These vintage Santas are just a tad older than me.

Them, with their cartoony script lettering, would grace the table every year – with or without the requisite salt, pepper, for which they were created. Made in Japan.

Below, track from the ultimate 1960s Christmas album.

Ray Conniff: Twelve Days of Christmas

So while I’m still in seafood mode, I should mention my absolute favorite food is Dungeness Crab.

I grew up eating these west coast crustaceans, dusted with Old Bay seasoning, partnered with slabs of sourdough bread. All I need is a small fork and I can get thru the whole thing in under an hour – no cracking necessary. The obsessive trick is to get every single piece out intact – and dip it in melted butter.

Saw this shirt in Old Navy; but alas, not available as a men’s tee.

Not quite Chicken of the Sea, Breast-O’-Chicken was another product designed to confuse Americans about where tuna actually comes from.

From 1954.

Found via retro-ads

New from Jonathan Adler: Fish salt and pepper shakers. More here.

When my mother was a kid, chickens were grown in the garden.

My mom grew up during The Great Depression in a small house in Hazleton, Pennsylvania. And when it came to cooking, the family made due with what they had. My grandmother used to make her own chicken soup, using the backs and necks of poultry on hand.

My mother learned her technique – and has turned her version of the family soup into an art. The catch is: It doesn’t always come out (by her standards) so a few cans of chicken broth are kept on standby for just an instance (and to adjust the flavor). Even when it’s not perfect, it’s better than one can find in just about any store.

This is the most current recipe, it nets a small pot of gold. Always great in the winter months.

dorothy mehallo’s chicken soup

ingredients

Whole free range chicken from the butcher, cut up (with back and neck)

Cooked rice or noodles

to make

Local butchers doesn’t always have backs and necks available anymore, but if so – it will really add to the flavor. Before cooking, carefully clean out any goop inside the back. Giblets are usable for this too, but don’t add the liver; it will make the broth bitter.

Add chicken, celery, onion, bay leaf, thyme, parsley to the pot. Cover with water and bring to a boil. Avoid adding too much water, just cover the chicken. Don’t fill the entire pot, it will result in a weak stock (use a second chicken if necessary).

Lower heat and bring to a simmer for around 2-3 hours. Scum will appear on top, carefully skim it off with a spoon.

Add carrots 15-20 minutes before finish. Add salt to taste, canned stock if flavor isn’t really strong; this part depends on the individual chicken. Good chickens make great flavorful soup (this part is unpredictable).

Serve hot, strained broth poured over (deboned) ingredients; rice or noodles. Using a fat separator helps.

to store

Strain the broth into a container and pick thru the other ingredients. Debone the chicken and separate the vegetables. Throw away anything not edible and refrigerate everything else; or freeze. Hardened fat will be easy to remove. The broth will gel when chilled, clear when heated.

There was always the family belief: The thicker the gel, the better the broth.

Be careful, a good batch will attract a begging dog or two

This is delicious.

Tho I substitute red bells for the green peppers and splash with vodka. Plus, if I have em, I throw in some Greek giant beans (from can or jar), capers and finish with a slight drizzle of honey.

Recipe here.

My two favorite Thai dishes. Recipes here.

Sainbury’s Fillets of Anchovies. Illustration by Sue Brown.

update
According to Sue, this particular jar was used in this incredible recipe.

Geo. Watkins’ Anchovy Sauce. Illustration by Hwa Young Jung.

Flickr here, website here.

So I love anchovies.

The thought process involves seeing them as a seasoning instead of fish – and using them instead of salt in dishes results in some incredible flavor.

The Romans used to use products called garum and liquamen as condiments – after discovering that rotting, fermented fish have some pretty decent health properties. Garum became as common as ketchup is today; and by law, the smelly factories were located far outside town. Like ancient olive oil (both olive oil and garum were swiped from Greece), modern adaptations can still be found.

Anchovy-based nước mắm (from Vietnam) has become a mainstay in my cooking. There was a huge Vietnamese population near where I went to school (dollar bánh mì for lunch!) and for me, having a bottle in the fridge became common.

And I’ll hunt thru stores till I find a good bottle of Three Crabs Brand® (above). Just like the 8,000 variants of Crest toothpaste in today’s drug store, many Asian groceries also sport Three Fish, One Crab, Four Crabs, Two Shrimp and Crab and Shrimp and Shrimp and Crab and Crab, Shrimp and Crab, Crab Shrimp Shrimp or Shrimp Crab Crab Shrimp Shrimp brand variants to throw one off buying the really good one.

