by Molly Oleson

“You’re tall—watch your head,” warns Jennifer Carden, as she leads me into the tiny Aristocrat camper that’s parked on her front lawn in Novato, and which has been gutted, renovated, painted a sparkly bluish-green with a tangerine-colored door and dubbed “Teal Thunder.”

Inside, small works of art—all food-themed—line the clean white walls.

“We’re calling it a mini gallery,” Carden says proudly of the space, which is the new home of Super Fresh Food Art Gallery—known as the world’s first contemporary art gallery dedicated to art about food.

Carden, director of the gallery, co-owns the successful business with her husband, Matthew Carden—well-known for his photographs that combine food with popular culture to create images of small figurines floating on seas made of cake frosting, hiking across giant strawberries or scuba diving inside wine glasses.

On top of running the gallery, Jennifer, a chef, cookbook author and food stylist, styles the food for her husband’s photos. “He’ll say, ‘I need a cake that looks like an ocean,’” she says with a laugh. “Or, ‘I need a popsicle that looks like a 6.’”

The two artists, who have collaborated on numerous books together and have “always been interested in the food world,” merged their interests to create the gallery, which was located on Grant Avenue in downtown Novato until a three-year lease ran out in April. A love of campers, and an idea to move the artwork more into the virtual world, led to the small version of Super Fresh—which gets its name from something that’s “really cool.” “The art is super, and it’s all fresh and it’s food, and it’s something totally different and new,” Jennifer says.

In addition to Matthew’s work, the art of around 10 artists, all with different styles and perspectives on food, is represented. There are pastel-colored paintings of desserts by Pat Doherty, detailed drawings by Beverly

Shipko of half-eaten Oreos and vibrant mosaics of Twinkies by Jim Bachor. “We want stuff that’s really pop-y,” Jennifer says, noting that she’s in the process of adding more artists and expanding the business to include “satellite galleries” at places like winery tasting rooms in Sonoma.

Art about food prompts conversations about food culture. “It depends on what age you are, but like my generation—we grew up with a lot of junk food, and a lot of fast food,” Jennifer says. “It wasn’t a big deal to have a box of Slim Jims and a box of Ho Hos in your house.” Now, she says, living down the street from a grocery store that only carries food produced within a 30-mile radius, those habits are not so common.

“There’s a lot of judgment around food,” she says of living near the California coast, after growing up in upstate New York. “And so I think it’s really fun that I can have artists who can make a mosaic and a painting and a photograph of a Twinkie, and it’s OK, you know?! You can put that on your wall. If you want to judge me for having a Twinkie on my wall, fine!” she says, in between giggles. “Go ahead! But that’s what I ate growing up, you know?”

The food-themed art also stirs up memories of eating the food, and a specific time and place. “It’s interesting,” Jennifer continues, “because my husband—a lot of his work is based on nostalgia—what we remember. So a lot of his work has to do with fast food, junk food, sugar—all that stuff. Because it’s your comfort; because if that’s how you grew up, that’s what you remember, right?”

It’s entertaining for Jennifer to see what foods her artists are drawn to, and what foods viewers flock to. “People have all these different feelings about food,” she says. “The little white squiggle on the chocolate frosting [of a Hostess cupcake]—everybody knows that. And so I think most of our clients buy art for the nostalgia of it—of what’s in the art.”

The mission of Super Fresh Food Art Gallery has always been to inspire people, Jennifer says. “I think we’ve definitely met our goal. We like talking to people and saying, ‘What would you like to do if you could do anything?’”

When they tell her, she encourages them to do it. “And I think with this,” she says, pointing to the mini gallery at her “carnival-like home,” “This is so crazy to park a sparkly blue camper on your front yard. I just think, if that doesn’t inspire people to just do something crazy, then we’ve got it all wrong!”

“There are many versions of your own dream,” she says. “I feel like you can create something out of anything.”

