BUYABLE:

• Brass number clips for the compulsive organizer in everyone. (£12.50)
• Fabric origami necklaces will dress up even your lamest tee. ($35)
• These unisex beach bags from South Africa are perfectly patterned. ($95)

READABLE:

• Waka Waka's Tumblr is a woodworkin', table-lovin' creative's dream. (The grand piano desk is exceptionally fantastic.)
• Mark Borthwick's "If We're Pioneers" is a must-have for your bookshelf.
• Wowza. Gaetano Pesce's 1986 Parisian apartment is a stunner.

DOABLE:

• You want a community pool in the middle of a NYC river, don't you? Make it happen.
• Feel like hosting a proper tea party? Don't forget to dress up your sugar cubes, DIY style!
• Draw something right in front of you: genius project from Keri Smith!

Happy clicking!

Transforming the quotidian into the sublime is no small task, but for the four artists featured in MAKE--a new film by local documentarians Scott Ogden and Malcolm Hearn--it's been their life’s work. MAKE is a love letter to the artistic process in its purest form, at a time when we are becoming increasingly estranged from examining the elusive origins of creative impulse.

In the documentary, Ogden and Hearn resurrect the quietly enduring idea that the drive and compulsion to create is always in us, whether either deeply embedded, or righteously demanding to ascend the surface! The very completion of this film is a testament to the relentlessness of The Muse herself--MAKE was a decade-long journey featuring the works of Hawkins Bolden, Ike Morgan, Prophet Royal Robertson, and Judith Scott.

Scott, whose sculpture (pictured above*) is dense with colorful, fibrous, and lovingly wound nests—all concealing and protecting a secret armature, did her MAKE-ing at the atelier/gallery/community for artists with special needs called Creative Growth in Oakland, CA . Bolden, who was master engineer of all things assemblage, relied only on his sense of touch, having lost his eyesight at the age of eight. Morgan, whose boldly expressionistic take on political celebrity is captured in his prolific renderings of U.S. Presidents—past to present—is the only living artist featured, and still resides in Austin, TX. The fourth artist included in the film--a true visionary from Louisiana--Prophet Royal Robertson, served as inspiration for Sufjan Steven’s most recent album, “The Age of Adz.”

MAKE includes a soundtrack with original compositions from Sufjan Stevens and Marc Bianchi (Her Space Holiday), along with music by Jim Guthrie, Oneida, Tommy Guerrero, and Au Revoir Simone. Come by the American Folk Art Museum this Friday, June 17th, to celebrate the release of MAKE and to check out ongoing screenings.

Screening times:

1:00, 3:00, 4:30 & 5:45 pm

The reception is 5:30-8:30 pm in the museum atrium, with live music by Takka Takka.

* Untitled (Multicolored Nest)
Judith Scott (1943-2005)
1988/89
Oakland, California
Yarn and twine with unknown armature
8 x 36 x 25"
American Folk Art Museum, gift of Creative Growth Art Center
2002.21.2
Photo by Gavin Ashworth

You take the good, you take the bad, you take 'em both and there you have: The facts of life, The facts of life...  

What do Natalie, Jo, Tootie, Blair, and Mrs. Garrett have to do with zucchini? Not a whole lot, but I found myself humming The Facts of Life theme song in my garden recently. It's catchy in the way most 80s TV theme songs were*, and it was relevant to my work that morning. 

You see, I was pollinating zucchini. It's not that I don't trust the bees to do it, it's that... Well, OK--I wasn't entirely sure that I trusted the bees, and I really wanted to feel useful. I planted two types of summer squash seedlings last month: One yellow and one green. I had to fight the urge to plant more, but considering what I've learned about my tomatoes, and taking into account how many people have told me that I'm going to be up to my ears in zucchini, I decided to start slow. 

Within a couple of weeks, they'd already done a fair bit of growing, and pretty zucchini blossoms were beginning to appear left and right. Did you know that you can eat zucchini blossoms? They're delicious stuffed, fried, sauteed, or even raw. But, before you eat your zucchini blossoms, make sure you give your plant enough time to, ehrm...get fertilized.

There are a couple of ways to handle this touchy subject.

1. Sit down with your squash and explain to it that, "When two zucchini flowers love each other very, very much..."   
2. Or better yet, put on a little mood music, grab a Q-tip, and make the magic happen.

What I'm trying to say is, squash plants produce both male and female flowers and, one way or another, the two must meet in order to have a successful crop of zucchini babies. This is what bees do best, but if the bees buzz off and the first few fruits wither or blacken and fall from the plant, feel free to offer a little assistance in the form of hand-pollination. Here's what you need to know: The male flower has a single, simple stamen, covered in dust-like pollen. The female flower is much more complex. 

See the difference? To hand pollinate, you can use a cotton swab or a small, clean artist's paintbrush to transfer pollen from the male to the female flower. Or, you can just pick a male flower, pull its petals off, and use it to pollinate the female flowers directly. Be careful not to damage the female flowers, and definitely don't pick them. From what I read, if you have a lazy bee population and are depending largely on hand-pollination, you should try to pollinate as many of the female flowers as you can to ensure a large crop.

Once your zucchini has been pollinated, stand back: These babies grow fast! For ideal flavor and production, harvest small and often. Here's a photo of my first zucchini harvest. That big green guy doubled in size overnight. The tiny, sad looking squashes are examples of the fruit that fell off the plant before it was fertilized. 

Fair notice: I have a sneaking suspicion that my garden is going to be the zucchini equivalent of 19 Kids and Counting this summer. 

*My friend Darcey chose what, in my humble opinion, was the best song for a wedding first dance ever: The Family Ties theme song. No one was expecting it, so when the (awesome) band started playing, there was a lot of, "I know this song...what is this?" going on in the crowd. Then people started 'getting it,' which caused widespread amusement. Finally, it's really short. All around genius. Sha-la-la-lahh. 

You can follow more of this series at Front Yardening.

And, in case you haven't heard, the Mason jar is one of the most versatile blank canvases available. Even if you haven't gotten into the magic of canning and preserving your own food (you should! you should!), keeping a case of these dudes on hand is a goldmine. They're like the original Tupperware, except way better, and they don't warp when you put them in the dishwasher.

And so! Ten fun things to do with 'em, besides just storing food inside. Some are food related, some are not. But, all of them are easy, and worthwhile tricks to know.

A bit of wire and some sand turn Mason jars into elegant outdoor lanterns for tea lights or votives. [via Re-Nest]

Of course, you can plant herbs or flowers inside, but head to the CSI Project to see how to give them a colorful update on the vintage milkglass look.

ReadyMade's assistant editor Alexa Fornoff came up with a quick trick to turn a quart-sizes jar into a makeshift cocktail shaker.

Liz whipped up this on-the-wall storage idea using pipe straps and a length of scrap wood. She opted for bathroom storage, but imagine all the cool stuff you could put inside.

These individual pies-in-a-jar might be my favorite. They're adorable, they're clever, and, well, there's pie involved.

ReadyMade blogger Sonia spotted this awesome"fresh cut flower" shelf from Brian Johnson. You can buy a premade one on Etsy, or head to Sonia's post to learn how it's done.

At first look, this might look like a "you can drink out of a Mason jar" mention. But, if you head to YumSugar, you'll see that this cocktail is actually made from something that's often stored in a jar - jam. Right?! [via Design Crush]

If you're prepping to entertain, peep this tip: use mason jars to portion out treats, like ice cream, or jar up tea or lemonade, or pitchers of mixers for drinks; just stir in the spirits!

Here's a brighter take on the Mason jar lantern. Hang the jars with wire, as in the instructions above, then fill with string lights along a length of rope or clothes line. Festive, yeah?

Lastly, seeing as it's summer, Mason jars are a perfect home to...kill stuff! By which I mean, er, catch those pesky fruit flies that often come home with you from the market.

Regarding most traditional baby fare, Claire poses the question, "Have you seen most ABC books? Yawn. I wanted to create a book for Olive that would be tactile and interactive. I wanted to show her things that mean something to her father and I. Important things, like trademarked characters and ice cream." Well, she did it, all right. The book, created entirely from felt (and a little hair) features the usual A  for Apple, L for Lamb, etc, but also includes necessary infant information such as T for Totoro, C for Chewbacca, and J for Joss Whedon Wearing a Jetpack. Obviously.

You can view the whole book on Claire's Flickr stream; talk about a family heirloom. As for baby Olive, it looks like she's a fast learner. Here she is keeping warm in a cozy Princess Leia wig. First word prediction? "Obi-Wan Kenobi!"

Trashed Item Spotted: Ukrainian Village, Chicago

Situation: While taking my usual walk through the alleys with the pup yesterday, I happened upon a wicker bench propped up outside a garage door. It looked like it was in good shape, minus sun fading, and I imagined brightening it up with a coat of bright turquoise spray paint from Montana Gold.

Outcome: My mind changed after taking a seat. You can see the sagging with the weight of my model and as I'm at least twice his size, I passed. I imagine reinforcing the bottom with some plywood would've been an easy fix, but this wasn't worth carrying the six blocks home.

What would you have done?

If you spot an interesting-looking item on the curbside or in a Dumpster near you, snap a pic, post it on our Facebook page, and ask "Take It Or Leave It?"

ReadyMade is getting in on 30 Days of Creativity—which means we’re making something every day during the month of June! Read more about the initiative here. And check out what we made today:

"I'm a freelance writer, so I have to keep all my receipts for write-offs throughout the year (unless I want to cry while eating a tuna fish sandwich around tax time, like I did this past year). Since I was recently working an article about organizing your finances (hint hint!) I was encouraged to create an 'attractive' place to keep my paperwork so I'd actually be encouraged to do so (and thus decrease my likelihood of crying). I decoupaged this shoebox to stash stuff in last night (above) and am putting the final coat of Mod Podge to seal in the collage this afternoon. I loved being reminded of my favorite zone-out craft: cutting pretty things out of magazines to make a collage—and re-reading some articles along the way. Ideally, I'd have a more organized file system (foreshadowing!), but hey, one step at a time." -Online Assistant Caitlin Thornton

Jump on the 30 Days program with ReadyMade, by sending a tweet to @createstuff on Twitter. And don't forget to follow ReadyMade on Twitter for a daily stream of DIY projects and ideas! 

I am a fan of pretty much anything that resembles a granola bar, granola, or those nut butter balls that you find at health food stores. Partly I just like the ingredients and partly I like being able to have a snack that is balanced, rather than straight up sweet, that I can carry around with me for when I need a snack. And while store-bought goodies are good in some cases, I often prefer making my own because I like to control the ingredients—which to me pretty much means finding a way to always use unsweetened coconut. And with that thought, here's today's recipe.

Cherry-Almond Coconut Bran Bites
These adorable cherry almond balls are packed with fiber and naturally sweetened with dried cherries, unsweetened coconut, and almonds. —Amie Valpone
 
Servings: 24
Prep time: 5
Total time: 10
 
Ingredients:
2 cups bran flake cereal
¾ cup dried cherries
½ cup almonds, toasted
3 Tbsp honey or agave nectar
2 Tbsp silken Tofu
2 tsp freshly squeezed orange juice
½ cup unsweetened coconut flakes
1 Tbsp wheat germ
 
1. Place bran cereal, cherries, and almonds in a food processor and process until finely chopped. Add honey, tofu, and orange juice; pulse until a stiff dough forms.
2. Scoop tablespoon-size portions and shape with greased hands into balls. Roll each ball in coconut and wheat germ.
3. Place on wax paper. Let stand at room temperature for 30 minutes before serving or storing.

If you have a recipe to share, email it to us at articles@readymademag.com for a chance to see it here or in an upcoming issue of the magazine.

Centerpieces can range from simple to extravagant, free-ish to crazy expensive. Today, Camilla of Family Chic shares her Apple Bomb centerpiece for those of us on the lower end of both spectrums—and it's a good reminder that intriguing doesn't have to mean time-consuming.

"Acid green Spider Mums are placed in green apple vases for an explosive centerpiece," Camilla says, and we couldn't agree more—they look like fireworks (not to mention the monochromatic scheme is simply stunning). So how did she do it?

With an apple corer and floral foam, and that's it! Click here for the rest of the how-to (it's not much—we told you, this is simple). Do you have any quick and easy centerpiece ideas? Let us know in the comments!

And thank you so much for sharing, Camilla!

As Garth and I cruised from Salt Lake City towards Denver (our next planned stop), we had a long and lazy drive though Southern Wyoming. The drive was pleasant and the landscape was wide open. We passed several wind farms and were amazed to see huge trucks barreling past us hauling the parts for these massive wind gatherers. It takes one truck to haul one of the propellers for these whirling beasts.

No roadside attractions pulled us off the road in Wyoming, so we made pretty good time. We decided to try and find food before we made it to Denver and found ourselves happily pulling of the highway in Fort Collins, Colorado. This bustling, green college town was filled with skinny people on mountain bikes, offering a welcome change from the faded desert-y landscape we sailed through most of the day.

We parked in a central area of town. Before long we found ourselves seated on the patio of a vegan/vegetarian restaurant (a karmically balanced alternative to the bag of gas station beef jerky we were snacking on in the early afternoon). Tasty Harmony had a great casual feel and what appeared to be an exciting menu. Garth ordered some Asian Lettuce Wraps, which I would be hard pressed to actually call "wraps" as the amount of veggies and tofu piled on top made them impossible to pick up and eat. I had the Heart of Provence, which was a lovely tempeh placed atop polenta cakes with a tomato sauce and a salad. We were delighted by our meals, and I would stop back by Tasty Harmony to sample more of their menu again.

The real treat of the day came after we enjoyed dinner, just before the sun was setting. Our Roadside America map pointed us to a location just south of Fort Collins and we debated whether it was too late in the day to drop by someone's art environment. Our curiosity won and we pulled off the highway to check out Swetsville Zoo, something you should also do if you happen to be driving between Denver and Fort Collins—what a treat!

From the Highway you can spot the yellow and white turrets, aka the facade of zoo keeper Bill Swets' home. We pulled into Swetsville around 7:30 in the evening and found the place empty but open. The zoo must house at least 200 sculptures built by Swets himself. They are carefully crafted from old farm machinery, car parts, and scraps. {pagebreak}

The sculptures may be welded in place, but the real genius is that the creatures have an animated feel to them. Mr. Swets has an amazing ability for character design, and it's hard to fathom how cleverly each metal specimen has been assembled. A dinosaur "metal band" is gathered together just in front of a giant insect made from a Volkswagen Bug. A hitchhiker tries to thumb a ride while holding a huge boom box to his ear and a prisoner's ball and chain shackles his ankle.

After wandering through the portion of the property that was specifically labeled "Zoo," we couldn't help but peek at the rest of the grounds. Metal sculptures are creeping everywhere—a giant spider climbs up a trailer, for instance, and there is a glass-fronted building with mysterious creations inside that didn't take kindly to photographs. There is a giant tricycle, massive dinosaurs, a little train with a face, a trailer with a face—the fun never seems to end! I was sorry that the creator wasn't out on the property when we wandered through, but I was delighted to spend some time in his world. If you are on a long or short drive in this part of Colorado I would say the Swetsville Zoo is well worth the stop!

Three months ago at a dog training class held at Canyon Crest K-9 Training Center in Tacoma, WA, a five-year-old boxer named Sugar fell to the floor, apparently dead. The owner screamed that the dog wasn’t breathing. “What the heck?” said the class instructor, Ron Pace. Then he ran over and began compressing Sugar’s chest and performing mouth-to-snout resuscitation.

Pace had his assistant record the moment on his iPhone. “When something like this happens, it can be hard to explain it to the vet, so I thought it’d be good to video it,” he told me.

The whole thing would be unwatchable—and probably not on YouTube—if the dog didn’t make it. You can skip ahead to the two-minute mark to see Sugar suddenly come back to life.

I heard about this video on Sunday when I attended a pet CPR and First Aid class in Manhattan. The class, called Doggie Doggie, Are You Okay? was held by SkillShare, a site that organizes classes taught by local experts and aficionados. The teacher, Maria Martinez, works in the pharmaceutical industry. After her own dog had a frightening moment where she nearly choked on a rib bone, Martinez became a pet safety and first aid instructor though Pet Tech, which offers a three-day pet First Aid/CPR teacher training program in Connecticut.

I had two reasons for giving up four hours of my weekend to this: One, I thought it’d make for a blog post. Two, I’m working for a dog walking company where they ask walkers to be certified in dog CPR and First Aid.

The fact that I’m a pet owner really wasn’t part of the equation. Sure, I have a small furry best friend who likes putting weird things in his mouth.  But his emergent care has always seemed like something to be handled by a pro.

But, now that I’ve devoted four hours of my life to watching the Pet Tech PowerPoint presentation and examined a black stuffed poodle toy  to see if it was breathing (it wasn’t), I'm amazed it had never occurred to me to do this before. Did a four hour class turn me into some kind of pet EMT? No more than my seventh grade First Aid class qualified me to save someone's life. I’d prefer to be the “You, go call 911” person. But if there were a critical situation and it all came down to me, I like to think that some residual knowledge would kick in.

I have to guess that there are others out there who feel similarly about their own First Aid education. Still, if you've ever watched ER, you have at least some vague understanding of how to do what's necessary. But most people have never even considered the notion of non-human CPR and first aid. This means that, if you are ever in a situation where a pet collapses, the mere fact that you once met a cat at a party might make you the most qualified person in the room.

Indeed, Pace, who has worked as a trainer for more than thirty years, had zero knowledge of dealing with a dog that wasn’t breathing. He didn’t do some of the things we were told to do in my degree program: approach the dog from the back to avoid getting kicked, check for a pulse, compress at a rate of 100 pushes per minute, two breaths for every 15 compressions.  And he didn’t stamp his feet and say “Doggie, Doggie, are you OK?” like we were all told to do.

But whatever. It worked.

 “I guess natural instinct just kicked in,” he told me, noting that a firefighter is now organizing a dog first aid program for the Canyon Crest K-9 clients, many of whom witnessed Sugar’s collapse. “Honestly, taking a class in dog CPR or anything like that...it never occurred to me,” he said.

Pace really got lucky: the majority of human recipients of CPR don’t make it, regardless of the training of the person administering the compressions; there are no stats on the matter apparently, but it’s hard to imagine that pets fare much better.

A slim chance of survival is still a chance. That’s why I now see that it’s the job of every pet owner to at least spend a few moments considering what to do in an emergency. That might mean taking a class through the Red Cross, which offers them throughout the country. They also have a book on the subject, as does Pet Tech. In addition to walking you through the basics on keeping your dog healthy through old age, these resources can talk you through the fundamentals  of how and where to apply pressure in order to do the CPR compressions or the Heimlich on dogs of many different sizes and shapes.

Unfortunately, there are still a lot of unhappy endings in emergency situations. Immediately after Sugar’s near-death experience, he was rushed to the vet where he was diagnosed with cardiomyopathy. He was fitted with a heart monitor and his owner received instruction in dog CPR. Ten days later, he collapsed again. She performed chest compressions correctly. Sadly, that time it didn’t work. “But the whole incident has brought more awareness to the need for people to learn this,” said Pace. “And Sugar’s owner felt really lucky to have those ten days.”

If you do nothing else, assemble a basic emergency kit. Go on to the next page to see what it should include! {pagebreak}

Put together a basic emergency kit to protect your pet:

Emergency contact information

Include your vet’s name and number, as well as information for the closest emergency animal medical facility in your area. In some places, there are even animal ambulances. If you’re in New York City, there’s Ambuvet: 1-800-AMBUVET.  Also good to have the Animal Poison Control Center hotline: (888) 426-4435.

Gauze

Cats and dogs have pressure points at the top of their inner thighs, in their armpits, and behind the big pad on each paw. These are the places to apply pressure while you wrap the gauze around a wounded limb or foot.

Hydrogen peroxide

This will make an animal throw up. When Amos ate rat poison a few years ago, I was fortunate to have a vet tech roommate who talked me through the details of dog regurgitation induction. The first step is to fill a turkey baster with a solution of water and one teaspoon of hydrogen peroxide for every ten pounds of dog. I did this, stuck it down his throat, and a minute later, he puked up a turquoise, foamy mess. I felt like a super hero. (For a comprehensive rundown of common things that are poisonous for pets, go to the ASPCA’s poison control site or PetPoisonHelpLine.com)

A muzzle

If your pet is injured and clearly in pain, the very first thing to do is to muzzle him: a wounded animal is likely to bite as a form of self-protection, and if you’re bitten, you won’t be much help. If there is no muzzle on hand, we learned how to tie one using a shoelace, leash, or strip of fabric. Wiki-Pet offers a nice demo of how to do this. 

Digital Thermometer

A temperature over 103-degrees is worrisome. Any thermometer will do, but, as it goes up the rear, Maria suggested that the dog have one designated just for him.

Also a good tool in any pet owner’s pocket is Pet Tech’s comprehensive app, which covers a wide array of emergency situations and talks you through cat and dog CPR, as well as dealing with heatstroke, bleeding, seizures, fractures, snakebites, and more.

ReadyMade is getting in on 30 Days of Creativity—which means we’re making something every day during the month of June! Read more about the initiative here. And check out what we made today:

"I'm a huge fan of using fresh herbs in cocktails and punches, so I thought it might be fun to try the technique with a beverage for all ages: summertime lemonade. You can use any non-pungent, non-grassy herb like lavender, thyme, verbena, lemon balm, perhaps even sage or basil. I went with rosemary, since I love the way it plays with lemon in savory dishes, and I knew it'd be a success.

First, I washed 8 lemons, cut them in half and sliced them quite thin. Then, I put them in a bowl with 3/4 cup of sugar and lots of rosemary from my garden, 10-12 sprigs. Mash everything up until all the sugar is dissolved and a thick syrup is formed. Strain the syrup off, pressing on the lemons to extract all their juice.

Lastly, mix with 4 cups of cold water, and enjoy! If you're gonna store in the refridgerator, feel free to add a bit more rosemary to infuse. A quick ten minutes that's totally worth the effort." -Blogger Chris Gardener

Jump on the 30 Days program with ReadyMade, by sending a tweet to @createstuff on Twitter. And don't forget to follow ReadyMade on Twitter for a daily stream of DIY projects and ideas! 

