music?

My friend Sancho posted something about iTunes the other day that got me thinking about music. I'm always on the search for new music to listen to. My music knowledge is a hodge-podge of stuff I hear on my local public radio station, reviews from the various npr shows I listen to and sometimes, someone I admire (a friend, a stranger who I think of as a friend, a musician, artist, etc.) will mention something about a band they really like or an album that they can't stop listening to. And so I'll check it out and often add a new favorite to my growing list. My music knowledge has a lot of holes in it. So while I am a fan of the song Like a Rolling Stone (even before the Pepsi ads, thank you) I have never listened to the album it originates from (Highway 61 Revisited, thank you wikipedia). But that's okay. It just means that there's a bunch of new-to-me music to discover and fall in love with.

I want some new-to-me music to check out and curious to know what my friends are listening to these days? Maybe a little top ten of the stuff that's been feeding through your ears into your head? Shout out. Be creative. Here's mine:

jean's top 10 recent listens

1. KCRW's Morning Become Eclectic (every morning)
2. npr type programs throughout the day (The World, Marketplace, All Things Considered, This American Life)
   
3. John Mayer (um, all his albums)
4. Tom Waits' Mule Variations and Beautiful Maladies albums
5. Yesterday I hit shuffle and iTunes thought the Eurythmics' Greatest Hits and Marvin Gaye's Greatest Hits were one album so I listened to songs alternating from each
6. Radiohead's last 4 albums (I wish I could go to their concert)
7. Elvis Costello and the Attractions Best Of
8. Old Crow Medicine Show (self titled)
   
9. Robert Johnson The Complete Recordings (which I had to cut off after about an hour, because even though I love the blues, man was I getting bummed out)
10. Announcers and cheers from the Celtics playoff games
    

Fascinating.

(click to make bigger)
Saw this over on swissmiss.

plotting

I bought some fabric yesterday from the big box store and I have been plotting.

This stripey stuff (they called it boating fabric? I have no idea what that means) which I have been coveting for some months now got marked down to 60% off. There were only two yards left so I took it home with me. I really really want to make a dress with it. I have an idea for the design in my head (knee length, unfitted bodice, maybe a white placket front? or from the same fabric, possibly two buttons, 3/4 sleeves with button tabs) I hope I have enough fabric. Now if I can only make it happen...


I actually went to the store to pick up some fabric for a completely different project I was plotting, but then picked up this yellow cotton, then the pink, then the salmon and the coral and I thought: oooh.... pretty. I picked up a dark brown, but put it back down when I saw the gunmetal grey and loved the way these colors looked together. I could spend many happy hours with swathes of colored fabric, pulling together pretty combinations.

I have an idea for a quilt that I want to make using these colors. A non-traditional sort of quilt, perhaps a baby quilt for a friend's little girl. Little semi-circles overlapping so that they look sort of like scales. Hmm... a quick google search did not yield what I was looking for to show you as an example, I'm probably using the wrong word. So here's a messy little doodle from my sketchbook:

Anyways. I'm trying to decide if I'm going to applique the semi circles in tidily or if I'll leave the edges frayed which would add an interesting texture, I think.

And lastly the whole reason for the trip to the fabric store, I'm gonna make a quilt. An old fashioned one. I'm not a huge fan of traditional quilts normally. They just don't fit my personal aesthetic sensibility. The shapes lodge the work firmly into homespun americana which is fine if that is what rocks your world. And the colors (for the most part) also don't jive with me, with possibly the exception of the Gee Bend work which I think is out of this world. All that said, I got inspired by this hourglass quilt and decided I needed to make one of my own. But with a (mostly) limited palette of yellow and white.

My yellows.


Even the frayed edges are pretty.

The white part will be regular ole cotton muslin.

My questionable notes and plans will yield an unorthodox way of quilting that should put some traditionalists off.

