You are here: / / / January

Blogs for January, 2013

checkout the archived city farm blog articles to learn about our takes on farm & city life

Santa Fe Railroad French Toast

/1 Comment/in /by

My love affair with traveling began when I was fifteen years old. My mother took me clear across the country by train…from Los Angeles to New York. On the second day, the train was scheduled to make a stop in Albuquerque, New Mexico. After breakfast, Mom and I returned to our stateroom to prepare for the big adventure. We put on makeup, did our hair, and changed clothes a couple of times. When we were ready, we headed to the Club Car, found a seat, and waited…and waited. After an hour or so, a porter passed through the car.

“Excuse me,” Mom said. “What time do we get to Albuquerque?” The porter shook his head. “Sorry, ma’am. We stopped in Albuquerque over an hour ago.” We both burst out laughing. We’d gotten so wrapped up with our hair and makeup, we never noticed the train had stopped.

One of my fondest memories of that trip is the French Toast that was served in the dining car. I asked the waiter, and he was kind enough to give me the recipe. It’s a recipe from the past…nothing like the healthy, low-fat, low-carb, low-calorie food we all try to stick with today. But if you’re feeling decadent, try this recipe. Everyone should eat this delicious breakfast at least once in their lifetime. It’s amazing!

Santa Fe Railroad French Toast

5-6 slices day old white bread or egg bread, cut 3/4″ thick

6 eggs, lightly beaten

2 1/2 cups whipping cream

1/2 tsp. vanilla

1/4 tsp. salt canola oil powdered sugar

Cut bread slices diagonally in half. Beat the eggs with cream, vanilla and salt. Dip bread into mixture and let soak 1 hour. Heat canola oil until very hot (about 450)̊ in pan, to a depth of 1″. Add 3 or 4 pieces of bread , or enough to fit the pan without crowding. Fry until edges turn golden brown. Turn and cook the other side just until the edges brown. Remove and place on oven rack over a pan.

Bake at 400̊ for 3 to 5 minutes until puffy and golden. Dust with powdered sugar and enjoy!

City Farm, Parisian style

/0 Comments/in /by

While I absolutely love the California sunshine, sometimes it’s hard to compete with the French elegance that is Paris, even if it was 30 degrees..for 7 days straight.

    

We just returned home from attending the Maison D’ Objet Trade Show in Paris, full of inspiration and creative products.  My favorite part of our French travels were the food, the fun and the future we get a birds eye view of, as we know European markets set the trends.  While it would be unfair to share all of my secrets of the products we’re soon to unveil–I will divulge this: I hope your sweet tooth and your homes are ready!

The beauty of getting lost in specialty shops captured me most. Pictured below is the cozy olive oil, tapenade and honey store Epicerie Provencale, Premiere Pression Provence. While exploring around the West Bank and Le marais, we strolled (coffee and pastry in hand, of course) in here, leaving with arms full of herb, spice, butter and aromatic flavored cooking oils. Certainly a shop to be seen out on your next travel to Paris!

                      

HINT: Future product inspiration and clues may be hidden in this blog. We’re back and excited to show you more country chic style this Spring!

Budweiser Super Bowl commercials

/4 Comments/in /by

Most years just before Christmas, Budweiser embarks on a a mini movie of sorts – a commercial they shoot that will air during the Super Bowl a couple of months later.  I have worked on a couple of these and the pictures I took on this commercial show how beautiful and magnificent the horses are and how stinking cute the dogs are.  I do not have anything to do with the horses, the training of these amazing Clydesdale’s is left in the capable hands of Robin and Kate Wiltshire http://www.turtleranch.net/Turtle_Ranch/Home.html and many extra hands from Budweiser.

If you have ten minutes and LOVE horses – watch this video put together by Turtle Ranch on training the Clydesdale’s for the Budweiser Super Bowl commercials http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=si7p23Nex-g&feature=share&list=UUMCE4MR_S9rEVL89WUVq9bQ.

