east west

Our friends Becca and Raj are getting married tomorrow!

She is a Michigander, he is Bengali and although they are getting married here, and much of his extended family isn't able to make the long journey to attend, it was really important to both bride and groom to incorporate some of the traditions of his culture into their big day.

I know Becca is not going to wear red (that would have been awesome) but I am really excited to see what things they chose to include and how they work it all together.

Congratulations Becca and Raj!
image here.

can do

Maria Kalman has done it again!
check the whole thing here.

crazy lady

For some strange reason, Chiara thought she was supposed to send us a package on her birthday, but since it was filled with such great and thoughtful presents and pretty much the nicest thank you note ever written, I'm not gonna argue.

Thank you, Chiara, we love everything! Steven especially loves the olive oil, I especially love the photos of the boys (Steven too), and the flea market guide, and the cook book, and the chocolate. (ok, I especially love everything)

And we love you!

Happy Birthday Chiara!

I hope you are having a wonderful day with Jon and your beautiful boys!
I miss you, and cannot wait to see you, Jackson, Baby Cade, and Jon in just a few weeks.
(in the mean time look for baked goods in the mail.)

dress up

Our friends Becca and Raj are getting married this weekend (yay!) and I am having a hard time figuring out what to wear.
Is this dress too grey? Is that a bad color to wear to a wedding?

no news is good news

I am a total news junkie, it's a little bit pathetic. Ever since election day I have been thinking about abstaining from reading the news for a week or even a month to sort of reset my news clock and reteach myself that while knowing what is going on in the world is good, obsessing about, and obsessively checking on what is going on in the world is not.

This article from the New York Times about a fungus that is killing all the tomato plants in the northeast might have finally convinced me it's time to do it.
I'm going to have nightmares about blight crawling over the Adirondacks. (and I'm pretty sure blight doesn't crawl.)

top image from Life

billboard

Eric Cheung and Sean Martindale created this beautiful installation made from cutting triangles into the layers and layers of paper on old billboards and folding them into pocket planters.




Isn't it wonderful?
more info here.
via seesaw design

first

our very first ripe tomatoes!
I love them so much I almost don't want to eat them, but only almost.

relax

hope you have a good and relaxing weekend!
image from Life.

take the cake

I have been itching to bake a cake and we're having people over for dinner tomorrow so I finally have the perfect excuse.
I'm thinking of something with berries and meringue, but I also want it to be fancy so I almost sqeualed when I saw this cupcake recipe! I'm still going to make a cake, not cupcakes, but I'm going to work the meringue flowers in somehow.

pouf!

I've been looking for an outdoor stool/pouf/thingy for a little while, something like Paola Lenti's outdoor Shell poufs, but less expensive! I spotted one of theirs at a sample sale a few years ago, but even 70% off it was still out of my price range.


I also love Flocks knitted wool pouf. (but they're still a bit pricey and it don't go outside.)

The other day I saw this post on apartment therapy about Inke Visser's poufs made from macramed polyester cord stretched over an old tire, and I thought, "hey! I can make that!"

Orion Motors (our wonderful mechanic) gave me a an old tire they had around, and I'm shopping around for some cord so I can get to work knitting myself a pouf!

I'll let you know how it goes.

one small step

can you believe that this guy walked on the moon 40 years ago?


lots of great images of the Apollo 11 astronauts at home from Life.

oh, can it

about a dozen of our tomatoes are starting to turn red (yay!), and there are countless green ones on our heirloom tomato plants that will soon follow so, I'm getting prepared to can the little suckers. (when I say countless, I mean that literally. I tried to count them, but lost track at around 127!)
I have never canned before, and I'm kind of freaked out about it. However, I'm hoping canning is like knitting, sewing, baking bread, etc, meaning it's something my grandmother did all the time, but I find terribly intimidating until I actually do it.

I'll let you know how it goes when I get going in a couple weeks, wish me luck and no botulism.

rest stop

Good has a really interesting article about the rise and fall of the interstate rest stop. It wasn't too long ago that states used rest stops to tell travelers what was interesting about them, "to make their pitch that Virginia is for lovers, " etc. They were used as a sort of "toilet as ambassador".
But now traditional rest stops (toilets, state propaganda, vending machines and picnic tables) are being closed as state budgets tighten, and chain restaurants and gas stations take over the highways and biways.


Something is gained (ever had vending machine coffee?) but something is surely lost as these places lose their unique character (it seems unlikely Starbucks will have teepee shaped shops in Oklahoma) and everything looks the same.
check out the whole article, and see more photos here.

the way it was

I only barely remember when he retired (I read that there were t-shirts made at the time that said, "Oh my God, what are we going to do without Walter Cronkite?) but I remember listening to his special reports on NPR, and reading the things he wrote for the Huffington Post.

It seems unbelievable that a TV news anchor could have been the most trusted man in America when these days some think a comedian is, but generations of Americans got all their news, good and bad, from Walter Cronkite, and relied on him to tell them the truth.

