Unnecessary desires

Maybe it's because September is nearly here that my inner geek gets so excited about school supplies. Maybe it's because school starts in a little over a week but I just love this sort of thing and think I need one.

I'm thirsty

It is true that you can determine something about a book by its cover. Now that we have so many different types of covers to choose from, the likelihood of the cover being reflective of its contents is very high.

That cover may be how you adorn yourself, the furniture you choose, which copy of Lolita you put in your Amazon shopping cart or it can be the label on a wine bottle.

NK and I are big fans of rose’ wines, as are about 95% of our friends. What most of us seem to have in common is that we love the more salmon colored rose’ rather than the darker cough syrup-y Tavel types (difference being the skins are kept on longer, making the wine darker and other things that wine-makers and enthusiasts know more about). These lighter types are closer to the wines made in Provence, which, as all of you know, is rose’ country.




One of our new favorite rose’ wines comes from Croteaux Vineyards on the North Fork. Rose’ is all Micheal and Paula produce. LO and RS introduced us to the wines and we became smitten. Then we visited the vineyard for a tasting and we fell in love. In his city life, Michael Croteau is a commercial art director, which is abundantly apparent when you look at the vineyard’s environment.





We felt as though we were in the south of France. Or what we imagined the south of France to look like. Besides designing the physical environment, he designed the wine labels as well; as an extension of the surroundings.



































As it turns out, he also designed the label of another favorite wine of ours: a Channing Daughters rose'; which we chose to buy based on two criteria: the color of the wine and the design of the label. Coincidentally, of all their wines, the one we loved most was made with grapes from Michael’s vineyard. Fancy that.



And Michael also shared an opinion with us that we have held as well but never voiced. And that is…

There is rarely a good bottle of wine with an ugly label. Those who have the good taste to make a good wine usually have the good taste to make a good label.





So there!

More stop motion fun

I especially like the paint-resistant lettering at the end.





(daily what)

Hee!

Animated street art.

Hmmmm, which one should we get?

3-D door covers. I'm thinking the escalator.



(thx NK for finding this)

Heveltictoc

This is way cool.

(and again,thanks go to the daily what.)

Class airfare

Pretty funny post from my friend, Laura Belgray.

Astute observations about moneyed (or not) hierarchies.

(and even sadder is that I have been in business class when a steward and passengers made fun of those in coach. flying business/first can turn you into a regular lindsay lohan)

Now I know what to do with all my extra pillows

(thanks daily what)

Use all your stuff

I know I haven't posted in awhile but it isn't because I am spending all my awake time playing with my new iPad. Just most of my awake time.

Since we moved into the humble cottage a little over a year ago, I have developed an inclination to use up or cook and store all then perishable items we buy for the weekend. I don't know what precipitated the desire, it just seemed like a natural way to behave. (OK, a tanking economy and joblessness can invigorate more responsible behavior.) I feel very proud when we leave a relatively empty refrigerator at the of the weekend (and like this weekend, the end will be today which is Wednesday. Hee!).




Last night we had an heirloom tomato and eggplant gratin; the recipe from my favorite source: Food and Wine magazine. Fantastic! Probably the best to date, I have to say. Anyhoo, quite a bit left over but not enough as a stand alone. Mmmmmmm, it was amazing as the vegetable for this morning's frittata. I would have taken a pic but I was too hungry.

Sometimes it is a bit of a challenge to use everything well. I try to avoid having to make things like watermelon and peach pasta or lobster salad with blueberries and pickles.

Then I remembered the Whole Foods recipe app that I have on my iPhone. It's the recipe search app which is fab for the phone cuz not only does it make a shopping list of the ingredients, it let's you tick them off as you go.

But wait, there's more. It has an "on hand" function. Yep, you guessed it, no more cucumber pies.

And I really don't think I was all that wasteful before, I was just less mindful of my habits.

Today's lunch will be blueberry, cantaloupe, peach smoothies, salad with anchovy/garlic dressing, crumbled goat cheese on top and cucumber/mint water. Oh and hotdogs. Because the humble cottage is on the North Fork, with the exception of the hotdogs and salad dressing ingredients, absolutely everything was grown or made within a 9 mile radius. Yum.