friday favorites

wow, friday already. what a week. busy, busy, busy. in a good way. earlier this week, what seems like ages ago, i made dinner for a friend. i have been becoming more and more domestic lately, so i thought it was time i learned how to make one of my childhood staples, meatloaf. i looked at a few recipes on line and combined them to come up with something rather delicious. if you're interested in an old fashioned american dinner, here's the recipe:

~classic meatloaf~

2 pounds ground sirloin
1(12 ounce) can evaporated milk
1 packet dry onion soup mix
1 egg
1/2 cup ketchup
1 clove garlic
1 small chopped onion
2 Tbsp brown sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Mix beef, milk, onion mix, egg, and 1/4 cup ketchup in a bowl with hands.
Consistency will seem soupy, but do not worry, it will come out perfect.
Pour mixture into loaf pan.
Combine 1/4 cup ketchup and 1 Tbsp. brown sugar and brush on top of meatloaf.
Bake 1 to 1 1/2 hours draining fat every 30 minutes.
Cook until meat is no longer pink inside {might have to cut a slice to check}.
If top starts to get too dark, cover with foil during end of cook time.
Let cool 5 minutes and slice.
enjoy!
.................

i also made roasted vegetables. so easy...and so good. here's the recipe:

~roasted veggies~

chop up some of your favorite vegetables. my favorites to use are:
zucchini
yellow squash
butternut squash
sweet potato*{my favorite-really adds a great sweetness}
brocolli
cauliflower
onion
garlic {cloves cut in large pieces}

toss all veggies in a large bowl and add some olive oil {enough to lightly coat vegetables}
add your favorite spices and mix with your hands.
my favorite spices to add are:
thyme, basil, salt, pepper, dill, and cinnamon.
you can add them all-which i do-or choose your own combination.
place on baking sheet covered with foil.
cover veggie mixture with foil.
bake at 375-400 degrees for about 45 to 1 hour. they are done when the sweet potatoes are soft and easy to stick a fork in.
enjoy!
................
i often make a big batch of this at the beginning of the week and eat it all week. yum!

here is some beautiful imagery to ponder over the weekend. i probably won't be back posting until late next week. i have some visitors coming in town this weekend and i'm gonna get my tourist on!

some gourmet goodness:
~ sugar domes
~untitled
~top off

some quiet stillness:
~spaces to grow
~wreck
~untitled

some mellow yellow:
~you would be right...
~found pillow


i have decided to re-release my dogwood print to celebrate the arrival of spring and have also added a new rununculus print. maybe this will help bring consistent warm weather to the northeast.

oh, and check this out.

discoveries

these photos are from a fun project i worked on over the weekend. i'll share more about it later.

pdn magazine has released the 2007 list of new and emerging photographers to watch. i am happy to see some of the photographers i have featured here are on the list.

here are some more of my discoveries:

oh existention.

marcus palmqvist.

beauty on a grey monday

there is a brilliant article in ElleDecoration UK this month {april 07 issue} called out of the ordinary. the idea is to show how beautiful utiliarian things can be. the photos are inspired by giorgio morandi, one of my favorite artists.

photos by andrea garuti.

there is another article on ann shore and her shop called story. the article is very interesting and the photos amazing. the photos are the complete opposite of the ones in the first article, but i am equally drawn to them. they are bright and filled with objects, so rich and full of discovery.

photo by debi treloar.

more inspiration:
::manon gignoux:: {found via designer's block}::

::check out photos by alec soth in this month's w magazine::

inspiration friday

i got a really sweet email from rinne allen the other day. i have always been an admirer of her work and was so happy to see her light drawings in blueprint magazine this month. she has just put some beautiful spring photos from her garden on her site. if you have not already, you should really take time to look through her website, there is a lot of beauty to see. she seems to live a charmed life in the wonderful town where i went to school {makes me miss this place!}.

some links:
:: yamamoto masao. discovered these wonderful installations through rinne's site.
:: candace meyer. found via montmartre's sketchbook.

aren't these beautiful:


happy weekend!

reflect, learn, and grow

first of all, thank you all for the very sweet comments & birthday wishes yesterday-it made my day very bright! it was probably around this time last year that i started to read blogs regularly and am so happy to have found such inspiration, encouragement, and friendship. it is so incredible to have such a window into the creative minds of others and to correspond and collaborate with people all over the world.

so, as we officially welcome a new season and i start my new year, i would like to share some new things i look forward to doing this year:

1. to list my accomplishments. a friend of mine keeps a running list beside his bed. when asked what it was, he said, "it is a list of completed stories for a new book i'm working on." wouldn't it be nice to look at what we have accomplished rather than always looking at what we have "to do."

