Short Memories

Or is it that I'm just old and already know crap people are just rediscovering now? Prolly.

It started with the "pink slime" uproar. There's this "food product" that is basically taking the less palatable parts of the animal we've already butchered for the good parts, and process them with ammonium hydroxide to make it edible. Essentially, the "meat" used is connective tissue like ligaments and cartilage and such.

Apparently this is all of the sudden unacceptable, even though it's basically hot dog meat, or some other kind of processed sausage. I guess that once it's made into a nugget or burger patty, that's somehow deceptive and evil.

Then there's the ubiquitous 'bugs in my food' freakout every time some freshman journalist discovers that there are government standards for how much bug we allow in our processed food. A story as old as me. Or older, since I probably "re-discovered" these truths in the same way people are now.

Today I read an article from CBS News about how awful it is that Starbucks has crushed beetles in it. The same beetles that people were in a uproar over in the 90s when they found out that Snapple Watermelon has crushed cochineal beetles in it.

Credit: Frank Vincentz

 

These bugs have been used for color since before this country was founded. The color was first recorded used by Mayans in the 15th century. Our first stamps used ink made with these bugs. Carmine rose, carmine and carmine lake, all from the carminic acid found in the beetle.
In fact, this is one of the tools forensic art historians use to determine if a painting is authentic or not. There aren't many paints still made with this color, as the process to get the color is slow and expensive. Alizarin Crimson came along and supplanted it. Forgeries often fail to take this into account and use modern pigments.

Wikipedia: "Cochineal is one of the few water-soluble colorants that resist degradation with time. It is one of the most light- and heat-stable and oxidation-resistant of all the natural organic colorants and is even more stable than many synthetic food colours. The water-soluble form is used in alcoholic drinks with calcium carmine; the insoluble form is used in a wide variety of products. Together with ammonium carmine, they can be found in meat, sausages, processed poultry products (meat products cannot be coloured in the United States unless they are labeled as such), surimi, marinades, alcoholic drinks, bakery products and toppings, cookies, desserts, icings, pie fillings, jams, preserves, gelatin desserts, juice beverages, varieties of cheddar cheese and other dairy products, sauces, and sweets."

Banksy's Origamifitti

Banksy left another little morsel behind somewhere in the UK (I think).

 

Yet to be verified, but I thought it was pretty cool, either way.

Breakfast Muffins

Super easy, you can change it up to make lots of different muffins.
Full disclosure: I didn't come up with this, but I also don't remember where I saw it. I'm sure I altered it a bit as well. Oh well.

Blanch, or half-fry some bacon. One slice per egg you plan to make. Fry an extra slice or two all the way done if you plan on adding bacon bits to the eggs as I did.

I had mushrooms in the fridge so I sliced two up and fried the slices in the bacon grease while the last two slices were cooking. About 15-20 each side.

Using a couple of forks, drop the bacon in a cup of a muffin pan, pressing the bacon so it lines the cup as best you can. It helps in removal if the pan is non-stick, but the bacon grease dripping in the cup helps.

Crack an egg into each bacon lined cup.

Place one of the fried mushroom slices on top of the egg-cup.

Sprinkle salt, pepper, basil and crumbled bacon bits to the top of each egg-cup.

Cover each egg-cup with cheese. I had only American slices, which were fine, but a nice cheddar would have been great.

Sprinkle Parmesian cheese on each egg-cup.

Bake for 15 minutes at 350. The yellow should be just starting to cook at this point. Adjust times up or down depending on how you like your eggs.

If the eggs are cooked enough, they should come out of the muffin pan cups with a little coaxing. I slid a butter knife around the edges of each one and used a fork (or spoon) to finish the job. They then slid easily onto the plate, looking like little egg muffins.

Fast Food

Not Mickey D's, just faster than normal.

Everytime I'm shopping I pass the frozen birds. I've always wanted to try a goose. There must be a reason people used to eat them on special occasions. I'm thinking they probably taste like turkey. The other day I passed the freezer case and they were having a sale on Cornish game hens. I think it was two for $5 or something like that.

