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The Recipe Project: Great Recipes Made Into Catchy Songs

The Recipe Project: Great Recipes Made Into Catchy Songs

Michael Hearst and Joshua Camp, co-founders of the band One Ring Zero got a great idea.  Why not take Chef Chris Cosentino’s recipe for Brains and Eggs into a song?  The plan was to try to do it word for word, phrase for phrase, literally singing every word of the recipe.  They also decided to ask Cosentino to recommend a music style for the song.  He told them that the style of the Beastie Boys would work.  The band got to work mixing some beats and looped sequences into what ended up becoming a quirky hip-hop song, and The Recipe Project had begun.

The band went on to work with more chefs and recipes, and created a CD and book of recipes.  Today many chefs are getting “rock star status,” and the project highlights this by setting their songs to music, and also with the interviews in the book. The album features over 9 recipe songs  from well-known chefs.    The book has unusual interviews with the chefs and also the recipes in printed form so that you can cook the recipes without having to rewind the music.

One Ring Zero’s music is quirky, with unusual instruments such as the theramin, accordion, melodica, power drills, and bread machines used.  The songs are all upbeat and catchy.

Some of the songs include “Peanut Butter Brunnettes,” a recipe by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and “Spaghetti with Sweet 100 Tomatoes” by Mario Batalli, who happen to be two of my favorite chefs.  Each song has a music video that you can see on The Recipe Project website.  The “Spaghetti with Sweet 100 Tomatoes song is fast and catchy.  The video features plates of spaghetti, visual representations of the ingredients, puppets, and some stop motion animation.

Before you check out the sons and videos, I must warn you.  Once you play some of the songs you might find that you are tapping your toe, or humming the song a few hours later. They also might make you hungry or make you want to cook.

Image Source:
http://www.therecipeproject.com/

Links:
http://www.therecipeproject.com/

Sunday Soup:  Creative and Tasty Fundraising for Art Projects

Sunday Soup: Creative and Tasty Fundraising for Art Projects

Why not eat some vegetable soup and support local art? Sunday Soup is a quarterly community meal, which is an event that supports artist initiatives and community projects in Chicago through a grant raised by the meal. For each dinner, head chef Eric May and his friends prepare a soup and other dishes using local ingredients. The meal is served family style and costs $15 per person.

The money from ticket sales (minus the cost of food) becomes a grant for a creative project. At the dinner, diners vote on proposals for creative projects that are displayed or presented at the meal. The project that gets the most votes gets the money from the Sunday Soup event. At the dinner past grantees will give updates, and there are sometimes readings or music performed.
Past presentations have included a art historical lecture on the aesthetic practice of walking by critic Lori Waxman, a meal by San Francisco underground restaurant chef Leif Hedendal, and Portlander Marc Moscato’s documentary on Chicago’s Dill Pickle Club.  The event creates a participatory and transparent method of funding arts and culture. It also is a way to support dialogue about community, art, and funding. Who doesn’t have great conversation while eating a tasty shared meal?

Sunday Soup last occurred on Sunday May 6, 2012, and The Prison-Neighborhood Arts Project (P-NAP) received the most votes at the dinner. Prison-Neighborhood Arts Project is a new initiative that offers visual arts classes to men at Stateville prison and produces exhibitions of the resulting works in neighborhood galleries and community centers on a bi-annual basis. The Sunday Soup grant will support P-NAP to buy books for a new fall course in creative writing and literature. At the end of the fall semester, an exhibition of artworks and readings of student writing will be held in Chicago.

The project is a way to directly support projects made by individuals, which can be difficult to fund. Currently public money in general for the arts is minimal, and projects done by individuals are often funding by crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter. Artists and cultural producers have to often spend a lot of time putting a project into a definable category, and spending significant time in creating online campaigns.

The Sunday Soup grant is a simple and direct process, making Sunday Soup a direct and broad way for artists to potentially find support for projects. Some past projects that have been funded include Gabriel Saloman’s Spartacus School of Passing Time, AREA Chicago, Geraldine Juarez’s Tanda Foundation, Joseph Del Pesco’s Black Market Type project, and many others.

The project was initiated by InCUBATE in 2007 and restarted this past year after a two year break. Sunday Soup has helped support an international network of micro-granting community meals. Over 61 “sister projects” are currently in operation.  You can read about the project, funded projects, and contact them if you want to participate or do your own soup events. The website has links to other artist-run funding projects, so you can connect with others in cities across the U.S.

Image Source:
http://www.sundaysoup.org

 

Links:

http://www.sundaysoupchicago.org/

http://www.sundaysoup.org

295 Posts Later : tinySplash bigView is Over One Year Old!

295 Posts Later : tinySplash bigView is Over One Year Old!

Last Fall I was on sabbatical from work, and spent part of the time rebuilding my website.  I decided that I wanted to make a blog that focused on art and innovation related to alternative energy, food, and design.  I made a commitment to post at least 4-5 things each week.

