Work It Brooklyn

                                                           

Work It Brooklyn

February 24th

7 - 10pm

Arsenal

170 N4th btw Bedford & Driggs Ave

Free

Calling all freelance creative workers of Brooklyn!

Join us on February 24th for Work It Brooklyn, a networking event formed to connect inspired creatives working independently within the creative fields. Graphic designers, dancers, musicians, tech gurus, painters, and others are welcomed in this evening of productive debauchery. WIB is devised as a forum to connect folks working from home without the benefit of a network support system, opening up the opportunity to meet and forge partnerships, fine and create work, instigate healthy competition, and encourage the exchange of ideas and potential collaborations, all the while having a whole lot of fun.

It is no understatement that North Brooklyn is bustling with new initiatives at every turn, in food (Greenpoint Food Market, The Meathook, CSA's, Rooftop Farms), green ambitions (North Brooklyn Compost Project, additional Green Markets), art (3rd Ward, North Brooklyn Public Art Coalition), community and social issues (Williamsburg Walks, Northside Town Hall), and sports (North Brooklyn Runners, McCarren Tennis). WIB is an effort to connect the residents of this region, individuals already filled to the brim with activity, bringing them together for an evening of conversation and partnership.

The evening will be held in two parts. The Arsenal will be divided into six field-related stations, providing a hub for folks to gather within and outside their primary concentration. At the center of the space there will be Speed Networking. Think musical chairs meets speed dating, where attendees get to meet and speak through this spunky and time sensitive activity. We will also be raffling off tickets for a chance to win prizes provided by our proud sponsors, local businesses and organizations that believe that WIB rocks as much as we do.

There will also be a projection screen with a presentation of any attendants who wish to submit a page with a portfolio sample and contacts. That way if someone likes what they see in what you do on this screen, they can contact you once the evening is over, or serendipitously meet during the event and start what could be a beautiful collaboration between creative minds. Read the instructions attached and check out our blog for details on submitting templates for the presentation, due Feb 19^th.

This is a free event and pre-registration via eventbrite is required. Registration closes Feb 19^th or whenever we reach 100 attendees.

workitbrooklyn.eventbrite.com

^{Work It Brooklyn is produced by Aja Marsh (North Brooklyn Runners), Briana Campbell (Unemployed Brooklyn) and Joann Kim (Greenpoint Food Market). For full details and schedule for the evening, check out workitbrooklyn.wordpress.com}

^{Please feel free to contact us at workitbrooklyn@gmail.com}  

Work It Brooklyn is proudly sponsored by Brooklyn Based, The Arsenal, The Skint and Ladies Who Launch. Raffles graciously donated by Kombucha Brooklyn, WORD, Brooklyn Brewery, Ladies Who Launch, and more to come!

          

Hire Me Martha: The Blog Show

Oh my goodness, gentle readers! Your MatchGirl had quite a week. And I apologize for the lack of posts. I have, however, a very good excuse.

You MatchGirl was on The Martha Stewart Show!

Read all about my day on Hire Me Martha.

Hire Me Martha: Handmade Holiday

A new post on Hire Me Martha with images from my handmade holiday!

The French Chef

Recently, gentle readers, your MatchGirl has been reading "My Life In France" by Julia Child.  In the memoir, Ms. Child recounts moving to France (*sigh* Paris) with her husband Paul in the late 1940s and her discovery of - what became her life long passion - French cuisine.

What inspires me, in these tough times, about this, dear ones, is that Julia Child was in her mid 30s when she met the man of her dreams, her late 30s when she moved to France and her early 40s when she actually started her career as, what we might call now, a professional foodie.  Sure, she had other jobs in her life, she had a good New England liberal arts education, she had a good life - but it was in her 30s that she discovered what would be the passion that drove her for the rest of her life.

This give me hope.

Your MatchGirl, as you may know, has had a few different jobs throughout her "career".  But not one of them was something that she was passionate about.  Of course, the type of person I am, I threw myself into each and every job I have had - long hours, low pay, nightmares about shoes in the rickety stockroom falling on my head... - but none of these places ever drove me.  None of these jobs inspired me to do better, to learn more, to grow grow grow in a very personal way - the way that her discovery of French food drove Julia Child.  But, the more I think about it, the more I know what I do want to do - or, more to the point, where I want to work.   And the type of work that I want to do.

