Last weekend

Last weekend in San Juan Capistrano. We went to visit our CSA farm and happened to pass by the downtown area near the mission with random antique shops and cafes. It's funny to about third grade where we built our little mission models from styrofoam and sugar cubes. I think everyone's favorite mission was San Juan Capistrano. Or was it Santa Barbara? I can't even remember which one I did my project on. Anyhow, some antique finds I was coveting...the most beautiful books and some adorable monk chochkis...

KOHLRABI

First up on my vegetable adventures: KOHLRABI.
Kohlrabi is a member of the cabbage family of vegetables. It came whole and attached to thick long stalks of leaves, which you can eat but I didn't try.
It has a crunch similar to that of broccoli stalks. My friend says it tastes like jicama. I happen to dislike jicama. I guess because it looks grainy and kind of like a pear, only gross tasting. Okay I only tried it once at a tennis match and there was a vegetable platter and one of the vegetables was jicama and it was unfamiliar to me so I decided to dislike it. But I like kohlrabi, even though it supposedly tastes like jicama. But maybe you'll like kohlrabi too, especially if you dislike jicama.
Back to kohlrabi. You can eat it raw or cooked. Just take off the purple exterior with a vegetable peeler and cut it up. It's kind of got that stinky cabbage-y smell if you let it sit too long, but it wasn't too bad raw, accompanied with a creamy salad dressing. It's actually quite sweet and mild, no bitterness or fibers.



I also decided to try it sauteed with a little olive oil and garlic, and it ended up being equally tasty.


The cool thing about joining a CSA is that you get to taste different vegetables that you wouldn't normally buy at the supermarket. In fact, I don't even know if I've ever seen or heard of kohlrabi before encountering it in my CSA basket. So I guess that's it about this strange purpley vegetable. I hope you learned something today, kids!

Cheating

I know, I'm cheating on the collage thing because I made these for work. But still. It's a collage!

Three things.

1. I ordered this book on amazon.com today. I'm excited.

2. I watched "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" last night, and it made me laugh out loud while the wind howled outside the window.

3. Collage time! I didn't realize how difficult it would be to put this collage together. Today's collage is inspired by COLOR COLOR COLOR...



(Some of the images include: Marimekko prints, a Vogue Korea photoshoot, vintage postcard, flickr images...)

Collage Time!

I think I'm going to try and make a collage a day, for inspiration. There is a lot of great stuff out there. Although I didn't keep track of where all these things came from (I probably should have), next time I'll try to.

Here's today's:


I'm going to google how to make this image larger without clicking on it.

LEMON BARS

You like how I keep CAPITALIZING the titles of my posts? I'm kind of getting annoyed by it. I think I just capitalize it so it looks like I'm shouting it. Like, "LEMON BARS!". Actually, not really. I think I just do it because I can't think of a better title, and it just looks more important with the capital letters. But if I saw you I wouldn't shout it like "LEMON BARS!!!!!". I would just say it with emphasis and a little enthusiasm, more like, "LEMONNNNN BARSSSSSS...", see, no exclamations.
On to the main topic. Lemons. These are not from my CSA, although there were a few tiny lemons in the basket and I think I used one. These are from my backyard, thus they are organic and pesticide free. Citrus fruits are interesting to me because I always think of them as these refreshing summery fruits, when they're actually ripening right now.
These pretty lemons inspired me to search up a lemon bar recipe.


I spared the life of this alien looking one. Sometimes our tree has the craziest shaped lemons. I think Saxton Freymann could put this one into good use, maybe make it some weird Siamese twin animal.
I've never actually made lemon bars before, in fact lemon pastries or lemon flavored cakes and such have never appealed to me. But lemon bars seem to be universally liked, and after trying some homemade ones from my aunt's friend, I decided to give it a go. I based my recipe off this one here. You're right, all I did was google the phrase "best lemon bars" and I got this recipe. Google is handy like that.
I didn't follow the recipe to a tee. I usually do my own variation depending on how much of the ingredients I have. I decided I only wanted to use 1/2 a cup of butter since my pan was small, so I halved the flour count as well. I also only used 3 eggs and less sugar. I figured you can always dust more powdered sugar on top if it's not sweet enough anyway, plus I don't like things to be too sweet (though some people live for that...obesity in America!). Anyhoo, they came out really well, almost perfect I couwould say. My one mistake was that some of my edges stuck to the foil I lined my pan with, so I recommend buttering the pan or the foil first.
All's well that ends well, whatever that means...here's to a beautiful saturday:

South Coast Farms CSA Update!

Yahoo! Although a bit delayed, here are pictures from last week's CSA pickup!





A big basket full of organic treats. A lot of the vegetables I wasn't familiar with so I was doing a lot of google-ing and wikipedia-ing to figure out what they were. Luckily, each week the farms email you a few blurbs on whats in the basket, as well as recipes to try out. It's pretty exciting and it's fun being introduced to vegetables I wouldn't normally try out at the supermarket. Kohlrabi? Kale? Tat soi, anybody?
So far I've made a simple sauteed kohlrabi and rosemary shortbread. I'll post pictures and recipes soon! Meanwhile, my mother is shouting at me each new segment they're showing on the travel channel, so I guess I'll go and watch. Ta ta...

The LA Times. Sigh.

