saturday @ the sill

today i visited the sill, a little shop in the eastern part of chinatown/LES that sends gardeners out to nurseries in long island and select plants which could thrive in nyc apartments! although the store itself is relatively small, just around 300 square feet, their selection is quite extensive ranging from miniature succulents to 7 ft tall fiddle leaf fig trees. most importantly, the founder and specialists there are all very knowledgeable and their priority is to  recommend the best plant for each person's needs.

kevin actually discovered the sill from reading one of the blogs that i subscribe to, and got one my birthday presents there: a miniature succulent in an ivory ceramic pot and a generous gift certificate.

the shop has glass on two sides facing north and east, and was relatively warm and humid inside when i visited, giving the feeling of being inside a greenhouse. the first thing i noticed was that all the plants inside were vibrant and flourishing in the naturally lit environment. how do i create this environment in our apartment? well, a couple more humidifiers in the winter for starters!

i had a chance to speak with sam, the store manager, who gave me tips on how to care for our new fiddle leaf fig tree and snake plant. the former has started to shed a couple of its lower leaves, which have been slowly yellowing, so i've been feeling a bit sad and worried about it. 

she also introduced me to a host of other small plants which might be appropriate for a wall which i'm thinking about lining with plants. the wall i am thinking of faces south, but gets indirect natural light, so she suggested a number of low to moderate light varieties such as the zz plant, pothos, and philodendron. the philodendron is actually known for cleaning the air (similar to the snake plant, it removes formaldehyde, carbon monoxide, and benzene), and it's also quite pretty so that's a plus.

afterwards we stopped by the shop to pick up our finished cutting board! the board and class were actually kevin's birthday gift from 2014. it was such a fun couple of weeks in class, meeting pete, learning about his passion, his business ideas, and being able to bring home a gorgeous work of art that we created with, yep, our bare hands. a labor of love :)

i had a craving for italian tonight so kevin suggested l'artusi, one of our favorite spots in the west village. actually let's be honest - it is my favorite italian spot in the city. kevin and i both threw each other surprise birthday parties in the second floor wine room a few years ago, and we try to go back from time to time, though we now opt for bar seating to catch glimpses of the chef and line cooks.

we were seated at the bar in front of a cheese and pastry station, where we watched a young asian cook prepare dozens of trays of hazelnut desserts, cheese plates, and ice cream. it reminded me of kitchen confidential and i thought about how much experience she must have had to get to this point in her career. the head chef was in the center of the kitchen, basically acting as the brain of the entire operations as she liaised with the wait staff, the line cooks, and checked every single dish before it was brought to the table. such a cool (though tiring) job!

l'artusi's menu, wine list, and service is as we'd recalled - impeccable. we ordered the butter lettuce salad to start, and our favorite dishes - the spaghetti with garlic, chilies, and parmesan, and the hangar steak with crispy potatoes and salsa bianco. they took a little longer than usual with our steak, so the chef sent over a complimentary dish of roasted brussel sprouts. usually the spaghetti is the most memorable part of the night for me, but tonight, it was the medium-seared steak and buttery crispy potatoes. always the best!

best: we saw two HUGE - i mean, 7-8 ft tall, snowmen in the area. haha ... it's been a while since i've seen snowmen, and i don't think i've ever seen one this big!

worst: found out that our pete doesn't make custom shelves. darn. we really like his style and his respect for his art, and would have loved to have one of his creations in the loft. he says it doesn't pay well enough - i guess i can understand that. it is business after all.

smile: happy birthday, jayjay! he turned 11 today :)

sickling

after picking up a few serving dishes at the soho c&b, i met kevin for dinner at one of our local go-to spots, soba-ya, for a quick, tasty dinner. we ordered the santen-mori (three vegetable dishes) of kimpira-gobo, satsuma-imo, and kabocha to shiitake, and a few vegetable tempura as appetizers. i love japanese veggie dishes - they are so simple and SO GOOD. kev had the large sardine hot soba special and i had the mini oyakodon.

