Lately we’ve been wanting to expand our fields of vision a bit. We’re always on the lookout for new inspiration for the blog, but also just for shaking up our own thoughts and routines. After asking a couple of friends for some book and blog recommendations, we realized that we have the greatest resource in our own readers!
So tell us: what are you reading that inspires you? Whether it’s a new favorite book or one you return to often, a blog you keep tabs on or one you just discovered we want to hear about it. read more…
Recently we wrote about the ins and outs of selling your books online; one comment inquired about our collection of old art books and whether or not we would sell them directly to readers. While we can’t delve into the world of online sales right now, we DO want to point you to this great FREE online art resource: the Guggenheim has put 65 gorgeous modern art books online for anyone to access.
We’ve loved Canal House Cooking since it launched in 2009. Created and self-published by two home chefs, each book in this cookbook series is made with care, beautifully presented with unique (and do-able) recipes. We treasure our copies, but we also like to give subscriptions as gifts–new books are released three times a year, but every little book is full of enough surprises to last throughout the months in-between. (Single books can also be purchased on amazon.) read more…
We have a lot of respect for writer Michael Pollan’s writing about the food industry, and heard that his 2009 book Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual presented a sane approach to eating. But we’ve been so bombarded over the years with”scientifically proven” strictures about what to cook and eat that were later proven WRONG, that our skepticism kept us away from his book. Until now.
Last month Pollan re-released the book with a set of fabulous illustrations by Maira Kalman, and we were hooked. Pollan’s rules are totally sensible, easy to follow ideas for maximizing the good stuff in your diet, most of which we can definitely get behind. But it’s the great images that really pull you in and make the rules come alive. Here are some of our favorites, starting with the one, above, whose simple rule is “Cook”:read more…
(Video link here.) After hearing a lot of very kind and reverent words about Steve Jobs lately, Walter Isaacson’s new biography about him, apparently balancing the picture, which we can’t help but think is a good thing. The guy was brilliant, but no angel; he was deeply flawed. Ryan Tate of Gawker wrote just this in his piece What Everyone Is Too Polite To Say About Steve Jobs an outline of the other side of Jobs, which include authoritarianism, rough treatment of underlings, tolerant of abusive working conditions in Apple factories overseas….This is the same guy who gave his famously uplifting commencement speech, who said “Death is life’s change agent.”
We’ve heard similar combo-platters of gifts and faults with a number of famous people (and experienced it working for some). And this past year, three of our dear friends passed away. The were all much loved, creative, valiant and very generous people who had harsh, often dark, sides as well.
We’ve written before about how much we love Made By Joel’s, Joel Henrique’s website that features his charming handmade children’s toys. This October 11th will mark the release of Joel’s first book, Made to Play!: Handmade Toys and Crafts for Growing Imaginations.The book compiles a number of great toy-making and craft projects for children and their parents. Categorized by fun themes (The Zoo! Cars and trucks! Music and art! Dress-up!), most of the projects use ordinary crafting materials, like paper, fabric, tape and glue to make versatile and simple toys that kids can be proud they had a hand in making. Many of Joel’s creations are appealing to grownups as well. read more…
(Video link here.) We recently came across this great talk by Joshua Foer that explores the success of “experts.” The video is 17 minutes, which we know is long, so we’ve culled the gist for you, hoping you’ll listen at some point; we think it’s truly useful and super interesting.
According to Foer and the scientists he draws from, becoming an expert has a whole lot more to do with psychology than innate ability. We generally push ourselves to achieve at a given skill only up to the point at which we can get the job done. Foer uses the example of typing—most of us type for at least an hour a day, yet we don’t get measurably faster…we settle into a speed we think is good enough. We hit an “OK plateau.”
Psychologists who study skill acquisition have found that experts across a wide variety of fields know that you can’t improve at something as long as you’re stuck on the OK plateau, and routinely use the four strategies below to ensure that their minds continue to climb uphill, so to speak. Even if you’re not striving to become an “expert” in your field, we think these strategies are helpful for anyone trying to pick up a new skill or practice, or get better at an old one. Here they are: read more…
We’ve written many times before about the fantastic Canal House Cookbook series, but this summer Christopher Hirsheimer and Melissa Hamilton took their work to a new level by hosting the first annual Smallholding Festival in Ottsville, Pennsylvania. The festival featured a number of skill-shares and do-it-yourself exhibitions including cheese-making, beekeeping, canning, bread-baking, and spit-roasting. Also on-hand was Margo True, the author of The One-Block Feast: An Adventure in Food from Yard to Table, which is worth checking out if you’re an aspiring urban farmer/gardener/d-i-y-er/beekeeper
Even though we’re telling you about this event after it’s happened, you can actually bring a few of the exhibitions directly to your own home. The Smallholding Festival website features four free pdfs with step-by-step instructions for read more…
This unattributed image posted on You Are the River recently was accompanied by the words “I’m so hungry.” Yeah we are too. It reminds us of the endless possibilities for making fried eggs into a compelling meal any time of day – breakfast, brunch, lunch, dinner, or a late supper.
