Maybe it is the popularity of urban homesteading, but man, I have been getting some serious requests for chickens this year! Between the frequent requests at craft shows and the flattering pleadings from the team at Ragazza, I’ve received the message: chicken are hot.
Drywell HQ is a’flutter with holiday preparations, and rest assured, some new chickens will be making their debut soon!
Yes, yes, there is real white meat chicken in there. But that’s not all. Not even close.The troubling ingredient list has been explored in Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma. Things like thirteen corn-based ingredients in a bite-sized chunk of chicken. Or tertiarybutylhydroquinone (TBHQ), a petroleum-based product, similar to butane(!), and used to preserve freshness. Or that the dimethylpolysiloxane, added to the frying oil to prevent foaming, is a silicone-based ingredient commonly found in make-up and Silly Putty.
But don’t they look delicious?
Mimosas are pretty delicious. especially if you hold the oj.
Print available here. (because i know you have to have some mimosa in your life.)
A couple weeks ago, I ventured outside of the 415 with my meaty art in tow (oh, plus Steve and some egg mcmuffins) to participate in the Renegade Craft Fair in Los Angeles. It was my first show outside of San Francisco, and despite a lower turnout than anticipated (thanks a lot, Carmageddon) I’m definitely counting the show as a success. Why?
1. An outdoors show that was actually WARM!
True, sometimes I’ll get a rare warm Sunday show with Indiemart, but for the most part in SF, it is inside shows or crazy windy outdoors ones. LA was lovely, tented, and a full 30 degrees warmer than SF at the same time.
2. Confirming that LA folks love meat too.
There were a couple of people who didn’t quite seem to “get” the strong rallying cry of “Los Angeles is for Meat Eaters” but overall, I got meet a ton of excited food and meat lovers, including numerous chefs, and friends of chefs.
3. We got and used a dolly.
No idea why it took us over a year of doing craft shows to spend a mere $28 to get the most amazing, back and marriage saving device ever. Thanks to Margaret of Paper Pastries for the insanely key tip.
4. Visiting The Bruery and Beachwood BBQ
Heading south also meant the chance to see my custom artwork I made for Beachwood BBQ in Long Beach (I might have had some amazing ribs and Telegraph Reserve Wheat on tap while I was there too). The place was fantastic, and finally getting to meet Lena and Gabe, the owners was such a treat. I’ve been delighted to discover that so many of these awesome business I love are co-owned by husband and wife teams.
Seeing the custom art in person was such a crazy trip and so exciting. As you can see.
We also managed to sneak in a private tour of The Bruery in Placentia, courtesy of the crazy nice and generous Ben, PR dude extraordinaire. I’ll have a separate post about that.
6. Palm Springs, baby.
Oh, and a quick jaunt to Palm Springs after the show didn’t hurt a damn thing. More on that later….
Hello hello! We just finished up a loooong weekend at Renegade Craft Show in San Francisco and it went so well! (Our home, however, is much worse for the wear.) Thanks so much to everyone who came by and bought some slamming art, whether for their kitchen, to use as a study aid in culinary school (yeah!), or as a gift for another meat lover in their life. Steve and I really felt the meat love.
It was also so great to see friends (some bearing cans of champagne!!!), chat with fellow artists and vendors, catch up with old co-workers, and meet internet/twitter pals in real life. My favorite exchange of the day was with a kind woman who asked if I was from SF, and then proceeded to ask which school I attended. I told her that while I lived here now, I didn’t go to school here. And so she asked which art school I went to. Much laughter as I told her that I went to law school, not art school.*
This was my first time doing a summer Renegade show, and it did go really well. Since it was my first show since the holidays, the ole booth set up needed an upgrade. My hubby, a newly accomplished carpenter (complete with beard pencil holder) designed and constructed some great display cases. They were a classy upgrade from our old kraft paper-covered foamcore cases we had over the holidays.
Man, is there anything that beard CAN’T do?It was also my first craft show since the holidays, and after the MEAT MARKET art show in May, I had a bunch of new work to display.
Our new “Use Every Part” Pig poster was very popular. Which is great, because I love it.Figuring out which pieces to keep from previous shows, as well as how to best display my original works, and all the new prints was challenging. In fact, on day 2 we completely changed our display, which I think worked even better.
Set up on day one. Nice display shelves, right? Also, we only have 2 of the original tiny cheeky meat watercolors (lower shelf, left side) remaining!
Oh, and I bought myself a little treat! A bamboo watch from Mistura.
Now, to buckle down and create a meat poster for LA, where I’ll be at Renegade, in oh, 4 days!
*She then followed up with the inevitable question of “what do you parents think about all of this,” but, uh, we don’t need to discuss that, right?
hello hello! I just HAD to share this sneak peek of 3 custom pieces I created for the one and only Beachwood BBQ and Brewing, opening on July 5 in Long Beach, CA.
The place looks amazing and I think my pieces fit right in. Beachwood is known for amazeballs food and a crazy good beer list so I’m of course honored that they contacted me to do this work for their new place. And even MORE psyched to visit in a couple of weeks when I’m in LA for Renegade Craft Show!
Whew! The opening night of my first solo art show, “MEAT MARKET” was insanely fun. Way, WAY more people showed up than I anticipated, creating a street-side spill over outside of the diminutive, yet awesome Pot + Pantry shop where the show was held.
We (me, Steve, and Pot + Pantry owner, Donna) had a great time setting up the show, including the meat-astic front window display! Steve had the great idea of making extra large prints of the new meat watercolors I created for the show (each originally about 3 x3 inches) and hanging them in the window, creating a kind of butcher shop look.
We also had to figure out how to display the 21 pieces I made in the shop. This was a bit more challenging than say, a gallery show, where the white walls serve as a blank canvas for your arrangement. We wanted the great, homey, kitchen-like feel of the shop to remain, and just incorporate my pieces into the surroundings.
It was so crowded, and I was so overwhelmed by the turnout that I didn’t get shots of all the artwork, but here’s some!
We also had some chicharrones provided by 4505 Meats (the same place where I took a pig butchery class), and some bacon caramel corn made by me.
But wait, there’s more! Dinner in the form of really freaking delicious vietnamese street food, like spicy pork bahn mi sandwiches, was available at the new TomKat! food truck. The food was delicious, and the guys were completely amazing and chill, despite the fact that our original parking place for them fell through, and they had to wait for Steve to sweet-talk the very very VERY kind neighbor who not only let us park the massive truck in her driveway, but ALSO gave Steve the code to her basement (!!!!) allowing TomKat to have an electricity source. (And yeah, she totally got a huge bouquet from Donna the next day!)
Donna and I spent most of the week before debating how many people would show, and decided that we’d be happy with 45. By 8pm, I had stopped counting at 150 (!!) I guess I shouldn’t have worried, since Steve was on publicity duty, and did an amazeballs job.
Thanks to everyone who came out to see the show, drink free booze, eat awesome food, and buy some art!! Cheers!
I’m in the process of getting all of the originals I created for the MEAT MARKET art show in digital format. They are posted up on my meaty blog, Meat Sections, and will soon be available in the shop too! So check em out.
Some more progress shots of the large 18×24 cow I’ve been working on.
The working title is “Use Every Part.”
Though the concept was always to include the writing, once I painted the background, I became pretty hesitant to add words. But I sucked it up and did it. And it’s awesome. The End.
