Cocktail of the Week: Basil Mojito!

By now, you must know it's summer. I don't need to remind you of that. Your taste buds are surely telling you things like "don't drink stouts" and "it's not the time for hot beverages". It's the season for ice'd coffee, light beers, and fresh cocktails. It's also that time of the year when harvesting from the garden becomes a daily activity! Right now, basil is the order of the day. It's flourishing, and crowding out our tomatoes in some places. Seeing as it's friday afternoon, I've decided to turn our 

excess basil into a fresh and tangy cocktail to celebrate the end to another week. Here's a simple modification to a trusty old classic: the basil mojito. This summertime favorite is usually made with mint, but (like everything) can be personalized and modified to your tastes! Give this one a try and let us know what you think!

Ingredients:
5-10 basil leaves, depending on size
tablespoon suger

3 lime wedges

3 oz (2 shots) rum
sugar
soda water

Directions:
Mix sugar, basil leaves, and lime wedges together your class. Smash 'em up till the sugar is dissolved and it really smells like basil. Fill the glass with ice, add the shots of rum, and top it off with soda water. Stir it briefly and don't drink it too fast! Enjoy!

Food Of The Week: Grilled Teriyaki Chicken!

Boy I'm starving, not only because it's dinner time, but also because I keep thinking about this grilled teriyaki chicken recipe. It's a great midweek meal! You can mix the marinade the night before, and once you've got the grill going, it's only about 10 minutes from there. Here's the simple version, but like almost everything in the kitchen (or backyard grill) it can be tweaked in a million different directions…  one tablespoon of brown sugar or a teaspoon of cayenne pepper can really change the taste of this one, depending on how you like it! Add your favorite variations to the comments section so we can all give it a try!  

Ingredients: 

4 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves

1 cup teriyaki sauce

2 tablespoons lemon juice

2 teaspoons minced fresh garlic

2 teaspoons sesame oil

Steps:

1. Place chicken, teriyaki sauce, lemon juice, garlic, and sesame oil in a large resealable plastic bag. Seal bag, and shake to coat. Place in refrigerator for 24 hours, turning every so often.

2. Preheat grill for high heat.

3. Lightly oil the grill grate. Remove chicken from bag, discarding any remaining marinade. Grill for 6 to 8 minutes each side, or until juices run clear when chicken is pierced with a fork.

TIP: I prefer to skewer the Chicken, it makes it easier to flip and manage, and certainly doesn't hurt the flavor! Plus, you can skewer it with pineapple, onions, tomatoes, or just about any veggies for a great, well rounded meal! 

Whiskey Milkshakes! a.k.a. milk-punch.

It's Friday, it's HOT! and it's official, I'm not a fan of heat waves... That being said, it's also just about 5 o'clock, which marks the time when many get a well deserved break from a long week. Just about any ice cold beverage is gonna hit the spot today, but my mind's been circling around images of milkshakes, one of my favorite year-round drinks.

A few years ago, while baking in the summer heat at an art fair, a friend showed up and handed me something that simultaneously cooled my core and warmed my spirits. I was drinking a whiskey spiked vanilla milkshake, or as Ben Franklin would have called it, a version of milk-punch!

The simple version of this great cocktail is just that, buy a vanilla milkshake, pour an appropriate amount of whiskey (or bourbon) in to get that slightly browned color and slightly caramelized flavor, and enjoy! It can really be that simple.

If you're making this at home, it doesn't have to get too much more complicated. Sure, you could try to make ice-cream from scratch, or mix cream, milk, bourbon, etc. together for a more authentic treat, but there's no need. Just give this a try:

Ingredients:
4 scoops vanilla ice-cream
1/2 cup ice cubes
a dash of milk
2 oz whiskey or bourbon
sprinkle of nutmeg

Mix the first four ingredients together in a blender, pour into glasses, and sprinkle nutmeg on top. These proportions make about two glasses, but nothing's set in stone, or ice for that matter. Feel free to add more booze, more ice-cream, less ice, more ice, however you want to tweak it to get the consistency and potency you desire.

Now sit down and enjoy that treat! And let us know if you're favorite summer cocktail concoction!

How to Secure Your Booth...

Setting up at a street festival can be one of the most direct, and fun, ways to put your products in front of a new audience. The dense crowds of happy-go-lucky festival goers have made this approach the backbone of our micro-business. Effectively conducting business at one of these festivals, is, however, a highly nuanced matter, which is to say, there are about a billion different aspects to keep in mind. Today's focus, securing your tent.

A solid tent provides shade from the sun, relief from the rain, a barrier to the wind, and a more professional display for your work. That being said, not all tents are created equal. E-Z Up, while making a variety of tents, is the most common and one of the least expensive tents on the market. But they're cheap for a reason. I've seen more bent poles, collapsed canopies, torn corners, and leaky messes with an E-Z Up logo on them than any other brand. Light Dome offers a much higher quality, and much pricier, tent, that has kept us covered for years now.

