The Waffle King Logo

The Waffle King Logo, a photo by Ron San Kyuu Ban on Flickr.

I know I featured this in the previous blog post, but I just had to give it it's own 'solo shot'. I had a lot of fun with this one. I completely worked it up in Illustrator using multiple techniques to pull off the over all look. A Look worthy of a king...The Waffle King as it were.

The Return of The Waffle King -Mother's Day 2011

Official Waffle King Logo:
Tatumology Productions

It's always a fun time at Southside, and this day was no exception. Another Mother's Day was upon us, and we (The Men), were plotting to handle the breakfast duties as is our custom every Mother's Day. While they decided who was going to serve, take orders, and cook, there was no question as to whether or not The Waffle King would be making a return appearance.

This year, I had something special for the menu. Last year, I wowed the ladies with the debut of my now famous Chocolate Chip Waffles. This time, I looked to take my game up several notches. Being the food lover/ 'Foodie' that I am I had been on several of my patented Food Adventures which introduced me to all kinds of incredible eats. One particular run brought me face to face with The Buttermilk Truck and their infamous Red Velvet Pancakes.

Red Velvet Pancakes: The ButtermilkTruck

These were a very nice slice of deliciousness that got my creative mind whirling. Now. Knowing how I do love a good waffle, and how close a pancake is to a waffle, I began to wonder what it would take to get that pancake goodness in the form of a waffle.

Test Batch Batter

My thinking was this: If I could find a pancake recipe for the red velvet variety, I could at the very least tweak it and make it suitable for my waffle irons. After doing a initial search of the internet, I came across quite a few references for red velvet pancakes AND red velvet waffles. I did several scans of the found recipes, and finally decided on one that looked to be a real winner. The recipe is one by a very dynamic young lady Ms JG, and it was everything that I needed to proceed with my master plan! The Cream Cheese Butter may seem unnecessary, but the waffle will be incomplete without it, besides, It was an absolute FAVORITE of the moms and ladies when I served it up! Click This link for the recipe: Red Velvet Waffles I will admit JG, that I added one extra ingredient, a bit of something that I picked up from The Buttermilk Truck here in LA. I added chocolate chips to the mix!

Test Batch Stacks

I decided to do a test run before I unleashed the full flavor on the masses. I'll have to say, these came out pretty good. The test batch gave me a good idea about the yield, consistency, and when & how to insert those wonderful chocolate chips!

Red Velvet and Regular Waffle batter side by side

The actual run went very smoothly. I pre made the batter at home and dropped it off at the church the day before, so it would be good to go in the morning before the ladies arrived. I also made regular waffles while at the church, so I could get a good jump on the next day. I was itching to try out my new four slice belgian waffle iron by Cuisinart, but it would have to wait till the next day.

Batch one. Lookin good!

I'll have to say that I was very pleased with the results from the Cuisinart iron. My previous attempts to provide a good waffle maker for use at the church produced only cheap failures. I was looking for a multiple waffle maker with the durability and reliability of my tried and true single waffle maker by Toastmaster. Results don't lie. Cuisinart's model Rocked!

As the ladies rolled in, most initially asked for the regular waffles, but those 'in the know' requested the day's special: Red Velvet Waffles. As the first few orders went out, it didn't take long for others to recognize that there was something special going on. After all, there was a bright red spot on some plates that caused all eyes to focus in, and each brain try and comprehend what was going on. As the olfactory input reached their sensory receptors, cries for 'That Waffle' began to rise up all over hallowed Parmes Hall!

Red Velvet Waffle with Cream Cheese Butter and dusted with powdered sugar

Before long I had run out of time and waffle batter. Everyone who had one of the Red Velvet Waffles loved them, and those who didn't get one were just a bit upset that didn't know about the 'Special Menu'. The 'regular' waffles were still a hit, and some chocolate chip waffles were even made...on special request of course. Plans are already being made for next year's batch, and I even got a special request to make some for my sis Oana when I visit Brisbane next! Until then, only God knows what will be the next tour of tastiness for

 The Waffle King!

TheSYDeBonfireLogo

TheSYDeBonfireLogo, a photo by Ron San Kyuu Ban on Flickr.

Just a quick 'logo' design for the upcoming SYDe Bonfire. This was created in Photoshop using various techniques.

Twitter Cookie Party

Each month my "Taste Buds" and I have what has been dubbed as a Twitter Food Party. What generally happens is someone decides on a food, or ingredient, and then on the last Monday of the month, we share our interpretation of the topic. Fun stuff! This month's topic is Cookies, and since I have been enjoying baking cookies since I was a little guy, I was definitely all over this one!

As things turned out, during this stint of me trying to eek out a living doing freelance art and design work, I was able to catch an episode of one of Paula Deen's cooking shows. as usual, she just makes everything looks absolutely yummy! This time, I was more focused on the signature dessert. Oatmeal raisin cookies. Now the way these shows do things, they'll tease the most tantalizing parts to make sure the viewers stick around, so I had to wait to see what they were teasing about those cookies.

