colors and colors

annie of ALL for everyone makes me excited about color! the hat and tags above are from ALL knitwear.

the thing that looks like a matchbook above is a little pad of paper from krank press (also so colorful). i LOVE krank press' produce calendar, which shows you what to plant and what foods are in season to eat, while being pretty.

now this looks cozy and winter wonderlandish.

i am thinking about new year's resolutions. often i don't really make any, but this year i feel like making some. changes are in order!

getting darker

and darker. soon though, it will start getting lighter.

congratulations to ELK—you won the giveaway!

thanks all for checking out the book and for entering your names, veggies and books into the mix!

kale lovers unite

pinky leon on the heater and me reminding you (with a postcard) to enter to win a From Orchards, Fields, and Gardens book

i can't believe how many of you love kale. for all you kale fanatics, i made this delicious kale salad for thanksgiving. it's so good. my housemate, heather, turned me on to 101 cookbooks. lots of yummy recipes to be found there.

so this weekend i pull a name out of a hat, but there's still time to enter to win a book (until midnight tonight)! thanks for playing along, vegetable lovers. and thank you for the orders of late. i'll announce the winner on monday.

this week i saw low at the great american music hall. they were so in sync with each other. such perfect restraint and belting out. fantastic! when i go deaf.

santa's, i mean diana's workshop

there she is at the top in her red skirt, figuring. diana's studio is filled with shapes. it makes me hungry to look at them all. delicious in every way. and then there's the texture and the evidence of her drawing hand everywhere.

flowers spilling over the brim. an animal in black hiding underneath a bowl. cups lined up in rows. some wildness and some order—the best combo.

good things you want to touch and hold and look at and eat out of.

more (and bigger) photos of diana's studio here.

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remember to enter my book giveaway!

holiday giveaway!

i'm giving away of a copy of From Orchards, Fields, and Gardens—happy holidays! to enter to win the book, leave a comment by december 17. if you feel like it, tell me your favorite vegetable or the name of a good book. (if you don't have a website, please leave your email so that i have a way to contact you.) the winner will be chosen at random. good luck!

i put a ton more photos of the book here.
learn more about the book and the contributors here.

if you're purchasing a book, i'll be shipping them out through december 21 (and then again starting december 28).

cheers!
shash

that's my former housemate and completely awesome, beautiful woman, Tamara, in the bottom photo. she wrote a wonderful piece for the book. in her story, Long Live Negrita!, Tamara weaves together several memories. she recalls gleaning walnuts as a child in the orchard her grandfather managed, how some years ago, working with plants helped her recover from a terrible loss, and how more recently, she created a garden with the children at the public housing development library she manages in Hawaii.

into the holiday winter spirit

with some homemade glögg and kanel bullar (above)

wintery photo goodness
so cozy
reindeer
trees

goodness
i like sunken treasure's moon calendar and prismatic print shop's astrology calendar.
maria's come darkness scarves and book (scroll down) look gorgeous.
hanna konola's holiday cards

thanksgiving moments

looking at where the zip line from jen and bob's new house to nicole and jayn's future house will go—from the palm tree of course. i love this photo. bob imagining, nicole listening, kevin laughing.


feets


jen preparing delicious appetizers on the wedgewood (jealous) stove


makeshift dining room

it's so fun to see the transformation of jen and bob's house. every time i go over there, a ton of stuff has changed. that place is going to be SO awesome. i look forward to the day when it's close to done (guessing it will never be entirely done as there is always another project), and all of their fabulous art collection hangs throughout. it will be the coziest gallery (serving the yummiest treats), i've ever been to.

november

finally it feels like november in san francisco. last night a thunder, lightning, pouring rain storm passed over, leaving the air clear and crisp today. up on bernal hill, even off in the distance one could see the distinct shapes and colors of the houses lining the hills and streets. the wind blew cold, and the dampened ground made the green grass smell grassy. smelled like winter. i was glad to be bundled in scarf and jacket.

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i really wish i was going to the loney dear concert in göteborg dec 3.

there is a sweet and delicate art show up at rare device right now. it's sarah mcneil's work. her drawings remind me a little of beatrix potter's illustrations.

holiday special

photo by jen hewett

For your foodie friends, your sustainable agriculture-interested friends, your arty friends, your grandparent-adoring friends, your gardening friends and for family members you want to pressure (ever so subtly) into moving away from eating so many processed foods—

now through December 31, 2010, you can purchase From Orchards, Fields, and Gardens: Art and rememberings celebrating sustainable agriculture and good food for just $25! (5$ off the regular price)

The book is a coffee table book with beautiful artwork, and it has some meat (or really, mostly vegetables and fruit) to it in the form of non-fiction writing and poetry. More info and a list of artists and writers included in the book can be found on the website.

