Feed Me?

I'm toying with the idea of staring a blog explicitly for food. In the last few months Tyler and I have been cooking fairly large complex meals twice a week. I'd like to keep a record of the recipes we try, how they turn out, and how we've changed them. My only concern is that I'm not a Foodie. I like the stuff, but I'm not picky, and some times a 50 dollar meal tastes the same as a free one. How can a non Foodie have a food blog? I have to admit it feels a bit deceptive.



OK, lets take a second to talk about pizza. New York and California style pizza are easily one of my favorite foods (not a fan of deep dish, sorry Chicago). In high school and one summer in college, I worked for a local "gourmet" pizza chain. Their questionable hiring practices and misogynistic ways aside, the food was pretty good. I learned a lot about what's good on a pizza and what everyone will like (mushroom and onion). Working around pizza constantly turned me off to it, but now that I've had some time to get over it, I'm completely on the band wagon.

Over the weekend I had some people over, and instead of ordering 90 dollars worth of pizza I made my own, not really from scratch. Trader Joe's is an amazing resource for homemade pizza. They have pre-made pizza dough, which is on par with what you would get at a pizza place, and way better anything I could make from scratch (though I've been working on it!). All the dough I've gotten has been exceptionally fresh, and has good gluten development. Their shredded cheese is of a high quality as well and they quite a variety. I'm a fan of the four cheese blend. As far as toppings go, I stay away from the produce, but they have a good selection of packaged meats (pepperoni and prochuto) and of course all kinds of canned and jarred stuff. The above pizza was made with left over dough, porchuto, pepperoni, mushrooms, and cheese. Quite tasty. Also, I think the key to amazing pizza, besides fresh ingredients, is a good pizza stone.

p.s. I need to get some batteries for my digital camera, until then it's all camera phone.

3 Things

1) My bangs, fringe, that hair that grows in your face, is getting too long and stabbing me in the eye. I want to grow my hair out, but it's going to get really hot, and there's the whole eye stabbing thing. Dilemma.


2)I bought a bag from Gilt Group. It was expensive and a good deal at the same time.


3) I'm obsessed with candy, mostly Leone Pastiglie candies and Pucho Shuwa.

Did Being an Emo Bitch Make Me Genuine?

The image to the left was done in 2004, I was about 17. Sorry that it's not work safe. Anyway, I've been thinking that the art I've been doing for the last couple years seems very dishonest compared to what I drew in high school.

I was very much a teenager as a teenager, but I don't think I had anymore angst or insecurities then your average 16 year old. It's pretty obvious that I was putting a lot of what I was thinking and feeling into my art (not what I was doing though. didn't do drugs, smoke, drink, or harm myself.) in a really blunt way. People around me didn't get it, and to some extent I don't think I got it either. Something compelled me to draw, and that's what I did. I wasn't worried about what other people thought, or how my art fit into the entirety of the art world. What I was drawing was uninformed, and isolated from pretty much everything.

Now, after college, I have so much more to consider when I draw. The biggest thing weighing on my mind is the eternal question: "What does it mean?" Ok, so all art doesn't have to "mean" something, but art professionals will not think something has no meaning unless you tell them blatantly. Plus I don't think that art meaning something or existing in a context is a bad thing; if a viewer picks up on a feeling from your art it's an amazing feeling. In the same vein as coming up with meaning, I do want to have narrative aspects of my art, and I want it to look good, and I want it to look like someone older then 15 made it. There's all this stuff to consider, and I think it gets in the way of raw honesty. I don't think my art from 2004 was better, but I do think the emotion was stronger, and the viewer got more. The argument against that is that I was being really obvious, but I'm not going to touch that with a 10 food pole.

Unfortunately for me I don't think there is any conclusion I can come to about this. I'm stuck being who I am now, even though it's interesting to look back there isn't anything in the past that can be recaptured, or should be recaptured.

There's Nothing Wrong with Milk Chocolate

I just finished off a pretty good, considering what I paid for it, milk chocolate bar. I'm a bit of a pig, and really love chocolate in all shapes and forms, but this makes me think of all the people I know who wont go near the milky stuff. These are normal liberal people, but when I tell them I like milk chocolate they gasp in horror and start to think I'm either an idiot or missing taste buds. Being thought of as less of a person just because I have different preferences in foods is offensive, and I in turn think these people are idiots because they're so quick to judge a person based on taste in chocolate (or anything else for that matter).

I could go on about intolerance and why I think it's immature, but that's for another post. Instead I'm going to enjoy the lingering taste of smooth, not too sweet, milk chocolate. Yumm.

Iron Man > Speed Racer > Mediocre

Image taken from Yahoo Movies


Mmmk. Hung out with my friend Chris for lunch and a movie. We went to Boom Noodle, which wasn't that great, but hat a hot bar tender, and then we went to see Speed Racer. I've never been attached to the Speed Racer cartoon, probably since it was a little before my time, but I know the characters and basic idea. I went into this movie thinking it was going to be terrible because let's face it, there's not a whole lot behind Speed Racer. The first half of the movie was heavy on the plot, and the acting wasn't that engaging so I got a little bored. BUT, the highlight of this movie is all the crazy CG, Mario Kart, acid trip race car driving. The last half of the movie is all crazy driving, and more dramatic plot, and much more fun. So I'd say the movie redeemed it's self. Also, I wouldn't recommend waiting to rent this, the whole point is seeing all the colors and bright lights huge.

Iron Man Review

Saturday night Tyler and I had some friends over for dinner at his house, after eating, and some geeking out (I'm really good at Meta-Knight!) we went and saw Iron Man. I had pretty low expectations since I've never really "gotten" Iron Man, and this is also a good time to point out that I know very little about the comics, so I'm really only looking at the movie as a movie. I loved it! The casting was excellent, the acting was good enough for me not to consider it an issue (that might mean amazing, but I don't know anything about acting either), and visuals were great. It's good to see that Robert Downey Jr. is no longer cracked out, and he's actually looking quite hot. I'm not going to summarize anything, because if you're at all interested in the plot of this movie, you should just go see it.

My only complaint, and it's something that applies to all action movies, is how black and white everything was. Tony Stark goes from being evil to being good, and he kills the bad guys, and there is no question as to weather or not they're bad. The US military gets a lot of screen time, and is obviously on the good side, while crazy Arabs in caves are on the bad side. This movie did nothing to help people get over the Arab terrorist stereo type. However, it's an action movie, that's supposed to make money, and let's face it, being super PC takes up a lot of time you could be blowing shit up. (and I hate myself for typing that.) I'm hoping in the sequels there's some good vs. evil struggles.

I'm sure could gush about this movie even more, but my bus will be here soon and I still need to pack up.

Best of my RSS

Drawn
Potentially the most creative street art I've seen. When the subway passes by the animal inflates. I think that street art has gotten a little convoluted, but this really renews my faith in the whole thing. (Ps this was all over the web, so I'm linking to

Who wouldn't want a tiny pie? (craft) I don't even like pie and I want one!

Eco -friendly lotion. (craft) A very good idea, though I fail at making cosmetics.

Make a little shopping bag. (craft) I'm really going to have to start a store all for the sewing project that Craft keeps posting. My sewing machine is at Tyler's though.

Mistress Matisse writes about some unbelievably bad behavior. (Mistress Matisse) NWS I can't wrap my head around how someone could be so rude, and so blunt, and still have all their teeth.

A short list of what every American should know about the Middle East. (kottke)

Amazing paper cuts by Risa Fukui (Ping Mag) So amazing...

Sew a fabric basket. (craft) yet another sewing project.

Moki (right some good) love the subtle creepiness.

Tom Horacek (drawn) Haven't heard of him, but his comics are so cute, and I think I have to own "All We Ever Do is Talk About Wood".

Fabric for Fabrics sake. (craft) new blog, so cute.

How to kill an RFID. (boing boing) We've all got a little conspiracy theory in us.

Oil painting was invented in Asia. (lines and colors) Just another example of how Euro centric the art worls, and art history are. Why would anyone want to believe that oil painting was invented any place other then Europe, they're the best. :P

Mended Spiderwebs (kottke) Love this concept, but I'm kind of sick of art that deals with humans "fixing" nature. "The morning after the first patch job, I discovered a pile of red threads lying on the ground below the web." Doesn't look like the spider needed our help.

Amazing interactive LED coffee table (apartment therapy)