ben and greg in black white

someone sent us this swell black and white picture from the foodbank demo. i feel it depicts us as serious culinary professionals engaged in our craft. this depiction is of course wrong. when this was taken, we were drinking apple cider martinis, beers, and trying to avoid starting to clean up.

ben and greg's renegade lunch launch lunch

whew. well, we did it. today at noon, we invited 30 lucky, select guests to marigold/spice of life HQ for a sample renegade lunch. the meal consisted of roasted red pepper soup and potato soup ladeled yin-yang style and a cleveland-tastic entree plate of our handmade gnocchi with sauteed cabbage, brined and smoked chicken, pickled fennel, and a paprika-cream sauce. the tasty lunch began with a cider spritzer and ended with coffee and some homemade mille feuille triangles glazed with turbinado sugar. hopefully, the guests will help us both get the word out about the project and open some doors for us to actually host these things around town. we're still looking to do this in public sometime in january, so stay tuned. for the record, neither ben nor greg did anything to injure or embarrass themselves, so the lunch must have been a success! a very special and heart-felt thanks to brian, beverly, cheryl, dana, jess, and mable who all worked so hard to make the warehouse into a giant communal dining table with two fools like us for the centerpiece.

ben and greg at the foodbank!

the boys were given the chance to bring their particular blend of cooking demo, comedy, and drinking on the job to the foodbank on friday, december 5th for a birthday party/benefit. the night was a blast and a big success. notice all of the liquor and sugar-free redbulls in front of greg. no wonder ben's the one who's sweating.

and so it begins...

sooo...a few weeks back i had this crazy idea. what if, i thought, ben and i just started doing random free plated lunches around town? i know that times are tough for a lot of people in the working world and especially in our fair city and i also expect that morale can't be at its all time high. ben and i have always enjoyed the unexpected and more than a little chaos, so i figured we could combine that with food and come up with something unusual, exciting, and a little chaotic. hence, ben and greg's renegade lunch project. over the coming months, we hope to start having these unexpected, free plated lunches around town right where people are working. the meals will be for twenty unsuspecting, first come-first served guests and feature at least two courses of our locally-sourced, sustainably farmed tasty seasonal cuisine. we think of it as food as performance art and a little something to bring some added happiness into people's days. let the renegade lunch project begin!