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5 Links
Happy weekend! We’re going to Maine and it’s going to rain but I still want to do everything we did last time to the letter. And stop by the More & Co shop in Portland, and Cape Porpoise Outfitters on the way home. And maybe pick some strawberries.
1/ Momfilter has an interview with the directors of the Birth Story. When is that documentary coming to Boston? I might just have to buy it on iTunes.
2/ This pretty pretty movie preview sent to me by Kellyn.
3/ This spring playlist by Kinfolk magazine.
4/ If I can write something like this by Kim Foster about my daughters making me breakfast someday, all will be well.
5/
Hot summer bedrooms (not hot like sexy, hot like stuffy and “I waited the whole school year for summer and now this feels miserable, and it’s sunny but everything is not automatically fixed”). Summer homes and cottages, camp, secret neighborhood hangout spots like bridges, overpasses, rivers, and cemeteries. Feeling homesick. Taking sad baths. “Last Days of Disco” by Yo La Tengo/everything by Yo La Tengo. Miranda July’s short stories.Gerhard Richter‘s paintings that look like old photographs. Mark Borthwick, Corinne Day, Ryan McGinley, and Sally Mann. Overalls, white cotton dresses, chain-link fences, the beach, lighthouses, clotheslines, backyards, watercolors, pencils, butterflies and butterfly nets, seashells, the pool and all the gross pool chairs, homemade lemonade, sunflowers, dandelions, straw, fields, all those dirty-looking flowers, and those vaguely Scandinavian floral patterns that you find on dish towels and shit.
-Tavi’s Editor’s Letter about Longing and Summer.
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Birthday gifts
A little post of what I got for my birthday this year. Perhaps because of pinterest, I’ve gotten gifts for both Christmas and my birthday that I really wanted. What a treat! This year, sweet family sent me money before we left for Rome so I was able to pick out a few things there. That was really fun. The candles and tea kettle have been on my list to splurge on for a long time.
I’ve become a bit of a beeswax candle fanatic. It’s unfortunate because they are so much more expensive than the plastic-y ones, but I really do buy the hype that they emit negative ions, clean up your air, etc. A room just feels better after a beeswax candle has been lit. These were from Terrain on sale, but more affordable ones can be found here.
Leather sandals from Rome. I hate telling people I got these in Italy when they ask where they are from–so typical! Why isn’t there a shop selling great simple stuff like this here? (mention in the comments if you have found a good US source!)
Something I pinned that Joe bought for me. A bright hardy enamel teapot for the stove. From Poketo, the most fun web store.
Two gifts pictured here.
1/ a brass signet ring I bought in Rome. I talked with the artist in Italian for a long time, and I have almost no idea what he was telling me. He was very Eat, Pray, Love; by which I mean he had longish curly dark hair and seemed to only work two days a week. I bought it in the Monti neighborhood, where I also had delicious coffee and gelato and admired great hanging walls of ivy. Yes, brass does leave traces of green on my skin sometimes, but I really love the color.
2/ a letterpress drawer repurposed as a drawer for my jewelry. For now it is out of Lux’s reach! This is the first letterpress drawer we’ve bought that has those letters sketched inside, I guess it really was used to store type, ha. Joe and I are always trying to come up with more uses for these drawers, but in reality there aren’t too many useful ones.
Little slippers bought in Rome from a lady in her tiny shop near where we stayed. I thought she told me they were 60 euro and I was sad. But then I realized she said twenty-five. My Italian has really taken a turn. : ) They are the type of thing I would love to learn to make for myself, but until then…
It’s fascinating how different the things you aspire after from year to year are. I hope I can keep up this type of post and track my changing acquisitional interests. What did you ask for this year?
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Twitter Poet
I had to go back and take a screenshot of this tweet from last month. I liked it so much, and I want to be able to think of it and see it again.
Curiously when I first read it and liked it, I didn’t even bother to follow the author on Twitter. Odd, hmm? This just feeds my pet theory that it’s much harder to get followers these days than it was “in the good old days.” (not counting spam bots whom I speedily block)
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Mint Iced Tea Lemonade
I feel very serendipitous posting this recipe because I never thought I would have it in my possession. A rather simple combination, but I thought it was forever to be remembered as that “delicious iced tea I had that one time at your parents’ friends’ house.”
I had it at friends of Joe’s parents a couple years ago. We ate lunch at a table under a tree on the top of a sloping hill. I had several glasses of this and I remember the husband proudly saying he always knows someone is coming over when he smells mint soaking in the kitchen. Last Christmas, the same family published a cookbook, The Daily Feast, and the recipe was included!