I'm so excited about this! I'm really hoping that by posting my intentions, I'll be forced into seeing this project through. Okay, time to make some tea and cut some fabric up. Go team!

ratatouille - the dish, that is

I mentioned last week that I'd be making a ratatouille from my farmer's market purchases. I realized that it's been years (literally) since the last time I made ratatouille. With so many tempting looking summer vegetables at the market, I needed little prodding to whip out my recipe and bring this favorite dish back into my regular rotation.

I learned how to make this years ago (a student in France) just from watching a nice Breton who made us the only vegetarian supper he could think of. I think this version might be a little more authentic though I've never tried it. My meal ensued thusly:

Chopped vegetables ready for sautee-ing.

The potatoes and mushrooms are of my own design.

Everyone is feeling sexy and mingle-y in the sautee pan.


Here come the tomatoes and the crushed garlic (not pictured).


No bouquet garni, but I made do with some dried thyme, basil and whole oregano which I crumbled.


Everything simmers until the flavors marry (about 20 minutes). Throw in the heel of some parmesan if you have it, maybe even a splash of red wine.

I served mine with some spicy italian sausage and fresh cornbread. A crusty french loaf would also be nice.


And then we ate it again on Saturday with lamb chops.

cool and chill

Did you all have a nice Memorial Day weekend? Mine was pretty low key, but I never mind such things. We kicked it off with a screening of the latest Indiana Jones on Friday night because m says that this is the kind of movie that needs to be seen on a Friday night (with all the FNMA and their ilk).

cool

I think the critics sort of blew it off, but we enjoyed it and ourselves immensely. It was fun and funny and there were great fight sequences and stuff blown up (I find myself more attracted to films with explosions now than I ever have in my life. Why is that, I wonder?), an awesome cast featuring Shia LeBoef (that kid is so awesome), Cate Blanchett (always a pleasure to watch her performances), Ray Winstone (who for some reason, I did not recognize until the credits rolled at the end), Karen Allen (who sadly is not that great an actress but was nice to see again for sentimental reasons), Jim Broadbent (ditto on not recognizing him, but what a pleasure to see his films) and of course Harrison Ford (rowr).

If you enjoyed the Indiana Jones series as a kid (or adult) I think you'll be pleased. I wish the bad guy had been a little more interesting and the monkey scene was a little silly but probably necessary to get a laugh for those audience members who like to watch feel good movies good for the whole family, but overall I thought the filmmakers did a fine job of keeping up with the heart, style and story of the original series.

M and I hung out, watched some tv, a lot of basketball, cooked a little, worked a little. It was quite enjoyable all round.

chill

vintage inspired pet paintings

The research I've been doing for my latest gig has yielded some wonderful images. Like these pet paintings by artist Ken Bailey inspired by vintage advertising posters. A glance at his website shows his portfolio with options for purchasing original(!) paintings of a few different sizes and also commission work.

A few of my favorites:



Images via Ken Bailey.

what I've been reading lately Pt.2

I realized that I never wrote about the other book club selections. The first two books of the book club were Aryn Kyle's God of Animals (which I mentioned before) and Hisham Matar's In The Country of Men.

Both books were coming of age stories. The God of Animals about a young girl who lives on a horse ranch and the story of her life with her dysfunctional family. In The Country of Men about a 9 year old boy in 1970s Lybia who observes the effects of a dissident government uprising on his family and neighborhood. They were both somber stories. I could relate to The God of Animals as someone who has experienced similar struggles of pre-adolescence, the confusing things that adults seemed to do and say (often contradictory), the self-consciousness, the urge to say things that were bottled up and never having the guts to do so.

In The Country of Men was a little harder for me to relate to. The names and some of the vernacular felt exotic to me. And my ignorance of the politics from that time period (globally as well as what was local to the story) felt sort of like a hindrance to really grasping the story. There were some nice literary touches (the descriptions of the heat and the sun) that I could get into, but with a less than satisfactory ending and the overall sadness that I felt about the story, I can't say that this will be a book I will remember fondly.