I was thinking I could make a nice stew of them, like a hunter's stew or something. I keep getting flashes of the stew Sam was making in The Lord of the Rings, which always looked so tasty, and then it gets abandoned and no one gets to try it! So, I was planning to make something simple and basic along those lines. I bought the Cajun trinity; celery, onions and green peppers (well, I cheated, I get red peppers), and a leek, which I'd never cooked before either.

When it came down to it, I couldn't find any recipes for this sort of stew based on game bird. I was 'winging it' but I didn't want to fly blind. It was getting late, so I chose a basic roasting recipe that sounded decent and modified it.

I used 2 hens, but this can be adapted for more. It can also be used for regular chicken or even better, duck. I also used Lipton Soup mix to save time. You can use fresh onions and spices in its place. The one thing about this quick recipe that didn't come out as I'd hoped is the onions didn't rehydrate very well while roasting. I would like to try making the sauce early so the onions have a chance to reconstitute more.

Preheat oven to 425

2-4 game hens
Jar of seedless raspberry jam or preserves
1 Packet of Lipton Onion Soup Mix
2 tbsp Teriyaki sauce
2 tbsp Mirin or rice vinegar

Rinse and place the hens in a casserole
Mix the remaining ingredients in a bowl
Spoon sauce over birds, making sure to coat them equally well

Place the dish in the oven and immediately turn it down to 350
Cook for 30-40 minutes, basting the hens in the sauce two or three times, especially near the end

I made them with mashed potatoes as the sauce makes excellent gravy.


According to The Joy of Cooking, Cornish Game Hens are actually just small chickens and the fear of gaminess or all dark meat is unfounded. It really was pretty much like a small chicken.

I'm Confused

I have previously reported (term used loosely) that Damien Hirst had died. With links to news stories that are still live, yet there are a number of articles out there right now reporting on upcoming events and shows Damien Hirst is either attending or the object of. The latter I can understand, but the former?

http://arrestedmotion.com/2012/03/preview-damien-hirst-retrospective-tate-modern/



http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2012/mar/11/damien-hirst-tate-retrospective-interview?commentpage=last#end-of-comments

Three Ways To Tell When You've Been Bought By a Corporation

One: You repackage your product with hip colors and smiling, generic faces.
Two: You send out mailers with "personal stories" of people's "experiences" with your product.
Three: Rename your product "My-Something"

You old hacks know that Myspace has been officially dead for at least 5 years right?! You're the same hepcat cool kids still running the music industry, the same losers who pine for the return of the Rat Pack, who booked Tony Bennett to play the Grammies! The award show giving awards to music which is in almost every way the complete tonal and philosophical opposite to Bennett's music. The same people who think Madonna is still relevant and Lady Gaga is a brilliant artist.

Yeah, I know this is just radio, but I am certain if I looked further than I care to, ever, I'd find that they are now owned by one of the same companies that owns Lady Gaga or Madonna.

Not Winning

I've been trying to return the focus of this blog back to art, mostly my own, but I've been meaning to throw out a cancer update as I haven't had one in a while.

There isn't anything new to report, just some remaining issues to deal with. Some have gotten better, some worse. It's hard to say whether the saliva issue is getting better or not. It's been six months since my last radiation treatment and I have to say that I don't know that I'm all that much further than I was last August. There is some difference in that I can swallow certain foods that I wasn't able to then, chicken and certain other meats in particular. Breads are still pretty much a no-go unless I have a full glass of whatever to help it down. The lack of saliva simply makes it impossible for me to swallow such dry fair. I can swallow it part way but once it hits the back of my tongue, it sticks there, holding on for dear life and sometimes even milk or water won't force it down and I have to choke it up or choke on it. Makes for great dinner company.

