Did Leonardo Eat Pizza?: Daily Art Practice
Couch Talk
We have been having a bit of a draught here in the Northeast but thankfully God sent rain this weekend. After about a month, I had to water my plants and of course the next day, it rained. We installed raised beds last year and I have been implementing the Square Foot Gardening method, loosely. We splurged and used their soil mix: 1/3 peat moss, 1/3 vermiculite, and 1/3 compost. It is supposed to keep the soil aerated as well as keeping it extremely moist. I have certainly found that to be true as I barely have to water. I would highly recommend it if you love a low maintenance garden, I know I do!
Daily Art Practice
I had some time to watch Mixed Media Little Portraits on Etchr Studio’s Youtube channel and I followed along and made these little sketches. I used oil pastels that I haven’t touched in years. It was fun to give this a try.
Tea and Poetry
Our theme for this week was Leonardo DaVinci. Here are the books that we enjoyed from our local library.
Leonardo’s Horse was a story about one of Da Vinci’s greatest sculpture’s that he was not able to complete in his lifetime. My daughter loved this story.
My children’s (especially the boys) also loved the book, Leonardo’s Monster, as it told of young Leonardo and one of his paintings that is still missing.
My daughter enjoyed flipping through this book, The Art Of Leonardo DaVinci, that had a lot of pictures of his most famous works.
I purchased the book, Leonardo’s Notebooks, last year with the intention of coping each drawing for learning purposes. Well, as usual the time has gotten away from me and I have barely cracked this book open. I did however bring it out for this study and I copied the sketch of the horse that is the topic of the first book above. I was reminded how fabulous this book was. It not only contains sketches of the works we are most familiar with, but sketches of his inventions, sculptures, studies of human anatomy and more.
We are loving the “Who Was” Book Series. The book, Who Was Leonardo da Vinci, had a lot of information about his early life that I didn’t know.
We read a few other books but I won’t bore you as these were the best. I highly recommend visiting the children’s department of your library. They have great books with beautiful pictures. During the summer, I don’t have time to read a lot of Adult fiction books because of the length so I love that I can still learn and read along with my children, not to mention the beautiful illustrations that big people books don’t have.
The Feast
Since Leonardo was from Italy, we chose some Italian food. I tried to find out what Leonardo ate but there was mostly speculation about him being a vegan. Besides, I wanted to make it fun and enjoyed for the little as they wouldn’t have been happy with just nuts and plant- based food.
We made pizza dough in the bread machine to cut back on time (and stress) and the children took turns rolling out the dough. After the proofing phase, they decorated half of the pizza each with their preferred toppings, mushrooms, pepperoni and onions seemed to be popular. We made two pizzas and only 4 pieces were left! I’d say it was a hit!
Our dessert was Cannoli Cake topped with berries and mint from our garden. We are still dealing with some sickness in our house, so I told my son I would make everything sugar-free. We do not allow our children to eat sugar while they are sick but nowadays there is honey, coconut sugar and maple syrup that make tasty substitutes to almost any recipe. This recipe was easy to adapt but I wasn’t a fan of the cake as it was a bit dense as it didn’t call for any rising agent. I would love to try Cannoli Cake again but with a better recipe. Regardless, my son loved this and ate most of the cakes himself.
Tea Day
I am joining the Tea Day ladies, hosted by Elizabeth and Bleubeard. Since my children love Earl Grey, we purchased a new-to-us flavor, Earl Grey Creme.
Do you have any favorite Italian recipes?
Happy Tea Day,
Kate
Hi Kate, I looked forward to your learning party with your children. what a great topic and the food looks amazing! Your pizza looks so good. always enjoy seeing your latest art.
that sounds like a good garden mix too Happy T wishes Kathy
I want to move in with you and eat your food and have tea and poetry and enjoy looking at your art! LOL Happy T Day!
All your Da VInci ideas are really appealing! I collect Mona Lisa stuff, so I’m especially interested. Here’s a reference to a book about what Mona Lisa ate:
https://maefood.blogspot.com/2018/02/what-did-mona-lisa-eat.html
And a long post where I tried to figure it out:
https://maefood.blogspot.com/2007/09/mona-lisa-by-request.html
bst… mae at maefood.blogspot.com
Murphy´s law! Water and it will rain 😉 My Mum used to say: Take a brolly, no rain will come. Often she was right!
