olive oyl

saturday night. one friend is watching an ultimate fighting championship, one friend is out of town and jse is in south texas tending to cows. so i made an olive oil cake. vodka tonics are overrated. spelt flour, rosemary, olive oil and dark chocolate are not...

recipe: the wednesday chef

ps keep your eye out for kim boyce, she is an up and coming culinary star!

jungle love

dear reader. if you are not a member of amazon prime, you should join right now, before you even read the rest of this post. it will be the best money you will spend this year!

knock knock, who's there

(nytimes) from the general creative director of hermes, on the appointment of a new designer:

I think the appointment of Christophe is very ambitious. Maybe in five years I will look back and think it was a terrible mistake — or a wonderful surprise. I like that. I think we need that. Hermès is really born out of movement. Christophe shares very simple and basic values with Hermès. There is a definite love of simplicity without losing a sense of fantasy and joy.

one of my great hopes of my aesthetic, of my life, is that simplicity will always drive my life but that i'll always make room for fantasy and joy...what a great statement!

a wednesday kind of love

three things i love (category: music):

seeing people dance in their cars (please oprah, let's never make the car a "no dance zone")

that my mom was right when she said one day i would appreciate that she made me play the piano every day for over a decade

clapping and snapping in songs

daily candy

when i see new pictures of my nephew, i scrutinize the pictures, always anticipating that he's going to start looking like me. but alas, no, the only thing we've ever had in common is a furry forehead. love you, nephew.

green pastures

well, i hate to be a hipster, but i really do have a soft spot in my heart for pastoral rock. oh man it makes me bob my head and tap my toes. i never listened to fleetwood mac or crosby stills and nash. my first exposure was to the decemberists, years ago. but they're a bit medieval...and maybe the shins too. i'm starting to develop a taste for long tiered skirts with plaid flannel tops. maybe i will start my own farm to table restaurant or make my own honey. all joking aside, it's good music, but it takes a bit to adjust...i'm off to take my daily walk in a field of wheat.

fools/the dodos
http://popup.lala.com/popup/937030214737724192

white winter hymnal/fleet foxes
http://popup.lala.com/popup/360569453761142368

blood bank/bon iver
http://popup.lala.com/popup/360569449471431522

wired

i really like this artist - his name is javier requejo fernández and he lives in galicia, spain. i looked to see if he was represented stateside, he is not. anything can be personified, it seems...


for more: http://www.estudionap.com/#

i am officially the annoying person who shares too many pictures of their nephew.

either drunk or happywith sweet mama

just because she speaks with a slight british accent doesn't make her the smartest person in the room

"maybe i should start doing body weight exercises"
"i think that's a great idea"

american beauty

for mother's day in 2005, i had two dozen roses sent to my mom. she called to say thank you and said she had never had flowers delivered to her before. i could tell that she could not convey exactly how she felt, but knew that it was very meaningful to her. she even got dressed up and had my dad take pictures of her with them. for the next few days, she called to tell me about how different the house looked with them in it, how fragrant they smelled, how pretty their color. my dad told me that as the petals began to wilt and fall, she diligently collected them and when they died altogether, she spent time pulling off not just every petal, but every leaf too. she stored them in the vase that the flowers came in and sat them an arms length from her on the kitchen table, next to her glasses, where she read her bible every morning. the roses were the last gift she received, the last photos taken of her. she died a week and a half later.

i always thought that given time and proximity, i could understand how much someone loved me, but i realize that the only barometer i have is my own; i only know the scope of someone's love for me based on my own perspective, my self-created, self-centered construct. i have a tendency to extend my love toward fullness and beauty and momentum, and to want to pull my love away at any sign of weakness or trouble or suffering. i imagine that had she sent me flowers, i would have loved and appreciated them too, but would have easily thrown them out when their beauty started to wane. the symbolism is apparent but hard for me to articulate. maybe another time.

she made sure that her family and her garden bore the health and the fruit her body could not produce. i have never again experienced such purity of will, of magnanimity, of servitude. i can't imagine how much my mom loved me, it hurts me to the bone that i can't grasp it. by nature or by circumstance, she came to live the reality that love is stronger than death, love is the beginning and the end, love's only desire is to fulfill itself. maybe that's how she made peace with being chronically ill.

i'm thankful for having experienced that transcendence, even though it makes me sad sometimes. if only i knew that it was her last mother's day...

"i sleep, but my heart is awake."

happy mother's day, mommy, i sure do love you.

evan and jerry, bff

just to say, i'm pretty sure it doesn't get cuter than this.

head honcho

when he tilts his head, the weight and mass of his cheeks smear the rest of his face. his facial expressions are contingent on his cheek placement. i understand, little buddy. you're lucky you're tiny and everything is cute. he's going to need a strong neck.

love at first sight

just a couple hours old, already attentive of the worldtired, hungry but happy dad
happy and adoring mom, she's quite the athlete
watching dad curiously
"gomo"
very proud granddad, he's been waiting a long time!big yawn, still hungry