A mix of black tea, mint, and a carton of lemonade. Ends up tasting like lightly sweetened, perfectly lemony iced tea.
I think of iced tea as a very savvy hostess thing. Like, at a certain stage in your life, you always have a pitcher of iced tea ready for guests. With the sheer laziness that has overtaken my life these days, it’s mostly just this and popsicles for guests around here.
Lemon-Mint Iced Tea, from The Daily Feast
4 quarts water, divided
one big handful fresh mint leaves on stems, washed
5 black tea bags (or decaf, if you prefer)
12 oz. can frozen lemonade concentrate
Bring two quarts of water to a bowl. Place the fresh mint and tea bags in a stainless steel pot. Pour the boiling water over the tea bags and mint and allow to steep for 30 minutes. Strain.
Add the frozen lemonade to the tea mixture. Stir in the additional 2 quarts water to make 1 gallon tea. To serve, pour over ice and garnish with fresh mint, if you have it.
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Escape
Do you have blogs you visit to escape? Some of the blogs I visit, I read every word, and then there’s some where the photos and I sit together for awhile and my eyes mull in the colors. Like listening to an album, but visually. Usually this ends up being relaxing and inspring. Sometimes I get overwhelmed and jealous. It’s a fine line, and I find it is up to the tone of the writer to make it work well. 101cookbooks is one that inspires me. She’s much healthier and more intentional than I’ll ever be, but I still feel comfortable in her presence.
In this case, I’m inspired to get some more interesting glassware. Photos below, the rhubarb & rosewater syrup, and the blood orange gin sparkler.
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Memory at Haymarket
oh, the memories we all have of food! When do they form? I think of just summer alone: salty chips and candy bars at a beach stand, strawberry ice cream on a hot afternoon, lemonade after a long swim, cheeseburgers with friends, tomatoes off the vine and sprinkled with salt, corn cobs spun in butter, cold oysters mingled with tart mignonette, melty peach pie in evening, hot doughnuts in the morning…. We seem to pull our strongest memories from childhood, the flavors melded with moments, locations, the presence of loved ones, all of it recalled in an instant with just a taste or a whiff.
Toddlers seem to me to be nearly fruitarians. They just love it. Look for them at a party and you’ll find them all round the fruit tray, pinching watermelon squares, bundling blueberries into their hands for later, telltale strawberry stains long since dried on their shirt collars. To love something as a toddler is to want it over and over—a book only gets better on the 3rd read; a lunch, then a dinner, of only fresh raspberries is never refused.
Imagine the wonder of a market to a toddler’s eye: the fruit heaped, piled, trays lining tables, tables forming rows fading off into the distance. The fruit of Boston’s Haymarket is not farmer’s market fruit: fresh from the fields and only just ripe to sell. Instead it is overripe, really on the verge of rotten. It is opulence from grocery stores across the city, an order that was overestimated and must be sold quickly or wasted altogether. The vendors will warn you, “eat these right away,” as they hand over a bag of mush-soft avocados. If you’re planning a party that night and want an enormous bowl of guacamole, a margarita pitcher sharp with fresh limes, or mojitos brimming with trampled mint, it’s perfect. Otherwise, think fast.
I remember coming to Haymarket when I was due, so very overdue, with Lux. I bought lemons and made a lemon cake. Though I’m now only at 33 weeks, I still feel a bit like the fruit piled here. Bursting at the seams here and there, even softer in spots than you might expect. Getting dressed in your third trimester, I’ve always felt, is a bit like slipping a rubber band over a ripe peach. Abundant, and preposterous.
I’m wearing Lux in sakura bloom simple silk in amber. All of these photos were taken by Cambria Grace, a dreamy Boston photographer. Lux and I had so much fun wandering the market with her and Joe and I are absolutely over the moon about these photos (she got smiles from Lux we never seem to managed to capture!).
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Cambria, Boston Calling, Weekend!
snacking on waffles at SausNext week I’ll be posting another Sakura Bloom Sling Diary. I’ve just realized I haven’t really explained what that is: the Sakura Bloom sling is sort of like the BMW of the baby carrying world–simple, classy, and high quality. They make slings out of pure linen or silk in gorgeous colors (they’re also designed and made in Massachusetts, win). They’ve done several rounds of selecting a dozen or so moms to show how slings fit into their lifestyle; a good excuse for a lot of cute baby photos, essentially. We don’t get paid, but we do get two slings for the photos, for free. One of my favorite bloggers, Che & Fidel, was a sling mama. This round, the moms are a fascinating bunch, from all over the world. I learn so much from just looking through their photos of life with children.
