Pink of Perfection

Regulars around here will know how I feel about Sara Rose. She is funny and wise and tells stories that break our hearts sometimes. But the thing that kills me over and over, what keeps me in constant state of how-does-she-do-it?, is watching her careen through life with two kids, unflappable optimism, a hot pink manicure and a parade of baked goods in her wake. When I asked her to write a guest post, I had no idea what it would be. So it is a bit sheepishly that I accept this complimentary write-up, but with complete pride and certainty that I say thank you, Sara Rose. I’m not the only one around here whose life you’ve changed for the better.

Wow, I feel so weird to be here writing as a guest!  I never in my wildest dreams thought that I would be brave enough to make friends with utterly cool girl, Sarah, nor be writing about her birthday!  I would say I started “creeping” or “lurking” on her blog until one day I got bold enough to leave a comment.  What we have here is a community so warm and welcoming, I never looked back.  I feel, even though I don’t know y’all, each and every one of you is someone I would WANT to know, given the chance.

Anyways, a year ago, Sarah was planning her wedding and feeling dismal abut all the pressure.  So, I got my nerves up and wrote her an email about how weddings should NOT conform to “everyone else’s expectations” but SHOULD be the start of a marriage and how you and your lovely betrothed want that marriage to look.  We became fast penpals from there, which is the irony of the internet.  One day, you’re this loner hippie mom from South Dakota and the next, you’ve got this way cool friend in New York.

I feel the same way about birthdays as I do about weddings.  I want to celebrate them and I want to help the person celebrate being ALIVE, in every sense of that word.  As we head towards the big 3-0, it’s just so easy to get bogged down by the insecurities and the negatives.  A few months ago, I was feeling that too, so I took on some projects to get some of that “meaning” I wanted my life to have before the third decade hit.

In truth, my life looks nothing like what my 18-year-old brain had pictured a decade ago, but I am glad of that.  I am a firm believer in what comes around, goes around and for some reason, I am more than okay with that except for one tiny little detail.  My life had become an insane zoo and my mind spent hours whirling around like a devilish dervish, flirting with catastrophe, all while wearing big earrings.

Enter PoP Sarah.  When I began reading her, it was this gentle reminder for me to stop. Just STOP. Then go forth a bit more calmy, collectedly, and also a bit more fabulously.  Funny thing is that I started reading her blog on my 25th birthday and now I am heading towards 28 this year!  So in honor of our tentative new friendship last year, I sent her a birthday card with a bacon bra on it.  (That’s just how I roll, yo.)

This year I decided to make her something. So, in honor of her new marriage and our co-bliss in all things domestic, I decided to knit her pot holders in aqua and red.  Little did I know I was going to suffer a HUGE setback this week and accidentally knit half of one potholder in the WRONG pattern.  I was knitting these cool Aries potholders but apparently I had flipped a page too many and suddenly my pattern started looking insane.  In a dead panic I texted her because I was going to send them to her Wednesday.  She said, with her usual graceful aplomb, “Whenever!  I’m just so honored to be getting something!”

So I reknitted the one and have the other half finished and, umm, Happy Belated Birthday, hun!  I am a quirky little she-devil at best bumbling through life, so it should be no surprise that I messed up insanely. I should mention why I started to knit.  When I was coming to 27, I was hugely prego with my son and looking for ways to fill my days with a bit more “me” time and “meaningful silence.” Little did I know that knitting would become more meditative to me, than, well, meditating.  Considering I author several blogs, write freelance for a zillion teeny things, am a stay-at-home-mother, and home school like the hippity dippity that I am, you can probably see where knitting fell into place.

PoP Sarah has become one of my closest penpals and a treasured voice in my heart.  While I cannot get her gift to her on time, I can say with certainty that all the gifts she has given me have been everything I needed and more.  Happy Birthday, my dear penpal.  You are a soul sister.

xoxo-

Sara Rose

Here’s something you might not know about me (or which, actually, might be painfully obvious): I am fascinated by the mundane, everyday details of people’s lives. This is an interest that’s come in handy as my friends have scattered far and wide; it brings me a lot of delight to be able to construct their daily routines from all my questions. There is no detail that is too quotidian for my survey: “What time do you wake up? Do you bring your lunch to work? Do you read on the subway? What do you do in the evenings?” And on and on. I know that Katie, for example, keeps a loaf of great country bread in the freezer, pops a slice in the toaster, slathers it with rich, European butter she keeps wrapped in wax paper and then sits at her kitchen counter sipping tea before work each morning. People love talking about themselves, so I find that, though perhaps not as scintillating as an excavation of their deepest darkest secrets, people are happy to share how they spend their day to day.

