For summer and blueberry season: Mindy Fox’s riff on the classic, ever-surprising, utterly-refreshing combo of watermelon and feta cheese: Blueberries, Feta and Mint from Mindy Fox’s Salads: Beyond the Bowl. Sometimes we replace the mint with basil, a hint of thyme leaves, fresh oregano, rose geranium, or even black pepper…to taste.
Read MoreThe Many Surprising Uses of a Kitchen Hammer
Matthias Wandel is a clever improviser whose YouTube channel is full of good ideas. Our favorite: a kitchen hammer, something you rarely see on any “kitchen essentials” list. We use ours — a rubber mallet— for variety of general household whacks, where a hammer would be too harsh. We hadn’t thought of Wandal’s great use, done with…
Read MoreCecil and Merl Bitters’ Vibrant Flavors INSPIRE, Drinks to Desserts
Of all the artisanal bitters we’ve sampled over the years, Brooklyn-based Cecil and Merl’s totally blew us away. They managed to distill clear vibrant flavors of fruits, vegetables and herbs with a subtle bitter afterfinish that goes well in all manner of cocktail, culinary and wellness applications. Given their sublime flavors and endless uses, they are a perfect house gift.
Read MoreRe-envision Time to Have More of It
Scott Thrift redesigned the traditional numeral clock to make it shift the way you experience your day: he simplified a 24-hour day into a visualization of dawn, noon, dusk and midnight, its slowly moving hand making a gradual transition from one to the other. He says its effects are powerful…
Read MoreWhat You Can Do When You Are Too Challenged To Do Anything
Last week I was supposed to write some articles for Improvised Life and couldn’t do it. I am a few weeks post-op from a serious surgery. Healing at am unexpectedly glacial place is wearing away at my normally very high optimism, physical energy and focus. I’ve talked openly on Improvised Life before about “being myself in a…
Read MoreA Pile of Stones Shows the Way (Mary Oliver)
We opened Blue Horses to this poem and envisioned stones, trees, clouds as we pondered Mary Oliver’s questions, and took in her transforming view of the ordinary things around us.
Read MoreCrowdFunding to Save an Endangered Art Form
Lately, it seems like many one-of-a-kind art forms are struggling to find their footing in an increasingly strange new world. One close to our heart is the Big Apple Circus, modeled on the European-style one-ring tent circus tradition. For nearly 40 years, it has thrilled audiences around the country with wildly imaginative performers, like the great Bello Nock, above. Check out his wild, beautiful act.
Read MoreDandelion and Herb Salad with Burrata
When I saw the dandelion greens, sorrel and herbs from my CSA next to a burrata — mozzarella filled with creamy curds — in the fridge, I had an inspiration:
Read MorePiano Elegy Played On the Icy Arctic Ocean
(Video link here.) We were stunned by this video of composer Ludovico Einaudi playing a baby grand while floating upon the icy Arctic Ocean in front of a surging, cracking Wahlenbergbreen glacier. His astonishing performance of Elegy for the Arctic was part of Greenpeace‘s Save the Arctic project,
Read MoreDaniel Buren’s Clear Spaces
When we stumbled on this space designed by Conceptual Artist Daniel Buren we thought, “that’s our perfect writing space“. Why? We were’t even sure, except that we loved that it was spare, yet adorned in a way that sparked our thinking rather than cluttering it. So we looked for more.
Read MorePema Chodron + A Site That Envisions Impermanance
+We spend a good amount of time looking for ways to be more accepting of change that seems to be moving faster and faster, the messy processes of life and our lack of control over them: what Buddhist’s call Impermanence. Pema Chodrun’s new book and this clever site help…
Read MoreTake a Holiday From Being Human
It’s curious that about the same time Thomas Thwaites was figuring out how to be a goat — finding human personhood stressful and narcissistic — Charles Foster was trying his own experiments “becoming” various animals, including a badger, an otter, a fox, a deer and a swift. Both had come to existential crossroads.
Read MoreWhat Matters Now?
Right now you’re probably asking yourself how those geniuses over at Improvised Life keep coming up with great material day after day? We’d like to show you what did NOT make the cut for today (that STILL has meaty grooves)…
Read MoreCrumbles: Cherry or Strawberry-Rhubarb
Years ago, I created a crumble recipe that works for just about any fruit. With its crunchy topping of almonds and brown sugar over warm fruit, it’s a fine stand-in for a tart. In summer, I return year after year to the essential strawberry-rhubarb recipe I first published in A New Way to Cook, swapping in fresh pitted cherries…
Read MoreThe Use-By Date of Inspiring Signs
Photographer/filmmaker Gigi de la Torre sent us this sign with an incisive observation:
Read MoreLED-Illuminated Chairs, Tables, Beds
About the time we spotted Nadia el-Khoury’s chic, underlighted, slipcovered chairs in The New York Times Magazine, we saw this simple bed lit from underneath on poet Ocean Vuong’s tumblr.
Read MoreThe Unpredictable Results of Artistic Explorations
This strangely beautiful photo is of a failed experiment, or perhaps better put, exploration. Paper artist extraordinaire Matthew Sporzynski sent it to us in an email chain revealing the mindset of a pure creative:
Read MoreWork with Hands, not Brands
In conversation, I never call Improvised Life a blog. The Blogging world is an ubiquitous, saturated and aspirational one; most bloggers put their true opinions aside to survive. We are trying to do something different.
Read MoreThe Secret Treasure Within ‘Lab Girl’
We abandoned the autobiographical portion of Hope Jahren’s Lab Girl at page 35 to skip through to the short chapters interspersed within in it. They comprise 50 or so pages of superb writing about the secret life of plants that provide hopeful metaphors for our own very human lives. Here are some favorites.
Read MoreRosemary, Lemon and Pepper Focaccia
There is probably no hors d’oeuvres more universally loved than focaccia: really good chewy pizza dough baked with flavorings that excite the appetite.
Focaccia is easy to make, the possible flavorings infinite. My all-time favorite is this Rosemary, Lemon and Pepper Focaccia I learned from Kevin Taylor when he was chef of Zenith American Grill in Denver years ago.
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