A New Year

To Market

I know I've shared some pictures from the West Side Market before, but going there just makes me so happy. Besides, we did get a new camera for Christmas so these are much better. Devin took these. I was too busy looking for the best grapefruit.







It's crazy cold outside. I keep feeling like I should be baking or doing something industrious, but I can't seem to move from this very warm spot.

Post Bazaar

Phew! The craziness of preparing for my first craft show is finally over. It went really well, and it was really fun, albeit a bit chilly. The building was pretty cool and it was kind of great to be downtown all day. I finally got to meet some of my crew from Cleveland Handmade, which was exciting. I had the pleasure of being between Oh Melisa! and the Cleveland based letterpress goodness that it Oddball Press.I had my eye on some squids across the way, but never actually got around to doing much shopping. I'm looking forward to doing more shows in the future.

Jessica tagged me last week and I owe her some random facts, but I'll save that for later. For now it's a day for pancake eating, laundry doing, movie watching.

are you my uncle?

Last week we had the good fortune of going to visit my brother and sister in law and our one and only niece. It was great to spend some time with them. Like last time we had a delicious brunch at Blue Max Coffee.




As brief as our trip was, I did manage to squeeze in a little shopping. I splurged on some delicious Beemster gouda at the Marion Street Cheese Market. I also spent a fair amount of time salivating at Paper Source. It's crazy how much paper makes me happy.

In other news, I was accepted into this years Bazaar Bizarre. I'm pretty excited and pretty nervous as well. Today is my one week countdown, so if I am even more absent than usual, this is the reason. I am holed up in the attic making, making, making. If you are in the area come on down!

chill in the air

There's officially a chill in the air, and it's beginning to feel truly like fall. Even though there is bound to be a few serious warm-ups before fall is officially here, I'm excited that the crazy 90 plus days are gone. It means that I can finallymove my ridiculous mess from the dining room back up to my attic studio. I'm excited. I had so much fun "making over" the attic on a $20 budget. I'll be glad to get settled in again, though I will miss having a dog at my feet. Ramona's domain is the downstairs. The cats are the boss of the upstairs. They would like to hide out in the attic, but they just get into spots where they don't belong and get their white feet all dirty.

This air makes me want soup, so there's some simmering on the stove. This recipe again. If I remember correctly, it was my last hurrah before spring was really here. I've been really hungry for something Indian inspired and I think this will hit the spot. I've been reading Madhur Jaffrey's Climbing the Mango Trees and I've been dreaming of curries as I drift off to sleep. Another great Indian memoir is Monsoon Diary. It really introduced South Indian cuisine to me for the first time. I finally got to try it on a trip to Concord, Massachusetts of all places. It was one of our many destinations during our "Spring of Interviews". We went into Cambridge one night and had an amazing meal. I was finally able to eat a dosa. Since then, I've managed to track down a local restaurant the specializes in South Indian food. If you are in the area, it's called Udipi (from experience I can tell you that it may be called Udipi wherever you live) There's a great grocery next door as well.
When I think of all of those trips, I think of great Indian food. We seemed to eat it everywhere we went. Concord, Seattle, Chicago, Connecticut.


I love a memoir that incorporates food, because food has such strong associations with our memories. I think of Indian food and I remember Massachusetts, that's the way it works. I was excited about Concord for more than Indian food. I loved Little Women more than anything as a girl. I read her biography as a fourth grader and just immersed myself in those Alcotts. I would carry around a notebook a imagine I had a garret to escape to to write stories in. Susan Cheever recently wrote a book about the lives of the many famous Concord residents. American Bloomsbury was interesting, although I felt like I was left wanting more. The lives of Concord residents are worth looking into though.

For now, there's soup.

splendidly

I'm reading Daniel Handler's books Adverbs at the moment.I'm really enjoying it, but it's structure as possibly interrelated short stories makes it difficult to follow as a before bed read. I always feel like I missing out on the more subtle relationships because I've forgotten them from the night before. It did manage to inspire my title though.

The weather here has been gorgeous. We went to the Huntington Reservation this past week. It was gorgeous.




We definitely enjoyed ourselves, but I suspect it was Ramona who had the best time.





The next weeks are going to be busy, but I have some more of my favorite recent pictures to share.

the sporting life

I'm not really much of a sports fan. This is probably partly because I'm not much of an athlete and mostly because the town that I grew up in is fanatical about high school sports that it's been the subject of a well-known documentary.With that much said, I have to admit that it makes me really happy when a hometown team makes good.I'm sure that I've mentioned it before, but my city has a serious inferiority complex. It is pretty well earned, but even amidst the hard knocks, I still happen to think it's a pretty great place to live.I know all about getting close to something good and then having yet another thing not work out.So, it gave me a few goosebumps last night despite the hot humid night, when Devin was refreshing the score and it was clear that our team would win, and all through the night,up and down the street, you could hear people in their living rooms cheering and celebrating. It mad me appreciate the whole notion of sports and community a little better.For a McSweeneys take on the NBA, check this out.



I have no images that are even close to being sports related, but I like this picture from the Tall Ships festival a lot.It also reminds me of the other thing I did yesterday, which was watch the Decemberist's dvd, A Practical Handbook. The live Portland show is really great as are the interviews. I am endlessly fascinated by the evolution of bands. It also includes some music videos. I love the Bachelor and the Bride video. It's a series of animated silhouettes. I tried in vain to track down a link for the video here. Here's a link to the video for O Valencia instead.

As I'm ending this post, I find it hard to believe that I'm about to type "sports" as a label. Maybe I'm getting over my sports rebellion. It probably has something to do with that big birthday I just had.

catch-up

This has been a pretty busy past few days, compounded by the fact that I apparently injured myself in a Pilates class. While I'm sure this is not all that uncommon, I still feel silly. It was serious enough that lifting an english muffin was painful. I think I'm on the mend now,thanks in part I'm sure to the coconut cream pie custard Devin brought me from Rosati's.
Friday I had a chance to see Art Spiegelman give a talk moderated by New York Times art critic, Michael Kimmelman.While, he didn't spend as much time on the Maus as I suspect many audience members would have liked, it was really interesting. He had a lot to say about the evolution of the comic book and the graphic novel and their place in the art world.

Best of all, it was a free event that even included a reception. It was held in Cleveland Public Theatre, which is a really great space. They did an amazing job doing a minimalist sort of renovation in a historic theatre. I'm looking forward to going to more events there.

The theatre is located in the Gordon Square Arts District. I like this neighborhood a lot, and it is really coming into it's own. They have the new Ecovillage, a national pilot project to create an ecologically sound neighborhood whose target area is the quarter mile surrounding the new RTA station.. And, finally, what all thriving neighborhoods need, particularly one with a theatre is a great coffee house.

We went to Gypsy Beans & Bakery, which doesn't just make an amazing Mexico City latte with chili and cinnamon, but is really a great community asset, supporting local businesses. Their website serves as a great link to the neighborhood.
We also had some weekend company and did a little shopping and thrifting, followed by a trip to Johnny Mango's to use Devin's birthday coupon.
Tomorrow, some of those thrift store finds.