OIL SPILL

Okay, okay, I shouldn't follow up that last post with this....I try to keep my personal blog on a lighter note and also things like the oil spill make me feel not just sad, but helpless.  I don't own a car (which is not to say I never drive, and I live in NY which makes it easier for me, I realize this is not a choice everyone can make)  I try to buy local and vintage, both for myself and my clients (though I definitely have a little bit of an IKEA addiction) and I avoid petroleum based products (did you know crayolas are made with petroleum?) but I can't clean up the gulf.  I am a decorator not an engineer.  I am a mother not a politician, and over the last several years, though of course I continue to vote, I feel like the system is so corrupt that means very little.  So I just feel helpless.  I sign petitions and read and try to educate myself and my son, but seriously, there are dead dolphins and they are cleaning it up with paper towels.  Thanks? Mother Jones reporter Mac Mccleeland for kayaking into the oil-filled gulf to get some truth on camera.

Thoughts on Food While In TN

No photo here.  I am down south visiting my parents, both of whom have type 2 diabetes.  For all of my thoughts on food and pictures of what I serve my son, I live in a place where most of the parents and children I hang with take it as a matter of course not to feed their children fast food and high-fructose corn syrup.  You would probably be ostracized from the play-group if you gave your child a sip of soda, but here all of those things are a way of life for children and adults alike.  I am not making a blanket, biased statement, I am saying this based on very unscientific observation and a lot of reading.  I don't think there are any parents who set out to feed their children (and themselves) poison, but they (all of us really) are victims of not just un-education, but actual mis-education, an under-funded, under-staffed FDA put up against companies with massive ad budgets.  Even the companies serving organic are part of the system.  They just discovered lead in juice, in brands running the gamut from organic to big company, and no one knows how it got there!  What chance do our children have of growing up to be healthy in this environment?  To borrow the words of Jamie Oliver, we need a revolution!

Also, I just found this blog, a lot of interesting articles.

Daily Lunch Box

Banana
Broccoli
Snappea Crisps
Cheese Tortellini with olive oil and Parmesan cheese

This was another popular lunch...though B did not eat the broccoli.  The  banana is a lot, and I usually try to avoid sending them with his lunch.  Though nanas do have some good stuff in them (and they are delicious!) they also have a lot of sugar! which makes B a little crazy.

Peacock Butt

 

I couldn't resist one last picture from our trip to the Bronx Zoo last week. I don't think I have ever noticed the back of a peacock's tail....I find the structure amazing! Not as technicolor as the front, but certainly as beautiful. Not many animals that are as beautiful from the ass as they are from the front, but because peacocks are so beautiful from the front here is that pic also:

Daily Lunch Box

Sliced Jack Cheese
Broccoli
Sesame Bread Sticks (these were an experiment, B keeps begging for those gross, little, chemical-laden Snackables, the ones with the fake cheese spread and bread sticks, which the grocery store displays at kid eye-level. Anyhoo, before I let my rant go to far, I tried to make him his own, and made a sort of pimento-esque cheese spread for him, but he, of course, refused to eat it.  The breadsticks I bought to go in his fake lunchables he likes however.)
Blackberries

This was super easy to throw together, the only thing that even took a tiny bit of doing was steaming up the frozen broccoli.  Successful as well.  B ate almost everything.

Vintage Table

I like this table, spotted at the sidewalk cafe of Five Leaves.  The picture really doesn't do it justice (man I need a better camera!) but it has a great patina of age, under the green you can see spots of mustard-yellow, and deep red.
I really like this restaurant in general, beautiful, amazing decor and I could eat their home-made ricotta cheese every night.

Daily Lunch Box

Jack Cheese
Hard-Boiled Egg
Strawberries (now at the Farmer's Market!)
Red Grapes
Snap Pea Crisps (oh my god, if you have never had these, go out and buy a bag right now, delicious for children and adults alike)

This lunch was a little heavy on the fruit and nary a grain in sight, but B ate almost all of it...except for the egg yolk, came back perfectly intact minus the white.  How did he do that?

The Bronx Zoo

Do you ever have one of those of days? One of those days where you realize you are the crazy Mom yelling at your kid, and talking to your kid, even the things he wants to do, is like talking to a brick wall and you just want to lock yourself in a room for a while? Well B and I are having one of those days and right now he is laying on the floor of his room playing (after a no nap day) and I am sitting here on the computer. So instead of dwelling here are a whole bunch of pictures of a beautiful day we had at the Bronx Zoo earlier this week when B's godfather was visiting from Chicago.