Regardless of the tent you go with, it's essential that you tie it down. With the canopy stretched over the top, the tent effectively becomes a giant sail, and you'd be shocked how little wind it takes to lift those suckers into the air. Over the years, I've seen all sorts of strategies for tying down a tent, but  two approaches seem the most popular: weights on rope or lots of heavy merchandise. Large sand filled weights, like these (above) are a popular option, but old dumbbells work too! (below)

Like I said, weighing down the tent is 100% necessary, but procuring extra weights is not always necessary. Our display, for instance, is held solidly in place by it's own weight. If you look closely you'll notice that all our hangers, shelves, hats and shirts are all attached to 3x8 foot metal grid panels. Each panel weighs 6 lbs, so with 16 or so, plus all the merchandise, we have more than enough weight to keep things secure.

For most, however, the additional weights are indispensable. Jewelers, potters, painters, musicians, all should be sure the weights are securely attached to the tent itself. I've seen people who simply rest weights on the base of their tent, THIS WILL NOT WORK! Once that tent starts to sway back and forth, they loose their effectiveness. TIES ARE KEY, as you can see from the images above. So be safe, be secure, and good luck!

Fish Tacos!

Given how often I eat tacos, I figured it was about time I shared one of my favorite recipes for fish taco's. There are lots of ways to modify this recipe, we seem to make it slightly different every time, so feel free to experiment and let us know what works, and what doesn't! Enjoy!

Ingredients

• Marinade
• 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 2 tablespoons distilled white vinegar
• 2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
• 2 teaspoons lime zest
• 1 1/2 teaspoons honey
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/2 teaspoon cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon chili powder
• 1 teaspoon seafood seasoning, such as Old Bay™
• 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1 teaspoon hot pepper sauce, or to taste
• 1 pound tilapia (Mahi-mahi works great as well) fillets, cut into chunks 
• Dressing
• 1 (8 ounce) container light sour cream
• 1/2 cup adobo sauce from chipotle peppers
• 2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
• 2 teaspoons lime zest
• 1/4 teaspoon cumin
• 1/4 teaspoon chili powder
• 1/2 teaspoon seafood seasoning, such as Old Bay™
• salt to taste
•  
• Toppings
• 1 (10 ounce) package tortillas
• 3 ripe tomatoes, seeded and diced
• 1 red onion, diced 
• 1 avocado, cubed 
• 1 bunch cilantro, chopped
• 1 small head lettuce, cored and shredded
• 2 limes, cut in wedges

Directions

1. To make the marinade, whisk together the olive oil, vinegar, lime juice, lime zest, honey, garlic, cumin, chili powder, seafood seasoning, black pepper, and hot sauce in a bowl until blended. Place the fish in a shallow dish, and submerge in marinade. Cover, and refrigerate 6 to 8 hours.
2. To make the dressing, combine the sour cream and adobo sauce in a bowl. Stir in the lime juice, lime zest, cumin, chili powder, seafood seasoning. Add salt, and pepper in desired amounts. Cover, and refrigerate until needed.
3. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). 
4. Remove fish from marinade, drain off any excess and discard marinade. Bake fish in preheated oven until it easily flakes with a fork, 9 to 11 minutes.
5. Assemble tacos by placing fish pieces in the center of tortillas with desired amounts of tomatoes, cilantro, and lettuce; drizzle with dressing. To serve, roll up tortillas around fillings, and garnish with lime wedges.

*modified from a recipe by mabcat on allrecipes.com

Hot Times at Art In The Park

Thanks so much to everyone who came out to see us and our new designs at Art In The Park! The weekend was full of HOT weather, HOT music, HOT art, and COLD ice-cream. Clear sky's and good times for all.

 Especially noteworthy were all the great sculptures around. I'm not sure what it is about giant pieces of art that really speak to me. Maybe it's the influence of pop artists and street artists who work on massive scales, maybe it's the desire to be noticed, maybe it's the surreal nature of distorting scales.

It's probably not surprising though, that of all the sculpture work we saw this weekend, the fish art really stood out. Check out the teeth on these puppies. You're definitely going to want a net when bringing one of these in.

The music really boosted the ambiance at Art In The Park. This reggae band definitely added to the light hearted summer feel of the weekend. All-in-all, it was a wonderful, and exhausting weekend. Check in next weekend as we head to Fargo for the Downtown Street Fair.

Celebrate Your Independence

Wow, what a 4th! It's practically our favorite holiday here at Fish Face, so we made sure to take some time off to enjoy the weekend. BBQ on the grill, beers in the kiddy pool, motorcycle rides through the country-side, bags in the backyard, the smell of fresh cut grass, guitars by the bon-fire; this weekend had it all!

The point is, we take our independence seriously over here, and we sincerely hope you got a chance to enjoy yours. As a mico-business, The freedom we have to steer the ship is one of the defining features of being a micro-business (at least in our minds). But it's not the kind of freedom where you can just run around doing whatever you feel like, we're still responsible to our customers after all. What we do have is the kind of independence that comes from putting yourself, your whole self, in your work each and every day. And at Fish Face, that's what independence means to us, it means being free to be yourself, to be a little quirky, a little different. It means being a "gone thinking" kinda guy on one day, and a "just add beer" dude the next.

So we say take your independence, and run with it, whichever direction you wanna go!