Hamburger Helper

'Hamburger Helper' | Daily Drawing #288

Day 5, the final day of the 'Meat Week' series.
So many questions came to mind as I drew this:

• What's with the monkey's outfit?
• Why doesn't the monkey just eat the damned burger?
• And why is there no tomato on that sandwich?

Sometimes there's no rhyme or reason to what winds up on the paper. It is what it is.

This series was fun to do. I really didn't plan these out in advance and I can't spend a great deal of time illustrating them. I'd usually start in the morning playing with words and phrases until something would click. If I was lucky, an idea would stick and I'd at least get the concept and the lettering sketched out before starting my day. Then I'd come back to it at night and do the ink and and color, usually posting at around 10pm. I like working with constraints, like a theme (and time), but I starting sweating it out by Wednesday, because I didn't want to post a dud and I certainly wasn't going to bail out on the theme.

I'm working on some ideas for future series, in the meantime I'll be back to posting my usual random themed daily drawings. 

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Tools: Kuretake Bimoji Felt Tip Brush Pen, Wacom Intuos Tablet

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High Steaks!

'High Steaks!' | Daily Drawing #287
(They're so basted...)

Day 4 of the 'Meat Week' series.

Tools: Kuretake Bimoji Felt Tip Brush Pen, Wacom Intuos Tablet

Prints and more at Society6.
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Fear the Wurst

'Fear the Wurst' | Daily Drawing #286
Day 3 of the 'Meat Week' series.

Tools: Kuretake Bimoji Felt Tip Brush Pen, Wacom Intuos Tablet

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Hide the Salami

'Hide the Salami' | Daily Drawing #285
Day 2 of the 'Meat Week' series.

Tools: Kuretake Bimoji Felt Tip Brush Pen, Wacom Intuos Tablet

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Eat Well, Travel Often

Life is too short for bad food and sitting in one place.

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Tools: Hand-lettered, scanned/traced/composed in Illustrator.

Eat Food, Not Too Much, Mostly Plants

“Eat Food, Not Too Much, Mostly Plants” - from Michael Pollan's Seven Words and Seven Rules for Eating.

The posting of this drawing is not a coincidence, as I've decided to spend this month re-examining how I eat. And what better month than the awful, cold and gloomy February to do it. I eat pretty well (for the most part) and exercise but the holidays are a great excuse to slack off. I don't want to turn around in May and see that my shorts are a lil' snug. It's not a nice look.

Eating properly isn't that hard, it just takes a little more planning and a lot of discipline. I'm keeping a food diary to keep tabs on what I eat for the next month, cutting back on beer (sad face) and cutting out the junk. Wish me luck!

The seven rules according to Pollan are as follows:

1. Don't eat anything your great grandmother wouldn't recognize as food. "When you pick up that box of portable yogurt tubes, or eat something with 15 ingredients you can't pronounce, ask yourself, "’What are those things doing there?”" Pollan says.
2. Don’t eat anything with more than five ingredients, or ingredients you can't pronounce.
3. Stay out of the middle of the supermarket; shop on the perimeter of the store. Real food tends to be on the outer edge of the store near the loading docks, where it can be replaced with fresh foods when it goes bad.
4. Don't eat anything that won't eventually rot. "There are exceptions -- honey -- but as a rule, things like Twinkies that never go bad aren't food," Pollan says.
5. It is not just what you eat but how you eat. "Always leave the table a little hungry," Pollan says. "Many cultures have rules that you stop eating before you are full. In Japan, they say eat until you are four-fifths full. Islamic culture has a similar rule, and in German culture they say, “Tie off the sack before it's full.”
6. Families traditionally ate together, around a table and not a TV, at regular meal times. It's a good tradition. Enjoy meals with the people you love. "Remember when eating between meals felt wrong?" Pollan asks.
7. Don't buy food where you buy your gasoline. In the U.S., 20% of food is eaten in the car.

Illustration details: Hand-lettered, scanned and recolored in Photoshop. Watercolor paper background. There was minimal cleanup in Photoshop to keep the loose, hand lettered feel.

Drop the Spoon and Step Away From the Sugar

There's sugar (or it's evil cousin high fructose corn syrup) in just about everything you buy in a store. It's amazing how much sugar you see yourself taking in once you start to pay attention.

I've been trying hard to fight the sugar beast. I've (almost) completely cut out soda and have cut way back on drinks like store-bought iced tea. This wasn't difficult – I 've always loved drinking water, now I just drink more. The hard part is that sugar in my morning/late morning/early afternoon coffee. Even if I use just a half-teaspoon or less, it really adds up. Artificial sweeteners are a no-go.

So now I'm trying sugar replacements like Truvia and Agave in the Raw. Truvia (made form the Stevia plant) is a great substitute – but can get really pricey (I'd rather spend the extra  bucks on some good K-cups!). A friend turned me on to Agave in the raw as a sugar substitute. It's thick, so you can use it in place of honey (great in hot tea) or syrup (on waffles). It's also great for baking. But I actually like it in coffee. I'm particularly found fo a darker roast, which can be bitter, and the Agave cuts right through it, almost mellows it out. The best part is you don't need a lot – just a real quick squirt from the bottle and you're good to go.

I haven't compared the calories, so I'm not sure if I'm cutting off my nose to spite my face, but hey, one thing at a time.

Pork and Prosperity for 2012: Pork, Apples and Sauerkraut

In my family we always had the traditional Pork and Sauerkraut on New Year's Day for good luck. The reason Pork is traditionally served on New Years is that the pork is rich in fat and symbolizes wealth and prosperity. Also, superstition states that you should serve Pork because the Pig always digs forward (as opposed to the Chicken, which scratches backward).

I'm sure my relatives weren't aware of the reasons, they just did it as part of our heritage. And they liked their Pork.

I was never big on the pork n' sauerkraut (unless you count a hotdog at a ballgame), until I discovered this recipe a few years ago and have been making a modified version of it on New Year's Day ever since. Above is a picture of the lil' beauty I made last night using a small pork loin.

Here's a simplified version of the recipe:

New Year's Day Pork, Apples and Sauerkraut

Ingredients:

• Pork Tenderloin (or chops)
• Bag of Sauerkraut
• 1 Cup Apple Juioce
• 1-2 Apples (Any apple will work but Granny Smith's are the best)
• 1 Onion
• Brown Sugar (to taste)
• Salt and Pepper to taste

- Take a bag of sauerkraut, drain and rinse it (this lowers the salt content – but don't rinse more than once or you'll begin to lose the flavor).

- Line a 9" x 12" (approx.) dish with the kraut, then add a cup of Apple Juice. Sprinkle some caraway seeds (optional).

- Lay the pork loin (or chops) on top of the sauerkraut.

- Add thinly sliced apples (about 1-2, any old apple will do, but Granny Smiths are best)

- Add a layer of thinly sliced onions. (Use a mandolin slicer if you have one – the thinner the better, since they'll crisp up at the end. Make sure you add onions to the top of the meat.)

- Sprinkle brown sugar, salt and pepper to taste.

- Cook at 350 degrees for about an hour or until the internal temp. is about 145 and the top layer of onions and apples are crisp to your liking.

- Remove the meat, let it rest for about 5 minutes.

- Slice, serve, enjoy, prosper.

A Bowl of Pho on a Cold Day

There's nothing better than a giant bowl of Pho on a cold day. This is from Pho Palace in Northeast Philadelphia. The Far Northeast is not known for its diverse food scene and up until recently there was no place to go in this area for food like this. Pho Palace and a few others that have just opened are thankfully filling that gap.

Camera: iPhone 4s / Post processing: Snapseed App