Community enthusiasm and empowerment happens around conversation. So when we at ReadyMade decided to launch an online video component to our website—call it ReadyMade TV, if you will—we thought we’d feature not only instructional introductions to favorite projects in the magazine and blog, but also an original series about the nature of creativity called “We Can Do It!” This funny, lightly philosophical mini-talk show launches in one week, on Tuesday, June 21. Hosted by musician and performer Becky Stark, each episode offers access to such exciting people as OK Go front man Damian Kulash, actor John C. Reilly, and Crafternoon’s Maura Madden, among other surprise guests (including a movie star certified in permaculture—stay tuned to find out who!). They’re all just hanging out, talking about their approaches to creativity, cracking jokes, and sometimes singing songs.

Producer Peter Glantz from the Imaginary Company shot the series in Becky’s living room, which she cleared out for artist Ron Rege Jr. to create a lifesize puppet stage for their conversations. "We Can Do It!" serves as a springboard for ideas about creativity and DIY life: the playful spirit behind all DIY endeavors, the nature of transformation, and elements of surprise. It’s a bit silly–just like life–and always rooted in the idea of sharing knowledge and having fun. The nature of the show is collaboration, and all the folks involved have been part of DIY culture for decades—producing independent film, music, comics, art, comedy, and theater with a grassroots approach, and also gardening, fermenting, designing, and building from scratch in their personal lives.

We’ll introduce them all to you along the way. For now, let’s meet Becky, our host with the most, and we really mean that. A performer since childhood, she’s currently in a three-part harmony independent pop-folk band the Living Sisters, who, along with Zooey Deschanel, recently sold out a show at Los Angeles's Walt Disney Hall in a tribute to Patsy Cline. Becky's rich and varied resume also includes a band called Lavender Diamond, an appearance on The Daily Show, a recent music video directed by Michel Gondry (below), singing for a US State Department-sponsored peace mission to the former Soviet Union, and with Peter Glantz co-producing a poster/comics/music/slogan series about making life nicer for all.

ReadyMade: I heard you shot the show in your apartment in LA... What was that like?
Becky Stark: It was so much fun! For years I'd wanted to make a little set out of my apartment. So when [producer Peter Glantz] was like, “Where can we shoot?” I was like, “My living room!” I thought it would make it more conducive to the fun and casual environment, and that if I asked people to have a conversation in my living room it’d be more fun than coming to a studio and having a more formal approach. I love the idea of integrating your work and our home spaces. I feel like that’s such an important direction to people to go in, it feels like a more sustainable path to have your work center be your home center and to have it be a more integrated space.

Did it go how you envisioned?
I wanted to have snacks and sit in the garden and drink tea and have it unfold. Playful. It got really hot the days we were shooting, so I had to buy an air conditioner and we all had to stand around it. Also, I live right by the freeway and there’s all this noise. I have these big, beautiful windows with lots of natural light, and I thought it was going to be so awesome. All the highway noise I’m used to since I’ve lived here forever sounds to me like I’m next to the ocean. But we had to put blankets on the windows!

What about “We Can Do It!” has you the most excited?
I like the idea of creating a platform that’s as simple as possible and easy for many people to understand. I love the chance to celebrate and investigate creativity. I love talking to people! And I love the way a discussion can bring new ideas to life and to light. I am most excited about creating a space for playful conversations.

The show is pretty playful—maybe some would even say kooky?
We’re making videos about creativity, and we figured we can also make it a comedy. I am a kook! And the reason why these [guests] were willing to do the show is because people are like, “Oh Becky! You’re doing something craaaazy!”

How did you score all your guests?
Everyone I asked to come on the show was very excited to join in a joyful conversation about creativity and the culture of sustainability! I think people welcome the chance to be part of sharing ideas and to participate in the dialogue about making!

What surprised you while filming?
I was surprised by the intelligence and humor of the guests! Every single one of them said things that really opened up new ideas for me. When you’re really listening to people, some kind of magic happens. I love what John [C. Reilly] says about transformation…. I know that role-playing isn’t necessarily part of craft culture, but in terms of creativity that’s a fascinating idea. I think about the how pleasurable it is to make something and be engaged in making something. And how the part relates to the whole in a really complete way.

You’re a part of a whole in your band with Living Sisters. What’s that like?
It's bliss to sing with the Living Sisters. I love singing in harmony. There's nothing that feels so beautiful to me as singing in harmony. It’s so uplifting. It really creates a bond and an experience of renewal. I really think everyone should sing in harmony. It's good for you! And also it’s such an interesting lesson and metaphor for life. When you sing in harmony you can only sing your part. And it takes difference to make the beauty. So it’s a good way to think about life and relationships, I think. Complete freedom and difference and independence create the beauty of harmony. And recently my band Lavender Diamond started to play together again. We're going to make a new album together! I'm so excited. I love the camaraderie of my band. I think actually it was by singing in a harmony group that I've been able to grow in my understanding of my own single voice.

Besides your career as a musician, in what other ways are you a maker?
When I was a little girl my longstanding fantasy was to have a place called “Creative Creations.” In my fantasy I had a place—I guess it was like an art gallery, but it was before I knew what an art gallery was. It was a store and we sold things that were handmade: paintings, clothes, crafts, food… everything and anything that a person could make. I guess I have always been somewhat of a creative maniac. I love to sing and dance and write and cook and sew and draw and paint. I really feel like the basic character of being human is being a maker. Our creativity is our nature.

It was a new sensation to flop on the bed at the end of the day, peel off my jeans, and realize I reeked of butter and flour. What—you didn’t know you could reek of flour? Try spending just a few hours in the thick of things at King Arthur Flour in Norwich, Vermont, and you’ll think differently.

For two days, I submitted myself to total immersion in all things doughy at Blog & Bake, an event hosted by the incomparable team of bakers at King Arthur Flour. We tackled all the big, scary issues: fear of yeast, fear of shoving a whisper-thin pizza crust into a yawning 600˚ wood-fired oven, fear of over-aggressive kneading, and fear of breaking down a chicken breast (this one was thanks to Sara Moulton, who not only gamely threw on her cooking Converse and got floury with the rest of us in a bread baking seminar, but then jumped into an entire four-course demonstration of the dinner we’d eat later that night at the Norwich Inn. She is a peach.)

But perhaps the biggest accomplishment of all was the way King Arthur’s pie crust guru Susan Miller helped ten otherwise confident women solve the heartrending and eternal pie crust tug-of-war between tender and flaky. Here’s how she broke it down.

First, a little kitchen science: the more you work your fat (typically butter, shortening, or lard, all of which are composed of both fat and water molecules) into your flour, the less water you’ll need to add to create dough, leaving fewer opportunities for tough and stretchy gluten to develop to end up with a homogenous and tender crust.

When you leave large chunks of said fat standing alone in your dough, the more water you’ll need to incorporate on its own, developing more gluten in the dough (thus making it a bit tougher) but also creating those gorgeous flaky bits, like layers of shale, caused by the melting layers of fat and flour.

How do you get a good balance of tender and flaky in your pie dough? Easy. Just incorporate your choice of fat (we used all butter) in two stages. Susan likes to use a pastry blender, although you can do it by hand—or use a food processor. Chunk half the butter into 1/2-inch cubes and work it into the flour, pushing the pastry blender down the side of the bowl, then turning it incrementally before making the next push to make the process go faster.

When the color of the flour starts to change slightly from flat white to creamy buttermilk, and the texture starts to look like slightly moist cornmeal with pea-size butter lumps mixed in, that’s when it’s time to add the second half of your butter. Follow the same blending method: the first round of butter will continue to disperse and moisten the dough, while the second round will remain in larger, colder chunks.

Then add the water, a few tablespoons at a time, just until the dough stays together when you squeeze a glob together in your hand.

When rolling out the dough, stick to moving your rolling pin in one direction—usually straight away from you—instead of radiating out in different directions like spokes on a wheel or rays of the sun. The consistent directional motion prevents “gluten confusion,” as baking instructor Robyn Sargent calls it.

But, you may ask, how will I keep my pie crust in a large circle if I only roll in one direction? Also easy. Give the dough round slight turns as you go, and keep mounding and pressing the edges back into a circle with each turn to prevent cracks and maintain the circular
shape.

And there’s a final ingenious tip on getting your crust into the pie plate. Once the dough is as thin and large as you desire—when centering your pie plate on top of the dough round, you should have 3/4 inch overhang on all sides—lightly dust the dough with flour and gently fold in half. Fold in half again to quarter the dough, then place the point of the crust directly in the center of your pie plate before unfolding the whole thing.

Ten of us tried it. Ten of us succeeded, even those who swore up and down (ahem, Amber) that they carried an unforgivable Pie Crust Curse. With those stats, either the bakers at King Arthur Flour snuck muscle relaxants into our morning coffee to make us über-confident in our pie skills, or there’s really something to this method. My money’s on the latter. Keep reading for the recipe.

{pagebreak}

Pie Crust
adapted from The King Arthur Flour Baker’s Companion
Makes two 9-inch pie crusts

Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups (10 1/2 oz) King Arthur Unbleached All-purpose Flour
1 teaspoon sea salt
2 sticks unsalted butter, well chilled
4-6 tablespoons ice water

1. Whisk the flour and sea salt (and sugar, if using) in a large bowl or pulse 2-3 times in the bowl of a food processor.
2. Add half the butter as directed above and combine, either by hand, with a fork or pastry blender, or by pulsing in the food processor until the flour resembles moist cornmeal. Add the remaining butter as directed above.
3. Drizzle in the ice water a few tablespoons at a time, stirring gently with a plastic dough scraper or fork to combine, until the dough is shaggy but just holds its shape when squeezed in your hand.
4. Mound the dough onto a floured surface and use the palm of your hand to smear the dough down the side of the mound to the counter. Pastry chefs call this fraisage and it’s this technique that ensures an extraordinarily flaky crust. Smear two or three times until the dough holds together and the butter is still chunky but streaked throughout.
5. Divide the dough into two portions and pat each firmly into a disc, then wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for at least an hour before rolling out.

[Images: Final pie crust image by Amber Bracegirdle; the rest are by the author.]

As I write this, it's been exactly 68 days since I planted my eight tomato seedlings from Tomatomania. 68 days since our photo shoot for the June/July issue of the magazine, which you've hopefully already received in the mail or picked up at a newsstand. 68 days in which I've watched, always with amazement and occasionally in horror, as my tomato seedlings grew into towering, looming leviathans.

When I planted them, I set a cage around each seedling. Within a couple of weeks, it was clear that the cages I had chosen were too small. So I pulled them out (one was repurposed for a cucumber seedling; the others will find their place eventually) and replaced them with bigger cages. I got the biggest ones they had at OSH. They gave the seedlings about another foot of height to grow into.    

This photo was taken on April 3. Cute little seedling I'm holding in my hand there, eh? Just a tender, harmless little thing:

This photo was taken of the same bed, 68 days later on June 9: 

Hellllllp! Can you see me back there? No? I'm inside the plant, breathlessly recording a distress signal and praying that you'll pick it up on your transceiver. Eek! Watch out for that polar bear!!

As you can see, the tomatoes have scoffed at my cages. They've made a mockery of them. They've grown so fast, I haven't been able to keep up with pushing them back into their cages. They've grown so big, there's no more room in their cages. They've grown so tall, they shot straight up through the tops of their cages and have begun reaching out and over. If you try to walk past them, they snag and grab at you. I had been planning to eat a lot of tomatoes this summer, but now I think the tomatoes are going to eat me. Yesterday, one asked me for...BLOOD! 

Remember back when I first blogged about the varieties of tomato seedlings I planted? Seven of the eight plants were indeterminate, and one was determinate. Indeterminate tomato plants will grow and produce fruit until killed by frost. They can reach heights of up to 12 feet, although 6 feet is apparently "normal." I think my plants are aiming for 12 feet. Actually, I think they're aiming for total dominion over the earth. Maybe they are reptilian humanoids in tomato clothing. 

Want to have a chuckle at my expense? I actually tried tying them to their cages with little bits of string at first. A week later I realized that it had been a futile endeavor, and snipped them all off. 

So much for that.

A number of people have asked me what I'm doing to get them to grow so well. I wish I could say that I'm singing to them and reading them poetry, but that would be a lie. Mostly I'm just trying not to get lost in them. The best I can surmise is that the dude who helped me at Tomatomania was messing with me (I told him that I was planning on putting four plants in each bed, and these are the varieties he selected. I do admit, however, that numbers are not my strong point, and that I may have been slightly off when I reported the size of said beds. Only slightly, though.) It's also quite possible that they just adore the amount of sun they're getting, and that they've found the vegan fertilizer I prepped the beds with to be especially delicious.

The simple fact? My tomatoes have totally, entirely, completely outgrown their cages, and I don't know what to do. Prune? Re-stake? Pray to the Forest Spirit?  

The Tomato Gardening Guru says that "Caged tomatoes are generally pruned down to four or five producing stems, though Charles H. Wilbur, he of the 25 foot-tall tomato plants, goes for 18, one tied to each vertical wire of his homemade tomato cages." He also says that "if your tomato outgrows its cage and decides to start growing down instead of up, don't instantly reach for the pruning shears or a longer support pole. Many tomato plants grow to the top of their cages and then droop down over them and continue to produce. Remember that these are vines. If a major stem develops a kink that looks like trouble and you're trying to keep your plant on a vertical track, try splinting it with a stick and several twist ties, and stake the stem securely along its whole length. You can extend cages either by adding wire on top or by setting long stakes inside them."

Looks like I've got some pruning and reinforcing ahead of me. If you don't hear from me next week, send out a search party.

Have you had a tomato plant (or eight) outgrow its cage? What did you do?

ReadyMade is getting in on 30 Days of Creativity—which means we’re making something every day during the month of June! Read more about the initiative here. And check out what we made today:

"I have an online portfolio which serves as what I hope are 'highlights' of my writing and editing experience (there's the homepage, above). Which is great, though I felt using this site to catalog all of my work in total would be too overwhelming. Still, I wanted a place where I could log everything I’ve written, and keep it up to date, so I don’t have to keep spamming people with links.

The solution: Tumblr!

Tumblr is so so so easy to make look decent, and it’s the easiest self-publishing web platform I’ve encountered yet. On top of that, it’s pretty simple—though time consuming, so be patient—if you want to add personal design touches. First, sign up. To customize your Tumblr, first search for a theme you like (I Googled 'tumblr + minimalist + best + 2011 + free'), and then implement it as your page. If it’s still not quite right, go to your home page and hold Control + click (or right click for PC) and select 'View Source.' Here is the CSS style guide to everything that goes into making your page look the way it does.

Copy all of this. Go into your Tumblr dashboard, select 'Customize,' and click 'Advanced.' Paste all of your code into the box that says 'Add Custom CSS.'

You don’t have to be a programmer or a designer to start to make sense of all the code you’re looking at; you just have to have a mind for logic and patience. Start poking through, and make one small change at a time, making sure you have some sort of clipboard where you're saving original code. I start with text colors, as that's the easiest way to find out where 'sections' of code are designated on your page. You change the color with a hexadecimal code (that's a fancy way of saying 'six numbers/letters that determine a color'), which you'll know because you'll see something like this:

#Header h1 a { color:#4C6DA6; }

That's nerd code for 'The headline will be blue-gray.' Change that color# using a hex color code generator, hit 'Save,' and see what happened.

The more you poke around, the more you'll notice where certain images are saved that make up the design element, and if you have your own image hosting site, you can substitute in your own image URLs to take the place of what's in the template. Again, it's not difficult if you're not a computer whiz--you have to just keep doing one small thing at a time, making note of what happened, and not getting scared if it looks all crazy. Some people use web development clipboards like Firebug, and I have a feeling that might make life a lot easier, but I like to just jump right in there and treat the experience like a puzzle.

Here's what the template for my page looked like to start with:

And here's what it looks like now:

Anyone else have tips? Or links to Tumblr pages they've customized?" -Online Director Liz Armstrong

Jump on the 30 Days program with ReadyMade by sending a tweet to @createstuff on Twitter. And don't forget to follow ReadyMade on Twitter for a daily stream of DIY projects and ideas! 

Trashed Item Spotted: Los Angeles, CA

Situation: I spotted this well-used and sorely-neglected foosball table while walking my dog a few blocks south of our place. This is the kind of item that really makes me linger. Might be nice to have under cover in the backyard, or in the garage when we finally fix it up, right? It looked like it had been left out in the elements for too long—it was a little sun-faded and a lot dusty. Slightly beat up, but nothing that a touch of TLC wouldn't cure. Could be a fun project, but would we really ever care enough to get to it? 

Outcome: Table football! Table soccer! Foosball! Whatever you call it, it can be fun to play in a bar or a basement. That said, I don't think it really has a place in a home unless a tween, a teen, or a bunch of fraternity brothers or sorority sisters (equal opportunity, hey!) live there. I used it as a vessel to transport me back to childhood days spent playing in my east coast friends' finished basements, then left it behind.

What would you have done?

If you spot an interesting-looking item on the curbside or in a Dumpster near you, snap a pic, post it on our Facebook page, and ask "Take It Or Leave It?"

If you’re anything like me–rolling in radishes from the newly kicked-off CSA season, but less than in love with their vaguely dirty-socks-redolent aroma– you’ll want to try this briny salad, which mellows these flavors while maintaining radishes’ crunch and bite (and it turns them adorably pink!). This is best when allowed to sit overnight in the refrigerator before serving, and will keep up to a week.

Serve these radishes alone or alongside frittata, as a burger topping, or  with any fried fish dish instead of traditional slaw.

Pickley Radish Salad

1 small bunch radishes, sliced into very thin rounds (use a mandoline), about two cups
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 teaspoon agave nectar or honey
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
1/4 teaspoon white pepper
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon capers, drained

Whisk together vinegar, mustard, agave, lemon juice, salt, and pepper until thoroughly blended. Add olive oil and whisk to blend. 

Toss radishes, capers, and dressing together in a large bowl until coated; allow to sit several hours at room temperature or refrigerate overnight before serving.

Sure, a coat rack or hook keeps your jackets and coats on the wall, but where to store those other wintertime staples of hats, gloves, and scarves, as well as your wallet, keys, purse, etc? Brian got creative with some clean paint cans and whipped some high-functioning coat hooks.

ReadyMade contributor Erin Loechner spied this paint can wall art on the Swedish blog Skona Hem. She says, "Love color but can’t decide on a permanent solution? I love this idea of displaying empty paint buckets to form a unique color palette that’s as affordable as it is inspiring." 

The RM100 inspired this awesome geometric storage project that could easily be constructed using the smaller sample and quart-sized paint cans.

Derek and Lauren of the Curiousity Shop created this custom paint can coffee storage project.

Paint samples are also amazing fodder for decor and craft projects. They're sturdy, coated, brightly colored, and FREE! Perfect for hacking. Here's a wall in my dining room, inspired by a project featured on Design*Sponge.

From the ReadyMade archives, bold decorative paint chip orbs.

This pixelated portrait was created using square, single-color paint chips.

Another paint chip wall approach, taken quite literally in my own bedroom. 

And lastly, reuse empty paint cans for an adaptable hanging storage system. 

Have you ever seen an axolotl? This picture's been making the Internet rounds for quite a while now, and it's about time i gave axolotls their due for being so insanely adorable/creepy/amazing. Not only do they appear to be smiley little amigos, but they can also regenerate limbs at the drop of a hat. Axolotl is really fun to say out loud as well. Axolotl. Axolotl. See? Unfortunately, some of the cutest and strangest types of axolotls are endangered, and scientists aren't quite sure what to do about it. Here's a variety of axolotl representations; enjoy 'em!

Salamander Animal Totem Essence by Folk Spirit // Blue Axolotl by Jennova // Axolotl Amigurumi Pattern by Mr. Fox // Handprinted Axolotl Notebook by Mad Weevil // Axolotl Totem by Ravens Dreaming // A Lotl Axolotl Acrylic by Alison Ware // Axlolotl Magnet by Brak Budy // Axolotl Embroidery Pattern by Flossy Bobbin // Axolotl Art Doll by Sandra Arteaga

ReadyMade is getting in on 30 Days of Creativity—which means we’re making something every day during the month of June! Read more about the initiative here. And check out what we made today:

"Coming home is always fun. There are shelves and nooks and corners of childhood treasures. This time we found the LEGOS. Tools of our earliest creative efforts, and hours of entertainment. Erin, my younger sister, was always the LEGO gal, so she expertly built this monster. But the car was all me (and it even rolls, too!) Hello, sense of accomplishment. We're not taking apart these masterpieces anytime soon." -Editorial Apprentice Riane Menardi

Jump on the 30 Days program with ReadyMade, by sending a tweet to @createstuff on Twitter. And don't forget to follow ReadyMade on Twitter for a daily stream of DIY projects and ideas! 

ReadyMade is getting in on 30 Days of Creativity—which means we’re making something every day during the month of June! Read more about the initiative here. And check out what we made today:

"I crocheted this blanket for my niece using six balls of Lion Brand's Thick & Quick, a wool/acrylic blend. I've been using this yarn for a lot of projects lately because it's inexpensive, durable, and projects get completed super quickly with it. This blanket took maybe 45-minutes per skein of yarn. Aliya watched SpongeBob while I worked on it and surveyed its growth during the commercial breaks.

I'm pretty new to crocheting. My aunt made me a beautiful blanket of granny squares when I was a kid. I was going to do that, but then I just kept crocheting one single granny square—double crocheting once in each stitch and then doing two double crochets, two chains, and two more double crochets in the corners of every other row—until I used up all the yarn I'd purchased. I winged it, but it is similar to the Pansy Patch Throw and the Grand Granny Square Afghan, both available for free at the Lion Brand site." -"Do This With Your Pet" Blogger Anna Jane Grossman

Jump on the 30 Days program with ReadyMade, by sending a tweet to @createstuff on Twitter. And don't forget to follow ReadyMade on Twitter for a daily stream of DIY projects and ideas! 

I love rhubarb for a lot of reasons: its place, alongside asparagus, as a harbinger of summer’s bounty; the gorgeous rosy pink color it imparts to dishes; and most of all, its sweet, sour, slightly vegetal flavor. But as someone who tries to avoid going down the dessert path too often (especially, I hate to admit, in swimsuit season), I find my rhubarb-consumption options limited. Sure, there are rhubarb chutney and rhubarb pickles, but I want more rhubarb in my life.

