Modern Art Desserts

The 77-year-old Golden Gate Bridge deserves desserts.

by Leah Rosenberg

Firstly, I wanted to let you know that all went well at the CUESA Art of the Drink event last week, where we matched cookies to color and color to flavor. 

You can check out some of the other art-inspired offerings by local chefs and bartenders from the evening here!

It is fitting, I think, to continue this discussion on the topic of color matching since the Golden Gate Bridge, famously known for having it’s own paint color dubbed “International Orange” (similar to safety orange, but deeper and with a more reddish tone) just celebrated it’s 77th anniversary.  

Two years ago, on the grand occasion of the Golden Gate Bridge’s 75th anniversary, SFMOMA organized all sorts of bridge related activities to celebrate and asked if we could participate with a special bridge-inspired dessert.  We had the brilliant idea/ intense desire/ ludicrous dream to make a cake as long as the bridge.     We would visit the bridge with our tape measures and cake pans to plot out what is would take to bake and install 8,980 feet of cake.  We soon realized this was indeed a ludicrous dream.  It’s shockingly windy up there on the bridge and our calculations revealed that to cover the length the bridge we would have to make over 7,000 cakes, which meant we would have had to start baking two years prior.  Not what one might refer to as “a piece of cake” at all!

For several months the whole city was celebrating this anniversary, even City Hall was illuminated in a color that could pass for International Orange.  To be honest, I may have taken this photo of San Francisco’s City Hall during the  2012 World Series that the Giants won (and to be honest again, this might be the only time you will ever catch me referencing sports in a post!)

Some say the bridge is painted once every seven years, others say from end to end each year. The truth is that the Bridge is painted continuously.  And now whenever I cross it, I can’t help but think of it as a never ending painting.

The For-site Foundation put together an exhibition called  International Orange at Fort Point where contemporary artists had the opportunity to respond with new work to the bridge as icon, historic structure, and conceptual inspiration.  Bay Area artist Stephanie Syjuco created a commemorative store which was recently acquired by the San Jose Museum of Art and is currently on view through August 24th as part of an exhibition of new works from their collection.  I mention Stephanie’s piece here because she stocked the souvenir shop with all sorts of things and every single item was treated with the famous color of the bridge.   And it was this piece that inspired a series of treats we produced for the closing reception of the For-Site International Orange exhibition. 

Here they are in order of appearance:  Orange blossom meringues, vanilla bean + orange striped sables, salt-kissed shortbread w/ orange liqueur marshmallows, International Orange travel cakes w/ fruit leather flag.

On the very right of the above photo you can spot trays of small vials we filled with salt we made with water we collected from the Bay under the Golden Gate Bridge.  Caitlin recounts the story on page 195 of Modern Art Desserts of our excursion with Bay Voyager Captain Charles from Jack London Square to the Golden Gate Bridge.

If you want to see us in life vests rather than chef coats and on a boat (and a bit of a laugh)… do watch this!