Lost Cowboy

FF: Marinelli’s True Italian Pasta Sauce

My go-to comfort food, hands down, is good old fashioned pasta with red sauce. Add a great sauce like Marinelli’s True Italian Pasta Sauce and it is all the more comforting.

About Marinelli’s True Italian Pasta Sauce: “Marinelli’s sauces are all handmade in small batches from the very best available all natural ingredients – to create the real taste of true Italian pasta sauce – simply, the way it should be. To maintain this great taste, we only make 950 jars at a time for each flavor and we don’t add anything artificial – additives just don’t belong in a Marinelli’s True Italian Pasta Sauce.”

Marinelli’s True Italian Pasta Sauces are worth hunting for – find out more here.

FF: Photographer Matthew Rolston’s “Talking Heads, The Vent Haven Portraits”

I am charmed, and a little disturbed, by the photographs in Matthew Rolston’s book Talking Heads, The Vent Haven Portraits from Pointed Leaf Press.

About Talking Heads, The Vent Haven Portraits by Matthew Rolston: “Influential American celebrity photographer, director, and creative director Matthew Rolston turns his eye for portraiture to a new cast of characters with the launch of Talking Heads, The Vent Haven Portraits. Using techniques he has honed over decades of celebrity portraiture, and marking his first foray into the world of fine arts, Rolston has captured the inherent humanity of a rarely-seen collection of unique entertainment figures: ventriloquist dummies. Unearthed from the intimate and obscure Vent Haven Museum in Fort Mitchell, Kentucky, Rolston used a rigorously formal photographic approach to bring out the power in the faces of these figures through a series of 100 portraits, or ‘headshots.’”

Talking Heads, The Vent Haven Portraits by Matthew Rolston is available from Amazon and other fine booksellers.

FF: The Specialty Whiskeys of Jack Daniel’s

I’m not the biggest Jack Daniel’s fan – for me “Tennessee whiskey” has nothing on Kentucky bourbon – but I have to say the folks at JD have really stepped up their game with the fine Jack Daniel’s Single Barrel and the near-excellent Gentleman Jack.

About Jack Daniel’s Single Barrel: “The 94 proof whiskey is drawn from individual barrels, offering the opportunity to taste the subtle differences in nose, color and flavor from barrel to barrel.”

About Gentleman Jack: “The 80 proof whiskey is twice charcoal mellowed for smoothness.”

Fine more about all the specialty products for Jack Daniel’s here.

FF: The Cire Trudon: cires et bougies depuis 1643: Solis Rex Candle

If you want a candle that is a little more than what you pick up at your local mass retailer, you can’t go wrong with The Cire Trudon: cires et bougies depuis 1643: Solis Rex Candle available from MiN New York.

About The Cire Trudon: cires et bougies depuis 1643: Solis Rex Candle available from MiN New York: “Fragrance of the Mirror Gallery and the vast wooden floor of the Château de Versailles, vapours of wax, candelabras and palace. This kingly and solar perfume blends a green and wooded wake of coniferous trees to the sumptuous dizziness of incense with a light ray of citrus.”

See all the Cire Trudon candles available from MiN New York here.

Did you know you can order chicks through the mail? No, not the Russian bride type of “chick” but the bird kind as in baby chickens.

Well it is true and the folks at Iowa’s Welp Hatchery can hook you up.

About Welp Hatchery: “Welp Hatchery, located in Bancroft, Iowa, is a family owned business. Established in 1929 by Joseph H. Welp, the hatchery is now owned and operated by Kurt and Sandy Welp. Cornish Rock Broiler chickens are our specialty, and we offer a wide variety of chickens and other poultry which we ship from our shipping points in Iowa, New Mexico, and Minnesota.”

As I contemplate a move to the plains of Kansas (ala Miss Dorothy Gale) I may be in the market for some fine poultry to raise on the farm while dodging twisters. If I do, my first stop will be Welp Hatchery where I can purchase my chicks as well as geese, ducks, turkeys and other birds to raise.

Heck, by the next holiday season I may be serving Turducken raised and named on my own farm.

See all the poultry options of Welp Hatchery here.

