Bells Bend Tractor Show (2010)

Just some pictures of the amazing and completely sexy (to me) tractors that we got to see at this years tractor show held at Bells Bend Park. I was like a zombie on Christmas morning. So super excited about this little neighborhood gathering even with a thousand other and much larger events going on this weekend in Nashville and surrounding counties. Oh yeah, and I just loved the sign for the show, seemingly pointing away from the park, but actually just at an entrance down the road. (there was head scratching involved for a moment here).

I was squinting to read the fine print font saying "now get the hell out of here!"
or something in that vein.
(We southerners can be some hospitable but blunt bastards.)

Farmall of me. Just farmall of me.
Don't leave even a little teeny tiny bit.

I am already a bit of a fetishist (for lack of a better term, obviously, because clearly I would have used it if I had a better one) for tractors. No, not an enthusiast. That implies some understanding of the machinery or mechanics in a tractor, which I have none past the simple instructions my better half has to shout at me (because I'm already rocking to the local top 40 stations in my noise cancelling but with AM/FM headphones) before I grunt a semi truthful positive affirmation of understanding and I chug along in 2nd speed down the yard into a good 2 hours of sweet and solitary mowing of our property. I love tractors.

I know, I am sooo non-photogenic*, hence the affection for something so
blatant as zombie facepaint in most of my blog pics, but just look at the tractors willya?
They are the eye candy here.
Get focused!

The front of Mr. Wests 1940-sumthin' beaut.

Sorry, you can see I'm not such of a scholar here but that don't matter none.
Mommy knows what mommy likes.

Shoot....the thing's got a huge saw at the front.

Gracious me!.. back that thang up indeed. This is too much. And it was yellow!
Love. No, scratch that.
Pure lust.

This is how we do tailgate parties in Scottsboro, TN.
We find it more....how do you say??...oh yeah,..
Bad Ass.

I will save some for the next installment, cause this is definitely not the last you will see of tractors from moi.

Til then you can find me at the usual gathering of vintage goodies...
http://www.etsy.com/shop/ReanimatedRags

ttyl,
~RR

*This is not to imply that I think of myself as unattractive. I know I'm fine. I just don't do well on film. Its like the 3 extra chins and one closed eye come out the split second before a frame is taken. Augh. The humanity.

Inspired By You...Dr. Sarah Passino and youth of tomorrow Jim Surface

Oh goodness, did I have the weekend of my life last weekend!!! Lord A-Mercy! But I can't go all into it now. I can only handle it one morsel at a time or else I will just die of over saturation of amazing events and it might just send me into shock! (Imagine that, to die, and then to go into shock! I am such a total airhead, but I am not changing it now cause it has made me smile and so it has rightly earned its 2 lines of real estate in this entry.) I am in love with this morsel right here:
Specifically, a sweet and chewy morsel of bulgar wheat which has been transformed into the most delicious tabbouleh I have probably ever tasted in my short but sexy life. We snagged some at my sister's friend Jim's crib, who's known her since high school at least and they both went to Texas for college, so here I was preparing for a weekend of a BBQ onslaught, which is a tough thing for me a recovering pork fanatic and currently a fairly pious pescatarian. But no, he was dead cool even after she gave him only a couple hours notice that we'd need to crash at his place after driving 12 hours or more straight and arriving in Austin at 4am last Friday morning. Who knew we'd arrive to find the most bad azz tabbouleh sitting in the fridge just waiting for us and we were too tired to eat when we got in, so we just passed out and then woke up around eleven and ate some of it for breakfast cause we are just those kinds of people with no food limits. I would have eaten it at 7am if I had woken then. You know that kind. That's us!
Anyway, I hope this isn't something his mom was planning on publishing cause I am sharing it now for all the world to see. I can't hold it in. Like I used to learn in Sunday School as a kid, you can't hide your light under a bushel. And neither can Jim and his amazing cook of a mom hide this fantastic secret to deliciousness and great health. It must shine for all people to see and enjoy. Or something like that.

So here it is. Eat and Enjoy. Thanks again Jim!!! And all respects go out to Jim's mom.

