hello

i got to do 2 very different tattoos on 2 very different farmers from different parts of the country this week and i felt like sharing.



Sam Lamb runs Early Bird Acres, 2 hours outside of Oklahoma City. I've followed her photography online for years and we coincidentally have a friend in common who lives in Portland, so I was able to hang out and tattoo her this week.



She wanted a blue egg inspired by the eggs she collects on her farm, and some cute blue wildflowers.


The other woman I tattooed, I know very little about but I spent a really pleasant 2 hours giving her these solid black bands around her arm:





She is an organic farmer in Port Townshend, WA and she also teaches creative movement and dance at a summer camp for small children, and does substance abuse counseling for teens. She was amazing! We talked about farming and raising animals and all kinds of stuff.

I love my job.

hello!

hello! just poking my head in here for a couple of updates. i'm now a licensed tattooer at Anatomy Tattoo, in Portland, OR. You can find me there Wednesday-Sunday, 12-8. I'm available for walk-ins and custom appointments.



On the internets I'm most frequently updating my tumblr with tattoo-related things, pictures of beautiful stuff i like, and not much else: alicecarrier.tumblr.com



I appreciate all the love and interest in this blog over the years, even though I'm on to other projects! Thanks again to everyone who has commented, said hello in person or via email, and anyone who likes to bake or cook.

-Alice Carrier (still at alicecarrier.com if you need to update your links!)

now you know where to find me!

alicecarrier.com!!!!

final death rattle

good bye food blog! i am tired of you!

raspberry summer

my friends let me pick berries in their AMAZING BACKYARD the other day







spy the beehive behind the currant grove:







this backyard is totally like the most epic secret-garden-perfect-backyard ever, totally overgrown (despite jeff's constant pruning and work- i've seen him! he works all the time back there!) it's exactly the kind of yard i fantasize about but would never, ever, have the energy to keep up on.

here are some awesome cakes that my friend sammy decorated for the bakery!





she's really into geometric patterns and mathy art and cool universe stuff and YACHT and cool things like that, haha! i thought these cakes reminded me of cool 70's sweaters. they all sold really fast!

speaking of the bakery i get these weird faces on the bottom of my naked portafilter a lot:



i don't know if i have it in me to explain a naked portafilter to non-coffee nerds but basically there is NO WAY for me to force a face to show up, it's a drip pattern that happens ALL BY ITSELF and it happens at least a couple of times a day. sometimes i get a perfect little smiley face, too. it's really weird/awesome. the only embarrassing thing is that if you ARE enough of a coffee nerd to know what this thing is, then you know that the only way i could get a face to show up is to not clean out my portafilter long enough for the drip pattern to dry on the bottom of the basket. SHHHH.

HERE IS THE WORLD'S MOST PERFECT SNACK:



dried black mission figs, raw almonds, a hunk of raw milk cheese, and a macchiato.



i have been drawing a lot and doing more tattoos.

speaking of tattoos i went ahead and started a special tattoo blog where i will post some of the tattoos that i do! http://alicetattoo.blogspot.com tadaaaa!

the last few days have been cool and i'm hoping it will heat back up. give me muggy or give me death! i want to really look forward to october, you know what i mean?

distilled

despite my natural tendency to make fun of gingers (the gingervitis episode of south park DESTROYS ME, hahaha), i am constantly surrounded by gingers that i LOOOOOVE.

case in point, one of my very close friends, heidi.


heidi is basically family to me, and our kids are bffs so we like to spend some time together now and again. tonight we spent some time together of the drinking variety and at some point we decided to do some DISTILLING. long story short, recently she and her partner made some delicious smelling rose water by distillation process, and as she described it to me it, occurred to us that we could do any sort of fragrant plant and see how it turned out, so tonight we experimented with some fresh herbs that were growing in my backyard.







we started out with a bunch of thyme but as it was going, it smelled pretty gross, honestly. after we chilled the distilled liquid it smelled better, though. (wait i bet you are all like HOW THE FUCK DID YOU MAKE THIS DISTILLED LIQUID!!!! but stfu i'm getting there!)

after all the thyme got fucked up we decided to switch to sage because i'm growing both and that shit came out way better.



OKAY probably by now you are really mad that i haven't described this process to you. the simplest way to describe it is that you are boiling shit with a lid on it and collecting the drops of water that form on the inside of the lid. but trickier because you use a little bowl inside the pot and you put ice on top of the lid to form even more condensation than normal.

here is a link to describe it better than my drunk dumb ass could at one a.m.: http://tipnut.com/how-to-make-rose-water-4-recipes/

i don't know if that is comprehensible to you, but my friend showed me, which is good because i am a dumbass about following instructions without pictures.

i will say that with the thyme, i trimmed off whole sprigs and the resulting concoction smelled dirty and musty as it boiled. first i brought the whole thing to a boil and let it simmer, and i think it was gross. with the sage, i picked JUST THE LEAVES, no stems, and i brought the water to a mild simmer before adding the leaves and then covering. i don't know if the methods made any crazy difference but i will say that after chilling, the thyme water smelled really good, different than when it was hot. and the sage smelled delicious the whole time.

speaking of pictures, here is my new bike that i haven't named yet, i love it:





well anyway, friendos. hope you all are well.

pre-gaming for summer.

here are some things.

coworkers rolling out tart dough:







a really cool thing just happened to me. i got the opportunity to guest-barista for the stumptown cart, backstage at the sasquatch festival! my mind is thoroughly blown. i can barely even talk about it because i try to play it cool and then all the sudden i'm just like GUSHING. i think it is safe to say that it is one of the COOLEST, FUNNEST THINGS I HAVE EVER GOTTEN TO DO:





the craziest part was that the rock stars were so stoked to see US! they were like OH MY GOD, STUMPTOWN IS HERE. YES. I AM GOING TO DRINK LIKE 300 LATTES. i made espresso for the dap kings right before they played! it was awesome!

apparently it was the 10-year anniversary of the festival, so the organizers hired the ace of cakes people to make a sasquatch cake!



the only part of it that's actually cake is the little lumberjack guy- the rest is wood or cardboard or something. it sat around, pristine, for like 2 days, and then the singer for the flaming lips smashed it on stage and threw chunks of cake into the crowd. my son was so bummed, he REALLY wanted to eat it. i didn't have the heart to tell him how gross fondant really tastes.

the only reason i got to to go the festival is that my husband drove up the coffee cart and installed it. he tricked out the la marzocco linea that we were working on with LED spotlights in between the group heads and it was really cool!!!



in other news i drink a lot of espresso nowadays.



and finally, i am very slowly learning to tattoo and it's really cool. here is the second tattoo i've ever done on another person:



i think it came out pretty good! #3 is coming up soon. i don't have a lot of time to make appointments with people so i haven't gotten to practice much. but it's cool, it is really fun.

anyway today was the first 80 degree + day we've had all year and i don't know wtf i am doing in the basement. i bought a BIKE yesterday and i rode it to work this morning! and now i'm going to go into my backyard and pick a bunch of mint for the mint-cucumber-yogurt-avocado salad i'm about to make to go with the lamb we're about to grill.

summer 2011 KICKOFF STARTS NOW!