Author: Bunny Eats Design

Brainfarts

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Being a creative person, I often need to do turbo charged brainstorms. I call these brainfarts. I sit and focus, often with The Koala and we nut it out. Top 5 brainfarting tips: Start with a big fresh piece of paper Write down anything that comes to mind (don’t hold anything in) Go wild (you can always reign it in later) The first ideas you have are often too obvious Revisit brainfart sheet later on in the process in case things have changed and ideas that you dismissed earlier can be dismissed.

Spring Comfort Food

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Happy first of October! It’s absolutely spring time now. Some days are warm, others are chilly. The weather is lovely. It’s not quite time to put the heater away or to hang up your coats for the season. Your meals are probably getting lighter and you may have eaten outdoors a couple of times already. I have. We don’t have a table or chairs outside so we’re going for 1 bowl or a plate of food that can be eaten with just a fork. There’s something very comforting and casual about eating without a table or a knife. When I think of comfort food, I think of stuff that you can eat with a bowl and a spoon. Wrapped in a blanket on the couch. That’s what real comfort is. Now that it’s spring and getting warmer, is the bowl of warmth less appropriate? Top 5 spring time comfort foods: Potato salad (with spring onion, boiled eggs and mayo, bacon optional) Quiche (with smoked salmon and fresh herbs) Noodle soup (Pho) Pasta salad Chowder, light on …

Auckland Art Week is…

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Auckland Art Week is just around the corner (13-23 October) and there is time to have a squiz at all the events that are on to figure out which ones tickle your fancy. Some events that require a ticket but there are plenty of free events. More info can be found at artweekauckland.co.nz. Some things to see and do at Auckland Art Week: Basement Fest 2011. A whole lot of shenangins going on at Basement Theatre, including street art show The Dirty 13, Comedians including: Cori Gonzalez Macuer presents Cori Gonzalez Macuer, Burlesque show: In Flagrante and Regrooved Block Party. 28 September to 22 October @ Basement Theatre. Alessandra Zecchini and her daughter Arantxa Zecchini-Dowling will be making, baking and decorating as per their new book Party Food for Girls. 16 October @ Lopdell House Gallery. Artfeast. Mixing 2 of my favourite things. 18 October @ Whitespace. Hungry! Opening Night. 13 October @ Te Karanga Community Art Space. Alphabet City Open Studio. A must if you have any interest in letterpress, zines or bookmaking. 18 …

Forage something and cook with it

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There is loads of onion weed in the garden again and a recent post on Alessandra Zecchini’s blog reminded me of the onion weed dumplings I made last year. I’m loving daylight savings time and it’s nice to be able to cook and photograph in natural light after work. I made these potato cakes for a pre-dinner snack but I think it will be easy to find another reason to eat these. I used the bottom 10cm of the plant which is the white/green base. It’s crisp rather than stringy. Thoroughly wash the onion weed and don’t use any that may have been sprayed with yucky chemicals. Otherwise, happy foraging! Onion Weed Potato Cakes Makes 8 Ingredients 2 large potatoes 1 egg, beaten 1/2 cup chopped onion weed 3/4 cup grated cheese salt (garlic salt optional)  black pepper Oil 8 onion weed flowers for garnish  Preparation Preheat oven to 180°C. Peel the potatoes and remove the skin. Continue peeling the potatoes until it gets too hard to grip. Reserve for another use – about a …

Fun at the art gallery

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Auckland Art Gallery has been prettied up and re-opened a couple of weeks ago. 15,000 or so works in the collection with 800 on display at any one time. We visted twice in one day and noticed things that were there in the afternoon that weren’t there in the morning. They must really be having fun with switching around the artworks. It’s been years since I visited and there were many familiar pieces as well as new ones. Bill Hammond’s Japanese painting is one of my favourites there and worth visiting just for that. Most artworks are not to be touched. But one exhibition encourages interaction with kaleidoscopes and tables of paper, stencils, paper punches and colouring pencils. Afternoon craft time is fun for kids both big and small.

Food pyramids are boring.

