bread and butter

Dear readers, this post has a split personality. But that’s kind of just how I am. I’m leading you, just momentarily, to a more personal place.  A place of bread and butter.

I was reading this post the other day about following your dreams and your passion and it really resonated for me. Now, while it may seem that I spend most of my time in the kitchen our out photographing fun stuff with Shawn, the truth is I have a full time, totally not creative job,* just like tons of other people out there. I spend most of my day calculating things and making a lot of spreadsheets.

Then I get to go home and bake and blog and photograph and sew for the few hours I have before I am too tired to function. It’s been going like this for about the past few years with a few variables. At some point there was a lot of script writing. Sometimes there are a lot of night time bicycle adventures. At one point there was a lot of watching edits of Brainwashed Love.

It hasn’t been easy. It’s been a lot of work, to keep up all these interests and paths. Sometimes I hate that I can’t just decide on one thing. I know it won’t ever be like that for me. I want to make movies. I want to bake cupcakes. I want to do it all. Of course all these creative endeavors come at a cost. So that’s what the day job is for in the mean time. It’s the bread and butter.

In 2009 Shawn and I took that crazy leap of making a feature film. We completely produced and financed it ourselves. It was something we both knew we had to do. I’m sure it was one of the best decisions we’ve made even though it was scary. I’m still so proud of what we’ve accomplished by making a movie together. It’s something that many people dream of doing and never get the chance to do. We did it, and we did it well. Not to mention it just gave us that much more confidence for the next one.

So here I am, a bit over a month out from the first time we screened our film, thinking about how to follow my dreams. I know I have to devote as much of myself to these creative endeavors as I can stand.

I’ve realized that I love this blog. I don’t just enjoy blogging, I LOVE cute & delicious. I love that it is a place where I can sprinkle bits and pieces of all the things I create. So I’ve recently invested more time into it, trying to post more often and make it as cool as possible because it makes me happy.

I’m loving planning our wedding. It’s like the biggest excuse to craft and design ever. How could I not love that?

The one thing I’ve had to let fall to the wayside recently is Vegan Bake Sale. It will return. In a grander more splendid form. Cross my heart.

I’ve been really into practicing photography lately. I’ve always taken photos for this blog (although, in the past, all the good photos were taken by Shawn). I’m really trying to step up my game. It helps that I have a good teacher.

I’m still trying to figure out how to turn all these loves, these things I’m truly passionate about, the things that I live for, into my bread and butter. I know somehow someday this will happen, I just haven’t figured out how to make it happen yet. I’m ready though.

So I’m leaving you with these thoughts and some insanely good Beer Bread from a mix I bought at Trader Joe’s. I know I said I don’t usually buy boxed bake goods but sometimes you have to make an exception. This is one of those times.

Spork Online

Today I come bearing awesome news for vegans across the country. The lovely ladies of Spork Foods have brought their amazing cooking classes to the web with Spork Online.

I’ve written before about how awesome and insightful their cooking classes are, but I can’t stress enough how talented these two are. Their recipes are innovative and delicious, showcasing how great vegan cooking can be.

So here is the rundown, with a membership to Spork Online you get access to their themed four course cooking classes as well as a bunch of other goodies. You’ll get to see them cook with special guest appearances, travel out of the classroom to see how some vegan products are made and have access to Food 911 where they’ll answer your food emergency questions.

Basically, if you’re not in Los Angeles and aren’t able to go to one of their classes in person, you now have the opportunity to take probably the best vegan cooking class around. The Spork sisters really know their stuff. Even if you are in LA and haven’t been able to check them out, here is your chance.

Just look at how lovely this tiramisu is. Let me tell you, I know from experience, making tiramisu is not easy. Especially beautiful vegan tiramisu.

If you’re a long time vegan or just want to learn some more about vegan cooking Spork Online is definitely the place to go. Not only do the Sporkies create fantastic recipes and make them easy for anyone to follow, but they also have a wealth of information about nutrition and food history.

So here they are, Jenny and Heather. They’re really that smiley and fun in real life. Trust me when I say, if you take one of their classes, you’ll feel as good as they look in this photo. Not even kidding.

Need to convince your family that vegan food is super tasty and doesn’t taste like cardboard? Take one of these classes and surprise them with your newly acquired cooking skills. I think this would also be a an awesome holiday gift, but that comes from a girl who loves to cook.

Now go to Spork Online already and sign up!

Vintage Postcard Save the Dates

The first thing on our big to do list of wedding planning was making our save the dates. Shawn and I both really liked the idea of using vintage post cards. We went to the infamous Pasadena Rose Bowl Flea Market and bought up a bunch.

It was super fun to browse through the booths and find cards we liked. I really liked reading the ones with original writing on the back. People sure did talk about their sick relatives a lot back in the day.

