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the market.watch | 2009

i like the grocery.

I loved doing the shopping as a kid.  Every two weeks, I made the list.  Went to the store.  Threw in the magazines and things I wanted.  Somehow found a way to lose the receipt.  Took a cab home with the bags and bags of groceries for a family of three.

market.watch 10.23.09
market.watch 10.23.09

I shop a little differently, now.  I frequent six or so stores with the occasional trip to Whole Foods.  I know which store does what better.  I get what I need for the next few days.  And all the stores are in walking distance.

My fridge, Tall and Tiny, keeps me from the suburban stock up.

market.watch 10.23.9
market.watch 10.23.09

In my pursuit of the best locally grown produce, I’ve been checking out the friday farmer’s market in my neighborhood.  I started documenting what I buy from there because I loved the way it all looked on the table.

market.watch 11.6.09
market.watch 11.6.09

I haven’t been to the fm lately.  The fridge has been full since Thanksgiving.  Trying to force things in there for the next couple of weeks seems wasteful.  So, I’ll get back on the market.watch in 2010.  I’m also planning on participating in the South Central Farmers CSA.  I want to support and I love the surprise of opening the box of fruit and veg goodness.

Much Thx should go out to NYC’s Urban Organic.  I discovered my favorite fruit from one of their deliveries when I lived in the city.  Oh, how I love blood oranges.

Nikki♥

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right behind you | jill santopietro

it started with homemade yogurt and was cemented in a tiny kitchen.

Wahhh.  According to Gawker, my favorite food journalist/recipe writer & tester/stylist/web cooking show host, Jill Santopietro is leaving T: The New York Times Style Magazine.

Jill, In Her Tiny Kitchen (photo:New York Times)
Jill, In Her Tiny Kitchen

(photo: The Moment)

It was about a year ago that  I found the piece on homemade yogurt.  And since then, it’s like she pops up on my radar to remind me how much I dig her work.  Even though I’m on The Moment all day every day, I have to click on her name on just to see if I’ve missed anything she’s written.  It’s been six months since the last Kitchen 4B, formerly Tiny Kitchen, webisode and I, still, look at the videos list on the NYT Dining & Wine page like one could appear any day now between Bittman clips.  I’m glad that I found Jill and I hope that leaving means amazing things are on her horizon.

It was because of those eight short webisodes, I wanted to know more.  More about Jill’s take on things, more about food, more about cooking.  One of the reasons I  liked TK/K4B is that I got excited about cooking in an environment that was all too familiar.  Jill and Jenny Woodward made the dreaded tiny NYC kitchen fun.  Watching the videos, I laughed a lot, learned a lot and was challenged.  I felt pushed to step up my game and get organized.  I had to think about efficient use of space, not just cost or want/need.  Instead of making due with less, it celebrated being creative and inspired by what you have.

Jill, wherever you go, I will follow.  Please tell me that NYT will let you and Jenny take K4B somewhere, anywhere.  Give me 30 minutes regularly and I’ll get back in bed with Time/Warner Cable.  I promise.

Nikki♥

Jill Santopietro's Kitchen 4B
Jill Santopietro's Kitchen 4B (click through to watch)
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i do, too | david chang

i love to read cookbooks in bed.

I wake up at 3am. A lot. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to get up or go back to sleep. So, I ended up watching a lot of David Chang clips online.  Ran across this one from last year.

I wandered over to gq.com and started reading the Chang/Meehan Eat A Peach! posts.

Nikki♥

Is it wrong to prefer a particular look of David’s? (♥:Yes.) Fine.

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you know i like you, right? | julie delpy

i had breakfast with friends yesterday and saw Julie Delpy.

I know how I want to start everyday.  Good food, friends and conversation.  Le Pain Quotidien was sigh-worthy.  A bowl of cafe au lait, asparagus/goat cheese omlette, bread and jam.  Simple.  Delicious.

She was there when we walked in.  I noticed her but, didn’t realize it was her until I was seated. 

Oh.  Hey.

There’s something about her.  Sure, it could be the French thing.  The multi-hyphenate thing.  You know, she’s a writer-director-actor-musician, right?  It’s interesting.  She was beautifully normal.  Not in the “they’re just like us” schadenfreude-y kind of way, but in that normal way that ages and doesn’t rely on being beautiful, but just is, anyway.

My JulieDelpyThing has a lot to do with Before Sunrise and Before Sunset mimicing these interesting markers in my life.  I still remember how seeing Sunrise with Chris J in DC led to this really cool day of traipsing around Dupont Circle, flirting with bike messengers and meeting up with our friend, Lisa.  It became one of those carefree days where the world is all possibility.

Before Sunset makes me happy every time I see it.  In many ways, I see a part of me.  Talk-y, overly analytical and neurotic.  The dull ache and disappointment in what could’ve/should’ve been and never was in Sunset gets nudged to the side by a knowing hopefulness that takes over the last act.  It’s a well-written ride through the streets of Paris that I love to take often.

Julie Delpy is smart, funny and talented.  Like her.

Have you seen 2 Days In Paris?  I need to rent that again.

Nikki♥

Before Sunset

2 Days in Paris

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i did tell you, right? last days of gourmet

i tear up a lot. apparently.

today.  before 9am.  pacific.  i was looking at the images from Last Days of Gourmet.

Last Days of Gourmet by Kevin DeMaria
Kevin DeMaria's Last Days of Gourmet

I didn’t subscribe.  I have loads of food blogs and mags bookmarked.  The thing is, Gourmet was my standard for web design of print properties.  I quite loved the look of Gourmet.  Clean and sleek.  Full of content and type without feeling overwrought, over-designed or cold.  It was/is simply, gorgeous.

So, to see the faces and emptying spaces overcome with sadness got me a little emotional this morning.  Kevin DeMaria’s melancholic images are beautifully evocative of a loss of identity that comes with job loss.  But, also, they are defiant.  As the last issue disappears from the stands and web content migrates, the people and space that created Gourmet won’t be forgotten, reduced to numbers on a balance sheet or even a series of sumptuous covers chronicling the history of the magazine.  As everyone moves on to their next chapters, Kevin left some humanity for the rest of us to see at the end of Gourmet‘s long story.

(via thekitchn)

tearing up. again.

Nikki♥