October 21

Samin Nosrat’s book Salt Fat Acid Heat was one of my most favorite cookbooks last year and I have given it as a gift several times. She is a talented teacher and I loved watching her four-part series on Netflix this weekend. I especially loved the last episode where she prepares a gorgeous roasted vegetable salad at home and hosts friends for dinner. I am so inspired I have revisited her cookbook and am reading it cover to cover…

It was only a matter of time - I caught my first cold of the fall/back-to-school season last week. Time to start taking daily immune support. This one is my favorite…

I also consumed a lot of strong ginger and lemon tea with raw honey. You can make a big batch of ginger juice in the blender, but now that I have a proper ceramic ginger grater it is easier than ever to grate ginger in seconds. I can’t imagine not having this little tool in my kitchen…

Re-inspired by Samin I have spent the bulk of my weekend in the kitchen. Making chicken stock in the Instant Pot, our favorite cookies and a batch of the best granola…

I have also made this caramelized onion and lentil pilaf from Nigella Lawson twice this week. It is so easy, economical and delicious. I would happily eat it for breakfast, maybe with some sautéed spinach…

While in the kitchen I’ve been listening to a lot of Bach, a perfect companion - particularly if Yo-Yo Ma is involved…

photo from NYT

Speaking of Yo-Yo, his conversation with Krista is pure joy. What a gift of a human being he is. I also loved this recent conversation with Pádraig Ó Tuama and Marilyn Nelson.

“These are the kind of things we need for the tired spaces of our world. This is the way we need to move forward in a world that is so interested in being comforted by the damp blanket of bad stories. We need stories of belonging that move us towards each other, not from each other; ways of being human that open up the possibilities of being alive together; ways of navigating our differences that deepen our curiosity, that deepen our friendship, that deepen our capacity to disagree, that deepen the argument of being alive. This is what we need. This is what will save us. This is the work of peace. This is the work of imagination.”

— Pádraig Ó Tuama

We spent last weekend in the hills outside Santa Cruz at a family wedding. It was an incredible party and there was an amazing band so we all threw down and danced the night away. I finally got a chance to wear this gorgeous dress from Doen…

And my favorite earrings from Annie Costello Brown. They make any outfit an outfit.

Living with Spaciousness

Krista Tippett's conversation with Naomi Shihab Nye is one of the On Being conversations that I have listened to multiple times. Listening this time around it was this part about "living with spaciousness" that stuck with me the most...

MS. TIPPETT: Well, so — I’m very interested in general in this question of what poetry works in us. But I think even that question itself holds the implication that poetry is something separate, something distinct. But it seems that, in your sensibility, you see it as very organic. I mean, there’s — I think it was in some of your writing for poems by children, you said, “I do think that all of us think in poems.”

MS. SHIHAB NYE: I do. I do think that. And I think that is very important, not feeling separate from text, feeling sort of your thoughts as text or the world as it passes through you as a kind of text. The story that you would be telling to yourself about the street, even as you walk down it, or as you drive down it, as you look out the window, the story you would be telling — it always seemed very much to me, as a child, that I was living in a poem, that my life was the poem. And in fact, at this late date, I have started putting that on the board of any room I walk into that has a board.

I just came back from Japan a month ago, and in every classroom, I would just write on the board, “You are living in a poem.” And then I would write other things just relating to whatever we were doing in that class. But I found the students very intrigued by discussing that. “What do you mean, we’re living in a poem?” Or, “When? All the time, or just when someone talks about poetry?” And I’d say, “No, when you think, when you’re in a very quiet place, when you’re remembering, when you’re savoring an image, when you’re allowing your mind calmly to leap from one thought to another, that’s a poem. That’s what a poem does.” And they liked that.

And a girl, in fact, wrote me a note in Yokohama on the day that I was leaving her school that has come to be the most significant note any student has written me in years. She said, “Well, here in Japan, we have a concept called ‘yutori.’” And it is spaciousness. It’s a kind of living with spaciousness. For example, it’s leaving early enough to get somewhere so that you know you’re going to arrive early, so when you get there, you have time to look around. Or — and then she gave all these different definitions of what yutori was to her.

But one of them was — and after you read a poem just knowing you can hold it, you can be in that space of the poem. And it can hold you in its space. And you don’t have to explain it. You don’t have to paraphrase it. You just hold it, and it allows you to see differently. And I just love that. I mean, I think that’s what I’ve been trying to say all these years. I should have studied Japanese. [laughs] Maybe that’s where all our answers are. In Japanese.

The Poetry of Ordinary Time

THE GATE - Marie Howe

I had no idea that the gate I would step through
to finally enter this world
would be the space my brother’s body made. He was
a little taller than me: a young man
but grown, himself by then,
done at twenty-eight, having folded every sheet,
rinsed every glass he would ever rinse under the cold
and running water.
This is what you have been waiting for, he used to say to me.
And I’d say, What?
And he’d say, This—holding up my cheese and mustard sandwich.
And I’d say, What?
And he’d say, This, sort of looking around.

Take a moment to hear Marie Howe read it below. It is beautiful.

Listen to the her full On Being conversation here.

For the weekend

Watch this amazing video of Candide Thovex skiing across the planet on everything but snow...

I loved this interview "You Don't Look 60" with Bobbi Brown on Goop...

photo from Goop

I relate to her outlook, especially this part about being curious and open-minded and knowing best...

“I’m constantly curious—I’m a seeker. I try everything. I tried Bulletproof because it sounded great, but I’d consume 450 calories worth of fat in my coffee and I was still hungry—so that didn’t work (for me). So I went Paleo—that didn’t work, either. I try, and I figure it out. What’s working for me is Intuitive Eating. It doesn’t make me feel bad because I had cottage cheese, or I had really good French bread in the best bakery. It’s my body, my health, and I know best. I’m open, though!”

