to learn and share what they know about the art of quilt making. For those who might consign quilting to a quaint, folkloric practice, Hearts, Hands, and Heritage is an opportunity to discover how contemporary and experimental the quilting can be.
In the early part of the 17th century, abolitionists working to bring an end to slavery in the U.S. raised money at outdoor fairs by selling African-American-made quilts. These quilts were practical in nature, sewn by enslaved women to keep themselves and members of their family warm — but within the staggered patterns and “mismatched” patchwork, there might be symbolic messages for those ready to attempt the journey to freedom via the underground railroad.
Today, contemporary artists such as Faith Ringgold draw inspiration from the techniques and visual language of African American quilt making to tell new stories — and, in the case of Ringgold’s “Picasso’s Studio: The French Collection Part I, #7,” in which a nude Black woman poses with the ladies of “Les Demoiselles d'Avignon,” engage with and subvert the history of art and its male, Euro-centric narrative.
That said, it’s interesting that among the quilts in Hearts, Hands, and Heritage, three are made by men: Gabriel Martinez, Daniel Williams and Sean Casey, who, as guys participating in a practice developed and sustained over several decades by women, bring a different kind of energy to the medium.
Houston textile artist Casey, currently the youngest member of the Jubilee Quilt Circle, created “Untitled” as a gift for his mother, with the outlined image of Casey’s grandmother materializing like a constellation in a galaxy of plastic buttons, minute toys and patches of fabric. Meanwhile, Martinez’s painterly “Untitled” is an example of quilting at its most abstract, and like so many of the quilts in the show, just when you think you’ve taken in the entirety of the composition, the patterns, colors, and shapes seem to rearrange themselves, demanding yet another look.
Among the quilts made by women is Lady Trish Henderson’s “Cookie Lyon’s Shoes,” a gorgeous grid of 20 extravagantly and singularly designed high-heel shoes, each one a pattern cut and sewn to the fabric by hand. The title namechecks Cookie Lyon, the tough-as-nails hip-hop mogul played by Taraji P. Henson on the TV show Empire, and evokes the spirit of resilience, range of creative vision, and sense of humor to be found in modern day quilting.
Martinez with his 'Untitled,' found fabrics on canvas
Lady Trish Henderson with 'Cookie Lyons' Shoes'
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