GR Dessert Tour

I'm not shy about loving food.

But there's so many new food joints popping up in Grand Rapids it's impossible to keep up. So a few months back, we decided to take on a bunch with one big sweep! Traveling from shop to shop, we gathered a sampling of snacks, and brought them home to sample and feast—all day. Let's see what I loved.

First up, Cakabakery. Made famous by the Food Network's Cupcake Wars, and brimming in adorableness in the Wealthy Street windmill that, till recently, housed the Local Epicurean, it would seem that owner Jason Kakabaker, had no choice but to grow up and bake cakes.

Sampled:

– Molasses Cookie

– Lavender Lemon Vegan Cupcake

– Chocolate Cupcake with Vanilla Buttercream frosting + Blackberries

**Major points to the buttercream frosting!

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Our journey then took us to the Downtown Market, to the pretty pink land of Sweetie-licious, where we figured it was time to add a little fruit to our meal.

Sampled:
– Blackberry Raspberry Pie
– Snickerdoodle
– Lemon Ginger Cookie
– Turtle Buttercream Brownie
– Cherry Lemon Muffin
**The fruit was where it was at. The muffin was a light snack and the Blackberry Raspberry Pie was definitely the best thing we ate all day!

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And of course, there's always room for ice cream. While at the Downtown Market, I couldn't pass up sampling Love's Ice Cream. A little Toasted Coconut with Almond Croissant drowning in Salted Caramel Sauce, and a bit of Mango Habanero Sorbet. There's so many tempting flavors here, I'll have to come back all summer.
**Yes on the sauce! The mango flavor was good, but the peppers gave it a shocking amount of bite!

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We supplemented our sugar rush with lunch at Marie Catrib's and deli-style carry out dinner from Marie's.

This Included:
– A.M.O. Salad
– Trio of Dips: Hummus, cucumber yogurt and baba ghanouj

– Spicy Sweet Potato Enchiladas

– Lentil Lasagna

**The cucumber yogurt was incredibly light/refreshing and the Lentil Lasagna will be had again(very soon)! Marie's never steers me wrong!

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All in all, Grand Rapids has a pretty impressive and extensive offering of sugary snacks. We didn't even hit all the locations scheduled. But most importantly, I'm pretty pleased with my stomach's ability to hang tough during extensive binging! 

Next up... Tour de Mexico I think. There's lots of salsa to try. Who's in?

Burger of the Week #168

More Veggie than Burger. 

Ireland gives Little Jerry a Hundred Thousand Welcomes

Little Jerry continued his World travels last month with a stop in Ireland! Here he is at the Rock of Cashal.

Burger of the Week #167

A recent trip to Chicago retail put me in a Zumiez, where I found myself confused by the HellzBellz queen of burgers, Minnie Mouse?

 

Unfamiliar with HLZBLZ, I turned to google and discovered that the company is a streetwear fashion brand from LA. The pull inspiration from the rebellious counterculture of New York City streets.

And that is all I know.

Burger of the Week #166

Flipped over this burger flipper seen last week at Nordstrom!

Well Aloha, Yoda

A recent trip to Zumiez at the Woodfield Mall in Illinois, led to the discovery of a Vans x Star Wars collaboration. Now this licensing promotion isn't any more inspired than most Marval collaborations, but it does deserve a second glance.

Where precisely in the Star Wars trilogy, was there bursts of hibiscus flowers?

Look again. Apparently the hibiscus bush is Yoda's favorite hiding place. This pairing of current trends (Hawaiian print) with a completely unrelated marketing/licensing collab (Star Wars), is so random it may just be brilliant.

At least it's original. Or should I say.... Off the Wall?
Touché, Vans, touché.

Burger of the Week #165

Only in Vegas do you have the opportunity to fire a wide range of fully automatic machine guns and specialty weapons and then enjoy the "World Famous All American Hamburger" from "he World Famous Arizona Last Stop restaurant" (guaranteed to be the best hamburger you have ever eaten.").

Bullets and Burgers is "the ultimate outdoor machine gun adventure" and has got to be one-of-a-kind. 

Flora with Multiple Personalities

Remember gazing at clouds and seeing shapes and animals in their place? Here's some amazing flowers that are worth a second glance.

White Egret Orchid (Habenaria Radiata)

Darth Vader (Aristolochia Salvadorensis)

Parrot Flower (Impatiens Psittacina)

Monkey Face Orchid (Dracula Simia)

There's plenty more schizo-flowers to see over at Meta Picture.

Burger of the Week #164

The Barcelona Burger, designed by Chicago-based artist Brett Whitacre for CB2. It's urban pop art, it's comfort food, it's an American icon. 

Burger of the Week #163

To celebrate National Hamburger Month, Business Insider released the Best Burgers in the U.S. by State!