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I'm starting to think about making my annual Pinky Leon holiday cards.
Here are some sweet cards for inspiration/purchase:

Shanna Murray's
Lena Sjöberg's (in Swedish)
Anna Emilia's
Gemma Correll's
Anke Weckmann's

(I know there were more cards I wanted to link to, but now I can't find them.)

Lightening is striking now, so time to get off of the computer!

jam for the people

shakirah simley, one of the contributors to my book, started and runs slow jams from la cocina, here in SF. her delicious preserves change along with the seasons. she can't keep her wares on her online shelves, they're so popular! i found these at bi-rite grocery. can't wait to try the brown suga pear butter. mmm.

(i think the graphic design for her treats is rad too.)

find a great interview with shakirah over at lettuce eat kale.

now, time for toast!

pdx ♥

from a fabulous portland weekend

so good, it canceled out losing the hat i had just special ordered to replace my other recently lost hat, flying (this is huge), watching a movie so bad we walked out of it, and being accosted/harassed by four drunks (on separate occasions).

some good parts
leaves in many shapes and colors (one that danced and flew like a bird)
a street where cats of all shapes and colors greeted passersby
little winter, a fantastic, small handmade market, so thoughtfully organized, with beautiful wares and art
unexpectedly running into jenny and her sister at little winter
so much good food and drink at clyde commons and at broder
so many friendly people (at little winter and at every restaurant and store we went to)
not very much rain, and quite a bit of sunshine
jen and liz and crazy giggling and talking talking eating talking walking

my photos
jen's photos

spinning from the metal

grateful for

midnight colored packages tied with twine, colored with a story of annamaria painting in canada. so much is curvy-curly in her world—birds, clouds, vegetables. (how appropriate that she wears a blouse with scalloped sleeves.) and inside the package, a rainy watercolor soaked in weather. her clouds roll heavy with water into my house.

laura veirs singing last night

looking forward to portland's little winter: a handmade market and to spending time with two friends, one of whom who will soon be leaving san francisco for colorado. a bittersweet weekend. we will eat a lot of good food.

sarah jessica parker in LA story in constant motion—(on the beach) is it ok to spin here?

(which of course reminds me of THE best spinning-related scene in a movie ever)

ice cream party

bay area people: come over for some ice cream this saturday!

this morning

bigger

all the rest waiting for the sun.

(i take this backyard photo all the time.)

yellow
from heather smith jones
from annamaria

web (the real kind)

at Gravel & Gold

i like that From OFG is right by one of my favorites, Gunta Stolzl.

the other day i stopped in at Gravel & Gold to document From OFG on their shelves, and Cassie, one of the store owners, happened to be talkin' it up with Severine von Tscharner Fleming! and introduced me (and the book) to Severine! Severine is an articulate and groovy young badass farmer-filmmaker-activist, for those unfamiliar with her. i missed the recent screening of the final rough cut of her film, The Greenhorns, but i will definitely not miss the undoubtedly awesome final version.

view part of the film

grey/green

our overflowing yard was cut to the quick recently. our downstairs neighbor takes care of the yard sporadically. i'm not complaining—no one else takes the time. but this last flurry/fury of clipping and trimming and weeding left the yard seemingly barren. the huge quince tree (a favorite of the birds and bees) was sheared in half and totally de-leaved. and my favorite rose bush is nowhere in sight. and my housemate's blueberry bush was transferred from a pot to the yard, though she had it in special soil.

i've actually been avoiding taking a close look at the damage. but on this grey day, the greens were so bright, i had to check them out. well, of course francisco does have a plan. there are new things planted, and they are spaced evenly around the edges of our concrete slab. succulents are being succulent, and a new pint-sized gargoyle in permanent roar watches over the growing. i still don't know how the tree or white rosebush will do, but i trust that the yard needed a makeover and that francisco has a vision.

more, bigger over here

sigur rós today: gong

beautiful photos of mostly bay area artists. found through serena's blog.

