Inspiration:  “Like Water For Chocolate” by Laura Esquivel

The novel, “Like Water for Chocolate”, creates a world of passion, romance, and adds a little comedy and a lot of quail, garlic, honey, chiles, mole, cilantro, rose petals and corn meal.  It takes place in a Mexican border town, circa 1910, where the youngest daughter in her family, the beautiful Tita is forbidden to marry her true love, Pedro. Since tradition dictates that Tita must always stay at home and take care of her mother until she dies.

Tita has a deep connection with food and a love for cooking, enhanced by the fact that Tita’s primary caretaker as a child was Nacha, the family cook.  Her love for cooking also comes from the fact that she was born in the kitchen.  Tita’s powerful emotions become infused into her cooking, unintentionally affecting all the people around her through her food.

Fire in this novel represents the effects of love and passion on the human spirit.  When this happens to Tita and Pedro as they make love at the end of the novel, their inner flames are so intense that their bodies catch fire.  After the fire, the only thing that survived under the smoldering rubble of the home was Tita’s cookbook, which contained all the recipes described in the novel.

I used a photo transfer method, sketching, painted with acrylic paints, sharpies, embroidery, free motion quilting, red eyelash yarn, a ribbon rose and a golden hoop for the earring.

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