Orzo-y Yogurt-y Pickled Quail Eggy Beans
With roasty red pep-peps and a drozzle of EVOO
Howdy folks! How’s everyone doin?
Since I single-handedly cancelled Noma several weeks ago, I produced a proof of concept for a skateboarding film I’m producing and getting ready to launch a crowdfunding campaign for a short I’m producing too. Chris taught himself how to sew professionally in 72 hours and started making our own napkins and tablecloths for our wedding. I also had some interviews for potential gigs that for one reason or another all fell through (I’m not like the other girls, you see), but on the plus side Chris and I got a Saatva mattress and I’m down to only taking like one sleeping pill once a week.
I’m afraid I have not been working on Radicchio Salad much. But I have been asking myself (as Radicchio Salad): who am I?
Am I shitposter who just truly loves to post?
Am I a beanfluencer/recipe developer who makes cooking videos because I truly want to do that?
Am I, along with my husbear Chris, a boutique zine purveyor and cultural pot-stirrer?
Am I as really as into this a I was when I first started, making YouTube videos in a Van Nuys garage?
Well…
I love writing, especially when it’s about things I feel a certain way about. (I also love writing fiction. I’m working on a novel rn and have plans to write some screenplays real soon.) But if a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, it does not make a sound in our Information Age. Does it? I’ve always thought of posting as a necessary evil. It’s an evil that’s been great to me don’t get me wrong, but posting itself has never been my endgame. I often fantasize about throwing my phone in the ocean: it’s nighttime, I’m barefoot, I’m wearing a loose light blue linen shirt and white capri pants, and I’m laughing, and I’m also Julia Roberts for some reason.
I love, love, love cooking so much. I have a vision for what a Radicchio Salad cooking show can be, and I’ve tried executing it in the past, but, it’s truly, so much work and I just don’t have the resources for it. Even when I thought I did. Even when I bought props and backgrounds and made Scrubby and everything. I could just make food in my kitchen and share it (and I do still), but alas I have expensive taste, and I’ve always been a slut for production value and world-building. My vision is PeeWee’s Playhouse meets Julia Child if she could talk back to her ingredients and pots and pans.
The answer to this question is certainly yes, as in Chris and I both have a zine together. But while the zine does bring us so much joy and I’m so proud of what we’ve put out thus far, it too is just so much work that we don’t quite have the resources to execute regularly. Chris has a day job and is bringing home the bacon. I freelance and have to commute all the way to SF from Oakland for various doctors’ appointments or whatever all the time. It’s ironic because indie food zines and blogs are so hot right now and, while I can’t prove it, I feel like we’ve really influenced a lot of people who are starting their own food media endeavors rn. But also, I don’t know how these people are making or expecting to make money, which we need to make if we’re going to put them out regularly. I suspect that they aren’t or at least aren’t making very much.
The short answer is yes! The actual answer is a bit more complicated. Radicchio Salad has never been one static thing and I’ve always had bouts of productivity followed by lulls of nothingness. These lulls usually happen when I feel like it needs to keep evolving, and they end when I start introducing new concepts or ideas. There is other stuff Chris and I want to talk about besides food. I want art to be a bigger part of it and also stage sexy photo shoots with hot men and cunty women. I will continue to be into Radicchio Salad as long as it can remain an outlet to share what Chris and I and our friends are into, and as long as we can all have fun doing it.
Sorry I’m sharing this little sad boy moment with y’all, but also hot girls do not apologize. I do want to work towards something we can put out regularly and I do hope I’ll come out of this lull with that very thing.
Love and appreciate y’all.
-Ori