Luckily, I love cocktails, and cocktails seem to love rhubarb. And why shouldn’t they? Its sweet-tartness and lovely hue make it a natural for cocktails, and it’s versatile enough to mix with your favorite tipple, whatever that may be.

Gin fans will love Houseboat Eats’s “rhubarberol” cocktail (pictured up top), which pairs homemade rhubarb syrup with Aperol, an Italian aperitif, for just enough bitterness to add complexity; Giovannas Trifles uses muddled rhubarb itself for a twist on a classic gin and tonic; and The Whole Kitchen adds fresh basil and a squeeze of lime to the mix, for the ultra-seasonal Rhubarb Bloom.

As a Sazerac devotee, I was excited to find some options pairing rhubarb with rye—Recipe Relay mixes homemade rhubarb-strawberry compote with rye and ginger ale for a not-too-sweet salute to spring; my only recommendation here would be to stir up a pitcher of these at a time–at least if you’re inviting me over. Seattle Met’s Rhubarb 'n' Rye (from local farm-to-table restaurant Tilth) uses my favorite, Old Overholt, along with homemade rhubarb-and-lemon verbena syrup for the cocktail that’s just taken over the top of my personal cocktails-to-make list.

And of course, summer wouldn’t be summer without margaritas consumed outside on sultry evenings. I’m by no means a traditionalist, and think either this rhubarb syrup-based margarita from Recipe Relay (again!), an even “rhubarbier” edition from Happy Hour In The High Peaks, which uses syrup as well as cooked rhubarb puree, or the more complex Ruirita from A Dash Of Bitters, which is a bit of a cheat because it uses premade rhubarb bitters rather than the fresh stuff, but sounds so tasty I wanted to include it.

So get seasonal in your mixological experiments—and, um, bottoms up!

ReadyMade is getting in on 30 Days of Creativity—which means we’re making something every day during the month of June! Read more about the initiative here. And check out what we made today:

"After a massive graduation party, we had leftover tortillas that were too crunchy for burritos or wraps (warming them all day in an oven will do that). So my sister and I fried them up to make bunuelos, a dessert tortilla chip dish. Cut flour tortillas into chip-sized pieces, fry them in some vegetable oil, and dip the chips in a cinnamon-sugar mix. Super easy, super tasty. Indulge with ice cream and chocolate syrup for an authentic Mexican treat." -Editorial Apprentice Riane Menardi

Jump on the 30 Days program with ReadyMade by sending a tweet to @createstuff on Twitter. And don't forget to follow ReadyMade on Twitter for a daily stream of DIY projects and ideas! 

A little more than a year old, the awesome eyewear company Warby Parker (who we’ve shown some love to in the past) is back at it again with their first-ever pair of sunglasses. But like many of the start-up’s other products (since its inception, Warby Parker’s buy-a-pair, give-a-pair program has proven to be a major philanthropic success), these dark specs do a whole lot more than protect peepers from the harsh summer rays. We talked with one of Warby Parker co-founders, Neil Blumenthal, to get the scoop on the new shades:

ReadyMade: Warby Parker now has sunglasses! Can you tell us about them?
Neil Blumenthal: We’ll be releasing a whole line of sunglasses in the near future, but for our first set of sunglasses, we’re having a sales collaboration with Invisible Children. When someone buys a pair of the “socially conscious sunglasses,” $30 of the sale will go directly to the non-for-profit that helps rehabilitate child soldiers.

How did Warby Parker choose to partner with Invisible Children?
We met at a conference called Summit Series, an annual gathering or innovators, non-profit leaders, and academics. I got to know the founders of Invisible Children (Jason Russell, Bobby Bailey, and Laren Poole) really well and realized we had a lot in common in terms of the approach we take to leading our organizations and thought it would be a great idea to collaborate.

The amazing thing about Invisible Children is number one, the impact that they have. They’re helping thousands of the most vulnerable people on Earth—children who’ve been orphaned because of conflict in Central Africa. Invisible Children helps build rehabilitation centers and schools for people who were former soldiers or kids and families who’ve been displaced because of war. A lot of people don’t pay attention to this issue, but Invisible Children has been able to shine a light on it through their amazing storytelling abilities. In the last few years, they've been able to raise $30 million, and 80 percent has come from donations of $20 or less—it really speaks to the grassroots nature of what they're doing. 

Why sunglasses? 
Sunglasses are highly visible, and we wanted to use them as a call to action for what Invisible Children is doing. The name of their organization is labeled on the outside of the frame, and on the inside we’ve inscribed the message, “Do more than just watch.” We’re hoping it’ll encourage and activate people to do something good. Warby Parker is looking to build a long-term relationship with Invisible Children—these sunglasses are just the first step. There will be much more to come in the future. 

Learn more about Invisible Children in the video below. And snag your own pair of these special sunglasses ($95) here.

[Image via Warby Parker] 

I have to say... I bought into the party line about Salt Lake City. Although I have breezed through it on countless trips through Utah on I-80, I've never so much as stopped to gawk at Temple Square. When Claire and I started planning our summer road trip, we both realized that Salt Lake City was one of the few major cities in the country that neither of us had spent time in. Chalk it up to a mutual dislike of Jell-O salad, I guess. This was a wrong begging to be righted.

We realized that there was a great chance that Salt Lake City had plenty to offer, so we decided to spend a couple of days there. Needless to say, we made the right choice. I'm an idiot for ignoring the city for most of my adult life. I didn't really have the means to visit for the Olympics, and I've never been able to make it to Park City for Sundance, but I have tons of friends who have, and most of them have very kind things to say about Salt Lake City.

We rolled in on day one after a long drive and settled into the four star hotel that we Pricelined for less money than the Super 8 Motel that we stayed in the night before. Things were already looking up! After a bit of poking around on Yelp, we settled on a lovely restaurant for dinner called the Copper Onion that served delicious entrees and salads that used plenty of local ingredients. We had an asparagus soup and a beet vinaigrette salad that was a welcome compliment to the heavy (but amazing) Basque meal that we stumbled onto at the Martin Hotel in Winnemucca, Nevada earlier that day.

The next morning, we got up and went to Temple Square. Both Claire and I are kind of obsessed with dioramas, and it seems like the Latter-Day Saints have got the diorama thing dialed in. The visitor's centers are full of interactive dioramas and architectural models that will make you a little bit ashamed of that cigar box model of the Pleistocene that you tried to pass off on your third grade teacher. On a crafty note, they have an awe-inspiring display of antique handmade wooden furniture from the temple, as well as the tools that were used to make them.

After we finished Temple Square, we grabbed a quick lunch, then headed to Broadway to check out the antique and vintage stores. We were sorely disappointed to find Frosty Darling mysteriously closed on a Tuesday afternoon. We have it on good authority that Frosty Darling is the go-to place in SLC for retro-modern crafty goodness. Sigh. Maybe next time.

Our disappointment turned to joy when we crossed the threshold of Retro Rose, which might be the best-curated modern antique store that I've ever seen. Everything in Retro Rose is meticulously organized by color. The store is literally stuffed floor to ceiling with insane furniture and knick-knacks from the '50s, '60s, and '70s. Upon entry, we were instructed by the friendly manager that we needed to look high and low if we were going to see everything in the store. It was impossible to see everything in the two levels of the store without camping out and spending a couple of days. We managed to escape with a few essential purchases, with our wallets relatively intact.

I nicknamed this little section of Salt Lake City "Alt Lake City." It seems like the people in Salt Lake City who aren't doing the whole mainstream Salt Lake City thing try extra hard to fill the city with music and culture.

We were also blown away by the other antique and vintage stores in the area. The Green Ant is a store on Broadway that specializes in mid-century modern pieces like Eames armshell chairs with Eiffel Tower bases. The owner (like most SLC shop owners) was super-friendly and knowledgeable. If MCM furniture is your thing, it seems like Salt Lake City is a rich hunting ground. Other interesting shops along Broadway were Beehive Collectors Gallery and Ken Sanders Rare Books. A person could easily lose a day roaming among the businesses on this tiny chunk of Broadway alone.

We also checked out the Salt Lake City Fine Arts Center, which was hosting a show by one of my favorite artists, Robert Fonenot. Fontenot is a whiz with a needle and thread, and has taught himself to do all sorts of applique, embroidery, and other needlework. For the show, he also created a few major pieces out of bread dough and produced a limited-edition artist book of Salt Lake City icons rendered in the medium. The arts community in Salt Lake City seemed to be buzzing.

Our happiest experience in Salt Lake City centered around FOOD! We managed to avoid the dreaded Jell-O salad and used Yelp and other websites to help us navigate the myriad options we had at our disposal. We decided to splurge on our final dinner at Forage, which is the city's most beloved place for gourmet gastronomy. Forage was started by chefs Bowman Brown and Viet Pham a couple of years ago with the goal of combining cutting-edge techniques with sustainable local food and great wine. We were lucky enough to get a reservation for their nine course tasting menu, which took around three glorious hours.

Some menu highlights include the amuse bouche, which was a roasted sweet onion croquette with a crispy exterior and an interior filled with an intense liquid sweet onion filling that exploded when you popped the thing in your mouth. The first appetizer was a soft "scrambled" egg that was served in its own shell with layers of maple syrup and some sherry cream on the top. I'm still dreaming of it. There were four main courses, which included a butter poached dungeness crab that was served with a Thai spiced foam, truffles and potatoes, and a scallop "mille feuille" that consisted of layers of delicious thinly-sliced scallops alternated with thinly-sliced German "speck" ham.

After a palate cleanser of juniper and lemon beverage in a tiny glass, we got to sample the chef's crushed rhubarb "crumble" that was served with a slightly carbonated yogurt, douglas fir ice cream and sorrel. The meal is lodged firmly in the top three restaurant meals that I've ever had.

I'll now go out of my way to find reasons to go to "Alt Lake City." Maybe I'll try to convince Claire to come back through on our drive home.

Next stop....DENVER!

BUYABLE:

• The Wayfarer Pack is available for pre-order—just in time for your outdoorsy dad. And your non-outdoorsy dad. And, you know, yourself. ($199)
• Men's shorts inspired by Ghana tailors and the art deco movement. Can you imagine a better pairing? ($79)
• An out of this world volcano tee that you really, really need to own. (£35)

READABLE:

• A self-explanatory tumblr worth a giggle: WTF Is Prince Wearing?
• Apparently, you can dye fabric with flax. Amazing!
• Strangers taking each other's photos. Love this concept!

DOABLE:

• Take a walk through your city and start planking. Trust us. You'll have the best time ever.
• Download this Father's Day mix of songs your favorite dude used to listen to.
• Transform your honey's old polo shirt duds into a hip bow-tie shirt for yourself!

Click away!

Tomorrow:

Etsy Craft Party
Everywhere, The World

No matter where you live or what you love to make, you are invited to participate. Musicians, painters, sculptors, photographers, farmers, hackers, gardeners, designers, jewelers, bookbinders, printmakers, teachers, makers and doers of all stripes, as well as art enthusiasts, curators, vintage lovers and supporters of the independently made, Etsy wants you to join in on a party, concentrated on crafting. To join in on a Craft Party near you, head over to Meetup Everywhere and find your town on the map.

Unraveled DIY Festival
Minneapolis, MN 

This festival is an opportunity for the younger generation of surface design enthusiasts and crafters to showcase their work. Held at the Rapson Architecture Center on the University of MinnesotaTwin Cities Campus, the happening will include a craft show, films, yarnbombing, music, and outdoor gallery. Entrance is a whopping three bucks. Check out their site for more info. 

This weekend:

Renegade Craft Fair
Brooklyn, NY 

Who's coming to visit yours truly this weekend in McCarren Park? As if we even have to tell you: The Renegade Craft Fair features a ton of amazing local and national crafters and artisans selling their wares. There will also be food, drinks, and DIY workshops, 'cause what's a handmade fair without this lovely trifecta of amenities? Shop from a vast array of independently designed jewelry, clothing, paper goods, home and garden goods, posters, artwork, plush objects, bath and body products, and so much more! We're obviously stoked and hope you are too. Don't forget to come say hi—and craft with us—at the ReadyMade booth. 

Thread Show
Los Angeles, CA

• Shop from loads of trendsetting designers bringing you men’s and women’s clothing, accessories, shoes, jewelry and a whole lot more. Do it yourself (because nobody does it better) at the DIY booth with live crafting on-site. Sip away on signature cocktails, get a mini-mani from a local nail salon, or bro down in the  Man-cave featuring some mantastic fun. (What this means, we're not sure, but it sounds intriguing). Get more info and updates at the Thread Show website. 

Share the happenings going on near you with the ReadyMade community. Post your DIY-ish events in our calendar! 

[Images via Etsy and Renegade Craft Fair] 

ReadyMade is getting in on 30 Days of Creativity—which means we’re making something every day during the month of June! Read more about the initiative here. And check out what we made today:

“It’s our dog’s first birthday, so we felt like we needed to do it up big. I followed this recipe for his birthday cake...turns out, that’s a whole lotta banana bundt cake. After we sang happy birthday (nerdy, I know...can’t be helped), Jasper dug into a piece topped with fresh banana. I think he liked it!” -Assistant Editor Alexa Fornoff

Jump on the 30 Days program with ReadyMade, by sending a tweet to @createstuff on Twitter. And don't forget to follow ReadyMade on Twitter for a daily stream of DIY projects and ideas! 

Related: Make some pupsicles for your pooch

My desk at RM's NY HQ, in real, plastic-covered time. 

Yesterday afternoon I was out grabbing a bite to eat with a friend when it hit me: "I consume plastic for lunch," I told him as I was paying for my meal. "No, no, I said I don't need a bag!" I screamed at the checkout dude who was putting my salad—in its plastic clamshell packaging—in a plastic takeout bag with a plastic knife and a plastic fork at the bistro near our office. 

"Tell me about it," my friend said. 

I have something I need to get off my chest: I use far too much non-recyclable plastic.

Sure, I learned a lot of lessons during my Week Without Garbage. I vowed to contribute less waste, to pack my lunches in reusable containers. But then I moved to New York and I got busy and learned to lean on the deliciousness of New York salad bars. I just got lazy. Finally, after chatting with Serene Bacigalupi about how the containers used in many salad bars can't be recycled in NYC (she uses the material to make Shrinky Dinks), I realized today that something needs to change. I have to cut my plastic-consuming addiction. 

This isn't my proposal to start a Week Without Plastic; Katherine already did that (and it's an excellent series, if you haven't already had the pleasure of reading it). Instead, this is my public vow to quit my non-Earth-friendly habit. I refuse to throw plastic in the trash can any longer! 

Wow, that statement overwhelmed me. That's probably not possible, right? OK, let me try that again:

I vow to seriously cut my daily plastic consumption! 

Oh, dear Mother of Zeus. I'm not even sure what this means. But like a smoker wanting to go cold-turkey, over the next two weeks I'm going to make some serious lifestyle changes to help kick my plastic problem. And I'll be checking in along the way to let you know how it's going. I'll start with tips from Jeanette's great write-up full of ways to help me say no to plastic. Still, I'm scared. Will I have to lug around lunch containers all over Manhattan? Will the cutie barista think I'm a Brooklyn hippie when I hand over my own cold-coffee cup? Can I ever eat at the salad bar again? To be continued....

(In the meantime, any advice—besides not being lazy, I get that—will be greatly appreciated...) 

To celebrate the wonderful, empowering, and delicious gift of growing our own food (even when we're not sure what the heck we're actually growing), I'm giving away a copy of Making Supper Safe by Ben Hewitt.

Hewitt runs a small-scale, diversified hill farm with his wife and two sons where they produce dairy, beef, pork, lamb, vegetables, and berries. And they live in a self-built home that's powered by a windmill and solar photovoltaic panels. Pretty cool. In Making Supper Safe, Hewitt exposes the vulnerabilities inherent to the US food industry, where the majority of our processing facilities are inspected only once every seven years, and where government agencies lack the necessary resources to act on early warning signs. From dumpster diving to the battle over food rights to genetically engineered salmon and the interplay between humans and the bacteria they consume, Hewitt explores the untold story of food safety with humor and good-natured skepticism.

All you have to do to enter is leave a comment on this post by 11 AM EST Friday, June 10, telling us how you stay knowledgeable about what you eat, and we'll select the winner at random. Remember to comment using your real email address, so we can notify the winner. Ready, set, go! 

Without a doubt, this is one of the most eclectic collection of places I’ve ever put together in a single blog post, so hang on tight. A few weeks ago, I was talking to someone about cool hotel lobbies here in NYC. Since my friend was also interested in drinking I mentioned the bar in the Ace Hotel lobby, which I love, despite the fact that tons of other people love going there too. I give the lobby an A+ for décor. One of the things I love about it is a mural that curves along a back wall and up the staircase (pictured above). It was created by Bronx-born artist Michael Anderson. Back in the early 1990s he began to collect graffiti stickers and nowadays, his collection numbers in the tens of thousands. The mural was made using scans of about 4,000 stickers that were printed (in black-and-white) on silk paper, and assembled into an awesome collage.

Talking about that mural at the Ace reminded me of some of the artistic creations that I have encountered in other hotel lobbies. An odd roundup for your perusal below. And a slideshow of images here.

Gadsden Hotel
Douglas, Arizona

In my opinion, the biggest surprise waiting for visitors to the Gadsden is the sprawling, 42-foot-long Tiffany & Co. stained glass mural decorating a mezzanine in the lobby (reached by grand marble staircase).  The colorful desert landscape motif includes saguaro cactus, ocotillo, agave, and prickly pear cactus. I’ve never seen anything like it before or since passing through the town a few years ago. (Someone made a short—and shaky—video of it here.)

Named after the famous Gadsden Purchase (the 1853 treaty that added a sizeable chunk of land in southern Arizona and western New Mexico), the hotel opened in 1907. BTW: the walls of Saddle and Spur Tavern, just off the lobby, are decorated with a hundreds of different styles of livestock branding symbols. A great place for cowboys and cowgirls to toss a few back.

Camino Real
El Paso, Texas

I was in El Paso this past weekend, and since hotels were on my mind I decided to see if there was anything in El Paso to write about. I knew I wanted to mention the Tiffany treasure in the Gadsden, so I was pleasantly surprised to learn that another Tiffany & Co. design awaited me in the Camino Real (formerly the Paso Del Norte Hotel).

It’s located in the Dome Bar, which was the original lobby to the hotel when it was built in 1912. Here, the two-story vaulted-ceiling houses the 25 ft. diameter stained glass artwork. It’s pretty spectacular.

Hotel Chelsea
New York, NY

Ornate wrought-iron balconies decorate the façade of the Chelsea Hotel (built in 1883) and distinguish it from most of the other architecture you’ll find on this stretch of 23rd Street between 7th and 8th Avenues. Despite the eye-catching invitation out front, I find that a surprisingly high number of people I know have never bothered to poke their heads into the lobby. Anyone who does is treated to a bonanza of artworks from an army of visual artists (many were former guests) spanning past decades.

Gramercy Park Hotel
New York NY

This spot is pretty over-the-top fabulous, but that’s to be expected given the fact that hotelier Ian Schrager enlisted artist Julian Schnabel to decorate his hotel. Awe-inducing works (mostly by Schnabel) also include Andy Warhol, Cy Twombly, Richard Prince, Damien Hirst, and Jean-Michel Basquiat. Schnabel also designed many of the furnishings himself, including the sawtooth lamp in the main lobby.

Hotel Congress
Tucson, Arizona

I’d be remiss if I didn’t include the Hotel Congress (built in 1919) in this roundup: I worked in the cafe for a few years when I was in college (ages ago), so it holds a special place in my heart. If you ask me, they have packed too many tables and chairs in and around the hotel over the years, but whatever; it still has its charms.

The lobby, the hotel’s most distinctive design feature, was painted by artist Larry Boyce. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find out much about him. According to the hotel’s website, Boyce arrived on bicycle in the spring of 1989 and offered to decorate the lobby in “Southwest Deco.” 

And be sure to check out the slideshow of hotel entrances. 

Who, in your opinion, has the best hotel lobby?

The first time I had a bona fide Cuba Libre was at a dark and dingy punk rock-ish bar in Berlin. We had spent the day wandering around exploring neighborhoods—the sun had gone down hours earlier—and needed a drink, pronto. My husband ordered a beer, but I thought seeing a Cuba Libre on the bar's chalkboard was funny since it wasn't the most tropical setting. So I ordered one. 

Sure, I had an idea that it would be a glorified rum and Coke—or so I thought. After my first sip, I was completely hooked. You could say that it was a balmy night and I was in an exciting, foreign city so almost anything would be fantastic. And the drink seems so simple and pedestrian: Coca Cola, rum, and lime served over ice. That's it. But put all the ingredients together, and it's refreshing, tart, and full of bubbles, not to mention the rum gives you a great head buzz. 

Since that night in Berlin, I've made this drink countless times and it never disappoints. It's ideal for hot summer afternoons. The caffeine kicker helps to keep you awake well into the night. 

You can use either white rum or dark rum—I go with dark since the flavor is deeper and more caramelized, which blends with the soda nicely. Goslings Rum is my favorite, and I like to muddle the spent lime with my straw to help release the fruit's bitter oils.  

Cuba Libre

1 1/2 oz rum
Juice of 1/2 lime
Cola 

Fill a tall and skinny highball glass with ice. Pour in the rum and squeeze in the lime juice. Drop in the spent lime, top with cola, and give it a stir. Garnish with a lime wheel. 

ReadyMade is getting in on 30 Days of Creativity—which means we’re making something every day during the month of June! Read more about the initiative here. And check out what we made today:

"Our office in New York is not the greatest. Despite stellar views of Grand Central and windows that open (yes, this is something to get excited about since it's unfortunately a rarity in New York high-rises), it's looks like it's sort of out of a bad 1980s-era film about insurance salesmen. But recently, we had our ReadyMade 100 launch party at the Wooly and found ourselves neck-deep in killer projects we had built at our office back in Des Moines.

