KIOSK HELLO

We have had a long-time love affair with Project Num­ber 8 with­out them even know­ing and then we had a long-term love affair with them know­ing. How could we not love what they do, beauty! integrity! a bright mind! Rare attrib­utes and even rarer in com­bi­na­tion. When they asked us to make a col­lec­tion of Mid-Atlantic goods for their new loca­tion at the Ace Hotel we started right away. Wooly Willy, Wif­fle and Johnson’s Pop­corn are all rep­re­sented. Like ants climb­ing up their hill or Kate Bush run­ning up it, the col­lec­tion will be added onto as time passes, par­tic­u­larly when we begin on our New Jer­sey col­lec­tion next month. (New Jer­sey being Marco’s loca­tion pick for this year.) Oh it is super…! Please stop on by Project Num­ber 8 at Ace and say hi from us.

Yves is work­ing on a new batch of bowls for us, thanks Yves! Exciting.….

It’s about the peo­ple, the places, the peo­ple… Not for­get­ting how to make things, how things are made, who is mak­ing them and why… show­ing it to oth­ers and want­ing to share what we find in the world, it’s about travel and dis­cov­er­ing and learn­ing. Now… some images from Por­tu­gal… Later… some posts… hope­fully these things we share help and encour­age you to go and meet and talk and learn and see and show. You don’t have to travel far, you just have to get off the machine and take a walk , look up and around you, beauty is every­where.

Below is a good exam­ple of  life at KIOSK or a good exam­ple of why we are NOT in the busi­ness… next blog post will be about why we are in the busi­ness, promise!

From:     Alisa Grifo <alisa@kioskkiosk.com>
Sub­ject:     Re: Order Update
Date:     Feb­ru­ary 23, 2010 6:48:13 PM EST
To:     Grand Canyon Com­mu­nity Library <gccl518@yahoo.com>

It must be hard know­ing every­thing about everything…

On Feb 23, 2010, at 5:49 PM, Grand Canyon Com­mu­nity Library wrote:

Alisa,
Please do put my com­ments on your blog. And feel free to tell the maker of the rack that his work is flimsy. My hus­band is a wood­worker so I know of what I speak. At least refer to it as light weight.
I checked with Fed-Ex and a pack­age of the size I received should cost about $15 to ship “ground” which is the way it was shipped to me.
As a busi­ness per­son it seems you would strive to be hon­est and polite!

Mindy

—– Orig­i­nal Mes­sage —-
From: Alisa Grifo <alisa@kioskkiosk.com>
To: Grand Canyon Com­mu­nity Library <gccl518@yahoo.com>
Sent: Tue, Feb­ru­ary 23, 2010 2:31:04 PM
Sub­ject: Re: Order Update

hi
do you mind if I put your com­ment on our blog?
since you are writ­ing to the pub­lic I assume it is fine to post the infor­ma­tion in a pub­lic realm

I’ll let the man who made the dry­ing rack know you think his work is flimsy
also, please let fedex and the US post know the ship­ping is a rip off , we only pass on what their ship­ping mod­ule calculates

we have no “tele­phone peo­ple” only “peo­ple” here, three to be exact

alisa

On Feb 23, 2010, at 4:19 PM, Grand Canyon Com­mu­nity Library wrote:

Kiosk, Please give your tele­phone peo­ple some cus­tomer ser­vice train­ing!
The Shaker rack is flimsy for $150 and $72 for ship­ping is a TOTAL ripoff.
Sin­cerely,
Mindy Karlsberger

—– Orig­i­nal Mes­sage —-
From: Kiosk <info@kioskkiosk.com>
To: Mindy Karls­berger <gccl518@yahoo.com>
Sent: Fri, Feb­ru­ary 19, 2010 10:32:07 AM
Sub­ject: Order Update

Kiosk
——————————————————
Order Num­ber: 3124
Detailed Invoice: https://kioskkiosk.com/account_history_info.php?order_id=3124
Date Ordered: Wednes­day 17 Feb­ru­ary, 2010

The com­ments for your order are

hi there! your order went out on Wednes­day, you should have the dry­ing rack now ASAP! Hope you enjoy it! KIOSK

How my brain feels half the time

Head­ing to Ice­land March 3rd for a week to hope­fully wran­gle some Ice­landic candy over here for Easter-time. If you have any sug­ges­tions we are in research mode. Any­thing, from a place to stay or eat to a hike in nature. Peo­ple mak­ing tra­di­tional things too! We will be in Reyk­javik, fly­ing to Egilsstader and then dri­ving back on the south­ern road to Reyk­javik, we are on a youth hos­tel bud­get– Thanks the sug­ges­tions are always interesting!

Hey, could this be the paper balloons?

WPIX “cov­er­age”

I am chuck­ling at the idea of it.…

Oh dear Mass­a­chu­setts, what you have you become? When we vis­ited your state and saw all of the Sub­aru Out­backs zip­ping around we thought for cer­tain we were deep in friendly ter­ri­tory, how were we to know?