I used to feel crazy (and jealous) that so many of my friends seemed to find their passion - and careers that they wanted to pursue - early in life.  I cannot even count how many friends I have who are passionate doctors and lawyers and teachers - who knew that they wanted to do this by their Freshman year at college.  Not me.  I knew what I enjoyed, and it was varied, but I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life.  The question, "what do you want to do when you grow up?" could be answered differently depending on the day, or hour, that you asked me for most of my life.  In reality, I just want to be happy.  I want to want to go to work because I enjoy what I am doing, or why I am doing it.

But Julia Child didn't figure any of it out - man, marriage, career - until she was just older than I am now.  And that, my dear readers, gives me hope.

(image via The New York Times)

Hire Me Martha

Ah, gentle readers, as many of you know, your MatchGirl adores Martha Stewart. I've written about it here before. And last week, thanks to one of our fellow unemployeds (yay, Tony!), your MatchGirl had the opportunity to attend the taping of Martha's Brooklyn show (which you can watch here, if you missed it!).

The studio was totally big and beautiful, with a huge kitchen area, crafting area and humongous "greenhouse" looking section where she films her outdoor and gardening segments. Thanks to, I dunno, sheer luck, we were seated in the front row and had a prime view of Martha and her guests (and, of course, Joey, her warm-up guy). Martha was everything I had hoped she would be - please no jokes about insider trading or that you know she's a bitch - she was totally self-deprecating and professional (and, once or twice, funny).

It was an amazing day. Who cares that I had to get up when it was still dark outside! It was so worth it! Beyond worth it.

As many of you know, I want to work for Martha.

So, dear ones, I have decided that I am going to launch a campaign, via this little blog, to get hired by Martha Stewart. Once a week I will write a post about how much I want to work for Martha and the reasons that she should hire me. Maybe someone who works for her will see it. Maybe not. But when I think about my job hunt - and where the past year has taken me, and the kind of job that I'd like to do on a regular basis - every day - I want to be doing things that I enjoy. I want to be able to work in a creative environment and get to be creative and to be surrounded by creative people. I want to work somewhere where creativity and a passion for all things creative (crafts, arts, sewing, baking cooking, gardening) is the status quo. And that's hard to find, even in New York.

Many of you have messaged me or e-mailed me to attempt to get me a connection at her company, and I really appreciate it. Many of you have said that she is a bitch, but the simple fact of the matter is that I've worked for a bunch of real tough people, and taken a lot of crap, and not one of them was as successful (or had really any excuse for being so rude, except that power had gone to their heads) as Martha Stewart. And, a few of you have said that she has a hiring freeze (which is probably very true - so many places do!), but that can't last forever, can it?

I'm a great manager and would happily take an administrative position somewhere in her company. Anything. A foot in the door is all I am asking for - it's the hardest thing, of course - but it's all I need. Once I'm in... Martha will see how much of an asset I can be to Martha Stewart Omnimedia. Seriously. Just leave it to me.

So, hire me Martha!

Dream Job?

Ah, my lovelies, your MatchGirl has been looking for a job for a long time now. Your MatchGirl is frustrated. Your MatchGirl has felt all over the place. Especially as the year of unemployment looms and I feel as though I should just take anything that comes my way.

But here's the thing, gentle readers, I don't want to have to take just anything that comes my way. I want something that I am good at and that I am interested in and that I'll want to do for a while. At the end of the day, I want to work for Martha Stewart.

There. I said it. I want to work for Martha. She does all the things that I enjoy - baking, crafting, sewing. She gardens - I hardly ever kill the plants in my apartment. I think it could be amazing.

I started my classes at FIT because I'd like to go into Textile Design, and, while I am learning a lot, I'm not really sure the next step in this journey. I love what I have learned so far. I think I am pretty good at it and with a little practice I will be a lot better at it (but isn't that how everything works?). I suppose I should figure out how to get something entry level, but I am not sure where to begin.

