gifts
We been KNOCKED OUT by the responses we’ve gotten to our teeny, easy contest to win a free, inscribed copy of Sally’s The Improvisational Cook. Check out the Comments following last week’s bookgivaway announcement to read some of the great, imaginative improvs reader’s have done in the kitchen. The deadline for entry is Thursday, April 14th, so you’ve got a couple of weeks to mull and create.
You can “look inside” The Improvisational Cook on Amazon or go to Sally’s website to read reviews and how it came about. “Schneider gives cooks the know-how to embellish, adapt, change, alter, modify and experiment in their cooking with plenty of encouragement and helpful information. Here are the tools and insights everyone needs to find his or own voice in the kitchen…”
For a recap on how to enter (it’s easy!), a few rules AND to read the great entries that have been submitted so far, click here.
We hope to read your kitchen adventures.
03.30.11 |
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in community, food, gifts, paths + processes, projects + play, recipes, resources books + zines, strategies |
We’re giving away a free copy of Sally Schneider’s award-winning cookbook The Improvisational Cook
(inscribed by the author if you like), widely viewed as THE book about improvising in the kitchen.
“Schneider gives cooks the know-how to embellish, adapt, change, alter, modify and experiment in their cooking with plenty of encouragement and helpful information. Here are the tools and insights everyone needs to find his or own voice in the kitchen…”
You can “look inside” on Amazon
or go to Sally’s website to read reviews and how it came about.
To enter, all you have to do to enter is write a Comment (in the form at the end of this post) telling us of a kitchen improvisation you’ve attempted. Tell us about a dish you’ve made, a unique flavor combo you discovered or even a piece of equipment you’ve rigged. If you’ve been flat-out afraid to improvise, you can enter as well, just tell us the gist. Success or “failure” doesn’t matter, though we’d love to know a few juicy details, what motivated it, what it consisted of, and how it turned out...The winner will be chosen by random.org. read more…
03.23.11 |
comments (85) |
in community, food, gifts, kitchen, learn, projects + play, resources, resources books + zines |
Maria Robledo
One of the staples of my pantry is a classic herb salt fragrant with rosemary, sage, and garlic that is used all over Northern Italy. I learned the recipe - or I should say approach – years ago while traveling with Peggy Markel on one of her Culinary Adventures, and have never grown tired of it. It is good on just about anything. You can use it as an essential seasoning to “salt” roasts of all kinds from pork and beef to chicken, game birds, and duck. It’s also great on vegetables of all kinds, dried beans, popcorn, potatoes, even a bloody Mary for a la minute flavor-enhancement. It gives herbal notes to my fried egg in the morning.
The method is simple: you chop herbs, garlic and salt together, either by hand or with a food processor, then spread the mixture on a sheet pan. The salt dries out the herbs preserving their vivid flavor for months. You can improvise endlessly on the basic formula by improvising your own mix of herbs…Thyme, rosemary, and savory with a touch of lavender will make a lovely Provencal herb salt…(There’s a whole section about seasoning salts in The Improvisational Cook
.)
If you are flat-out busy and just want to BUY a great herb salt, I heartily recommend the one from Italy that wine writer Anthony Giglio (a big fan of our herb salt) told us about; read more…
03.08.11 |
comments (6) |
in food, gifts, inspiration books + zines, recipes, strategies |
Yann Arthus-Bertrand
A valentine doesn’t have to be for someone you are lovers with. We’ve discovered that the commercial “lovebird” notion pretty much shuts out the millions of unattached folks and can make them feel pretty alone. Why not send alt-valentines to people you care about, like the sweet card we just got that says “Valentine’s Day is a good time to remind special people that they are loved. So, Happy Valentine’s Day and consider yourself reminded!”
We’re thinking impromptu email valentines made with found digital images. Any one of the series of Hearts of the Earth at Obvious.org, like the one above, would be lovely to receive in an email.
Search “heart” at Flickr, Google Images, or and you’ll find a trove. Here is one of our favorites: read more…
02.12.11 |
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in cheap + great, family + friends, gifts, resources |
When we were scouts long ago, there was nothing so satisfying as getting a merit badge. Now Disorderly Goods has designed a series that would make a lovely gift for child or adult. We’re thinking one or two would make an especially charming Valentine. Buy one for $10, a few, or all with the Over-achiever 12-pack for $114.00. They’re available at Supermarket.
Here are some favorites:
The Sprout: for growing from adversity
The Dipper: for dreaming big
The Heart: for giving a shit
The Illusionist: for being good with your hands
Zen Stones: for living a life of balance
Happiness Serotonin: serotonin molecule, for finding happiness.
We think they’d also make good Reminder Badges, of things about ourselves that we need to remember, but sometimes forget.
via Better Living Through Design
02.08.11 |
comments (1) |
in apparel, gifts, identity, principles |
The paperback edition of Sally’s award-winning The Improvisational Cook is OUT IN THE WORLD as of this morning. The book was the precursor to ‘the improvised life’; apply the blog’s heart and practicality to cooking and you’ll get the gist. It’s a guide ‘in’ to cooking improvisationally, more freely and with what’s on hand. Chapters include How Improvising Works, The Creative Mind-Set, Accidents and the Unexpected, and Learning What Goes with What, along with a ton of mutable recipes and ideas for making them your own.
Our favorite reviews sum it up:
“Schneider weans home cooks off their training wheels and provides a springboard from which they can leap out of the box, craft their own distinctive dishes and let their new instinctive and creative juices flow.”
— Mario Batali, legendary chef and Food Network star
“Innovative . . . a delicious revelation.” — O, The Oprah Magazine
“What a triumph. One of the most gifted cooks I know thinks onto the page in a way that cossets the novice while inspiring the old hand to reach to new territory. You will build a reputation on this book and build the kind of confidence few know in the kitchen. Sally Schneider is the master of ease, imagination and style.”