Time to plan the ultimate roadtrip!! Find the best in your state here.

Best Burger in Michigan? Laura's Little Burger Joint in Decatur: The Chapman Burger, 7 ounces of beef grilled and topped with pepper-jack, bacon and grilled onions.

Serving up Tea & Daisies

My new vintage Pyrex inspired screen-printed tea towel from Janet Morrin on Etsy looks absolutly fabulous hanging in the kitchen below my Pyrex collection!

My Pyrex is all Flamingo pink from the 1960s and Pink Daisy from 1957, mixed in with a few of the pink restaurant serving pieces!

Burger of the Week #162

Here's a fun little ampersand in Viktor Hamburger's
Coco Puff font, available for download on daFont.

Mellow Out: The SS15 Cushe Conference

We've just wrapped up another Wolverine Global Conference. This Spring / Summer 2015 launch marks the first season where I am an employee fully dedicated to Cushe Footwear. It feels great to have brand focus, and work as part of a very small, very driven product and marketing team.

Our global conference is a time for national and international sales reps, licensees and distributors for ALL 16 of Wolverine's brands to come and spend a week immersed in the product and marketing that will launch next spring. Each brand sets up a booth, not unlike a tradeshow space, within the DeVos convention center.

Cushe's booth is made from a re-purposed shipping container. We can close the doors and literally ship it to the next show. It opens up in the back for meeting and "mellow" rooms. The Cushe brand is Wolverine's smallest brand, and was a UK-based brand that was acquired in 2008—this year is Cushe's 10-year anniversary.

This year, the Cushe product is featuring a new footbed called mellow, that provides exceptional underfoot comfort. To promote this concept, we created a mellow space in the back of the booth, where you could sit, recharge your devices and have a beer. Below you can see some mellow pillows we made for the booth. #cushemellow

From the newbie perspective, the show seemed to go quite well. New product seemed to be received with a bit of enthusiasm.

Wednesday evening, after our main presentation, we bused everyone out to Camp Blodgett to share our amazing Lake Michigan with them. It was a chilly evening, and the fog rolled in fast and thick, but the Cushe crowd was happy.  #happinesshunting

 

A look at Spain... as we Countdown to Ireland...

As I sit mere HOURS from my departure for Ireland, it's fun to reflect back on past trips in anticipation of the ones to come. 

I very, very recently (finally) finished my Spain book for my 2011 trip abroad. This was my biggest book yet, 178 pages, printed on Blurb (per usual). I love the print quality of Blurb pieces and have had amazing assistance from their customer service staff.This is an 11 x 8, hardcover, image wrap book.

The hardest part of making these books is sorting through the thousands of picture my friends and I take when we travel. I also have a tendency to get obsessive about writing descriptions for what we saw, making it a very thorough guidebook of our trip. I usually learn more about the place I've just been, once I'm back and working on the book, than I do when I'm there! 

Can't wait to build my travel book collection. Next up... Ireland.... 16 hours to go! 

 

Burger of the Week #161

I love a good analogy! This one is from bobbobmac on tumblr.

Read on, I'm hungry.

When I first saw this, I thought it was kind of silly. But the more I looked at it, the more I appreciated it and began to realize what a lovely concept this is. 

I love reading, and I love books, and I love the characters within those books. A lot can be learned about a character from the meals they eat.  Designer Dinah Fried has published a book of photography called Fictitious Dishes: An Album of Literature's Most Memorable Meals which recreates meals from 50 novels.   

The project began while Fried was a student, but she quickly became captivated and she now has a collection of images that spans over two centuries of fiction.

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger (1951):
Swiss cheese sandwich and malted milk.

The images in-and-of-themselves are captivating, but they also throw me right into the setting of the novel. The settings are mesmerizing. Many of these are just as I pictured them. 

On the Road by Jack Kerouac (1957): Apple pie and ice cream.

Moby-Dick by Herman Melville (1851): Clam chowder.

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett (1911):
Roasted eggs and potatoes with salt.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson (1971):
Grapefruit and tequila.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (1865): tea.

This was originally seen on AdWeek, but you can see more on brainpickings.org.

Burger of the Week #160

Was treated to this delightful burger number as my files uploaded to WeTransfer this afternoon. I think my computer knows me.

Super Beer

This is what happen when designers have free time.... the surrender to the nerd within. Graphic designer Marcelo Rizzetto has taken two passions... beer and superheroes... and combined them into one of the sexiest Justice Leagues I've ever seen.

Checkout the newly designed and refined Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Aquaman, and  Flash, all paired with the appropriate Brew.  

As seen on adweek.com. You can see all 6 on behance.

Now you see it

Typography is beautiful and amazing. And when done well it can be truly inspiring. 

These typographical elements are design treats–when you discover the visual wordplay it's pure glee!

But wait! There's more. Check them out at 9gag.