Monday, November 10, 2008

The Faces Are Real!

Turns out that the broccoli faces are real! Before Halloween my friend Jenni sent me an email with a link to the Bread and Honey blog where they posted about the terrifying little faces in the Cascadian Farm broccoli. HA! It was wonderful! But how could I know if it was true when Cascadian Farm is not a brand I knew of. Something I've never seen in my local stores! (Not that I often shop in the frozen broccoli aisle so it might totally be there and I wouldn't know.)

In comes my good friend A who was inspired to investigate! And this weekend she found the culprit broccoli and, together with her entertained new friends at the checkout counter, she was able to locate nine faces. Read more here: It's A Craptastic Life!

Meanwhile - Bread and Honey did a follow up about the broccoli (read here) in which General Mills (broccoli company parent) suggested that the faces would NOT be on the redesign of the package. NOOOOOOO!!!! The faces are most most excellent and I would hate to see them go. (Not that I ever saw them in the first place.) Unspoken tributes are the highlight of a geek's days. And tricky when you can sneak them past your superiors. Back when I was editing sound on a film short my sound designer friend and I upped the level of some roaring white noise when our names appeared on the credit crawl. We're the only two people that know it's there but WE know it's there! And it entertained us to no end.

Plus this has inspired me to put mini faces of myself in all of my design work from here on out.





In other frozen food news I am SOOOO happy to report after nearly two years of constant searching that I have now located a vendor willing and able to sell me STOUFFER'S WELSH RAREBIT. I mean this has been a harrowing journey. I ventured to stores outside of my neighborhood. Grocers with unfamiliar coupons and point systems. Places outside of my zip code! I tracked down corporate headquarters and discussed the food item with store managers. I put ads on Craigslist asking for people to search their neighborhood stores for the Welsh Rarebit that I so covet. I even tracked the item from company (Nestle) to factory (Stouffer's) to distributor to delivery company to store... TO NO AVAIL. Finally, after passing a new store one day I decided, on a whim, to look them up online. YUMMY.COM!!!!!! (Angels sing.) YUMMY.COM (which seems to be a new neighborhood business - a competitor to Pink Dot - filling in where Home Grocer and others like it failed) carries the Rarebit!! At first they only carried it in their Beverly Hills location but they shuffled some stock around (for me) and now also carry it in their Santa Monica store (at Pico and Euclid in Santa Monica). So THANK YOU Yummy.com! I can now feed my frozen cheeze habit once again!! (And it'd go great on that broccoli, come to think of it.)

5 comments:

A said...

Oh, good! I'm glad you found the rarebit. When I come back to LA for a visit sometime within the next year, hopefully, we need to go to that place in Santa Monica again. It was so good! :)

Marlena Hall said...

What the hell is Welsh rarebit and faces in broccoli sounds frightening!

I like your faces in your art though. Way cool. :D

Erin said...

Welsh Rarebit is a tangy cheese sauce typically made by mixing cheese with beer and paprika. You're supposed to pour it over toast (see picture) but we like to mix it up. Sometimes it's over toast. Sometimes it's mixed with rice and tuna. British restaurants will make it with TOOO much beer. The Stouffer's version is Just Right.

Mary Ann Cicala said...

I think you'll have to organize a strike or something to get the broccoli faces back.

And...um...what IS rare bit?

Erin said...

See above response to Marlena.