Several members of the Hammock crew dusted off our cameras in August to have some fun with a photo scavenger hunt. The rules were simple: Interpret the nine items on the list in any creative or literal way that we wanted, and have fun!

What Megan found:

Several members of the Hammock crew dusted off our cameras in August to have some fun with a photo scavenger hunt. The rules were simple: Interpret the nine items on the list in any creative or literal way that we wanted, and have fun!
We were hunting for nine items:

• It’s 5 o’clock somewhere
• Print
• Hammock
• More than one
• Blue
• Caffeinated
• Fresh
• Digital
• Only in …

Summer was wonderful in so many ways (kayaking! filmmaking! travels out West!), but I can’t wait for fall. One reason? Megan Morris and I are taking a photography class at a nearby art school in a couple of weeks. I even have new school supplies! Yep, this shiny new (used) camera is taunting me with all its buttons that I don’t yet know how to use. I expect the class to help me unlock the potential of the camera, and I hope it gets me just a tiny bit closer to the photographic talents of Hammock friends like the other wonderful Summer I know.

Ready to shoot some autumn leaves—bring ’em on!

Summer gardening season is winding down, but that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy fresh produce through the winter, too. It’s not too late to start planting your winter vegetable seeds (although, if you plan to garden this winter, you better jump on it quickly). Leafy greens, beets, carrots, turnips, parsnips, broccoli and cauliflower can all be planted now and harvested later this fall.

To protect your fall garden from frost, be sure to keep an eye on the weather forecast. Although these fall veggies can survive a light (and oftentimes even a heavy) frost, you’ll want to protect your plants from the cold with polyethylene blankets, corrugated fiberglass covers or even used milk jugs with the bottoms removed. Here are a few tips for fall planting:

• Use the empty plots once you’ve harvested your end-of-summer produce to keep the soil fertile for spring planting — and to give you a spot to grow some fare for wintertime.
• It rains less in the late fall, so be sure to keep your provide constant soil moisture in order to increase seed germination.
• Don’t forget that beautiful Indian Summer weather usually follows the first frost, and can be the best weather of the fall season for growing vegetables.
• Seeds should be planted deeper in the fall, since moisture levels lie deeper in the earth than they do in the spring.

Now, the question remains: What do you do with your remaining summer produce? Now that my CSA is winding down, I’m seeing lots of corn and plenty of potatoes. If you’re like me, eating baked potatoes can get old pretty quickly. Luckily, being a part of a large Italian family makes me privy to my grandmother’s traditional Italian recipes, like gnocchi — and it’s not as hard to make as you might think.

Ingredients:
2 pounds potatoes (any variety will work, but I prefer to use red potatoes)
1 egg, slightly beaten
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups flour

Step 1: Poke holes all over the potatoes with a fork, and bake uncovered at 350 for about 45 minutes.

Step 2: Once the potatoes are cool enough to handle, peel them and use a potato masher (or if you’re like me and don’t own one, a fork will do) to mash them until all lumps are gone.

Step 3: Add the egg and salt to the potatoes and mix well.

Step 4: Add flour to the mixture a 1/2 cup at a time and knead into a soft dough with your hands.

Step 5: Separate the dough into 4 balls, roll each ball into a long tube, and cut the dough into 1-inch pieces.

Step 6: Boil the gnocchi until they float to the top of the pot, drain, and top with a marinara sauce, or quartered roma tomatoes.

Quiet on the Set! Cameras rolling. Scene 1, Take 1. Action!

If you’re an avid movie fan like me, you might harbor a secret desire to utter those lines on an actual film set. I got to be just that lucky recently as part of a team competing in the 48 Hour Film Project, a nationwide contest challenging amateur filmmakers across the country to write, film, edit and complete a short (five- to seven-minute) movie. All of it–from concept to execution–has to take place within 48 hours. Each team is randomly assigned a genre, ranging from buddy pic to horror flick, and all teams have certain elements (a character, line of dialogue and prop) that are required in the final film.

Friends in the illustrious (and award-winning) team Fighting With Forks invited me to be a part of the Nashville competition July 17-19. I didn’t even ask what they wanted me to do, that’s how fast I said yes.