(although this article has a different take on this. Five Crabs may actually be the best.)

As for fresh anchovies (not canned) in a good olive oil  . . .  Heaven.

I love good deviled eggs.

Which is weird, I’m allergic to eggs and allergic to mayo. But for some reason, I can eat them hard boiled and deviled. Sprinkled with a good cayenne (be sure to order Penzeys’ catalog – great reading!) – or rooster.

Dutch Goose in Menlo Park makes great ones.

And here’s a recipe that incorporates anchovies.

Also love anchovies.

‘Ball size may very’

Video for Meiko’s latest, Stuck on You.

Recipe here.

Cole’s – photographed by Heather John. Foodinista post here.

French Dip showdown here. Bunch-o-recipes here.

Photograph by nathalie et cetera.

Typeface: Bang-bang.

‘The rectangles on top of each label represent main ingredients, and bars on the bottom provide a quick thumbs or thumbs down for a breakdown of fat content, carbohydrates, etc. Icons of spoons and scoops are used to supplement serving size since no one knows what 182 grams looks or feels like.’

Above, Renee Walker’s food nutrition label redesign, winner of UC Berkeley School of Journalism’s Rethink the Food Label competition.

Her work was originally part of an interdisciplinary topic studio focused on contemporary health issues; she has her original versions posted here.

Below, a few of my favorites from the competition:

Corinne Pritchard

Fabius Leineweber

Bradley Mu

Found via FlowingData

Tom Edwards’ Caffeine Curve.

Funky mug version available here.

Odd Todd’s now iconic Coff-ay mug.

Snag it here.

Plaid Creative’s Citizen’s Guide to coffee.

Found via That’s Nerdalicious!

Lokesh Dhakar’s illustrated guide to espresso.

One of these days I’m gonna make it up to Seattle and visit bauhaus books + coffee. Just because I have to.

And available now thru them is the Bauhaus + I Want You shirt, designed by Christian Petersen of DUMB EYES – as a cross promotion with I Want You magazine.

Design for Australia-located coffee shop Kaffe by Felix Lobelius.

Found via The Dieline

Isabela, photographed by Isabel Garcia for Zoozoom magazine. Editorial here.

Leshko’s Coffee Shop, Ave. A. NYC 1979.

The photography of Michael Sean Edwards. Flickr here, website here.

Found via Dangerous Minds

This includes the one pictured above (in its travel option); as well as my best-selling Font Me Typography mug, below.

Input code HOLIDAYSALE4 at checkout. Plus, free shipping on orders over $50. Visit my store here. Zazzle has a new special every day for the holidays, some limitations apply (of course).

The work of Jerry Seguin.

Found via Ashley Simko

Final project from my beginning typography course at American River College: Futura Condensed Extra Bold, crafted as iced chocolate cake by student Lilie Matyuk.

Food-based type is always a tricky undertaking, but luckily we had Teresa Urkofsky teaching next door – in the culinary classroom. Teresa had recipes and techniques ready to advise.

‘So there you have it, a home baked poster’

The typographic work of Anna Garforth. More here.

‘In an effort to win Cully & Sully’s Cheffactor, a cooking competition in Ireland, Alan Travers created the Stop-Motion Biscuit Cake video of his girlfriend Dee’s legendary chocolate biscuit cake’

Found via Laughing Squid

“Heroin’ has 3 holes for pepper. ‘Cocaine’ has one hole for salt.’

The work of David Shrigley. Shakers available here, website here.

Found via Me And My Big Mouth

I love canning stuff. And it’s getting to be the time of year to cram some stuff into bottles.

Pictured, logo design by Roger Estes for Marisa McClellan’s Food in Jars blog.

An image from long ago. The reality is much different today.

Graphic found via Laura Serra

‘And so was born the ‘shop-at-a-glance’ concept’

An ill-fated design experiment from 1965: Ralphs remodeled with departmentalized, color-coded graphic icons. Article here.

I use a lot of color coding in my own work – but with the assumption that the end user will need other organizational tools to find their way around. ‘Shop-at-a-glance’ never quite caught on; tho I’d love to see what data Ralphs collected as part of their process.

Found via Pleasant Family Shopping

Brooklyn Fare cups. Designed by the minds at Mucca.

