domestika

The report from no. 2

well, i managed this week to put what i think (hope) are the finishing touches on our container garden. the sunflowers never had a chance--they pretty much died right away--so i replaced them with a couple of bright pink dahlias which (on day 3) seem to be thriving and well. we'll see how the others fare. it's been a warm few weeks; the hose has come in handy.

generally i'm finding this project to be a battle between where i want pots to go (based on some nebulous ideas about balancing colors and sizes) and where they need to go (based on their sun/shade requirements). i've only had to make one real compromise--moving a flowering succulent from the table next to the chair into the shade. otherwise the vision remains unfettered.

i also feel a little self conscious in the company of my two neighbors (no. 1 and no. 4), who have managed to keep their containers thriving for many seasons. i've only had a few plants--the hardiest of succulents--survive one winter.

behave, plants, behave! my reputation is on the line. (i'm pretty certain both neighbors think i'm insane for planting so many pots at once, when i've barely been able to keep any of them alive.) well, to hell with them (if they do, in fact, think i'm insane). this gardening stuff gives me a lot of delight, even if that delight proves to be temporary. three months would be good; six would be better; a year would be glee.

(p.s. the bright pink bougainvillea and trellis in the back belong to my neighbor.)

Montana

Progress

Wednesday a.m.

my sad, sad garden. only the hardiest of succulents survived the winter and my delinquent watering habits:

here's what's going to save me. 60-foot magna hose to the rescue!

also, a more wise selection of flowers and plants i picked up at flora grubb, where everyone is so awesome and helpful:

i have been having this problem where soil has not been retaining water, even when i water 2-3 times per week. i thought it was maybe my choice of pots (too porous or small?), but a gal told me it was probably time to replace the potting soil, which apparently i should be doing about once a year, and which probably (because the deck gets a good amount of sun) doesn't need the pumice i'd originally mixed in to help with drainage. doh. in addition to watering more thoroughly, i hope changing the soil in all of the pots will get me better results. wish me luck, because if garden v3 (or is it 4?) dies, i'm giving up and starting a pottery studio. or something.

Wedding flowers

i got a bunch of these vintage-looking vases at anthropologie in january, at their holiday clearance sale, and i'm thinking of asking our florist to use them for loose stems and arrange them in clusters scattered about our reception site.

that's one idea.

the other is to go to ikea and get lots of these little stoneware pots ($1.99 each!) and plant succulents to arrange in clusters, and which everyone can take home.

i guess i could do a combination of both -- maybe do the vase clusters on the banquet tables, then have the succulents arranged on a 'treats' table for people to take home on their way out.

as for other flower ideas, i am really drawn to this particular bouquet--though i cannot, for the life of me, remember where i found the photo and/or whom to credit for the design. i will spend some time looking through my email to see if i can find the credit, but in the meantime:

i love it for its wild, but still structured quality, and for its mix of light and dark colors. it also happens to include two of my favorite flowers: anemones and dahlias (i love how huge it is in this bouquet).

Do I need 100 mason jars?

there's an ad on craigslist for 100 mason jars, available for pick-up in noe valley. do i need them?

Dining a la CARTe

last week a group of dedicated scavengers got together to scope out the local food-cart scene. we congregated at 19th and linda, 'cuz that's where we (lead scavenger joe) heard the sexy soup lady hangs out, allegedly kept company by a non-competing chocolate tart-mobile nearby. alas. we gathered at 7: no carts. went and had a drink and came back at 8: no carts. i'm a little fuzzy on the details, as i'd just had a really strong margarita, but the reason had something to do with both cart owners (friends in real life) being away together to serve food at a wedding in ireland??? (fellow scavengers, help me out here...).

luckily there was a back-up plan. phew, 'cuz we were a-starving. chez spencer 'truck' on 7th and folsom! let's go!

so we did:

Photo by Alex Ko. No, that's not the moon, it's a streetlight. Spencer and co, why not invest in the green alternative?

