Teeny tiny muffins are now in my future.
Tag Archives: food
Farmer General #16
Issue 16 of The Farmer General is out! I contributed a short essay on the trials and tribulations of newbie gardening. Check it out!
The Anthology of Pizza Box Graphic Design: Bada Bing
Every six months or so this flyer arrives from Holyoke’s oldest pizzeria, Italian Friendly.
Did you know they are Italian? I mean, they’re called Italian Friendly but just in case it wasn’t clear the following phrases appear on the front page:
“Ay, Forgettaboutit” (I always wondered how to spell that)
“Now you know what I’m talkin’ about”
“Bada bing!”
Need more evidence? The inside menu lists such items as:
“Al Pacino”
“Italian Delight”
and (once again) “Bada Bing”
I’m surprised they didn’t put a cartoon Italian Stereotype chef on the front. To each their own, I guess.
Marketing Mayhem: No.
Question: “What should I get my mom for Mother’s Day?”
Answer: “I don’t know, but definitely not this.”
The Anthology of Pizza Box Graphic Design: Back In Action
Don’t let the absence of pizza box graphic design posts fool you; I’ve been eating/photographing just as much pizza as ever. Get ready for some rapid-fire box critique:
Neighborhood Pizza
I get these street scene boxes so often (here and here) that I might have to come up with a name for the subgenre. Quaint city boxes? Cobblestonia? I’ll have to think on it.
l dig that the cuteness of the setting is married with traditional pizza box elements (“Hot & Delicious”, “Pizza”, a script font, and “Made just for you…”). The one downside is the color scheme, which feels a little too “autumn vomit.” Overall, though, it’s a pretty posh box.
This example came from Pizza Star, a solidly traditional slice place right off the New York State Thruway. Thin and greasy — just the thing for the long haul back home.
The MAX Box
I don’t know where I got this one but it looks like it came off the set of Saved By The Bell. I love 1980s-era design (really, I kind of do) so this box gets a thumbs-up. (Additional points for the missing apostrophe on “Its.” Who doesn’t love a good typo?)
Old Times
Back in the day, Luna Pizza had a great little cafe in Northampton MA that served up the best thin-crust pies in the valley. Predictably, they didn’t last. Just recently, we happened upon Luna’s other restaurant during a drive through Connecticut. The slices didn’t disappoint, and neither did this Dante-inspired box. Doesn’t it look like you’re peering into the mouth of hell? I guess it could just be a brick oven.
New Old Style
This is a new box design, but I love it anyway. The checkerboard print, the silhouette slices, the vintage styling…even the lowercase i in PiZZA is quirky and appealing.
I especially appreciate the extraneous wordiness of “Custom Made to Your Order.” Because Custom Made To Order would have been FAR TOO GENERAL.
And finally, Your Moment of Zen: A choice margherita pie from Hungry Ghost Bakery. Like a lot of nontraditional pizza places, they don’t do printed boxes. But when you’ve got this kind of crust bubble, you can get away with anything.
Marketing Mayhem: Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes
CedarLane frozen foods and I got history. In college, I nearly subsisted on Cedarlane Quesadillas and Nantucket Nectar Half-and-Halfs. Mr. Max and I would pick them up from the 24-hour Stop & Shop, then return to my dorm room with rented VHS tapes of David Attenborough nature documents.
We were wild, I tell you.
So when I saw that CedarLane redesigned their packaging, my immediate reaction was, ‘Sacrilege!”
(I kind of dislike change.)
On further inspection, the redesign is actually kind of nice. It’s pretty in a minimalist way and it stands out next to the other frozen foods in the “natural” section. Overall, it’s not a huge departure from the original box, except when it comes to the tagline on the side of the box:
“Take home a sexy Italian.”
Get it? Because it’s an Italian dish. Mr. Max and I call dark chocolate cookies “sexy cookies” because it makes sense for a dessert to be sexy. But eggplant? Eggplant is not sexy.
Farmer General #12
I’ve got a short piece titled “10 Justifications for Eating Out: A List of New Year’s Anti-Resolutions” in this month’s issue of The Farmer General.
The fact that I’m posting this New Year’s themed article in February is somewhat fitting as it’s all about eschewing self-improvement. Tardiness forever!
Be sure to check out the rest of the resolution-themed issue here.