2. to revel in the moments and not always have to give everything a definition.

3. to hold onto the sense of momentum i am feeling right now and to keep creating.

4. to enjoy more walks outdoors for mere discovery, not just to get somewhere.

5. to continue to discover and be more of who i am.

go out today and enjoy the first day of spring, and maybe a cupcake.

another year

a little smushed, but still delicious. happy birthday to me.

for the love of the male

hi friends. happy monday!
lately i have been thinking a lot about what inspires me and have been taking a closer look at my own photography. i have noticed that a lot of my favorite food photographers have been male. there is something about the grittiness and the use of lights and darks that i like. they seem to be drawn to a darker, more neutral color pallet, which i really like as well. i try to achieve this in my own work, but it seems to come out much more sweet and girly. i guess there are certain things you just can't control and have to go with your own natural tendencies.

speaking of favorite male photographers, i LOVE the work of marcus nilsson. he often does the photographs for the road food column in gourmet magazine which i love. marcus embodies all the characteristics i described above and really inspires me.

on an entirely different note, i am off work today and decided to watch the martha stewart show. i think today's show was made for me. they dyed easter eggs with natural dyes, which i had just mentioned last week, and made two great breakfast recipes, ginger scones with cardamom and lemon-ricotta poppy seed pancakes. yum, i'll have to try those soon!

enjoy the rest of your day-i will!

simple things

here are some simple things that are bringing me joy this week:

~mrs. meyer's geranium dish soap.

it smells so yummy, it almost makes doing dishes fun.
~my new denyse schmidt dots & jots mini journals set.
~buying beautiful yellow flowers to brighten up my dark kitchen.
~thoughts of trying to dye easter eggs naturally.
~and especially making scones from this amazing cookbook. yum! see more here and here.
~the little taste of spring we got here this week.

bracing myself for another brutal winter weekend, hopefully the last.
have a good one...hope it is warm wherever you are!

inspiration:food and photos

i have made some great photo discoveries lately. take a look at this great set on flickr.

here is a description of the project behind the photos:

"The idea is simple, take one of the gray and eerie government meal packets (we found a surprisingly wide variety on ebay) unpack it, arrange it, light it and shoot it to look as scrumptious as it could ever hope to be. The work is a metaphor for wringing beauty out of tragedy and finding rays of hope amid grim misfortune.We are planning to put the photographs into a 2007 calendar. Money raised would go to help in the continued aid in rebuilding the region devastated by hurricane Katrina."

i don't know if they ever made a calender, but some of the photos are quite lovely. my favorites are these {by roland bello and manuel rodriguez}:

another recent flickr discovery: bijou. i am loving this and this. and i love her rotating gallery.

enjoy your wednesday!

inspirational women

i just received my lovely print from port2port press along with the beautiful photo that inspired the print. everything about it is beautiful. the subtle difference in the 2 shades of ink on the print are amazing and i could just stare at the photo forever.

"I'm so impressed, both with the photography (and what looks like lovely letterpress on the edge there), and with the ability to actually complete these projects and get them in the mail. Beauty and follow-through. I dare to dream."~pensive volcano.

i posted my photo on flickr and this was the first comment i received. it is so true. you can tell mav has put thought into every detail of her work, right down to the packaging, which is a simple idea, but with lovely execution and it fits the print and photos perfectly. i can't wait to frame these and i think i will incorporate the words as well.

i so often create things, but then they just sit there and i do not follow through with my original intention. congrats, Mav! looking forward to your next endeavor.

some other amazing ladies are starting a new project as well. check out the new blog, sew green. it is great to see such talented ladies working together on such an important mission.

here is a little glimpse of what i did over the weekend, instead of completing my page long "to do" list.

end of week collapse

i have been running a little ragged this week...fun projects, work, freelance work, thinking about another project i really want to get to...a lot on my plate..but all good things. my salvation has been tea. i am so addicted! i think it has now surpassed my coffee addiction {didn't think this was possible}.