"One of my favorite ways to get creative on a daily basis is tinkering with the spaces where I find myself spending a lot of time, so I decided to set up a little reading corner featuring a few of our projects for all of RM NYC to enjoy. We are still working on our reading collection, but right now, if you ever happen to come by and say hello, you could immerse yourself in The Beatles Anthology, Terra Incognita, Pulled: A Catalogue of Screen Printing by Mike Perry, or a few of Macro-Sea’s amazing 'Project Studies.' We’d also gladly treat you to a cup of coffee and the views of Grand Central are always free!" -Editor in Chief Andrew Wagner

Jump on the 30 Days program with ReadyMade, by sending a tweet to @createstuff on Twitter. And don't forget to follow ReadyMade on Twitter for a daily stream of DIY projects and ideas! 

Remember ice cream cake from birthday parties when we were kids? I loved that stuff—with the layer of crunchy chocolate cookie in the middle, the vanilla and chocolate ice cream (or frozen yogurt if you were lucky enough to have one from TCBY), and the frosting that didn't really taste like anything, but that had an enjoyable whipped texture. Man, those cakes were good. And I'm betting, from the looks of it, that this pie would be reminiscent of those delicious desserts. It has a similar crunchy-chocolate cookie layer, kicked up with the addition of peanut butter. If I was going to make this, I might top it with chopped-up pretzels to get a bit of salt in the mix. Either way, I'm pretty sure I'd want to lick the plate clean, just like I did as a kid.

Frozen Peanut Butter Pie
"My Peanut Butter Pie has been a winner since the day I made it. It's a rich and creamy, peanut-buttery pie with a crunchy chocolate crust topped with a chocolate drizzle and peanut butter cups. You can't go wrong with chocolate and peanut butter—they were meant to be!" —Kelly Erickson

Servings:  8
Prep time: 30 minutes
Cook time: Freezer time - 4 hours
Total time: hours 30 minutes
 
Ingredients:
3/4 box of chocolate Teddy Grahams
6 tbsp melted butter (sweet cream)
4 tbsp sugar
8 oz cream cheese
1 cup creamy peanut butter
1 cup sugar plus 2 tablespoons
8 oz tub cool whip - straight from freezer
4 mini peanut butter cups - halved
1/4 cup peanut butter baking chips
Chocolate drizzle (I used Smuckers Hot Fudge Ice Cream Topping melted)
 
Directions:
1. Start by crushing the Teddy Grahams in a large freezer baggie with your rolling pin until they are crushed. Pour into a large pie tin.
2. Melt butter about 45 seconds in microwave until completely melted. Pour the butter over the crushed grahams and use a fork to mix together. Use your fingers to press and form the crust. Refrigerate while making the filling.
3. To make filling, start with a large mixing bowl. Add cream cheese and peanut butter and cream together using an electric beater. Add the sugar and beat again until sugar is dissolved.
4. Remove the cool whip from the freezer and add to filling. Use a pulsing method with the beater, pulse until cool whip is completely beat in. Filling should be stiff but creamy.
5. Remove crust from refrigerator and add filling. Spread evenly into crust.
6. Time to decorate! Use the halved mini peanut butter cups and press them into the pie in a circle. They are placed so when you cut the pie, each slice has a mini cup half. Sprinkle peanut butter chips over pie and lighly press in. Freeze for about 4 hours before serving and keep frozen until you serve. When its time to serve, melt the hot fudge in the microwave about 20 seconds. Slice a piece, plate it and with a spoon drizzle the fudge over the pie. Eat!

If you have a recipe to share, email it to articles @readymademag.com for a chance to see it here or in an upcoming issue of ReadyMade.

With our wedding quickly approaching, I'm doing my best to enjoy the tasks I'm crossing off my to-do list. But I truly loved making these place cards, as they provided me with a few hours of sewing on my back porch last weekend. And yes, while it did take me a few weeks to decide how to handle this element (let's just say googling "DIY placecards" leads to a lot of blog reading), the end result was very straight-forward and inexpensive. All in all, I think I spent $12 on supplies (the place cards and the hole punch) and was able to use other sewing supplies (fabric scraps and thread left over from embroidering my sister's dress) that I had in the house.

I love the way that these place cards turned out because they add a little touch of handmade to what is essentially a piece of paper with a name on it. I can definitely see myself making variations of these in the future for other events since the basic method is so easily adaptable.

Embroidered Place Cards
I spent a lot of time trying to come up with place cards that were easy to make, not too time consuming, and had a touch of handmade. Since we're having our reception at a restaurant and won't be adding any other decorations, these will tie into the other DIY elements throughout the day—and to the underlying theme of stitchery.

Materials
Plain white place cards
3/4 inch round hole punch
Fabric
Scissors
Embroidery thread
Embroidery needle

1. Decide how many versions of cards that you are making. I made two to indicate which entree choice guests will be having at our wedding (in an attempt to make it easier for the servers).
2. Center your hole punch on one side of the lower half of the place card and punch. My cards where thin enough that I could do two at a time.
3. Divide your embroidery thread in half if it's the normal 6-strand and thread your needle with a secure knot on the long end.
4. Cut a square of fabric that's slightly larger than the hole. Hold it in place on the back of your place card.
5. Stitch around the circle, starting at the back so your knot is on the back of the place card. Tie off when you reach the beginning of the circle. You can make your stitches as little or as large as you like but mine were about 1/4 inch.
6. Repeat until you make enough for your guests, plus a few extra to allow for mistakes.
7. Find a friend with excellent handwriting and kindly ask them to write your guests names on for you.

For more place card ideas and inspiration, check out this slideshow. 

It's summer in Chicago. Spring completely passed us by—I wore a North Face jacket while walking the dog a week ago—but temperatures have shot into the 80s and 90s over the last few days and my apartment already resembles a sauna. Our shoddy wooden floors are sweating from the humidity. The heat brings with it an annual debate: to purchase an air conditioner or not to purchase an air conditioner.

Last year around this time we slept in a bedroom with a window that didn't open. It wasn't pretty. Throughout the season we made do with freezing cold showers before bed, a ceiling fan, crispy white sheets, and lots of "don't touch me's." On Day 3 of a particularly horrendous heatwave that erased every memory of snow I had ever had, we finally trekked to Home Depot intent on purchasing one of the portable units. They had been sold out since Day 1 of the high temperatures earlier that week. Nothing was available online. Nothing was available in the suburbs. The Midwest was entirely devoid of portable air conditioners.

So we made do. More cold showers. Less clothes. Cool washcloths on our foreheads at night. Naps on the breezy back porch. Our friends thought we were crazy. Most live without central air but a window-unit air conditioner in the bedroom seems to be pretty standard. Since our window had been painted shut since we moved in that was not an option, but this year, we have a new window that actually opens and closes and an AC unit is finally doable. But I'm dragging my heels.

A ceiling fan uses about 80-100 watts of electricity. An air conditioner can be ten times that. This means extra dollars on my electric bill and, even more seriously, extra strain on the environment: the more we use air conditioners, the more we need air conditioners, due to the climate-changing greenhouse gases these electricity guzzling appliances emit.

They make my throat hurt when I wake up. My nose gets stuffed up.

Using air conditioners means closing the windows which means trapping myself inside. I wouldn't be able to hear the kids playing ball across the street or the paletero ringing his bell or the birds chirping in the mornings. 

If I used an air conditioner I might be more likely to use my oven—a big no-no in this heat-trapping apartment—instead of getting outdoors and grilling some burgers to eat al fresco on the back porch. I may spend less time outside period, since my body will grow unaccustomed to hot weather if I'm sitting in AC both at work and at home.

I may experience less of what makes summertime summertime, and since Chicago only gets precious few months of these temperatures I think I should fully embrace everything they offer: street festivals, cookouts, boat tours, beach visits, rooftop dining, cold showers, and don't touch me's.

I'm intent on holding out on air conditioning. But, please, check back with me in August. I may melt away.

What about you? Are you an air conditioner lover or avoider?

And be sure to check out this round up of ways to stay cool without an air conditioner. 

[Top Photo by Flickr user ToddMorris used under Creative Commons License]

Thanks to a link from the always amazing Cathy of California, I was overwhelmed by the recent collection of quilts from Kathryn Clark. A former urban planner, Clark was moved to make a statement about the numerous foreclosures she began to see in the last few years. The above quilt shows foreclosed homes in a neighborhood map as ripped-out spaces revealing red blocks underneath.

Clark speaks of her work so profoundly that I don't want to add too much of my own rambling except to say that I'm always interested to see how art, social commentary, and craft intersect, and these quilts are a great example. Here's a link to her discussion at Hand/Eye, a magazine that I was also excited to discover. You can also find more images and info at Clark's blog (the Detroit foreclosure quilt is especially troubling).

ReadyMade is getting in on 30 Days of Creativity—which means we’re making something every day during the month of June! Read more about the initiative here. And check out what we made today:

"With today's inspiration being fashion, I took a break from writing (as evident from my notes in the background), to give myself a leopard manicure. I wasn't into donning eccentric designs on my digits—for myself, at least—until I interviewed nail artist Fleury Rose at Tomahawk Salon in Brooklyn. Her idea of putting a bright pattern on my nails to punch up my whole outfit had me hooked. And after shooting and editing the video on a DIY spring leopard manicure, I was well-versed in the how-to. But, still, I was skeptical of my skills.

"30 Days motivated me to give her tutorial a shot myself. And I have to say: I'm proud of my work! I used two pastel colors from Urban Outfitters for the base and the spots, and black acrylic paint with a fine-point brush for the outline (a trick I picked up from Fleury). Finally, I sealed in the design with a clear top coat. Fleury was right: Leopard print is great beginner nail art because it's super-forgiving if you mess up, which I did a ton on my dominant hand—yikes." -Online Assistant Caitlin Thornton

Jump on the 30 Days program with ReadyMade by sending a tweet to @createstuff on Twitter. And don't forget to follow ReadyMade on Twitter for a daily stream of DIY projects and ideas! 

Whenever my mom serves tea, she likes to mention that her sugar tin came from the local crematorium: the little flowered canister once housed her cat's ashes. Everyone usually opts for honey.

We laugh about it but I know that, for her, the tin has real meaning. Her cat's remains are now under a bush in the yard, but the can serves as a visual daily reminder of the last leg of their relationship. It's kind of sweet that she has the opportunity to think of him every time she reaches for the sugar.

Today's pet lovers might be chided for indulging their furry friends while they're alive, but there's nothing new about going to great lengths to honor a dead pet. The Ancient Egyptians mummified their cats and made them their own pyramids, complete with dead mice for them to enjoy in the afterlife. Today, there are pet cemeteries that will inter your ashes along with your animals'. (At a pet cemetery near New York, there's one cat grave I saw that says “Here we sleep forever, I and my beloved Bibi, my loving companion for fourteen years, together in life, together in death,” while another gravestone lists a couple and their sixteen cats.) There is also at least one company that specializes in scattering pet ashes from planes over public parks.

Personally, I don't think I'd go those routes. But I wouldn't object to, say, saving a bit of Amos's hair. I'm not sure what I'd do with it. I suppose it would be nice to do something vaguely meaningful. Fortunately, the grieving animal lover has many options for figuring out how to best honor a departed friend without having to charter a flight over the Sierra Nevada. Here are some of the more interesting memorial options I’ve encountered:

Memorial Pendants

A small amount of your pet’s remains or a clipping of hair can be placed into lots of different kind of pendants or lockets. Plenty are available on Etsy, but you can also purchase ones that are especially made for this purpose and are shaped like bones and balls of yarns. The notion that a bone should represent a dog and yarn should represent a cat seems sort of cliche to me, but I’m an over-thinker. (I'd totally let my son have a pink casket.)

On PetsWeLoved.com, a site that caters to those looking to memorialize their pets in jewelry, my eye went straight for a round charm with a little indent in it. It looked the most designer-y of all the options—almost an Elsa Peretti-esque abstraction. Only after clicking on it did I read the text: It’s supposed to be a pet food dish. That’s not really the object I’d pick to convey the essence of Amos for posterity. But you could pretend it’s a Rolo.

Paw Print Castings

A majority of the commissions received by the Washington couple behind pets-paws.com are from dog and cat owners who have either recently lost a pet or are about to lose one. Make an impression of your animal's paw using a kit that they’ll send you, or you can use Play-Doh (their site demonstrates how to do this). The resulting impressions (which are made in brass, copper, bronze, or aluminum) start at $59 and can be made into wearable pendants.

Ash Artwork

Michigan artist Gretchen Kiefer has been recently advertising custom pet portraits with a twist: She mixes up to four ounces of an animal's cremains with plaster and uses it to paint a picture of your departed loved one. Her custom made plaster paintings start at $325.

Nose Prints

Your dog’s nose has been in some interesting places—and now it’ll live on in your jewelry box. Robin Durnbaugh of Fort Wayne, Indiana, creates pendants using an imprint of your dog’s nose. She can also incorporate your fingerprint on the pendant’s backside. The nose print jewelry can be made in chrome, silver, white gold, or yellow gold. Prices range from $195 to $755.

Ash Diamonds

Send a sample of hair or eight ounces of cremated remains to LifeGem and they’ll turn the carbon into a diamond in whatever cut or color you’d like. Prices start at $2,690. 

DNA Helix Pendant

Submit a sample of your pet’s DNA (taken from hair or a cheek swab) to Perpetua and they’ll somehow use this to create a magnified replica of his or her DNA helix, made using a sample you provide. These pieces wouldn’t visually remind you of your pet—unless your pet had crazy big DNA. But they are pretty enough. The website, which offers the helixes in several colors and styles starting at $75, suggests the pendants are a good way to “Keep your companion close always, even at those swanky parties. They are a great conversation starter.”

Homemade Can Memorial

At Instructables, user Ninzerbean has a cute step-by-step on how to make a memorial for your dog using an old sardine can, some of your pets hair and photo. I really love the addition of the dog’s collar as a border around the edge. And what dog wouldn’t love spending eternity surrounded by the sweet smell of smoked fish?

[Images via Andy Castro on Flickr, Etsy, Pets We Loved, People Pets, and Life Gem]

In my last blog post I talked about being a bit bored with current design trends, and decided to feature several designers whose work is anything but, hoping to liven up my mind and awaken inspiration. Second to bat: Paul Evans.

Evans was an American sculptor, metalsmith, and furniture designer working primarily in the '60s and '70s who is best known for his influential Brutalist furniture and sculpture. Brutalism was an early '50s architectural movement stemming from Modernism, whose buildings were characterized by their crudity and angularity. Stone, concrete, and brick were popular building materials, yet they were wrought in ways that gave exteriors a rough, craggy, sometimes puzzle-like complexity of form. 

Evans applied these same aesthetic principles to furniture, creating chunky, deeply textural works of art that masqueraded as utilitarian objects. He produced several lines for the manufacturer Directional, the most well known of which is probably his Cityscape series, which comprised a range of furniture sheathed in a sleek patchwork of metal, mirror, and wood. Other works include highly sculptural armoires in cast bronze that resemble African textiles, compact, maze-like wooden table bases that seem both static and terrifyingly alive, and credenzas whose finish evokes the brushwork of Picasso’s "Guernica."

These pieces are not for the faint of heart—they are, in fact, almost malicious-looking. But in that same way that something ugly can be beautiful, Evans' work is transcendental and captivating. It is likely that Evans' background as sculptor and metalworker precipitated his unique treatment of surfaces. He could make the front of a buffet look eroded and sinewy, like the inside of a dank cave; a bedroom set evokes a hall of mirrors, each angle undulating into itself like a Frank Gehry nightmare. These are clearly rather polarizing designed objects—and I wouldn’t want to fill a whole home with them, but one statement-making piece can change the tenor of an entire room, giving it a depth and texture previously lacking.

Though his furniture was mass-produced, the days of running across originals at thrift stores (I’ve seen it happen) are likely over, and today his works typically carry a price tag as hefty as they themselves. However, many other fabricators and designers were influenced by Evans’ style and extended it to wares of all kinds; Brutalist-inspired pottery, lighting, and jewelry are quite easy to come by with a quick eBay keyword search, and are often surprisingly affordable. If you like the rough, primitive qualities of Brutalism but don’t want to commit to something that looks like it came out of an Edward Gorey book in the middle of your living room, consider investing in a smaller item—you may find that it gives your space a certain sine qua non you never knew was missing.

A couple of months ago I bought a few seedlings from the grower at the Culver City Farmers' Market. They were labeled as mesclun, which is a salad mix of assorted small, young salad leaves. I brought them home, planted them in my garden, and waited eagerly for tender, mixed baby greens. Instead, they grew into tough, dense, cabbage-like plants. 

I thought it was odd, but hey, they had been labeled "mesclun," so I assumed it was just some variety of lettuces that I wasn't familiar with. 

This was silly for a host of reasons. Mesclun may have originated in Provence, France (trivia!), but it's right at home here in La La Land. It's on just about every restaurant menu from the LA River to the Pacific Ocean (OK, that might be a minor exaggeration, but just minor), and they sell it in bags and bulk at the supermarket. All of this is to say, I know what mesclun looks like. I eat it regularly. I'm a big fan. 

So, you'd think that when my alleged mesclun started looking more like, oh, I don't know... bok choy? I might have thought to myself, "Hmm, this looks like bok choy. I guess it was labeled wrong. But yay, bok choy is delicious! What a happy surprise!" 

Instead, I kind of cocked my head to one side, then the other, furrowed my brow, raised an eyebrow...and then harvested the bok choy as if it were lettuce. 

Then I made a salad. With raw bok choy. There were also a couple of other unidentified Chinese-style greens that had grown out of the purported mesclun. I harvested those like lettuce and put them in the salad, too.

Let me tell you, my friends: It was a bitter, bitter, rugged, intense salad. It was the most hardcore salad that has ever crossed my lips. I do not recommend raw bok choy salads. Even if you're hardcore into raw food, limit your raw bok choy intake. For reals, people: This little old lady almost died from eating too much raw bok choy. I am lucky to be alive. 

Here's what the bok choy looked like growing in my garden: 

So, you might be wondering how I finally figured out that the mystery mesclun was actually bok choy. Well, over the past couple of weeks, a few people have visited my garden and asked what it was.

"Mesclun," I told them, and they sort of looked at me funny and said things like, "Oh, really? Weird, it looks like cabbage."

Finally, this past Saturday, my friend Katherine came by for an overdue visit. Touring the garden, she happened upon the bok choy.

"Ohh, bok choy," she exclaimed in delight. "Yum!"

"Oh my word," I said. "That's bok choy? Leapin' lizards, that's bok choy!" 

Suddenly, everything made sense. I felt as thought a mist was lifted. It was a bok choy revelation. 

Here's what it looked like when I harvested it: 

Here's what it looked like once I'd trimmed off the outer leaves and cleaned it up. Now it's ready to be chopped for a stir fry:

Oh, by the way: I do have mesclun growing it my garden. It was growing right next to the bok choy. I grew it from seed sown about a month ago: 

Sometimes, reality can be staring you right in the face and you still miss it. 

For those unfamiliar with bok choy, it's a variety of Chinese cabbage. It's easy to grow as a cool season crop, and it does well in container gardens. It's also succulent and delicious when cooked. The moral of the story: When life gives you bok choy, make a stir fry--not a salad.

Here’s a musician you should know: Emily Arin.

She just released a stellar new album called Patch of Land. This is her first studio album, and it’s getting some major attention. For instance, Barry Alfonso  (the guy who wrote liner notes for Johnny Cash, Captain Beefheart, and Peter, Paul & Mary) wrote the official iTunes review for the album, which she says was a fun surprise. One of the songs, “Hidden Flame” was featured in Greenland’s first international feature film, Nuummioq. The film was screened at Sundance, and Emily performed at last year’s film fest.

So now you know some of the fancy “official” reasons why you should like her. But the really cool thing about Emily is how she made her first album, Time and Space. It was a bedroom endeavor sold solely to subscribers—one song a month. At the time, she was working insurance and getting restless (who can blame her). She enrolled in the Musician's Institute in Los Angeles to become a better guitar player and songwriter. But the style they preached didn’t match her own “There was a ton of electric guitar noodling going on,” she says. So, as any creatively suppressed artist would do, she quit.

The next week she set up a simple website and committed herself to writing and recording a new song every month for a year. “I figured if enough people signed up, it could support me in some way financially,” she says. “About 70 people became paid subscribers—which did not pay the bills, but gave great encouragement and support.”

In the meantime, she worked odd jobs. After a year, she had enough cash to take flamenco lessons in Spain. So she booked a flight. Her trip would also take her to Sweden, Germany, and Poland, so she packed a few CDs of her home-recordings, just for fun. “Since I had 12 recorded songs, I decided to print them as an album to bring with me on my travels,” she says. “Any time I had a nice conversation with someone—at a train station, a hostel, a bar—I gave them a copy.” She gave her tunes to some pretty cool people. She met a guy who passed her album to Sergio Diaz of Os Mutantes, a band she loves. Diaz emailed her later, to thank her for the CD and to say that he enjoyed it, and they became friends. Emily still hears from people who have stumbled on that first homemade album. She recently received a note and an invitation to perform from a woman she met at a bus stop.

In a world where sharing music with people face-to-face seems to be a lost joy, Emily Arin makes music a community experience. “Without a doubt, music is a medium of connectivity,” she says. “Community emerges through shared experience, shared ritual, shared trials and triumphs, shared enjoyment.” She still carries a few copies of both albums in her purse, and says the CDs in her car mostly come from friends. “For me, music is always an experience of being in community,” she says, “And while it's fun to have face-to-face exchanges, another facet of the beauty is that we can listen anywhere.”

To learn more about Emily, visit emilyarin.com, and here her new album (and old album) on bandcamp.

ReadyMade is getting in on 30 Days of Creativity—which means we’re making something every day during the month of June! Read more about the initiative here. And check out what we made today:

"In one of my many attempts to make party decorations out of things I have around the house, I made this paper flower from last year’s Flora Douville calendar. It’s a little floppy, but I love the color variations." -Deputy Editor Amy Palanjian

Jump on the 30 Days program with ReadyMade by sending a tweet to @createstuff on Twitter. And don't forget to follow ReadyMade on Twitter for a daily stream of DIY projects and ideas! 

Hanger steak is a cut of beef that seems to be popping up in French bistro menus all over the place. It's full of flavor but can easily be rendered dry and tough if overcooked—medium-rare is its happy place. Rumor has it that butchers wouldn't put hanger steak up for sale. Instead, they keep it for themselves, which is why this cut is also known as a Butcher's Steak. 

Hanger steak comes from the underside of the cow and is actually part of the diaphragm, located close to the kidneys. It gets its name because it hangs between the loin and the rib—which also means that there's only one hanger steak per animal. The flavor is powerful and beefy and can stand up to strong flavors. 