An imaginary scene from the LA Times offices:

"Hey, Jim?"
"Yea Bob?"
"We don't got enough stories to fill the front page again--"
"Yea? *sigh* Well, there's gotta be something..."
"Hmm, well I can't find anything..."
"Hey wait! I got it! What was that hobby you were tellin' me about, the one your wife's been doing with the stickers and the paper cut-outs...what's that called again?"
"SCRAPBOOKING!"
*high five*


Number one.
WHY oh WHY is there an article on the front page of the LA Times about SCRAPBOOKING? For the sake of my sanity, please LA Times please pleeease with three e's please don't do this to my mental health by putting this bullshit story on the cover of your laughing stock of a newspaper. Come on. People ridicule your goddamn newspaper enough already!!! There is no way in hell, no fathomable reason in the whole world I can think of that would justify putting this on front page.
This wasn't front page Calendar section. This was hardcore actual front page. This is perfect ammunition for New York Times readers to use against us here on the west coast! SIGH.

NEW YEAR'S AND RESOLUTIONS AND CSA'S!

Happy New Year!
I know a lot of people have a new year's resolution to eat healthier and I just wanted to share this organization that I'm joining called Community Supported Agricultural (CSA).
Considering all the pesticides and genetically modified/processed foods out there that we don't even know we're eating, maybe it's not such a bad idea to think about the following:
CSA's.
How it works is that you pay for a weekly or biweekly supply of organic, locally grown fruits and vegetables ranging between 25-35 lbs of food and costing around $30-40. I'm splitting the food with my roomate, so that would be $15 for myself every two weeks to eat pesticide free organic produce. If you've ever been to Whole Foods or Mother's Market you know how pricey buying organic can be, so economically it's a pretty good deal.
Since I'm still living in the OC I've joined this local one (http://www.southcoastfarms.com) which has about 12 different pick up locations for your weekly/bi weekly pickup. but there are CSA's all over LA County and throughout the states, just google it and find one near you.
You'll be eating healthy AND helping support local farms. AND it would give you a chance to try new recipes according to whatever fruits and vegetables are in season! ISN"T THIS THE MOST AMAZING AND ENLIGHTENING DISCOVERY OF THE NEW YEAR?!
If not, then sorry. But I'm pretty excited.

Copycats *clarified

The thought of trademarks, copyrights, infringement, etc. frequently come to mind when I'm posting artwork or pretty much anything online. Today while browsing some websites I came across this artist:

The artist above is 'Brandi Milne'. I had never heard about or seen any of her work before, but it was very similar to this artist:

The artist above is Audrey Kawasaki.

Now is it just me or are they strikingly similar? I was immediately taken aback when I first saw Brandi Milne's work, just because it was so reminiscent of Kawasaki's work, down to the wood board with rounded edges. I checked out Milne's website, and it too reminded me of Kawasaki's own website,


Okay, I mean the similarities are pretty obvious, albeit superficial, even down to the font...

I'm not the artist being "copied" (if you want to call it that, we could call it "inspiration" too, or by any other word less provoking so as not to upset the more sensitive). I don't think it should matter but I do not know either of the artists personally (though many people do and find it offensive to compare or even consider these artist's work similar or inspired by each other (see comments)).
I felt like their artwork was alike enough to point out, because it aroused many questions and emotional responses. I never once suggested that was a bad thing or that it reduces the credibility of either of the artists just because their art is similar, I merely pointed out quite superficial observations between the two that I saw. Yes, the font. Yes, the materials. It's interesting the amount of emotion is stirred up when the slight mention of something possibly being unoriginal (especially when talking about art) makes people go on the defense or resort to personal attacks.

I had a strong emotional response upon seeing these two artists work in comparison to each other and I wanted to explore that response, what it meant. Why did some part of me want to defend Kawasaki's work? Was the sole reason because she was the first artist I discovered of the two that I thought had established this look and style as her own? I attributed this style to her work alone, and for some reason it was the naive part of me that still holds art to be truly unique to the individual that creates it. The more I think about it the more I find that it is almost impossible to call something "unique". How could one ever be sure or prove that? Plus, what does it matter anyway? And why do people get such a huge emotional outbreak when something is accused of being a "copycat"? I'm not saying I dislike either artist because they have similarities between one another. I'm not trying to put down either artist by comparing them, that was never my intention nor is it productive in any way. I just wanted to bring up the fact that we will never really be able to put a box around who's copying who, who's inspiring who, because we are all "inspired", we all "copy", whether or not we can admit that.

I mean, is being original or unique even the point of art anymore? We are in a contemporary world of art criticism, where we can have sophisticated discussions without resorting to personal affiliations or what not.

The fact is that art is forever debatable in terms of copying or originality. Of course when we see something we admire we get inspiration and ideas, this could be labeled "copying" (which is too offensive of a word for some people to handle). Never was I trying to attack either artist. I saw it as more of a philosophical question, what is inspiration? What is copying or plagiarism, what is the fine line between the two? These are questions that yes, span deeper than computer fonts and materials. To me, there can never be a right or wrong answer when talking about art, though some people will never understand that. Isn't art is supposed to provoke deep feelings and questions, as this "lame" blog entry has? I respect the opinions of those that have been so emotionally affected.
For me personally, I thought that to be satisfied with my work I needed to explore and practice my own technique until something unique came out that I could call my own without feeling like I "copied" someone else. But now that I think about it, is that even possible? With all that we see every day is it still possible to create something unique when in this day and age everything has been done? Is it even relevant to be unique anymore? What is the value of "uniqueness" or how can one even define that?
For example, what if I never even knew about Kawasaki's work? What would Milne's work mean to me then? It brings about a lot of interesting things to think about, like how much one can be "influenced" or "inspired", where to draw the line between admiration/inspiration and just plain copying, whether or not it is significant to be the "first one" or the "inventor" of a style and what it means to coin a style others will be inspired by and eventually 'copy'. These are just open ended questions, and of course everyone is entitled to their own answers to those questions.
There is an infinite amount to debate and question. But I guess that is part of your role as a human being. We're all unique and different. Or are we?