so today is the final day of my project with liz. i am so glad she suggested it, it has been a lot of fun. i have really been trying to stay away from my love of food shots for this project, but today i just could not resist. i choose the idea for today: a feeling~anticipation. how could i not photograph this:

left photo: liz/right photo:jen

this week is all about muted colors and polaroids, here are my favorites:

panaderia

me with ice cream

footprint of an angel

untitled

untitled

and i love everything about this, it just makes me happy to look at it. have a good friday!

enchanting

today is day four of my fun little project with liz. today's word was a description chosen by liz, enchanting.

here is the result:

left photo: liz/right photo:jen

here are some enchanting highlights from the dries van noten show from fashion week in paris:

found a link to a new shop in greenpoint, brooklyn, altered{via refinery29}. looks promising, i'll have to check it out.

also, you have to take a look at the work of recent fashion graduate, maren korbol, found via grijs {another great blog}.

stay tuned for tomorrow, the final day of our project.

keeping on

today is day three of my collaboration with liz. the topic for today is color, and it was my choice. i chose blue and cream. i have been seeing this combination everywhere and the choice was inspired by this image. my photo is from a new little vintage shop near my home in brooklyn. it looks really great. i have posted another picture here. i have not been inside yet, because they always seem to be closed during the week when i am over in that direction. hopefully i can check out the interior soon!

left photo: jen/right photo:liz

i just have time for one link today, an amazing photographer, sally gall. i love her "bathing beauty" images from texas monthly.

enjoy!

newness, part 2

i wanted to continue with the theme of newness today, as i like the idea of a fresh start and a fresh outlook.

for day two of my project with liz, the common theme was an object chosen by liz, pile.

here is the result {left photo:liz/right photo:jen}:

you can see it better here.

i like that her pile is nice and serene and mine is utter chaos, but the somehow complement each other.

something else new to me that i think is changing my life is bloglines. i finally took the time to add all my favorite reads and it is so amazing! i love finding out what everyone is discovering out there, and with this, it is so easy{and less time consuming}.

i have also discovered a few new{to me} blogs that i am loving:

random inspiration , where i found this great link that i had also seen somewhere else, but forgot about.

skinny laminx, a great blog from south africa.

spray glue, another south african blog, and this one's a boy.

check them out, if you have not already, i'm sure you'll love them too!

thanks for the great response to simply breakfast! the idea just came to me on a whim sunday night, and i'm so glad it did. i think it will be a lot of fun. i will have to stretch myself for new exciting things to eat.

newness

it is a time for something(s) new...

today is the start of a week long project i am doing with liz {eshu}. we are creating beauty separately and then putting them together for something new and even more beautiful.

each day we have come up with an idea and we each interpreted it in our own way. then, we will post them together to see the beauty we have created.

today's idea: our henrys {left photo: jen/right photo:liz}

today is also the start of a new blog i have created dedicated to my breakfast. this blog was becoming more about my breakfast and less about inspiration, so i decided to separate the 2. my new blog is called simply breakfast. please check it out and tell me what ya think.

Friday..it's here!

nothing like a delicious breakfast of nutty toast spread with laughing cow cheese and sliced avocado, sprinkled with a little salt and fresh ground pepper. add a hard boiled egg and earl grey tea with soy milk, and you have perfection. perfect start to the morning.

i have a lot on my brain lately... many projects in the works...things on the horizon

thinking a lot lately about new ideas with photographs, something more, beyond just the photo. have some things in mind, but have not tried any of them yet.

i am also working on a website for my simply photo shop. i'll keep you posted on the progress.

looking forward to a fun little project with liz {eshu}..tune in next week!

last night i went to see the radical lace & subversive knitting exhibit at the museum of arts and design. i highly recommend it! it will be up until june 17th. it was really amazing- so inspiring. my favorite piece was a tiny bit of crochet on a wall from icelandic artist, hildur bjarnadottir . it was an intricate design that i could have looked at for hours. the thread was a gorgeous midnight blue. i drew a tiny bit of it on the only scrap of paper i had in my bag. it does not really do it justice, but i tried. i need to practice a bit more before i can start making up my own designs. what fun!
here is my drawing and then the actual installation {the thread was darker in real life}. isn't it gorgeous!




speaking of gorgeous, take a look at mav's latest work. so good. i love the photos and the new print!

this week has been all about windows:
-img_0092
-shirine string into the sunset
-commuting

trees:
-the angels of light
-independent shadow

and little bits of green:
-paper

take a look and enjoy! happy weekend.