Found via Destroy Today

‘Having many food and chemical sensitivities has been a largely trial-and-error process for what can be tolerated and what can’t, and has resulted in many creative kitchen science experiments’

Web designer/cartoonist (and former student of mine) Annie Hero has developed some major health problems. Recently, she’s taken to blogging about her approach to reclaiming her life from years of processed food intolerance.

Annie’s WTF are you eating? can be found here.

‘The company injects fatty beef trimmings with ammonia to remove E. coli and salmonella’

Ammonia in the beef. Sawdust in the cookies. Orange juice on life support.

Today’s US food processing industry is similar to a big Hollywood production of an apocalyptic society, arrived early. Fast Food Nation and FOOD Inc. were appetizers.

Read CRACKED’s The 6 Most Horrifying Lies here.

CRACKED? Yes, the humor ‘mazagine’ I read when I was a kid turned snarky humor website is now an investigative news site. Another sign of the apocalypse.

Photo by Carol Guzy/Washington Post

‘Spice up your design’

Hanging on the walls at Ai Sacramento: AIGA poster, designed and photographed by student Devon Cloutier.

At one point, there was a text change and in lieu of starting over, Devon fixed it – orally, swallowing a lot of the saucy rooster.

Designers do suffer for their art.

I have a soft spot for Arby’s.

The food isn’t great. But when I was a kid, there wasn’t an Arby’s nearby – so heading to the South City location, which showcased a super cool flashing chuckwagon-themed neon sign, was always a special trip.

It was years before I even tasted what REAL sliced roast beef was – who knew it wouldn’t have a salty, lunchmeat-like boiled flavor?

Back then, Arby’s house BBQ sauce was sold in take home bottles; which today I’ve replaced with a knockoff recipe. The trick to a good sauce is a long, slow simmer and the right non-HFCS ketchup. Trader Joe’s Organic makes a great base.

steve’s alternative to arby’s sauce

ingredients

2 cups Trader Joe’s Organic Ketchup
a splash of water
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon onion powder
Dash each of nutmeg, cinnamon, clove, sumac, ground coriander seed
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black and white pepper
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
A few dashes of Worcestershire Sauce
1 teaspoon Tabasco Pepper Sauce
Dash of Rooster Sauce (Chili Garlic preferred)

to make

Combine all in a small saucepan and bring to a light boil, stirring constantly. Simmer on low heat for around an hour or more, add more water if necessary.

Store in a canning jar, keep in fridge. Will hold up for a month or two.

Enjoy on Genuine Arby’s Food or any non-Arby’s edible that needs a sweet, spicy tang.

Recipe adapted from Todd Wilbur’s Top Secret Recipe site; mason jar photo found via Flickr

Up until a few months ago, I was living down the road from this place. I love the name, the food: not so good. Which may explain its recent closure.

Mongolian BBQ has nothing to do with Mongolia, but is a cuisine unto itself. Not anywhere near highbrow, not exactly a real BBQ. It’s a Taiwanese invention, a greasy, interactive meaty experience; the best I ever had was somewhere in Denver. The sport is all about getting as much slammed into the bowl as possible (flattening out the meat) so the food is plentiful and the trips to the grill are few.

Places with extra ingredients (such as shrimp, lamb, tofu) and seasonings (Italian herbs, Cajun spices and Rooster Sauce) are special. Ginghis (Khan) Kitchen, unfortunately, had neither. But – cool name, cool sign.

Photos by mehallo

Art Nouveau meets Russian Constructivism. Motion design by Matt Duplessie.

‘The vodka is ‘onstage’ in a chromium-plated cage to match its cool, argentiferous look which is reflected all around it. A silver lock secures the cage.’

Package design for Zeitgeist Vodka, made in Germany. Website here.

Found via Design made in Germany

Make your own here.

‘Day 10 Costa Rica’

Abridged teaser video for Dev’s Killer. Shot in Costa Rica as part of a three week video journal.

Complete track below.

Dev: Killer

Last Saturday, wandered over to the incredible SactoMoFo.

But what was more incredible was on walking back to the car, a girl on a bicycle drove by and I caught just a snippet of her conversation. It was a very basic explanation to her companion:

‘Chenis. It’s a penis made from cheese.’

Cursive: The Recluse

Found via Christian Montone

Found via Bre Roz

Design by The Creative Method.

Found via The Dieline

‘Over in Missouri USA, yellow margarine remains illegal to this day’

A look at butter over margarine – animated by Kris Cook at Outside Line for the UK Friends of Butter folk.

Set in my own Escoffier Capitaux font. Get it here.

Today, I’m wearing Butter. Photo by Holly Hadley.