When I spied hanger steak on sale at my local butcher shop, I bought half a pound (good for about two people). Like skirt or flank steak, hanger is seen as a bargain cut. My butcher only stocks naturally-raised, local meats that tend to cost more, so buying a thrifty cut like the hanger steak was a great option. Since I don't cook a lot of beef, I hopped online to find out the best ways to prepare steak. I decided to quickly sear the meat in a hot-cast iron skillet and then finish it off in the oven until medium-rare using a technique I found over at Beyond Salmon. It seems like a complicated process, but it produced a tender slab of meat that just requires a bit of pre-planning ahead of time. (Be sure to read the entire recipe before you begin and you'll be fine). 

So how did it taste? While I could sense a liver-ish quality to the meat, my husband didn't detect it at all. It was a little chewy and quite a bit different from eating a standard sirloin. It seemed slightly gamey and had a more pronounced beef flavor—overall, I really enjoyed it. Maybe I'll marinate it next time or try just searing it on the stove top instead. If you have any hanger steak tips, I'd love to hear them! 

Go on to page 2 for the recipe. {pagebreak}

Slow Roasted Hanger Steak with Dry Rub and Whiskey Sauce

1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 teaspoon hot spanish paprika
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon dried rosemary
1/2 teaspoon cayenne
1/2 lb hanger steak

1. Pound all the dry ingredients together using a mortar and pestle.

2. Pat rub onto the steak and refrigerate for 30 minutes up to 4 hours. Cut steak in two halves if you need to in order to fit it into the skillet. Allow to sit at room temperature for 30 minutes before cooking. 

3. Preheat oven to 250F.

4. Meanwhile, heat a cast iron skillet over high heat for 3 minutes. Add canola oil and add the steak. Cook each side for 1 minute—don't fuss with the steak here, just let it do its thing. Remove the steak from the pan and let both the steak and the skillet cool for 10 minutes. The steak will release a lot of juice, but save them for the pan sauce later. 

5. Place the steak back into the skillet and bake in the oven for 10-12 minutes or until the center of the steak reaches 125F on a meat thermometer. Remove the steak from the oven and set it on a plate. The steak will look less done that you'd like, but it will cook slightly longer while it rests. 

6. Tent the steak with foil for 2-3 minutes and then remove the foil and let it sit for 5 minutes. While the steak is resting, prepare the sauce. 

Whiskey Sauce: 

1 tablespoon of butter
1/4 cup beef stock
3 tablespoons of whiskey

1. Heat your skillet—the one you just used, over medium-high heat and add the butter scraping up any meaty bits, swirling everything about. Pour in the beef stock and the whiskey and let the sauce reduce until it coats the back of a spoon. 

2. Cut steak into slices on the bias and pour sauce over top. 

3. Enjoy your delicious hanger steak! 

Bacigalupi creates her "Monster Paintings" by salvaging rejected scenery paintings and incorporating her quirky characters into the existing prints. She has a production line of objects called Leroy's Place, and labels these paintings as "makeovers." "Sometimes I call them 'rescue paintings' because they are so unloved when I find them!" Bacigalupi says. 

Using pen and paint-pen, Bacigalupi adds fantastical creatures to the once-stagnant landscapes. Her method is reminiscent of artist Richard Saja, who stitches flamboyant details onto old toile. They're bright, quirky, and—as if we even need to say it—hilarious. 

"Among humans, I respect children tremendously," Bacigalupi says. "The work I do is much inspired by their vast imaginations. I try to embody the silliness and ease of a child’s play with each of my animals. When kids are drawing stuff, they say things like, 'This is a zebra crossed with a magical horse and he shoots fireballs and his name is Ice Cream.' Brilliant." {pagebreak}

And each mystical invention has its own story. Developing the characters, and making sure their landscapes would fit their habitat, is something Bacigalupi accredits to her interest in anthropology. "[The two characters] Leroy Brown and Lola Carahmel are my ongoing anthro experiment," she says. "They aren't just two-dimentional images; they have personalities and histories; likes, dislikes, and Facebook pages." 

Bacigalupi also creates furry press-on nails (above) and Shrinky Dink jewelry for Leroy's Place. "Many people remember the Shrinky Dink super-fad from the '80s, but what they don't know is that the material is everywhere (especially in NY)," Bacigalupi says. "Shrinky Dinks are simply made from number-six plastic. This is one of the most common plastics used in take-out containers and boxes from salad/hot bars. Since this plastic doesn't recycle in New York, it's a really fun way to reuse these bulky containers." 

You can check out Leroy's Place in person at Bacigalupi's booth at Artists and Fleas in Brooklyn. Or you can purchase her work at Leroy's Place on Etsy. 

[Images via Serene Bacigalupi, Monster Paintings on Facebook, and Shrinky Dink Factory on Facebook] 

My husband and I are both college teachers and (I know I have mentioned this before) we live in a remote part of Northern California. Garth was born and raised in Nebraska and I hail from Missouri. Since leaving the Midwest we have agreed that the best time to return home is NOT during winter holidays—I can live without a snowy winter, and I will if I can. This means that each summer we have to make our annual Midwestern sweep and hit up the Nebraska and Missouri sides of our family. Usually we fly into one state and out of the other. This year we decided to take advantage of our summer vacation by hopping in the car for an epic month-long road trip home.

I love a road trip. Despite some hand-wringing about the number of dinosaurs it takes to fuel our car, I really love driving around America. Watching the landscape change from desert to mountain to forest is great—you simply don't get a sense of the shifting landscape when you fly. I adore regional eccentricities, new food, and roadside attractions. My dear husband is an amazing travel companion who is also game for almost any new experience. Traveling together is great, we both tend to push each other towards things the other might not have prioritized and we are usually all the happier for it. To pacify those of you who tend to be less harmonious when traveling, we also bicker over maps and debate the use of our precious time almost every place that we stop.

Fresh out of college, I took a six month long road trip years ago, with my very best friend. It was great, but the world was different back then. We did invest in a cell phone, but not everyone had one. Public libraries provided our internet access, and I knew nothing about blogs. When was this Dark Age I speak of? 2001. Seriously.

The beginning of our 2011 road trip is already greatly enhanced by the use of technology—the Yelp apps on our phones help us find local restaurants as we cruise through small towns and we invested in the Roadside America app that points us directly to roadside attractions as we come upon them. We have only been on the road a week, but the use of these two tools makes our travel easy, and we haven't missed some great (and strange) sites that we may have sailed right past.

Garth and I wanted to share with you, the ReadyMade readers, all the amazing things we are doing and seeing in what are commonly thought of as fly-over states. There is so much awesome America out there and yeah, you can drive there!

We hopped in our car last Sunday and started some long driving. By Monday afternoon we found ourselves in Salt Lake City, a place neither Garth or I have ever had the pleasure of visiting. Let me be clear, Salt Lake City was, absolutely, a pleasure to visit. One of my favorite sites was Gilgal Gardens.

See the slideshow of Gilgal Gardens. 

Holy moly, I love a folk art environment. I will usually go out of my way to visit them and I am fascinated by the amount of hard work someone will put into building their own world. Gilgal Gardens was no disappointment, and, luckily, it is located close to the city center so it doesn't require any off-roading to find it. {pagebreak}

Gilgal Gardens is know as Utah's "only visionary art environment" and we can happily confirm that it's Visionary with a capital "V". Thomas Battersby Child, Jr. was both a stonemason and a Mormon bishop who died in 1963. The 18 years preceding his death were spent building a garden of huge rocks in his yard that he called Gilgal (an Old Testament word that means "circle of stones"). When you enter the garden you are struck by the 25 tons of rough rocks stacked and partially carved into a lumpy sphinx with the face of the Mormon prophet Joseph Smith. At the same time, the Wonder Bread factory next door is filling the garden with the scent of baking bread-- the place smells delicious, which somehow makes it all seem even more mysterious.

Roadside America has as much information about the garden as I could find:

Much of the mystery surrounding Gilgal has to do with an extreme lack of interest in it until fairly recently, which means that anyone who could explain it is now too dead to ask. We've seen enough odd back yards to know that they can seem mysterious even when they're not. . . .

Gilgal provides plenty of odd visuals. Oversized human body parts are scattered down a mossy man-made hill. A towering barbed spike is topped by a wire-frame trumpeter. Near the sphinx is a man with a sword, carved into an upright slab, with his head replaced by a lumpy boulder. Mormon theology might help to explain some of this, sort of, but frankly most Mormons are as puzzled by Gilgal as everyone else.

I was particularly interested in the life-sized self portrait of Thomas, which was carved to depict him wearing brick pants. The entire garden is stacked with boulders (the largest of which weighs over 100,000 pounds!) and it is paved with carved slabs that quote literary texts, the bible, and Mormon doctrine. As a final twist, one carved slab dedicates the garden to a list of his acquaintances and to Queen Victoria.

If you plan be in the Salt Lake area this little garden is an impressive site. I left inspired (no amount of work on my own yard can compete with 100,000-pound stone sculptures), perplexed, and oddly craving some fresh baked bread. Check out my slideshow of the garden (and marvel at how much more work it is to do this to your yard then putting in those raised beds you've been procrastinating).

I've been correcting people's grammar from the womb. My mom often reminds me that I used to helpfully correct her friends' speech at a very tender age. Man, what an adorable, obnoxious little child I must have been. Now that I'm old, I'm slightly less obnoxious, primarily due to the fact that I'm losing my grammar touch! Apostrophes are appearing in weird places, and I have to think twice about punctuation that I used to feel so confident about. I also can't draw an ampersand for the life of me. I just can't do it. (I know, I've got problems.) What's going on here? How do you keep your grammar under control?

Punctuation Kindle Cover by EchoShop // Interrobang Cross Stitch Pattern by Andwabisabi // I Use Punctuation Correctly Rubber Stamp by Vozamer // Exclamation Point Scarf by Hoooked // Punctuation Tile Coasters by Whimsical Creations // Dear People of the World Letterpressed Card by Sapling Press // Punctuation Magnets by Elpy // Punctuation Earring Sampler by Nerd Goddess // Question Mark Ring by Smiling Silversmith

ReadyMade is getting in on 30 Days of Creativity—which means we’re making something every day during the month of June! Read more about the initiative here. And check out what we made today:

Fake-Baked Beans

"I experimented with a new recipe for lunch today. The highlight of this plate is my fake-it-till-you-make it baked beans. They weren’t baked, and I totally guessed at what to put in, and it worked! Recipe: soaked rancho gordo beans, onions, garlic, shallot, tomato paste, agave, mustard, fresh thyme, fresh oregano, bay, pepper, chili powder, salt. Yum!" -Online Director Liz Armstrong

Jump on the 30 Days program with ReadyMade, by sending a tweet to @createstuff on Twitter. And don't forget to follow ReadyMade on Twitter for a daily stream of DIY projects and ideas! 

ReadyMade is getting in on 30 Days of Creativity—which means we’re making something every day during the month of June! Read more about the initiative here. And check out what we made today:

"This year, after fixing up the inside of our house, we’re focusing on the outside. We built a cedar raised bed (though we only built the wood frame and had our local home center cut the lumber for us) and after filling it with 32 bags of soil (thanks, Tim!), we finally planted our very first tomatoes and basil. Fingers crossed!" -Assistant Editor Alexa Fornoff

Jump on the 30 Days program with ReadyMade, by sending a tweet to @createstuff on Twitter. And don't forget to follow ReadyMade on Twitter for a daily stream of DIY projects and ideas! 

A gal after my own heart, Jen Wick of La Kitchenette has adapted Mark Bittman’s baked chickpea fries recipe to a proper deep-frying, and serves them with—yum!—harissa aioli. I’d never really considered any french fry alternative beyond the ordinary sweet potato version, so her recipe (and delicious-looking photo!) piqued my curiosity.

Polenta is a natural for frying, given its dense texture and creamy interior. For The Love Of Food adapts this classic Italian preparation with these perfectly golden-brown vegan polenta fries, saving time with premade polenta and spicing things up with garlic and chili oil.

And while a seeming universe of low-carbers can be found declaring allegiance to turnip fries, I would much prefer these roasted beet fries from Loft Organics—though I’d probably try them in the deep fryer and serve alongside a healthy amount of lemon-dill mayo.

What have you tried to fry?

Each issue in our Reply All section, we highlight tips straight from our readers (see the latest, above). We love sharing new uses for old things, simple tips for making life easier, and generally helpful info that's as easy to understand as it is to do! This is where you come in: Do you have a quick and easy tip to share? Let us know in the comments, on our Facebook page, or via email.

You may just see your big idea translated into an illustration by Julia Rothman and splashed on the pages of an upcoming issue. 

So let's hear 'em!

If you have the option, may I suggest you take the train? Not just for getting around inside a city, rail transportation is a fantastic way to get a sense of what the country really looks like.

In between cities, on a train, you get a view you’d never otherwise have access to. Once you’re out far enough, you get to see where the earth was carved out for you to shoot through a channel of trees. A bit further is where the ramshackle and shuttered live in peace with the abundantly verdant and wild.

What you pass on the right is completely different from what’s on the left. You see only what you happen to see as you steadily roll on. This is great for spontaneous inspiration, or to deepen a meditative practice, watching something come up and then simply let it go.

Look at that crazy old shack! What’s the plan for those piles and piles of rail ties? What will come of all these abandoned buildings? A few-hour (or more) train ride makes you think the world is full of hills of white flowers; in general the trip is a reminder that where we live is more full of life and wild greenery than we think. From a train, it seems vines, not smokestacks rule the land. Go vines!

And then, if you’re lucky, you have a great conversation. Yesterday, traveling from NYC to Providence, Rhode Island, my seat neighbor left to sit in the café car until it was dark. When she returned she asked if I’d care to see her photos of the sunset. Absolutely, I sure would! Crunched together, we peered into her camera’s display screen and commented on each picture’s mood, where the clouds seemed to weigh down the sky, where the trees seemed to hover like ghosts, what the water choses to mirror.

We began to talk about a fascination with sunsets, and light, and how what affects the subconscious affects our physical self. She’s a doctor who treats pain management, and—I am grandly simplifying the concepts she was talking about, and certainly they go much deeper still than our brief conversation about her practice—sees the condition of the mind as the biggest cause of physical manifestations of pain.

“Art should infiltrate all aspects of life,” she said. “Art always surpasses science because science is in the conscious and art is in the subconscious.” Take Monet, she proposed: Did he see those lights, or did they emerge from somewhere inside him? That is power.

What a beautiful, enlightening conversation. And would I have had this experience if I were on a plane? No, because I wouldn’t have had my camera out, trying to capture a split second in the history of the landscape rushing by.

[Sunset photos by Tsen-Tsen Jin]

ReadyMade is getting in on 30 Days of Creativity—which means we’re making something every day during the month of June! Read more about the initiative here. And check out what we made today:

"I made a video of my nieces. I've played variations of the 'What Is It?' game with my nieces and nephew ever since my book Obsolete came out in 2009. The book has little remembrances of objects like floppy disks and typewriters. The kids would flip through James Gulliver Hancock's line illustrations and often they'd come up with hilarious explanations of what the objects in the pictures were once used for. They and I are only separated by two decades or so, but in that time, technology has  made such leaps and bounds that things that might still be in use today—like a fax machine—to them seem like antiques.

"I'd been thinking about filming something more formal with a whole bunch of kids, but the other night I was playing this 'game' with Lyra and Aliya at bedtime, showing them pictures on my laptop from my Obsolete website, and I just clicked on iMovie and recorded them while they talked. The quality isn't the greatest, but perhaps it was fitting to not use the slickest equipment for this. In the end, I like the casual, sleepy lighting. Somehow, I think it lets the silliness and coziness of the moment shine through." -"Do This With Your Pet" columnist and RM blogger Anna Jane Grossman 

Jump on the 30 Days program with ReadyMade, by sending a tweet to @createstuff on Twitter. And don't forget to follow ReadyMade on Twitter for a daily stream of DIY projects and ideas! 

BUYABLE:

• Todd Selby's swim shorts are easily the coolest summer apparel for dudes. ($80)
• This "No Valuables Inside" wallet made me chuckle. ($75)
• I'm wildly convinced everyone should own at least one comb over tee. ($18)

READABLE:

• Calling all graphic design nerds: Hovering Art Directors tumblr will make you laugh until you cry.
• Please, steal my ideas. A thought-provoking read in terms of inspiration and imitation in today's art industry.
• How to move to NYC, featuring hard numbers, plenty of honesty and a hint of charm.

DOABLE:

• Help your friend move this weekend. Or maybe... don't.
• Make a heart garland out of free paint swatches and a stamp. Genius!
• Channel your inner tea party hostess and craft a few paper mache tea cups. Adorable!

See you next week!

Tomorrow: 

The Three-Minute Picture Show 2011 Season Kick-Off Party & Fundraiser
San Francisco, CA

Join The Three-Minute Picture Show at Root Division for the 2011 Season Kick-Off Party & Fundraiser! Sip cocktails, watch 3MPS hits of yore, enter to win some rad prizes, and learn how you can take part in this year's Three-Minute Picture Show. The Three-Minute Picture Show encourages anyone, regardless of experience, to dedicate 30 days to creativity. Participants sign up, dedicate the month of July to creating a 3-minute film, and have their films play on the big screen in front of an audience later in the summer. Donations at the door directly help The Picture Show fund its 2011 programs and your donations at the bar help Root Division. It's a karmic win-win.

Saturday: 

Junk Fest at the Nest
Brandon, SD

The second annual Junk Fest features vendors who sell primitive, vintage, antique, or just plain cute collectibles or who actually create their own with repurposed or refurbished items. There's awesome handmade jewelry, original artwork, junk rethunk, and tons of repurposed items. On top of the hoards of stuff to rummage through, energy to shop is for sale in edible form (a.k.a., food!). 

Better Than Jam Pop-up Shop at Governors Island
New York, NY 

Handmade co-op Better Than Jam is celebrating the opening of their pop-up shop on Governors Island on Saturday afternoon.  Wear your best summery attire and prepare yourself for a game of croquet and some cool beverages. Get directions here.

This weekend: 

28th Annual Fine Art and Craft Street Show
Montrose, CA  

More than 425 fine artists, craftsmen, food vendors, and California Certified farmers will be at the Montrose Arts & Crafts Festival, now in its 28th year. It's one of the oldest events of its type in the state and the largest public event in the City of Glendale. Go here for a map and directions so you can navigate the show this weekend. 

This week: 

Chicago Underground Film Festival
Chicago, IL 

We told you about this celebration of independent, experimental, and documentary films from around the world earlier. As Roger Ebert said in the Chicago Sun- Times: “What you get for your money is not just admission to the films but admission to a subculture." 

Post your DIY-friendly events on our nifty calendar!

In addition to the vegetable-laden frittatas I’ve already mentioned, my other go-to, start-of-summer lunch dish thus far has been tuna salad. Now, I don’t mean the classic mayo-and-chopped pickles concoction of elementary school lunches (though I do love the stuff—especially with homemade mayo!), but lighter, olive oil-dressed mixtures with plenty of vegetable crunch.

It's not something that invites an exact recipe, but a favorite combination I've been using: one can of olive-oil packed tuna, drained; 1/2 red bell pepper, diced; zest and juice of 1/2 lemon; about a teaspoon of capers and a few splashes of brine; a small handful of rough-chopped olives; a pinch of cayenne and plenty of freshly-ground black pepper; a glug or two of extra-virgin olive oil. Mix everything together and add sea salt and vinegar to taste.

The Parsley Thief’s Mediterranean-styled version uses lots of lemon and olives, and adds parsley for freshness; this would be great with crackers, as pictured (especially for an easy and portable lunch option), but I could imagine it being great atop a big pile of brightly-dressed arugula as well.

And Jo Bryant’s Chronicles Of Illusions features this wonderful-sounding assemblage of tuna with white beans, avocado, red onion, tomato, and an assortment of other ingredients like hot mustard and jalapeno for kick and piquancy. I love Jo’s idea of turning this into a lettuce wrap! One of my favorite ways to eat tuna salad of any kind is scooped up into romaine lettuce leaves.

While there are plenty of recipes out there for tuna salad alternatives, it's easy to go recipe-free—just make sure you include some good-quality olive oil, something briny, something fresh and crunchy, and a little bit of a kick, and you’ve got a light and tasty lunch ready to go.

ReadyMade is getting in on 30 Days of Creativity—which means we’re making something every day during the month of June! Read more about the initiative here. And check out what we made today:

1/26 of the Illustrated Animal Book

"I wanted to work on my amateur illustration skills and am a huge fan of indie publications, so a few weeks ago, I decided to start creating an animal alphabet book. I figured this project had a tangible, linear plan (26 illustrations with an animal for each letter) that I could work on for a period of time. I want to eventually cut out the pages and give the mini-book a hand-stitched binding (which might explain the quirky order seen above). 30 Days motivated me to keep on truckin' with this project. So I finished 'G' today: 

"But I think the one I'm still the proudest of so far is the stoic buffalo."

-Online Assistant Caitlin Thornton

Jump on the 30 Days program with ReadyMade, by sending a tweet to @createstuff on Twitter. And don't forget to follow ReadyMade on Twitter for a daily stream of DIY projects and ideas! 

Dinner parties: we love them. But if you're anything like us, you don't have the time, money, or energy to throw them very often. And preparing and serving four courses to a dozen guests all with your own two hands? We don't know how our grandmothers pulled off that math. So, four of us joined forces and started a supper club, i.e. that trendy flash-restaurant chefs and amateurs have been hosting "underground," in private homes, from Berlin to Buenos Aires. And you can, too! Don't worry if you don't have matching dishes or fancy equipment. All you really need are a few skilled collaborators and some moxie.

How to Start a Supper Club:

Name yourselves. We chose "Monsoon" because everyone looks forward to Monsoon season in the typically dusty-dry desert town of Tucson, Arizona.

Be Amateurs. Be amateurs—Monsoon are proudly unprofessional chefs with busy other lives: we are a law student, a roller derby queen/PhD candidate, an urban landscaper, and a writer. We plan menus together, divey up the shopping and prep, and keep each other zen when the flour hits the kitchen fan.

