The way we see things

At open studio during a recent Portland trip, I met an MFA candidate named Lindsay Williams whose art installation was practically magnetic.

You walk into her individual gallery space, and immediately you encounter a wall covered in rectangular pieces of what look like parchment paper. At first, I assumed that it was. It looks like they'd been baked until many of the edges turned wrinkly and golden. In front of this papered wall is a table covered in dusty Mason jars, a book of Syrian recipes, and a sheaf of family recipes. Attached to the table are lamps directed at the wall, to create a warm farmhouse glow.

(Images courtesy of Lindsay Williams)

This art installation was a radical expression of her family history. So when I asked her if these sheets were parchment paper, she said they were actually phyllo dough....as in the kind used to make baklava, the Middle-Eastern pastry delight.

I love baklava. I began to see layers of deconstructionist dessert, or edible wallpaper. Williams made me see reality in a radically different way, which I think is the primary litmus test for a successful art installation.

If you've never had baklava, you're missing out on these alternating layers of flaky, buttered phyllo and spiced chopped nuts, fused together with a syrupy honey glaze....and when cut properly, they become perfect rhombus-rows of brain-zapping mouthfeel.

I could spend forever daydreaming about texture. I was good friends with a pastry chef at one point, but we had only gotten as far as talking about cheesecake by the time both of us disappeared from each other's lives.

At least it isn't completely impossible to make, and there are good recipes out there. Baklava makers from there and yonder give some general information, as do independent pursuers of food history, and there's always Wikipedia... but when it comes to the history of this pastry, there's conflicting information because baklava has been attributed to many cultures. Baklava experienced many transformations as it became popular in the Middle East – different spice combinations, for one, and changing thickness of the dough. According to Alan Davidson's Oxford Companion to Food, compiled here, there's an Azerbaijani version of baklava that uses a thicker dough. This iteration of baklava seems to predate the one with the flaky phyllo that we typically see, and this dough didn't quite flatten out until more than midway through the reign of the Ottoman Empire.

Alton Brown also tackles baklava in an episode of "Good Eats" (recipe here).