Last Supper Food Artist 2009 – Lagusta Yearwood

Food Artist:  Lagusta Yearwood, Lagusta’s Luscious

Title:  At Home in the World: Chocolate Words on Parchment Paper

Ingredients: Chocolate words on parchment paper, parchment paper, chocolate, tempering machine, pastry bag

Size: 5′ x 8′

Interpretation: As a food activist who earns a living through chocolate-making, I see my chocolate business as a way to express my political values.  I use sustainable chocolate that is made by a small company that is committed to environmental responsibility and works directly with farmers to ensure that their cacao beans are harvested without child slavery (which is, horribly, common practice in the mainstream chocolate industry).  My chocolates are all vegan, so they do not participate in the system of institutionalized cruelty that is the dairy industry.  A core value of my business is that ethical and sustainable foods are more deeply nourishing than their mainstream counterparts.  Poetry is a similarly transformative and nourishing art from, thus combining the two doubles their power.  Manipulating the chocolate words into a nest and inviting viewers to take (and eat) words from the piece serves several purposes.  Primarily it is a statement about the global home we share, and the ways ethically-produced chocolate improves it.  As well, it is a comment on the flexible nature of language and poetry, and how the act of interacting with words changes our relationship to them as well as each other.

Bio:  Lagusta Yearwood is a chef and chocolatier in New Paltz, New York.  Her business, Lagusta’s Luscious, is divided into two parts: a small vegetarian home meal delivery service that provides handmade meals made with local organic ingredients to busy families and professionals, and Bluestocking Bonbons: a line of organic, fair-trade and vegan chocolates named for innovative women throughout history.