Thursday, August 30, 2012

A Very Julia Salad

Okay, folks. For those of you who know me. I've mastered a simple salad, well sometimes varies, but I must say everybody really likes my salads. I can hear my friend, Shifie, rootin' in the background.


In good ol' college days, I used to mix up some sweet and savory together. With the influences from the likes of Intermezzo and other fantastic local joints in Berkeley, I have to have delicious and affordable salads. No ICEBERG!!!! Please! I'm ruined folks. Can't stand restaurants that serve salads w/ iceberg. Hmmm! You call that a salad?

Okay, okay sorry the food snob awakes. To give some credit, Tally has Olive Garden and Cody's that offer decent salad dressing to accompany the iceberg riven salads they serve.

Sniff. Sniff. I miss you Bay Area.
Rich Poppy Seed
Thankfully, I can make decent ones. And I can still buy Brianna's dressings at Publix. I had plenty of practice during my Berk-town years, because I made salad weekly for my Christian home meetings. Hsu's small group, I miss you dearly!! Like, one time I made a humungous bowl for maybe 25 servings.

Can't forget about that one w/ an episode that went along w/ it. One guy said, "Why didn't you make more?" I for one found it as a compliment, and my very strong feminist of a pal (you know who you are chika ;] ) next to me snapped back at him and said, "That was rude." My nervous self, giggled away to end the conversation. Awkward. But funny looking back.

The recipe was something like this:
  • Mixed greens (from Berkeley Bowl)
  • Torn pieces of green leaf or red lettuce
  • Sliced carrots
  • Diced tomatoes
  • Sliced red onion
  • Dried cranberries
  • Diced mangoes
  • Diced apples
  • Sliced cucumbers
  • Candied walnuts or pecans
  • The best part (served on the side): Brianna's Poppy Seed Dressing
Note: I always served dressing on the side, w/ other options like Balsamic Vinaigrette. Sorry folks, I'm not a huge Ranch dressing fan.

Yes, more on the sweet side but balances out w/ all the greens and creamy dressing. No photo of that, but I have a special feature of my recent salad.

My friend has always described my salads, "A Very Julia Salad." Here is one simple one. I don't have names for these things. I just toss together what I like. May I add, this was strongly influenced by one of my closest friends, Di, best Asian cook I know. Her salad will be featured soon. ;)

Pardon the photography. I'm saving up for an awesome cam.

Ingredients:
    Blush Wine Vinaigrette
  •  Mixed greens (pre-washed from Costco)
  • Sliced cucumbers
  • Sliced carrots
  • Canned sweet corn drained
  • Sliced red onion
  • Crumbled Feta
  • Dressing: Blush Wine Vinaigrette (I could drink this)



Did I say, "I could drink this?" Because it's sooo true.

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Me LIKE Me New Logo

Julia Holly Creative is in motion. FINALLY. I've wanted to for years... I mean... YEARS to finalize a logo for my freelance design endeavors. And, now the kids are in school, and I can actually sit in front of a comp and focus. Focus? Really? Yes!!! Here is the visual proof of my process. Note: rough stages are purposely tiny so you copycats out there don't get shady with my work. Nu-uh girlfriends.

For the non-designers, here are the steps I took.


1) Sketch/Draw/Scribble
As tempting as it is for some of us digital peeps. No matter what I tend to go back to the drawing board because I just stare blankly at the screen. There's something to using a pencil/pen and paper and drawing whatever... whatever comes to mind.

What I call Chicken Scratch

2) Digital Thumbnails
Thumbnails means, they should be small. I used to have to churn out at least 10-20 concepts for my advertising/design classes. An instructor once told my class that in the real world you need around 100 to begin with. The key is to get out as many ideas in the beginning to weed out the really bad ones in your mind. Get it out of your system.

I love lining up the different digital icons. Logos look simple but the really great ones took a lot of work to get it that way.