It only became clear to me in the past few years that the reason I love these question and answer sessions is because I’m trying to figure out how other people make it work. How they create rituals out of the day in, day out that bring meaning or pleasure or both. How they fill their days in a way that suits them. How they pass the time without letting it waste away.

So it only follows that when I stumbled across Ali Edwards amazing scrapbooking blog awhile back, I fell in love with her “Week in the Life” project. For one week, you document your life. Receipts from dinner. Pictures of your trip to the doctor. Scribbles about the fight you’re in with a friend and the way the morning sun looks in your living room. The good, the bad, and the ugly. Ali sets the creative bar high with pretty templates and enviable organization; I know I can’t do that. But I can take pictures of the ordinary day-to-day of my life. And at the end of the week, I can print them out and put them together in a book for posterity. Or just pile them in a folder on the desktop. And really, whether you make it an arts and crafts project or a simple exercise in awareness, it doesn’t really matter; the gem of the idea is still there.

Don’t you love the idea that among our pictures of graduation, vacations, births and birthdays, there could also be a chronicle of the everyday? Our blogs, you could say, capture this. But blogs are such an idealized version of life (and that’s one reason we love them). I rearrange the junk on the kitchen counter so it’s out of frame, and Photoshop out the stains on the table. But what about the way we really live? The coffee, the laptop, the trip to the post office, the dinner on the coffee table. Because the way we spend our days is the way we live our lives. And though it seems messy and imperfect now (and will, I have a hunch, continue to feel messy and imperfect for a long, long while), some day I will want to remember the last week I was 27. The way my hair fell across my forehead, and the purple tulips that were losing their petals on the kitchen table.

So here it is: a suggestion to join in and document your own week, in whatever form works best for you — pictures on your cell phone, polaroids, whatever. Some day someone’s going to ask you, “What were you like way back when?” And there it will be: the tiny, little details of the every day life you lived.

There are some blogs that, in just from reading them, you feel like you’re able to take a step toward living your best life. For me, Small Notebook is definitely one of those. Rachel Meeks’ blog is inspiring without being aspirational; her advice never feels pat or oversimplified, but her focus on small, doable bits as well as the messy realities of real life keeps her blog firmly planted on the ground and leaves you feeling that simplifying, organizing, living well — whatever it is you’re after — you can do it.

Tell us about Small Notebook. What are the biggest challenges? The biggest surprise?

I’ve always loved journals that aren’t the “Dear Diary” sort. Small Notebook started as my online journal for my home life. I’m still surprised when I look and see that I have more than thirty readers. Of course it’s hard to manage the time it demands (and oh my, the email! I had no idea), but I’ve been learning how to craft articles in my head while I wash the dishes and ride in the car.

What’s your personal philosophy for achieving simplicity in daily life?

I just don’t want to own a bunch of stuff. I was trying to think of something better to say, but that’s really it. I don’t want my husband and I to spend our lives working for money to buy it. I don’t want to spend all my time taking care of it. I don’t want to limit our opportunities and experiences because we’re bogged down by it. It doesn’t satisfy me at all.

Simplicity isn’t our goal, but it does let me be free to think and dream, and to spend time with others.

My husband and I have a strategy: “less, but better,” and it helps us make better choices. We don’t own a lot of stuff, but we want the things we do have to be well-made. We don’t go out to eat very often, but when we do we’ll choose a nice place with good food. Then we really enjoy it.

It’s just like with food. I’d rather have one bag of ripe cherries in July than a dozen frozen party pizzas.

Continue reading “POP Profile: Rachel Meeks of Small Notebook” »

Relationships — and not just romantic ones, but with our friends, too — open us up to all sorts of delights we might not have known otherwise. Take me, for example: Before Sebastian and I started dating, I thought I didn’t like Chinese food, had never listened to David Bowie, and thought the internet was for buying shoes. And now look at me — it’s a rare fortnight that doesn’t see me ordering fried pork dumplings to my door, I listen to Ziggy Stardust when I’m washing the dishes and folding laundry, and I don’t think we need to go to into how much the internet has shaped the trajectory of my little life.

