The other day, we were driving down Melrose on our way—admittedly—to the Christmas-ed out Grove (mainly to get a laptop repaired but also to see their nightly fake snow show) and we drove past a surprisingly familiar site—work by Brooklyn-based artist Juan Miguel Marin. The surprising part was that it was in gigantic form, splayed across a billboard thousands of miles away from the artist’s home.

We know Juan through his band, LEGS, who we’ve been fans of since we first heard them last year. We interviewed Juan about the band and their debut LP earlier this year and were well-aware that he was a visual artists but were nonetheless shocked to see his work roadside in Los Angeles.

Turns out, Juan was one an elite group of 33 artists chosen to be part of a city-wide, billboard-based art show in the form of The Billboard Creative, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit that takes unused and remnant billboards and turns them into public art.

Starting with a single billboard by LACMA in 2012, this most recent iteration and second city-wide project debuted on December 1st with 33 billboards across the city from 33 different artists, doubling the inaugural outing. Curated by photographer Mona Kuhn, the show is described as “public art, displayed in a quintessential Los Angeles medium.”

As TBC puts it:

“The Billboard Creative is the antidote to the inbox-choking, often empty and expensive pitches from art expos and pay-for-play venues. We’ve participated in many fee-based programs and competitions. Some of them were great; some less so. (Look up Alan Bamberger’s article in artbusiness.com on whether or not art competitions will help your career.) But the bottom line is that many competitions are more about making money than making art. We understand this – everyone has to make a living, but it inspired us to create a program that actually is all about the art. Our goal is to get new, interesting, innovative artwork of all mediums in front of people, lots of people, and for considerably less cost to the artist.”

We’ve loved Juan’s work since we first saw it, comprising intricate, hand-drawn lines that, together, form abstract, movement-filled shapes. The work in and of itself is compelling enough, but, for us—people who spend most work hours in front of a computer screen—the process appealed to us too; as he puts it on his site, “a study in a meditative process of sentient creation, each piece representing part of the artist’s past or envisioned future.”

In addition to the billboard, which is only up until the end of this month (i.e. – two more days), Juan recently told us about a new piece he recently completed—”Untitled 3″, pictured above and below. Juan has a limited, numbered edition of 50 prints, framed + unframed, available for sale via his website.

Following up on the interview we did with musician, DJ, and (now) Los Angeles restauranteur Moby last month, after a visit for dinner soon after opening, we finally got a chance to check out his restaurant Little Pine‘s lunch. We have to say, the Silver Lake spot is quickly becoming one of our favorite for both classic comfort food and inventive takes on vegan scrumptiousness not found elsewhere.

On our most recent visit, the star was LP’s sausage + fennel sandwich (above)—housemade vegan sausage, fennel, pickled red onion, and romesco aioli on a really well-made French baguette. Everything was great though, just as it was at dinner (though definitely get the roasted tomato agnolotti if you make an evening visit—still craving that creamy, truffle-y dish).

Below, the classic grilled cheese (with arugula and housemade Soledad vegan american cheese [that’s the Southern California goat farm that recently announced they’d only be making and selling vegan cheese from here on out) on crispy slices of bread), + tomato soup with tomato oil; a close-up of the sausage + fennel; fried cauliflower with romesco aioli; and the Moby-recommended, us-approved s’mores ganache—graham crust, chocolate ganache, pecans, toasted meringue…that lasted about one minute on the table.

Next up—brunch!

Merry Christmas + happy holidays, from us to you.

Pictured, a wreath we made from foraged native plants in our neighborhood and Griffith Park, the making of which has now become an annual tradition.

Dreaming of ice and snow and cozy blankets in this balmy, east coast winter weather.

Who says climate change is real?

Another item we came across as we near year’s end and do a little digital studio housekeeping—fat panda.

This was part of a set of proposed baby announcement illustrations, those being a part of a larger set of sample customizable print invitations for weddings and other events we put together way back in 2007. We ended up putting the kibosh on the whole thing, deciding to go in more of the direction of…well, what we do today.

