eating
Ellen Silverman
Ten years after it was built, my kitchen still looked great EXCEPT for the counter tops. The speckled black-white-and-gray granite that seemed so right at the time looked dated, and its pattern was too busy to use as a surface for the food photography we did in my space. My friend Holton, who is an amazing artist, designer, and gifted improvisor said “Why don’t you make a top to fit over the one you have?…Make a form out of plywood that will fit over the granite, and cover it with a soft-ish metal that can wrap around the form…”
I remembered the old burnished zinc bars and cafe tables I’d seen in France, and thought that zinc’s soft luster would be make a beautiful surface to photograph food on. So I looked up ZINC FABRICATORS in the Yellow Pages, and found a guy in Brooklyn who would make me what I wanted. All I had to do was send him a plan… read more…
01.27.10 |
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in eating, elements, inside, plans, reimagine, resources, resources blogs + sites |
When Margot Wellington designed the kitchen of her house in East Hampton in 1984, she defied the usual notions of kitchen design. Instead, she set out to incorporate the elements she found essential from many years of serious cooking and entertaining. One of her most remarkable innovations was the design of an eleven-foot-long stainless steel counter with a large shallow sink built seamlessly into the center of it. The sink itself becomes a work surface, allowing her to use the whole eleven-foot span to do many jobs at once, from prepping vegetables on the left to preparing a turkey for roasting on the right. She designed the sink herself and then found someone to make it for her.
Here she describes the logic behind her design, and how she made her idea a reality:
read more…
10.19.09 |
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in eating, elements, inside, reimagine |
Sally Schneider
My friends N and O constantly inspire me with their simple, brilliant solutions to the everyday, imbued with their very unique, very personal style. Here N uses a lemon to stopper her carafe of filtered water: perfect. (It would work equally well for iced tea or lemonaid.)
When I asked if I can blog what I see in their home, they said “Okay, but please don’t say who we are; we like our privacy.” It’s a deal! The idea stays the same whether you know who thought it up of not.
More anonymous brilliance to come over the next few weeks…
10.04.09 |
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in copy this!, eating, housewares, repurpose |
I started viewing coriander seed as Instant Flavor Enhancer one day when I was testing a recipe and had a lot of cracked coriander left over. I tasted it on whatever came to mind to discover its slightly lemony-orange peel-herbal flavor and bit of crackle is wonderful on all sorts of foods, sprinkled on before serving, like pepper. It provides the perfect little alt-note on everything from smoked salmon to rice pudding to a cracker spread with crunchy peanut butter). My all-time favorite is on crushed new potatoes with crème fraiche and chives. (See the list and recipe farther down)
I was snooping around the internet hoping to find a coriander photo when I stumbled on this image and the big idea behind it: read more…
10.01.09 |
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in eating, food, housewares, recipes, repurpose, strategies |
When I’m camping in a borrowed or rented house out of town, I love the challenge of cooking in the invariably rudimentary kitchen with whatever is there. It’s fun to devise solutions to small dilemmas: making roasting pans out of tin foil, or rolling pins out of wine bottles. I’ve made cheese souffles in cast-iron skillets, and used the same skillet to smoke trout using dried twigs from a nearby apple tree. These small challenges are somehow gratifying.
The one thing I always bring with me, though, is a good knife – NOT a set of chef’s knives bound in a leather roll – but a simple, inexpensive, picnic knife from France, the Opinel
. read more…
09.15.09 |
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in cheap + great, eating, gifts, housewares, road warrior, tools |
Adam Kuban of Serious Eats’ Slice Blog has a compelling series about people who have built their own pizza ovens. His interview with Mark Wilkie, who created this beauty is in the backyard of his Brooklyn rental, comes complete with photos and drawings of the process. Wilkie found lots of practical resources at Forno Bravo, a California based pizza oven maker that offers free plans for building “Pompeii” brick pizza oven as well as forums where d-i-y oven builders can exchange info.
It seems the Forno Bravo can fashion all or part of an oven if you’re into designing your own. Their “Photos” section has inspiring photos of wood-fired ovens from all over the world, read more…
09.08.09 |
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in eating, food, how-to, living, outside, resources blogs + sites, rooms |
Westerby Gard is an inn and restaurant on a beautiful centuries-old estate near Inkoo, 45 minutes southwest from Helsinki. Its traditional, rustic style reflects the Swedish influence on Finland. I was taken with their glossy painted tables, cleverly configured to make a huge dining table, or rectangular tables of any length – no tablecloth necessary. It’s an expensive-looking way to transform cheap wooden tables and chairs like these (from Ikea, Crate and Barrel, or an unpainted furniture store… ) read more…
08.30.09 |
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in copy this!, eating, furniture, solutions |
Patchwork was created as a way to make use of scraps of fabric by frugal people who couldn’t afford to waste anything. Though it’s an age-old technique, there’s no rule that it has to look that way. This patchwork tablecloth, a for-sale prop at Rogue’s Gallery in Portland, Maine, is made from stitched-together heavyweight vintage linen grain sacks. It’s totally do-able, and a great example of how “moderne” patchwork can look, simply by choosing the right colors or pattern. read more…
08.27.09 |
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in copy this!, eating, housewares, how-to, repurpose |
Dish racks and kitchen storage systems are among the most disappointing offerings in stores; it’s hard to find one that really functions well and looks great. The design group Studio Matière has designed a kitchen storage system built of pine splints in an irregular, ladder-like grid that can hang from a tree branch, or be free-standing. The tree-thing is definitely out-there (charming…impractical for many), but the shelf part does seem to me to be a design-model that could easily be improvised upon read more…
08.10.09 |
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in copy this!, eating, elements, housewares |
Ellen Silverman
When in a weakened state from anxiety, an impending cold or working too hard, I take solace in butter. I stand at the kitchen counter and eat shavings of cold butter on toast, or even crackers, with a few grains of sea salt. Good butter is like a perfect cheese to me but better at these moments: purer, simpler, direct and voluptuous. read more…
03.30.09 |
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in eating, food, how-to, recipes, strategies |
This image from Emma’s Blog reminds me of the usefulness of radiators when traveling in the winter. A hot radiator is a good place to warm bread you’ve swiped from a room service delivery, bought at a local store or have leftover from takeout. Same with cheeses, saved or bought: you can warm some goat cheese, or a slice of cheddar or brie to melting to spread on that warm bread. Just leave it on the paper it came wrapped in or place on a plate you’ve swiped from room service. Those little chocolates the maids leave around can be melted on the radiator and paired with some warm bread to make a lovely improvised pain-au-chocolate. And of course, you can warm any take-out sandwich or bowl of soup.
01.07.09 |
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in eating, repurpose, road warrior, strategies, travel, why not? |
(follow the directions and caveats 
(fine for jars with a flat surface).
