The Runcible Spoon is proud to introduce our 2015 interns Lainey and Judy! In honor of upcoming INTERNET issue, we asked them to interview each other on Skype. They bonded over finals week stress and love of food.

(Lainey skyping from her dorm room in George Washington University)

Lainey is now a senior (hooray to conquering finals and junior year!) studying journalism at George Washington University. Recently she found an article that listed some of the creative zines based in DC, the Runcible Spoon was among them. "I wasn't expected to find something so fun and whimsical... in DC! Where everything's organized and sterile." Lainey loves the creativity in the Runcible Spoon and was thrilled to see that it was searching for interns. She enjoys all kinds of food but does not cook that much, preferring to take her meals at the Whole Foods next door, because we both agreed, it's quite a sad thing to cook for yourself.

Lainey loves everything pop-culture related, her recent favorite "internet thing" was the Met Gala:

-Judy

(Judy skyping near Washington Square Park at New York University)

Judy is a rising junior at NYU majoring in Media, Culture & Communications with a minor in Food Studies. She said, “I think it’s really important to watch what or how we eat, and how society controls that. " But on the less serious side, she loves playing with food, making meat collages out of supermarket discount flyers, and cooking. She enjoys eating foods with lots of flavor and interesting textures—anything except bland food. Judy found out about the Runcible Spoon through her friend and past intern Chuck, was drawn to the playfulness and is looking forward to channeling that energy into a rewarding experience.

Her current favorite meme is nonsensical horoscopes. Here's an example:

-Lainey

You could find Lainey @LaineyRSidell and Judy @zyjudes on Twitter. Welcome to the Runcible Spoon!

In anticipation of our INTERNET issue, we constructed and carried a giant wooden iPhone from DC to Brooklyn for the Foodieodical festival. We asked any confused stranger walking by our booth to draw what they had for breakfast that morning, or their wildest breakfast food porn fantasies, and paste it on our IRL #Runcygram. Mayhem of Prismacolor markers broke loose.

This gave us a great chance to meet some Runcy fans, and have conversations about the Internet issue, bland foods, appropriate breakfast greens, cherry blossoms, and 'if it's okay to have chocolate for breakfast.' (yes, we approve.)

What was amazing to see was, even though half of the participants doubted their drawing abilities, they still took to their love of breakfast to the blank page, and flaunted their food fantasies.

Catch you later, Brooklyn!

If you read and enjoy The Runcible Spoon it's a safe bet that you consider the grocery store to be your personal haven. A sanctuary where most everything is edible, be it the bodega on the corner,  the membership-only co-op, or somewhere in between. Personally, I always spend far too long in a grocery store whenever I have to go, overwhelmed by all the taste possibilities and groceries that I either want to buy or want to know about. When I was a kid one of my dream occupations (when I wasn't busy debating whether I eventually wanted to host or be the musical guest on Saturday Night Live) was to be a grocery store clerk. All that scanning and deliberate Tetris-like paper bag packing? Yes, please.

So imagine my delight upon seeing the pictures from Chanel's latest fashion show — the theme and show backdrop being a super-luxury, Chanel-branded grocery store. Yep, you can finally buy Chanel-sourced citrus, sample Chanel-made sauces and carry it all out with your Chanel-crafted grocery baskets. Sadly only one of these things will likely be available for purchase (the latter, costing gobs and gobs of money) but now I dream of the day where visiting this high-fashion food paradise could be a reality.

--Alison 

Want to know what zines The Spoon was excited about at the LA Zine Fest? OK. We'll tell you.

CLAIRE: 

"Eschew" comics by Robert Sergel. One-page jokes and stories like this one.

"American Dream" graphics/aphorisms by Harry Diaz, a Guatemalan-born artist/designer in LA.

Everything JT Steiny does is really funny, but I went with a little book called "JODY" about a bug who impresses all the other animals with her dance skills. 

Two little pocket-sized things: "Yuck Faces" by this awesome illustrator. And "The Many Ways Of The Potato" because food.

To remember my first, most wonderful trip to LA, two LA-themed zines. This little guy of doodled street scenes. And another one by LA-transplant/comic illustrator Hannah Nance.