I also had a problem with the ending in God of Animals. Are endings just hard to write? It felt just a little tidy and glancing. But the rest of the story was enjoyable if a bit tense at times (for me). Also, I think that as both books wrote stories from the perspectives of their young protagonists (in first person narrative even) there were bits of insight that were conveyed in a way that I feel that only an adult would be able to express. It comes from a retrospective with experience and the sort of self-inspection that I just don't think kids are capable of. This is not to say that kids can't be self aware. But it's of a different sort. There's more innocence and naiveness to it and I feel like both writers fell short of satisfactorily conveying this innocence in their protagonists' narratives.

I haven't participated in any of the book club discussions which happen in the comments section of their blog (on their npr site). I guess my two cents aren't worth putting out there and some of the previous commentors have already expressed some of my thoughts. But I'm glad it's out there. It's interesting to read what others have to say and to see how different people respond to each book selection. I'll be looking forward to the future selections and let you know about them too.

it's raining!

I wish I could photograph the sound of the rain on my roof right now.
This might be the best I can do.

what I've been reading lately

I've been enjoying my foray into the bookclub world. I should have thought of this last year when I made that book a month resolution. I guess I work better with deadlines. Not that reading for pleasure should involve deadlines, but, oh, never mind.

Anyways, I recently finished Neil Gaiman's Anasi Boys.


It's a story of a young man named Fat Charlie who spent his entire life resenting his embarrassing father and doing everything he could as an adult to avoid being around him. When his dad dies, Fat Charlie finds out that dad was actually Anansi, the spider god. And he's got a brother he never knew he had who seems to have ended up with all the fun god powers. Trouble brews and Fat Charlie's comfortable pleasant life is disrupted in ways that he'd never imagined and he's forced to right things. And of course along the way he learns more about his dad, his brother and ultimately himself.

It's an enjoyable entertaining read (thank goodness after some of the somber selections from the previous months) that had me chuckling throughout. It's quirky and colorful. There's a little romance, a little mystery. I really liked it.

I sort of think I was meant to read his stuff years ago. He's the Neil that Tori Amos sometimes refers to in her songs, Emily has always spoken well of his work, and he wrote the screenplay for Stardust (which I really enjoyed). I hear that he is a dedicated blogger (I suppose all gainfully employed writers are these days, sort of makes sense, doesn't it?). Of course I found out all of this after I finished his book.

When I started the book last weekend, I read his dedication page and had a good feeling for the rest of the book:

You know how it is. You pick up a book, flip to the dedication, and find that, once again, the author has dedicated a book to someone else and not to you.
Not this time.
Because we haven't yet met/have only a glancing acquaintance/are just crazy about each other/haven't seen each other in much too long/are in some way related/will never meet, but will, I trust, despite that, always think fondly of each other...
This one's for you.
With you know what, and you probably know why.

And then a teeny little postscript at the bottom of the page:

NOTE: the author would like to take this opportunity to tip his had respectfully to the ghosts of Zora Neale Hurston, Thorne Smith, P.G. Wodehouse, and Frederick "Tex" Avery.

The good feeling carried through as I finished it over the stifling hot weekend. Enjoying our new AC unit holed up in the bedroom. Stayed up late even for it. I'm going to have to get another of his novels to tide me over until the book club meets up again at the end of the month, if that's any indication of how much I enjoyed his writing.

cute and colorful

I really like the look this girl is sporting:

Image from Punky B's Fashion Diary

The colorful top, wide legged jeans that are cut more like slacks, her enviable slim figure encircled in a braided leather belt, the casual flowy hair and most of all the aqua suede ballet flats(!). Nice mix of colors that go well together but aren't matchy-matchy. What's not to love?

this is my kind of ritual

The last time I was up in the city (that's how you refer to San Francisco as a local of the bay area), my friend Nathan took me to a coffee house called Ritual. It wasn't morning rush hour, nor post lunch, but the place was bustling. Damn, I thought, these folks must make a fine cuppa joe. They do.

Fast-forward to this afternoon. I'm sitting in my office (also known as the living room) doing some research on online coffee resellers and I remember to look up Ritual. Shazam. I am blown away by their website.