But next week’s photos are extra special because I met up with a Boston photographer to do them. Cambria and I met at blogshop back in February. I thought she was hilarious and then I went home and saw her stuff and realized the talent that had been sitting next to me. We spent an afternoon wandering around Haymarket and I can’t wait to share the photos on Wednesday. Meanwhile, check out her blog to see behind-the-scenes photos of her adventures around Boston.
Happy Weekend! We’ll be at the Boston Calling concert on Sunday–most of the time with Lux, and a bit without. I’m excited for all the bands, but most especially Andrew Bird. And The National of course (but I find them a little dark at times).
I hope some of you are actually getting a THREE day weekend too! Does anyone have favorite Memorial-Day-in-Boston activities? Parades where each float is required to throw you candy?
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Mother’s Day Requests
For Mother’s Day I asked for breakfast in bed and a New York Times. By the way, who is killing the monk seals? I didn’t find out because the Travel issue was hiding right behind it. I enjoyed this urbane man’s review of the Airbnb experience, Joe liked this essay on traveling alone.
Deborah Needleman is now editing the T Magazine for the New York Times. She was Domino Magazine’s editor and had a brief glorious reign at the Wall Street Journal’s magazine. I predict great things for the T issues of the future (which has in the past been very snobby and not all that stylish).
Buy a man a $2.50 frother at Ikea and it turns out he makes a damn fine cappuccino. I had no idea where this cappuccino came from when he flourished it in front of me, all I knew was it was much better than Starbucks (maybe because it was made with heavy cream! my favvvvorite). We’ve been using whole milk too. Takes about four minutes, done in a pan warming on the stove while your espresso pot wells up.
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Nice Things
I think perhaps this should be my mantra for the next year while Joe and I try to start a savings account.
By Cody VanderKaay, seen on the Made Shop.
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Picking Names
Picking names for your children is a wonderfully optimistic sport, filled with meaning and reverence and nostalgia and hope. We’re not encouraged to feel hope for the future much, most especially when you walk past anyone protesting the government, the environment, mass general hospital (I live near there and the State House, and you know, protesters like to keep things regional). But discussing names lets a small kite soar up within you and for a passing moment or two, the future looks bright.
Maybe you believe the world will be a completely different place than it’s been before, and you choose a name new to your world and social circles. Or you reach into the rock-solid parts of your memory, the place where things have really taken root, and you simply respond and take that as your guide. Someone suggests the name of a person you disliked immensely when you were seven? Absolutely not, off the table, never to be revived. A family name is suggested, one you’ve heard hundreds of times and barely registered, but suddenly it sounds hearty and wise, like an herb that’s healed the sick for centuries. You read the chipped scripts on old gravestones and let the worlds circle around in your head like a sink full of water draining away, trying to sense what they could mean to you after you’d shouted them across backyards for ten years.
I think many of the old fears don’t really apply these days. You don’t really mind if you meet someone who has chosen the same name.* When we thought we were having a boy, Joe and I liked the name Henry. I now know five Henrys that are Lux’s age, but I still love the name and love all these little Henrys running around. You aren’t afraid of those years when your child won’t like their name, or insists on something else; that’s nothing more than an easy indicator of how furiously their creativity and self-awareness has taken root. (The name I found better suited to my character from ages 11-14 was Octavia. Obviously, right? Missed that opportunity, Mom and Dad!)
I was on the phone with a customer service gal (I just love this trend of young friendly Americans at call centers, don’t you?) talking about Lux’s diaper order (*eye roll* oh modernity) and she said, “that’s the secret name I want to name my daughter someday!” And of course it was my secret name that I wanted to name my daughter someday, so I said, “do it for sure! But mention it to your partner early.”
Most of the names Joe and I suggest to one another sound crazy to the each other. It’s like comparing notes on a wine tasting and you’re about to say “fruity” when the other person says “soggy moss.”
This post isn’t ending with a list of names we’re thinking about, ha! But the game is on.
*Baby Lux, “the real baby Lux” twitter account with over a million followers that showed up four months after Lux was born is another story for another time. After 18 months I’ve finally managed to at least unfollow her, ha!
Photos from Paul Octavious’ #pantoneproject on Instagram. The best idea, as usual.