So, like the show, I'm gonna tease you a bit. Enjoy the process of my Twitter Cookie Party Submission!

Off to a good start

As I stated earlier, I saw this on Paula Deen. For the actual recipe, you can follow this link:

Fluffy Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

I did take some liberties on the recipe though, nothing too major. Since my all time favorite cookie is an oatmeal chocolate chip cookie, A substitution of the chocolate chips for the raisins was called for, and since i just like what ground cloves can do, I added an eighth of a teaspoon to the mix.

Fresh from the oven

Too bad you cant smell how good these are!

Cookies are done!

This whole process was easy and fun. I adjusted the cooking time and oven tempts accordingly since our oven's thermometer had a mind of its own, and voila! Step one was done. At this point in the show, we would break for commercial, and leave you wondering what the other things in this picture have to do with this plate of golden brown deliciousness. I won't hold you in suspense that long, I'll just let your imagination do that for you as I put in a little production note: Place Commercial Here

 

Pre Production, Production, Post Production

Now here is where everything just gets all kinds of good. As I watched the show return from commercial break I saw something that was so simple, yet so awesome. The addition of chocolate sauce, nuts, and marshmallow fluff! My inner fat man was jumping for joy! So you can imagine my excitement as I set about to put it all together. It was all I could do to keep from eating the marshmallow fluff and chocolate by themselves! On the episode, Paula used a mixture of nuts, but I just stuck with my favorite, pecans.

Finished product

Beautiful production color contrast

I had to break out my big camera to take these photos. Though I love the camera on my Blackberry Tour, it just wasn't gonna do the job today!

This cookie sandwich turned out absolutely delicious! Even if you only go for the cookies themselves, this is definitely a delicious end of a meal, or just something to feed your inner fat man or your inner fat gal. It's an easy recipe, and there is a lot of room to get all kinds of crazy adding things to it. I saw some caramel chips in the store that I may have to try out on the next go round... *wink* 

Thanks for reading, and drooling!

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!

Illustrating Joey

Many of you have been waiting to see the latest of my illustrations. This particular one I had to hold off on posting because it was going to be a surprise gift for my dear friend and "sister" Joey, and I didn't want her to see it until she had it in her hands.

Photo Credits: Roger Hung

This particular work was inspired by a photograph that her husband took of her during one of his photo shoots. To me it captured her essence very well. Her playfulness, her "agressive" side, her strength, and her beauty were all depicted in this photo. Immediately my mind flashed potential images of how I could recreate this image in my illustrative styles. Of all the visions I saw, I decided to go with a space scene. Maybe because I used to want to be an astronaut, maybe because the mysteries of space have always intrigued me, or just maybe because that trike could so easily be converted to a rocket, and I have always loved rockets!



I took some creative liberties in the positioning and costume on this one. I transformed her high neck sweater into a armor style breast piece with armored shoulder pieces. I kept the skirt as I felt it made a nice, flowing (and sexy) contrast to the smooth exactness of the torso piece. This was actually my second sketch of this particular piece, that I decided to work up. I will probably do another sketch (or two) of this photo, in slightly different set up and costume. Once I got the composition together, I inked it, and scanned it, then set about to add color to it.

*addendum* So I had been working feverishly on several other projects when I received confirmation that the drawing had reached it's destination, and was in the hands of its intended recipient, so in my haste to post this I misplaced the original sketch. I love showing a progression on these types of things, so I was a bit baffled that I couldn't find it. I even began to second guess my modus operandi when it didn't surface, so I just posted this blog and kept moving. I was going through some drawings weeks later, and there it was in all of its sketchy glory. I love the rough, unfinished quality of this stage of the work, and have often contemplated doing a few "unfinished-finished" pieces. Color fills yet with the flowing guidelines of a rough sketch. At any rate, I found this missing gem scanned it and did some quick levels and size adjustments in Photoshop, not too much, just enough to keep the fluid pencil look, while at the same time removing some of the darker "smudge" areas, and here it is to complete this blog. *

Rocket Scooter Joey

I guess the coloring portion is the real story to this. I did contemplate just scanning it in the computer and then playing with the colors in Illustrator as I had been recently doing with other pieces, but I wanted to do something with a more "hands on" approach. I had not done any hand coloring using my Prismacolor color pencils in a few years, so to be a little rusty with them would be expected. I began timidly. Not wanting to really screw this up, and got bolder as I progressed. I could hear my illustration professor in my head as I worked. "Mr Ron can really draw...*shakes head*...but he can not color!" We all had a good laugh in class that day, but that motivation propelled me to tighten up my coloring skills! Understanding how light affects different surfaces is key to improving with this media. As I continued to work, the colors seemed to blend just right and really enhanced the drawing, giving it another dimension. I definitely can improve on my techniques, but for such a long hiatus from the color pencil, this wasn't a bad "return to action".