Links and a reading

Food:

Growing up, my grandparents raised chickens and the feeling of anticipation as my adolescent self peered into the little nesting boxes for eggs with my grandfather is something I'll never forget. We eat a lot of eggs in our household, and this chicken fantasy I have of raising our own will just have to wait until we don't live in Manhattan. Until then, I'll live vicariously through Sarah at The Yellow House who gathers beautiful little pastel-colored eggs from her chickens every day. She also shares a recipe for a fried egg in sizzling vinegar adapted from a Deborah Madison recipe that I'm itching to try out.

Ok I've never tried to make my own gnocchi, but when it comes to eating it, that's another story. This post by Beth at local milk actually makes homemade gnocchi seem possible (plus there is pancetta and fresh figs too). She says gnocchi is not that hard, and I might just believe her. Plus it's made with sweet potatoes, seasonally appropriate and makes for delicious looking orange nuggets.

More sweet potato at The Kitchn with a silky looking recipe for whipped sweet potatoes with coconut milk and vanilla bean. Wow, typing that made me just want to run into the kitchen and cook!

Here is a perfect use for the bags and bags of apples we have cluttering our kitchen counter: vanilla bourbon caramel apples from the ridiculously talented Jessica at How Sweet It Is.

Make sure you congratulate Irish chef, photographer, and cookbook author Donal Skehan on his new gig as a judge on Junior MasterChef UK. He's an incredibly accomplished young chef and author at only 25 years old, and I'm looking forward to streaming episodes of Junior MasterChef later this year.

Interior design:

Jenny at Little Green Notebook recently dealt with a scary situation where she had to be hospitalized for several days with tetanus! Contracting the tetanus virus is pretty serious (potentially deadly) and she shares how it happened (she scraped her arm on some wire fencing) and reminds us that we should keep up to date on those tetanus vaccines (every 10 years). Apparently she'll feel flu-like symptoms for up to a year which I'm sure won't be fun.

Caitlin at Roost has created a beautiful new space to fuel her creativity and I'm totally in love with this inspiring room. Packed full of vintage finds and chic furniture, you have to check it out. The wallpaper alone is to die for.

I'm drawing inspiration from this beautiful Copenhagen children's bedroom posted by Niki at My Scandinavian Home. (Originally featured on Apartment Therapy.)

Fashion/style:

Swooning over these gorgeous wool blankets created with seawater by sheep farmer and artist Nanne Kennedy in Maine. Perfect to curl up on the couch with this Autumn and Winter. Found on Remodelista.

Anyone who knows me knows that I love the rain. Like truly, madly, deeply love the rain. And now thanks to my sister in Cambodia, I can listen to that soothing sound all day long via RainyMood.com. The site streams the sound of rain paired with music (you can choose to have music on or off). I played it in my office today, and did find that the constant rain falling really helped me relax. Thanks, Genevieve!



And finally, on Monday I got to witness my good friend Luisa Weiss of the popular food blog, The Wednesday Chef, do a reading from her new book, My Berlin Kitchen at Powerhouse Arena in Brooklyn. To say I was excited would be an understatement. I had the pleasure of being her colleague when she was the cookbook editor at the publishing house where I still work. She took a huge leap of faith two years ago and left her job to move to Berlin where she now lives with her husband and baby son. Watching her read from her book was a little bit overwhelming and I definitely didn't have dry eyes for the whole thing. It was a bit surreal to see my friend standing in front of a crowd reading from her book. But in a way, not surprising at all because she has an incredible talent. I hope you guys all pick up a copy of My Berlin Kitchen pronto.

Congratulations, Luisa!