when we arrived home, my table-top fiddle leaf fig tree arrived via usps from ohio! it was packaged very carefully in a 2-day priority box with packing peanuts and a warm heating pack, but the leaves were very dirty (white spots all over them) and sickly/damaged upon arrival. also, the top 2 inches of the stem was soft and had fallen to one side. it couldn't have been good for the plant to be packaged and away from sunlight for 2 days, but i think it's also possible that the gardener didn't take very good care of this guy, and it was damaged in transit (possibly frozen, due to the snowpocalypse). i repotted the little guy and wiped down his leaves, and put him in a southern facing windowsill. hopefully it's not too late to save him and it's bright and sunny tomorrow!

here is a photo of him right after i removed him from the box. how sad! stay tuned ...  

feels like home

a loft is not easy to furnish, especially when we moved from a space approximately 1/3 of the size and 2/3 of the height. i think one of the hardest parts is not having walls/boundaries between the different areas - it requires you to do a whole lot more measuring and imagining. 

when we moved in on october 31, 2014, we had +80 boxes of our belongings, but no furniture for the living room. even though we have heaps of boxes in every room, the space felt massively empty. after a few months of unpacking, donating, and scrupulously shopping at the rate of one piece per month (we are slow lol), we've finally acquired a few pieces which make the loft feel like home.

most recently we picked up this black walnut and rosewood sideboard and placed it behind our living room sectional. it feels like an anchor piece, and has helped to separate the living and dining space so our furniture doesn't look like it's just floating around anymore. then kevin spent THREE evenings this week polishing it, as well as every other piece of walnut furniture in the apartment, with orange-glo. i grew up with a father who was very involved in the daily household chores, and i was lucky to marry a man who helps out too :) the wood looks really nice after it's been polished, the colors are richer, and a little bonus is that everything smells like oranges afterwards!

kevin and i both grew up in the suburbs: me in holmdel new jersey surrounded by small, local farms, and kevin in stockton california in the heart of the central valley agriculture. we both love the outdoors and miss the greenery, so we are trying to bring some of the outdoors indoors. i repotted our snake plant aka sansevieria trifasciata (also known as the "mother-in-law's tongue"), but i'm not sure if this exact location will be his home quite yet. we'll see how the light works out.

well, my friend liz asked to see a recent photo of the place, so here it is! it's the only one i can show you because there are boxes everywhere else still. and because i am the queen of collecting knick knacks and magazine hoarding, this is probably the least cluttered you will ever see our place. bookshelves are expected to arrive in march, and hopefully we'll get our bikes mounted up on the walls as well. yay!

best: korean body scrubs on a chilly evening after a long day at work.

worst: how walking by dirty water dog street vendors at a brisk pace for even a quick minute makes your hair smell like smoke and grease for the rest of the day. bleh :p

smile: the title of this post is coincidentally the title of the chantal kreviazuk song that we danced to at our wedding at the boathouse :) it's one of my favorite songs from "how to lose a guy in ten days".

snowpocalypse of 2015

we awoke to a very quiet city on tuesday morning. the streets and sidewalks were void of cars and pedestrians. all we heard was the low rumble of snow plows going down seventh ave and the comforting crackle from kevin's burr coffee bean grinder. our new houseplant was settling in nicely by the southwest window, basking in the morning light.

deblasio had implemented a car-train-bus-subway ban starting at 11pm last night, so we decided to walk to work. there was about 6-8 inches of snow on parts of the sidewalk, but for the most part, the streets and most major sidewalks had been cleaned overnight. the temperature was in the mid-30s, not too cold for a 25 minute walk, so i put on my ice breaker base layers, a fleece pullover, and a hard shell jacket and pants! armed with kevin's nikon and freshly brewed coffee in our top pot double-walled stainless steel mugs, we were ready to go!

the walk to work and back home were really nice! with so many people taking the day off or working from home, the streets were quiet and cars and public transportat did not re-enter the streets until 7:30am. maybe we should do the walk a bit more often, well, maybe just on workday holidays or days with terrible weather when it's less crowded out.