Oh, Ingo bought me such oil pastels, too – I have no clue what to do with them! Hmmm. Maybe I´ll give it a go (no process with watercolors, sadly. I just don´t dare…).
Oh! There seem to be heaps of good books on Leonardo! He gives a happy greeting to you from our wall 🙂
And I made pizza yesterday, will hopefully last this week. Yours looks moth-watering, too (I made the sauce from scratch but used ready-to-go-dough).
Love the cup with the bird – happy T-Day!
Oh, and yes – home-made Lasagna, hmmm… Pizza muffins…
I have been looking forward to your weekly tea party themes, and this one looks great. That pizza looks so yummy, and I wonder if pizza was even around in Leonardo’s time. Those cannoli cakes look great too. I’ve been in a food drought at my house, besides rain too (until yesterday). I am ready for it to cool off so I can get back into cooking again.. Nice face sketches this week too Kate.. Have a wonderful T day and week ahead. hugs-Erika
It never fails to rain after you water something, I spent time Sunday washing my car’s windshield and within 10 minutes, it was sprinkling. So much for all that work.
I think everyone likes Leonardo in some way. I love his drawings and inventions, some of which are useful today. So glad you shared him with your children.
Earl Grey Cream sounds like a wonderful black tea. And it would even work for me, since it contains my drug of choice, which is caffeine. Thanks for sharing your gardening recipe. the Leonardo books, and your tea with us for T this Tuesday, dear Kate.
Kate your lovely post is always filled with the most beautiful photos! You do take the BEST photos! Glad everyone got to enjoy the theme this week even those not feeling well.. Your pizza looks divine as does the little cakes.. Happy T day! Hugs! deb
Hi Kate. What a nice post. I don’t do the square foot for my garden but I do make my soil with that recipe. It is perfect for retaining moisture and for the root veggies. I do have to be careful here on the cost because the air is wet all the time. I never have to water in the mornings from the fog and mist. That is a beautiful pizza. You know me give me pizza anytime. The dessert is just amazing. It could be on the page of a magazine. Nice reading too. Now, for your face sketches, I hope you can join me with Friday Face Off with these faces or maybe others too. I think they all have so much character. Have a nice day.
Wonderful theme for this week! Making pizza with kids is so much fun. My favorite Italian recipes are plain old pesto spaghetti and Tiramisu (I make a killer Tiramisu). Beautiful tea mug, it looks almost fragile. Your portraits are fabulous and they look like you had fun creating them. Glad you had some rain. We are in a very serious drought (3rd year) and my entire garden is drought tolerant (except for the veggies).
The Tea and Poetry activity is such a delightful idea. Your pizza looks delicious. Earl Grey is my husband’s favorite 🙂 Happy T Tuesday!
Hi Kate, love the look of your pizza and cannoli cake today. My go-to Itallian recipe is one I’ve used for years and it’s a veggie one, for eggplant casserole – delicious. I have an earl grey called “Cream Earl Grey” which is probably pretty similar to yours and is very delicious. Happy T Day! Elle/EOTC xx
I found myself going to your blog first of all just to see what you tea and poetry theme would be. I so like this idea. The books this week look really good, and Leonardo being an artist is just up your street. All those books look so colorful and interesting.
I like your crayon sketches. Very good.
Although I love thin and crispy, your pizza looks definitely delicious. Of course there were no pizzas in Leonardo’s time and like you say, he probably was a vegetarian, but I do think they had pasta in those days. It was brought over from China by Marco Polo and he lived before Leonardo if I’m not mistaken.
Your tea looks really nice. Is it like normal Earl Grey? By the way, you little teacup is exquisite.
Happy T-Day,
Hugs.
Lisca
Leonardo’s feast was a fun idea. I love pizza. Instead of the cannoli cake try the cannoli filling in sugar ice cream cones. A quick riff on a traditional cannoli shell.. Happy T Day
Your post is beauatiful from beginning to end. Your children are very lucky to have a Mother who plans these fun and educational parties. I”d love to sit in on one if I had the chance.
HI Kate, you wanted to know why I don’t like Baroque decor – it is simply too much. It’s overdone. But most of all, I don’t like it in churches – all the gold must have cost a fortune and that money would have been better spent to help the poor. These churches were built and decorated with all that gold when there was so much poverty around. Seeing what is taught in the Bible, this is quite the opposite behavior.