Whole Foods Market at Phillips Crossing (8003 Turkey Lake Road) hosted the first of three celebrity chef cook-offs. In this high stakes battle, renowned local chef John Rivers of 4 Rivers Smokehouse competed against Alec Cheak of Fleming's Prime Steakhouse & Wine Bar. Each chef was given $20 and 20 minutes to speed shop for ingredients. They then had 20 minutes to make a delicious, creative summer meal using only a grill. They stood side by side with their shopping carts as the announcer counted down to the start. As the chefs wandered the aisles, I remained behind sketching the grilling area. Oriane Lluch who helped organize the event, gave me a press release. A Sentinel reporter video taped the competition.
Both chefs spent $19 and change on their ingredients. John Rivers hit an unexpected snag when he realized that the calamari steaks he had purchased were frozen. They were sent back and fresh steaks were ordered. Then John discovered that his grill wasn't working. Unfazed, he ran to a grill in the far corner of the kitchen to grill his fresh vegetables. I began to wonder if the competition was rigged. Whole, fresh, local and seasonal ingredients were used by both chefs. Alec grilled a Pacific Cod over a bed of grilled spring leaks, jicama and mango, accompanied with a balsamic orange, blackberry reduction. John prepared a grilled calamari steak with cilantro along with grilled red and yellow peppers and fresh carrots, topped with a ginger BBQ sauce.
Three judges tasted the light summer dishes deliberating with each taste. The announcer stirred the crowd raising the excitement. After some deliberation, chef Alec Cheak was declared the winner. He smiled broadly. On August 16th Chef Tuan Tran of Crave will face off against Chef Steve Saelg of the Crooked Spoon. The winner of that cook-off will then face off against chef Alec Cheak in the final cook-off on August 30th. The cook-offs all happen at Whole Foods at 6:30pm. I realized as I was leaving that I was hungry. I went home and popped a frozen diner in the microwave.
Urban ReThink hosted a screening of two Carl Knickerbocker animated puppet short films as well as "The Painting Lesson", a live action film that is loosely based on Carl's art and life. I really liked "The Painting Lesson." In this film an artist who really looks like Carl was painting in a night club to make ends meet when he meets an alpha business woman who asks him for a painting lesson. One thing leads to another and they end up sleeping together. She has a dream about Carl's blue and green dogs. The animated dogs circle each other sniffing butts. She is rude to him from that point on. They fight. He paints her pooch green and in the end she creates a huge angry mural on the street in front of his home. He realized this is the best painting she had ever done. She didn't need lessons from him anymore. The media embraced her. I absolutely love this film. It is a shame it was never distributed.
"A Dog Goes from Here to There" was a short animated piece that Carl wrote and directed. His vibrant Urban Primitive paintings are bought to life to illustrate a whimsical poem written for children. Carl's most recent film, "SP #2" is surreal and non-linear. He just recently finished the production and is now sending it out to film festivals.
On the last day of the 2D Animation class at Full Sail each month, Kathy Blackmore lets the students vote on an animated movie to watch. Before they voted, students asked the instructors about their experiences in the animation business. One student asked, "What was a highlight or defining moment in your career?" I described the day when I found out I was accepted into the Disney internship. "This might be way before your time, but it was a Mary Tyler Moore moment. I danced in the streets of NYC and threw my cap in the air!" Kathy described the pride she took in one particular Stitch scene where she did every drawing herself. Alex Kupersmidt the lead animator paused for the longest time when he looked at it. Such a pause usually meant he was contemplating a change or fix to the animation. He said, "It's perfect." He then turned and walked away. Such praise from an animation legend isn't often offered.
The class had a split vote between Secret of Nimh and Lilo and Stitch. Dan Reibold really wanted to see the Secret of Nimh since he hadn't seen it in a long time. Kathy's heart warming stories about working on Stitch might just throw the voting in favor of the Disney film. Dan decided to pick up the Nimh DVD case and he made up a story about how this movie was the reason he wanted to become an animator. The students didn't buy his story, they laughed. Kathy decided to show the movie to keep Dan from crying. Some students continued to work on their animation flip books as the movie played. This has to be the best animated feature Don Bluth produced. It is a classic.
It all started, or so I thought, when I said in the Split Screen group chat that curator for this cool SL art Sim, Dividni Shostakovich, was wanting to get a makeover, but was a little worried the girls might not like a new look on him. Of course I really said this in order to feel him and the group out on the idea since, God forbid, he had not changed skins for something like 3 years... longer than I've been in SL. He's not the shy type and told me he didn't need any help with the women, which is true, but anyway.. his good friend, Emma Portillo, jumped on the bandwagon and apparently a few of us girls had brought up this topic with him before. Emma soon organized "Project Innocent" otherwise known as ambush Divi and don't let him take no for an answer to a makeover night. We girls, of course, were the innocents, just trying to help. All in the name of presenting the most current most professional art sim curator appearance for PR purposes of course.... never mind we like to dance with a hot av.
