Recently, a smart, lovely article by blogger Erin Boyle on Urban Foraging made a connection that we knew but were somehow too tired or blocked to make: that the stunningly fragrant linden trees in bloom in many parts of the country (and in New York City) are the very same ingredient used for an age-old tisane, or calming tea, served commonly in France. Its leaves and blossoms can be picked judiciously without harming the tree, and easily dried to make an herb tea to have on hand all year.
Erin told the story of getting up the courage to actually “forage” some linden in her Brooklyn neighborhood, read more…
We love this chair by monocomplex design studio because it illustrates an essential lesson about cardboard: when sheets of it are glued together they become an incredibly strong material, a homemade laminate that can be used like wood. Here, the designer glued together 127 pieces of cardboard (recycled boxes, not pristine sheets) until he had a big roughly-arm-chair-size block. Then he sculpted it with a grinder and saw, gradually tailoring a chair to fit his body.
You can watch the process here, a 1.5 minute revelation. read more…
Le Corbusier’s beautiful table “Tronc d’arbre“, designed in 1956, made the hairpin leg table famous, and brought notice to its simple formula: a wood slab or plank top + a set of hairpin legs. That formula has inspired a multitude of iterations over the years; it is a relatively simple and impressive d-i-y project, made even easier by a hairpinlegs.com, a whole website offering different kinds and sizes of hairpin legs: read more…
After Scott McDowell attended a class in theatrical improvising with Charlie Todd, founder of Improv Everywhere, he faced a quandery: how to reconcile a basic tenet of productivity – saying “No” and setting limits – with the essential principle of improvising – saying “Yes, and…”.
“Yes, and” is a protocol that allows for anything to happen, and it goes like this: No matter what your fellow actors present to you, instead of negating it, belittling it, or disagreeing with it, your job is to say, “Yes, and…” Accept the scenario as it’s presented to you (regardless of where you wanted it to go), and then to add to it.
Having found this excercise compelling, McDowell decided to see what happened if he practiced “Yes, and…” in the “real” world of work, family and obligations for 24 hours. He summed them up recently in a post on 99%. Although he found saying “Yes, and…” doesn’t work all the time, it is a powerful tool. Our favorite revelation: read more…
Now that we have a terrace with a fatso view, we’ve been looking at minimalist planter options and found this image of a cool one at Houzz: a four cabinet file cabinet with drawers removed, turned on its back. It is one of a series of file cabinet planters made by Minimis and has a pricetag of nearly $800. Yikes! So we poked around for other options and found several people had the same idea. Check out this d-i-y before-and-after we found at Pretty Shiny Things: read more…
We’ve written before about the Fixer’s Collective, a group of improvisational fixers and menders based in Brooklyn, NY as well as Chris Hackett and the Madagascar Institute, who are devoted to facilitating “out there” creations – especially flamethrowers – for just about anyone who shows up. But lately we’ve been hearing about a number of similar projects coming out of NYC’s most forward-thinking borough–collectives of folks bonded together by a common purpose or interest, offering services at fairly low – or NO – cost.
But this isn’t about Brooklyn or the particular brand of young people associated with its DIY culture. It’s about a really compelling model of learning and service provision that could work anywhere there are willing people (and indeed, other cities have similar crops of great projects).
Last week we posted a recipe for Strawberries in Beaujolais Sauce from Sally’s A New Way to Cook, and thought: what better way to kick-off the summer than to give the book away?! And a signed first-edition copy at that. These hardcover editions with the jazzy stripe-ed covers are now out of print and hard to find.
When A New Way to Cook was first published in 2001, it completely turned the idea of “healthy eating,” on its head. Instead of telling you what you can and can’t eat, and what foods are “good” and “bad,” the book explores how to use “taboo” ingredients like butter, oil, and animal fats in often radical new ways to make healthy and satisfying dishes. It’s also the book where Sally started to play with improvising in the kitchen, years before The Improvisational Cook hit the shelves. In 2009, A New Way to Cook was voted one of the best food books of the decade by the Guardian. We know a lot of people who use it as their “basic” cookbook. read more…
May offers a brief window when the markets are flush with fragrant local strawberries. We’ve been given a couple of cartons by friends who actually had time to get to the greenmarket: sublime little sweet bites perfect as is. But we were reminded of a recipe for Strawberries in Beaujolais Sauce from Sally’s A New Way to Cook that would be the perfect way to use up what remains of the spring’s strawberry harvest.