Do it for love. Unless you're charging the big bucks, you'll barely cover your costs (ours are usually around $300). Plus, you'll be tempted to spend what's left in the kitty on fancy pie plates, heart-shaped ramekins, glass pudding cups, and sundry other items you need an excuse to buy. And, unfortunately, you occasionally get someone who doesn't get that "suggested donation" is in quotes.

Barter! We've offered supper in return for dishwashing and serving help, entertainment like belly dancing and flamenco guitar playing, and ingredients such as orchard peaches and fresh goat's milk. We let people know in our invitation that we're open to trades, and you never know who has something interesting to exchange.

Mix & match—and we're not just talking dishes and silverware. Cultivate a diverse guest list and save time to mingle and introduce midwives to astrophysicists, anthropologists to bass players, and cabinet makers to social workers.

Get competitive. We did, and won a local fundraiser competition for an environmental conservation group. They modeled the competition after Iron Chef: four teams were charged with making 150 tapas-sized portions for the fundraiser party. The secret ingredient? Mesquite flour. Our secret weapon? Spoon-feeding lavender-lemon sorbet palate-cleanser to attendees. Our prize? A much deserved gift-certificate for dinner OUT!

Click on to page 2 for the eggs en cocotte recipe. {pagebreak}

Eggs en Cocotte with Tomato and Asparagus

4 lb fresh plum tomatoes
1 large onion
sea salt
crushed red pepper
2-3 garlic cloves
2 lb asparagus
olive oil
butter (optional)
fresh ground pepper
fresh basil
1 dozen fresh, local egg

Prepare tomato sauce with freshest tomatoes. Chop and saute 1 large onion in olive oil in heavy saucepan over medium heat, meanwhile skin and chop 2 lb. fresh plum tomatoes. When onions are just beginning to brown, add tomatoes, salt, crushed red pepper, and desired herbs. Simmer for at least 30 minutes over low heat. Add 2-3 cloves chopped garlic during simmer (depending on desired potency) and cool to room temperature.

Preheat oven to 350. Grease ramekins or oven-proof mugs with butter or olive oil. Rinse and trim 1 lb asparagus, pat dry, and toss with olive oil, sea salt, and fresh ground pepper. Add 1.5 ladles sauce per serving. Gently break one fresh local egg into each ramekin, then arrange 2-4 asparagus spears upright. Sprinkle each ramekin with sea salt and fresh pepper. Arrange on cookie sheets and bake approximately 15 minutes—you may need to rotate or switch racks—and remove from oven when whites are just opaque (for soft, runny yolks). Let rest for 2 minutes before serving.

[Photography by  Rocky Yosak] 

Today’s the big opening for the Chicago Underground Film Festival. Now in its 18^th year, the events continue through this Sunday, kicking off tonight with a gallery reception featuring a whole bunch of CUFF regulars and pals. And, of course, a movie, specifically Jerzy Rose’s Some Girls Never Learn, “a humorous, absurd romp through time and space, the underworld and the stratosphere.”

CUFF truly does pay attention to films done on realistic budgets, featuring subject matter and culture that often lives way below the radar. If it weren’t for festivals like this, which take chances on new filmmakers, experimental presentation, or non-mainstream topics, all those movies you see people trying to make on Kickstarter wouldn’t have a public, celebratory place to go. To sustain indie filmmaking, it’s important to support not only the people making the films, but also the people perpetuating the ability to see them.

You can find all of CUFF’s schedule here.

[Image above from Some Girls Never Learn; homepage image art by Jodie Mack]

Cool, independent bookshops—especially art bookshops—are gonna impress you with their amazing selection. You will become dizzy with all the theories and schools of thought and variety of concepts that you may or may not understand, although regardless you will feel your IQ decreasing with each page you turn. There are so many more things out there than you can ever know about or comprehend!

You know this scenario, and while it’s exciting (and hopefully not intimidating), it’s certainly overwhelming. Golden Age, an artist-run project space and book shop in Chicago, is simultaneously sparse and diverse. (That photo up top explains it all.) They’ve got all that stuff to blow out the back of your mind and perhaps put back for a later day when you feel a little smarter, and it’s all very deliberately presented so as not to get your neurons in a tizzy. There are punk records next to the most obscure contemporary art theory wormhole pamphlets, soft Argentinean photo magazines next to beautiful glass vases. There are gorgeous, minimalist books from all over the world. They also host limited-run artist installations, and publish zines expounding on the ideas presented on the walls. Sometimes they put things together because the colors just look good that way.

Golden Age owners/directors Marco Kane Braunschweiler and 
Martine Syms are constantly outrunning their ambition. They’re kids—they started this right out of college, in 2007, and are now on their third location, inside one of Chicago’s gallery conglomerate buildings famed for breaking interesting young artists. And still, it is not too much. In fact, the back room is about four times bigger than the front, and they did it on purpose. They’ve got more stuff to blow your mind than you could possibly imagine, but they’re polite, so they’re going to keep you calm while it happens. We talked to them about their methodology.

ReadyMade: How do you guys have your acts together? You're really young, and you're super art-inclined. Aren't you supposed to be worrying your parents and hurting people's feelings and making bad decisions like the rest of your peers?
Marco Kane Braunschweiler: I wish I had my act together. I was talking with someone in Golden Age recently and we decided that we're distrustful of anyone who honestly thinks they have their act together. My goal is to constantly progress and positively impact the world. I try to know as much as possible, read as much as I can, do what's important to me, and spend time with people who make a difference in my life. {pagebreak}

How did you expand into making your own publications and commissioning site-specific work?
It was a very natural progression. On the exhibition side, we already worked with many artists and designers through carrying their publications, and oftentimes these same people were doing something in their studios that's really significant—so we wanted to show it! From there we realized there was a need to publish books around the same work because an exhibition only lasts so long. If it's important and you want it to be able to live on, you need something that is permanent, portable, and can say more than what's physically in the space.

I see Martine has a new book out. What's that about, and does it fall under the Golden Age umbrella?
Her new book is titled Implications and Distinctions: Format, Content, and Context in Contemporary Race Film and it's a look at performances of blackness in contemporary cinema from 1990 to the present. She considers story lines, movie theaters, and her own viewing patterns to find the “color line” and trace its path through the distribution and exhibition of film. We will have it in stock after June 16, when it will be launching at our neighbor's space, Threewalls. You can preorder on our site here.

How do you fit into the West Loop gallery district?
We're the connector between the design and art communities. We're able to show a multitude of work because of the open format of a bookshop/gallery. We have a carefully curated selection of publications, objects, and artwork you've never seen and can't find anywhere else. People come to Golden Age for knowledge about art and design because our selection is amongst the most cutting-edge in the world.

You’re surrounded by so much activity. What are you excited about?
We're starting a fanzine subscription series that will debut at the beginning of this month. It will be all the small-run publications we're putting out with original text and images from young international artists and designers. Upcoming zines are from Pia Howell, Erik Lindman, Megan Plunkett, Paul Cowan, and more. We're still figuring out the particulars but you can email me here for the up-to-date details.

What are you each reading right now?
I'm barreling through Alone, Desperate and Going Nowhere (super funny fiction), a book of essays from the pioneering architect Denise Scott Brown called Having Words, and Talking Prices. Martine is reading Daniel Bell's The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism and Richard Wright's Native Son.

What's your plan from here?
We have an upcoming exhibition of photographic colorgrams from Pia Howell, a young New York-based artist who is just amazing. We are doing a one-week publishing residency at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago in July, and throughout the summer we will be turning our space into a movie theater, come visit!

Trashed Item Spotted: Brooklyn, New York 

Situation: Seeing this tall bar table with a single stool reminded me of what actually happens in a bar. "Hello there, pretty thing, in perfect condition, glass intact," I thought. "Why are you sitting by your lonesome? Who are you going home with, because you definitely going home with someone." Even the bread crumbs surrounding this solid find reminded me of peanut shells on the bar room floor.

Outcome: I'm available, but this table isn't my type. I didn't want to waste our time, so I left it for a more suitable date.

What would you have done?

If you spot an interesting-looking item on the curbside or in a Dumpster near you, snap a pic, post it on our Facebook page, and ask "Take It Or Leave It?"

ReadyMade is getting in on 30 Days of Creativity—which means we’re making something every day during the month of June! Read more about the initiative here. And check out what we made today:

Homemade Mayo

"On Monday I realized I didn't have a key ingredient I planned on using—mayo—for a potato salad. Feeling brave, I followed Mark Bittman's mayonnaise recipe (egg, oil, salt, and pepper, basically) and whipped it up using my immersion blender. It was crazy easy, very rewarding, pretty tasty, and I didn't have to go to the store! Today, knowing that we're getting a bunch of asparagus in our CSA pickup and we'll definitely want to eat it for dinner, I made a more lemony version to drizzle on top." -Deputy Editor Amy Palanjian 

Jump on the 30 Days program with ReadyMade, by sending a tweet to @createstuff on Twitter. And don't forget to follow ReadyMade on Twitter for a daily stream of DIY projects and ideas! 

Fava beans are one of the classic spring foods, right up there with peas, ramps, and morrels. (Disclaimer: I am entirely aware that they aren't always available in every farmers market, but keep an eye out just in case!) And since I've rediscovered my love for tahini lately—combined with a lemon juice, salt and pepper, it makes a fantastic dressing for arugula or any other spicy greens—I can't wait to give this dip a go. Basically, it's a version of hummus with favas traded in for garbanzo beans (FYI, you can do the very same thing with black, white, or pinto beans), but with what I am sure is a slightly fresher flavor from the fresh beans.

Fava Bean Spread with Crostini
Impress your friends with this simple but fancy fava bean spread. Serve it at parties or as a side to your favorite liver dish, with a nice Chianti! -Jaime Tanno, San Franscico

Servings: Approximately 2-3 crostini for 5 people
Prep time: 1-2 minutes
Cook time: 10-15 minutes
Total time: 10-15 minutes
 
2 cups of fresh fava beans (shelled and skinned)
1/2 cup chopped green or red bell pepper (optional)
3 tbsp Tahini
1/4 cup olive oil
2 cloves of fresh garlic
2 tbsp lemon juice
1 pinch cayenne
Salt and white pepper (to taste)
Fresh parsley (for garnish)
French baguette
 
Directions:
1. Put all ingredients, excluding parsley and baguette, in a food processor and blend until creamy. Add a bit more oil as needed to make it creamier if it's too thick. Season with salt and pepper last to taste.
2. Slice the baguette into 1/2 inch slices and toast them on a baking sheet for approximately 15 minutes in a 350 degree oven. You want them crispy so they don't get soggy when you put the spread on them. Serve with a garnish of parsley.

This can also be served with gluten-free or vegan bread products, crackers, or crudite.

If you have a recipe to share, email it to us at articles@readymademag.com for a chance to have it included here or in an upcoming issue of the magazine.

I'd been spending way too much time looking for a clutch to carry on my fast-approaching wedding day and wasn't having any luck finding anything that I loved. My persistence paid off with my search for earrings, and for shoes, but when I saw this tutorial on the Purl Bee for a wedding clutch I decided to DIY it (and not tell my friends, since I knew I'd be met with cries of "It's too much!", "Do you really have time to take on another project??"). In my head, I figured if the project would be relatively easy, with only an hour or two spent at my sewing machine, and I could have something handmade to go along with my handmade dress, then of course I wanted to make that happen!

Although... all didn't go exactly as planned.

I ordered the materials and followed the instructions to a tee. (I even loaded a bobbin all on my own. Take that, sewing machine fear!) But when I was done, my clutch was larger than could comfortably fit into my hand and it was pretty floppy. I loved it in theory, but it wasn't quite right.

Luckily, I had plenty of supplies to give it another go.

I followed the instructions exactly again, but I reduced the size to about 8 inches wide by about 13 inches long, for a finished width of about 6.5 inches. I also doubled the layer of Globalweave to make it sturdier, I skipped the interior pocket, and I used a sew-on snap (since I only had gotten one of the special magnetic clasps), but it turned out to be easier to open and close, which I liked.

The result? A small clutch that fits my phone, lip gloss, powder and a hanky, and that fits perfectly into my hand. It's just sturdy enough and the second time around it probably took about 25 minutes total to make.

Next week, I'll share our DIY stitched placecards! (Can you tell that stitchery is a theme of the wedding? 'Cause it is!)

I have found a lot of reasons to love the remote Northern California county where my husband and I live. One of the most obvious and joyous reasons for my affectionate feelings happens each year over Memorial Day weekend. Humboldt County has been host to a kinetic sculpture race for 43 glorious years. Occasionally called "The Triathalon of the Art World," the race is an extraordinary combination of artistry, engineering, and downright silliness.

Many other cities host kinetic sculpture races around the United States, but Humboldt County's Kinetic Grand Championship was the first. The race began in 1969 in the tiny Victorian town of Ferndale when local artist Hobart Brown altered his son's tricycle and challenged another artist friend, Jack Mays, to a race. In a small community like Ferndale, news spreads pretty fast, and when the two artists met for the first race, they were joined by a bunch of other locals who wanted in on the action. Neither Jack or Hobart won the first race, but the idea was born, and each year local vehicles became more and more complex, until the race expanded to a full-fledged sculptural triathalon in 1974. To compete, your vehicle must be man-powered, it should display artistry, and it needs to be able to survive pavement, sand dunes, mud, a bay crossing, a river crossing, and some pretty serious hills.

The vehicles built for this even are truly amazing—people spend all year assembling their machines and making costumes. I love the spirit of community involved in the Kinetic Grand Championship. The fact that people are teaming up to build the biggest, most insane man-powered sculpture simply for the sake of building it is just marvelous, as far as I am concerned. The rules are more byzantine than you can imagine, though a well presented bribe can help you get around almost any one of them, and the prize for winning this grueling event? GLORY. In fact, almost everything about this event is described in terms of glory.

This year I arrived early to score a primo seat for the brake testing, pageantry (most teams have choreography, costumes, and an entourage of bikes following their machine), and bribes. I had a great seat to photograph these man-powered machines, so I made a slideshow of some of my best photos. Remember, a photo cannot do justice to the actual sculptures themselves, which are incredibly animated. Here is also a brief (and a few years old) video made for the Kinetic Museum to give you some idea of the complexity of these machines.

The Kinetic Grand Championship is nearly impossible to describe to someone who has not witnessed it, but it is, truly, a type of glorious chaos that I look forward to every year. I think the best summation of the type of fun and absurdity you can experience is the founder Hobart Brown's own description: "Adults having fun so that children will want to grow up."

Check out my slideshow to see more images of this year's race!

Fun li'l fact time: Up until no-fault divorce was signed into New York law last August, constructive abandonment (or the inability for one spouse to hold up their end of the martial contract) was the most common cited fault for divorce in New York. And now the popular and subjective excuse of yesteryear is the name of a picture book. (Sort of.) 

Artists Michael Dumontier and Neil Farber, the founders of the influential Winnipeg art collective the Royal Art Lodge (R.I.P.) have collaborated to create the sweet-looking, 7-x-7-inch hardcover publication Constructive Abandonment (from indie publisher Drawn & Quarterly)—a series of small paintings featuring surreal vignettes with animals and people weighed down by the pressures of life. 

The pieces in the colorful, 64-page book almost look like they would fit seamlessly into a children's book—if it weren't for the overt obsession with morbidity, dark surrealism, and dissonance. 

Canadian-based illustrators Dumontier and Farber work independently, but also meet once a week to make collaborative paintings. You can check out some of their other work on their blog. And get a copy of Constructive Abandonment here.

[Images courtesy Drawn & Quarterly] 

We've all seen our share of molded record bowls, but I haven't seen enough crafty things made from the fantastic record covers of bygone days. We passed by this crate of records up for grabs on the street, and then at a garage sale last weekend, I found myself coveting tons of gorgeous records from the '60s and '70s—terrible music, of course, but oh, the covers! I love the awkward setups, garish makeup, and fine ladies and gents that graced countless jazz and classical reinterpretations. If only I had known about this sweet box tutorial from Leah of Zombies Wearing Helmets, I would've allowed myself to buy a handful.

Leah's blonde bombshell tribute box is fab, but wouldn't this also look cool if you could find five copies of the same record? I have a friend who collects records; specifically, this one:

She has a zillion copies of Herb Alpert's perennial classic; enough to make at least a wall's worth of delightful record boxes!* Start combing the free piles and dollar bins for your very own storage solution.

*Confession: I actually really like Herb Alpert.

Trashed Item Spotted: Manhattan, New York

Situation: Four-letter words fly around the mean streets of Manhattan everyday of the week but when my (rarely seen or heard) favorite four-letter word pops up on the side of a box—beckoning me from the sidewalk— what can I say? I’m easy prey. This box was set up outside a great used bookshop, so these babies were at least cared for, right? Let’s have look! The box on the right was full of old books on tape (too bad I don't have an old Walkman). The box in the middle was a set of old Encyclopedia Americana. Ever since I saw the idea that uses pages from an old book to wallpaper a wall, I’ve thought about using books from an old dictionary or encyclopedia to do my pad up in style. But I suffer the same fate as Megan; as a renter, I’m torn about how far I want to go in the home improvement department. In the box on the left, a smattering of old books. I was in a hurry so I plunged in briefly and came up with In the Shadow of Man, Jane Goodall’s seminal work from 1971 on her time with chimpanzees in Africa. For me, a total score.

Outcome: Left everything except the Goodall book.

What would have done? What would you do with old encyclopedias?

If you spot a potential treasure on the street or curbside near you, snap a pic, post it on our Facebook page, and ask, "Take It Or Leave It?"

Now that spring is upon us, the workplace lunch-bringer like myself can grow tired of the heavy legume- or meat-based soups and stews that are the easiest dishes to prepare in big batches over a weekend and reheat serving-by-serving in the office. I love lentil curry and lamb stew to death, but when spring’s fresh produce becomes available and sunshine streams in through my office window, I start craving lighter midday meals.

While healthy warm-weather favorites like, say, salad-plus-protein, or poached fish with sautéed baby greens don’t translate well when made ahead, a vegetable-laden frittata for one is quick to fix in the morning and is equally tasty eaten cold out of the fridge at lunch as it is warm when first prepared. While frittatas are classically made heavy with cheese and other dairy (and are quite tasty in this mode), I make mine without dairy, and with a higher vegetable-to-egg ratio than is traditional, for a meal that celebrates springtime abundance and also provides quite a nutritious punch.

Another option is to make a larger frittata—like Amy's tasty sweet potato skillet frittata, this classic swiss chard and cheese version from Pamela Salzman, or a cheese-free high-protein potato-and-onion frittata by Sweet And Saucy—and eat it for lunch over a couple of days. Or serve an oversized version at your Sunday-morning brunch party, then have leftovers for lunch on Monday and Tuesday.

Springtime lunch frittata for one

Note: Bacon fat or butter make for a much cleaner release from the pan, and both fats add wonderful flavor to this dish, but if you are particularly averse to them both, refined coconut oil or olive oil will work—you’ll just have a messier cleanup and a less neat serving appearance.

3 eggs
Sea salt
freshly ground black pepper
1 1/2 tablespoons butter or bacon fat
1 spring onion, diced
1/2-1 cup cut-up asparagus spears
1/2 medium bunch lacinato kale, cut into ribbons (about 2 cups)

Heat broiler. Beat eggs lightly with several generous pinches of sea salt and black pepper. Heat 1 tablespoon fat in a medium skillet over medium heat; add onion and a pinch of salt and cook until soft, about five minutes. Add asparagus and cook about 2 more minutes. Add kale and a splash of water and cook until kale stems are almost tender and additional water has cooked off. Add remaining fat and allow it to melt. Turn heat down to low, add eggs, and stir occasionally as if making scrambled eggs. When eggs are half cooked, place under broiler for about 2 minutes, or until cooked through. Immediately remove frittata to place and serve, or cut into slices to cool.

Once, years ago,  I complained to my godmother about how hard it was to meet guys. "I don't understand—you ride around with your dog in the basket." she said. "Don't men just follow you around?"

If they did, they were on foot. But the next time I got on my bicycle with Amos, I realized that people did seem to stop and stare. Seeing a dog on a bike must speak to the same thing in us that reacts to skateboarding puppies or cats on Roombas. The other day, I took part in a local bike-with-your-dog parade organized by the environmental advocacy group, Time's Up. For every cute dog in a bike basket, there were six people gawking. As the twenty or thirty of us dog lovers were biking en masse down Waverly Place, I overheard one woman exclaim, "This is the craziest thing I've ever seen in New York."

Really? I'm not sure it'd make my top ten. I don't ride a bike with Amos, my poodle-yorkie, because I'm trying to be eccentric or broadcast his cuteness. I do it because I like to have him around. And whenever I'm somewhere that isn't at home, there's a good chance I'm getting there by bike.

I started bicycling with Amos when he was just a few months old. At first, I put him in the removable wire basket hanging from my handlebars; he lay down, and we were off. I gave him some treats as we went. He was young enough that he took it all in stride. Once, when he was very small, he pooped while we were riding. But it fell right through the wire mesh. No muss, no fuss!

I eventually started putting a piece of cardboard or some magazines in the bottom of the basket so that his feet wouldn't slip through. I later customized his ride further by placing an old towel in it. I also started putting him in a harness and tying the leash to the side of the basket, lest he get thrown out. Then I upgraded to a body harness instead of a neck collar because, if we did get jostled, I think the weight would be better distributed than if the leash were attached to his neck.

My setup is purely makeshift, but this is because of necessity, not thrift: Despite the fact that both bikes and dogs have been around longer than cars, we're ages away from having any kind of bicycling regulations for the canine set, and there are few quality products out there for ensuring a safe ride for your pet.  Really, we haven't progressed much further than Miss Gulch's method for transporting Toto, shoving him into a covered back basket. No seat belt! He, of course, escaped. Fortunately, there were no taxis going by.

In anticipation of writing this post, I tried out a dog-specific bike basket, The Snoozer. Amos and I were both enticed by the promotional video. It sucked us in, like a bhangra music video or a ShamWow ad. But when the product showed up, I found it was mostly fabric; it just didn’t seem as sturdy as our previous arrangement. We tried it but it was kind of wobbly. Amos gave it two paws down. I didn’t really care about all the pockets you could use to put doggie items because Amos travels light. The one advantage it had over his previous basket was that there’s an attached rain hood, but I don’t much like biking in the rain in any case.