When I think about working for Martha, I think about how diverse her creativity is - how many types of crafts and sewing and baking and cooking projects that she offers to her readers and her viewers. And I think about how great it would be, how fun, to spend your day not only perfecting projects, but coming up with new ones or tweaking old ones so they are modern. How great would it be to break a project down to it's barest parts and then teach it to someone - someone who thinks they're no good at stitching or baking or papier-mâché - and have them do it almost as good as Martha? (I mean, let's face it, no one is as good as Martha).

So. There it is. I want to work for Martha.
Who's going to hook me up with an interview?

Frugal October

Katharine over at NYC Recession Diary has challenged herself to a FRUTOBER and your MatchGirl is considering whether she will participate.

The basic premise is that, during the month of October, she will spend only $75 on food. Wow. That is definitely frugal! I spent $28 yesterday with an eye towards trying to figure out exactly how many meals/days I could get out of it. I'm sort of guessing a week (so far two, with a couple more planned).

Here are her rules:

October Hacks
Honestly, I’ve got to keep this kind of interesting. Here are my October Budget “Hacks” so it feels a little more like a game than like hell:

--Any change I find can be spent on top of the $75 food or $25 party budgets, unless it’s from my change bowl at home (I also can’t steal – dammit).
--Free food at work is free, baby.
--I will not ask anyone for anything, but if someone offers me free food, drinks or whatnot, it’s not against my rules to accept. But I will NOT become a food-digger. (Like a gold-digger. Get it? hah hah. You can hold me accountable in my blog posts.)
--If in the really off chance I sell something, I can spend only half of the money made. The other half goes into my savings account. (Doubt I’ll be selling anything, but who knows.)

Some of these are tricks that your MatchGirl has found helpful over the past several months (especially the food-digger part!) and I highly recommend for you to try!

If you feel like joining her in her frugal food journey, let her know at nycrecessiondiary AT gmail.com.

I'll keep you all posted if I decide to participate!

The Key To Happiness

A week or so ago, dear ones, your MatchGirl received a copy of the newly published book Happiness On $10 A Day by Brooklyn gal Heather Wagner. It proclaims to be a recession-proof guide to happiness, with 120 wallet-friendly activities.

And after reading it - cover to cover - I would have to agree.

Divided into chapters ranging from "Flying Solo" to "Schadenfreude" and then subdivided with costs and quirky icons representing exactly what type of happiness you will find with each activity, Happiness is a fun, quick read - filled with a lot of cheap (and many free) things to do.

Sure, you may already know that sitting on a park bench, alternating between watching the locals pass by and reading a book, while sipping a beverage from a thermos, is a lovely way to spend an afternoon, did you consider all the other free and fun things you can do in your favorite park? In your city? With your hunny (or that random guy/gal you picked up at the Meat Market last night)?

Here are a few of my favorites:

Stalk Your Successful Friend's Online Presence: Gore Vidal once said "Every time a friend succeeds, I die a little."

I mean, who amongst us hasn't felt a pang of jealousy when a frenemy succeeds. Especially, if , like yours truly, one is unemployed and single and not really sure where that is going to take them!

Amateur Mixology:

Included in this section are several tasty recipes for classic cocktails. Your MatchGirl's favorite part? The recession versions, like this one for a classic Caipirinha:

Substitute good-quality cachaça with bottom-shelf rum, mix with 7-Up over ice, and serve with Telemundo

Bake Your Own Bread: ... it's fun to be at home, working on this hearty and wholesome project, as opposed to being outside, where you're far more likely to spend money and get into trouble.

Trouble! Tell me about it! Your MatchGirl spent many a wintry, unemployed day inside baking and saved a lot of money! Though perhaps she could have used a little bit more of the getting into trouble...

Happiness reads like it was written by your girlfriend - the one who plans the most fun outings at the drop of the hat, who has a killer boyfriend who seems like one of the gang and who is always willing to go bar-hopping so you can get your single self a li'l summin summin. And your MatchGirl has five copies of this book to give away to you, gentle readers.