Waiting for the Reveal

I have been watching this house for a while, in fact I am sure I have a bunch of pictures I never posted somewhere......Underneath that tarp it had been peeled completely back to the original facade...then it just sat there for months, freed of the vinyl siding, but no work. (I wonder if they were doing work without a permit and got shut down?) Walked by the other day and it was completely covered up.  I can't wait to see what happens!  Probably something hideous....but all that work makes me feel hopeful.

Mother's Day with Baby Boy--a really delayed posting

Sometimes things sit on my desktop for a while waiting to be posted.  Take this gold chocolate shoe for instance; this is what B picked out from Jaques Torres to give me for Mother's Day.  Odd, but delicious (FYI: it was real gold dust)

Rat Houses

Made In Brooklyn

Everyone seems to have moved on to ICFF (which I didn't attend this year, just so big! felt overwhelmed and figured everyone would blog about it!) but I just ran across this bike rack I saw at Brooklyn Designs.  So cool, especially in a long narrow NY hallway.

Seriously, someone go buy this awesome vintage Creative Playthings Kitchen

It's at Junk, on Driggs and No 9th, $50, great shape.  Seriously though, been there for over six months and every time I go there I want to buy it, and we really, really, really don't need it (especially since we already have an awesome vintage toy kitchen!)

East Village Edition

 

I've mentioned before that I lived in the East Village for several years (well back then it was still called Alphabet City and people were still shooting up on doorsteps, but that is another story) This store front is on 2nd Ave, and I find it very comforting. Even as fancy restaurants, little expensive boutiques, and big fancy condo buildings have overtaken the neighborhood (the old CBGBs is a John Varvatos store for God's sake!) this place has remained exactly the same, right down to the really dirty Spiderman sheets hanging in the storefront window.  I kinda want the Spiderman sheets.

Balthaup Kitchen

That wardrobe reminded me of this amazing kitchen storage system from Balthaup which I covet, but will probably never be able to afford. I do have a few friends, that if they ever build their dream kitchens, I might point the way to this....or next time I have a really large budget to do a client's kitchen.

Awesomeness

Saw this wardrobe in LONNY magazine. So many little storage places, so obssessed. I would use this in a million places...a kids room, as an entire office in say a living room, as a tool closet, oh I could think of more, but let's just enjoy the perfection of a lot of little boxes and bags to organize hoarding tendencies.

Daily Lunch Box

Whole wheat cheese tortellini w/homemade basil & arugula pesto
Green Beans
Blackberries

My sister says she likes my blog but that the Daily Lunch Box is a little boring...here's the thing though, I think about what my son eats a lot.  I feel like in this fast food, pre-packaged, chemical laden atmosphere you have to.  It's not like you can trust marketing, or even the FDA to protect your family from stuff that's bad for you, and I want to do my best to nourish him so that at least that is a part of his life and not something he has to figure out on his own.  My point, I'm damn proud of the food I put together for him and I want to look back at this and feel a sense of accomplishment.

If you want just a little web-browsing about the things we eat here are a few links (nothing new, all this stuff made the rounds a while back, but worth looking at)

Jamie Oliver's TED speech
Fed up with School Lunch -- a blog where a teacher eats her school's lunch every day -- has a lot of great education guest posts as well
Michelle Obama's Let's Move Campaign
Gluten Free Girl -- I love how Shauna and The Chef make food so joyful
101 Cookbooks -- one of my favorite sites for cooking inspiration

Brooklyn Designs

As per my yearly tradition I went to Brooklyn Designs with my sister and my son last week.  It was cool, though a lot of the same as last year.  This display of found gloves, which wasn't at the show, but at a store nearby, was my favorite thing.  I did really, really, really, really love Grow House Grow's new patterns (and the designer is such a sweet woman).

Daily Lunch Box

Cream Cheese & Cucumber Sandwich on Raisin Semolina Bread (from our favorite baker at the Farmer's Market....what is their name?)
Pea Shoot & Cherry Tomatoes with Brianna's Poppyseed Dressing (I love this stuff, it makes me want to eat salad for every meal, alas, though I got B to eat this exact salad the evening before and beg for more, he didn't touch it!)
An Apple

Daily Lunch Box

This seems to be left-overs week.
Annie's mac & Cheese, with peas (from dinner last night)
Grapes
the last of the Cranberries, and graham cracker bunnies
Veggie Bootie

I couldn't get all of the food in the photo if I put it in the lunch box, here is what it looked like all packed and ready to go.