Perhaps in Holland or Portland or in some other more bike-friendly city, everyone with a bike and a dog has figured out some clever way to ride with their pet and no one looks at them twice. In New York, however, a dog on a bike still gets some attention. But of all those dog/bike people to stare at, the motley crew at the Doggie Peddle Parade was a good sampling of considerate pet travelers. A couple people had trailers that are specifically made for dogs and have lots of value added features: a sun roof, a machine-washable cushion, ventilation all around, etc. (I enjoyed this video review, wherein the cameraman goes inside the trailer to best convey the dog's experience.) These are probably best suited for large dogs who may need to be acclimated to the situation with a couple short rides before you start taking them any great distances.

Most people had just altered their regular bike baskets as I had, but some went other routes: One lady had her dog strapped to her chest in a canine-snuggly, and one man had his dog running next to him, although this seems a risky proposition to me. Better to keep the leash out of your hands and use something like the WalkyDog, which attaches to the bike and puts some distance between the dog and the bike's chains. A few people even had their dogs in helmets. I didn't have one of these for Amos, but I just ordered one. They are made of ABS plastic and have customizable foam padding.

Does it look ridiculously cute? Yes. But I'm getting it anyway.

[Images via lukegrange on Flickr, ambergris on Flickr, and Hunterk9]

My garden bolted.

Six months ago I would have thought that meant it got its motor running and headed out on the highway, but now I know better. So, while the crops in my garden were indeed born to be wild, for them bolting is less about looking for adventure and more about perpetuating the species. 

In gardening-speak, "bolting" basically means that the plant has "gone to seed," which basically means that it has shot up flower stems and started blossoming. The problem with crops bolting is that once there's a flower, the plant starts to put all of its energy into reproducing (hence the saying, "gone to seed"). 

Two main reasons we don't like bolting: 

1. Production of the edible parts of the plant is significantly slowed.
2. The edible parts begin to taste bitter and less tender, and rapidly become unusable in the kitchen. 

Two reasons why bolting can be cool: 

1. When chives bolt, their flowers are pretty and purple. So much so that they can be used as a bouquet! 
2. When plants go to seed, you can save that seed to sow next season. 

I had heard the term thrown around by experienced gardeners on my block, and I knew there were things I could try to prevent it, but I decided to go with the flow and see what happened. I'm not interested in reinventing the wheel, but there is also a part of me that doesn't want to approach gardening as a test that needs to be aced. I'm trying to find the balance between reading books and planning ahead, and leaving room for the sense of wonder that germinates (Ohh! Gardening allusion!) when I allow myself to be surprised. 

Here are the crops that have bolted in my garden: 

• Cilantro
• Lettuce
• Arugula
• Green Onions (Scallions)
• Swiss Chard

My arugula (above) bolted the fastest. It seemed to happen overnight. I tasted a leaf the minute I noticed the first flower stem, and it was already inedible. A friend told me that he aggressively cuts his arugula back—in other words, he harvests it regularly and cuts it to the stem—to keep it from bolting and getting too peppery. Arugula grows lazy white pinwheel flowers. After I took some photos of it in full flower, I composted it. 

My scallions went to seed about 8 weeks ago. First, little teardrop-shaped pods appeared at the tops of some of the stalks. As the days got longer and warmer, they started producing seeds, and now they've turned into fuzzy snowball flowers. I'm going to try to save some of the seeds for sowing. Wish me luck.

One of my Swiss chard plants bolted just this past week. One evening I was harvesting a few leaves for dinner, and the next morning there was a tall flower stalk shooting up. So far, it doesn't seem to have affected the taste of the plant too much (we've been eating a lot of chard), but I'm going to cut the others back to try and prevent the rest from bolting right away. The chard has been so prolific, I haven't been able to keep up with it (much like my lettuce, last season). I've realized I need to get more creative in the kitchen and be better about offering part of my harvest to neighbors (and maybe a food bank). Alternatively, I need to grow fewer plants. The chard has definitely got me thinking about new ways of envisioning and planting my beds. 

Last but not least, my chives. As you can see, they haven't bolted. I don't know why. I'm assuming they still will. I'm waiting on those pretty, purple flowers. 

From what I've read, bolting can be postponed or even prevented by keeping soil moist, fertilizing as needed, and harvesting regularly. Have you watched your crops bolt? Have you saved seeds? Share your stories and tips in comments!

Below is a short and sweet roundup of vintage travel trailer campgrounds, with a few photos thrown in for good measure. If you know of any vintage travel trailer campgrounds please post details in the comments! I am dying to find more.

Happy Memorial Day weekend everybody. Hope you are getting out and about. We'll see you on Tuesday!

The Shady Dell

Located in Bisbee, Arizona.

This is a really fun spot that boasts nine beautifully restored vintage trailers mostly from the 1950s. I booked a couple nights in the 17-foot El Rey trailer that was built in 1957 (pictured above). I highly recommend it but, honestly, all the choices seemed great. I can't wait to go here again. See some shots of the El Ray interior below.

Cooking in these cozy campers is fun but so is eating at Dot’s Diner (above) which is located at the Shady Dell. Some info about Dot’s:

Built in the 1950s by the pride of Wichita Kansas, The Valentine Manufacturing Company, this authentic diner was originally purchased by John Hart in 1957 and delivered to the corner of Ventura and Topanga Canyon Blvd in Los Angeles. The diner was transported by flatbed truck to the Shady Dell in November, 1996. 

{pagebreak}

El Cosmico

Located in Marfa, Texas

I love Marfa, Texas. It combines two of my favorite things: wide open western landscapes and minimalist art. When I visited, it was the dead of winter so we opted to stay in the local motel. But I did manage to drive by El Cosmico, to check it out. It’s on the outskirts of town and the shiny aluminum travel trailers looked great. See for yourself here. (I was sorry we didn't stay here!)

FYI: Regular RM Readers might know El Cosmico from a cover story about it and the cool restored trailers they have. Read that article here.

Starlite Classic Campground

Located in Canon City, Colorado

Nestled in the rugged Rocky Mountains, the Starlite Classic Campground offers 7 different vintage trailer models for campers looking for a retro fix. One of them, called the Flamingo Lounge, is a 1962 Tepee Trailer (hitched to a 1958 Chevrolet Biscayne). See the interior photos here.

When you're not hanging out in your cool camper, it looks like the views from the nearly 1,000 feet high Royal Gorge Bridge are very impressive. It held the record for highest bridge in the world from 1929 until 2003!

Rent A Vintage VW Camper Van

Located in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire.

OK, this isn’t a trailer, but it’s still pretty cool. You’ll have to cross the Atlantic to spend time in this vintage beauty, which I discovered during a lull in my day trolling airbnb.com. (Love that site!). This Fully restored VW camper van is available for long or short treks around the countryside. It sleeps 4 and runs about $500.00 per week.

Ever since I saw this dreamy article about driving and camping along the California coast in VW van, I’ve always wanted to rent one of these babies and take a little adventure.

As becoming increasingly usual, there's more news about creative endeavors going on in the Motor City: This time, one of our ReadyMade 100 finalists, Jessica Decker (maker of the Giant Cross Stitch) gave us the heads up that the project she had been working on for CAMP Detroit was finally coming to life. "CAMP is a program that's facilitating art installation projects at the 2011 Movement Electronic Music Festival in Detroit," Decker previously told us. "I can't say too much about the proposal, but I can tell you it's going to be huge and involve typography/lights/and dancing."

But now people will get the chance to check out what these creators have been working on—the fest starts tomorrow. "My team got accepted, and we've been working with five other teams to create art installations that reflect the heart and future of Detroit, and taking advantage of materials that can reused," Decker says. "Between the six groups, there are a variety of different types of projects: fabric light-up banners, inflatable wild creatures, an intelligent node park, a Rube Goldberg machine, a janus tunnel, and a camp chill out area." 

Get the sneak peek of the installations Decker and the creative crews have been working on at the CAMP Detroit Tumblr. And head to Detroit's Electronic Music Festival to experience their pieces in person. 

[Photography by Vanessa Miller] 

Having just recently been away from my garden for a week, and still reeling from the magificent things that happened while I was away (entire bok choy plants have suddenly appeared! Irises are Jack and the Beanstalk size!), I'm eager to get the most out of spring while it's with us. Which means more thoughts on dandelion greens (or really any bitter green—arugula would be delicious in today's recipe) and also on fiddlehead ferns. Now, I have never seen these in the wild, but I did have them twice in the past month and I can say with genuine assurance that I totally would pick them if I ever stumbled across them (or if I decide to plant the actual fern plants in my yard...which seems like the thing to do, especially since I so enjoy saying "fiddlehead").

The salad recipe that we get to share today, which features pickled fiddleheads, is from the new and lovely Tart and Sweet: 101 Canning and Pickling Recipes for the Modern Kitchen by Kelly Geary and Jessie Knadler. Here's the official line:

Tart and Sweet is the essential canning manual for the 21st century, providing a modern tutorial on small-batch canning accompanied by easy-to-follow photos and instructions as well as more than 101 sweet and savory recipes for preserved fruits and pickled vegetables, including jams, chutneys, marmalades, syrups, relishes, sauces, and salsas. With traditional favorites like canned peaches and bread-and-butter pickles as well as more inventive flavor combinations such as kumquat marmalade and pickled ramps, Tart and Sweet offers endless possibilities for creative preserving. In addition, you’ll find recipes and inspiration for using your canned goods in delicious and unique ways, from cocktails to cakes.

As someone who's new to both some of the ingredients that they feature (cue the fiddleheads), and who's started to dabble in pickling and canning, I can't wait to use this book in my kitchen. And since we are betting you feel similarly, we have one copy of Tart and Sweet to give away. To enter, post a comment sharing what you hope to can or pickle this spring or summer between now and 8 AM CST May 31. We'll choose a winner at random.

And now, the recipe for Dandelion Salad with Pickled Fiddleheads and Poached Egg.

{pagebreak}

Pickled Fiddleheads
Like morels and wild asparagus, fiddleheads are among the premier forage vegetables of spring. If you’re not familiar with them, fiddleheads are the tightly coiled shoots of an ostrich fern plant, and they taste like a cross between asparagus and artichokes. Fiddleheads in their natural state don’t exactly look like something you’d want to pop into your mouth—but trust me, they are delicious. I like adding chopped pickled fiddleheads to salads, soups, and sandwiches and using them as a substitute for briny olives on homemade pizza. —Jessie

Makes: 4 pints

3 1/2 cups white wine vinegar
2 1/2 cups water
2 tablespoons kosher salt
1 3⁄4 pounds fiddleheads

Per jar:
1 bay leaf
2 cloves garlic
1 tablespoon brown mustard seed
2 teaspoons coriander seed
1/2 teaspoon black peppercorns
1/2 teaspoon dill seed
1/4 teaspoon celery seed

1. Bring the vinegar, water, and salt to a boil in a medium nonreactive pot. Stir to dissolve the salt.
2. Pack the fiddleheads, bay leaf, garlic, and spices into hot jars. Pour boiling brine over the fiddleheads, making sure they’re covered in liquid and leaving1/2 inch headspace.Check for air bubbles, wipe the rims, and seal. Process for 10 minutes, adjusting
for elevation.

Dandelion Salad with Pickled Fiddleheads and Poached Egg
Fill a salad bowl with young dandelion greens (or another bitter green). Add a minced shallot, the zest of 1⁄2 lemon, and the juice of the whole lemon. Add a handful of strained pickled fiddleheads. Drizzle with olive oil and season with sea salt and black pepper. Toss and top with a poached egg and a sprinkle of Pecorino cheese. For a more decadent version, add bacon lardons.

NOTE: Fiddleheads can taste bitter if not cleaned properly. To prepare, trim the “tail” of the shoot just to where it starts to coil. Soak the heads in cold water and swirl them around, picking and rubbing away any brown flaky bits. Repeat as necessary until all the brown bits have been removed.

Reprinted from: Tart and Sweet (c) 2011 by Kelly Geary and Jessie Knadler. Permission granted by Rodale, Inc. Available wherever books are sold.

 

Excuse me while I toot my horn: I was coined Grillmaster May after my first at-bat behind the grill on Memorial Day a few years ago. I cheered the nickname after the fact, but in the hours leading up to our soiree, I was gripped with terror. Two dozen people in my apartment, back porch, and backyard. Chips, dip, fancy cheeses, lots of ice cold beer, and even a specialty cocktail (beer margaritas) were at the ready, spread out and looking all nice, even fancy.

Confident as I was in all of the above, the grill was calling. And I was a virgin.

I'm not much of a cook. If you could see my grubhub.com order history you'd cringe for both my wallet and my waistline. Still, I was determined to make a char-grilled meal for friends and family, and that meant taking a chance with my (borrowed) Weber. If you're up to the same task this Memorial Day, do not be afraid. Two years in and with my own grill this time, I've got some tips under my "seasoned" belt. With a little help from my friends of course.

Marinade
A good marinade is important but it's not a huge deal. You don't need to slave over a cutting board slicing shallots the day before your party. If you have the extra time on your hands go crazy, but remember that salt, pepper, crushed garlic, and a good extra-virgin olive oil--though pricey, we like Raineri--go a long, long way, especially if you can let the meat sit covered in that mixture overnight. If you're really pressed for time, Trader Joe's has a delicious Black Pepper Sauce for around $2 that produces lip-smacking approvals, and their various hot sauces fit the bill for at-home buffalo wings. Soaking your chicken or beef in one of these for an hour and then brushing them on all sides with the same sauce once they get on the grill is fine. No one will notice that you were short on time and hit the grocery store the morning of your event.

What To Cook
Fat equals flavor on the grill. Any other day of the week I encourage you to buy lean for your health, but on grilling day, unbuckle your belt and pick up the fattier cuts unless you're into super dry food. Your wallet will also thank you. If you're not a meat eater, corn on the cob is an obvious choice, as are delicious vegetable skewers. Fruit is also a good buy to grill and place atop vanilla ice cream. Think strawberries and peaches.

{pagebreak}

Prepping the Grill
A grilling pal suggests the following: "While the grill is heating up, chop an onion in half and scrub the grill with the open side. The harder you scrub, the better. Cleans the grill, flavors the grill, and starts the aroma process. Love that." If you're plumb out of onions, you don't need to purchase a grill brush. Simply ball up some foil and get to rubbing. It will eliminate all of the dust and grime your grill has accumulated over the cooler months in just a few minutes. You'll miss out on the onion-y flavor though.

Starting Your Fire
Two words: Chimney Starter. You avoid lighter fluid and your coals still get hot quickly. There are varying opinions on whether lighter fluid is safe to use and whether or not it affects the taste of your food. I've found it difficult to sort them all out so I prefer to be on the safe side and not touch the stuff. A chimney is super easy: Fill the bottom part with newspaper, the actual cup portion with coals, and light 'er up. In around ten to fifteen minutes your coals should be hot enough to use.

When Is It Done?
Your grill is clean, your fire lit, your meat and/or veggies and fruit above the flames. How do you know when your food is done? Most regular grillers will tell you to just "feel it." I'm sorry. That makes no sense to me. I needed a surefire way to tell me that my food is safe to eat, but not so done that it ends up a chewy, dry mess. The best way to do this is with an internal thermometer. Yeah, you might look a little lame; but if you're a novice like me you don't quite trust or understand the hand test or the finger to thumb trick so better safe than sorry. The FDA recently caught up with the rest of the universe and adjusted its cooking temperature for pork. The pig's cooking time, and that of its friends is below.

Steaks & Roasts - 145 °F
Fish - 145 °F
Pork - 145 °F
Ground Beef - 160 °F
Chicken - 165 °F

More Tips from Friends
- Don't keep closing and opening the lid. If you have a thick cut of meat, leave it closed to speed up the process. With something that requires less cooking time, leave it open.
- Corn on the cob: soak the cobs for a half hour, making sure they are completely submerged in your pot. Open the husk carefully without breaking the leaves and season with some paprika, garlic powder, and fresh rosemary. Reclose the husks. Grill on all sides for a total of around 20-25 minutes.
- If you don't have a chimney, mix self-starting charcoal with regular charcoal. The regular charcoal holds the fire better and the self-starters are faster to burn.
- Meat will keep cooking once it is off the grill. Account for this when using your thermometer to avoid dryness.

I know you all have more tips at the ready! Leave them in the comments and let us all have a happy, delicious Memorial Day.

[Top Photo by Temi Kujore]

Here's what's making our hearts beat a bit faster this week...

BUYABLE:

• Tim Cohen's installment of the "Musician as Designer" Soundscreen series is all sorts of awesome. ($30)
• Speaking of tees, The Teacher Collection at Old Boys is very handsome indeed. ($45)
• And for the ladies, a beautiful nature-inspired jewelry collection. ($55)

READABLE:

• Kitschy Living Tumblr is a visual delight -- from rabbit chandeliers to vintage photographs.
• Leah Dieterich's hit blog ThxThxThx is now a book! Definitely worth a browse.
• Celebrating the art of drilled posters, "Empty Words" comes highly recommended from yours truly.

DOABLE:

• Why not tour a pharmacy museum?
• A gentle reminder to do what you love. We beg of you. 
• Gain some serious baking inspiration from Cookieboy.

Happy clicking!

Creative Grove Artist and Designer Market
Jersey City, NJ

This market of handmade works, accompanied by live music and performances promotes the artistic diversity in Jersey City every Friday from 2 to 8 p.m. at Grand Plaza. Meet and mingle with your neighbors while and check out tons of handmade wares. To keep up on the events the organization hosts, like concerts and other shows, bookmark their website. 

This weekend: 

Randolph Street Market Festival 
Chicago, IL 

Ah... It's finally festival season in the Windy City. This Memorial Day weekend, the Randolph Street Market—chock full of vintage wares and indie designed-creations—kicks off summer in Chicago. This is the first of five weekends the fest will be held this summer. Get more info (including ticket prices) here. 

Saturday: 

Market Day
Des Moines, IA

Another series of curated craft shows starts this Saturday in Iowa's capital. Be sure to swing by to check out  clay pieces, cupcakes, screen-printed bags, upcycled jewelry, vintages dresses, and all sorts of other awesome stuff after strolling through the farmers' market that morning. 

Ending:

Dreamweapon
New York, NY

We just told you about the  Art and Life of Angus MacLise, the exhibition about the poet, composer, and first drummer for the Velvet Underground at pop-up / parasite gallery Boo-Hooray. It's a must-see if you're in New York this weekend.

Have a great Memorial Day weekend, folks! 

Post your awesome events in our calendar! 

[Image via Chicago Maroon and Market Day] 

Angus MacLise lived what seems a series of dots—experimental percussionist, poet, artist, calligrapher, hermeticist, dancer, actor—connected by collaborations with 1960s and ‘70s downtown NYC art kooks. Such groups as Fluxus—a small yet global DIY art community that cut itself off from the pressures of commercialism—and individuals as Ira Cohen, Jack Smith, Lou Reed, Piero Heliczer, Brion Gyson, Gerard Malanga, La Monte Young, and Tony Conrad leaped in and out of his works. MacLise is best known as the original drummer of he Velvet Underground who quit after their first gig because he had to start and stop according to fit into “songs,” a practice he considered selling out. His history before and after this incident is hard to follow—and perhaps has not been as accessible as that of his compatriots—because it’s been so deeply rich and seemingly random.

He was schooled in Haitian drumming and medieval European dance music as a young kid. These and other world art studies influenced his aforementioned NYC art life. When he had a son with illustrator and fellow shapeshifter Hetty Maclise, his wife, the Tibetan Karmapa pronounced him a tulku (a reincarnation of a high lama) when the boy was seven. Throughout it all, MacLise never stepped back to put his work into perspective or really try to commodify it. (Though he did sell journals of poetry letter pressed on artisanal rice paper handmade by locals in Nepal, where he spent most of the latter part of his life.) Add in his endeavors in polyrhythmic drumming and sacred indigenous music and you’ve got one righteous, hard-to-pin-down guy.

New York curatorial collective Boo-Hooray's new exhibition Dreamweapon delves into his unexamined worldwith a voluminous exhibition of his visual, written, and aural work, which, until recently, has been locked in a suitcase c/o minimalist composer and avant garde musician La Monte Young’s basement for 30 years. MacLise lived a steady stream of creation where his work served as an artistic device, says Boo-Hooray co-curator Will Cameron, and also to hopefully induce some sort of trance or hypnosis. From calligraphic art created deep in some meta-mind state to drone-like music, his work was deeply arcane, “made to encode the contemplative state,” says Cameron. MacLise was a true multi-media pioneer.

Dreamweapon is a common descriptor MacLise tossed around festivals and actions he co-curated, and was the name of a printing press he created in 1965, which published Paul Bowles, Charles Henri Ford, Gregory Corso and Diane Di Prima. The show’s at 521 W. 23^rdStreet, and runs through May 29. There’s also a sound installation at Boo-Hooray’s new permanent location, 265 Canal Street.

[Image via Vol 1 Brooklyn] 

If you’re anything like me, you occasionally develop a vaccine-resistant strain of design boredom. It's happening, for me, right now. I shouldn’t be so mean—I know there are lots of lovely new shops, homes, and objects out there, and I enjoy seeing them—but I haven’t been really excited by any of them in a while. So to lower immunity, I decided to revisit the work of some of my favorite artists and designers and re-imagine their creations in the context of modern decorating trends.

The thing that makes the designers I chose memorable, to me, is that they all eschew conventional design wisdom and trends in favor of creating something singular—something that is truly unique. A lot of what I see in catalogues, magazines and shopstoday is the watered-down detritus of over worked design styles of yore—midcentury modern, shabby chic, Hollywood Regency, found industrial etc. Each of these styles can create a beautiful showroom or home, especially when mixed and layered, but what I want to know is what AREN’T we seeing? What is a little too out there for popular consumption, or a little too weird to catch on the way these other styles have?

A disclaimer before I begin: Yes, these artists’ works are all expensive and collectable, and more likely to be seen in an art gallery than a living room, but then again, you can see a real Louis XVI chair in the Louve…and a 21st century copy at Pottery Barn. Sure, there will always be that rarified World of Interiors set, whose grand homes are filled with very outré installations of museum quality modern furniture, and yes, that sort of style can seem very out of reach, but it can also be very inspirational. I’d rather be inspired than bored. In the coming weeks I will feature a designer whose work I find interesting and unique. This is the first installment of five.