If you'd like one of these swell tomes, send me an e-mail (unemployedbrooklyn @ gmail.com) with your favorite recession friendly (cheap or free, please!!!) activity. The first five to reply will receive a copy of the book. I will share all my favorites on Unemployed Brooklyn at a later date.

Budget Gourmet

Most of the time (present humid, NYC heat wave aside), gentle readers, your MatchGirl likes to cook. Cooking is fun. Cooking gives you a sense of accomplishment. Cooking for one is less fun - it's only you who gets to taste the fun things you've done - but, of course, it's only you who gets to taste it if you've made a mess of things, too.

Last weekend Michael Pollan wrote an article for the NY Times Sunday Magazine about how he thinks cooking shows are making the act of cooking into a spectator sport, as opposed to really inspiring people. And, while there are many times that I will turn on Food Network to watch a competition - Iron Chef/Iron Chef America, Chopped (with a shout out and congratulations to neighborhood fave Cody Utzmam) and Top Chef on Bravo - to see people cook things I probably wouldn't make for one (I'm talking to you, Barefoot Contessa!), or just to see someone experience another culture (and salivate over my favorite "celebrity" chef - how sexy is he in A Cook's Tour?!!), I've learned a lot, too.

In unemployment, however, though one has all the time in the world to spend cooking up fancy feast for family, friends and lovers, one does not really have the money to buy the fancy ingredients! So, while I enjoyed reading (and watching) Julie & Julia, dear ones, your MatchGirl cannot really imagine running all over the city looking for the ingredients for most of the recipes in Mastering the Art of French cooking - and I'm sure those of you living off your unemployment checks are in a similar boat.

I've definitely looked for ways to rein in my food budget in the past several months - easting out less and cheaper, cooking vats of things and eating it for days on end, coercing employed friends to buy me huge meals that will sustain me for the whole day and, something I have done a lot in my life - more because I have had a roommate or a boyfriend who was - cooking vegetarian. And while you can still drop a lot of cash cooking vegetarian/vegan - a bag of dried beans is pretty much always going to cost you less than a pound of meat. And keep longer in your pantry.

A vegan friend turned me onto 101 Cookbooks about a year ago and while she has some pricey ingredients included from time to time, most of it you can source from your local greenmarket or grocery and, of course, if you know about combining flavor (or are fearless with experimenting with it), you can always substitute something you have around for some ingredient you only need 1/4 cup of and you'll never use again.

Another one of my go-to foodie websites is Not Eating Out in New York, where Brooklyn gal Cathy spent two years not eating out - and therefore coming up with a ton of yummy and accessible recipes for her website. She not only has recipes, but writes about local food events, visits farms and gardens and keeps her readers informed about cook-offs and classes in NYC. For the most part, her recipes are filled with ingredients that you'll have around, or are easily sourced - and she breaks down every recipe based on cost and health factors.

Eating at home, day in and day out, three meals a day, when you are single and unemployed, can be quite a bore - more of a chore than a pleasure. Anyone else have great go-to websites or recipes that have been helping them through the tough times? your MatchGirl would love to hear them.

Frugal Foodie?

A couple of weeks ago, your MatchGirl was at KeyFoods with a dear friend. Said dear friend is famous - infamous, perhaps - for his frugality. There are stories that span years to this friend's frugality.

And, honestly, in the current depression, I think we could all take a tip from frugal friend. But looking at some of the things he was buying - sugary cereal because it was on sale, the cheapest American "cheese" - started me wondering about eating well on a shoestring budget. As I teased this friend, he said that you can only eat "good" food if you spend a lot of money*. And, though MatchGirl has never had a lot of money, she will, gentle reader, shell out a little more for a grass fed pork chop over that one covered with freezer burn in the grocer's case. And, as my unemployment reaches it's 6 month mark, I am trying to rein in the spending - on necessities and on extras. So, I'm not going out a lot. I'm cooking most of my meals at home.

But what to do, dear readers, if you stare in your cupboard and see only bulgar wheat, a can of crushed tomatoes and some onions? What if you have only one egg and a quarter cup of sugar? What if you are just staring into that cupboard and all you can think, seeing how very bare it is, is that ordering pizza/thai/tacos would be so much easier than figuring out what the heck to cook? What's a gal on a budget to do?

