The Original Food Adventure

 So I can't say that today began like any other, because it most certainly didn't. Plans that were made last week necessitated that I spend the night at my god mother's house, and I had no idea what today would hold. After SKYPE-ing my god sis in the ATL, chatting the night away with my god bro, and trying to beat the "cooties" (Ah-CHOO!), I called it a night, and went to bed not really thinking about anything other than how good it felt to finally relax and get some sleep.
Awakened by someone knocking on the front door, I started my morning rituals, when my bro came in and suggested we get some pancakes from one of his favorite local spots in Redondo Beach. Not a bad idea right there! I was recently talking to two of my Twitter friends, Shirley and Chantale, about pancakes and crepes, and developed a huge craving for the fluffy breakfast staple, so to hear that I could satiate that desire was definitely some good news!

I had driven by The Original Pancake House a few times, and every time I would wonder what the food was like. I would always take an extra look at this old school architecture style business that boasted originality in pancakes, but because I was usually on my way somewhere ELSE, I could only dream as I watched the edifice wane in my rear view mirror. Not so this time! We pulled up into, what I was informed, a relatively empty parking lot, and proceeded inside.
For me, as for most of you I'm sure, service really make a difference in my overall eating experience. An establishment may have "The Bomb-Diggedy" food, but if the service is sub par, I won't be back. I don't have to be catered to or treated like royalty (If you want to do that, I'm not gonna stop you at all!), but the basics need to be handled. A friendly greeting, promptness, and communication. Those are the things that matter to me service wise. So, as soon as we entered we were immediately greeted by a very cute hostess with enchantingly icy blue eyes who efficiently got our dining information and sat us in a nice booth across the spacious dining area. Thirty seconds after we sit, our sever (cute as well!) comes over to take our drink order and leaves us to continue scan the menu.

Bacon Pancakes

They had quite a few pancakes, buttermilk, whole wheat, and even buckwheat, and their variations, crepes, waffles, omelets, the usual breakfast accompaniments. After taking a long, hard, steely eyed look at the chocolate chip and the blueberry pancakes, I caught sight of a pancake that I had been dying to try for some time. The Bacon Pancake! I've seen one version of this made while watching "Diners, Drive Ins, and Dives", and was blown away that I hadn't come up with this idea before!
I went ahead and ordered the pancakes, bacon and braised eggs, and upgraded the regular pancakes to the bacon pancakes. Now, though the menu said braised, our server told us, with her very alluring Spanish accent, that we could get the eggs any way we liked, so I decided on scrambled this time around. she also told us that the bacon pancake was "very popular" and "very good", just before she left to place the order.

A Rare "during" shot. I love the glistening syrup!

The Bacon Pancake is just as the name implies. Bacon IN a pancake. What comes when you order the meal are three saturated, yet well proportioned, bacon filled cakes. (The cakes by themselves come six per order.) The bacon appeared to have been cooked, then sliced and sprinkled in to the pancake batter as they cooked. Again, simplicity in the technique and I still can't believe I didn't think to do it myself, especially since it makes so much sense! The pancakes definitely exceeded my expectations as I really was thinking the bacon was going to be sparsely placed throughout, but to my delight, I got one meaty pancake! Woo! The combination of sweet and savory is perfect here, especially since I already like to put syrup on my bacon anyway! This definitely does not disappoint.
This surely was not my last visit to The Original Pancake House, especially after seeing our server bring another patron one of the house specialties, a HUGE Apple Pancake.There are just so many things on the menu to try, and, since this post, I've had several people want to come back here with me. So I guess this will be The Original Pancake House run part one!
Oh, and for all my Twitter followers who are in the "Know" Happy Twitter Food Party!

VOG Flier Project

Each year our "young adult" choir has a concert and invites all of our family and friends to come out and praise God with us on one special night. Being blessed with artistic abilities, I volunteer my services for the choir and do the promotions for the concert each year. This year, with coordinating the volleyball ball team, The SYDe, folks traveling, and a myriad of other activities, all of our concert preparation was pushed back...Way back. I can't believe our concert is in two weeks! Normally I like to get visuals out to people a month in advance, and just give reminders as the date approaches. To give you an indication of what kind of time frame I'm working with, we just came up with our theme last week. The most important part of the concert is the music, of course, and for that portion, we will be ready to go, but presentation is also a big part, and a good visual can go a long way to enhance the whole experience. Besides, who doesn't enjoy a cool visual?

This year's theme is "It Ain't Over". Based on one of the songs we will be presenting, it speaks of hope and perseverance through adverse times and circumstances if we have faith in the Lord. Not having a long amount of time to do a complex illustration, or long photo shoot, I decided to go simple and focus more on typography, and something more abstract. I took some time to sketch out a concept, with type, then looked for a type face to approximate what I sketched out. The closet thing to what I envisioned was the typeface "Dogma", so I set to work in Illustrator to see just how I could manipulate this type. I first played with the size, merged and overlapped some paths, and added a gradient. Then with the the new look, I reversed some of the outlines added a couple of off set paths, then overlapped 3 variations at different opacities.

With the main type together, I went to look for a cool background that I could create that would fit well with what I had envisioned. Thanks to networking on Twitter, I had connected with an awesome designer in San Francisco who posts various tutorials on how to make some cool backgrounds and effects. For this one I used Fabian Sasso's (aka Abduzeedo) Hexagonal Bokeh Background tutorial to give the flier it's overall look, and graphic punch. (Thank you again for sharing Fabian!)

I want you to consider this your official invite to the VOG 2010 Concert. We know you will enjoy the praise, and I hope you enjoy the graphics...I still have to design the actual program, so I'll get to cranking on that so you can have a piece of my work to take home with you. More information is on the flier, or you can visit our Facebook Event Page, or the Inglewood Southside Christian Church Page for the address and contact numbers. Hope you can join us!