Highlands Neighborhood

St. Kilian's Cheese Shop

Spuntino Cafe

We had a nice lunch a couple of weekends ago at Spuntino Cafe in the Highlands neighborhood. We shared the Porchetta sandwich with shaved porchetta and spicy aioli, which was delicious. My husband also had a scoop of their perfect homemade gelato. Afterwards we visited the nearby bookstore and stationery shop, and then walked to St. Kilian's where we picked up a fresh baguette and a crock of truffle mousse chicken liver pate.

AFTERNOON WALK

After a couple days of snow, we are nearly dry and the weather is warming up once again. It's been a relaxed couple of days, which is quite nice considering how little time we've had to ourselves as of late, and how particularly difficult this week was work-wise. This afternoon we went for a walk in the bright autumn sun beside the pond near the house. It was the quiet we needed. A peaceful end to the week is just the way to begin again.

We also rented the film Bright Star over the weekend. It's the story of the last three years of English poet John Keats' life and the romance between he and Fanny Brawne. It is an exquisite film, full of beauty and great emotion. Every scene is a world in which you wish to inhabit. I cannot recommend it enough. If you happen to have seen it, I'd love to hear your thoughts.

LINK LIST

A Sunlit Absence: "Because we so often derive our sense of who we are from our thoughts and feelings, we tend to habitually move through life reacting to them rather than simply experiencing them. The practice of stillness through a simple prayer creates a new habitus, an interior momentum that, in Laird's poetic phrase, gradually excavates the present moment, revealing over time the stillness that is within us all like a buried treasure."

Marriage is for Hopelessly Lonely People: "Marriage is not meant to be the place where our loneliness is taken away. It’s meant to be the place where we reveal our loneliness to another. It’s not the place we eradicate our loneliness; it’s the place we make it available to someone else. Marriage is the place we feel a little less alone in the world because we discover we’re not the only one feeling alone in the crowd. In marriage, we don’t become free from loneliness, we become free for loneliness. And the healing is in this: once you have made your loneliness available to your partner, you will no longer need to fix it. You will be able to touch it without fear and despair. You may feel hopeless to fix it, but filled with the hope that comes from being joined in it. And this is love. Real love is not adolescent romance made eternal. Real love is two souls, lonely by nature and nurture, caring enough for themselves and each other to make their loneliness tangible to the other."

The Best Way to Ruin the Best Moments: "Perhaps, as the world eases into its winter slumber, this season is reminding us to let go first so we can truly lose ourselves in the beauty. And I think there might be grace in the reminder—this season of autumnal color also reminds us the most beautiful things can give way to the most barren things without despair. Because we’re in orbit, and fresh life is only months away and all things will be made new. Perhaps this dying season is meant to ease the letting go, with the reminder that every death is followed by a resurrection. And every loss is pregnant with the seed of redemption."

Learning Beauty: "To see the flat land is partly about time. To see the mountains requires no effort. To see the desert, to see the horizon, and to let our mind wander in the space between, takes work and patience, and sitting still, and taking time. To see the flat land is partly about awareness, too. It is the awareness that to fill a space, we must have created that space. To see something in the near and middle view, we must have cleared the space, gone into the wilderness, spent time in the desert."

Roots & The Golden Mean:

For there is hope for a tree,
if it be cut down, that it will sprout again,
and that its shoots will not cease.
Though its roots grow old in the earth,
and its stump die in the soil,
yet at the scent of water it will bud
and put out branches like a young plant.

"It is the same with our souls. We cannot see all that is being worked out below the surface. The strength of what lies beneath is able to sustain, support, and give life to great things. When emotional storms come, deep-down strength is able to hold fast and prevent uprooting and permanent damage. When my relationships seem dry, weak, and lifeless, I hope for refreshment and the 'scent of water' to foster new growth."

Pleasure Dome: Modern Poetry Read by its Creators: T.S. Eliot, Marianne Moore, E.E. Cummings, William Carlos Williams, Ogden Nas, W.H. Auden, Dylan Thomas, Elizabeth Bishop.

Nathan Williams: Reading Log

Excerpt from "The Shepherd & The Dollmaker," a film by Beau Bouverat.

Le Voyage Créatif: Corfe castle, England

HONEY TASTING, MARKET VISIT, COCOA BITS

On Saturday afternoon, we visited Cured market in Boulder. They were having a honey and honeycomb tasting of local Grampa's Gourmet Honey. Our favorite variety was the Tamarisk honey, a rare honey named after the tree from which it comes, the Tamarisk, also called the Salt Cedar. With its dark amber and chestnut brown coloring and hints of hickory, pine, soy sauce, molasses, and dark beer it is a most unusual and perfect honey.

The market shares a space with Boxcar Coffee Roasters, and so we ordered coffees and sat at the marble counter and read for a while. The cool rain was nearly ending and the golden sun was peeking beyond the clouds as we left. We walked a block to the used bookstore and perused the dim and dusty shelves and stacks. Home again, we set to work on supper - chopped apples, a crock of pâté, fresh baguette, ham off the bone, and Tamarisk honey. Simple and satisfying.

Yesterday, I made Sprouted Kitchen's Cocoa Coconut Bits which are terribly good, especially warm from the oven. For supper, we had whole roasted Colorado trout stuffed with spinach and roasted veg. It was a lovely, restful weekend with a good balance of school and leisure time, and delicious food in between.

SMALL SCENES

SUNDAY SUPPER

  

"Out of all the days of the week, Sunday is the golden day." Mimi Thorisson, Manger

Sunday truly is the golden day. A welcome respite after a full week. In the morning we attend Church, often enjoy lunch with family or friends, and then rest until supper preparations begin. The table linens are pressed and laid out. Flowers bought and candles lit. The point is not to make it an event, but rather to make special the ordinary. It's a time to slow down and savor life.

