Bento Mania

Check out these amazing bento creations on Flickr! I've never had the time or patience to construct miniature Pokemons or or Cooking Mamas out of egg omelettes, rice, nori and spam, but if you ever feel inclined, this is a great gallery to get some ideas!

Also, I recently had a discussion with a bunch of friends on their favorite ways to eat spam, and I was awed by the diversity of this meat! (By the way, did you know that the name spam comes from 'spiced ham'?) So, if you have any spam recipes you'd like to contribute, please let me know! I'm doing an informal collection.

Crocheted breasts--diverse inspiration!

Well, I've kept this news from you, but I'm currently 8 months pregnant! No, it wasn't a surprise, I've just been procrastinating on bringing in craftiness and cooking into the preggo theme. But, I recently gave my friend a crocheted mammary for her shower, and then started producing them for mass production for the art vending machine at The Hideout. They come in all sorts of colors and shapes, to represent the diversity of motherhood that gives food to us all. They can also be used as a comfy stand-in for those who have had a masectomy. Enjoy these pics of a decidedly medium tone. Amigurumi technique all the way. Please contact me if you'd like the pattern.

Everybody say MOO!

I was so excited to receive my new customized mini MOO business cards in the mail yesterday. You can choose from a number of cool graphic designers, who give you a number of different images in each pack! Or, upload your own design. And, at about $20 for 100 top-quality cards, the price is just as attractive as the work of their independent artists. This fish is from Kam Tan.

I plan on inserting mine into my crafty concoctions I've been selling in an art vending machine at our favorite hang out bar, The Hideout. That way people can bug me to make them more crocheted bacon and the like. I love them so much, my hubbie literally had to pry them out of my hand at night before going to bed.

Pick up a pack (and support the U.K. economy in protest of our own U.S. corrupt financial world...did I really just say that?) at www.moo.com

Rainbow mango noodle salad

This has become my favorite summer salad--it's super easy, and leaves you with that delightfully satisfied but not over-gorged feeling afterwards. Plus, it has almost all the colors in the rainbow, making it a crowd pleaser!

Serves: 6

Ingredients
Salad:
1/2 package fresh miki egg noodles (udon or rice noodles would work fine too)
1 large or 2 small ripe mangoes
2 red radishes, skin left on
1 carrot, peeled and julienned or scraped
A handful of cilantro
One quarter head of red cabbage
1 cup matchsticked cucumber
Approx. 2 cups deep fried tofu (you can get this in the tofu section of most Asian food stores)
1/3 cup unsalted roasted peanuts, smashed

Dressing:
1/4 cup Tiparos fish sauce
1/4 cup canola oil
1/4 cup (scant) of brown sugar
1/2 cup rice wine vinegar
Juice of half a lime
Chili oil to taste

Cook noodles until they are al dente, just a few minutes, strain and run cold water over them to cool them down. Finely chop all your ingredients, with mangoes cut into strips.

Dressing: mix together fish sauce and brown sugar until sugar is dissolved. Add oils and juice of lime and mix well until combined. If serving later, pour half the mixture over your ingredients and add the rest of your dressing later. If serving immediately, pour on all of your dressing. Top with peanuts last.

Jokes in the month of April

I'll let you judge whether this is a true "craft" or not, but I started a joke book in this cute little Yoshitomo Nara journal I got at MoMA last year (the Japanese artist who makes those delightfully evil but cute drawings and sculptures). Most of my jokes are nasty or offensive, but some are kid-friendly. A joke book is a great way to meet new people too. Pass around a journal at a party and have people write in their favorite, then read them aloud and guffaw inappropriately. Here's one that I recently received over email that I enjoyed:

On a chain of beautiful deserted islands in the middle of South Pacific, the following people are stranded:

Two Italian men and one Italian woman.

Two French men and one French woman.

Two German men and one German woman.

Two Greek men and one Greek woman.

Two British men and one British woman.

Two Bulgarian men and one Bulgarian woman.

Two Japanese men and one Japanese woman.

Two Chinese men and one Chinese woman.

Two Irish men and one Irish woman.

Two American men and one American woman.

One month later, on these absolutely stunning deserted islands in the middle of nowhere, the following things have occurred:

One Italian man killed the other Italian man for the Italian woman.

The two French men and the French woman are living happily together in a ménage à trois.

The two German men have a strict weekly schedule of alternating visits with the German woman.

The two Greek men are sleeping together and the Greek woman is cooking and cleaning for them.

The two British men are waiting for someone to introduce them to the British woman.

The two Bulgarian men took one look at the Bulgarian woman and started swimming to another island.

The two Japanese have faxed Tokyo and are awaiting instructions.

The two Chinese men have set up a pharmacy, liquor store, restaurant, and laundry, and have gotten the woman pregnant in order to supply more employees for their stores.

The two Irish men divided the island into north and south and set up a distillery. They do not remember if sex is in the picture because it gets somewhat foggy after a few pints of coconut whisky. However, they're satisfied because the British aren't having any fun..

The two American men are contemplating suicide, because the American woman will not shut up and complains relentlessly about her body, the true nature of feminism, what the sun is doing to her skin, how she can do anything they can do, the necessity of fulfilment, the equal division of household chores, how sand and palm trees make her look fat, how her last boyfriend respected her opinion and treated her nicer than they do, and how her relationship with her mother is the root cause of all her problems, and why didn't they bring a damn cell phone so they could call 911 and get them all rescued off this forsaken deserted island in the middle of freaking nowhere so she can get her nails done and go shopping

Healthy, Neat and Cheap

One year I had a new year's resolution that I was going to do everything I could to be healthy, neat and cheap. The antithesis of this resolution would be ordering an expensive pizza for delivery and leaving the pizza box in the sink for a week (which I did last week). But, I've recently discovered a way to resurrect this resolution from the dead! Green cleaners have always touted their non-toxic qualities, but they're often expensive and some, like Simple Green, aren't even all that "green." My co-worker's asthma always acts up when she uses it, which jives with reports that it contains a chemical that's an asthma inducer. Green cleaning is the way to go. Homemade cleaners with vinegar, baking soda, lemon, etc. get your house clean, are cheaper than the Whole Foods-bought stuff, and don't include those nasty chemicals that have been linked to asthma, infertility and small testicles (if you're a boy). So I bought a bottle of vinegar at my Asian grocery for only $.79! I've used it already in my sink, and I feel cleaner, healthier and cheaper (in a good way) already. Find out more about green cleaning, and how to host a green cleaning party (invite your grandma--she probably knows some great tricks too) at www.womenandenvironment.org/greenclean.