— Lynne Rossetto Kasper, host of The Splendid Table, American Public Media
Find out more about the book here, and look inside…. read more…
02.08.11 |
comments (2) |
in food, gifts, inspiration books + zines, learn, paths + processes, recipes |
Maria Robledo
Valentine’s Day is one week away so we thought we’d start thinking about it now, rather than our usual last minute scramble. Chocolate is, of course, the classic valentine, so we’ve rounded up our very best chocolate desserts and gifts, all homemade, all easy to make. Here are our recommendations, with annotations:
Essential Chocolate Cake for Improvising…an elegant cake that is as easy to make as a pan of brownies
Chocolate Malted Pudding… intensely chocolate pudding with an undercurrent of malt
Homemade ‘Peanut Butter Cups’…crunchy peanut butter sandwiched between bought chocolate disks
Dark Chocolate Cakelets with Aromatic Pepper and…cupcake as grownup cakelet, subtly spiked with bacon
Homemade Chocolates for Improvising… a foolproof method for making sheets of fine chocolate spiked with unusual flavors and textures, like curry powder and sea salt; Marcona almonds and pimenton de la Vera; dried cherries and lavender…
Alt-Malted Milks Balls well, really, slabs of fine chocolate laced with malted milk
02.07.11 |
comments (3) |
in celebrations, family + friends, food, gifts, recipes |
Here’s a first look at the new cover of The Improvisational Cook, Sally’s award-winning cookbook; it will be released in paperback on February 8th. It’s shows you the way ‘in’ to cooking improvisationally, more freely and with what’s on hand. Find out more about the book and look inside here, sample an improvised riff on Roasted Pears on Harper Collins’ blog here, or pre-order on Amazon.
01.11.11 |
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in food, gifts, inspiration books + zines, learn, recipes, resources |
Jane Mount
We were wandering around 20×200, gallerist Jen Bekman‘s site of limited edition work for sale and stumbled on this painting by artist Jane Mount, who paints people’s ideal bookshelves. Right in the center of it is Sally’s striped A New Way to Cook, among very good company. Wrote Mount:
This set is actually a “Super-Ideal” bookshelf, in a sense. It contains all the cookbooks most often included in people’s sets of favorites, plus a few of my personal favorites I couldn’t leave out.
It made us wonder: What would be on your ideal cookbook shelf? (And then there’s the question of Why? What does a good cookbook do?)
From Sally: The first book I’d put on my shelf is the cookbook that has influenced me the most: Simple French Food
by Richard Olney. Olney was a spectacularly good writer, and could describe the inner workings and logic of a dish – and it’s possibilities for improvisation – better than anyone I’ve ever read. He believed that a cook’s creativity could be unleashed by their understanding of how things worked; he was meticulous in conveying ‘the rules-’ the intricate framework of limitations’ – essential to cooking creatively and freely. In his mind cooks, like artists, need constraints to push against. If I could have one cookbook on the proverbial desert island, it would be Simple French Food; the writing is as nourishing as food.
01.03.11 |
comments (1) |
in art, food, gifts, kitchen, recipes, share |
Over the years, we’ve gotten A LOT of stuff second-hand, from thrift stores, flea-markets, Ebay. It’s a way to get great things MUCH cheaper than retail. (Our most recent purchase: a tag-still-on, in-warranty Eames Soft-Pad Management Chair, for a fraction of what it would cost new.) We appreciate Apartment Therapy’s national survey of Best Thrift Stores and Flea Markets of 2010. (It’s also a great last-minute resource for gifts.) A new one for us: Etsy, which has become one of the largest online retailers of vintage goods, with hundreds of thousands of sellers. Select “Vintage” from Categories and hone in on treasures from there, like this Bertoia side chair.
We love this folding circa 1960 camp stool for $26. read more…
12.22.10 |
comments (2) |
in cheap + great, gifts, reclaim, resources, resources blogs + sites, stores |
Maria Robledo
If you are in a last minute quandary about unusual and much appreciated gifts,visit public radio’s The Splendid Table where Sally talks with Lynne Rosetto Kasper about Homemade Holiday Food Gifts. All are easy-to-make and pack a big bang-for-the buck. Lemon-Scented Olive Oil with much of the flavor and a fraction of the price of classic Limonato – olive oil pressed with lemons – from Italy. Tuscan Herb Salt can be endlessly improvised upon, and with; it’s an instant seasoning for meats, poultry, vegetables, eggs, even popcorn and Bloody Marys. (And you can use it to season a crown roast of pork or even the Christmas goose.) Homemade Peanut Butter “Cups” are sublime rethinking of the known (and a perfect dessert).
Check out the Splendid Table’s website for recipes. You can listen here.
And here’s a trove a other Homemade Food Gift strategies from past posts:
homemade food gift: alt-malted milk balls
food gifts: homemade chocolates for improvising (recipe)
our homemade food gifts on ‘the splendid table’ (’09)
d-i-y food gift: prunes in armagnac (recipe)
12.22.10 |
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in cheap + great, family + friends, food, gifts, recipes, strategies |
is one of those books that you can open ANYWHERE and find something inspiring and useable in your creative life. In this 
(below) seen in so many chic interiors these days. But what we love most is to see what we can find on the unexpected sectors of the site, like “Scientific and Industrial” where we find all sorts of things that we use in ways they weren’t intended for…
that come in sizes ranging from a tiny 50 ml to 
and higher: 
in natural makes a worthy version for $16.99 for a classic 11 x 14 inch rectangle. We love Curiel’s stack: 
