I have a great calendar that I love – it’s part art (pretty illustrations of plants and birds) and part practical garden and folksy greenery type info. There’s always some bit of folklore or wisdom listed on each month that I didn’t have a clue about. For example for February:
Did you know that the full moon on Sunday is called The Snow Moon – it was an Indian name that was given for the full moon in February because there’s almost always snow on the ground. I was hoping it would be a misnomer this year, but as you can see from my gargoyle Dedo above there’s snow in the air.
The English called it a Wolf Moon for one reason or another. It’s also called the Hunger Moon – that must harken back to colonial times when there wasn’t a scrap of food to be found; and the Candles Moon – would love to know where that comes from. The Buddhists call it Navam Poya. So have a lovely Navam Poya this weekend!
February 26, 2010
in Food
I was out walking around my local mall (Westfarms out here in Connecticut is really fabulous) and suddenly the aroma of spice and flowers melded with herbs came wafting through the air. It took a few steps, a little looking around before I spotted the big pot of tea sitting in front of the Teavana store. A long time tea fan, I made my way over and tasted a special brew they’d mixed up – part White Ayurvedic Chai, part Samarai Chai Mate – 100% heaven!
It’s a beautiful blend – the taste is wonderful and it’s said that it does all sorts of lovely things for you such as suppress appetite, increase energy and focus – stuff I can always use help with. I wish someone would concoct a scent sampler for websites so that I could impart the fragrance of those blossoms and branches through the internet. But perhaps you can image gazing at the photo below – with it’s little pieces of fruit and flowers it’s a beautiful spicy inviting concoction.
above: the dried blend – below: steeping
The tea itself is gorgeous – and while Teavana certainly didn’t invent remarkable teas they have helped to revolutionize the awareness of all the benefits of the various blends. There are scads of local tea enthusiasts and purveyors such as Tea Savvy in my neck of the woods who do wonderful things with their blends as well.
Another item that really thrilled me were these gorgeous floraly tea tins which they sell in various sizes to store tea, along with a label reminding of what’s inside as well as brewing instructions.
I love patterns and papers so I was enchanted with these beauties – the picture below was snapped with my ever handy iPhone so forgive the poor lighting. I can imagine a collection of these in an open shelf kitchen next to cups and saucers. I have a wet bar in what I call my parlor that has some dribbles and drabs of booze bottles that rarely see much action. I’d love to get a collection of these together and convert the area into a tea bar (or tea cozy) along with various pots and cups – it would get much more use for sure!
another view:
The tin I picked for my chai blend was this really pretty yellow and cherry blossom style – at $14.95 for the tin, and about $40 for the half pound of tea I’ll be collecting these slowly I think.
The paper seems to be treated to resist moisture and water a bit – but it has raised gold embossing and nice heavy texture.
Once last look:
Ok – one more – this time that’s it…(I love playing with my camera. In this case I’m trying to dodge flares and keep the aspect straight – not all that easy today.)
I got a variety of tweets the other day from some of my cyber pals congratulating me on the mention of this blog in Vogue. At first I took to mean the Essex Steam Train post that I did a couple weeks back – but then it kind of didn’t make sense when I read them back.
When the post lady handed me my issue of the March Vogue a few days ago I got the drift the tweets might have something to do with the feature mentioned on the cover called “Influencers – front row bloggers” – so of course I pawed my way through the gorgeous ads, editorials, and articles to nearly the end, page 514 to be exact and spotted some of my blogging faves – all dressed up and posing together.
Catherine Kallon’s blog RedCarpet-Fashionawards.com has been a staple of mine for eons – no one does what she does with as much enthusiasm and consistency. She’s helped me with a few projects, spotting outfits and trends when I can’t figure something out. So I was really thrilled that she named Bloomacious as one of her favorite blogs in her profile – (actually with all the remarkable blogs out there I was really quite floored). Thanks so much Catherine! (page 518 – but I’ve the layout is above too!)
I was paging through the March House Beautiful with all it’s beautiful blue rooms this morning just before I received an email from Paris about this cool “Ottoman” from Ligne Roset. I love it’s powdery soft blue matched with exquisite geometry – I’d would also love to see it in an installation to get a feel for the context of the design.