The images are beautiful and grounded (real people, not models). They layout is smart and intuitive heavy on the mood and not a lot of blah blah blah. And I love that logo. Coffee for the people, of the people, by the people. (Okay, I'm a sucker for Russian Constructivist imagery though, what can I say?)

Love this image for their "story" page. Without being trite or obvious, these guys came up with imagery that invokes their community (San Francisco) and what they're about (note the scale of the coffee cup against the Golden Gate Bridge's background).

Love also how the logo placement looks like it could be part of the photograph.
And the glimmer of it in red ink on the cup, but just a little cropped out.
And how the body copy can be minimized to enjoy the photography.
Nicely done! (oh, and good coffee too)

Ritual Coffee Roasters
1026 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110

(415) 641-1024

i love the farmers' market

On Wednesdays I stop by the farmers' market in Santa Monica. It's a nice one, really big, lots of vendors with a wide range of products, a couple of food stands that I haven't shopped from (but man does it smell good in passing) and your expected gaggle of do-gooders who want you to sign their petitions.

Today was an especially beautiful day to stop by. The sun was shining pleasantly (not unhealthily as it's been earlier this week), there's a gorgeous breeze and every one seemed to be in a really good mood.

I got a little overzealous with my purchases:

Well, it's not all for tonight's meal.

These Japanese eggplants are going to be part of a ratatouille that I'm planning for tomorrow night's supper.

Their skin is so tender, I won't even have to peel them.

This magnificent 'choke (and his friends) is going to supply me with lots of afternoon snacks (I seem to need a snack right around 4 o'clock every day. I should have been born in England.)


Pearly rows of white corn. Ooh, I really hope these are sweet. There were throngs of shoppers around them at the sole stand that sold corn. Everyone seemed to want them.


I buy these tomatoes (I can't remember what kind they are now) and the cucumbers from a Japanese lady who always sprinkles our transactions with a bit of Japanese. Makes me think of some of the Korean folks I know who sometimes talk to me in English, then repeat everything they say in Korean in the hopes (I think) that I will learn to speak Korean through a kind of conversational osmosis. It makes me smile. I didn't correct the Japanese lady to tell her that I'm not Japanese.

I was going to write by way of explanation how sweet these tomatoes are even though they aren't that tempting red color that makes you want to eat raw tomatoes cut up with nothing else on them not even salt or olive oil. But it seems that my camera responds well to the kinda dim lighting in my kitchen and really brought out the color in the tomatoes. No explanation needed, it seems. Don't they look awesome? They are very very sweet, by the way. I almost always exclaim after the first bite. Ooh, I'm so excited to dig into these tonight.

I thought this curled up fella was amusing. So here's my imagined contribution to white space wednesday.


And out of the corner of my eye, I spied the bowl of potatoes looking ever so darling in their little vintage bowl. Am I going overboard with photographing these guys? Last week's was et up right quick. I got these again today thinking of including them with tonight's dinner (roast chicken+corn+simple salad), but I think they'll be nice with tomorrow's ratatouille. I do have to confess that I keep buying them not only because they are tasty (which I assure you they are) but because they are teeny and cute and I just can't help myself.

the end.

from my (web) travels today

I spied this inspiring do-it-yourself (DIY) idea. Now I'm kinda wishing I had stairs in my place.

PS. These gals are also kick-ass sewers and I am in love with the little girls' clothes that they sew at home.

chops and a basic salad

I've been making my pork chops with a honey glaze lately, so I forgot about making them with a marsala sauce. I used this recipe for chicken marsala as a reference point and sort of did my own quickie version of it.

It's a nice change from the usual. The photos for this meal are all a little blurry because I was hungry and didn't feel like setting up the tripod and m was cutting up his meat and our teeny little dining table wobbles.

I made a simple spinach salad to go with it. Lately my salads have been a little formulaic, but I don't mean that in a bad way.

Fresh leafy salad greens (spinach, red leaf, butter are my favorites)
A fruit of your choice (Strawberries, tomatoes, apples, pears, oranges, blueberries)
Toasted nuts (pine seeds are also good, walnuts (candied or otherwise), almonds or cashews chopped up and honey roasted peanuts are also a nice variation)
+ homemade salad dressing (which is pretty easy to make and tastes SO much better than the stuff you buy in stores)
= one mighty fine tasting salad

Optional: crumbled up bits of cheese. Gorgonzola, bleu and feta work well.