It’s a good wake-up call to any­one who voted for Obama… time to get engaged once again and stop com­plain­ing that what we are get­ting from “the Man” is not enough or rip­ping on the short­com­ings of the party. It’s a huge improve­ment over what we had the 8 years prior and you bet­ter not for­get it. Sure, I have some prob­lems with the heath care bill, who doesn’t, abor­tion not being included being one BIG prob­lem I have;  no pub­lic plan and my being forced to dance with the big providers being another. How­ever, get­ting out on the dance floor for the first time in so many years one can not expect Sat­ur­day Night Fever moves, you have to develop a good hustle.

From a strictly visual and super­fi­cial view­point this is what I see: Scott Brown: brand­ing that looks like most crappy generic con­sumer pack­ag­ing, ie: fami­lar to the main­stream man, a pol­ished “every­man” atti­tude, he’s edu­cated and he dri­ves a truck!, a team of daugh­ters, one of which was OMG on “Amer­i­can Idol” sur­round­ing him, as well as a dot­ing wife and the required bunch of red faced white guys stand­ing behind him. Martha Coak­ley: brand­ing that matches Obama, neu­tral with just enough design, no cute girls sur­round­ing her but a bunch of stale aca­d­e­mics who get their duds at Talbots/Brooks Broth­ers at best and she looks like she is address­ing The NYU Law Review, a valid orga­ni­za­tion but fairly dry. This is Cast­ing 101. Where is the pizaz Dems? Which angle gives the couch pota­toes more to bite into? Who gives the Democ­rats their style direc­tion? Who are they reach­ing out to, the acad­e­mia and the “higher-educated”? I hate to say it but that’s not the major­ity in any coun­try and it is even less of the major­ity in the United States where sadly “higher-education” is not for all.–$$$$–(Hopefully com­mu­nity and trade col­leges soon come back to life.)

Now, I am not say­ing an image over­haul will win elec­tions and change pub­lic view. But I am say­ing that becom­ing part of the image means the image changes. We need to become a part of the image to make it change, to make it cur­rent to get it in gear. That’s one of the many ways to tackle chang­ing things from “the same old…”.

Regardless…clearly it’s time once again to get engaged and involved. We have had a year off and we have been rest­ing on our lau­rels. We are com­ing back to the States next week and if we get a few peo­ple in on it with us we’d like to do more than make combs and posters sup­port­ing our party of choice. But we need help to get the ball rolling. So please, let us know if you are in it to win it, not just one elec­tion but the big pic­ture too. We have an inde­pen­dent busi­ness to run and all we do is work work work but WE and YOU have to find the time TOGETHER to make it happen.

Thanks for lis­ten­ing and think­ing and doing. If not some­thing with us do some­thing on your own but please don’t just complain.

In my beau­ti­ful balloon…

A friend sent me these pic­tures from her New Years… our paper    bal­loon lift­ing off to space, so lovely.

Lis­ten, 2010, the year of lis­ten­ing. Let’s all lis­ten more. Let’s have less talk­ing, more lis­ten­ing. Less churn­ing, more longevity. Less fluff and more good stuff. Less work and more fun. It’s a good round num­ber to enjoy and roll around in.

Happy 2010 everyone!

Ear com­pli­ments of Bor­dalo Pin­heiro, Portugal

A Happy New Year!!A feast after a feast, i really enjoyed my yummy hol­i­days and now i am  lit­tle  afraid to weight myself…  any­way, I would like to share  some tasty ideas to  eat dried tuna from Por­tu­gal ! First of all, i tried the way Alisa recommended,slice very thin then put some olive oil and fresh thyme.  It was very good and per­fect with beer or dry white wine.  Then, i have noticed that i know this taste… yes, we have a very sim­i­lar smoked tuna in Japan that’s why the taste was so famil­iar with me. So i tried it with some Japan­ese dishes and it came up so good!

I put some slice of dried tuna onto Ramen instead of sliced pork.  As you see, the tuna sliced turned into brown­ish color since it is being in the hot soup broth and get slightly cooked, then it brings out smoky deep fish fla­vor into the soup. Unnnn, it is soooo good!  In addi­tion, it is per­fect top­ping for not meat eater !

Then, i had Ochazuke with dried tuna which came up unbe­liev­able deli­cious!!! Ochazuke is one of easy & quick late night meal. Nor­mally, we use over cooked cold rice, put some top­ping as Nori or Konbu sea­weed, pick­les, salted fish egg or fish and Wasabi.  Then pour some green tea or Hoji tea onto it. This time, i put some Nori, flaked dried tuna, Nozawana(Japanese green leaf)pickles, ground sesame seed,Wasabi and put some soy-sauce then poured Hoji tea all over the bowl. Wow… when i poured tea, very good fish fla­vor spread around! Again, the hot tea slightly cooks the dried tuna so the color turns into brown­ish and tex­ture gets softer then brings out so much fla­vor !  wow, it was the best Ochazuke ever i had!

A Yummy New Year !!!