The main reason I'm not sure there's been much progress, even though I can eat things I couldn't before, is how dry my mouth gets at night. This hasn't changed much since August. I wake up 5 or 6 times to get something to drink or simply rinse my mouth, as my lips tend to get stuck to my teeth and my tongue to the roof of my mouth. I used to keep a small bottle of Biotene next to the bed but that stuff is useless. Water works just as well, which is really only for about an hour. Then it's back to not being able to open my mouth. On the plus side, I'm fairly certain the surgery cured my sleep apnea.

And then there's my shoulder. This is part of the whole neck and chest muscle thing. The surgeon took my right pec muscle and used it to fill in the gaping hole in my neck after surgery. The muscle still works, but being a chest muscle doesn't much help in your neck. It needs to not work. Any flex of my chest muscle and I get an unpleasant "tug" in my throat and mouth, where my tongue attaches to the base of my mouth. The muscle was reattached at the underside of my jaw and any use of that muscle pulls on the jaw and tissue there, feeling like it's going to tear every time I do something like roll over in bed. Anything that uses that pec muscle. A push-up would be a bit traumatic.

But back to the shoulder. The chest and throat issues I've kinda learned to live with. Therapy doesn't seem to fix things so much as alleviate the tightness for a while. The problem with my shoulder can be helped by therapy, but I'm not sure how much, really. When they took the muscle from my chest, they only cut one anchor point, at the shoulder, and simply pivoted it around and reattached that anchor point to my chin. In addition to doing all the chest flexing, this muscle also helped keep my shoulder in place, helped keep the joint attached. Now any extreme movements of my shoulder, like scratching my ass or sleeping on my right side, make it feel like my shoulder has dislocated, which is a real possibility.


And then we get to the other issues. The ones that have nothing to do with cancer. My roommate, Kevin, was basically killed by a drunk driver in 2007. He died on the street and was revived in the chopper. Crushed skull, lacerated liver, broken bones now with metal in them, brain trauma. He should have been on disability since then, but since his wife was a waste of skin like mine, she didn't do much of anything to help him and the other people in his life didn't do much either, apparently. Anyway, long story short, he had a seizure the other day. Woke up on the floor with blood in his mouth. Went to the emergency room and got x-rays and a cat scan and yup, seizure.

So now, doctor's orders, he can't drive, can't work and needs to get the disability he should have been on since '07. Except that it takes about nine months to get approved for disability. And how is he supposed to live between now and then? Food? Rent? Bills? With no job and no car and no ability to work? Seeing as Arizona has no financial assistance for adults... No answer to that other than - I have to find more work than I already have but somehow make sure my part-time crap job is crappy enough to not make more than $900 a month or I lose my health insurance and can't get it back. As a friend said to me today, that's literally life and death for me.

So yeah, not winning.

Minotaur WIP

These aren't as nice as the octopus pics. Not too bad for a phone cam, but still. I thought you guys might like to see how I went at this one.
As before, I work from way lighter than the image will end up. This kind of helps me plan the process along the way as well as mitigate any errors I might make.
 

Long Gone Day

The name for this painting was inspired by the poppies, of course. I wanted to go a different route than the usual, and I was looking through song title to get an idea for a lyric or something that could inspire a name. My brain drifted to favorites and fell on Mad Season, Alice in Chains' singer and guitarist's side project. The band tied in because of their infamous heroin use - poppies, and the lyrics fit the mood of the painting pretty well.

11" x 14"
Acrylic on canvas

See you all from time to time
Isn't it so strange
How far away we all are now
and I'm the only one who remembers that summer
Oh, I remember
Everyday each time the place was saved
The music that we made
The wind has carried all of that away

Long gone day
Mmmm, who ever said
We wash away with the rain

I had painted it mostly because the poppy series has been very popular, and my friend Ivonne had the last one bought out from under her, a situation most artists would be very happy with. I am happy to be painting and selling, but I definitely don't want to fall into some weird niche where all I paint are poppies.

Either way, I was happy with the way the painting turned out, for the most part. and Ivonne bought it right away. She's happy, I'm happy. All is right with the world, for about ten minutes.