And a little instructional book (made by an employee at Skylight Books (which carries The Runcible Spoon)) called "How To Stay Alive," which includes tips like: Call people back, Ask questions, Make a zine

CLAIRE'S LOOT

ALISON:

The LA Zine Fest proved to be a great time to put face to zine-idol name. I finally met my #1 favorite comics maker, Esther Pearl Watson. I've been enchanted with her Unlovable series for many years—getting to check out her other work was so great. Here we have Orange Party Balls, Eric Parris World and Blood Lady Commandos. Everything she makes is hilarious, and I think fans of The Spoon would really like OPB—it's the weirdest most blech-inducing recipes from small-town collaborative cookbooks. She inserts her own illustrations within and it definitely garners more than a few LOLs. Also in the mix is Murder Dollhouse from Teppei Ando. I'd bought one of his hilarious comics at Baltimore's Atomic Books ages ago, and this new purchase did not disappoint. I just love his illustration style and the cool/weird factor (made-up ads, especially.)

ALISON'S BOUNTY

KALEE: 

I fell in love with a zine called The Bogus Zine by Sandra Markarian. It's a pretty simple concept: little snippets of internal monologue on one page followed by an unrelated illustration on the next. For example, "Also, he was a bad kisser. So who cares." / horse smoking a cigarette with the caption "BOGUS" underneath. Beautiful. 

KALEE'S TREASURE TROVE

MALAKA: 

I actually didn't buy any zines at the fest except for 1: gut feelings. Its the only zine I really wanted and I was glad to have my tarot card reading (free with purchase) done, too. 

MALAKA'S FAVORITE MEME CREATED BY CLAIRE

Your Runcible Spoon editors traveled across the country this weekend to attend the LA Zine Fest in Culver City, Calif., to bring our zany food gospel to the un-Runcied Western masses. 

It was a big success! We got to sell A LOT of our zines, check out some of the crazy awesome work from our other zine friends (we're coming out with a blog of all our favorite zines from the LA Zine Fest. DON'T WORRY). And get this: Matt Groening, the creator of The Simpsons, bought our Winner's Pack, which includes three zines, a tote bag and a pin. Apparently he's a regular visitor of LA's cartoon and zine scene, but for us DC folks he was a BIG CELEBRITY! 

There was a zine hut!

Here was our table! Do you see On Flora? 

Your Runcy editors at work. And On Flora, too. Haha she looks so happy.

This Runcible Spoon fan had a taco- and burrito-printed shirt to match. 

Loved some of the characters we met, including KimBurly and Aurora Lady.  

Somebody included a Runcy in their zine stash picture. #grateful. 

All in all, it was a gr8 event. Thanks LA Zine Fest!  Stay tuned for a cool blog on our favorite zines from the Fest soon. 

Illustrator Alex Markavage's collages are reminiscent of a simpler time — a time when families would pile in their car and drive across the country with giant hamburgers strapped to the top. The series — titled "the junk is not in the trunk" — makes us wish we had cars....and impossibly large bags of chips. It's a roadtrip Runcy can really get behind.

http://alexismarkavage.com/junk.html

-KALEE @kaleethehun

Meet Hollis Miller, The Runcible Spoon's very first intern. She just graduated from Williams College in Massachusetts and will be helping us with our upcoming Fall/Winter 2013 issue from start to finish. Here's a little bit about her!

Hi Hollis! Why did you want to intern for The Runcible Spoon? 
I love to cook and make collages, so The Runcible Spoon seemed like the perfect zine for me! I just learned about the zine this summer, and I really enjoy reading it. I am also interested in becoming a writer, so I thought I could learn about the process and get some great advice from the experts.

What is your signature dish? 
I am probably most known for making chocolate chip banana pancakes – they were definitely a crowd favorite on weekend mornings at school this past year. A close second would be chocolate chip cookies – you can see the pattern here.

How do you like to dress up your instant ramen? 
I'm kind of a purist when it comes to instant ramen – although I’ve always been interested by how much water people choose to use. After I cook the noodles, I usually drain most of the water out so that the flavor is really concentrated.

What's your life motto? 
Probably something like “Enjoy the day.” “Seize the day” always seemed a little too aggressive for my style.

What's 2+2? 
2 + 2 is 4, or perhaps a double date?

Thanks Hollis for being our Fall 2013 Runcible Spoon intern! We're very happy to have you on board. ^_^ -Malaka

The beautiful Athenaeum Niewscentrum, Amsterdam

If you are wondering where to get our beautiful new #SALTissue, here's a handy dandy guide: 

DC: 
Salt and Sundry - Union Market 
Treasury - 14th St
Meeps - Adams Morgan 
Seasonal Pantry - 9th Street
Qualia Coffee - Petworth

NYC:
Brooklyn Kitchen  

Abroad: 
Wardour News - London
Athenaeum Boekhandel- Amsterdam 

Online:
Etsy 
Washington's Green Grocers - (CSA)  
Tilit Chef Goods
Food 52's Provisions (coming soon)  

Where do you think we should sell our magazine? Tell us in a comment below! 