Also B.S. (Before Sebastian) I had never heard of poutine, but he talked about it like it was the holy grail of foods. (Perhaps it was made more fantastic by its relative unavailability to us.) So, when work took me to Montreal several years ago, my beloved came with me. While I sat at a book conference, he stay locked in our hotel room and built the original Pink of Perfection and dreamed about eating poutine for dinner. Finally, one night, I rescued him from his hard work and we took the metro to another part of town. We found ourselves at a diner and, intimidated by the locals, managed to choke out an order for poutine and two Molsons. The poutine was just as so-wrong-it’s-right delicious as Sebastian had led me believe. And now, if you can believe it, there’s a burger joint a mere 10 blocks away that serves up this Quebecois delicacy.

But to learn the ropes of the real deal, I figured we needed a bona fide Montrealer to give us the scoop. Cat Taylor from Montreal is Chic tells us everything you ever wanted to know:

Back in the late 1950s when poutine is said to have been conceived in Quebec, no one could foresee the foray this unique product would make into some of the most sought-after dining establishments worldwide. The trend has spread past the North American shores to Europe and the myths and legend of the poutine story continue to grow.

But I’m here to give the facts.

Continue reading “Guest Post: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Poutine” »

There are so many blogs I wish I could live inside, but I think Abby Try Again takes top billing. Her blog is the visual interpretation of what I love about Paris: gray, and a little bit melancholy, but like a gossamer-draped dream. Its talented creator, Abby Powell-Thompson, calls it an experiment in film photography and general happiness; I call it my favorite love letter to life’s most unassuming beauties — a tissue paper beach ball with the light catching it just so, colorful pennants stretched across the street, a donut with sprinkles. And it probably goes without saying that I’m an absolute goner for her Five Senses Friday series. We may not be able to step inside her blog for the weekend, but we can get into that brain for a few questions (and snag her prints on Etsy):

Tell us about Abby Try Again. What made you decide to do the blog? What are the biggest challenges? What inspires your posts? What’s been the biggest surprise?

I started the blog almost five years ago, right after my husband and I relocated to Portland, OR, from a tiny little farm town in California. It was a “crafty” blog and a way of keeping touch with family and friends who were back at home. Over the years the blog grew and changed just like me. I noticed I liked the “journaling” aspect of the blog and the photos just came as a natural progression. I try to be very honest and open in the blog without revealing too many boring details. The biggest surprise was finding so many like-minded people from around the world. I was (am) a really big nerd and it was nice to make connections through the blog. Another surprise is that the blog is very therapeutic for me. It calms me down, gives me perspective and it’s become a nice daily ritual for me.

Your photographs evoke the most serene, quiet, beautiful life. What’s your personal philosophy for achieving beauty and pleasure in daily life?

Like many others out there, I’ve always struggled with my self-image. Blogging has helped me realize how good my life is and how good the people are around me.  I think the majority of us are so very lucky and when you take the time to stop and notice the little beautiful things you begin to realize that. At least, it works for me. Every day I try to schedule at least one “nice” thing — whether it’s a walk to someplace quiet, a new flower from the market, a phone call to a loved one or reading a chapter in a book. I think it is important to have scheduled “good” times.

Who or what most inspires you?

Oh, that is a tough one. I glean inspiration from everywhere. I guess if I had to answer, it would be objects. When I see an old object I imagine its story; where it came from, who it belonged to, where it is going…

What’s your ideal day look like?

I love to travel! So my ideal day who would be spent in some town I’ve never been to, eating new things, exploring, digging around in old shops and shooting photos. Of course, James would be there, too.

I know Twitter isn’t a completely useless media development because it brought me to Tea. Known more formally as Tara Austen Weaver, Tea & Cookies’s namesake is warm and utterly real. If you can sense a kind, salt-of-the-earth nature in 140 characters, you know it’s the real deal. And today is a huge day for Tea. Her book, The Butcher and the Vegetarian, just hit the shelves. It seemed like a more than fitting time for a celebratory chat.

Tell us about Tea & Cookies. What made you decide to do the blog? What are the biggest challenges? What inspires you, your food, and your posts?

