Monday, January 24, 2011

Drywell and Meat Sections are FAMOUS!

OMG My art is in the newspaper!

Mildly anyways.

Yesterday, I had the surreal honor of being featured in the Sunday San Francisco Chronicle newspaper! (Under the appropriately named "Hot Stuff" column in the Home & Garden section)

A freelance writer contacted me out of the blue a couple weeks ago and interviewed me for about 40 minutes. (Apparently she found me via Thrillist. Have I mentioned how much I LOVE those guys??)

I'm forever indebted to her for including this quote of mine in the article: "I'm just kind of riding this meat train for a while." My law professors would be so proud...

Check out the whole article here on sfgate.com.

P.S. LOVE this comment from the web edition of the article. "I just love the line, "San Francisco is for Carnivores" it'll give all the people outside of California a moment to scratch their heads to think that we are all vegan hippies." He totally gets it.

Thursday, January 20, 2011

Bizarre Foods #2 - Horchata

Bizarre Foods # 2 - Horchata
original watercolor and ink illustration.

I remember watching the Spain episode of Bizarre Foods and being shocked at how absolutely disgusted Andrew Zimmern was after taking a sip of this sweet nutty drink. I mean, this is a guy who gleefully chows down on bull testicles, pig's ears, and unborn chickens. And I drank horchata. I LOVED horchata. Well, Mexican horchata anyways. Perhaps the Spaniards had it all wrong?

A quick a-googling revealed that while Mexican horchata is made with rice, sugar and cinnamon, soaked in water then whirred together, Spanish horchata is made with tiger nuts, or chufa, which apparently isn't a nut at all, but rather a tuber. So maybe Andrew was on to something?

Fast forward to 2009, when I traveled to Barcelona on my honeymoon. After our breakfast of cava and an iberico ham sandwich (ohgoodgodhowimissspain) we sought out some horchata. And you know what? It was freaking delicious! Yes, different than the rather milky Mexican horchata, but pleasingly nutty and refreshing.

Which leads me to ponder if Andrew's disgust was due to expectations based on a simple misunderstanding of the ingredients. Perhaps he was expecting a drink made from tiger's nuts?

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Bizarre Foods #1 - Porcupine Stuffed with Potatoes & Bacon

Porcupine stuffed with Potatoes and Bacon
original watercolor and ink illustration

Part one in an ode to the fabulously adventurous and frequently gross food travel show, Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern. He tackled this stuffed spiky rodent on the 2008 holiday special. I believe it is a native american dish of some sort, but I could be wrong....

Way back in 2010, I received an email informing me that Andrew Zimmern, yes THE Andrew Zimmern was following me on Twitter. Immediately, an idea was born to do a "Bizarre Foods" week here on Meat Sections. The whole pesky "success" thing got in the way as throngs of fans clamored for more Meat Sections art* and the idea got put on the backburner. But 2011 is still fresh and shiny, so here is installment No. 1 of "Bizarre Foods", Meat Sections style.



*Ok, that may have been an exaggeration. But yeah, shows and the ole Etsy shop did prevent me from keeping up with the meaty art production.