48 hours of bonkers wackadoodle madness

A couple weeks ago, Amanda and I took on the insane task of feeding the fashion frenzies for a 24 hour period at Paper Magazines 24 hour department store. Below are the videos of both the prep and the party. They pretty much speak for themselves, but let me just give a brief overview of what they include: giant lakers pens, 50 pieces of corn in the early morn, marching band, twin dj's playing be our guest from beauty and the beast, spats, 9 am 9 year old singing wonder, 10 am dance crew, pinata party, and musical performances by Diva and Britt.

Boo-ery

The weekend following halloween, our partying was not over, as we had a two-day catering job for the brewery art walk! The Brewery is an awesome art colony located in downtown los angeles hosting about 500 artists in all different fields of art. It is located in the old pabst blue ribbon brewery, as well as one of los angeles' first power plants, and a couple other great spaces as well. The party we did, which was themed made in the USA, and hosted artists, film and music, was in a beautiful loft on the top floor of the old brick brewery building. The stairs were a challenge and the views were amazing, looking right over the train tracks and the skyscrapers of downtown.
Anyway, watch the video for yourself and see what it was like!

Tell Me Something GOOD

Weirdly, December 6th seemed to be some crazy cosmically intense day that was beckoning to all LA go-getters and power-people. Crops and Rawbers was invited to cater THREE events taking place on the 6th, as numerous craft fairs, art markets, sample sales, and general scene seeners popped up simultaneously all over the city. We chose, and for good reason, the GOOD magazine eco-friendly meet and greet for like-minded recyclers, composters, makers, breakers, and fixer-uppers. Our booth was awesome and outside in the sun, situated near the radical seed bomb guy, vintage button lady, silverlake farms reps, and Eagle Rock's own kooky-but-conscious REGENERATION mini store. Diva found us a classic round robin table with built-in stools and umbrella - kind of a happening hang out spot. In typical bleached-out LA fashion, mexican food was the Melrose Ave ala carte du jour as we served up our rock'em sock'em tacos with guac'em. The homemade raw tortillas were a hit even as we went head to head with mamas tamales steaming it up in the front of house. Not a bad little feat for the raw foodies out there who dare to taste test against the cooked world ! Siked on our set up, and ready to preach on, we gave a short talk on the lifestyle, answered some questions, and made almond butter for the eager little crowd. No one could resist our wacky combo of banana boats stuffed with almond butter and topped with leafy celery sticks and cayenne. Turning heads and minds daily, people !

Just a Badass Day

The vibrational energy that Diva puts out is such that she always gets us invited to the best weirdest secretest spots around LA! Last Saturday we were serving a tri-color bowl of zucchini angel hair pasta to the hardcore shoppers and hardass skaters at a tucked away sample sale for INSIGHT in Culver City. What!? So we show up and jeans are being flung, tanks are being tossed, and the DJ's playing Yo La Tengo. Sounds rad, but then we're situated behind the insane exhaust fumes of a greasy old taco truck serving up carne asada to all our potential customers! Busted, right? But the board scrapers were in top form working off a budget ramp made of the oldest wood we'd ever seen and held together by duct tape, and the cash-dropping crowd were loving our sample bowls of pesto, marinara, and alfredo pastas which we made the day before during a two hour stint while primping for our Paper Magazine photo shoot with lens legend Dan Monick. Phew! Seriously a nuts weekend, and luckily no nut allergies in the crowd. After serving it up, we found ourselves at a makeshift craft station, drawing Blackblack cdr covers and listening to Tracy Chapman's "Fast Car." It was a quick change for Diva into a tropical bird ala vintage Tiki Room and then Blackblack played an awesome set. When the buyers pleaded, there was no food left and all the songs had been sung. That's how we do it around here, always leave them wanting more.

Never the Smell so sweet

Dragging our butts - and a buttload of food - downtown on a Tuesday night isn't usually our cup of herbal tea, but to feed our friends at the Smell for an Abe Vigoda/Vivian Girls show we'd schlep it all ! If you don't know - it's like 80 plus here in LA still (say hello to indian summer!), so something sweet, cold, and light was def in order at the super sweaty Smell. We made awesome double fudge heart cakes, golden grahams gelato, walnut whip, trail mix biscotti, and some coconut mac-macs to win over all the punks, teens, and in-betweens. Blackberries and mint to keep things cool and, of course, some great conversation. Here's a tip to keeping mint or any herb tasting crisp without that sad-ass wither in the hot-ass weather: never leave them in the fridge ! They'll lose their flavor and their swagger. Just put them in a small jar or cup filled with water, like you would a bunch of flowers in a vase. Even in the pressure cooker of a punk club, our mint had a "sprig" in it's step. The sets were rowdy, we cut a rug, sold an enormous amount of bottled water, meeted and greeted, and finally had to taste the product for ourselves. The Smell never smelled so sweet !