The 48 hours we spent getting to know each other and working hard to tell a compelling story were intense but great fun. Our two days together roughly went like this: Around 6 p.m. on Friday, the entire team gathered to hear our chosen genre (fantasy) and the required elements chosen randomly for our city’s competition (an actor named Charles or Charlene Little, a still camera as a prop and the line of dialogue, “I’m trying to decide.”) We spend a few hours brainstorming possible storylines, ranging from the ridiculous (foreshadowing!!) to the sublime.

Around 10 p.m., the four writers got down to business, magically churning out a script by the wee hours of the morning (around 3:30–ouch). Here’s the story they concocted: “A man has an epiphany where he thinks that he’s Death. He goes to a therapist to hash out his recent revelation, telling stories from his youth and recent events. He lives with his goth girlfriend, Charlene Little, who is an actress/photographer also obsessed with death. In the end, after sharing several fantastical stories about people and animals dying in his presence, he realizes that his therapist, too, has keeled over.”

The director of photography and his production assistant took the script and drew storyboards until the sun came up to prepare for the next day’s filming. The entire team was due on set at 7 a.m., and everyone (director, DOP, actors, lighting director, cameraman, audio guy, boom mic operator, et. al) spent the entire day–until 11 p.m.–filming. We ate lunch and dinner standing up, with one hand on a slice of pizza while the other hand jotted down notes, set up the next scene or put on makeup. While we filmed, three prodigiously talented musicians wrote original music to go with the script, ending up with an entire album’s worth of songs.

Next, our editor took the miles of raw materials and, along with the director, DOP and a writer, spent hours upon hours shaping the film. (Sleep is for sissies had to be their motto.) The film’s title–“Now You’re Being Ridiculous”–didn’t come until sometime mid-afternoon. By 6 p.m. (an hour early!), the finished product was dropped off.

Satisfied with the ridiculous story told, all the players slept happily ever after.

Postscript: We won best overall film! Watch it here.

Now that we’re about to enter that time of year when our gardens are at their best–and most plentiful, recipes are in high demand. That’s why I was so excited to come across Mark Bittman’s brilliant article “101 Simple Salads for the Season” this week. Whether you are a vegan or a carnivore, Bittman provides innovative ideas for how to inject interesting flavors and combinations into your kitchen. I already made recipe #2 in the vegan section–the salad of tomatoes and peaches. It took less than 5 minutes to make and was divine. Now my only fear is that I won’t have a chance to experiment with more of the recipes before the fruits, veggies and herbs go out of season. Take my lead–print Bittman’s article today and keep it in your kitchen so that it’s handy the next time you are staring at your pint of tomatoes, wondering what to do with them.

If you enjoy celebrating local food — certainly my favorite local food, by the way — then mark your calendar for Saturday, Aug. 8 for the East Nashville Tomato Art Fest. (July 31 is the deadline to submit your tomato haikus — see below for details.)

So what exactly does one do at a tomato festival? Well, first off, don’t expect it to be like La Tomatina, that gigantic tomato food fight that takes place in Spain every year. We have too much love and respect for the tomato to use them as projectiles.

The East Nashville Tomato Art Fest has plenty of fun-for-the-whole-family activities with live music (hey, it’s Nashville) and art and fun competitions all related to the tomato theme.

No doubt, members of Team Hammock will report back on the fun. See you there!

*East Nashville Tomato Art Fest official website
*Map

We are a team full of great business thinkers, creative designers and witty wordsmiths. But there are times when the words just won’t come.

At Hammock we support partners who, like us, have a heart for the environment. Today we congratulate printing partner Quad/Graphics on receiving LEED certification for their manufacturing facility and headquarters in Sussex, Wis. Quad prints MyBusiness magazine for our client the National Federation of Independent Business.

This environmental accomplishment is part of an ongoing effort by Quad to transform all of its manufacturing sites to green buildings. The U.S. Green Building Council created the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System to set standards for environmentally sustainable construction.
We applaud Quad’s commitment to the environment and wish them luck on their green mission as they continue to work to make their nine other facilities LEED-certified too.

If you walk around our offices here at Hammock Inc., you’ll find that most of us Hammockites have cherished desk items that have been with us almost as long as we’ve been working here. While some of us like to keep a fun reminder of our favorite childhood toy in our line of sight, others need some sort of stress reliever within arm’s reach at all times. And whether we choose to display our favorite cartoon, an artifact from our backyard or a gift from a parent, one thing is certain: None of our desks are bare. Here’s a fun slideshow of Hammock’s favorite desk toys.