Liven Up Your Next Market Visit With These New Cleaver Quarterly Veggie Trading Cards
Unless you’re a far keener Chinese student than me, the prospect of hunkering down to study vocabulary for vegetables is anything but appetizing. Thankfully, the folks at Cleaver Quarterly (a team that formerly served as much of the editorial spine of the Beijinger) have made a fun, veggie-themed card game that makes learning about your greens far more palatable, if not downright lively.
Though the Cleaver crew made a name for themselves with a (you guessed it) quarterly glossy publication that highlighted Chinese cuisine in all corners of the earth, this new venture is a major denature that nevertheless stays in line with their vibrantly illustrated, foodie-centric ethos (not to mention their penchant for a good Kickstarter project). Each card in the 52-strong deck has a pretty etching of a veggie, its name in both English and Chinese, a nutritional rundown and tips on how to select, store and then prep it for the dinner table, and more.
The makers outlined a number of benefits for these cards on their Kickstarter page, in rhetorical question form:
“Have you ever stepped in the produce section of a Chinese supermarket and felt swamped by the unfamiliar stalks and fronds and tendrils and sprouts? Are you a bit bored with your regular supermarket produce and looking to jazz up your kitchen repertoire? Have you been wondering how to eat healthier without sacrificing flavor? Are you looking to deepen your connection with the Chinese food you already know and love? Does the idea of hand-drawn vegetables paired with deep cultural knowledge make your heart race?”
They also outline a few playful and practical challenges to go along with the cards. First up: the “Dinner Challenge” which involved shuffling up the deck and throwing down a trio of vegetable cards, which you then must purchase and ready for your next meal (showing the cards to your veggie vendor should make for a unique icebreaker, not to mention a free Mandarin lesson).
Then there’s the “Veg of the Week” game. True to its name, it compels you to try a new vegetable each week of the year by picking one randomly from the deck (hence the 52 cards therein). Then there's the “Potluck Challenge” for which you “Organize a potluck dinner party and deal out three cards at random to each invitee. Their challenge is to use all three vegetables in a single dish.” Parents, meanwhile, can unleash their kids on unsuspecting vendors with the aptly named “Kids’ Grocery Scavenger Hunt.”
The cards will be released in January; pledge either USD 15 on their Kickstarter page, or level your veggie game by throwing in USD 75 for the deck as well as swag like a weekly planner sticker sheets and a T-shirt. Jonny White, one of the heads of the project and former managing editor the Beijinger, calls it a “great stocking stuffer,” and goes on to point out that the completion of the campaign and the securing of financial backing makes it “the third successful Kickstarter by TBJ staffers.”
For more information about the project, click here.
Read more about the Cleaver Quarterly here.
More stories by this author here.
Email: kylemullin@truerun.com
Twitter: @MulKyle
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Photos courtesy of the Cleaver Quarterly