Turtle Power !

Our friend Bethany is a classic leftover hater. She doesn't want anything the next day, especially if it's restaurant fare, and by the third day you'd swear she'd seen black mold ! But in raw foods, leftovers are nature's true charm and blessing. Life is just a glorified salad, and a few tupperwares of last night's meal can creatively combine to transform and tickle yr taste buddies. It's yr food part two. Sunday night we catered an awesome party at LA's Brewery for some smashing/smashed guests. The finale: fresh organic strawberries in a melty cacao fondue. When the strawberries were no more, that fondue pot went straight into my freezer. But what to do once you've done the fondue? Come midnight Monday, and Britt was predicting some fudgey bites for our coming election coverage. We got that fondue fon-did out of the freezer, waited for it to soften and began dunking in raisins and raw brazil nuts, macademias, and walnuts. Just like in politics, you can't be afraid to get a bit messy. Back in the freezer and ready for us to delight in during Obama's acceptance speech in Chicago. Chocolatey, sweet and rich ! Like our president elect !

Cinderawlla for a Day

Traveling raw is simple. Be prepared ! Like the knowing boy scout, go with yr stock in check - an avocado, some himalayan sea salt, yr own olive oil or Braggs, kelp or dulse powder, dehydrated snacks like sprouted seeds and nuts, Lara bars, dried fruit, and flax cracks, fresh organic fruit, and when possible small kitchenware like a personal blender, a sprout bag or jar, wooden chopsticks, and a good travel knife. Damn, sounds serious ! And going for the day to Disneyland is no exception ! Expect the worst and be pleasantly surprised when they actually offer you an orange. For $1.75 !! But that's no surprise, this is a theme park where a bottle of water with Goofy on it is $3.25. He must have gotten a sweet endorsement deal ! Yesterday, we joined the population of a small city at Walt Disneyland. On a raw diet, we were upbeat and on our feet in the heat, all day and evening. Britt and I started our morning with a green juice - loaded with dandelion root and ginger (so our fingers wouldn't swell up with all that arm-swingin) and packed for lunch crazy chopped salads, fresh peaches, chai raweos, and just-squeezed honey dew juice. Disneyland, always open to the poor and the food freaks of the world, does allow you to bring in yr own food and beverage (which I never knew !) and eat it in their picnic area. If yr sack's bulging with raw goodies and you want to stay mobile, there's a bunch of lockers to the left of the main entrance where you can stuff yr stash. This of course makes yr hands free to wave when yr flying over Fantasyland in a Dumbo seat. All around the park, I found fresh fruit stands - most of which you've got to question the freshness. But don't even hope for organics... if yr stranded and starved, this is all you've got - better than burgers but def sprayed with some rowdy pesticides. On Main Street, near the Tiki Room, and twice in California Adventure I stopped to check out the stands. Hilariously, the ones entitled "Fruit Market" or "Fresh Fruit" were half filled with Doritos, Cheetos, and Funyons. Disney visitors: the orange in Cheetos does not provide beta-carotenes and needless to say, there is nothing resembling an onion in a Funyon. To my raw friends, careful of the seedless grapes and don't go near any of the "juices." In classically clean Disney fashion, you won't find any brown spots on the bananas or any bruises on the waxy apples. Pineapple spears and watermelon slices look good but they cost more than you'd pay for a full melon at the farmers market. If all else fails, there's a somewhat scary Jamba Juice at the entrance where you can down a shot of wheatgrass and get a fresh-squeezed carrot orange juice on the rocks. Not too shabby considering I figured we'd be confronted with giant turkey legs, giant lollipops, giant churros, and giant people at every turn !! There was some of that. But some fruit too ! Awesome rides, awesome company, pretty awesome food (all that we made, but hey - when eaten in the sun it gets even awesomer), awesome outfits (check out our Disney duds),awesome Mickey, awesome day. p.s. i wish those nightmare before christmas cakes were raw !! but unfortunately they're 99 percent high fructose corn syrup. cmon goths, get with it !