Drawn Hungry Is a Culinary Card Game from Local Artist Jordan Mishra Johnson

When Jordan Mishra Johnson was a senior at Yamhill Carlton High School, she had two options for college: Pursue her passion for watercolor and charcoal art at the Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle, or go for a business degree from the University of Oregon. Her father pushed for the latter, advising a more “practical” path. She agreed, but with a catch: She decided to minor in fine arts, focusing on digital art, and planned on using her business degree to sell her work. On Friday, November 22, those two paths will converge when Mishra Johnson releases Drawn Hungry, a culinary card game where players mix and match recipes, competing to make the best meal. Each of the hundreds of cards is hand-illustrated by Mishra Johnson, depicting cartoon rabbits throwing dinner parties and lovingly illustrated ingredients and dishes.

If the name Drawn Hungry is familiar, it’s because Mishra Johnson has been using it for years. While working with restaurants and wineries at local PR firm Broussard Communications, she began posting her portraits of chefs and food critics on social media. She continued developing her own art, releasing culinary coloring books and other pieces, eventually transitioning to graphic artist work for Greater Portland Inc. In 2021, she began to explore the idea of releasing her own card game, something that could show off her art while supporting her financially. Going with a culinary theme—a lifelong passion—just made sense, and she was inspired by a popular cooking competition on the Food Network. “I love Chopped and always thought about what I would have done with the ingredients in the basket,” she says. “So, what if I combined that with something like Apples to Apples?”

In Drawn Hungry, players have a hand of cards depicting dishes like quiche and empanadas, as well as ingredients from produce to poultry, each with a point total. One player acts as the “head chef,” who selects a special occasion card (think park picnic, a child’s birthday, or a witchy full moon feast) and a “secret ingredient” card from the ingredients deck. The other players have five minutes to build a menu for the designated special occasion, incorporating the secret ingredient and any combination of their ingredient and dish cards. Each player presents their meals to the head chef, who selects their favorite. The winning player logs their points, and the head chef position moves to the next person at the table. The process repeats until one person has 25 points, winning the game.

One Drawn Hungry session usually takes an hour, but the process of creating the game was far more involved. Mishra Johnson spent more than 1,000 hours over the course of two years picking dishes and ingredients, designing and hand-illustrating each card with an artist and food lover’s eye, using a digital medium and a process that mimicked watercolor techniques. She pulled from her experience “overanalyzing” food photos in her public relations work, making sure each dish was not just immediately recognizable, but enticingly portrayed. “I tried to think about that with every single dish and ingredient,” she says. “Whether it’s chopping a cabbage in half and seeing all those designs…the layers and the crispness. Or a poke bowl, with all its different textures and bright colors.”

In addition to the detailed food, Mishra Johnson also illustrated the special occasion cards that would provide the theme for each round, citing Beatrix Potter’s Peter Rabbit, Richard Scarry’s Busytown, and tarot decks as artistic influences. One side of a card describes the special occasion, whether it’s a backyard barbecue or a harvest festival. On the other side, bunnies feast, party, and romp at the event. Mishra Johnson credits her own pet bunny, Willie Nelson, as the inspiration behind the rabbits. During the lockdown period of the pandemic, she would sketch Willie as a distraction from the world; eventually that transformed into a universe of bunnies going about their daily lives, à la Busytown. “Some people made sourdough, I drew my rabbit making sourdough,” she says.

While working on the art, Mishra Johnson play-tested the game, inviting friends, family, and local restaurant workers to join her. She also visited local game development groups, met with other designers, and in the summer of 2023, launched a Kickstarter campaign. To promote it, she started a YouTube series where she would play Drawn Hungry with various figures from Portland’s culinary scene, people like Craig Melillo of Gracie’s Apizza in St. Johns, Noah Cable of specialty grocer Wellspent Market, and Lauretta Jean’s owner Kate McKillen.

No one needs to be a chef, or even especially capable in the kitchen, to enjoy Drawn Hungry. Anyone who has played a party game like Apples to Apples or Cards Against Humanity knows that it’s more about the fun of gathering together and making up as amusing a hand as you can. “Drawn Hungry is about getting people around the dinner table, away from screens, and cooking up ideas together,” says Mishra Johnson.

Mishra Johnson will throw a launch party at Mississippi wine bar Stem from 3 to 9pm on Friday, November 22; the game will be available for purchase there and online at DrawnHungry.com.