Noé Duchaufour-Lawrance designed the” Ottoman” – in the conception of the piece he revisits an Orient that has echoes in his own past – he once lived for a year in a fisherman’s hut on the beach at Rabat. Initially designed for a hotel in Marrakesh, the traditional motif is thrown into relief by a faceted effect that increases the comfort of the seat and accentuates the strong visual appeal.
Went to see The Last Station a few days ago – it’s pretty rare that the acting in a film is so great and amazing that the plot is almost a secondary pleasure point of the movie watching experience. Helen Mirren, Christopher Plummer, James McCavoy, Paul Giamatti, and Kerry Condon (pictured below – who I predict will be a big break out star in the next year or so) were all really remarkable in their roles – so much so that I more or less forgot that this is a film about Tolstoy and the movement he inspired.
As much as I loved the acting – the film primarily takes place in a commune setting at Tolstoy’s home – and many of the scenes show the people who are part of the movement working outside – chopping wood, weeding the garden, ect.
Silly me, of course amid all the political churning and human struggles that are thematic in the film, I was mostly inspired by the twig fence that was used to surround the veggie garden (shown top) and I’m hoping I can recreate it in my garden this year. It looks fairly straightforward – posts and then some medium sized branches which I have on my property in abundance. I realize this fence probably won’t last very long unless I treat the branches with something – but I think the charm will make up for it.
This past weekend I fell into a vortex of photography lens trying – it all started when I saw a lens advertised at Best Buy on sale.
A little backstory: Years ago I had a great collection of cameras (back when we shot everything on film) a Minolta with a wide angle Tamron lens, and a Mamiya large format camera. Between the two of these outfits I could almost always capture some pretty good shots. I actually had a couple of images published in Town & Country at one point of a house designed by the architect Ricardo Legorreta called Casa Cabernet. These, the editors picked over the work of a highly regarded architectural photographer that they’d hired for the article. (Was part lucky shot, part hitting every adjustment on the camera until I got the right coordinates together).
But when digital cameras with rechargable battery packs came along I picked up a Canon kit that Costco had been carrying that included a lens and a Rebel body. Even though the shots were always sub-par I hung with the camera – adding on a macro lens, which always seems to take good shots, but always at close range. The convenience of taking digital shots was just too delicious to go back to film which is an incredible amount of work and waiting comparatively. To be honest, I’m probably the most ridiculous photo hobbyist. I want to make minimal adjustments and have all my shots to turn out as though Annie Leibovitz took them. My soft focus, dull color, super contrasty photos sufficed for awhile but now with an increased demand for images through various publishing endeavors I realized lately that I need to up my game – even if just for the sake of my blogs.
So over to Best Buy to get this lens – and you know how that goes – the better than basic, but still very low on the camera lens food chain lens that I went in for looked really innadequate next to the super wide angle, super polished, ultrasonic lenses next to it. So instead of the lens I thought I wanted another long lens went home with me. After trying it out it really wasn’t a piece that would work best for me – so back to the store I went – several times with several different lenses, trying them out, until I threw in the towel and bought a whole new set up – an EOS 50D with a 28-135mm zoom lens with stablizer and ultrasonic focus. This is still a pretty basic set up (compared to some of the goodies you can buy) but I really do like the shots that I took this morning with just the auto function on. These are a few vignettes from around me house taken in low, available light, with very minimal post shoot adjustments.
February 19, 2010
in Food
Seems like it was just a couple weeks ago – oh my *it was* just a few weeks ago (February 3rd to be exact) on a cold wintry morning that I plunked these pretty pink hyacinth bulbs into planters and poked them into a sunny spot in my kitchen. And look – just a little bit later a symphony of pinkness! (yes, the mornings are still cold and wintry but there’s a warming trend going on).
If only I could convince these bulbs to blossom in unison – but some seem a bit more eager than others. At any rate, they’re really fun to watch blossom every day.
Here’s a yummy macro shot…
and just so you’ve seen every angle…
