Mer-chan: technocuddly, cute, arty, geeky stuff from Asia and beyond

Elote: Mexican Grilled Corn Recipe

merchan — Mon, 14 May 2012 12:33:30 +0000

This weekend I fired up the grill and had the first corn of the season. Nothing like urban homesteading some city corn! Just picked off the stalk, it’s so sweet and fresh, it can be eaten raw. But to really savor it, I made the elote I used to eat all the time when I lived in Mexico. A super simple and delicious recipe that is basically a sprinkle of Artisanal Soy kimchee salt that sticks to a tangy, creamy medium like crema, creme fraiche or sour cream. Sour cream tends to get runnier when slathered on hot corn, but this is not white table cloth food anyway. I ate on the porch, watching sweet city life unfold. Elote puts the warmth and heat of summer in your belly.

Ingredients: (makes 1 elote but you’ll want more!)
1 big ear of corn
2 TB slather of crema, creme fraiche, or sour cream
Generous sprinkle of Artisanal Soy Kimchee Salt

Shuck the corn, leaving the end stalk on the cob to use as a handle. Grill the corn on a hot grill or cast iron griddle just until slightly charred, about 5 minutes each side, turning so it gets cooked all over. Slather your choice of creamy goodness and sprinkle with kimchee salt. Use the built-in corn handle to pick it up, and start chomping!

Artisanal Soy Tweets

merchan — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 18:00:00 +0000

Visit the Official Glitter Dust Site

merchan — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 13:33:21 +0000

Now we’ve got the website for the drawcumentary Glitter Dust: Finding Art in Dubai up. Go there (it’s ok you can go right now without reading the rest of the post; your enthusiasm is charming) for updates about the film, documentary film musings, and as ever, updates on art and culture in the Middle East and beyonders.

Latest Cultural Capital Tweets

merchan — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 07:13:01 +0000

Glitter Dust Trailer

merchan — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 02:13:32 +0000

Oh my goodness! It’s finally done…our drawcumentary film Glitter Dust: Finding Art in Dubai. Check out the trailer on IMDb. Let us know what you think and we’ll keep you posted on screenings. Opening soon!

Glitter Dust: Finding Art in Dubai trailer documentary

The Imagination of Disaster

merchan — Thu, 12 May 2011 13:07:38 +0000

Total Arts at the Courtyard presents The Imagination of Disaster, Drawings, paintings, prints and installation by Marcelo Guimaraes Lima of the Panoptikon fame and Julia Townsend from May 15th to June 6th 2011. The Imagination of Disaster presents a visual reflection on the experience of catastrophes, cataclysms and disasters in our times: from global to personal. When Susan Sontag wrote her celebrated essay on the themes of science fiction movies of the Cold War period, the “imagination of disaster” in science fiction expressed the unconscious, and historically unprecedented, fear of atomic conflict. Going beyond the neutralization of historical anxiety, the artistic imagination of disaster in the early 21st century may have as a task to deconstruct the compulsory image of fear that paralyzes the historical consciousness of the present.

Pat-a-cake Dudes

merchan — Wed, 04 May 2011 13:49:36 +0000

We love cake and these dudes are patting the hell out it:

Pat-a-cake-dudes

In the wiki entry to Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker’s man, the formal name of what we call “Want cake now!” is highlighted by both William Wallace Denslow’s classic illustrations and in a gleeful picture named “Two young men playing pat-a-cake”.

Tsunami Donations

merchan — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 13:01:55 +0000

Besides making donations personally, I’m donating 20% of all sales to relief efforts for the Japan earthquake and tsunami. That goes for both Mer-chan and Artisanal Soy. Everyone over there is in my thoughts and heart.

Georgetown Cupcake for Jones New York

merchan — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 17:21:41 +0000

May I present this Photoshop of Horrors: the Georgetown Cupcake women for Jones New York. One of the things that makes me sad is the ad campaign is called “Empower Your Confidence” but Jones New York felt the need to whittle down Sophie LaMontage and cut off her left hand in the process (missing appendage circled in pink).

Sophie’s one of the “Power Women of DC” according to Jones New York but they still cut off her fingers (see detail from a billboard that’s around the city) in a sloppy hack job. Would a Power Man of DC be subject to this?

The thing that depresses me is that she’s a baker. Not a model. The woman worked her butt off build a food business, and still she can’t look like she eats. So in a way I guess I was inspired by Jones New York’s slogan “Visions, Outspoken, Always in Style…”
Visionary – Hey! Sophie LaMontage’s missing her left hand!
Outspoken – WTF I’m gonna blog about it!
Always in Style – Fingers are always in style. In this instance I find the middle one most useful.

Of Rafts and Robots

merchan — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 14:49:23 +0000

We already posted that robots are a girl’s best friend, so is it really surprising that Huck Finn want to jump on the bandwagon? Kickstarter, which helps pair sponsors with creative projects, has a page dedicated to Replacing the “N-word” with “Robot” in Huck Finn. The project seeks to update Mark Twain’s tale of river runaways for the cyborg age. What novel would you like to see rewritten for a robot audience?

We sure hope that robot was a water-tight casing!