congratulations to molly

congratulations to Molly for winning the Astounding Beauty Ruffian Press Poetry Award for her The Recent History of Middle Sand Lake. her book of poetry will be published soon!

three of Molly's beautiful poems from The Recent History of Middle Sand Lake are in From Orchards, Fields, and Gardens, for which i am so grateful. they move me every time i read them. i can't wait to read the rest of her Middle Sand Lake poems when her book is out!

you can read the two above poems of molly's if you click to view the image larger. the photograph is by terese wallbäck. terese's photos are some of my favorites. to me her photos fit perfectly with molly's poems. from what i can tell, both of their grandparents' had/have a great love for each other and for their grandchildren. so much tenderness in both molly's and terese's work.

early morning clouds

better bigger. more skies. the sky where i grew up.

uncloudy day (willie and dyan cannon)
unclouded day (johnny and his momma)

hairy

just some hairy pavement for you today

and some flickr paths
from sameli
from molly
from ti.mo (this one feels very familiar to me)
from shari

one of my all time favorite songs (though i miss the crickets in this version)

fierce

photo by bob lake, bigger here

this was my second time seeing patti smith. first was about ten years ago at the fillmore. she rocked both times. raw and loving and loud and awesome.

other good stuff
these two drummer-hand tap dancers (via my cousin)
amazing paper artist

grateful: rollin' fog

a whole other post could be grateful: people who are bringing back snail mail. thanks gwen. marimekko perfection.

i was inspired by mati's grateful fridays. and needed to remind myself.

i am grateful for san francisco's fast moving, nighttime fog. the first time i experienced it, i didn't live here yet. i was on a road trip from vancouver and seattle, back down to Santa Cruz with my friend tammy and her friend d. we stopped in san francisco and stayed overnight in a big pacific heights house. (pacific heights is a fancier, mansion-filled part of the city, for those unfamiliar with sf.) i can't remember whose house it was. i shared a bed with d. in an upstairs room. the room overlooked an empty, manicured pacific heights street. from the bed though, i couldn't see the street. i was nervous for various reasons and lay frozen in one position, staring out the window. soon, huge white clouds tumbled by. everything was a thick violet outside aside from the white clouds which moved so fast i couldn't believe it—like a silent, billowing freight train, or like a ghost or a herd of cloud animals. the clouds calmed me down—the wonder of them. they kept rolling by.

living now in the mission district, i'm not directly inside the fog belt, though i can see it in the distance from my window. and fog does pass by/envelop my house occasionally. sometimes i'll take the trash down our back steps late at night, and low clouds will be zooming by overhead. it takes me out of myself every time. reminds me of the larger world and the bigness of weather and nature. i think it's the silence of it that surprises me. here's this big thing happening, and we wouldn't even know it was happening unless we went outside. it seems like so much movement, so fast, would make a noise. it feels like a secret. it must be cleansing for a city to have fog regularly sweep through it like that from end to end. or anyhow, the fast moving nighttime fog is one of the aspects of sf's character that i love best.

slow clothes

i posted a rant about slow clothes over on sew green.

can't believe i only have one book (a place on earth) left to read of wendell berry's port william books. going to savor it and hope he writes more of them.

prickle

i've never seen these pricklers before.

flickr faves
sweden
the rains have begun
rhodesian ridgeback

good stuff

a few photos from flora grubb

i really like this bed found via mieke willems

also really like yelena bryksenkova's work found via lena sjöberg, who has a new book that looks fantastic: cold facts about ice.



some photos from my housemate heather of our general store/kite adventure, which i wrote about in my last post.

general store + kite flying

general store is one of my favorite stores in sf, so i am so pleased that they're carrying From OFG. (i will stop posting about the book at some point, really.)

i love how every time i visit the general store, it has transformed—new shelves inside the store (new goods of course), their little greenhouse built, now a small stony-mossy patch in front of the greenhouse, copious cacti and gardening tools, a great, long wooden bench along the fence—a perfect lounging spot. i missed the blooming of the wildflowers. next time i go, there will be some other development/blooming.

because it's on the other side of town, it makes for an adventure to visit it. heather and i went today and then flew her kite at ocean beach. ocean beach was surprisingly not cold, and the wind was pretty gentle, but steady. the kite flew almost directly above us, a bright rainbow flapping against the blue sky. it mesmerized us like a swimming fish or a campfire. i was only a little nervous that it might take a sudden dive and poke someone's eye out. luckily that didn't happen—all eyes are intact.