Last night's salad comprised of spinach with one small tomato (that's all I had left so I added to it with some nectarines. The nectarines were a little tart on their own, but in a salad? Delish.) and toasted pine seeds.

With some egg fettuccine (dressed in butter, salt and parsley) and a hunk of good bread, it made for a fine Sunday supper indeed.

as a woman of a certain age

I think that this is what I will probably look like (minus the cigarette):

Renata Molho (photo from the Sartorialist)

for lease

I have so much room on my screen with my new apple cinema display, that I think I need to lease out part of it. Even with my browser and design application windows opened waaaay wide, I still have acres and acres of room on my screen. What do I do with all that space??


I am so giddy to finally be rid of this ancient (though faithful) dinosaur.


Apparently, the Och approves of the new screen too.

a dinner of garnishes. And dredging

I cooked dinner last night and unintentionally each part had a pebbly sort of garnish.

Dover sole fillets with lemon and capers.


Butternut squash soup with toasted pine nuts.


Rice with peas.


Butternut squash soup is so easy and fast to make. Why do I ever buy it in cartons from the store? Well at least we used to buy it from the store. No more! Using a really good quality squash and an immersion blender helps make this quick and tasty. I sauteed a peck of an onion chopped up in some olive oil first. I was thinking that the caramelized onion would bring out the sweetness of the squash. I think I probably used a bit too much onion, but I was on the right track. Once the onion has reached that lovely caramelized color, I sauteed the squash lightly which I had peeled and cubed. Then I added water to just cover the squash and let it come to a boil cooking until the squash was tender. You really don't need anything else. I suppose you could add some vegetable stock (but why diminish the squash flavor?) or some herbs. I opted for a pinch of nutmeg (maybe less) and some salt and pepper. So nice.

And I think I'm realizing the trick to keep my fish from sticking to the pan when I fry it. It's called dredging and I love it! I heated up a skillet with some olive oil. My trick for knowing when the oil is hot enough is to dab my fingers in water and flick a few droplets in the pan. You can do this even if you've just turned the heat on. Eventually the oil will heat up and you'll hear the crackly pop of the oil frying the water.

While waiting for the oil to heat, I dredged the sole lightly in some flour shaking off the excess. I find it helps to dredge just before putting the fish to the oil so you have to make sure your timing is just so. If you wait too long and there is too much flour on the fish, the flour will get too damp and turn a little gooey. You want the fish to have a nice powdery finish, um... like a good mochi dumpling if you know what I mean.

Once the oil crackles the water, put the fish to the pan and let it cook for a few minutes. The fish won't stick! Turn with a spatula and cook the other side. Ta-dah! No more fish stuck to pans. I'm going to try this with halibut or salmon and see how it goes. I know this method works with sole and tilapia which tend to be thinner fillets, but I'd like to see how I fare with thicker cuts of fish. Albacore steaks on the other hand, I like to pan-sear the outside leaving the insides rare. Yum.

over the weekend

It was kinda lazy around here. We got some chores done, but I dunno, I just felt sort of restless and lame.

One fun thing we did was to go and watch Ironman on Saturday morning.

I didn't know anything about this Marvel character but after hearing about its impressive opening weekend box office grosses and rather favorable ratings, we figured why not? It was fun. Just what you'd expect from a summer blockbuster kick off sort of movie. Lots of things exploding, cool gadgets, swanky lead, Gwyneth Paltrow (I just love her! And I always love how the costume departments dress her), funny lines. If only the bad guy was a little more interesting, it would have been a winner all round. But it was a pleasant way to spend our Saturday morning. There were some fun trailers too for a bunch more fast action explosion movies like the new Batman (I've got a special spot in my heart for this particular comic book hero. Him and Spiderman), another Incredible Hulk with Ed Norton as Dr. Bruce Banner (interesting!), a Will Smith comic book hero movie called Hancock (I don't know anything about this one at all either, but the trailer promised to be interesting) and most importantly: the newest Indiana Jones movie (!!!).