3) Finalize and Narrow Down
After getting about 16 concepts (all different looking ideas) I started to do 2-4 variations of my favorites. As I started to feel great about one, I worked w/ some color.



4) The one. 
You know that you've found the right image or design when there's an immediate spark, "That's it!" I think I may have found the one. What do you all think?

That's it!
I'm not going to try to explain the reasoning behind my choices, but hopefully the design speaks for itself.

Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Following My Pins - What?!

Once in a while, I take a peek at who follows my pins. The phenomenon of Pinterest. I'm sure it has to do with several things, besides the fact that it's a beautiful, visually compelling way to surf the net now. Call it what you will. Online social window shopping. Online magazine. Virtual clipboard. Sharing ideas publicly. I believe part of the addictive factor is that we see that strangers actually like what we like. Oh my goodness, as of today 1,075 people repinned this cute but poor quality photo of a puppy sleep-hugging a teddy bear.


Pinned Image


I think that is my most popular pin so far. Way to be original. I just simply liked it. Saw it via stumbleupon.com (guy version of pinterest). Okay, okay. Pinterest is most popular among women.  But, there are still pinteresting men out there who know great design. Like, Mike D whom I repin from plenty of times. 
 
Paper Source 


Cost Plus World Market Logo 

 Profile Picture of San Francisco Ballet 
 
 
Anyway, so the point of this post? I'm just thrilled to find that the 3 featured companies above have either repinned some of my pins or began following my boards. Paper Source? What!? World Market!? Love that store!!! SF Ballet?! Absolutely, beautiful imagery on their boards. To celebrate, I've announced it on facebook and blogged it, hence this post. I'm not sure how they discovered me, but I'm guessing it's because I started pinning originally from their web sites before they created their own boards, except from SF Ballet. SF Ballet found this and repinned it. 
 
 rent-a-sleepbox (Moscow Airport)
 
The logos are linked to their pinterest boards if you'd like to follow them as well. In the meantime, I'll pin daily because I just love keeping/archiving beautiful photos and inspiring ideas.

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Tally Sushi: Sumo Sabi

Tallahassee for what it is, pseudo country/city/campus town, still has its hidden gems. Coming from the golden state, where everything I mean EVERY THING from food to clothes is right at your finger tips, it's easy to be critical. You don't have to drive more than a half hour to an hour to get to the next big city. You want sushi, you'll have to deal with choosing from 10 options in each direction. You want Trader Joe's, I had 3 to pick at Mission Viejo. Produce was sooooo much more affordable. I could cook whatever and whenever I wanted. Wherever you go in Cali, high chances are that you'd meet someone from out of town.

However, I've done some research and hubby's co-workers gave us a few recommendations. So, date night came and we picked Sumo Sabi. It was quite empty on a Thursday night, but still cute ambiance.


Hubby ordered a crunchy roll and I wanted to try one of their specialty rolls. I, of course, wanted to try their Sumo Steak Bowl. Gotta have the red meat since we've decided not to buy red meat for a while until ahem we catch up financially. Sweet hubby let me order a meal and I realize now that he ordered just sushi. Don't worry, I didn't let him starve and so we shared the bowl.

Photo taken with my Android, which explains the blah quality.
Cute plate...Isn't it?
Sumo Steak Bowl w/ Sumo Sauce & Terriyaki on the side.
They had a sauce bar with at least 10 options. The most popular is the Sumo Sauce, absolutely creamy and delicious. Not sure what's in it, but tasted like a nice blend of garlic, onion, sugar, sour cream. When my order of Sumo Steak Bowl came, I was delighted to see how huge of a bowl it was and the uber amounts of meat covering brown rice w/ yummy looking veggies. More for us, yay! I quickly got stuffed and my usual stingy self was happy to share the rest of the meat with the hubs.