Were you to get in a time machine and travel back to say, 1969, you may be overwhelmed by how different many things were just 45 years ago. However, were you to focus on food in the United States, you would be shocked how different it was then compared to now. Mostly, you will find limited choices in restaurants and in the supermarket. Moreover, you will find limited palates among most Americans.

It is no big stretch then, to see how the most influential food writers and figures of the last third of the 20th century shaped the way we have evolved to become the foodie nation that we are today. Such is the story told by Luke Barr in his book Provence, 1970: M.F.K. Fisher, Julia Child, James Beard, and the Reinvention of American Taste, when such key influencers came together to share their visions for the culinary landscape we now take for granted.

About Provence, 1970: M.F.K. Fisher, Julia Child, James Beard, and the Reinvention of American Taste by Luke Barr: “Provence, 1970 is about a singular historic moment. In the winter of that year, more or less coincidentally, the iconic culinary figures James Beard, M.F.K. Fisher, Julia Child, Richard Olney, Simone Beck, and Judith Jones found themselves together in the South of France. They cooked and ate, talked and argued, about the future of food in America, the meaning of taste, and the limits of snobbery. Without quite realizing it, they were shaping today’s tastes and culture, the way we eat now. The conversations among this group were chronicled by M.F.K. Fisher in journals and letters—some of which were later discovered by Luke Barr, her great-nephew. In Provence, 1970, he captures this seminal season, set against a stunning backdrop in cinematic scope—complete with gossip, drama, and contemporary relevance.”

I love how Provence, 1970 takes a seemingly insignificant moment in time and place and zooms in on a very specific topic to show how these noted food icons thought, acted and dreamed. The story told in Provence, 1970 is more proof of my belief that there are still millions of stories to tell from the last century that inform the way we live today.

Provence, 1970 by Luke Barr is available from Amazon and other fine book retailers.

The retailer CB2 keeps being a source for great finds. I have posted many things I have found at CB2 in the past, some which have gone on to be coveted classics. Once again, I have fallen for something that is part of CB2’s current collection, the Bicycle Acrylic Print by Chicago artist Ben Holiday.

About Ben Holiday’s Bicycle Acrylic Print from CB2: “Bold blue bike rides modern in true-to-life form. Originally drafted by hand in oil pen and ink, the laser-printed image floats on a clear acrylic panel in artist Ben Holiday’s signature style of 3D realism. Inspired by a happy turn of events, this rendering replicates the bike Holiday was given after his was stolen. ‘This classic 10-speed was salvaged from the garbage, reassembled and has been great transport ever since,’ he says.”

I think one – or a few – of these prints would look good in my next home, a celebration of my love for the bicycle and cool art work.

Find Ben Holiday’s Bicycle Acrylic Print available from CB2 here.

See all the coolness that is CB2 here.

I love London, which is clear to anyone who has spent any time here on Lost Cowboy. I love the city’s history and how things there are seemingly changing every day and then again not very much at all. I recently came across a remarkable film by Simon Smith that shows London and how it has and hasn’t changed over the last century.

In his charming film, Mr. Smith takes images from Claude Friese-Greene’s landmark 1927 color film and matches them with his own images of the same sites collected 85 years later. The result is a wonderful trip across some of London’s most iconic settings.

About London in 1927 & 2013 in the words of filmmaker Simon Smith: “During the 1920s, cinematographer Claude Friese-Greene travelled across the UK with his new colour film camera. His trip ended in London, with some of his most stunning images, and these were recently revived and restored by the BFI, and shared across social media and video websites. Since February I have attempted to capture every one of his shots, standing in his footsteps, and using modern equivalents of his camera and lenses. This has been a personal study, that has revealed how little London has changed.”

Be charmed by the London then and now film here.

I grew up loving the world of Polaroid pictures. My dad had a great Polaroid camera that took many of the iconic family photos of my youth – which still look great today, especially when compared to their Kodak film counterparts.

I myself had a series of Polaroid cameras well into the 2000’s and often took instant pictures at parties for quick favors and mementos. But alas the digital photography revolution finally killed off the novelty of instant film cameras and Polaroid went the way of the dodo bird. Well, at least until the folks at The Impossible Project came along.