Recently, my dad returned from a successful fishing trip with a friend. He brought home dozens of trout and salmon fillets. He has graciously shared his catch with us, and last night we prepared the first of the trout. We wrapped the trout tightly with prosciutto and then pan fried it until perfectly crispy, using this recipe. There is something utterly satisfying about tucking into a whole fish. A most ordinary meal, and yet it feels quite special.

LINK LIST

I've been collecting a list of a few of the favorite links I've come across over the past several weeks, and I thought I would share them with you.

Patience is Not a Virtue, It's a By-Product: "Patience begins with an embrace of our circumstances, but it grows as we enter into the condition of our hearts, when we embrace everything we find there. Because impatience is essentially the urge to run from our inner temper tantrum, the urge to take control so we don’t have to feel it."

Not Without Salt: Dating my Husband: "Love isn’t simply about how he makes you feel. I know that now. Love is a choice and love is action."

Manger: Sunday Best: "Out of all the days of the week, Sunday is the golden day. We take time off and enjoy a quality ‘déjeuner‘. Our kids love this family ritual, and I secure it by making sure to cook something memorable. I would like to imagine my children’s lives bookmarked by food memories, especially Sunday lunches. It’s a sacred moment in time where all the ingredients matter."

The Mess Will Set You Free: "When we try to control, and order, and perfect everything, we may successfully hide our shame. For awhile. But we are also creating a delusion. Because real life is messy. It’s blood-sweat-and-tears messy. It’s anxiety and sadness and embarrassment messy. It’s tragic and unpredictable. And it is absolutely beautiful. Not despite the mess, but because of the mess."

Marilynne Robinson, The Art of Fiction No. 198: "People are frightened of themselves. It’s like Freud saying that the best thing is to have no sensation at all, as if we’re supposed to live painless. The ancients are right: the dear old human experience is a singular, difficult, shadowed, brilliant experience that does not resolve into being comfortable in the world. The valley of the shadow is part of that, and you are depriving yourself if you do not experience what humankind has experienced, including doubt and sorrow. We experience pain and difficulty as failure instead of saying, I will pass through this, everyone I have ever admired has passed through this, music has come out of this, literature has come out of it. We should think of our humanity as a privilege."

Manger: Life in Médoc: "We’ve been living in Médoc, France, for nearly 18 months now. And it’s taken me some time to adapt. Getting out of a city is like a detox program. No one is stressed out here. Stores, banks, post offices – they have long daily lunch breaks. No one is in a rush. People you meet talk about the mushrooms they found in the forest, or where the geese are flying to (it’s an indication of how soon summer will come). It’s nice."

I love these Palomino Blackwing wooden pencils and these stylish black paper towels from Renova.

I'm a bit behind, but I have been reading Kinfolk Vol. 4 on the iPad, and it's incredibly inspiring both in words and images. I especially enjoyed the piece on The Woodsman Market in Portland.

The beautifully crafted artisan toys at Babe in a Blanket are the perfect gift for little ones this Nativity season, created by Misty of Around the Wooden Table. 

This evening I'm looking forward to a big bowl of stovetop popcorn, apple cider, and the second episode of BBC's Call the Midwife.

THE FIRST SNOW

We had the first light snow of the season today. In the afternoon, we visited a nearby farm for pumpkins and local apples. Afterwards, we headed into town and stopped at a few of our favorite shops and lingered in a couple of bookstores. He bought a book, and I chose some lovely stationery. When we needed to warm ourselves, we walked to our favorite French restaurant Brasserie Ten Ten and had fish and chips and a couple of beers. It was the perfect meal for this beautiful, grey day.

SECONDHAND FINDS

I've recently had a stroke of luck at our local thrift shops. I found several pieces to round off my autumn wardrobe, as well as a couple items for the home. I love to shop the thrift, and usually do so before visiting elsewhere. When you buy an item secondhand, you are able to get a sense for how it wears, and I appreciate that. And I must say, I am almost giddy when I find certain brands on the racks or tucked away on a shelf (say, an Eileen Fisher linen skirt or a set of Heath Ceramics.) And that's the beauty of the hunt, you never know what you might find.

TIME TO SLOW DOWN

It's that time of year again. Summer has ended and the semester has begun, and my husband is once again working and attending school full-time, which means we are having to put forth extra effort to steal away and make time for ourselves.

Last weekend we visited one of our favorite local eateries, Pizzeria Locale in Boulder. We sat outside while the sun was strong and golden and there was the slightest, most perfect breeze. It felt so nice to stop and sit for a long while, and to enjoy his good company and conversation. Afterwards we popped over to one of our favorite used bookstores across the street. An attempt to slow down time before life begins again.

If you visit Pizzeria Locale, I recommend sharing the Bianca; a delicious pizza crafted with pecorino, rapini, sausage, and garlic. Or perhaps their newest seasonal offering (one I can't wait to try myself), the Fichi Pizza with black mission figs, local Tender Belly bacon, medjool dates, Verde Capra cheese, shallots, and balsamic. For dessert, you simply must try the butterscotch budino. Order your own, you won't want to share. To taste a bit of everything, try their Aperitivo menu every day from 4:30 to 5:30 pm.

Pizzeria Locale 1730 Pearl Street, Boulder, CO 80302

A NEW SEASON

With the changing of seasons comes a fresh start. I am finding my way once again in the world of blogging. I'm not sure what form this space will take, but for now I am simply glad to be here.

Earlier in the week, I stopped by an honesty farm stand on the way home from work. I had picked the perfect day to visit. There were bags of local apples and the last of the perfect Colorado peaches. Home again, I set to work on the first apple pie of the season. Autumn has come to stay. I'm convinced these beautiful, blue mountains relish the season as much as I do.