I am pretty amazed when I look back on all the interesting things that I found, visited, or experienced and wrote about.  I also am proud that I have kept up with  the commitment to posting on the blog.  I have posted every week except for my one week vacation (which was last week), when I did not post, tweet, or share on any social network or website.

The first post on tinySplash bigView was on October 21, 2011 and was “The only thing you can’t buy used is food.” Film Screening: Urban Roots.  I had gone to a local screening of the movie, and wrote a synopsis and brief review of this movie which focuses on urban farming in Detroit.

When I look back on the posts on this site – I see that I am increasingly writing about things related to food, community and creativity.  There still is an occasional interesting eco-friendly packaging idea or alternative energy design post, but less than a year ago.

Goals for this year – are to go through and organize things better by tags, so it is easy to find things in categories.  Also, update some aspects of the site.

Many of you get my weekly/bi-weekly newsletter – which highlights the new posts on the blog.  Thanks for reading my posts and for the occasional post and email.  I look forward to seeing how the blog evolves by the next birthday.

Happy birthday one year old!

The Pantry Shelf: A Play About Food where Food Speaks Up

The Pantry Shelf: A Play About Food where Food Speaks Up

Ever wonder what the food in your pantry would say if it could?  Mark Prebble and Marion Shortt, also known as Team M&M, are a husband and wife team who have created a play called The Pantry Shelf where food comes to life… with an attitude. The piece is described as “a satirical comedy where all the characters are food products. It explores branding, genetic engineering and consumerism, but mostly it’s a love triangle between a rebellious muesli bar, a shy bag of porridge and a sexy block of dark chocolate.”

Characters in the play include Carlito Cornchips , Washibi Punch!, Queenie the Quinoa, Black Velvet Chocolate, Genetically-Engineered Organic Tomato and other foods.

The synopsis of the play on the project website is described as:

“A satirical comedy revealing the micro-society of branded egos living on your pantry shelf.  Queenie is a revolutionary new snack – The Quinoa, Date and Bark Bar. Like every food product all she really wants is to be loved. However, her world collapses when she realizes her healthy branding is a lie.  Can Queenie live with this hypocrisy or will she revolt and become a “rogue brand”?

The Pantry Shelf explores branding, consumerism and corporate control of our diets, but mostly it’s a love triangle between Queenie, a bag of Scottish Porridge and a sexy block of Dark Chocolate.”

You can see clips of the play on their website and vimeo site.

I wonder what my oatmeal that I ate for breakfast today would say if I could hear it?

Image Source:
www.basementtheatre.co.nz/whats-on/the-pantry-shelf/

 

Links:

http://www.teammandm.co.nz/index.html

http://www.basementtheatre.co.nz/whats-on/the-pantry-shelf/

https://vimeo.com/43661092

 

 

Little Free Libraries:  Popping Up Across Cleveland and Other Cities

Little Free Libraries: Popping Up Across Cleveland and Other Cities

Have a book to share or want to borrow a book?  Instead of going to your regular public library, you can check out one of the Little Free Libraries that have been showing up around Cleveland and other cities across the U.S.

A friend of mine recently told me about a large birdhouse like structure that he saw that had books in it that he saw while jogging in Cleveland Heights. Turns out that this was part of the Little Free Library Movement, which in recent years was created to get the community excited about reading and to promote literacy.

Basically a Little Free Library it is a bookshelf in a waterproof house structure. Anyone can take a book or leave a book, without signing in or checking anything out.  The project started in Wisconsin in 2009, and has now spread to many states in the U.S. including Ohio

This summer, the Cleveland Heights-University Heights Public Library installed the first of three Little Free Libraries that are to be created in the community.  An article in the Plain Dealer this past weekend reported that Bob Cheshier, a member of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Cleveland Heights recently raised money to build and install a Little Free Library near Miles Park School.

The Cleveland Public Library installed two Little Free Libraries in Cleveland, and the community was invited to help decorate them on September 15th of the Main Library. The Little Free Libraries were installed near Dave’s Supermarket located at 3301 Payne Avenue, Cleveland and at West 25th & Clark, where the organization Esperanza and Seeds of Literacy are located.

If you or community is interested in building a Little Free Library, there are direction on the Little Free Library website.  There are variety of designs which range from looking like a barn, a house or schoolhouse.

When the rain lets up today, I am going to go to bring one of my Harry Potter books to the Little Free Library – and see if there is anything for me to read.

Image Source:
Cleveland Heights Patch
www.littlefreelibrary.org

 

Links:

http://www.littlefreelibrary.org/