during the day, one of my close friends, monica, asked if it was okay to put me down as her older son's emergency contact at his high school. she'd asked us last year to be his emergency contact as well. it feels nice, like we are family. i am almost always at my desk or in the city reachable by my mobile, so of course i accepted.

we made a quick and easy dinner tonight. spicy sesame noodles with chicken, cucumbers, and pea shoots on the side. we've been working on a pot of chicken-pork soup with daikon and seaweed this week as well, good comfort food during these cold days and just like my mama makes it :)

our fiddle leaf fig tree

another rainy, chilly saturday! but it was a fun one none-the-less as we got to explore our new neighborhood a little. 

we paid a little trip to the floral district on 28th street! it's kinda sad because the florists are slowly leaving the area due to rising rents, and there are really only a few nice ones left. we were pleasantly greeted by a wide assortment of the most beautiful and colorful flowers! and baby peonies ~ i thought they were only available in the spring-summer months!

checked out a few shops, and then i finally selected our first fiddle-leaf fig tree. he's a 4.5" guy, with a long stem, and leaves towards the top. he seems pretty healthy, though his leaves were quite dirty. i spent the morning repotting him in our case-study planter and wiping down his leaves. it was pretty relaxing and therapeutic actually! though i spilled a bit of potting soil so it wasn't all that pretty. hahaha ...

we have currently positioned him in the SW corner of the apartment, where i think it's most aesthetically pleasing and also most sunny during the day. i don't have a green thumb by any means, but we grew some nice herbs at the usq apartment with our massively intrusive southern-lit windows, and i've managed to keep a few succulents and airplants alive so far, so we'll see how this goes. it's nice to feel needed :)

quick swedish meatball with lingonberry sauce at the local fika for lunch (DEEELISH)!

to top off the day, we picked up a gorgeous sideboard at organic modernism on 22nd between 6th and 7th ave from aydan, the store manager. that woman rocks!!! she's sweet, and fair, and honest, and she gave us an expected deal on our much needed sideboard (she has thus become my favorite OM salesperson to date). yay. our new piece of furniture is made if walnut and beech wood, and has leather strap finishes. given it was just two blocks away, we carted it away with a dolly so i could smile at it for the rest of the weekend. :)

on a sad note, kevin was feeling sick, uhm, which may explain why i was feeling better so quickly. the best way to get better is to pass it on? :p oops :/

a year older

today was my birthday! :) 

and kevin spoiled me rotten, starting with this adorable bloomberg message. apparently he had to keep resending and retracting it because i didn't see it and he wanted to make sure it was on the top of my bloomberg messages. those donut flags are actually dynamic and the donuts get gobbled up over a 5-second cycle. it's the little things, right?

the day flew by and +175 facebook birthday posts later, we were on way our to the river cafe on the brooklyn promenade for dinner. the restaurant is seating right along the east river almost directly under the brooklyn bridge. you couldn't ask for a more amazing view of the water and lower manhattan skyline.

what stood out to me was the quality of service, cute and extensive style of dishwares, modern preparation and presentation of some traditional dishes, and how the place could completely fill up on a night as chilly (10F) as last night! to start, we had the pear salad and grilled octopus. for our entrees, kevin had the rack of lamb and i had the branzino. i was expecting a whole fish, but it was a beautiful filet with a roasted tomato on the side - this is difficult to describe - the tomato skin had been torched such that the it had become a crispy sculpture on top of the tomato! for dessert, we had the apple gallette and chocolate souffle. kudos to the chefs!

and when we got home, kevin gave me a little gift to help me get educated and started on bringing the outdoors inside our little apato :) apparently he learned about thesill.com from the blogs listed on my blog. LOL. i didn't think he paid any attention to this ... 

anyways can't wait to visit the sill and get my fiddle leaf fig tree!

ps. surprise #2, we've got the http://www.inourloft.com url! :) thank you!