It was on the affordable side, so hubby was eager to go to Sumo Sabi over my preferred place, Cypress Restaurant. But, it was fun to go to the other side of town near the campus about 20 minutes away. The juicy steak drizzled with their homemade sauce made the trip worthwhile. There wasn't much of a crowd making the night less interesting, but great food = great times with the hubby.



Review in Brief

We would come back for the sushi. Although reviews aren't as great on Urban Spoon or Yelp. We still would go again.

Hooray for Late Night Hours - Open til 3 a.m. Finding a place for a late night outing after the kids are down is hard to come by, in Tally. So I was thrilled to find out they were open past midnight. The bummer factor is that they don't have anything like shaved ice nor Boba Tea. I'd have to go to Gainesville for decent milk tea. Which we did get at Bento Cafe. Or, I can make my own to save myself an hour drive. Their milk tea was better than what any place in Tally could offer, but won't ever beat Tapioca Express, Guppy's, nor Champions at Irvine, CA.

Endless Menu - I think they had at least 100 options to choose from, which was personally overwhelming. They've got great corporate identity to begin with, but I would recommend a menu redesign. Potential client maybe?

No dessert Caught My Eye - With the literally hundreds of items, I didn't have time to glance their dessert selection. So, we went to Lofty Pursuits Ice Cream (Tally's Local Ice Cream Parlor). We found a review on this via Sweet Tea & Bourbon (local foodie blogger), whom I can agree with most of the time. Watch out Tally, Julia Holly is a food snob tasting her way through every restaurant (worth the trip of course).



Sunday, August 5, 2012

Ballaas Games 9 (Tues.), 10-11 (Sat.)

Hot. Hot. Hot. Tally weather.


Well, the good news is that we won on Tuesday to play in the semi-finals, which was yesterday (Sat. 8/4). The bad news is we played against no. 1 seed first at 5:00 p.m. The sun beating hard that day and 5 less players, including one of our best ladies missing. Just warm-up alone was enough to make us drench in sweat. We had an advantage because it was red's 2nd game to play. But their advantages were, besides experience and young lads, that we had less players and they were already in game mode. They pretty much killed us with zone defense, shutting down our handlers. We had a rough game ending at 15-6. I think. Everyone made mistakes and it got intense among the teammates. However, we had one more game to play to compete for third place.



Uggggh. We all didn't seem up to playing another game. But, we all decided to just play for fun. No pressure. Just have fun out there. When we all loosened up, everything clicked. More solid points, no turns, no drops. I even caught a few midfield and made complete continuations. Scored a couple points. Yay. It was a fun way to end the night. Maybe it was best for my sake, that we didn't have to play as No. 1 seed that day, which meant 3 games in a row, on one of the hottest days of Tally. Don't forget to factor in nasty humidity. My hips and joints were sore by the end of the first game. But it wasn't too bad playing a second one, especially when the clouds and a slight breeze started to "cool" the air. My fan club (sister-in-law, niece, nephew, and the hubby w/ the kiddos) cheering on the sidelines with their homemade signs was a kind reminder to have fun.

Thanks Esther & Lily for the signs!



One opponent talking some smack halfway through the game, revving our captain up to play for fun but to WIN. And we sure did. As old as I am, I often asked to cover the handler because they don't run hard cuts. I needed a break from cutting badly. There were a few times the handler could've called a foul on me for contact during throws, but she was gracious. I don't know why I have difficulty blocking lately. Maybe I'm not willing to risk as much as I used to.

Anyway, we won 15-9. We still made some mistakes, but we shook 'em off and laughed it off. We had fun. Captain Cheese even called the cup-o-saurus defense. Eh? We formed a 6 person cup around the handler and made dinosaur sounds. It didn't work, which I think he knew. They scored a point. Oh well it was fun. We ended on a positive note and no tension from the loss before. The team took a group pic for me and signed their autographs for my up-coming team frame.

I told them one of these guys/gals will be famous one day. I know it.



 Barksdales Ballaas 3rd Place Summer 2012. May I add that's out of 10 teams. ;)