Nonetheless, I still kind of love these little guys.

Others in the set below.

Came across this detail of the watercolor work we did for Feminists for Animal Rights‘ re-branding + site design. We’ve found more and more than the mix of organic, natural elements in more refined, classically designed formats draws our eyes and defines a lot of the design and art direction we provide of late. This is a good example of just that.

You can read the full writeup of FAR project in our design portfolio.

Earlier this month, for the second year in a row, we enjoyed a holiday hybrid of Cookbook Club with friends (for anyone who missed it, we’d written up the idea behind and inspiration for Cookbook Club last year). This one featured grown-up takes on holiday-themed dishes from growing up and centered around Sinterkerst—a very fun Danish gift-giving game that’s kind of like White Elephant, but with more chaos, dice-rolling, fast-paced thievery, and cheap and/or pre-owned gifts.

One of the two dishes we brought to share was a vegan take on holiday party  meatballs—warm, smokey, savory appetizers good for snacking on and having with a variety of dips.

Given that it’s the heat of holiday season for many of us, we thought we’d go ahead and share the relatively simple recipe here.

What you need:
• 1 cup Dried Brown Lentils (AKA Swad Horse in Indian grocery stores)
• 1 cup (dry) Brown Rice
• 2 cups Raw Walnuts (halves, pieces, whole—doesn’t matter)
• 1 handful Fresh Rosemary (chopped)
• 1 tsp Liquid Smoke
• 1 tsp Ground Black Pepper
• 1 tsp Smoked Paprika
• 1 tbsp Ground Flax Seed
• 1 tsp Bragg’s Liquid Aminos or low sodium soy sauce
• 1 tbsp Sesame Oil

So, note that it’s best to do some of this prep work the night before you want to serve the balls simply because their form holds better when the ingredients are chilled or at least cool.

First, cook your brown rice stovetop according to package directions. One tip for brown rice or rice cooking in general if you’re looking for it—we like to bring rice + water to a  boil with the lid on at full heat and then, once steam starts escaping the lid, bring it all the way down as low as it’ll go without taking the lid off, trapping as much residual heat as you can. Once done, set aside or (as we usually do), just let it cool stovetop and then put the whole thing in the fridge overnight.

You’ll also ideally want to soak your dried lentils overnight or at least 8 or so hours. If that’s not possible, it’s not a huge deal, you just might get a grainier texture on ones that haven’t been soaked as much or at all. Regardless, again, you can likely follow package instructions on cooking or, if you don’t have any, you basically just bring to a boil in water (I usually fill a 2 quart pot about 3/4) and then turn the heat to medium watching that it doesn’t boil over, cook for anywhere from a half-hour to an hour, until the lentils fully soak up the liquid and are very tender to the fork—add more water as needed or, as an alternative, you can use vegetable stock for more flavor. Once done, set aside to cool or, ideally, store in the fridge overnight.

The walnuts are the only ones you don’t really have to do much with. I tend to soak them too for an hour or two in water, again, to get rid of some of the grittiness in the final product, but I don’t think it’s 100% necessary.

Preheat the oven to 350ºF.

Now, essentially, you need to blend each of those three ingredients—rice, lentils, walnuts—separately, one at a time. I made the mistake of first trying an early version of this recipe blending all three at once, and you just end up having far less control of the texture of the mixture as a whole. The lentils, you can blend until pretty smooth—hummus-like, but not overly liquidy; the walnuts, I like to keep a little chunky, for added texture; and you can also keep the rice from being totally broken down. The rice is our primary binder and, though the closer we get it to a gummy paste, the better it’ll bind, we also like having some of the grain left for optimal end texture.