Up first: Garouste and Bonetti. {pagebreak}

Garouste and Bonetti

Mattia Bonetti and Elizabeth Garouste worked together as a design team from the early '80s through the '90s. Their style was often classified as “Neo-Baroque," and many of their pieces of furniture and designed objects had amorphous and arboreal qualities while being rooted in classicism. Their eclectic selection of materials has always intrigued me—they often used delicate stones with hand wrought bronze, earthy, almost Southwestern style ceramics with precious metals and lacquers—and each collection of furniture they produced, while varying widely in physical form, had in common a certain strangeness.

Their designs don’t appeal to me so much on an aesthetic level, but a creative one—they really fall into a space with their fabrication that is both art and functional object.  Their attention to shape and surface and reinterpretation of classic forms is unlike anything else. Both in their manufactured work for Maison Jensen and their custom pieces for wealthy patrons, Garouste and Bonetti managed to make serious furniture fun. Their decorative flourishes—swirls and dollops, craquelure and crag—can read a bit '90s when seen today, but then again, since the '90s are coming back in the world of fashion in full force, maybe interiors are next.  Bonetti parted ways with Garouste in the '90s but continues to make furniture and designed objects today. His solo work is no less loud and imaginative than his work with Garouste, and has adorned the showrooms of Christian Lacroix and Philip Johnson among others.

My introduction to Nutella-based drinks was at Brooklyn Fireproof, the café/bar downstairs from my office. The only hot cocoa option they offer is made with Nutella, and done simply—hot milk and Nutella, stirred until it melts together—but the rich hazelnut-enhanced flavor made me wonder both why I’d never thought to use Nutella in a beverage, and why I’d ever consider hot cocoa made another way again. I’ve since had mochas and iced mochas made using Nutella, and again, they were a cut above the plain chocolate versions.

If you’re in part of the country still experiencing rainy drizzle, this luxe edition of Nutella cocoa from Big City Little Kitchen—which adds a cinnamon stick and instant espresso powder for added dimensions of flavor—might be just the thing to make you amenable to summer staying at bay for a little while longer. Top it with a homemade (or “homemade”) marshmallow, as pictured here, and you’ve got the perfect antidote for gray days.

But if it’s summer in your sky, you’ll want to try a cold-weather Nutella refresher, like the aforementioned iced mocha (stir the Nutella into the hot espresso to melt it, before adding to cold milk and ice), or for something a bit more decadent, try an icy, creamy nutella mocha frappe, like this one from The Flow On Three Lakes—it’ll put you-know-who’s bottled rendition to shame.

Another option for warm weather is this Nutella milkshake from Koko Cooks, topped with flame-toasted marshmallows: simply blend chocolate ice cream, Nutella, and milk, then top with marshmallows you’ve caramelized under a broiler (or, if you have a kitchen torch, you can roast them after topping your shake). Change up the ice cream flavor to vanilla, coffee—or what about dulce de leche or mint?—the (delicious) possibilities are endless.

While Nutella is not health food, there’s no need to restrict your consumption of Nutella-based beverages to World Nutella Day alone—just moderate. And make me one, too! 

I don't know, you guys. If there were a craft Olympics today, Australia might take the gold. These Aussies are on fire with creative energy; my favorites include Meet Me at Mike's, Pilgrim Lee, and now, the fabulous Cintia of My Poppet. I'm not sure if it's the weather, but these folks seem to share a great eye for color and general whimsy, as evidenced by Cintia's epic iPad cover tutorial.

I asked Cintia if she thought there was anything down under that might be influencing this color explosion:

"I've just always loved working and surrounding myself with colorful textiles, and in a way I almost think it's more of a challenge working with a bright, broad color palette than a restrained one. Melbourne can get fairly monochromatic at times, so it's refreshing for me to just go a little mad with color, it doesn't take much to stand out in this city where we are famous for all wearing black.

 

"More broadly, I think Australia's isolation from the rest of the world, even in this Internet age, has lead to a lot of crafters developing their own styles without being super influenced by crafting trends. Our relatively small consumer market has meant we just can't get a lot of product variety without spending a fortune on shipping, so if we don't like what's available in the stores we make it ourselves with delightful results."

So interesting! I forget that certain cities can tend towards darker colors; perhaps this is a big city thing as I know everyone in San Francisco seems to own and wear black jackets. Does your town lean toward monochromatic shades or a rainbow of colors?

Back to the tutorial; Cintia advises that your thicker, pre-felted scraps will work best for this project. It might seem a bit tedious at first, but once the strips get sewn together, like a quilt, things will start moving quickly. Also,  It shouldn't be too difficult to trim the size down to fit an iPhone or smaller device if you haven't made the upgrade. (I may be making one for my elderly, pint-sized Nokia. No shame.)

Trashed Item Spotted: Manhattan, New York

Situation: Walking along the street on a rainy day this past week, I saw this very sturdy metal chair frame. I even tested its ability to hold me up. It did. It could easily be refurbished for more sitting. I could even picture it as a kooky garden ornament: green, leafy vines curling up the metal frame by mid-summer.

Outcome: Left it. No room for another chair in my apartment. But… if I had a yard, I bet I would have lugged it home.

What would you have done?

If you spot a potential treasure on the street or curbside near you, snap a pic, post it on our Facebook page, and ask, "Take It Or Leave It?"

After reading Anna's post about dandelion greens in salads, I've been eyeing the weed greens everywhere I go, considering how and whether I can start foraging for them. I'm still pretty intimidated by them, but I love seeing yet another use for the plant—and this time, it's being used in a highly unexpected way: as a syrup. I can imagine this being a great ingredient to use to sweeten salad dressings for a hit of spring and to drizzle over the top of toast with butter, as Manuela says. But since she's the expert, let's here more from her about this deliciousness.

This syrup is great on toast, over pancakes or even to sweeten a cake. It takes a bit of time to make, but why not use it as an excuse to involve your friends or even kids in the process? Picking dandelion petals was definitely my favorite childhood spring experience! I live in Tyrol, Austria and grew up with these specialties—this syrup is a family recipe. I've found that while most older people or farmers might know about this syrup, younger people generally do not. It's inexpensive to make and it will add a twist to your pancakes or toast in the morning. —Manuela Oberhofer

Dandelion Syrup

4 cups of dandelion petals
4 cups of water
1 lemon
7 cups of sugar

Remove all the green stuff from the dandelion petals. Cut the lemon into thick slices. Put water, dandelion petals and lemon slices in a heavy saucepan. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes. Strain the dandelion juice through a cheesecloth or fine-mesh strainer, making sure that you don't have any solids in it. Let this dandelion juice cool down completely.

In a heavy saucepan, brown 2 cups of sugar over low heat (carefully, this burns easily). Stir the sugar until it starts melting. Don't let the caramel get too dark. Then, slowly (!) add your dandelion juice to it. Be careful, it will start steaming and making all sorts of cooking noise. Add the rest of the sugar to this mix and bring carefully to a boil. Then reduce heat and let simmer. Stir occasionally to dissolve all the sugar. Simmer everything for 1-2 hours to get a syrup or honey texture. Watch the cooking process at all times--this can boil over easily.

While the syrup is simmering it is difficult to see the final texture. Here is a way to test if the texture is right: With a metal spoon get a little bit of the hot syrup. Let it cool on a cold surface (e.g., a plate). The syrup will have a honey-like texture if it is ready. Otherwise it will stay runny even when cooled down and you need to cook it longer.

Once your syrup is ready, put it into glass jars and let it cool down. You can vary the amount of sugar depending on the desired sweetness and texture. The more sugar, the easier you will achieve a honey-like texture. If you prefer a runny syrup, use less sugar and cook for less time.
 

If you have a recipe to share, email it to articles@readymademag.com for a chance to have it featured here or in an upcoming issue of the magazine.

After a couple of very windy storms, the trees in my yard have been dropping sticks like crazy...so I literally have stacks of sticks and no idea what to do with them. Then, while idly clicking through my Google Reader, I stumbled upon this post from Grey Likes Weddings featuring Ampersand Photography. And wouldn't you know it, right there in the second image were fabric-laced wands made from sticks. Sticks! I scoured my stash for remnant fabric and a few colors of paint, then I headed outside to grab the straightest fallen branches I could find.

I'm all about alternatives to throwing rice to celebrate the exit of the Happy Couple, and while confetti is fun, you still have to clean that mess up. If you're like me, these fabric streamer wands are a decent alternative to tossing small bits into the air. They take some time, sure, but it feels like a summer camp craft instead of a wedding DIY, which is a plus in my book.

Click here for the full project instructions.

My little plot, as of this afternoon. Filled with those little maple tree whirligigs, many of which have started to seed.

I'm usually a smart consumer. I'm no cheap-o, but I tend to be able to avoid impulse buys, shopping with my heart instead of my wallet, and I've had few cases of buyer's remorse.

Well, except for when at the nursery. There's one day a year where I go seedling crazy, and buy plants like a freaking produceamaniac. "Oh, I can have my own blackberry bush? I'ma grow the s*#$ out of those little juicy dudes." Or, "Nine kinds of thyme? Sign me up."

Except, I can't grow those. I have a tiny little, 4x4-foot raised bed where I can do just a few essentials, and a small landing that gets pretty good sun for a few pots and containers. And a bazillion damned squirrels and chipmunks that rip half of my fruits off the vine before they even begin to reach full size. 

One day, I'll retire to a farm, and have miles of my own food, fresh whenever I need it. Till then, I'm an urban apartment dweller who's doing his best. So, over the years, I've l had to learn what I actually use, what I want on hand, and what doesn't really make sense. And I've gotten a bit smarter about what I can grow, what I should grow, and what I should leave to the pros.

Here's my logic. Your choices, of course, will vary, but smarter planting is always a good idea.

Plant the things you want to eat daily, or at least right now

The point of growing your own food is that you're able to just walk outside and feed yourself. Well, there are lots of other ecological and economic benefits, but it's totally awesome to just have that stuff in your yard, fire escape, or windowsill to add a bit of freshness to your meals.

So, plant the things that you use the most, those things that you find yourself buying over and over each time you visit the market. Similarly, choose the things you can add to the most number of dishes, items you'll never get sick of.

For me, that's a lot of herbs and greens. I love the freshness of summer herbs on everything, from salads to homemade dressings to garnishes for pastas and grilled items. They make a world of difference, and most are super easy to grow. I find parsley, thyme, chives, basil (sweet and Thai), and rosemary to be essential, but also dig on the unkillable mint, verbena, and oregano.

The same grows for lettuces and greens. I'll always need a bit of butter lettuce for a sandwich, spinach for a salad, or some argula for a salad, but rarely go "Boy, I need some kimchi, better go harvest that napa cabbage." No, making kimchi is a process, takes a long time to ferment, it's something I plan for, and so I opt to get cabbages from the farmer's market. Same for potatoes, sweet potatoes, onions, and garlic. These things have relatively long pantry life, and I don't often go, "I need a whole bowlful of mashed potatoes ASAP."

I also make tons of Latin American food, especially in the summer, so chile peppers are essential to me. Yes, I can buy a serrano at the grocery store for, like, nine cents. But, in my house, I actually whip up Mexican-inspired salad dressings and veggie dishes on  a whim, so being able to get those crucial flavors without having to make a trip to the grocery store is definitely worth the space.

Plant what you eat the most

I will eat a tomato every day from July to October. Just pick it off the vine and start munching. Actually, I could do this three meals a day, 365 days a year, but they don't taste so nice in January. I will sit on my porch, with a few slices of bread, a bit of cheese and olives, and just eat them right off the vine, and that's dinner a few days a week. When they're ripe, all my neighbors give me some, they show in my CSA, and are super inexpensive at the market, and I say "great." Bring 'em. I'll eat em. And if I don't, I'll make sauce or salsa. So, having four of my coveted sixteen spots, a full 25%, is worth it to me. Do the same: find the veggies you never get sick off, and grow those. You can always find the rest locally--if you can grow it in your climate, so can everyone else.

My flat-leaf parsley, from which I pick a leaf and munch everytime I go outside. 

Don't plant what you eat the most

My sweetheart and I are crazy for corn. Especially on the grill. When it's in season, I bet we put down an easy twelve cobs a week. Each. But I live in Ohio--sweet corn country. And I can get locally grown, organic method corn for 25 cents an ear. It's something I buy every time I go to the market, and it regularly shows in my CSA. So, it's not worth the space to grow my own. I'd love to, but I'm on an area budget, corn isn't a high yield plant, and, I repeat, I can buy it for a quarter, and sometimes less. And I do. A lot.

My favorite flavor in the world is cilantro. Then lime. Then bacon. I'm fairly certain I've come home with a bunch of cilantro every grocery trip since I graduated from college. But, cilantro goes to seed fast, and needs to be replanted every four weeks. And it simply doesn't thrive in my climate, and so it's not the best use of resources for me. Chives? Yes, even though I probably consume a fourth as many chives as I do cilantro.

The same goes for other large plant crops: zucchini, summer squash, eggplant, etc. I love these, and eat them regularly. But they're quite big, and are very inexpensive during the summer months, when every farmer and all your neighbors have plenty to share. I gave up trying to grow these years ago, and I've never been without, or wish I had more.

{pagebreak}

Be smart about seasons

If you plan well, and pay attention, any garden plot, no matter the size, can grow three seasons each year: spring, summer, and fall. And, reasonably enough, save for tender lettuces in the summer (without protection), the food you want to eat during that season grows well in that season. Neat, huh?

For example, I love sage. I love the way it smells, its fluffy texture, and that it can transport me to Thanksgiving in a minute. But that's the thing--sage is a fall flavor. It grows wonderfully in July, but I'm not making stuffing or butternut squash ravioli when it's 100 degrees outside. So, I plant a more summery herb during that season, then when it's closer to fall, I replace it, and go sage crazy and have tons ready to go come harvest time, and it lasts until Thanksgiving.

Embrace your limitations

Every garden, whether an acre or a window box, suffers from less than ideal conditions. Not enough space, poor soil conditions, lack of variety in sun exposure, too much rain, too little rain... you know what yours are. So, just accept them. Did you plant tomatoes in the ground for the last three years, and they weren't any good at all? Then stop putting 'em in the ground. Your soil is not right for tomatoes. Build or buy a raised bed or container garden. Plants need space, and enough soil to get them the nutrients they need.

For me, it's the #$*&ing squirrels and chipmunks. They're everywhere, and I hate them. I planted sweet bell peppers for three years, only to have 85% of them plucked off the plant. Not to be eaten, of course. They only attack immature, tiny, unripe peppers. Which taste nasty, and even an odious little 'munk knows that. No, they just pull them down, and leave them with a single little tooth mark as if to say, "Screw you, Chris. You're not getting any peppers." And, whether I like it or not, I'm not getting any. So, even though they can pulled $3.99 a lb at the grocery store, I gotta go with it, and use that space for something more fruitftul.

Sum it up

Of course, given your location, taste, shopping style, and eating habits, your garden is gonna look totally different from mine. But being smart what, when, and where you plant, and knowing what's ready available from local farmers, markets, and your neighbors means you can eat well, nutriously, and locally, all summer long.

Oh, and compost is awesome. Make it, buy it if you have to, and use it every time you plant a seed or seedling.

What are the pros and cons you weigh when gardening? Successes? Sacrifices? Oh, unless you live in a place where you can grow citrus trees. Or cilantro. Don't show off. Cause I'm crazy jealous. (At least I get snow on Christmas!)

Team RM ran through ICFF last week to check out the latest in modern home design. Among swanky man-lair furniture and too many fake fireplaces, this fun and functional item (that was part of the DesignBoom Mart for young, avant-garde designers) caught my eye. Designed by Korean-based studio AbelPartners, the Tea Diver is shaped like a "traditional Korean diver"—just fill him up with your tea of choice, plunge him into your hot-water-filled mug, and let him infuse your beverage while having an underwater adventure. Very cute. You can nab this li'l guy for yourself at Yanko Design's online store. 

I’d already gotten the general idea from looking at the CD tracks (Brahams, Schubert, Bach, etc.) and from flipping through the pages: Classical music is good for dogs, and maybe for people. But so is cod liver oil. I decided that it wasn't really my thing, but I’d try it just for blog’s sake.

It is all slow piano music, recorded by Julliard-trained musician Lisa Spector. The songs are “psychoacoustically designed” simplified classical pieces, performed solo. According to the book, “The more complexity in the music, the more energy required to decipher it. Likewise, the simpler the sound, the greater the relaxation response.” 

I don’t remember what that first track was. Or the second. I can’t tell you because I can’t find the CD at the moment, but also because they weren’t the kinds of melodies that tend to stick in one’s brain. But I really wish I knew where that CD was: When I started to listen to those banal tracks, it was like the sandstorm in my head started to settle. There was music playing, but the effect was a lull in my mind. I swear I could feel my blood pressure drop. It made me want to get off the web and write for a while—suddenly, I looked at all the tabs I had open and it was just too much sensory information. It didn’t jibe with the calmness of the music. I had to choose between the business of the computer screen and the CD. I chose the boring music.

What was happening to me? The book discusses Ivan Pavlov’s 1927 discovery of the orienting responses, our “instinctive visual or auditory reaction to any sudden or novel stimulus...a built in sensitivity to movement and potential predatory threats.” Apparently, Pavlov determined that this response causes our brains to become alert and hyper and attuned to exciting stimulus even when the body is still. What is the Internet, which I use constantly, but a constant source of exciting stimulus? Book authors Joshua Leeds (a sound researcher) and Susan Wagner (a veterinary neurologist) also discuss Dr. Robert Kubey’s studies on television addiction, and his findings that “long sessions of overstimulation create fatigue, dizziness, and nausea.” We are nevertheless drawn to that stimulation, with “even babies [doing] everything they can to watch a TV and follow all the fast movement on the screen.” They also touch on Temple Grandin’s work, looking at how intermittent sound is upsetting because you are waiting for the next sound. Write Wagner and Leeds:

“Intermittent sounds are a perfect example of pattern identification—or, more precisely, the lack of it. The brain is always looking for a pattern. Auditorily, this is called active listening—we are finely tuned, alert, and actively focused. But this is designed to be a temporary state, lasting only until we find the pattern in what we are hearing...When we can’t find a pattern, our minds are not free to move on to other things and the whole perceptual system essentially starts to back up. If we add the effects of intermittent sounds together with sensory confusion, over-stimulation, and an overwhelmed orienting response, a not too pretty picture begins to emerge. “

The fact that we internalize music is seen through the way we tap our feet, or how Black Sabbath makes us feel one way and LCD Soundsystem another. According to the book, this is a visual indication of entrainment aka “the process whereby our internal pulses will match a periodic rhythm...even without physical demonstration of rhythmic entrainment, the internal organs are still speeding up or slowing down to match external rhythmic stimuli.” 

Is pretty-but-boring classical music better for you, than, say, Sonic Youth? Or talk radio? This short personal test I’ve undergone would suggest it is. I’ve been calmer and more productive than I am listening to my normal, more pop-influenced iTunes playlist. Studies hold that the same thing is true for dogs. In 2002, Belfast-based psychologist and animal behaviorist Deborah Wells researched various kinds of auditory stimuli to see their effects on dogs: human conversation, classical music, heavy metal music, pop music, and silence. She found that “classical music resulted in dogs spending more of their time resting than any of the other experimental conditions of auditory stimulation.” They also barked less. In a subsequent study, she used Spector’s music—both solo piano music and piano trios at different tempos. The results were in favor of the solo piano at 50 to 60 beats per minutes. It put more than half the test dogs to sleep.

I wonder if this is why classical music has endured over so many generations: It has the power to give us a general feeling of sedation and well-being. Maybe that is something that is painfully obvious. But no one told me!

And so I never told Amos that he might like classical music. In fact, I’m not totally sure that he does. He certainly doesn’t seem to dislike it. The fact that these Through A Dog’s Ear CDs are being touted as essential kennel management tools at dog shelters around the country make me think that they must be doing something good to him. But it’s not like he does his excited dance when he sees me slipping it into my laptop.

After I wrote all of the above, I called my mom to ask if I’d left the dog music CD at her house. “Yes,” she said. “It sounds like something they’d play at a mortuary. And yet, I love it.” Indeed, I could hear it playing. Her dogs, normally barking in the background, were totally quiet.

[Images via Through a Dog's Ear] 

Here’s what he had to say: “I don’t want a peanut but it has that consistency. And then just a little bite, a little flavor—not much, and I’m not head over heels, but it’s kind of working.” Then he added, “Keep in mind that I’ve never thought that I had a discerning palate.” A few minutes later he announced he was tired of them.

Homemade roasted chickpeas, on the other hand, are so crazy easy that there’s no reason I should’ve bought this snack in the first place. Using our Project Uploader Tool, ReadyMaker Andrea Giantonio submitted her roasted chickpea recipe for a similar flavor profile as the purchased snack, and her description of Saturday happy hour on her front porch enjoying them sounds divine.

Forget bikini bod plans. Here's a month-long challenge we can actually stand behind: 30 Days of Creativity, launched by ad agency Carmichael Lynch, is an initiative for people to make something every day from June 1st to the 30th. In its second year, the goal of 30 Days is simple: Inspire creativity and invention on a tangible timeline. Suzy Hart of the 30 Days team explains: 

"The spark came last year after we gathered to discuss how we could get people to realize their creative potential. We believe everyone is creative and we wanted to develop a program that would put this into action and provide guardrails towards accomplishment—many of us talk about doing things, but never quite get to it. We push it off to another day or find excuses to delay our creativity. When we assign a timeline and ask that they create something, anything, every day—participants are going to be more likely to stay on track in achieving their goal."

So, want to take part? Pledge to create something—a dessert, a screen print, a renovated dresser, whatever—every day during the month of June, and give 30 Days a heads up by telling them on Twitter.  Snap pics of what you create and use the hash tag #30daysofcreativity to show off what you've made. Also check out the 30 Days website to share what you've made, see other people's projects, and cheer them on in finishing the month. 30 Days will be posting the creative endeavors of the community on their Pinterest page (where you can actually check out some things that have been already been made inspired by 30 Days, like the designs above).

And here's their how-to: 

#30daysofcreativity - A How To Guide from 30 Days of Creativity on Vimeo.

So, who's in? 

[Images via 30 Days of Creativity]