It’s a versatile sauce/stew that can be served hot or cold, and alongside or over any number of plain cakes and desserts, as well pancakes, french toast, and especially a fine vanilla ice cream. (We like to eat it by the spoonful as a midnight snack). It’s simple to make, and the flavors of beaujolais (or other fruity young red wines) and strawberries marry beautifully; it’s an excellent way to use up an open bottle of wine. read more…
(Video link here.) When we checked in on Pascal Anson’s YouTube Channel and saw a video called “The Present”, we thought we’d see Anson demonstrating a clever way of BEING present. Well, we did, sort of: Pascal Anson’s inimitable way of…giving real presents/presence.
This is the final call for our free book giveaway! One of the the great things about Kate Payne’s Hip Girl’s Guide to Homemaking is how it makes you realize that processes or projects that seem complicated, are really easy enough to do in your own home. Curing bacon in the perfect example. Kate Breaks it down into five easy steps, and the best part is that you get to control the quality of pork that you use. (Also is there anything more satisfying than the smell of home-cured bacon sizzling in your kitchen?)
So its your last chance! To win a copy the Hip Girl’s Guide, read more…
Soon summer will be here, bringing with it a crop of cucumbers (and countless other vegetables) just waiting to be pickled. But for those who are intimidated by the process of water-bath canning for shelf storage (or who just want a crunchy fresh pickle!) there is an easy solution: spices, water, vinegar, salt, and two weeks in the fridge. We love the simplicity of Kate Payne’s Fridge Pickles 101. And that’s just one of many great, fun recipes included in her fab The Hip Girl’s Guide to Homemaking. If you haven’t read about it already, we’re doing a free book giveaway this month. So if you’re hungry for more of Kate’s tips, simply leave a comment telling us what project around the house or in your garden you’re most looking forward to tackling this spring/summer. Make sure you do it by midnight on March 19, at which point we will randomly pick a winner.
There are a lot of online drawing tools, but most of them feel too complicated to be of much use to us. Diagram.ly, on the other hand, couldn’t be easier. If you’ve ever needed to throw together a quick diagram for a report and been stymied by the lack of options or user un-friendliness of Microsoft Word, you’ll find this to be a great (and free!) alternative. We’ve been using it to sketch out some storage space, but see its potential for many free-form design projects. For the more business-minded, the folks at alternativeTo point out that it would be great for organizational and work-flow charts. And certainly kids who just want to play around with shapes could have some fun with it too! It’s a perfect combo-platter: practical AND playful…
But we never showed what actually happens over the course of a week as the tightly-closed bulbs open and bloom. So we photographed the hyacinths that we’d plunked into a Smarta bowl from Ikea about 5 days ago. All we had to do was water them lightly every few days. Over days we watched the plants transform in front of our very eyes. We realized that we had actually created a tiny tabletop garden, whose subtle changes we could enjoy daily.
One of the things we love so much about The Hip Girl’s Guide to Homemaking is that Kate Payne always thinks to share the simple–but totally essential–skills that many of us manage somehow not to have picked up. A perfect example is the series of useful knots on her blog. Her tutorial for tying a bowline knot is perfect for setting up the clothesline she was making, but of course has an endless number of knot-securing-uses. Just one more reason why we’re excited to give away a copy of Kate’s book next month. If you haven’t already, leave us a comment telling us what project around the house or in your garden you’re most looking forward to tackling this spring/summer, and we will randomly choose a commenter to receive a free copy of this great book. Deadline is May 19. read more…
At The Chive, we came across a list of 16 simple solutions to some everyday dilemmas: a virtual, visual Hints from Heloise. We’ve found some incredibly useful, like using bread bag tags as cord labels (of course, with our obsessive minds, we’d go looking for stylish tag in a color we like: white! – and might trim it to a cooler shape).
David Saltman reports that he’s been using the strategy for getting an elevator to go directly to the floor you want, useful for emergencies (Note: We recommend reading Mary Reynolds thoughtful comment below.) read more…
, and thought: what better way to kick-off the summer than to give the book away?! And a signed first-edition copy at that. These hardcover editions with the jazzy stripe-ed covers are now out of print and hard to find.
hit the shelves. In 2009, A New Way to Cook was 
is how it makes you realize that processes or projects that seem complicated, are really easy enough to do in your own home. 
