Tag Archives: Linnea Zielinski

Camelle Daley: The Clergy Couturiere

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Taboo Issue Topic: Religion
Words by Linnea Zielinski
Photography by Clare West

After finishing her degree at the London College of Fashion, Camelle threw herself entirely into the label she started with a family friend. For more than two years, she knew she was draining herself, taking on not only design but marketing and finances for the infant company. Gone were the university days when she had time to flex her creative muscles, to cut a pocket differently and just see where the design led her. It was only after the pending arrival of a second child that she found the impetus she needed to let go of the company that had swallowed her.

Despite the opportunity to rest her strained creativity, letting go of that first business wasn’t easy. She wasn’t just freeing up her time; she was losing her business mentor.

The transition was eased with a humble request. She was asked to design a clerical dress for a  recently ordained youth pastor who was excited by her new job but underwhelmed by the boxy clerical shirt. She hadn’t been wearing her collar. Desperate to reconcile style with career, she turned to her friend for help. It couldn’t be too fussy, so Camelle focused on making small design changes. People raved about the result, an elegant A-line dress. The positive reaction illustrated just how long women of the church had been ready for a change. Not everyone was happy, though, and many were quick to voice their disproval.

In spite of the controversy, Camelle’s clothing line for female members of the clergy, House of ilona, was launched.

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La Cuisine Paris

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Words by Linnea Zielinski
Photography by Rebecca Plotnick

“We need to be sitting together over a bottle of wine,” Jane Bertch says as she launches into what can only be described as a dizzying leap from a 10-year banking career to owning and running her own cooking school. Her friendly jocularity is a serendipitous illustration of the driving ethos of her school―for all the glitz a French cooking school implies, classes at La Cuisine Paris are less like a meal at a Michelin-starred restaurant and more like a split bottle of wine at a corner café. You can be sure that’s intentional.

Tasting the Difference

French cuisine has the reputation of being elegant, refined, intimidating, and, if honest, probably a little elitist―something best left to graduates of culinary school and celebrated domestic mavens. For the gutsy home chef with enough gall to tackle classic French dishes, the food industry can seem rife with untouchable professionals feeding them wisdom from on high (or from the pages of embossed cookbooks that are doomed to gather dust).

To Jane, culture―even beyond food―is a composition of community members sharing how their families did things. French cuisine, like any other, is something composed in family kitchens, making it an art without pretense. Upon this belief, La Cuisine Paris has flourished. Where other chefs would lecture, Jane has hired teachers who engage their students, imparting accounts of their childhood kitchens, spoons licked from family recipes.

It is on this level playing field (why, yes! Food should be fun!) that classes are conducted. Chef-instructors at La Cuisine Paris engage students in two, three, even five hours of cultural exchange from which everyone emerges with a sense of camaraderie, and smelling strongly of butter. It’s this sense of the food being their food, not the instructors’ food, that Jane believes makes all the difference in students’ experience and taste.

If you doubt whether the taste of a buttery croissant can change just because of environment, think about eating it at your cubicle before starting work in comparison to the company it might keep beside a cappuccino at a café on the Champs-Élysées.

To read the rest of the article, subscribe to CAKE&WHISKEY magazine or purchase the single issue here.

An Ode to Farm Life: Erin Brennaman

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Words by Kelli Loos & Linnea Zielinski
Photography by Jen Madigan

City girl. Country boy.
The age-old tale of young love between two people from different sides of the fence.
But this version has a twist.

This little girl loved horses. She dreamed of helping them. Vet school and then a practice of her own.

So after high school, Erin the city girl, left her home in the bustling Chicago suburbs for the expansive fields of Iowa to study Animal Science. The semester stretched. Lectures stalled. Erin’s mind wandered.

A mysterious country boy shone through the tedium, disappearing every weekend from campus, gone to his family’s farm 150 miles away.

Love blossomed. Eventually the city girl followed the country boy into his terrain.

The stereotypes were all true. Small town. One stoplight. Rumors swapped between friends. She thought she would hate it. But she was charmed. Washington County, Iowa.

To read the rest of the article, subscribe to CAKE&WHISKEY magazine or purchase the single issue here.