while i dug the set-up (we're blocking a row of potted lavender--escargot and aromatherapy--why not??), the menu left a bit (lot) to be desired. first of all, they were out of the mushroom puff thing (actually has a fancier french name), which made me immediately feel sorry for vegetarian kate, whose only other option was the tomato and zucchini salad and soup and some $1.50 entenmann's-like cookies.

sean and i also went for the lobster soup, a tomato-based concoction which i thought to be a tad on the salty side--giving me Bourdain-inspired fears. the sweetbread, however, was delicious--rich and satisfying--as were these potato puffs, each topped with a dab of creme fraiche. but how rich and satisfying can a meal really be, if it leaves you STILL HUNGRY? isn't that the #1 chef-shamer ever--to leave your guests feeling, ultimately, unsatisfied? (or perhaps that's the strategy for getting you to lay down $6 for four small, mealy cookies.)

weirdly, all i wanted after lobster, sweetbread, one frog leg and a bite of escargot, was to be instantly transported to the inner richmond and presented with a big bowl of pan-fried noodles. alas. we settled for the thai restaurant down the street (my third dinner of the night--i'd had a bowl of mac and cheese before joining this adventure.) kate went home and had an english muffin.

well, next time we'll find sexy soup lady, her tart-making compadre and -- one day -- the queen of ramen, who joe claims makes a mean noodle, but whose whereabouts remain elusive or only divulged via a last-minute tweet. 

The only plant I have managed to keep alive

this maidenhair fern, which i got at flora grubb about six months ago now. the guy said "good luck" when i bought it, and i took that as a challenge. booya! actually it dried out two-hotspells ago, and turned brown. i thought it was a goner. but upon clipping off the dead stems and leaves (most of them), and dousing the soil with water, it came right back!

i love how green and summery it looks, and the combination of bright green leaves with dark stems:

the garden, however, is another story. i'll save that post for another day.

Colors, paper, ducks

well, one of the best (and non-mind-melting) parts of planning a wedding is, of course, the invites. i was really looking forward to this part, especially enlisting my super creative, super fun and super stylish friend, kate (and her stationery business, saturate design) to help me do something original, fun and budget-conscious!!

we started talking about 1) colors 2) good paper and 3) ducks.

on colors: i knew i wanted bright colors, and also to weave something korean-inspired into the plan. i guess i have some ongoing guilt/anxiety about not having there be anything really korean about our wedding--but it's really hard to do all that stuff (the bowing, towers of sweet rice cakes, music, etc.) without a koreatown nearby. if we were in LA or in nyc (near fort lee or queens), where there are many koreans and korean banquet halls, it would have been a piece of cake to get all the food, music and have someone coordinate all the rituals. but it's much harder here in sf.

i guess, also, i wasn't sure about doing the korean thing because the ceremony is so solemn. i think we wanted something, dare i say it, happier and more joyful. also i didn't want to wear a hanbok all day (they're so stiff and itchy), and thought sean would look pretty ridiculous in a jaeogori. also some of the rituals are totally arcane and paternalistic, and since neither sean nor i feel particularly bound to these traditions, we decided to scrap the idea.

but anyway, back to colors: though i always hated wearing hanboks, i love the colors and the graphic quality of the stripes, and wanted to bring in that palette somehow. so i asked kate to incorporate some of these colors, which i thought on paper could communicate a happy, festive feel:

on good paper: well this was totally kate's (great) idea: hand-printed invites on fancy paper. she sent me to a site where i could get the good italian stuff (thick, with a little texture and molded edges) for cheap. to boot, this fabriano paper comes in many sizes with matching envelopes, and in these great boxes that i will keep and repurpose for storing my precious letters, postcards, etc.:

finally, the ducks: well korean people have these wooden mallards all over their house. they seemed so ubiquitous and ordinary that it never even occurred to me that they might have any meaning or significance. well, i only recently discovered that they are often gifted to a bride and groom as a symbol of their commitment (ducks apparently mate for life??).