All our dreams came true last Saturday at The Runcible Spoon x Brooklyn Zine Fest's Crowdsourced Community Cookbook-Making Extravaganza with East Village Inky's Ayun Halliday at the Brooklyn Museum's First Saturday event. We were delighted to see more than 80 foodfriends show up to make a page in our community cookbook.

We hauled more than 50 magazines - the same mags we used to create our Breakfast Issue - to NYC from DC for a truly authentic Runcible experience. Here's me and Claire hauling them. They were very heavy! We bought some matching glasses to look "cool" and "New York".

We arrived to the Brooklyn Museum to see our names in a little sign at the entrance of the museum. It was there to help people find our event. Look how happy I am! They always spell Claire's last name wrong :(

The event got underway. There were two sets of 36 guests, one at 8PM and one at 9PM. Kseniya from the Brooklyn Zine Fest and dear zine supporter Eleanor sold copies of the Runcible Spoon, along with East Village Inky and her own zine, I Love Bad Movies, which she runs with BZF cofounder Matt, outside the door. Inside, Matt, Ayun, Claire & her kid sister Ally, and I helped zinemakers create their pages and helped answer any questions.

Here's me and Claire with the final zine pages. There were recipes for two kinds of potato salads, an awesome burger sauce, the best salmon fish sandwich and a killer hot chocolate.

Here's my favorite picture of the day - some of the participants with their final pages! The one from the lower left hand corner is a fellow zinemaker, Jenipher Lyn. She did a write up of the zine event here.

After a very intense two hours, Claire and I rounded the whole event out with a much-needed trip to the local McDonalds. Fish McBites!

Special thanks to Matt and Kseniya of Brooklyn Zine Fest, Ayun Halliday from the East Village Inky and Alicia and Lauren from the Brooklyn Museum for helping make this event a reality. Read the BZF's take on the event here.

And be sure to keep your eyes peeled for the finished Cookbook Zine at the end of the month. We'll keep you updated! 

-Malaka

Hello foodrats!

A few weekends ago we spent the day in Annandale, Va. One of the many places we visited was Shilla bakery, where I ordered myself a ginger tea to help myself digest the enormous dinner we'd just had at Lighthouse Cafe. I was expecting a regular old tea bag, but what I got was a wonderfully fresh brew of grated ginger and honey.

I've made ginger tea from scratch before -- in that I boiled ginger in water and just drank that. But apparently this is a thing in Korea. I have since started seeing it in the Asian grocery stores, but that stuff has sugar added.

Instead, inspired by Maangchi's food blog, I pureed* a whole bunch of ginger -- and combined it in equal parts with honey. Now I have a little jar of the stuff in the fridge ready to go whenever!

* by pureed I mean unsucessfully tried three kitchen gadgets before resorting to the microplane

-- Claire

Bryan Minnich, an illustrator and graphic designer here in D.C., just started Popular Demand, a beautifully designed print magazine that showcases an unexpected collection of illustrations, stories, photography and artworks. It's presence is a testament to the District's growing independent design and publishing community, and we at the Runcible Spoon couldn't be more excited about having a top-quality homegrown magazine to add to our bookshelves. 

In his inaugural issue, there is a beautiful photo spread of oil spills on the road after the rain by Runcible Spoon editor Claire O'Neill, light and airy watercolor drawings of album covers by Katlyn D'Angelo, and even an impossible maze game. 

The magazine is not available to read online, so if you would like to purchase a copy, buy one at Redeem, the clothing boutique on 14th Street, or flip through it at Immortal Beloved. 

Let Bryan know what you think of his zine and leave him a nice comment below! But first, some photos:  

-Malaka

We were very excited to be a part of the 2nd Annual DC Zinefest at the St. Stephen's Church last Saturday. There were lots of awesome comics and zinesters there, including Moonroot, Hoax and Seed (and about 50 million others I can't remember the names of). 

An amazing selection of indie comic books. And oh look, there's me in the background! 

Dirk, one of the main organizers of the Zinefest, with his "Cool Story Bro" shirt. It cracked me up. 

Oh look there's me again! 

So many people!