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<rant> I’ve never eaten to a food pyramid. Not even for a day. I don’t see the point when they seem to change with every generation. Someone somewhere decides a specific eating pattern is a good fit for the population and it gets broadcast. I don’t like margarine. But I buy it because it’s supposedly be better for you than butter, but these days, some kinds of margarine are linked to heart attacks. Margarine and butter contain the same amount of fat. With the rules changing every 5 minutes and dependent on who you talk to, who and what can we trust? I don’t eat KFC every day because I don’t feel good after 2 days of consecutive junk food. If I felt good, I would consider it. We should eat food that tastes good and makes us feel good. If I didn’t enjoy what I ate and did it purely for the health benefits, when the rules change, I would be pissed off. I would be if I had been suffering through margarine all …

On the bandwagon at Depot

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This week, I convinced Miss A to try out Al Brown’s new restaurant at Sky City: Depot with me. It’s had great reviews and what I read about the food really appealed to me. If you haven’t read the reviews, this place is small. The are no real chairs, just stools that you perch at. This means your bags and coats may need to find a hook on the wall. It also means that you’re unlikely to get cosy enough to let your dining experience drag on. Smart. Third time’s a charm. We had failed to get a table twice the night before – at about 7pm (full) and then at about 10pm (kitchen closed). This time we were joined by Uncle and more determined to eat. It was lunch so the turnaround was faster and that means better odds for a table. They don’t take bookings here and they get busy. You have been warned. We took one end of a large table. If communal dining isn’t your thing, then you might want to say …

Monday Bunday: Bunny clutch bags

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Warmer weather means I go out more and what better way to celebrate the warmer days and nights of spring that with a cute bunny design clutch bag? Here is a round up of some of my favourites from around the interwebs. There are a lot of tacky, sparkely ones out there which I turn my nose up at. Not surprisingly, Etsy.com seems to have a ton of cute-not-tacky bunny clutch bags. Enchanted Rabbit Clutch by J Carter Handmade on Etsy. A rabbit clutch by Made By Hank on Etsy. The Garden Path Rabbit Clutch by Peep Accessories. Hot Pink Linen Bunny Clutch Purse by Eva Katharina on Etsy. Champagne Pink Clutch Purse with Cottontail Rabbit by Sir Tom on Etsy. Maroon Rabbit Print Clutch Purse by Vashte on Etsy. Silk Lined Black and White Forest Silhouette Kisslock Frame Clutch by BrianaEdelmanDesigns on Etsy.

The Dutch Have Two Words for Design

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Decoration vs. Engineering Often our clients give us design-decoration problems. When in fact they need to pose an engineering problem so that we can better give a design-engineering answer. Maybe then, as a designer, we need to ask our client engineering questions when they hand over decoration projects. Instead of “make this brochure pretty”, it should be “make this brochure sell a lot of products”.

Eat a flower

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What better time to eat a flower than spring time? Lavender has a potent smell that I don’t really equate to savoury food so I was a but apprehensive about this. So I crushed just 1 flower bud, mixed it with honey and coated some deboned chicken thighs. But after cooking, the flavour almost completely disappeared so I wish I’d used a bit more.

Lemon Sugar and Elephant Ears

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This post has been written as part of the new Sweet New Zealand blogging event founded by Alessandra Zecchini. It’s a chance for kiwi bloggers to share their sweet treats, so if you are a kiwi blogger and are interested in participating, check it out for this month. This month’s event is event number 2 is hosted by Allison at Pease Pudding and more information can be found here. Lemon Sugar I’ve been wanting to make flavoured sugar for a while and with our lemon tree growing some beautiful, thick skined beauties this spring, I knew I had to do something with the zest. Using my microplane zester (I love that thing), I lightly scraped the outside layer of a lemon and let the zest dry for about an hour on a chopping board. I then layered zest and white sugar into a jar. Leave the sugar for at least a few days for the lemony oils to permeate into the sugar. The result is pretty, but I haven’t used this sugar just yet. With the zest that was …

Mayolicious

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It’s salad season again and we have had a week of warm spring days. One ingredient we keep in continual supply in our fridge all through the year, but gets eaten at an alarming rate in the warmer months, is Best Foods Real Mayonnaise. This mayonnaise is the thickest, creamiest mayo in a jar. Plus, it’s 21.1% fat free!

Moon Rabbit

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We’re going to Canton Cafe in Kingsland for dinner tonight with the extended family in celebration of the Moon Festival (12 September 2011). Canton Cafe is one of my all time favourite restaurants and we’re super lucky that we live within a hop and a skip. One of the icons of the Moon Festival is the Moon Rabbit. I kid you not. I didn’t make this up. It’s on Wikipedia, so it must be true. 😉 The Moon rabbit, also called the Jade Rabbit, in folklore is a rabbit that lives on themoon, based on pareidolia that identifies the markings of the moon as a rabbit. The story exists in many cultures, particularly in East Asian folklore, where it is seen pounding in a mortar and pestle. I like to think that there is a culinary rabbit on the moon working away with it’s mortar and pestle. Maybe that is where the phrase “moon dust” comes from? Cultures that have the moon rabbit are Chinese, Japanese, Buddhist, Mexican and Native American (Cree). Also from Wiki: The moon rabbit was mentioned in the conversation between Houston and the Apollo …