Fried eggs are great on just about anything, providing a cheap, satisfying, easy-to-make hit of protein. They’re the reason Sally’s cookbook The Improvisational Cook features Spaghetti with a Fried Egg and Parmigiano Reggiano on the cover (recipe here). Often finding herself tired, hungry and too crazed to cook, she’s riffed endlessly on the theme. A whole section of The Improvisational Cook is devoted to it, and includes oven-roasted peppers or sweet onions, mashed or hashed potatoes, ratatouille, polenta, warmed over risotto, fried bread, asparagus, spinach, potato chips… As a life strategy, she makes sure she’s got organic eggs on hand when the larder is low.
We are thrilled to announce ‘the improvised life’ latest giveaway: Abrams’ lush coffee table book Artists’ Handmade Houses, with text by Michael Gotkin and photographs by Don Freeman. It is a sublime collection of thirteen homes created by artists and master craftsmen, both infamous and little known. We first learned about it when we saw images of sculptor Raoul Hague‘s eccentric, inspired cabin in Woodstock, New York on Mondoblogo. The title of the post was “Who the Hell is Raoul Hague?“, which we didn’t know either. But we were smitten by Hague’s rustic, beautiful, wildly improvised home and workspace, especially his bedroom with its pivoting lectern rigged to make it easy to read in bed. read more…
One of our new favorite food sites is They Draw and Cook, where every recipe is illustrated, for totally appealing, graphical how-to’s. Some are done by professionals, and some are done by amateurs who submit their work to the site, but all are charming and one-of-a-kind. Somehow, having the recipes in this form loosens up the vibe into a more improvisational one. And it makes us want to DRAW what we cook, rather than just write a recipe.
You can search for recipes by ingredient, meal type, illustration style or even where in the world the artist is from, OR use the fun Dial-a-Dinner option for a great random menu…. read more…
“ It is a book about writing that provides guidance on how you can re-discover skills you likely possessed before getting caught up in the notions of “good and bad”.
It’s more than a book. It’s a public service. Barry is trying to help everyone reconnect with lost creative capability and provides a path for doing it.
The book was published in 2008 and is a wonderful work of art in itself.”
We love it, and how daring, non-linear and honest Barry lets herself be…
It smacks of Paltrow’s friend Mario Batali’s influence (He is one of the best cooks we know). In lieu of the traditional and somewhat time-consuming cream sauce and grating of American cheese, Paltrow uses marscarpone as a base for freshly grated Parmigiano (easily bought) as the sauce for the macaroni. Fast and furious, with those big-guns ingredients, it cannot fail. You’ll find the recipe at the end of the post… read more…
Her name is Katie and here’s the kitchen improvisation she sent in:
This recipe is a riff on The Splendid Table’s Lynn Rossetto Kasper’s Sweet Sicilian Sauce recipe, found at this link.
I make this late in the fall when the tomatoes need to be picked so they don’t freeze, but are a bit green yet. I mix the green-ripening ones with red ones and the result is a more “soupy” sauce than Lynn describes because of all the fresh juices. So I take an immersion blender and blend it to a smooth, creamy consistency.
This is to-die-for sauce for pasta and people beg me for the recipe. The vinegar and sugar offsets the greenness in the tomatoes and the blend of tomatoes gives it a richer flavor than canned ones. It works!
Katie’s sauce is just one example of the many truly inspiring stories and improvisations we received (you’ll find them as Comments at the end of the post)…well worth reading for their many good ideas.
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.
.) 
presented a sane approach to eating. But we’ve been so bombarded over the years with”scientifically proven” strictures about what to cook and eat that were later proven WRONG, that our skepticism kept us away from his book. Until now.
, apparently balancing the picture, which we can’t help but think is a good thing. The guy was brilliant, but no angel; he was deeply flawed. Ryan Tate of Gawker wrote just this in his piece 
.The book compiles a number of great toy-making and craft projects for children and their parents. Categorized by fun themes (The Zoo! Cars and trucks! Music and art! Dress-up!), most of the projects use ordinary crafting materials, like paper, fabric, tape and glue to make versatile and simple toys that kids can be proud they had a hand in making. Many of Joel’s creations are appealing to grownups as well. 
, which is worth checking out if you’re an aspiring urban farmer/gardener/d-i-y-er/beekeeper
features Spaghetti with a Fried Egg and Parmigiano Reggiano on the cover (
, with text by Michael Gotkin and photographs by Don Freeman. It is a sublime collection of thirteen homes created by artists and master craftsmen, both infamous and little known. We first learned about it when we saw images of sculptor 
:
. To quote 
down the line. Next one slotted: Kate Payne’s
