books + zines

Opened at Random: Why We Sleep, Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

This morning we opened Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams at random and found this…

Opened at Random: A Guide to the I Ching “The Zig Zag Path of the Creative”

This morning we opened A Guide to the I Ching by Carole Anthony at random and found this…

Favorite Gifts I Love To Give

Late with my holiday preparations, I’m just wrapping my head around making food gifts as well as the few gifts I buy. Here’s are favorites that you still have time to order.

Topography of Tears: Like Aerial Views of Emotional Terrain

Looking at tears through a microscope, artist Rose-Lynn Fisher found no two alike, evidence of our inner life overflowing its boundaries, spilling over into consciousness.

Opened at Random: Flights (Olga Tokarczuk) “…the engine that drives changes”

This morning we opend Flights at random and found this…

Courage in a Bottle and Elsewhere…

Furnace Creek Farms clever elixer seems a fine way to get a dose of courage, which we need daily these days. If you can drink it, there are other ways to be reminded of the strength within.

Scraps, Wilt & Leaves: Sublime Trash Cooking with a Michelin Chef

I am inspired and smitten with Scraps, Wilt & Weeds: Turning Wasted Food into Plenty. Michelin star chef Mads Refslund weaves a powerful philosophy of ecology into his cooking that has led him to create gorgeous, do-able dishes out of the foods we routinely throw in the trash.

Honey from a Weed: Simple Rice or Risotto with Dandelion (or other Greens)

It is weed season. Dandelions make me hunger for a simple dish I first read in Honey From a Weed, a cookbook I’ve continued to enjoy for over thirty years. The elemental Macedonian dish morphs into a splendid risotto.

Improvised Life’s Thoughtful Un-Gift Guide

Here’s our list of things we think are worth giving for the way they expand minds/hearts/creativity, or are just downright useful…

Dollar Bills and Other Found Bookmarks

Our friend Jody Lotito Levine pulled out a book she was reading. In it was a bookmark made from a dollar bill. It is one of the better bookmarks we’ve seen, as good as slices of ribbon or a delicate length of toilet paper (below), each having their own unique effect. Using a dollar as a…

To Manage Projects (or Your Life) Do a Quarterly Review

My wife and I had been interested in small, micro-sized startup ideas for over 16 years, at one point pursuing six projects at once. As you can imagine, we were spread so thin, none of the ideas took off. So we began looking for a simple way to manage the chaos of startup ideas and…

Shiny Mud Dumplings, Pies + Other Favorite Spring Recipes

(Video link here.) Friday is the day we usually publish a recipe, hoping that it will prove a delicious weekend activity for our readers. While we recommend your checking out the menu and recipe links for the birthday dinner we’ll be cooking for a friend (at bottom), we can think of no better Spring activity than making…

May Your Life Be Full of Open Books

I’ve taken to leaving books open all over my apartment so I can wander by and read or look at something that I’m mulling or want in my field of vision. It often feels as though gifts or messages from amazing people are scattered throughout my space…

A Cook’s Favorite Gifts for Cooks of all Stripes

Every so often, a friend calls to ask me what cooking equipment to recommend. LONG story! You’ll find an extensive list of equipment for a basic kitchen in A New Way to Cook, along with 700+ pages of essential techniques and recipes. For now, here are my tried-and-true favorites, from high to low and back.

Slotted Angle Iron Shelving, Bed, TV Stand, more

At London’s Southbank Centre, architecture studio Jonathan Tuckey Design created an archival space featuring a mid-century shelving system that echoed the building’s heritage. When we looked closely, we realized it is made of slotted angle iron, an inexpensive structuring material available at many hardware stores. We first realized its potential for creating modular furniture when we bought a second-hand copy of High-Tech, The Industrial…

Emily Dickinson on Possibility via The Lucky Art of Bibliomancy

Recently in a secondhand bookstore, a jazzy little book jumped into my hand. I was drawn to it by its beautiful cover design which read “Dickinson”, meaning Emily. Finding the book, and the first poem I turned to, proved to be a lovely bit of bibliomancy.

Celebrate The Splendid Table’s 20 Years of Food Inspiration

This weekend marks The Splendid Table’s 20th anniversary show. Lynne Rosetto Kasper launched the famous radio food show with a conversation with Julia Child about the 4th of July which you can listen to here. I am THRILLED to be included on the roster for this special show (talking about fresh cherries), along with Mario Batali (talking…

Guerilla Furniture Design + Philosophy

Unlike many folks using recycled materials, WILL Holman of Object Guerrilla has an eye for style, as evidenced by the inspired Zip Tie Lounge Chair, above, a flat-pack armchair made of plywood panels sewn together with zip ties. His new book Guerilla Furniture Design contains chapters on Guerilla History, Sustainability, Philosophy, The Guerilla Workshop and Design Fundamentals,…

Collected’s Fritz Karch: the Pleasures of ‘Hunting and Gathering’

Creative director/editor/stylist Fritz Karch’s official bio begins:”he became an active collector at age eleven and has always been an ardent believer in the benefits and pleasures of hunting and gathering.” Recently, he collaborated with Rebecca Robertson on Collected: Living with the Things You Love, a tour of fantastic, often eccentric collections around the world, and an entry IN to your own creative collecting.

Reflecting on Difficulty: 5 Questions that Transform

At the height of a recent crisis a few months ago, our friend Chris Eldredge send me this note: I’ve been reading Jack Kornfield’s “A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life” and saw this. I thought it might interest you. ( I changed a bit of the wording where…

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