On Sunday there was an Indiana Jones marathon thing going on on the telly and somehow, 6+ hours later I had watched all of them. Whoa. Well, I mean, it's Indiana Jones. And Harrison Ford, and I mean, there were commercial breaks so I got up a few times and maybe washed a few dishes or something. But I mean, it's Indiana Jones. Can you hear the theme song? It's going to be so exciting!

21/34

Okay, so I finally succumbed and played:



I actually did better than I thought I would. Click on the image to try it out yourself.

PS. nice logo design for the font game, eh?

thumbs up - thrift stores of Fresno

I forgot to talk about my thrift store venture after our Yosemite trip. I haven't been to a thrift store since H's visit. It's just been that kind of busy around here.


We stopped off in Fresno on our way up to Yosemite and noticed a string of thrift stores in the downtown area. I have a friend who lives in Fresno and I remembered him telling me about some great finds in his local thrift stores. So of course I was curious to check it out for myself after the trip on our way home. I scored the above teacup at the last store I walked through. I really like the color.


And these stacking tulip shaped bowls (I love their little notches on the inside so that they stack perfectly). I have another dish from a different thrift store purchase that I think came from the same family. Same lines, same colors (slightly greener aqua, whereas this one has more powder blue in the aqua) but with a little partition in the middle. I can't figure out what these were originally intended for. Condiments? Sauces? For now, they are just stacked on a little shelf in my kitchen above my cookbooks and food mags.


Fresno thrift stores ROCK, by the way. Very well organized. LOTS of selection. Lots of variety of selection. It was bake-your-brains hot that day and none of the stores seemed to have AC, so it was a brief trip in and out of each one (I stopped into 4, the 5th was closed). I don't have too many occasions to be in Fresno, but if I ever am again a visit to their downtown is a must.

'taters

Really all I see is a wrinkled tablecloth.

The weather never fails to amaze me these days. It's gloomy and gray and just a bit windy judging from the tree movement outside my window. Yesterday it was cool, but sunny. But that's neither here nor there.

Anyways. Thanks for your birthday wishes! I do indeed wish I could have spent my birthday with you Jacqueline+Jean! Merci pour l'invitation. Peut-etre un jour.

Yesterday was a nice birthday. I got some phone calls from friends far away. M took me out to dinner at a Japanese restaurant nearby. We hung out at home all low-key and cozy.

I must have been in a Japanesey sort of mood cause I had lunch with my brother James at a little European influenced Japanese bistro. Go figure, they offer things like spaghetti bolognese with sea urchin. An interesting sounding fusion that is very tasty. Here's my brother just after he shot a photo of me with his iPhone entering it into my profile.


We were too busy talking and enjoying our food for me to remember to snap any more photos. But when he pulled out his card to pay, I laughed and insisted on taking this photo.

With assurances that I would protect his privacy of course!

Afterwards I went to the Hammer Museum to check out that exhibit I mentioned yesterday. Wow. So much to say about this. But I don't think I want to get into art criticism here so I'll just move on. It was interesting. And surprising. And you probably won't want to take your kids to see this if it comes to your neck of the woods.


I cruised through the gift store afterwards and I've decided that museum gift stores are the best. They have the coolest books and the prettiest ceramics and home decor accessories. Their jewelry selection is always interesting and unique. And I really like the children's section (the best toys and backpacks!). After I sat for a bit in the courtyard. It's lovely. If I'd ever worked in Westwood, I'd totally go here to eat my lunch. It's peaceful and I love the stillness that the architecture inspires.


When I got back home the Och was all needy and super affectionate. As soon as I sat down she jumped up on my lap (which is sort of unusual for her but she's been doing more of that lately) and wouldn't budge. She sort of arranged herself to get as comfy as possible and I was trapped. I mean, what kind of a monster would shove her off when she looks so comfortable?

Maybe this is her way of giving me a kitty birthday hug?