Recently he paid a visit to CBS news and, "when he walked in the news room, it was like Thomas Jefferson walking into a history class at a university." (whole article here, obituary here, image here.)

Rest in Peace Walter Cronkite.

summer hours

tonight we went to see a lovely movie, Summer Hours (L'heure d'ete).
It was a beautifully acted and made film about family, art, globalization, tradition and letting traditions go.
I loved it, but it was really slow and our good friend who loves movies fell asleep so I don't know if I should recommend it.
you can check out a bunch of reviews here.

all in the family

I planted a whole bunch of green cabbage in the garden because I love it, especially sauteed in butter with fresh corn and lots and lots of thyme-delicious!
Over the past few weeks I've noticed that my green cabbage does not look like my red cabbage, the leaves are longer the plants tighter etc, and then today I finally figured out why. It's not cabbage, it's cauliflower!!!
Oops! They're in the same plant family and as seedlings look exactly the same. I must have mislabeled them.
This would be no problem, since I love cauliflower and we still have plenty of time to plant cabbage to get a fall crop (cabbage can even take a frost :) ) except I also planted a whole bunch of cauliflower! It's starting to come in now, so for the next few weeks we're going to have cauliflower coming out of our ears.
Anyone got any good recipes?

coast to coast

I'm also a little bit in love with this.
I especially like it because it's to scale. And the U.P. is attached to Michigan. (Folks leave it of so often, someone's trying to pass a law to make them stop.)

love hate

If someone asked me, "How'd you like some pleated, wool, capri pants?"
"Ew, yuck, I wouldn't!" I'd reply.
So, can someone please explain to me why I am truly, madly and deeply in love with these?
Damned you Phillip Lim! Damn you!

new do

Ollie was a little past due to get his summer hairdo, but we finally took him today!

He doesn't seem very happy about it, looks a little like a plucked chicken and has been hiding under the furniture since we brought him home.
I feel bad for the little guy, but he can probably see better now, and will be much cooler for the summer.

And at least he doesn't have an owner who'd do this to him!

tip top

I love the show Top Chef, so I was so excited to hear that Eve Aronoff, the chef-owner of Eve, (one of our favorite restaurants here in Ann Arbor) is going to be a contestant this season!
The season starts at the end of August and I can't wait to see how she does!

(I am also hoping they have an inspirational quick fire challenge about what to do with a thousand zucchinis)

Good luck, Eve!
more info about the upcoming season here.

the way to cook

I must see this movie.
And check and see what Julia Child has to say about zucchini.

over grown

so, what happens when you go away for a week and the person who tends to your garden does a great job watering but is too nervous to pick things?

Giant, kinda obscene zucchini, that's what.


but you know what else happens?
A great harvest of lettuce, celery, eggplant, onions, carrots, jalapenos kohlrabi, cucumbers, zucchini, broccoli, peas and strawberries! (strawberries not pictured because we already ate them.)
Yum, yum, yum!

old bag

Shannon South is brilliant! She makes lovely handbags out of recycled leather jackets and lines them with old scarves.

Not only is this a great idea in terms of being responsible and green, it's also wonderful because the bags have that soft, broken-in feel of old leather.

Sadly, all of the one of a kind bags seem to be sold out at the moment, but if you write to her, she'll let you know when a similar one becomes available.
check them out at reMade USA.

spam

I love Elliott Burford's "ongoing project illustrating the titles of emails found in your spam/junk box."

He even makes t-shirts!
see more here.

sporadic

sorry for the slow posting, we're travelling this week and have an unreliable internet connection. I need an iphone.
(ok, I certainly don't need one, and this week is probably a good lesson about how internet dependent I am, but I am not quite sure I am ready to learn that lesson.)

back to regular posting at the end of the week!

a certain spark

This past weekend we brought a bunch of sparklers to a party and it convinced me that we should bring sparklers to every party.
ok, maybe not dinner parties in the middle of winter when it's 12º outside, but still, sparklers are great.
image here.

Happy 4th of July!

mahalo

Jackson is getting a little brother and I wanted to get him a present to celebrate (or console him). My other friend who recently had a second child recommended that I get him a ukulele, because it'd be one toy he wouldn't have to share. ("ukuleles are not for babies" her older son informed me, more than once.)



The ukulele is making a comeback. Did you know Warren Buffet is an avid ukulele player?



And there are lots of great videos of people playing the ukulele on youtube (including some of Warren Buffet, but this woman sings better than he does, and what's not to like about a Hall and Oates cover?).

Hope you like the uke (and your little brother), little guy, maybe pretty soon you can make a video for I've Been Working on the Railroad!

bang bang

I desperately need a haircut and I'm thinking about bangs.

soups on!

We have fennel from the garden coming out of our ears so, at Nynke's suggestion, I'm making a whole bunch of fennel-carrot soup. (I wish I was using our garden carrots too, but they aren't ready yet.)
The whole house smells delicious.

image and recipe from epicurious.