Text Jennifer at 415/377-7212 to stop by the gallery, or visit superfreshgallery.com. And check out Matthew Carden’s photograph on our cover this week.

by Amy Alkon

Q: I was engaged to a woman 20 years ago. We were in college and in our mid-20s. I realized that I wasn’t ready to get married and called off the engagement. I loved her and wanted to stay with her, but she broke off the relationship. I’ve had relationships since then, but I still regret not marrying her. She’s married now, and I shouldn’t even be thinking about her so many years later, but I can’t seem to shake the loss of her. How do I get her—and, moreover, the regret—out of my head?—Stuck

A: The reality is, you’re the envy of a number of people—like those who ran up $80,000 in legal fees battling for joint custody of the suede sectional and are now working as a manservant for their divorce lawyer while living in a tent in his backyard.

You’ve got a bad case of the “coulda shouldas,” which, in psychology, is called “counterfactual thinking,” as in thinking “counter” to the actual “facts” of what happened. It’s basically a mental redo of the past—imagining what could have been. There’s healthy counterfactual thinking—using how things turned out as a reminder to act differently in the future. Also healthy is recognizing that things could have turned out worse, like with all the divorcey fun above, plus having to borrow your kids like library books on alternate weekends.

The unhealthy kind of counterfactual thinking is what you’re doing—setting aside the now to obsess over how great things surely would have been, “if only … ” Never mind how pointless this is, considering that the closest thing you own to a working time machine is probably a battery-operated cuckoo clock that your grandma gave you.

And never mind how this woman is forever 24 in your head—preserved like a bug in amber at the peak of her hotitude—and never does things those pesky real women do, like nagging you to fix that broken thingie until your head is about to explode all over the kitchen wallpaper.

You can get out of Regretsville. You just need to have a funeral for your relationship. And yes, I know this sounds like a ridiculously hokey stunt, but more and more, researchers are finding that the physical is tied to the psychological—like that physical acts of “closure” lead to psychological closure and that treating thoughts as physical objects makes them as disposable as objects. In a study by psychologist Pablo Brinol, participants who wrote down troubling thoughts and then ripped them up were found to have “mentally discarded them” and actually experienced relief. Following their lead, put this behind you psychologically by doing it physically: Write down what happened. Burn the paper in a dish. Maybe do a little ceremony. And then scatter the ashes as you would those from Fluffy’s urn.

And, finally, have a little compassion for yourself. OK, so it’s best not to follow up, “Will you marry me?” with “Uh … take-back!” But you were young and probably immature, and you realized that you’d gotten yourself in over your head. And to your credit, you had the guts to admit that you weren’t ready, unlike all the people who come to the realization that they aren’t, but go through with the wedding anyway. (“Who’ll join me in a toast to ‘miserably ever after?!’”)

Q: A good male friend (going back 20 years) is a great guy—fiercely ethical and very kind—and is irate about the jerks I’ve been out with recently. He has two guy friends he thinks I’d like. Is it safe to assume that they’ll be cool/respectful because this is coming through our mutual friend? (I figure it can’t be worse than truly blind dating online.)—Jerk Magnet

A: A friend who cares about you wouldn’t knowingly put you together with jerks—which would be like recommending a prospective tenant to his landlord with, “He just wants a quiet, safe place … ” and neglecting to mention “… where he can pursue his hobby of balcony chicken farming.”

And the good news is that a good guy is likely to have friends “of a feather.” Studies by psychologist J. Philippe Rushton suggest that we have a genetically driven preference for both mates and friends who are similar to us—especially in age, ethnicity and educational level, but also in opinions and attitudes. So, if this guy likes and respects women, there’s a good chance that his friends do, too. But a “good chance” is not the same thing as an “ironclad guarantee.” In other words, go in with your eyes wide open, because it’s still largely a gamble; it’s just less likely that your friend will be all, “Found the perfect guy for you. We all call him ‘B’—because it’s easier than saying ‘Beelzebub.’”