A sort of hybrid of two ReadyMade Small Spaces projects, the Infiniski Manifesto House from James & Mau combines shipping containers and wooden pallets to form a breezy, modern structure in Chile. It looks like quite a place to escape…for more images, click here.
(via Arch Daily)
When I just saw this image of Sweet Potato Tart Tatin on the Kitchn, I nearly dropped my sandwich. Looks fantastic and you don’t even have to make pie crust! I’m on appetizer duty for Thanksgiving (and bread and veggie duty for a “friendsgiving” I’m attending tomorrow) so if anyone I’m celebrating is reading these, I hereby nominate this for dessert.
Via the Kitchn and Dam Good Sweet by David Guas and Raquel Pelzel, published by Taunton Press.
Thanksgiving just keeps on getting closer. Are you losing your holiday spirit before the holidays have even really begun? Buck yourself up with a little black humor—the Thanksgiving ritual has been fertile ground for wags practically since Pilgrim days.
Day Five: Thanksgiving Satire
Do yourself a favor and read “Wild Turkey.” I nominate this essay, which appeared on the long-running blog Tomato Nation, as a nascent classic piece of Thanksgiving literature for our times. (Maybe I’m not the only one who feels that way—I have to confess I found it because it was the first hit when I Googled the phrase “best Thanksgiving blog post ever.” And now you know about my research methods…gulp.)
“Wild Turkey” is pure sweetness and light compared to William S. Burroughs’ “Thanksgiving Prayer,” recorded in 1986, first heard by me on CD as an 18-year-old in another kid’s dorm room, and now made easy to find thanks to the wonder of the interwebs.
Or you may enjoy Calvin Trillin’s 1981 essay about his (as yet unsuccessful) campaign to have turkey replaced by spaghetti carbonara as the Thanksgiving national dish. I feel a little bad about this, but all I can find is a pirated version, here. The real thing is in Trillin’s book Third Helpings.
And if nothing else works, dust off your mother’s LP of Arlo Guthrie’s Alice’s Resturant—because as I observed a few posts back, holidays are about nothing if not tradition, and for some reason Arlo’s long, rambing tale about dodging the draft and getting picked up for littering on Thanksgiving was ever ours.
A nondescript overcast day in Des Moines turned out to be something else entirely for our inaugural ReadyMade Concert Series. We took over the second floor lounge, set up an old project as a backdrop, and let Mason Jennings make it a much, much brighter day for everyone.
Mason Jennings playing Sunlight.
On tour in support of his latest effort Blood of Man, Mason Jennings and his band dropped by the RM offices to sing some ditties and color outside the lines. (Literally, they were a half hour late to sound check due to the impromptu art session during the interview—check out the video at the bottom of the post for the full story.) After playing three tracks from the album, he and his mates headed to our conference room to talk shop.
Christoph Niemann’s “Abstract City” posts on the New York Times website are, as the first commenter noted, “always worth the wait” indeed. Peep his latest, Bio-Diversity. I’m not sure I could even describe what Niemann does, but I’m glad he does it.
At Saturday’s pop-up swap from 1-7 pm, Score! attendees will bring their once-cherished items to a donation table—music, apparel and accessories, art supplies, housewares, books and media, and (my personal favorite) random gems and miscellany—and find new prized possessions of their own. Pay an entry fee of $3 and you can take whatever you like! If your eyes are bigger than your arms, think about purchasing a $5 custom tote bag. Not only will it help you out, all the proceeds from the event benefit City Harvest so you’re helping others at the same time. 3rd Ward provides the space, local DJs provide the music, fashion bloggers provide the documentation, and don’t worry, there will be a bar. What’s stopping you? Maybe it’s all of the “random gems and miscellany” in your way…
I’ve been updating my google reader a lot lately, going through blog rolls of blogs I like and seeing what strikes me. Cucina Nicolina is this week’s discovery and I know that I will continue to look forward to each week’s Wordless Wednesday post that’s filled with breathtaking food photos. Here’s a bit from Nicole about her site:
I live in San Francisco and cook a lot, because to me, food is life (not to mention, I can get a wee bit obsessed). I started cooking in college just a little bit, but when I moved into my first apartment, on a busy street in Washington, DC, I started throwing dinner parties and haven’t stopped since. My major achievement was a 17-person sit-down dinner in my studio apartment a few years ago (I might still be recovering); but of course, any night I get to have people over for dinner is a good one.
I’m a vegetarian but I cook fish sometimes; I bake a lot, sometimes veganly; I love to try new recipes, but always hang on to my tried-and-trues. I have a wonderful farmers’ market in my neighborhood that gives me gorgeous produce about half the year — and saves me money at the same time. I think this quote by Laurie Colwin says it all
Cookbooks hit you where you live. You want comfort; you want security you want food; and you want to not be hungry; and not only do you want these basic things fixed, you want it done in a really nice, gentle way that makes you feel loved. That’s the big desire, and cookbooks say to the person reading them, ‘if you read me, you will be able to do this for yourself and for others. You will make everybody feel better.
[Substitute 'cooking' for 'cookbooks,' and that's pretty much my philosophy.]
When I’m not in the kitchen, I’m usually out for a run, playing with my doggie friends, drinking tea, or getting outdoors as much as possible, preferably along the coast.
Recipes of hers that I’d like to try include Sweet Potato Biscuits and the Ginger Pear Upside Down Cake.
Day Four: Prep Smartly!
In my apartment, at my sister’s place, and at our parents’ house too, Mark Bittman’s big yellow How To Cook Everything is the cookbook of choice for basic dishes and general how-to advice. His “The Minimalist” column in the New York Times is often a good read, too.
On Wednesday, Bittman posted 101 ideas for Thanksgiving dishes you can make ahead, because “[i]t’s not easy to roast a turkey and sweet potatoes for 20 at the same time.” Hear, hear.
[via Lifehacker]
Or you could just call it a hankie. Better For GrownUps‘ new sateen reusable tissues hit the market just in time for flu season. Definitely an improvement over the gobs of paper tissues that find their way to waste baskets everywhere, the organic cotton sateen fabric means they are both soft and strong, two necessary adjectives for anything touching itchy, sneezing noses. The box has two trays for hygenic separation, and you can throw the dirties straight into the laundry.
(via Treehugger and Better For GrownUps)
Welcome to the Wednesday feature here at the ReadyMade blog. Each week, I will provide a list of upcoming events, releases and happenings for the following Thursday through Wednesday. If you have (or know of) an event that you would like to be included, please shoot me an email, and I will do my best to make it happen.
24-Hour Draw-A-Thon
Saturday, November 21 through Sunday, November 22
New Orleans, Louisiana
With 24 hours of programmed drawing booths, workshops, games, and other activities, the Press Street Draw-A-Thon at The Green Project facilitates literally thousands of drawings that wind up covering every inch of the space. Also, it’s a free, all ages event where you can release some creative energy.
Cranksgiving
Saturday, November 21
New York City, New York
Since 1998, the New York Bike Messenger Foundation (NYBMF) has organized Cranksgiving to act as both a competition and a food drive. Last year, the alleycat race donated over $1,000 worth of food items to Saint Mary’s Soup Kitchen and over $1,600 to City Harvest. Each rider has one hour to find the participating grocery stores in Manhattan, purchase the designated items, and head to the finish line. In order to participate, you just need to register at the event and race!
This is the ReadyMade editors' blog. ReadyMade is named after the term that Marcel Duchamp coined in 1915 for a series of sculptures that playfully rethought the relationship between people and mass-produced objects, everyday items and art. ReadyMade is about people who make things and the culture of making.