The best part about getting the postcards at the flea market, rather than ordering online and just getting a lot of unknown cards, we were able to hand pick each one. We chose ones that were all from California and if possible, from Los Angeles.

We hand stamped each postcard with a stamp set our friends had given us. I can’t tell you how handy that stamp set is. It’s really just a box full of individual letters so we’ve used it for our return addresses, postcards for our movie screening, cupcake boxes, you name it.

We also chose one of the photos that Shawn took of us to send along to personalize each announcement.

We hand addressed all the envelopes with some help from my mom and sent them out!

I think they look rather sweet and definitely capture that vintage feeling that will be present throughout our wedding. Next up…invitations!

p.s. we didn’t really send one to the president…but wouldn’t it be cool if we did?

Animal friends

Every year, Best Friends Animal Society puts on a huge adoption event at the La Brea Tar Pits. They fill the whole park with tents and bring as many adoptable pets out to find homes. We’ve been going for the past few years just to check it out and it’s really hard not to leave with one of these sweet animals.

Actually two years ago, before we had Meeme and Mochi, we tried to adopt a few cats from the event, but they were adopted before we made up our minds. It was very sad for me, but I’m so happy they found a home.

This year we had the extra incentive of visiting the C’est la V Bakeshop booth which was set up with a ton of vegan goodies.

So I totally fell for this cat Zara. She was rescued from a hoarder’s house who had 200 cats and 100 dogs. Insane. She was so quiet and calm. She shared her cage with two kittens who were rambunctiously jumping around, all over, even on top of her, but she just hung out. Gosh I hope she found a home; she deserves a home.

Shawn liked these sweet little kittens, Zoey and Zelda.

I thought these white brother and sister cats were so pretty.

They had lots of darling dogs as well. Like this adorable Pomeranian. I didn’t get as many photos of dogs because they were a lot more wiggly than the cats and hard to photograph.

As I may have mentioned before, I’m kind of obsessed with animals who are a little weird. Which is why I loved the little wheelie guy up top. He was just carting around, happy as a clam.

They also had a few bunnies and some ducks visiting from a duck sanctuary.

This is Kingsley. I love Kingsley. I wish I could have brought him home. I don’t think it would have gone over so well. I wish we had a bigger place! He was so curious and friendly and adorable. Bunnies need homes too!

Anyway, if any of you are considering bringing a furry (or feathered, or scaled) friend into your home, please adopt. There are so many animals that desperately need homes and deserve happy lives. These aren’t damaged goods, they are just animals who were dealt a bad hand in life. They’re just looking for someone to look out and care for them. Check out your local animal shelter or one of the many adoption sites like Petfinder.

Go save a life!

LA Vegan Beer Fest

This past Saturday was the first LA Vegan Beer Fest. We went with our dear friends Jannatha & Kyle. They’re beer fest pros.

Check out their beer mug beads! They also have some pretzel necklaces (which didn’t make it to this fest) for snacking while you drink.

Alicia and Baxter came along too. They were there to keep us in line. You might call them the law.

We got these handy little mugs for sampling the beers. At about 4 oz each, they were the perfect size to get to try all the beers while still getting to enjoy each one for a little bit.

My top picks of the day were the Duvel Green, the Solace from Firestone Walker and a special edition coffee beer from Speakeasy Brewery. I was totally in love with the coffee beer actually.

While I enjoy beer, I was even more excited about the food. With a ton of trucks, serving exclusively vegan snacks, I was ready to get my grub on.

We started with the lemongrass tofu bahn mi from Mandoline Grill. You can’t go wrong with a ban mi really, but Mandoline grills up their tofu just right. Super tasty.

We drank some more beer. We got hungry again. This event went on for a few hours, so you have to try everything possible.

Next up was the jackfruit tofu taquitos and the beer battered avocado taco from Seabirds Truck. Holy crap. I’m still in awe that there’s a completely vegan food truck, let alone one that is better than half the restaurants in Los Angeles. Beer Battered Avocado Taco. Do I have to say more? Every word is delicious!

We also got a few things from Doomie’s, which we learned is finally back in action and opening a new location in Hollywood. Stoked!

I tried their sushi, which was amazing. Who knew Doomie’s made sushi? Anyway, it was fantastic: faux tuna and faux shrimp with cream cheese, all topped with that awesome sauce.

Shawn hung out with his buddies at the Frankenstand. We had a lot of franken dogs. My favorite is the witch.

When you drink a lot of tiny cups of beer, sometimes your pictures get a little silly.

When you run out of beer and have to go home it is very sad. All good things must come to an end though.

Off we rode into the sunset with Kyle & Jannatha on their sweet tandem bike.

If you want to see more, Shawn has tons more photos over at Shawn’s flickr. Check ’em out.