The Food Seen
Maayan Zilberman, fashionista & candy maker
On today's episode of THE FOOD SEEN, Maayan Zilberman was born on a kibuttz in Israel. She moved to NYC at 15, during the 1990's, a time when fashion and hip hop culture were colliding. Maayan had attended religious Jewish private schools, where uniforms were made of thick navy felt, single inverted pleated skirts and white blouses, and now in New York, she finally saw color. With her newfound palette, she entered a world of fashion that saw her start her own lingerie line, all the whiles, snacking away on confectionaries that was almost more design than delicious. She had always been fascinated by it's alien forms, it's otherworldly origins, like a real life Willie Wonka land. Here she began making candies, molds of banal forms: watches, Kodachrome slides. She made chewing gum, using chicle from trees in Mexico. Her friends we all request her to make sucking candies and bubble gum for parties. A book, "Entertaining" by Martha Stewart, made Maayan realize that food as an experience could potentially be her next design project, finding true pleasure in making the nostalgic candies she used to think were so foreign.