Jim Surface's mom's Tabbouleh recipe (as interpreted by Jim, the youth of tomorrow)
1 cup dry bulgar wheat
1/2 Cup boiling water
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 good olive oil (as a mom of 2 boys I foresee myself using "good"before a number of products when trying to drive it home, but olive oil is definitely a given. Go mom~)
1/4 lemon juice (Jim lets it flow over the cup a bit....the rebel.)
2 teaspoons crushed minced garlic (or in Jim's translation, 1 tablespoon.) Hope this isn't a date night, ladies! But if it was, cancel on him/her cause this recipe is gonna be so worth it. Or just serve it up so both of you can have garlic breath and each cancels the other out.
3 Tablespoons mint, chopped
1/2 Cup chopped green onions or scallions.
1 cucumber, seeded and chopped
2 medium tomatoes, peeled, seeded, and chopped
1 Cup chopped, packed parsley (Flat leaf), chopped

Put Bulgar wheat and salt in a bowl and add the boiling water and cover and let it sit for 15 minutes. Add olive oil, lemon juice, garlic and mint to the bulgar. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours. Add green onions, cucumbers, tomatoes and parsley just before serving. Prepare to have your gaskets blown.

The pic doesn't do it justice, but this is going to end up being the most amazing taboulleh ever.
I know because I ate it. All of it. (a double recipe, at that.)

No regrets....

The next one is not so easy, but its even more astounding in its accomplishment. My childhood friend Dr. Sarah Passino (whoa, wait, she wasn't a doctor when we were children. She's my age, but clearly got further in school) was kind enough to let me tag along with her and her foodie friends (and I say that with ultimate respect and affection) on their Friday night (a couple weeks ago) get together to make chevre. Yeah, thats Sarah for ya. This is a feat I had previously thought could only be accomplished by huge machines in some romantic part of southern France or northern Italy or wherever goat cheese is made, but no, apparently it can be made, and made quite well in fact, in East Friggin' Nashville. Wow. I was absolutely inspired by the set up and all the hard work she had gone to in order to gather the materials and have the product ready at multiple stages for us to see and enjoy. Amazing. I got to take a huge portion with me and even though it was a bit strange to have to harvest it straight out of the cheesecloth, I went to town on that chevre. Dayum. It was amazing and I am sure I'll pay for it later cause it had to have some caloric consequences owning to the delicious taste and texture. I can't even think of it without getting a little eager again. It was soooo good and no, I will not bother to try and get the recipe cause I am sure at that level it's not even called a simple "recipe" anymore. Its like a lifestyle. I can't wait to adopt it and Lord knows both Sarah and I (along with countless chicks and dudes) have fantasized about tending goats and all that. ...But yeah, it was rad cheese and I def want to learn how to make some of that again. I was literally squeezing and straining the goat cheese whey and fragments out of the cheese cloth onto my cracker when I had sadly gotten to the last remnants of that curd of the gods. It did not end well. But hey, Bravo Dr. Passino!

Please check her out this Tuesday at her dinner she is organizing downtown called "Soup Up! Another Dinner is Possible" to help show solidarity with the Immokalee workers that will be visiting Nashville next week.
Check it out!! http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/event.php?eid=141115759268436

Sarah was the one who opened my mind to the concept of cleaning out your fridge before you put a bunch of new groceries in there. Think about it. I guess its just biz as usual at your house but it was mind blowing to a slob and time-pressed mom like myself, so I finally went to town on my 2 fridges and that was the most liberating thing I could have done! Exhausting but Liberating. Thanks Sarah! More on that later....for now just check out the massive quantities of flat leaf parsley I had hunted down and of course who can't love a good Napa cabbage or two just sitting there waiting to become something delectable. I'm baaaack!!

My fridge after being inspired again to cook!
Or really, to just do anything in the kitchen save making black bean and cheese nachos in the microwave.

More zombie housewifery to come so keep checking me out!
And definitely more homages to those that inspire me like these rad human beings have.

luyu,
~rr

We are live!

Presenting...