The Impossible Project is dedicated to saving the art and novelty of the Polaroid film camera and continues to produce new film for old cameras. I for one think The Impossible Project’s mission is awesome.

About The Impossible Project: “In October 2008 The Impossible Project saved the last Polaroid production plant for integral instant film in Enschede (NL) and started to invent and produce totally new instant film materials for traditional Polaroid cameras. In 2010 Impossible saved analog instant photography from extinction by releasing various, brand new and unique instant films. Therewith Impossible prevents more than 300,000,000 perfectly functioning Polaroid cameras from becoming obsolete, changes the world of photography and keeps variety, tangibility and analogue creativity and possibilities alive.”

Check out The Impossible Project’s Gallery here.

Find an excellent primer on how to get started embracing the world of instant photography here.

Learn more all about The Impossible Project here.

One of my first stops upon returning to New Hampshire (and winter) from Argentina was this spot on the shore of Lake Chocorua in Tamworth, NH. The lake is long frozen and settled in for a long winter.  I love the lone ice fishing shack that almost looks transposed onto the setting.

For my second and final Friday Finds special edition from my trip to Buenos Aires, I am featuring a few of the items found for sale at the San Telmo fair and other markets around the city.

First up – these three bicycle-themed t-shirts caught my eye:

These colorful weaved baseball caps:

These awesome Pinhole Cameras – simple old school photography for a new generation:

Last but not least, I just had to include Al Divino Buton (The Divine B0ton), vintage buttons on display at the heart of the San Telmo Fair:

Today, as I wind down my posts about this trip to Buenos Aires, I feature a few notes about the trip – and tomorrow, I will feature a special Buenos Aires edition of Friday Finds. Then I’ll be back to more regular posts with a few more Argentina-themed posts here and there as I have time to reflect on my trip once I return home. In the meantime, here are some bits and pieces I wanted to share…

Make new friends but keep the old…

In the archives from January 2012, I found my post about dreaming of being in Buenos Aires in summer rather than New Hampshire in winter. The post was prophetic and was basically designed to bolster a post about mixed media artist Ovidio Wain, who I first met on my trip to the San Telmo Fair in 2010. I am pleased to say Mr. Wain is still creating, still showing in San Telmo, and still awesome.

Check out the “creaciones” of assemblage artist Ovidio Wain here.

Papelera Palermo

I was pleased to check in on another old favorite from past trips to Buenos Aires, Papelera Palermo, a wonderful paper and art supply shop in the Palermo Soho area.

Check out Papelera Palermo here.

La Bicicleta Naranja

Also in Palermo, it was good to see our friends at La Bicicleta Naranja (The Orange Bicycle) still in business and hosting their various bicycle tours of the city.

Learn more about La Bicicleta Naranja here.

La Mersa Muebles Objectos Arte

A new find in the trendy Palermo Soho neighborhood is La Mersa Muebles Objectos Arte.

La Mersa Muebles Objectos Arte features a large collection of high end furniture, housewares and other “object of art” to decorate the best homes in Buenos Aires.

Visit La Mersa Muebles Objectos Arte online here.

Tienda Palacio

For more funky items (and more decidedly downscale from La Mersa Muebles Objectos Arte) is Tienda Palacio – as store that sells all sorts of fun items for you and your home.

With a few outlets in the city – including Palermo and San Telmo, Tienda Palacio is a great place to pick up a more cheeky gift for your friends back home.

Check out Tienda Palacio here.

Argentina Consultant – Buenos Aires Apartment Rentals

If you want to visit Buenos Aires and live in the city like a local, I highly recommend renting an apartment in one of the city’s vibrant neighborhoods. I further recommend Argentina Consultant – Buenos Aires Apartment Rentals. We used Argentina Consultant to book our apartment rentals for each of the three trips now, staying in three different places and they were all great. In addition, the service provided by our hosts was excellent and the overall experience much nicer than staying in a hotel.

Learn more about Argentina Consultant – Buenos Aires Apartment Rentals here.

Here’s a gallery of some of my signature street scenes from this trip to Buenos Aires – click on the thumbnail for the full picture: