RECIPE
From Claire Cheney’s Curio Cabinet BY JEFF HAGAN ’86
one day while conducting research for a poetry project at Oberlin’s art history library, Claire Cheney ’07 came across an image of an ancient Greek fresco showing young women in a crocus field harvesting saffron and offering it to a goddess. “It made me feel like all of humanity was connected by the experience of connecting with plants and finding delight in that. I was looking around the library wondering, ‘Does anyone else see what I’m seeing? This is so cool!’ Otherwise it 14
was sort of a mundane moment—just a book in the library. But I was convinced there was something I needed to do with that feeling.” She later realized that the painting had triggered a memory from her childhood in Milton, Massachusetts. “When I was a toddler, like preschool age, there was an area in my town where wild crocuses grew in the woodlands— they just carpeted the whole area. The fragrance of the crocus was so pronounced and so unique; it definitely stored in my brain. Also the colors— when that purple first comes out of the ground after winter and its really vivid and uplifting.” In between her work in the specialty food and restaurant industry, Cheney traveled to Greece to study saffron production, intending to pursue a career as a food writer. Instead, she became intrigued with the idea of starting a spice business. Cheney quit her job at a Cambridge
bakery and moved to Bangkok, where she stayed with family and traveled around Southeast and South Asia to learn about small spice producers. Cheney wanted “to create a business that was about storytelling and doing good in the world by way of sustainability and social responsibility in the spice industry.” Thus began Curio Spice Co, offering a storefront in Cambridge and selling products at retailers around the country and on the web at curiospice.com. Cheney says this recipe for saffron and apricot goldies is a great alternative to brownies. “It has the nice fudgy texture of a brownie, but with whole wheat flower that gives it nuttiness, apricots that add sweetness, and crushed pistachios that again add that nuttiness. It definitely has a Middle Eastern flavor, especially with the saffron. But it’s Americanized—it’s just a chewy dessert bar that’s really satisfying.”
JOSH MAMACLAY
Thought Process