I definitely remember stumbling upon Tricia's blog, Eating is Art, and wondering if Portland was going to burst at the seams with creative talent (there was a week where it seemed every site I bookmarked was from another artist in Portland!). Tricia is doing something I've never seen before: she designs experiences that connect food with all five senses and explores how eating and memory and community and taste and personal history all relate to one another. You have to check out her blog to understand what I mean, and I promise you'll be wowed. A few projects she's created: an amazing five-foot-long loaf of bread (that's Tricia on the right hauling bread!) for the Bread Friend Map, secret suppers, and my personal favorite, Pietopia. It's definitely incredible how blogs can pull people together, and I'm happy to say Tricia has become one of my first blog friends (and I'm hoping to get to work with her on even bigger projects.) Really, what I'd love to do is meet Tricia in person and chat over bread and beer! For now, I'm so excited to share her responses to Lost + Found. When she's not making five-foot-long loaves of bread, here's how the talented Tricia organizes her:
magazines
I stack my magazines according to use in different places: food magazines have a special place near my desk, design magazines such as Eye or Wallpaper have their own shelf on a bookshelf nearby, and good reading/story-filled magazines such as Gastronomica are next to my bed. About two years ago, I moved across the country and had to choose what came with me and what was recycled. It came down to only keeping my really nice specialty magazines/journals along with every single issue of Domino (I just couldn’t part with them!).
photos
I take a lot of photos, especially of the food I make. But also to document events and experiences I am creating. I make separate folders on my computer labeling them according to project, or for my blog I have a whole section dedicated to all the things I’ve made. Each folder is labeled with the recipe title so I know what pictures are inside. As for print, I don’t really print my photos any more for a few reasons: space saving (it boggles my brain to think about where I would put them all!), money saving, and earth saving (if I am not going to use the printed photos for a specific project, I’d rather not put more stuff in the world that does not have a specific use.)
tax paperwork + receipts
I have a vivid memory of my parents doing their taxes one night, papers spread all over the kitchen table, calculators out, and brows furrowed. After they explained to me what they were doing, I proclaimed, “I am never doing taxes!” horrified by the amount of paperwork, small print, and the idea that if they were done wrong, it could result in something bad happening, according to my eight year old imagination. As an adult, this overwhelming feeling can still creep up on me during tax season (which makes me laugh, remembering the origins of this anxiety!). Thankfully, today there is tax prep software that has been an absolute lifesaver in keeping all my important information together, year after year, digitally. I only keep receipts if they are for a specific project where I am being reimbursed or need to do reimbursing. Then simple manila folders with labels do the trick.
craft supplies
I live in tight quarters, a tiny space that gets cluttered fast. So for craft supplies, I have to be pretty critical about what stays and what goes. If I had it my way, I’d have a several hundred square foot studio room filled with all those things that I look at and go “what if? I might need this later!” and toss it into one pile or another. Alas, I have to be a bit pickier than I’d like for space-saving reasons but also make sure I have things that I need and want for future projects. I keep fabrics, yarns, scraps, and knitting needles in a big rectangle shaped canvas beach bag which fits on the bottom shelf of a book case; I have several large flat files for prints which can be easily tucked away behind a couch, bed, or the back of a closet; I keep loose ends, knick knacks, and general craft stuff that I use and need easy access to in an old antique crate under my desk.
and how do you keep your myriad of contacts and recipes organized?
Gmail’s search tool is lifesaving for contacts if I forget to add them to my address book. When it comes to recipes, my blog has become an archival tool for some of my favorite recipes. I also have several go-to cookbooks that I use, keeping a few even on my desk for easy access! If it’s a specific flavor or technique I am looking for, I will search for a good recipe online and use it as a guide to make up something of my own. If it turns out tasty, I will usually post about it, which adds it to my blog archives.
[For those of you who don't blog, I learned from Emilia that Tumblr is an easy, digital solution for keeping track of recipes you like.]
Special thanks to Tricia for being a part of Lost + Found and for making the big world of blogs feel more like a community to me.
{photographs by tricia}
last week's lost + found: anabela of fieldguided
what's lost + found? find out more here