It will make you feel ashamed that your dog can’t sit/stay – lol.

I have been a part of the training of the dogs in a few spots though.  In the above commercial – also seen in this link: http://youtu.be/i6hnqnPVJcE you will see Tommy, owned by Robin and Kate, he had a featured role for this spot and it is one of my favorites. To check out the Clydesdale’s on the Budweiser site – click here: http://www.budweiser.com/en/us/content/clydesdales/article/the-budweiser-clydesdales

Squirly Squirrels

/0 Comments/in /by

People often ask how we train our squirrels and where we get them from.  Well I can tell you that all of our squirrels are rescued.  We get phone calls from people that have found a baby on the ground and don’t know what to do.  We encourage them to leave them alone for a while to see if the mother comes to collect her baby and get it back to its drey (nest).  Only when its quite apparent that the baby is abandoned do we agree to take it.  *Note: we have licenses from the USDA and the department of Fish and Game to keep and house squirrels.

As far as training squirrels, they all have different tastes and preferences, but most of them will happily be trained for some peanut butter, sunflower seeds, tiny pieces of grape, slivers of walnut or other nuts and monkey chow (a diet used in zoo’s for many different animals, despite its name).  They are usually what we call “hands off” – meaning we don’t touch them once the become fully grown as they do have quite a nasty bite!  They may appear cute and cuddly, but realistically that is the last thing they want to do with a pesky human.

In the picture below you can see myself and another trainer Deborah working a trained squirrel in a park.  The park was in Budapest, Hungary!  You can see the box that I am holding, that is called a catch box.  And this box is where the squirrel is released from and where it runs back to after he has performed.  It has a doorbell type buzzer attached to it, so when I ring the buzzer, the squirrel knows to return to the box, once inside he gets a treat.  we only use this box on set for the few minutes the squirrel performs.  After he has done his actions, we transfer him to a larger cage that we use for traveling.  At night when we return to our facility, they then get transferred to an even bigger enclosure, with tree branches and hammocks and nesting boxes.

What can you train a squirrel to do you might ask?  Well, when you consider the average job for a squirrel, this may be just sitting in a tree.  Easy enough I hear you say.  Not so fast!  We usually ask production to provide a branch or section of the tree that they want to shoot and we separate that from the real tree, so in the event the squirrel wants to go on safari, he is limited to a very small area.  We have trained our squirrels to retrieve and hit a mark (like an actor), to run from “a to b”, sit and hold something, to wave and they are really good at eating.  You can click on this link to see the commercial we shot in Budapest, http://youtu.be/8sBsNn48u4Y  the only thing the squirrel did not do (and was added in post production) was carry the candy bar up the tree trunk.  It was a fun job and very challenging, yet extremely rewarding.

You just have to remember one thing when training any animal – what is its motivation?  For your dog, he may not like treats, but loves a tennis ball.  Your cat may love beef flavored baby food or chunks of chicken and a rat might like dog kibble.  Find out what food or toy excites your animal in training and use it to train some amazing things!

Shanghai Culinary

/0 Comments/in /by
 I love Chinese food, so on my recent trip to Shanghai I decided to forgo a day of sightseeing so I could take a class in Chinese cooking.  I met the proprietor of  The Kitchen at Cooking Studio, Miranda Yao at a local market.  You can see by the photos it’s nothing like Safeway or Whole Foods.  For a half hour we wandered the aisles crammed with tubs of live fish, crates of clucking chickens, and displays of colorful produce.  Some of the fruits and vegetables were familiar, others looked like they’d just arrived from Mars.  Oh, and did I mention the fragrance wafting through the air…a delicacy called ( I am not kidding) stinky tofu!
     After the market tour, we headed to the cooking school.  The instructor-chef spoke no English, so the proprietor translated everything he said.  I spent several hours preparing six different dishes.  It was a memorable experience.  I loved every minute of it