In a large bowl, combine all of the three main, blended ingredients with everything else and stir well, combining everything as thoroughly as possible for a consistent mixture and taste. Set out a large baking sheet or baking stone and, one by one, use your hands and a spoon to form the mixture into small balls. You can make them whatever size you want, just keep in mind that the larger they are, the longer they’ll take to cook through and the more likely they’ll be to fall apart or pool in the oven rather than keep their ball form. Bake at 35o for an hour or so, keeping an eye on them and pulling them when the outsides get dark and crispy.

That’s it. This usually makes a healthy number of balls—as many as 60, depending on how large you make them—so you’ll likely be doing them in batches.

Dipping sauces—we like anything from a homemade ají to a peppery cashew creme to a simple tamarind-based sauce or store-bought HP (pictured).

Enjoy! And happy holidays!

Another MooShoes-related piece to end the week—we wanted to share this frankly adorable shot of our dog Owen walking into the shot the other day.

I mean. C’mon.

The shoot was for MooShoes’ 2015 Holiday Gift Guide promotion, which you can shop at mooshoes.com. If you do, be sure to check the home page for sale codes good through the 25th. You can see a couple final shots from the promo below.

Happy holidays. We wish you many hours of relaxing and celebrating with friends and family—the obvious true reason for the season (sorry, Jesus).

We created a custom gift wrap design that’s now on sale at MooShoes.

Based on the wallpaper we designed for the store and the shirt line we introduced this year, the gift wrap’s rendered in the MooShoes cyan with our animal illustrations and hand-drawn lettering and sustainably printed in Los Angeles on a heavy stock.

You can currently find the wrapping paper at MooShoes LA (3116 Sunset in Silver Lake) and online at mooshoes.com; it’ll be hitting store shelves in New York early next week.

One last New York piece before year’s end—if you happen to be in NYC this and next week, we highly recommend checking out this new breed of specialized seasonal commerce—the holiday pop-up bar.

While back east, we visited two: Miracle on Ninth Street, which has taken over Mace‘s space at East 9th + C; and Sippin’ Santa’s Surf Shack in Boilermaker at 1st + 1st (AKA, the nexus of the universe).

The former celebrates the more traditional aspects of Christmas, with decor, musical selections, and drinks like a pine needle cordial gimlet and the Christmopolitan—Fig leaf-infused vodka, St. Germain, lime juice, spiced cranberry sauce. They even give a shout out to the chosen with an appropriately decorated Hanukkah corner and the Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel—Chocolate gelt-infused reposado tequila, Pedro Ximenez sherry, maple syrup, and black walnut bitters garnished with, yes, a dreidel (note to fellow vegans: It’s actually cocoa nib-infused and dairy-free).

The latter, Sippin’ Santa’s Surf Shack, is, as you might guess, is more of a Christmas in Hawaii, Elvisian Christmas themed bar, with tiki trimmings, some great surf-holiday tunes, and the cheekier side of the drink menu with libations like I Saw Mommy… (vodka, grapefruit juice, Branca Menta, Hershey’s syrup, chocolate bitters, with mint [not vegan]) and warmers like the Sexy Santa (brandy, cabernet sauvignon, cinnamon, Angostura bitters, grapefruit essence; served hot).

Both pop-ups are run by the couple that runs Cocktail Kingdom (high five to couples running multiple businesses together), so, along with the music, decor, and drinks, you’ve also got some great, custom-designed barware, like you see below.

Our picks at each establishment: The Grinch at Miracle (a smokey concoction of rye, Pedro Ximenez sweet white wine, pine bitters, and frankincense smoke that was hands-down the favorite among our five-person table) and A Snowball’s Chance at the Surf Shack (scotch, pineapple cordial, allspice dram, and a dash of absinthe poured over a snowball of crushed ice).

You’ve only got a handful of days left to enjoy these places, so get thee there and get there early (they get packed quickly). Just watch out for a few of the drinks, vegans—the bogs are off limits, some come with actual hot butter, and there’s one drink at Miracle that’s got beef jerky bitters. Ah, boy.

Top photo of The Grinch, courtesy of Miracle at Ninth; all below, us.