2012 in Review

Who's up for a recap of the past 12 months?

January

- Tony, Erik and Spencer visited us in Northfield. My calves hurt like a mofo for a week after they left, so there was probably a double-dutch tournament or a lot of jumpy dancing. 

- Ernesto and I flew to Miami for Debby and Yuziel's wedding, where Luis managed to set something on fire during the reception.
- Also in Miami, I learned that car eyelashes are a thing

fake eyelashes aren't just for guidettes

- The Current played "We Are Young" and I texted my brother that fun. is getting famous (there were several exclamation points). we r hipzturds. 

February

- Ernesto and I ate at a Chinese buffet and I opened a fortune cookie that had TWO FORTUNES.
- I took the GRE in Edina/Eden Prarie. After walking out of the Prometric center in tears, Ernesto bought me a sandwich at Subway and I ate my feelings.
- The amazing Hannah Jensen directed her cinema comps film, Last, where twentyish dancers performed her choreography in the Weitz Center. It was beautifuuuuul, watch it.

March

- I finished studio art comps and dayum it felt great. This was my studio by the end of the term:

je t'aime toujours, boliou

- I finished my Insomnia audiobook and was pretty disappointed that the Stephen King novel had nothing to do with the movie with Robin Williams.

- We spent spring break in El Paso.

- I joined Pinterest and have been wasting approx half of my life on it.

- March to the Reub happened, where I ate more than the appropriate amount of buffalo wings.

April

- Quality Bakery put up the freaking creepiest Easter bunny in their window shop on Division Street. I practically peed my pants every morning on the way to class. Bunnicula is real and it lives in Northfield.

Enjoy your upcoming nightmares. 

- Ernesto gave his comps talk, "DNA, I Hear You're Single.. Molecule Replication"
- We went to our first baseball game in Target Field with Natalia and Francisco, and watched the Red Sox demolish the Twins 11 to 2. Happy birthday to me!
- Ernesto and I tore the apartment apart looking for his Spanish passport.
- We celebrated his birthday in Chicago with Jenny and Tony (who somehow didn't know about the metal bean that everyone visits). We stayed at the (HAUNTED) Congress hotel and it was a good time.We went to a bunch of museums and whatnot, but my favorite part was seeing Too Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind, this pretty cool experimental theatre place where the price of admission is whatever you get when you roll a die.

May
- We went to Madison and woke up to this beauty the morning after Mifflin:

Nothing like the smell of burnt couch in the morning

:(  

- The senior studio art majors had our final show, for which nobody could agree on a title, so it was called Untitled: For Reasons. It was dumb and I hated it UNTIL one of the juniors brought the following snack to the show opening:

Untitled (Four Raisins)

So good. Art in its truest form. 

- I had my final show with Whoa! Hip Hop Dance Co, which was emotional for obvious reasons. It was by far the best show we'd put on since I'd been at Carleton DESPITE being zombie themed, which is saying a lot. There were technical difficulties at the beginning of the show which delayed it about 20 minutes, which was great because my family was running 20 minutes late (shocker). 

I choreographed two dances for the show, but this one was by far my favorite. And it's not even a Justin Timberlake song!

June

- Ernesto and I graduated from Carleton College WOOOOOOOO it was great. 

- The day after graduation, we went to Mexico with my family and spent a week in Cabo with Tia Laura. Ernesto got a minor injury while diving after his sandals on the beach.

- Haley Johnson had her Rochester baby shower and I not-so-discreetly ate half a dozen cupcakes. 

July 

- I cried a lot on the road trip from Rochester to Dallas (where I saw a double rainbow for the first time!)

- Ernesto and I celebrated our 1-year anniversary with his parents and with Gustavito's family in Atlanta, where we ate Spanish food and danced a ton.

- We went to the Dali museum, which was crazy.

- I took his family to the art galleries on Lincoln Road that my family used to visit when we lived in Miami. 

- Luis changed our lives by introducing us to Breaking Bad on Netflix. 

August

- I kept finding different aspects of our Ikea furniture hilarious. Like.. look at these Poker Face Planks. They're adorable. Obviously I was a less-than- efficient furniture assembler. 

Poker Face Paulina hanging out with Poker Face Planks

- Ernesto and I lived the all-american summer camp experience that we'd never had during childhood at his med school retreat. 

- I taught a bunch of M1s the soulja boy dance and the lyrics to 'Call Me Maybe' for a contest that we later WON. You're welcome, future doctors.

- Ernesto officially started medical school.

- We caught up with Breaking Bad and started watching the latest episodes at Angelika Theatre.

September

- I officially started working at Onesimo Hernandez Elementary, and instantly fell in love with all 22 of the kids in my classroom. 

- Ernesto got an iPhone and WE DISCOVERED SONGPOP. 

- I heard this song for the first time and have had it stuck in my head ever since. 

- We went to a waterpark with Ernesto's family, and he lost his sandals. 

- It took me like 5 minutes to realize that the ticket booth guy at Angelika Theatres wasn't kidding when he said that Breaking Bad was over until July. 

- Dr. Mark Sloane died in the Season 9 premiere of Grey's Anatomy, and I had a minor meltdown.

October

- We went to the Texas State Fair and stumbled upon this..

Nicholas Cage: Rock Star Demigod

This alone would have been worth the trip. We also ate 4 different kinds of fried food.. it was a great night overall.

- I sent in a MN absentee ballot so that my vote would count for the prez election.

- We got to Ernesto's white coat ceremony 15 minutes late.

- On Halloween, Ernesto dressed up as Mona Lisa and I dressed up as zombie Dr. Sloane to get $2 burritos at Chipotle. 

November

- My classroom went on our first ever field trip, and I learned that a bus filled with 5-year-olds is the best kind of bus.

- Obama FTW! We celebrated. 

- The beautiful Kristen Vellinger came to Dallas for a conference, and we had her all to ourselves for a Thursday night! She introduced us to a place that has like 5 different kinds of pazookie. Friends let friends eat way too much dessert. 

Just like old times! Minus Jon and pajamas and overall Carleton-related misery.

- We spent Thanksgiving in Rochester, where we sang tons of karaoke and ate tons of food with my family and spent time with some of our dearest friends (e.g. Perkins ). 

December

- Ernesto took his last anatomy exam which is GREAT because now he won't spend as much time showing me gory pictures of people's faces that are 50 shades of terrifying.

- Jon Sands talked to me at a Google hangout and I about died. 

- Todd Anderson said he liked a poem I wrote and I about died a second time. 

- We spent the holidays in Ft. Myers and Luis showed me Grand Theft Auto for the first time.

2012, folks! 

It was a good show. 

2013 has gotten off to a pretty good start ever since I was introduced to Killer Karaoke. 

Deep Fried Democracy

As I'm writing this post, the people of this nation are on the verge of receiving the results of the most important election they've witnessed to date. Folks around the entire country are nervously biting their fingers, furiously posting pseudo-political Facebook posts and constantly refreshing their internet browsers to see this year's winner.

I say to these people: Wait no more! Clip those fingernails! Log off all of your social networking sites! Get ready to be showered with the rewards of freedom!

I'm pleased to present you the results of the Texas State Fair Fried Food Election.

But first, let me remind you of this year's candidates*:

Deep Fried Picnic-on-a-Stick (P) : A safe, well-rounded contender that presents itself as a shish-kebab of chicken, tater tots and pickles dipped in batter and fried to perfection, this candidate promised to please a variety of taste buds.

Deep Fried Tres Leches Cake (T) :  Perhaps the only candidate that bothered appealing to Hispanic voters, the fried tres leches cake offered a totally new perspective on the tradition of fair foods.

Fried Bacon Cinnamon Roll (B) : This progressive, unrelenting candidate wasn't afraid to boldly blur the boundaries between sweet and savory.

Deep Fried Jambalaya (J) : Proudly hailing from the South, this candidate's flavorful reputation preceeds it; some voters might have been turned off by its strong Cajun background, but many more seemed willing to give it a fair chance.

* A fifth candidate, Fried Cactus Bites, unexpectedly dropped out of the race due to my deciding I wouldn't actually want to spend money on it.

Aaaaaaand, the moment you've been waiting for: whowunnit?!

There you have it, folks! It was pretty contested during some of the different voting methods (lookin atchu, Bored-a Count), but I think we can all agree that there was a clear winner, and that winner was DEEP FRIED JAMBALAYA!

On behalf of myself and my future diabetes, I'd like to thank everyone who exercised their right to make my food-related decisions for me. Pictures of the election results in action to come soon.

Aaaaand Minnesota just got called for Obama, so I'm gonna go celebrate the success of my absentee vote! BIG THINGS ARE HAPPENING, AMURRICA!

The Boutique Cupcake

Not even Nostradamus could have warned us about the cupcake, that miniature dessert dressed in layer upon layer of frosting rosettes that has seduced the country with its hollow decadence. Bit by extravagantly decorated bit, the twenty-first century’s All-American Boutique Cupcake has invaded every possible venue with unnecessarily polka-dotted, pink or curlycued cupcake services, erasing from the nation’s memory such once-beloved delicacies as the Apple Pie or the S’More. The following instructions indicate how, with just a handful of ingredients, you too can contribute to this cream cheese-frosted, sprinkle-covered skid mark in the nation’s culinary history.


Prep time: Varies
Baking Time: 0 minutes
Yield: Three-dozen cupcakes

Ingredients:

Old family recipe for fairy cakes

15 ½ ounces all-purpose flour

1 ¼ teaspoons baking soda

1 1/4 teaspoons salt

3 eggs

1 1/4 teaspoons vanilla extract

1/8 cup water

1 episode of Sex and the City

5 tablespoons of flour

1 cup of milk

1 dump truck filled with confectioner’s sugar

Assorted buckets of food coloring

1-3 starving artists (use as needed)

Directions

1. Refer to an old family recipe for fairy cakes, the boutique cupcake’s homely English predecessor. Hold the yellowed, tea-stained piece of paper in your hands as you relish the thought that you are about to make a vintage dessert. Following the instructions that have been passed down for generations, combine the flour, baking soda and salt in a medium bowl. Mix well before adding the eggs, vanilla and water. Set the mixture aside.

2. Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees F. As you wait, help yourself to an episode of Sex and the City. Observe as Carrie Bradshaw and her girlfriends buy cupcakes from Magnolia’s Bakery Shop. Notice that the cupcakes these women buy are just as glittery and glamorous as their sequined clutches and sparkly platform heels. Wonder whether the recipe you are using will include instructions for red velvet cake, which is Carrie’s favorite flavor.

3. Return to the old, tea-stained family recipe for vintage fairy cakes. Read the instructions from beginning to end, and frown as you realize that this 1850’s recipe doesn’t tell you how to make red velvet batter. Frown even more as you notice the recipe’s lack of instruction for elaborate frosting methods, proper sprinkle application or marzipan garnish techniques. Deem the old English recipe absolutely useless and stuff it down the garbage disposal along with the flour, baking soda, salt, eggs, vanilla extract and water mixture you prepared earlier.

4. Turn off the oven. Buy a red velvet sheet cake. Using a thin knife, carefully cut round, fluted cup shapes out of the sheet cake. Refer to one of your paper liners as a model. After cutting out the first cupcake, briefly consider cutting in straight cylindrical shapes, or even cubes to reduce the leftover cake scraps. Decide that the traditional cup shape is much cuter than any efficient alternative, and continue cutting. As you cut out each cupcake, keep in mind the proper cake-slice-to-cupcake ratio; one hearty, satisfying cake slice should be the equivalent to 1.7 cupcakes. A successful all-American boutique cupcake denies the eater a satisfactory helping of dessert after one serving, but leaves the eater feeling guilty and engorged after a second. Throw the remaining sheet cake scraps down the garbage disposal.

5. In a pink, polka-dotted, or Rachel Ray-endorsed saucepan, prepare the frosting by whisking the flour with the milk and setting over heat. Stir constantly until the mixture is as thick as the fake French accents you’ve heard on Cupcake Wars. Add the confectioner’s sugar to the mixture one bucketful at a time, stirring occasionally. To create batches of colored frosting, add ¼ bucket of food coloring to each bucket of icing at a time and stir briskly, adding more coloring as needed. Summon one or more artists, and put their extensive backgrounds in color theory to use by having them create your frosting palette.

6. When you have made enough icing to create an edible life-size statue of Paula Deen, remove the saucepan from the stovetop and let cool. Divide the frosting among your various artists. Drawing from any number of sources for inspiration, choose several objects and/or scenes that will take each artist at least 2 hours to sculpt or paint using the icing provided. Encourage each artist to incorporate the traditional elements of design (e.g. form, line, value, rhythm, variety, symmetry) as they stack nauseatingly overworked poodles, Hello Kitties, flower arrangements, Muppet characters, Mario Party scenes, ladybugs and lipsticks on top of each cupcake. Carefully measure the icing-to-cake ratio of each cupcake; ideally, the amount of icing on each cupcake should be equal to 1n+4, where n = amount of cake and the units are measured in the average human mouthful.

7. When all of the cupcakes have been adequately frosted, place them delicately inside their respective paper liners. Although you may choose from a variety of these, note that any self-respecting cupcake liner comes in animal print, floral print, plaid or paisley patterns. If the pattern isn’t short-circuiting your retina, select another cupcake liner. Alternatively, you may choose to construct your cupcake liners using hand-made paper made with exotic flower petals or dried fall leaves, depending on the occasion. You may also opt for disposable lace liners cut with butterfly patterns, snowflakes, picket fences, intertwining hearts, family crests or flower silhouettes. Although these can be accomplished with any laser-cutter, it is in the spirit of the all-American boutique cupcake to waste more time, energy and morale by cutting each delicate pattern by hand.