i kept sending kate pictures of these sort-of-ugly wooden ducks, she kept asking me for "better" images. it wasn't until her mom (!) dug up these images somewhere that i realized by "better", she meant more graphic:

a fun fact discovered (by kate's mom) in this process: ducks are a pan-asian (not just korean) symbol of marriage and fertility! next step: kate infused the type with the bold colors, and incorporated the ducks as an accent. she did the typesetting, i did the color adjusting and printing on my trusty epson 1280 (an inkjet that has sat idle on my desk since grad school...):

i went to flax and chose sunny envelopes to match the ducks, and to give our guests that happy feeling of getting something special in the mail. then voilà, the whole package:

the next challenge: following up on that "invitation to follow" bit. yeah. hope to bring the ducks back in, but i may pull back on the colors a bit. we'll see, stay tuned!

The deluge

hello, internets. i'm back! there's a deluge of projects and cool things and random sources of inspiration for ????? filling my brain and imagination lately, and somehow, even if these projects and cool things don't happen, it makes me feel better knowing i've documented them somewhere more permanent than fleeting thoughts and conversations.

also, i'm on a staycation--the first of two this month. and i need to make the most of this time off to re-tool my brain, which has been melting as a result of deadlines (at work), and reading too many wedding blogs (at home). speaking of deluge, on the last point, i need to stay more disciplined. i find the wedding planning to be fine, even dandy at times, until i open one of those damn magazines, or read too many blogs--each presenting me with an overwhelming number of options related to things we've already decided, or things we can't afford. this process can stay fun, i'm convinced, as long as i don't fall prey to another $12 bridal magazine!

Remnants of summer

reupholstered chair

as i am long overdue to post, and have a backlog of photos and stories to share, i shall keep each of my next posts short and sweet. here are some pics of the danish lounge chair, back from the upholsterer on 17th street in just three days!

i am pretty happy with the way it turned out, though i worry a bit about the durability of the fabric, a very inexpensive barkcloth. i figure we'll get at least a five years out of these cushion covers and by then i may be sick of the pattern anyhow, and want a change. i was quite pleased with the 'rolled' binding, as you can see the upholsterer took great care to use the fabric economically, with enough left over to cut the binding fabric on the bias:

also the upholsterer recommend that we replace the rubber webbing, shown here:

i was hesitant to spend the money on new webbing, but mike welsh (the upholsterer) turned off his salesman voice and insisted it was necessary. he said i could wait on new foam cushions (which he also recommended replacing), but that the original webbing was really worn out and would probably snap after not too long. the seat is now quite firm, and feels sturdy, not slouchy, and so i'm glad we heeded his advice.

here's one last profile shot:

i'm not crazy about the way this light yellow color looks against our white walls, so if i were to do it over again, i might have chosen a darker fabric.

my next task? to make a small pillow for the chair. i'm thinking green or orange, maybe with a wool backing.

Mostly cloudy with a chance of sun

Presidio blackberry pie

this photo needs few words, except to give credit where it's due:

Amazingly beautiful and delicious blackberry pie: Brittany Applestein

who was psyched upon its unveiling?!?!

Guac, glorious once more

whoa my goodness! after a long dry/tired/too busy spell, i'm just going through my flash card and realizing there's so much report back on...summer food, furniture, nappy bags and so much more. it's amazing how quickly i forget things, even very recent things, and how effective a simple photo can be in bringing you right back into a moment or a thought, whether it was two years or two days ago.

for instance, this photo of some guacamole we made while on vacation in santa cruz is making my mouth water. thing is, at the time, i thought guac, so what. i could even go so far to say i was over it, and all summer american bbq fare, by the time we made this. in this moment, after several nights of grilled fish, grilled chicken, grilled asparagus, grilled pork chops, etc., all i craved was kimchee and pad thai.