My shoes are in and they are just fantastic, if I do say so myself. I love the iconically fat tops and the cool and smooth baby bamboo soles. I relish the soft foam that forms to your feet. I simply adore the fabrics picked out by the anonymous but beloved Saint of Los Angeles. And lastly, I just can't get enough of the soft feel of the velveteen just sitting on the tops of my feet. I could go on for days. Well, not really cause I have real responsibilities.. and mouths to feed and all that mess but you get me, right? Days.

Instead I will just show you a couple pictures of the work done so far and you can see for yourself how this lil' brand is comin' along.

Here's one of my last pseudo-protos I made on my own before we found a factory to take a chance on us.This is not the original shoe that Fat Rolls was designed after. (another post for another day, a post you may not get to actually see because its just. too. personal.)

This one's made out a stuffed cotton blend top and the bottom was made from a woven natural fiber or straw platemat, which clearly did not hold up and wasn't intended to. The choice of print is my humble homage to the classic and iconic checkerboard Vans slip on, cause you guys must know I am all about parody. (If you didn't know, well, now ya know). After lusting after (guys in) them as a pre-"tween" in the mid to late 80s, (the term "tween" was not used back then so we were a bit cooler I guess) I scrambled to buy the re-issue of it when I even thought it was over-saturated back in '95, too dumb to predict the virtual institution it has become as of today. God bless Vans and their branding mojo. Sheesh. But yeah, erryone loves a checkerboard print, so it was fine for a proto that didn't even make it past the testing phase.

It was just to give the flavor of the shoe, the shape, the feeling.

Cheesy, I know. But this is the only story I got so there you have it.

(My son clearly didn' t like wearing it, but what does he know?

He was like 1 year old at the time. He's totally changed his mind about them now that he's hit the ripe age of 3.)

What an adorable print. This little kitschy and colorful floral looks super cute when its fresh and new like this pair.

And strangely it also looks endearingly "vintage" and by the way, LEGIT as bleep(!) when they are dirty and worn, like my first sample pair of Fat Rolls is starting to look like since I've deliberately trashed them all year all in the name of product testing, doing wee fit runs in them for short intervals, completely submerging them in creeks and just generally running them into the ground. Yes, I am part of that secret cult of people known only as "Quality Control" and I do now consider "flip flop tester" as part of my skill set currently. Actually its been elevated to the level of a core competency at this point and nothing less.

I know, I know...I have such a bitchin' job, don't I? I do get it. I am to be hated, truly, deeply, and madly.

And this is my first attempt at a display case for my yummy treats (for feets, but still, work with me here, okay...) . I figured since the factory wrapped them all anyway, why not play off the clear plastic wrap and the silly brand name to give the illusion that its your tummy that is about to get the treat, but instead its your feet! (well, only if your feet are between a size 3/4 and a size 11. Everyone else has to wait til Gen 2 when maybe we can get more size offerings arranged. We're not thousandaires yet! Hold your horses already.)

Special thanks to my mom, Julia, my favorite artist and my coolest (and only) outside investor. (my previous version of myself is my primary investor, seeing as how I cashed in all of her retirement and savings from over a decade of non bad-a$$ work in order to pay for this seemingly odd venture. Stupid, right? We will see. But yeah, probably...) Anyhoo, also she scooped up the display case for me and it turned out to work perfect for my shoes, so thanks mom!! (I'll list some boots for you this weekend I promise.)

Check out her shop... http://www.etsy.com/shop/GrannysBootery

It is boot season after all! And Granny's got some good ones!

And of course my new shop for my newest babies... http://www.etsy.com/shop/FatRolls

I will be updating lots of the listings to show pictures of human beings actually wearing these rad flip flops. (Besides me and my immediate family and some friends). I consider them year round flip flops so please refrain from trying to call me out for launching a sandal at the end of summer and start of fall. I meant to do that. Really, I totally would never do something so unimaginative as to try to sell a flip flop in the spring and summer. I mean, for crap's sake, really?! How passe. Do other companies even do that anymore? This is too easy...

The birth of a flip flop mogul. There, I said it.

And of course I'm still here too http://www.etsy.com/shop/ReanimatedRags , so keep checking me out! And check out my Fat Rolls!