8. Spare no expense when it comes to arranging your cupcakes. Stack tray upon pastel-colored tray of your chocolate-frosting sugar bombs to create faux wedding cakes. For an attempt at classiness, serve cupcakes in expensive wine glasses alongside sparklers, flower arrangements, or any other largesse that will distract from the fact that you are dressing up a child’s dessert in high heels.

9. At no point should you stop to consider the implications of contributing to this current culinary trend. Do not stop to ask yourself why the boutique cupcake so depends on its frosting, its liners, its arrangements and its endless embellishments. Doing so might reveal that the cupcake is not a dessert at all, but just a brightly colored illustration of what “delicious” might look like if it were made with more than sugar and food coloring. Doing so might remind you that while four shades of orange frosting topped with a marzipan sun and a hand-embroidered liner taste like very little, a goopy, half-melted ice cream cone makes up for its lack of aesthetic in Rocky-Road flavored relief from the summer sun. Doing so might remind you that fried Reese’s bars don’t need to dress up in frosting because the experience of battered peanut butter is memorable enough to last an entire year. Doing so might remind you that licking the streams of lemon syrup running from the popsicle stick in your hand down to your elbow does more for your senses than seeing a million perfect pink sugar rosettes.

I Can't Believe It's Not Art

I've never gone to an addiction recovery program, but I've seen enough episodes of The O.C./Grey's Anatomy/Arrested Development/other shows featuring well-to-do alcoholics to know that the first step is admitting you have a problem. 

There are a couple of instances throughout this blog where I hint at my obsession with all things food-related, but even I didn't grasp the extent of my infatuation until recently completing a sculpture assignment that, as it turns out, is the fourth consecutive food-related artwork that I've made in the past 2 months.  Below, I give you the artistic manifestations of my troubled, food-addicted subconscious:

Let Cake Eat Them. Felt, thread, zippers. 

Prompt: Make a piece about connection. 

This guy took me 2 weeks to finish, so I spent a looooong time daydreaming about real desserts during the process. 

Putrescence. Satin, Sequins, Thread. 

Prompt: Make your favorite word.
An excerpt from a future art history textbook that will undoubtedly be written about this work: "Much like Picasso went through a depressive Blue Period (or how Van Gogh went through an entire depressive career), this piece sheds some light on the more painful aspects of being in love with anything: having to say goodbye. The juxtaposition of fine materials with forms that reference a clear state of putrescence manifests the artist's inner struggle at this crossroad; by looking at the piece, the viewer can almost hear the artist whisper to the bowl of fruit, 'You are beautiful, no matter what they say,' before tossing it into the dumpster to avoid yet another fruit fly infestation."

 Concessions at Weitz Cinema. Fake popcorn, fake coke, fake candy bars, fake nachos, fake pretzels. 

Prompt: Make something site-specific. 

I sincerely believe that more people would attend movies at Weitz if they could buy overpriced snacks. I know I'd rather pay $5 for a jumbo box of Sour Patch Kids than for a 2-day old parfait at the Sayles Cafe. (count the rhymes, imma poet)

I Keep On Fallin'. Flannel, Satin.

Prompt: Make something else that's site-specific.  

It was in the making of this piece (at 2 in the morning while watching Arrested Development) that I realized all of my art was about food.

So now, I'm going to follow in the footsteps of Kirsten Cohen, Chief Webber and Lucille Bluth and weasel my way out of any interventions that threaten to separate me from my one true love.

1. It's not really a problem to think about food all of the time if food is my muse. Some people get The Dark Lady, some people get Yoko Ono, and I get the food pyramid. Potato/Potahto. (but no one says 'potahto,' so more like.. Coupon/Kyoopon)

2. This entire dilemma only exists because I initially denied food the condition of Art with a capital A to begin with. Luckily, people like Marcel Duchamp and Laurence Weiner have paved the road for making Non-Art into Art at my very whim. So.. food, I now declare you to be Art. Which makes my food-related sculptures actually art-related sculptures. Which in turn makes my art self-referential and snooty and fit for inclusion in fine institutions like ARTFORUM and the MoMA! Below, I present you just one of many works of art handcrafted by moi that you now have the privilege of admiring:

Enchilovin' It?

Another Helpful Visual Aid

I came up with this last term, it started out as me sitting in an airport somewhere by myself, thinking about how cupcakes are the worst thing ever. I was also a little upset about the horrifyingly understated difference between solid pies and liquidy pies.