Tea & Cookies was a total accident. I was sick, I was bored, I had been reading a lot of food blogs. One day I started one—but I never put my name on it or told my friends. I didn’t plan to keep it up once I was healthy and back at work, but by that time I was hooked and couldn’t stop.

The site has always been about what is inspiring me at that moment. It’s a personal place where I talk about what I love—food, travel, tea, pretty things, amazing people. The name for the blog was an accident as well, but now I think of it as my tea party where I get to chat with lovely people about things that make me happy. It’s a joy.

The hard part is staying motivated and finding the time for it all. I burnt out after finishing the book and had to step away for a little while. I thought about stopping entirely, but the site has brought so much that is wonderful into my life—people who have become dear friends, a wonderful community of other bloggers, amazingly kind and generous readers. I would miss it terribly if I gave it up.

How did your experience blogging affect the process of writing a book? Do you approach the two forms differently, and if so, how?

Writing a blog is like going for a lap swim each morning—a slight effort, but ultimately a nice little workout that leaves you energized. Writing a book is like swimming the Atlantic. There are sharks, there are storms you couldn’t have predicted or prepared for, but there are huge triumphs as well. A regular writing schedule like blogging is good practice for a book, but I’m not sure anything prepares you to lose sight of the shore.

In my case I knew the book was going to look very different from the blog, as it covered material I had never written about. If my blog is about putting forth what I want to write about, the book pulled out things I was scared to write about. It was much harder, though ultimately more rewarding.

Continue reading “POP Profile: Tea & Cookies” »

photo by Rebecca Brogan

Shannalee T’Koy’s writing on her blog, Food Loves Writing, is like a ripe peach at full blush — lush and irresistible. Part of Shannalee’s appeal is how intimate her voice is. Whether you are reading her blog for the first time or the fiftieth, the feeling is that she is confiding just to you a discovery or a family treasure. And this would explain, in part, why when she decided to throw a blog birthday party, her readers showed up eager and hungry and left happy. Oh, and her photographs? Let’s just say they leave me hungry and happy, too.

Tell us about Food Loves Writing. What made you decide to do the blog?

I wanted a place to honor my grandma, the woman who taught me how to bake and who’d passed away nine years earlier. After she died, I used to say that I’d name my first daughter Caroline, after her, but by the summer of 2008, I realized there is more than one way to honor someone you’ve loved. Food Loves Writing has become just that, a place where I’ve continued growing and learning as a cook and as a person, with her a part of it all along.

What are the biggest challenges, and what inspires your posts?

It’s definitely been challenging to teach myself the technical side of blogging, but I guess that’s like cooking: no one is born a great webmaster any more than she’s born a great chef, right? It’s all about trying and learning and taking things one step at a time, so I do.

As far as what inspires my posts: I subscribe to so many well-written, beautifully photographed, creative, interesting blogs, and I can’t say enough about the inspiration they provide; I read magazines like Bon Appetit; I subscribe to newsletters like The Splendid Table; and I get the nicest e-mails from people, pointing me towards new things to try.

I share your feeling that food is a good entry point to talk about life. What do you think it is that makes food such a good reference point for, well, everything else?

Maybe because food is something we all have in common. No matter our age or race or culture, we all have to put something into our mouths in order to keep living, in order to keep doing everything else. Food sustains us and pleases us and, even more than that, connects us, through cooking, eating, standing around a table for the community of shared experience. When you think about it, food is such a gift.

Has your life changed at all in face of the recession? Has your cooking changed?

It’s true we’re all a little more aware of our spending these days, whether directly affected by job loss or pay cuts or not, but eating well doesn’t have to be. I am continually looking to lower my grocery and dining costs, whether by coupons or more eating from the pantry or just overall creativity (while not compromising quality), but I’d like to think that would always be true of me, recession or not.

Continue reading “POP Profile: Food Loves Writing” »

a fresh start in the new year

image via j_bary

the snow on the windowsills

Season 1 of The Wire

Kandinsky at the Guggenheim

trying out the best $2 tacos in Brooklyn

bath salts at home with that amazing “I’m at a spa” smell

baked oatmeal for cold mornings

image via alicepopkorn

guided meditations at meditation oasis

and you, my pretties?