an avian valentine.

I'm a big proponent of small-scale additions to public places. If it's the kind thing that blends into a landscape or eventually disappears altogether, even better. For Valentine's Day this year, I'm decorating the back alley with valentines for the birds.
They're little love notes left in birdseed as an afternoon snack for the chickadees and a bit of whimsy for neighbors passing by. The only thing nicer than receiving a valentine is making one for someone else, don't you think?


other things:
friendly gestures.
anonymous love notes.
tiny envelopes.
heart strings.

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blushing sugar cookies.

In preparation for this week's love themed festivities, I rolled up my (pajama) sleeves on Sunday morning and got to baking something appropriately heart-shaped. Fittingly for a girl who lives in a tiny apartment, I decided on miniature cookies and used just the inside of my linzer heart cookie cutter to make treats only barely bigger than your average conversation heart.
I used Mark Bittman's sugar cookie recipe, which is an awfully good thing to have in your real or imagined recipe box. It's tried and true and can serve as the base for any number of sugary delights.

I've never aced cookie rolling. If you're like me and and can't quite manage to get an evenly thick dough, my only council is to watch your cookies carefully in the oven. Thin cookies will brown much more quickly than their heftier traymates. For softer cookies, consider taking them out of the oven after only five or six minutes. 
For the glaze, I wanted something subtle enough to not scare off the valentine-weary but pink and tasty enough to encourage gobbling. I mixed vanilla extract with bottled pomegranate juice and confectioners sugar. About two cups of confectioner's sugar, a teaspoon of vanilla extract and a little less than 1/2 cup of pomegranate juice was right for me, but glaze making is one of those things that you're better off winging. A little of this, a little of that, until it's just right.

I think that next time I endeavor to make something valentine-y, I will crush up pomegranates myself for a slightly pulpier glaze in a slightly less bashful hue. If you want to achieve a more eye-popping shade of pink  (verging on purple), you might consider the mighty blood orange.

Happy love week.

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my week in objects (mostly).

five little things that made my week.

1. this turmeric and milk.

{my friend janet reminded me of turmeric's healing properties this week and i made a delicious combination of warm milk, turmeric, and honey. move over hot chocolate (okay, not too far over)}.

2. this quince blossom.

{because i used these branches for an upcoming valentine post and the leftovers lasted all week}.

3. this nearly used up candle.

{because i've been sticking it on the radiator instead of lighting it, and it still smells so. good}.

4. this sleepy finch.

{for snoozing on the feeder all morning long}.

5. this chocolate pizzelle. 
{for all these reasons}.

other things:
we just made this again. best blizzard meal.
ground hogs!
old folks + old footage = heart swells.
this is life affirming.
i'd love pore over these.
thought-provoking.

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make-believe: valentines

I know there are a lot of folks out there who could really rather do without Valentine's Day.  February rolls around and I begin to hear sighs about the hype of what's essentially a commercial holiday.

Well.

I won't deny that the consumer push around this holiday borders on outrageous, but I will say that a wholesale disregard for the day also seems sad. What could be better than a day devoted to sending little messages of love? I say that we all take a lesson from our friends in kindergarden and get crafting.

Here is an assortment of things that you could purchase--and some you likely already own--to get you in the spirit. A valentine can be made with a few snips of a scissor and a few strokes of a pen and it doesn't take much money or extravagance to do into that.

1. flowers and sentiments notecards 2. pen 3. hearts 4. washi tape  5. baker's twine  6. scissors

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< two fifty: life in a tiny apartment.

Be kind to your radiator.

Our radiator has the biggest personality in our tiny apartment. When people exclaim about our ability to live together in such a tiny space, I'm tempted to reply: "...and with that pushy radiator, too."  He's the supporting actor who desperately wants to take the leading role in our wee family drama. He clanks and fusses and spits and steams until he's certain he's gotten our attention. Heat during the day? Who needs it? 80 degrees when you're trying to fall asleep? It's yours. Symphony of clatters and bangs at 3:00 am? Everyone's dream, no?

But he also keeps us toasty and he's small and discrete, so we stay friends. If you live in a tiny apartment in New York--or anywhere in the Northeast--chances are you have a radiator friend (or foe) of your own. Here, a few tiny tips for living with an overbearing bully:

On particularly dry nights, I fill loaf pans with water and set them on top to make things a little steamier. I can't imagine introducing a humidifier to this space and this is a free alternative (though honestly, this thing is verging on cute).

To help mitigate the rattling we've wedged small wooden shims under the feet in an attempt to straighten him out.

And to help with incessant hissing, we replaced the radiator vent. We're basically home-maintenance heroes. I know.

At the risk of revealing all of my dorkiness in one blow: I think this video is all kinds of awesome and much more helpful than any of my rambling. (Some day I'll tell you about my ardent crush on Bob Villa circa 1988).

Do you guys have steam radiators? How do you keep them happy?

PS. We're thinking about painting our little buddy come spring. Stay tuned.

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lemon and honey.

Oh, sweet elixir of the gods.

If you've been experiencing any of the persistant sore throat that's been loitering by me for the last few days, there's only one thing to do: boil yourself some water, squeeze in half a lemon and stir in a heaping teaspoon of honey. It's the commonest of remedies for sore throats and still, I have a sneaking suspicion that it gets cast aside in favor of lozenges and bemoaning our collective winter misery. This combo is sunshine in a glass and welcome change from the fire cider I've been swallowing with gusto. Sometimes even the most hardcore herbalist tires of smelling quite so much like a head of garlic.

If you find yourself reaching for a lemon-flavored tea or packet of fizziness, consider giving this a go instead. Lemon zinger, you've got nothing on the real thing.

PS. This honey was made by bees that live way uptown where James teaches.  Turns out the students aren't the only hard working ladies at 116th and Broadway...

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on balance and chocolate pizzelles.

On Sunday James made chocolate pizzelles. They were just like these ones, but with the addition of a 1/4 cup of cocoa powder and the absence of fuss over having them turn out perfectly. It's a difficult balance sometimes: making things for this space so that they look good enough to share and deciding to simply capture something as it's happening, free of contrivance or art direction. I try not to stage too much--the goal is for this space to be a reflection of the life we're actually living, not pure simulacrum--but sometimes I can't help myself but to drag the table into the sunlight, to swap a dirty towel for a clean one, to refuse use of the ugly potholder. As I'm doing more and more work that involves styling and photographing for other sites, I can feel the lines separating fact and fiction begin to blur. There's an impulse to have everything appear as perfect as the pictures in my mind. Snapping these shots of James as he made pizzelles was a welcome reminder to just let some things be. They don't look so very different from a shot I might try to style anyway, but they felt different. There was no pressure, no hand-wringing, just shots of my husband making italian cookies on a Sunday afternoon. 

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