Anyone who personally knows me, knows my deep love and appreciation of properly seasoned (read: salted) food, and my belief that without properly seasoning something that you are doing it a deep, sad injustice. I have been particularly amused by all the controversy surrounding the use of salt in food the past 6 months or so. The Mayor of NYC has a personal vendetta against my true love, salt. And the NYC-based Media outlets have taken the bait and done ridiculous salt-testing of restaurant dishes and shown us the grave danger hidden in the KILLER! ALFREDO! SAUCE! of your favorite Italian joint.
I think this base fear from the masses is disappointing. Yeah, there is a lot of sodium in that Shake Shack meal. But if you’re wolfing down a full double Shack burger and fries every day you’ve got bigger problems than the salt in the meal–that’s just unhealthy no matter what.
This might sound melodramatic to some, but salt used correctly when cooking brings food to an entirely new level of complexity–one that makes it worth eating, rather than just something you eat to sustain yourself. Cook, season, taste, cook.
It’s simple and delicious. Read a good article from Serious Eats on How to Salt Food here.
/preachy rant
Tags: food
March 4th, 2010
There is an amazing Flickr group out there called Looking Into the Past that contains hundreds of photos like these, in various forms, comparing a present photo of a location with a past photo of the exact same spot. I am a total sucker for these types of pictures, as living in NYC has made me realize that I am a super nostalgic person.
I love seeing the history of places, and love it even more when the integrity of things are kept roughly intact, with modern changes applied, sort of like the tenement buildings in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Walking the streets there you can feel the history of the immigrants of New York, and that is worth more than any new blue-glass crappy condo with $1 million units they can ever build.
Tags: corin, nyc, photos
March 3rd, 2010
Tags: daveo, happiness, nyc
March 1st, 2010
This wallpaper is so amazing. Wallpaper is one of the reasons I want to live in someplace that I own, or at least someplace I know for sure that I will be in for a long enough time to invest in some real decor. This paper is gorgeous and calming and has just enough design to be interesting but isn’t overwhelmingly patterned as to be distracting. And I LOVE the fact that it is just on the one wall, serving to extend the headboard and really make that wall outstanding.
Check out the incredible before & after makeover of this room on Design*Sponge. It’s nearly unbelievable that the before could even be the same room!
Tags: decor, happiness, house
February 26th, 2010
Dave fortifies with a cup of Bustelo brew
and then proceeds to clear the 1 foot of snow off the car with a plastic dustpan and an old frying pan
and after 1.5 hours, we have success!
Tags: Brooklyn, daveo, snowpocalypse II
February 26th, 2010
Check out this pretty cool infographic (from last.fm) showing the music that New Yorkers listened to compared to the music the rest of the country listened to in 2009. It’s interesting to see the curves of how much earlier certain music was adopted, and in greater numbers compared to outside of New York, and how much more diverse the rest of the country is in comparison.
Plus the information is displayed in such an interesting, colorful and easy to comprehend way. More like this, please.
Tags: information, music
February 25th, 2010
This weekend I made cheese for the first time ever. I like it. It was the easy goat cheese recipe that I found on Serious Eats, and we ended up with a little ball of goat cheese ricotta. There was only one dire moment, and it was when I realized that maybe I should have cut down the cheese cloth to a more manageable size, rather than leaving it in the 2 yard form it came in, “just in case.” Talk about unwieldy! However, it was pretty delicious, and I’m eager to try again and see if I can make it even better. Actually, I’m eager to try again and make a different cheese–however cool it is to make a quick and dirty ricotta cheese, ricotta is just inherently sort of bland to me. I prefer a snappier flavor to a creamier one. I should probably try this one a couple more times to get the hang of it, and try using a rennet, before I move on to bigger and better things. I’m SO impatient.
Tags: cheese, cooking, corin, food
February 23rd, 2010
The assignment: Take a CD that you think is badly designed and design new cover art for it. This art should be able to evoke the feeling that one gets when listening to the record or a song. Bring in the song to class to play along with your design.
Soooo, I had a hard time finding a badly designed album cover that I could actually come up with a design for. I decided to go with The Lonesome Crowded West by Modest Mouse because even though I personally find the original art iconic (since it was one of my favorite albums ever), it’s still pretty basic and there was room for more interpretation. I am going to use Trailer Trash as my song for the redesign. I think it evokes what I need it to.
Here’s the original:
Tags: corin, music, school
February 22nd, 2010
Art done by lunchbreath, as found on Core77.
(And I admit to being guilty of several of these after initially getting the program, but now LESS so–which I’ll take as a sign that I am growing with my Photoshop! Ahem, though I still do love a drop shadow.)
Tags: art, illustration
February 19th, 2010
I really, really want a tropical, sunshine-y, beach-y, swim-filled vacation. Now, please.
(restaurant off the coast of Zanzibar, found via gimme gimme)
Tags: happiness, travel
February 18th, 2010
The assignment: Come up with ideas for 3 book covers, each focusing on different copy as the priority: the title, the subtitle and the authors (Magic with Cards, 113 Easy to Perform Miracles with an Ordinary Deck, Garcia and Schindler).
The biggest problem I am having is not necessarily coming up with the ideas (rudimentary as they are), but is graphically representing them the way I see them in my mind. Since this class is primarily about ideas and not about layout, I guess basic layout works, but I really wish I could make what I imagine. I need to spend some serious hours with the Abobe Creative Suite this week…
Tags: corin, illustration, school
February 15th, 2010
Tags: beer, Brooklyn
February 15th, 2010
xoxoxoxo
corin
Tags: corin, daveo, print
February 12th, 2010
Kumi Yamashita does amazing work with light and shadow, and I am mesmerized by it. It’s so delicate, but with a huge impact.
Check out more of her work here: KumiYamashita.com
Tags: art, paper
February 11th, 2010
There is nothing I like better to give as a gift to kids than books–I was a pretty voracious reader when I was young, and definitely have some books that I still hold pretty dear from those young years. One of the books that I especially love to give is The Complete Adventures of Curious George (which I was able to give my friends daughter Molly for her first birthday this past weekend)–but I may have found a new addition to the gift-giving stable!
Around the World with Mouk is a recently translated version of Marc Boutavants French story. The animation is gorgeous, and the story line is something I would love to instill in every child I know–there is a huge world of adventures out there to have and countries to explore!
It looks like they are making this book into 62 eleven-minute animated episodes, which look amazing and adorable. Check out the trailer and the blurb on Cartoon Brew here. Check out more of Marc Boutavants cartoon art here.
Tags: art, book, illustration
February 10th, 2010
Whoa, did paper tastebuds fully hit the nail on the head with this idea for a Valentine’s day gift, or what?
They are talking about DIY Cheese Kits from urban cheesecraft, and they look insanely delicious and mighty do-able.
I want in on this, bad.
Tags: food, happiness
February 3rd, 2010
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