From the Office and Backyard to the Road, Boat, or Plane–Backstories and
Side Stories While on Assignment. Updates on Personal Projects, Too.

Archive for June, 2009

06.30

2009

STITCH gets rolling

What a nice project… I’ve been writing copy for a couple of graphic designer friends who are known for the textures and handcrafted details in their work. Amy Pastre and Courtney Rowson have just formed STITCH, a design company with a studio in downtown Charleston.

The two are also partners in Sideshow Press, and own this old Kluge press, which makes a commotion of sound when they’re printing – like when it whirred and popped through a batch of my own business cards and letterhead. I’m definitely a fan.

Sideshow Press, Kluge, photo by Peter Frank Edwards

Congratulations and best wishes to Amy and Courtney on this new venture. I look forward to seeing what they create through STITCH, and to collaborating again very soon.

– Sandy Lang, June 2009 (photo by PFE)

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Art, Craft, Lowcountry S.C./Charleston

06.22

2009

Chinatown soaker worth it for the okra

Sloshed far down Canal Street in the torrents on Thursday. Cold and wet, feet soaked through, umbrellas blown backwards, we met for the deep bowl of soba noodles in a smoky fish flake broth, the cleaver-chopped roast duck with crisped caramel skin, the hot fried flatbread torn into pieces to dip in curry sauce, the bright green mound of shrimp paste-coated okra.

While the rain poured on slanting sidewalks and streamed on plate glass storefronts, we breathed coconut, lemongrass and curry. We talked and ate through our table’s line-up of steaming plates, filled our tiny cups with tea.

lady finger belacan, Overseas Taste

In NYC last week, I had the chance to eat twice at Overseas Taste (also known as “Oversea Asian”) at 49 Canal St., first with art director Tim Sutton and editor/writer Dave Bry. Tim and Dave knew exactly what to order.

PFE’s photo is of the tender okra dish ordered on both visits, Lady Finger Belacan.

– Sandy Lang, June 2009

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Food, Travel

06.14

2009

“Cypress” is a beauty

Water Born, Garden & Gun Nov. 2008

This is so cool… an article I wrote last year for Garden & Gun was read by a filmmaker who says he was inspired to create a short film.

On Friday I had the chance to talk with Tim Sutton, who’s an art director with Getty Images and a good friend of G&G editor Sid Evans. Tim’s five-minute “Cypress” shows a visit with Aaron Wells, who lives near the Suwannee River and builds kayaks and canoes out of narrow strips of cypress. The film takes me right back to Aaron’s workshop, to the North Florida blackwater scenery. It was shot and edited by cinematographer Chris Dapkins, with music by Moondog.

You can see “Cypress” here, on the Garden & Gun website.

Besides his work with Getty, Tim has directed music videos for The Raconteurs, Brendan Benson, Sam Prekop, and The Sea and Cake. I love this one for The Sea and Cake’s, “Weekend.”

– Sandy Lang, June 2009

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Art, Craft, In print/published

06.04

2009

Barbecue backroads makes G&G cover

barbecue road trip Garden & Gun

The open-spoke steering wheel is as wide as a bicycle wheel in my hands, and I’m cruising – floating almost – on two-lane asphalt in a tar-black Chevrolet, passing pine tree rows, tobacco barns, railroad crossings. Pulling up in a bare-ground parking lot, I see the woodpiles, the smoke rising, and I walk inside, smelling the fire…

Photographer Peter Frank Edwards and I set out this spring to find old-school barbecue parlors in eastern North Carolina. He shot film and Polaroids along the way, and somewhere east of Greenville, we found the great old Chevy. The story is in the latest Garden & Gun issue, which is just off the press and set to be mailed out this month.

There are more images in print and the entire piece is online at Garden & Gun.

Garden & Gun June 2009 cover

– Sandy Lang, June 2009

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Food, In print/published, Travel

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