A little pinch here, a small dash there, some color, textures, flavors, main ingredients; mix it up ” these are creative matters very familiar to Ron Oliver, chef de cuisine at The Marine Room, 2000 Spindrift Drive, who has now turned his love of food to Food Chains, necklaces he has designed.
“The idea just kind of came to me one day when I walked into a bead store in La Jolla and I noticed all these different shapes, colors and textures of the beads, and it reminded me of when you walk into a food market and the stimulation you get,” Oliver said. “I started thinking to myself, ‘I bet that you could put these components together and using the same principles that I do when cooking,’ and so I started putting stuff together and making jewelry.”
For a chef of Oliver’s caliber, donning the average apron would seem unfitting, and so he located cool glass food pendants and created necklaces around them that people could wear while cooking the matching recipe.
The Fruits of Love features caramel-colored leaves and includes a recipe for Latin Love Caramel, while the Chiles on Fire comes with cooking instructions for Shrimp in Thai Coconut Chile Sauce.
“Most people really like the idea, and I guess it is unique because I have not seen it before, plus they have been selling really well, and so far, it seems that most people are buying them as gifts,” he said. “They are selling them right now at the San Diego Museum of Art’s gift shop, which is very cool to have them on display like that.”
Expansion plans like a fig, pomegranate, artichoke and more are already in the mind of the great chef, who needs only make the time, and find the quality glassmaker with whom he can work in the creative process and then finalize the pieces himself.
A portion of the proceeds from sales of Food Chains will go to Chula Vista Hills Elementary School so that students can start an organic garden, which is a cause that Chef Oliver continues to support because it teaches lessons of patience, responsibility and natural ways of agriculture.
“Although designing jewelry and preparing food are very similar, one of the things I like about making jewelry is that it is permanent, as opposed to when you cook it is gone right away and you have to reproduce it again,” Oliver said. “I like it when people are wearing your work on their body and they are a walking display for your work.”
Food Chains are also being sold at On the Vine in Napa Valley, Food for Thoughts in San Juan Capistrano and Eduard “” A Taste of Europe in Chula Vista. For info, visit www.ljbtc.com.