Venilia

I have had this image of an octopus in my brain for a long time now and after doodling it on scraps of paper for years, I finally decided to get something more substantial down on paper. The results are mixed. I am very pleased with the octopus, not so much the mermaid.

Of course, once the drawing was finished, it had to be colored. There must be something new with the toner they use for my printer, because I had previously tested it with my Copic markers and they definitely smeared the toner. For some reason they don't do that any longer. Regardless, I can now color copies rather than committing the ink right to the original. The face looks different because it is. I am using a copy made before I reworked it.

I'm getting better at planning ahead, but when the muse comes, I just have to follow and sometimes it's actually distracting to get up and get supplies and tripods and such, and I lose the thread of inspiration. It sounds silly, but when I've tried to muscle past it, I can't focus and it shows in the work. Hard to explain.

Anyway, I was thinking of the scrapbookers and copicmarkerscrapbooking.com and took the time to get some pictures of the work in progress so they can see how I work.

DARKNESS!

Noodlings

Internet-fueled, mental Frippertronics. The loops of useless information spinning through the web keep playing through my screenface.

I was looking through one of my favorite sites, Thinkgeek, when I saw this horsehead mask:

Which was cool in itself.

Reading through the description, I come across a link to this:

Now, seeing this would normally disturb most people. After all, it is a horse-man stalking a young schoolgirl and menacing her with a hairbrush, but I sat hear at my desk and lol-snorted to an empty house.
The scene is from Full Metal Panic, whatever in the Engrish hell that means, and my daughter watched it when she was younger. A normal late Saturday probably, Adult Swim off-night, as I called it, when they played a string of anime. I'm likely on the computer listen/watching, Kaia on her laptop and the familiar squeals and speed-talk chirps waft out of the tv screen. Suddenly a horse on two legs is screaming "Pony. PONY! PONY!!!" at this poor girl and then he's lunging at her with a hairbrush and screaming louder, "PONY!!!!". I don't think the two of us have laughed any harder together before or since. This epic, wierd, wtf moment was our nerd-bonding, like when my dad and I used to rush to the living room to catch Star Trek every week, or us going to one of the first Trek Cons. Good times.

Kinda like the time this guy must be having:

And then, of course, there's this:

Leave Britney alone!!

Skelecrows in the Mail

New Skelecrow© Stuff

In case you haven't seen these before, they're real stamps and 100% legal to mail letters or packages.

Regular postage stamps just too Hallmark for your letters? Now you can send your dark messengers out in the world with more than just Jedi mind powers.

Laudator Temporis Acti, has been published and should appear in the Zazzle Marketplace and in my Store within 24 hours!

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Omens 3

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Murderwall

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Nepenthe

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Stormcrow

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Bourne

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What Do?

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Protostamps

New additions to my Protogallery:

In case you haven't seen these before, they're real stamps and 100% legal to mail any letter or package.

Carencro Church Stamp, has been published and should appear in the Zazzle Marketplace and in my Store within 24 hours!

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Persistence of Memory

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Poppy Dreams

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Seperation Anxiety

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Haybales

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Cloudscape No 3

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Working Man

Been busy trying to get stuff done around here. Actually, been getting it done for a change. I finished the mythology series for Colleen's scrapbooking biz, painted a smaller Poppy painting for the series which wasn't a series until I saw the response to the painting on the Facebooks.

I admit it was both cool and upsetting that two people both wanted the piece and it went right away. So it's a series now. As long as people understand that I am going to try very hard not to just copy the painting over and over. Ask my mom, I hate her favorite (besides me) artist, Rodrigue, for his canned and repetitive hackery. Or Kinkaide. I respect the guy as a business man, but not as an artist.

The cable is staying off until something I give a damn about comes on. Probably sometime in April.

I finally finished the portrait of my niece, River, that I had promised my cousin, Tara, all the way back in December. I'm happy with the results, though I'd probably peck at it forever if I didn't ship it out.

Probably going to head to my roomie's work to watch the game. Go Giants?