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An article by Nancy Pappas reprinted from the summer 1998 issue of "American Style":
It's deliciously appropriate that Carole Peck met her future husband, Bernard Jarrier-Cabernet, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art more than 25 years ago. It was a major exhibit of fine American furniture, as they recall, including (of course) some magnificent dining room pieces.
Today, Peck's innovative, health-conscious food is showcased in a playful, multi-hued setting at the Good News Cafe in Woodbury, Connecticut, which her painter-husband oversees with loving attention, right down to blending the correct yellow paint for the walIs of one dining room and personally re-upholstering the booth seats when necessary.
Peck, chef and author of The Buffet Book, creates whimsical and imaginative culinary art that rivals the sculpture, paintings and decorative objects with which she and her husband have filled the cafe.
No decision is mundane. Having originally intended to be a potter and sculptor, Peck is as enthusiastic about snagging the right plates for her Mediterranean seafood salad or wok-seared shrimp as she is about hunting down the perfect imported olives. She may have 12 to 15 different tableware patterns in simultaneous use, and this self-described "plate fanatic" is always on the lookout for more.
In each corner and at every vertical level of the cafe, there are unexpected visual attractions. The decor evolves with the whims of Jarrier-Cabernet, and has included a huge sculptured cobra looming over diners; delicate metal people tiptoeing across a tightrope, holding tiny white lightbulbs to illuminate the bar; and a most unusual metal goat.
Bold paintings hang nearly canvas-to-canvas in the dining room. Last year the cafe presented a major retrospective of the work of Natalie Van Vleck, considered the first significant American woman cubist painter. To celebrate the publication of Peck's cookbook last summer, the couple mounted an ambitious exhibit of works by painter Albert Luden and sculptor Georgia Blizzard. This summer brings abstract paintings and large three-dimensional collages by the late stage designer Edward Gilbert. The outdoor sculpture garden may feature huge horses and snakes by Karen Petersen or the funky mailboxes of Bradford McDougall.
Are regulars like author William Styron and New York Pops founder Skitch Henderson attracted by the pleasures of the palate or the palette? Who can tell? "The point is, we want to offer excitement, on the plate and on the wall," Peck says. It's a goal that they have realized beautifully.
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