I just got Nadine Levy Redzepi's (wife to Noma chef René) new cookbook Downtime from the library and as you can see below, I've flagged nearly half of it. It is full of lovely, simple and delicious recipes and excellent tips no matter your cooking prowess. René wrote the forward and I loved this passage:

"You may feel it's hard, or even impossible, to cook one meal a day when you have to make a living in the modern world. I see your point (in a way, even I can't do that for my kids!). Yet in this book I see someone who, by creating habits just like people do with exercise, has made the act of cooking effortless and endlessly generative. There is so much you can do if you simply begin to try."

We love Patagonia at our house. If you have 30 minutes this weekend listen to this conversation between Guy Raz and Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard on the How I Built This podcast...

Andrew Holder for NPR

The best wisdom comes at the very end...

“I believe in the more you know the less you need.

The hardest thing in the world is to simplify your life, because everything pulls you to be more and more complex...Either we’re forced or we decide to go to a more simple life, it’s not gonna be an impoverished life. It’s gonna be really rich.
”

I am still a die-hard Blue Bottle Coffee fan. I make myself a cup or two of Bella Donovan every morning with their ceramic dripper. I often take a cup with me on my drive to the studio, but in my thermal mug it stays way too hot to sip. So I picked up this beautiful little Keep Cup so I could actually sip my coffee while listening to On Being...which makes contending with Seattle traffic all the more civilized and tolerable...

It has been pouring here the last week(s), paired with pretty consistent winds. I am loving our Blunt umbrella that not only shields from the rain beautifully but can withstand the wind to boot. We have the classic but they make a smaller metro size too...

Despite the weather, I picked up these incredibly bright and fun sandals on super sale at Net-a-Porter. They will stay in the box for the next few months but I can wait...

2018

Hello, New Year.

After getting hammered with back to back bugs, the flu, sinus infections...I am healthy and thrilled to welcome the new year. My son and I were fortunate to tag along on my husband's photoshoot last week to enjoy a few days under the Mexican sun...

While it was wonderful, it feels so good to be home; my favorite place. I am excited to be back in the studio and finally back to my regular schedule this week.

While on break I've been hitting my local library hard. The two books I am currently reading and loving; The Lonely City by Olivia Lang. From the first few pages...

“Loneliness is by no means a wholly worthless experience, but rather one that cuts right to the heart of what we value and what we need. Many marvellous things have emerged from the lonely city: things forged in loneliness, but also things that function to redeem it.”

And Being Mortal by Atul Gawande, which I learned about from his wonderful conversation "What Matters in the End" with Krista back in October. 

My husband gave me these perfect little earrings from Bing Bang for Christmas and I don't know that I will ever take them off. Initials for the two boys in my life. They make me wish I still had multiple holes from my 1990s youth so I could have more...

I also love these tiny skulls...

I upgraded our kitchen glasses over the holidays and picked up these bodega glasses from Food52 and am loving them. I have the 12oz size and also the squat 7.5oz size which, just like the description says, I use for everything: small dishes for mise-en-place, condiments, ice cream...

Speaking of Food52, I discovered these gluten-free and vegan spicy ginger cookies on the site and have been making them possibly a little too often...

I did reduce the cloves to 1/8 tsp and added a handful of chopped candied ginger. They are heavily spiced and delicious first thing with a cup of coffee, or late afternoon with a mug of peppermint tea. 

Another new addition to my kitchen is this fantastic silicone ladle from GIR...

The GIR spatulas are the only ones I use. I have three of the ultimate size and four of the mini ones. I use them every single day for pretty much everything.

Lastly, I wrote a few months back about my favorite non-toxic deodorant and I have a new one to add to the list. AER from Vapour Beauty is fantastic. It is a gel to powder formula, super effective and long lasting. I bought it online but just saw it at my local Pharmaca. 

Priorities

MS. TIPPETT: Do you have compassion for those of us who want to cook more, but have jobs and children and life feels hard enough as it is and food is one thing that you can buy in packages and bring home? [laughter]

MR. BARBER: Yeah. You know, you’re not making me compassionate…

MS. TIPPETT: Maybe not. You don’t have much compassion. [laughter]

MR. BARBER: You know why? Because then you’d have to say — if I said to you that 25 years ago, you know, with all the time spent on TV, we’re going to spend another four hours a day on average on the Internet, and you would say, “Wow, I can’t believe we’d find four hours in the day.” And I’d say, not only people are going to find four hours, but 95 percent penetration of Internet use for 4.5 hours a day or whatever it’s up to today average, you would say that’s absolutely crazy. Nobody will spend that time, nobody has that time in the day. Well, we figured out how to do it. So the question comes down to priorities. To what extent is cooking and eating and all the rest of the things that are attached to that, to what extent does that become a priority? And if it is a priority, you make the time.

It goes hand in hand with the amount of money you spend because what we’re talking about — and I don’t want to skirt around it; I think it’s a big issue. It’s more expensive. There’s no question about it. You’re paying the real cost of growing food. Locally, it’s usually more expensive. So the question is, again back to the Internet example or cell phone use, 25 years ago, if I said there’d be 95 percent penetration in cable television, you all would have said, “That’s nuts. We have free television. Who is going to be able to find $125 a month extra?” You all would have agreed with Krista, right? I would have said, not only that, you’re going to find another $125 for cell phone use in disposable income. Everyone would say, “Oh, $250 extra? Nobody has that money.” Well, of course, we found it because we found it indispensable without those things. So can we excite this issue around food and pleasure to the extent that people feel the same way about dinner?

[Applause]

Listen to Dan Barber and Krista's whole conversation here.