I was alerted today to the website supercook.com. All you have to do is type in the ingredients laying about your kitchen and voila! the site searches the web for recipes with the ingredients that you already have. Now, I'm not saying that it is going to save you loads of cash, but I think it's a great way to cut back on one's food waste and use those random cans and veggies and frozen leftovers bits you have around.



*correction: Frugal friend was referring to that fact that it is not easy to eat cheaply if you are eating organic or local

"it's expensive to eat organic or local or (fill in the blank trendy dietary statement from the nyt style section)
but eating healthy is affordable
in fact really affordable. exhibit a: frozen veggies - cheap, healthy, easy"

Sexy Pasta

Everyone loves a good plate of pasta. And it's one of the indulgences in which we poor, unemployed people can still partake. Pasta is cheap. You can put anything on it. It's really hard to mess it up.

Many years ago, a lifetime really, a former roommate of MatchGirl found a recipe for a post-coital pasta sauce in Cosmo and passed it along. To the best of my recollection (it was a lifetime ago to be fair), it involved a salsa-like mix of ingredients and a splash of vodka - a cream-less, cook-less vodka sauce.

Arriving home from what turned out to be an amazing weekend on Sunday night, I was starving - craving real sustenance. It was also about 80 degrees once the sun went down, so I wasn't really feeling like cooking. After a careful inspection of the cupboards and after thinking about this Cosmo pasta from long long ago, I decided to try my hand at it. I Googled, but found nothing but that thick and creamy Vodka sauce that is so very all-American and so very not what I wanted on a hot night in May.

So I made it up as I went along (which is half the fun of cooking, anyway!).

Here's what I came up with:
1 can of diced tomatoes (use fresh if you have them, halved grape tomatoes would be super tasty in this)
1 very small red onion, diced small
3 cloves garlic (use less if you do not <3 garlic as I do)
1 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
a little fresh basil
scant 1/4 cup vodka
1/2 box of ridged ziti (or other pasta that takes a hearty sauce well), cooked

Make the salsa-y sauce in a big bowl, make the pasta and toss it all together
So simple
So filling
SO CHEAP

And while I ate this particular batch by myself, it certainly would be simple and yummy as post-coital summertime meal on one of those long, lazy afternoons ...

Cupcake Cookoff

After reading about the Brooklyn Kitchen sponsored Cupcake Cookoff on Greenpointers (and I think I saw it on Not Eating Out In New York as well) ... I decided to send an e-mail and see if they were still accepting entries ...and somehow signed myself up!




Um... Shit!
I guess I better get cooking! My cupcake recipe is top notch - really perfected. But I think I need to work on my frosting ... To frost? To ice? OH MY!

All the proceeds benefit the Greenpoint Soup Kitchen (where I am thinking of volunteering, at least for the summer, once my classes are complete) so come out for a good time and loads and loads of sugar!

Domestic Goddess

Today, though the sun is shining, the temps are still low. Spring has definitely not sprung! So, I will lay low and get some domestic duties done. Sure, I have no job - I have all the time in the world to do these things, so why bother to blog about it?

Well, my lovelies, just because one has all the time in the world to be a domestic goddess does not mean that one always makes the best use of one's time. These days of unemployment can so easily be filled on the laptop, on the couch ... cruising first Craigslist (getting the day started right by looking for that elusive job), then Facebook (catching up with friends and leaving both sweet and snarky comments) and all the various blogs that you link to/love/never had time to read previously ...

So, though I have gotten a bit of a late start to today (though writing in my blog already is not such a bad way to start the day) - I have written myself a large to-do list of domestic duties - besides the usual sweep the floor, wipe down the bathroom - I am also going to cook up some fun cabbage based recipes from 101 Cookbooks and get crafty, hopefully finishing the spring jacket that I have been working on and making a baby gift (ok, getting started on making a baby gift) for my friend's newborn girlie ...

And for those less than crafty kids out there wondering what to do with their time, you can always learn.

Don't have the money for a craft class? Perhaps a free computer workshop would be better for you ... I'm thinking of signing up for a couple of these when the time is right.