LETTER FROM THE PUBLISHER
A
s I hope you’ve
come to expect,
this issue of Food & Spirits
Magazine, our 14th, is
loaded with some excellent
articles and accompanying
photographs from our
regular contributors.
Some of our former
writers are also making
a timely reappearance,
along with a talented
batch of newcomers. If
we’ve established high
expectations in the past, I don’t think you’ll be let down this
time around.
We also decided to do a few things differently in this issue.
We got a little bit ‘artsy’ and we went back to high school.
You see, we’ve always talked a big game when it comes to
evangelizing the creative community here in Omaha. After all, FSM
has been built on the valuable contributions of the many talented
writers, photographers, illustrators and designers that have graced
our pages. Not to mention all of the extremely talented and creative
folks within the food and spirits industry, which we cover. So too,
we couldn’t be happier about the dynamic developments our fair
city has been seeing over the past couple of years.
“If we’ve established high
expectations in the past, I don’t
think you’ll be let down this
time around.”
Although all of our contributors are artists in their own right,
we’ve always wanted to work with some ‘actual’ artists (you
know, painters, sculptors, installation artists, etc.). We got that
opportunity this issue when some exceptional local artists stepped
up and helped us produce some the pieces you’ll see in the
coming pages.
Hopefully, you’ve noticed one such piece on our cover. It was
done by local impresario Wayne Brekke, who among many other
things, is a writer, musician, dad, husband, podcaster and just an
all-around good guy. Obviously, he’s a pretty darn good artist,
too. You’ll also find paintings by Mark Daniels and Sydney True.
Additionally, we’ve got some great photos of an installation art
piece by Jamie Danielle Hardy. All of them were kind enough to
collaborate with us on this issue and we couldn’t thank
them enough.
You’ll also notice many of the articles work around the theme of
food and spirits as art. On the food side of things we’ll take a look
at cake decorating and cheese as the delectable art that it is, while
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in spirits we’ll look at beer bottle art and the emerging craft cocktail
industry. To round the theme out, we even got another type of artist
to lend us a hand by contributing an article. Scott Zrust, drummer
for local sensations Rock, Paper, Dynamite, takes us on one of the
band’s recent road trips to enlighten us on what a group of kick-ass
musicians eat on the road.
‘Artsy’ indeed.