Please keep in mind I was given permission to blog this event so poor innocent Divi wasn't really just totally ambushed by a bunch of fashionistas wanting to make him over, well ok he was, but I soon started to think he was actually enjoying it.. somewhat. *whispers* after 5 hours we wore him down and were successful!
Dividni Shostakovich needed a new look after 3 years in the same skin. Since he curates the Split Screen art sim a few friends and myself thought he should have a smoking hot, I mean, a new professional look. Emma Portilo, Izzy Mavendorf, and Eliza Wierwight were the primary interventionists and Bryn Oh was busy but made an adorable contribution to the cause. Divi was invited to dance and with sim name changed on the tp he landed in the middle of our group at a skin store. What could he do.. he was outnumbered by a bunch of beautiful women who love him so he did what any smart man would do and sat back for the ride. But first he changed all our group tags to "Divi's Divas" then changed his to "I'm a demo model for myself". "Project Innocent" turned quickly into the " the intervention convention ... this wasn't your intention?" We went from skin store to store having him pick up the demos we all agreed on. While at LAQ we also forced him into picking up a hair demo we all very much wanted him to get and wow... who would have thought a guy could be so attached to his old hair that this took on such an art of finesse that lasted hours before he relented. Or maybe he drug it out for fun, I'm not sure. But by the time we were done he did sound a little haggard and we kept him up waaaay past his normal early bedtime.
I sure hope those store models really were afk since we asked them to strip to show us their full skin so we'd know if it was good enough to make a purchase or not, then when we got no response to our varied inquires and comments tried to take them home thinking they were like mannequins we could throw over our shoulders and have at home to just drool ove.. I mean have around like works of art.
Once the demos were selected we went back to Emma's. With only 3 of us girls left Divi began the arduous task of modeling the demo skins with his shape since again there was no way in hell he would think of changing his shape.. so a few minn later he was in a the hunky new demo shape the ladies all liked. That didn't last long though and with his old shape again went through the demos..So we got him into some short briefs I found on marketplace that are a little loose and low in the back so he could be certain he was going to get the all around right skin and shape. We kept razzing him about his shape until he suddenly got very short and chubby .. which is when I decided I needed a dance, so we all took turns dancing with Divi, then he got skinny... so we took a pic. He returned to normal and we did insist he eventually bump up his booty a bit as you couldn't' tell where that started from his back and we girls all agreed his arse was a bit too skinny and needed to be a little more "squishy" as one of the ladies said. We kept reminding him we loved him and were only trying to help and that within a week he'd be used to the changes.. and that we were already used to it and happy with change. We stopped short of making him model any "extra" parts to be assured skin tones, agreeable size, shape, styles matched etc., but he did mention something about each of us helping out in that area later.. I had no clue what he meant by that. Especially since we were going to get this job done one way or another before he chickened out... and a few times we did worry he was just humoring us and would be back in the old stuff the next day, especially when he once poofed... but thankfully he returned and we all came to a consensus.
Divi kept wanting to put on the plush pink full body Intrigue Co. bunny suit Bryn Oh sent to him during our makeover as Bryn couldn't be with us. So part of the demoing was in the pink bunny shorts before he put the briefs on then later we all went back to the stores and Divi did get his new permanent (or so we hope) skin and hair...woot! Success!.. but by then I was also in my Intrigue Skunk pjs that I had from before, so Emma and Izzy quick got some off marketplace and we returned to her house for the "after" picture. We got distracted and danced a little and finally did our "after" pic in the pjs outfits, but then I couldn't really see how hot the new Divi was so today I had him come over for a quick snap of the NEW Divi, and thankfully he was still in the new Divi skin and hair. All in all this was a LOL, pee your pants, funny good time kind of evening, and Divi has his new smoking hot.. I mean ... professional curator look.
Whole Foods Market at Phillips Crossing (8003 Turkey Lake Road) hosted the first of three celebrity chef cook-offs. In this high stakes battle, renowned local chef John Rivers of 4 Rivers Smokehouse competed against Alec Cheak of Fleming's Prime Steakhouse & Wine Bar. Each chef was given $20 and 20 minutes to speed shop for ingredients. They then had 20 minutes to make a delicious, creative summer meal using only a grill. They stood side by side with their shopping carts as the announcer counted down to the start. As the chefs wandered the aisles, I remained behind sketching the grilling area. Oriane Lluch who helped organize the event, gave me a press release. A Sentinel reporter video taped the competition.
