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 :)

cutting board class #2

tonight we had our second and final class with pete raho of gowanus furniture to complete our walnut-cherry-maple morse code cutting boards. with an hour to spare before the 7pm class, we opted to explore gowanus a bit and ended up at a local bakery and cafe, four & twenty blackbirds. it was at the corner of 3rd ave and 8th street, just a couple blocks from the fourth ave F train station and steps from makeville studios.

the cafe was large and reminded me of places we've gone to in LA ~ high ceilings, generous tables and space, and lit up with macbook screens. i had a serious problem when it came to ordering because the pie descriptions sounded so delicious! i ended up ordering the sweet potato apple crumble with fresh whip on the side because i was in the mood for buttery crumble :) and actually it turns out that the crumble was largely made from oats, so not too unhealthy after all.

next time i want to try the salty honey (that one only had ONE slice left so it MUST be good), grapefruit custard (because a citrus custard just sounds interesting), and the bittersweet chocolate pecan. it's going to be a cake party next time!

when we arrived to shop, our beautiful boards were waiting for us, having been cleaned of the excess glue and planed (thanks pete). during our second class, we would have far more autonomy and shop tasks to do in order to complete our board. they included: drilling the wall-mounting holes; rounding over the edges of the board and mounting holes with the palm router; creating the handholds; sanding corners; and applying the finish.

pete demonstrated how to use a number of pieces of equipment including: the drill (to make the wall-mounting holes), palm router (to round over the edges), router table (to create the handholds), and the orbital sander (to sand the corners). it felt a bit as if we were being transported back to the high school wood shop again! pete stressed the importance of safety when using the tools, which was helpful, and we got to work.

at the end of the night, when we were satisfied with the shape and smoothness of our boards, we applied the hot oil and wax finish, which also left our hands feeling silky smooth. how do i get a bottle of that stuff? :) we left the boards to dry and will return to pick them up in a week or so. yay. it's been an awesome way to spend two friday nights so far, and can't wait to tell our friends about the class and the awesome instructor!

cutting board class #1

after a good night's sleep, i woke up feeling a lot better. not sure what was going on, but i can only attribute the bug from a coworker and my swift recovery from kevin's TLC. thank you always ... i am not a fun sick person to be around. i basically make myself immobile from the bed or couch :D

after a long friday, one of the busiest days of the year so far, i met my giddy husband on the F train platform and we headed down to gowanus, brooklyn. gowanus is home of the famous gowanus canal and a part of south brooklyn which had been the site of decades of industrial use and coal gas manufacturing in the 19th century. currently, it is zoned for mid-level manufacturing and the neighborhood is full of artists lofts and studios. we actually went on a self-guided tour of some gowanus studios back in october and so were excited to go back.

we stopped by fletcher's brooklyn bbq for a quick bite and hurried over a couple blocks to makeville studios for part 1 of kevin's birthday gift from last spring: gowanus furniture's cutting board class with pete raho. we had rescheduled this class multiple times last year due to conflicts with our race, travel, and friend's birthday events, so were especially glad to finally commit to this date.

the space was decorated with raw wood of all shapes and sizes, tools, masks, and machinery of all sorts lined the walls. we were welcomed with beers and wine, and i polished off three chocolate covered biscuits within minutes of arriving. our class was on the large size - 12 of us in total, plus pete, the instructor, and his friend, rachel.

pete worked in the auction house business before receiving his mba from nyu stern a few years ago. he has since started his own business, gowanus furniture, and one of his best selling products are his kentile monogrammed cutting boards. his passion for gowanus and his product was quite infectious, and he conducting his class is a very easygoing, relaxing way. it was a great way to spend a friday night!

each group was given 4-5 pieces each of maple, cherry, and walnut, and asked to spend a little time to come up with a design. kevin and i decided to do our initials, "J" and "K" in morse code! "J" = short-long-longlong and "K" = long-short-long so our first initials alone would span almost the entire cutting board. we used walnut for the "J", maple for the "K", and maple for the background. once rachel helped us to cut our wood pieces to size, we applied wood glue generously to the same face of each piece and carefully clamped them together with gigantic woodworking clamps. the clamps would force the wood glue to stay in place and to ensure all sides of the cutting board were flush. 

as our cutting board was suspended in midair by the clamps, the wood glue made a cool design as it dripped and beaded up! almost looks like pancake batter and mini pancakes yum. had to remind myself not to grab a piece!

and that was it for class #1! can't wait to come back next friday to cut it to size and sand it down!

looks like someone's ready to install a woodshop in the apt!

gowanus arts & ice cream!!

with two weeks to go until the ny marathon, today was the start of our taper. it's such a bummer and i've been dreading it all wk. to go from running 22 miles down to 15 suddenly feels a little sad. it also makes me a bit anxious to cut down the mileage when we have 26.2 coming up, but i guess all the hard work should have been done up to this point and if not, we'll find out soon.

the weather was 52F and the humidity was low at 54%, it was the perfect weather to be outdoors! we started at the central park engineers' gate on the east side and did two counterclockwise loops, and finished up with the 100th st to 90th st straightaway. after two days' rest, the legs felt pretty loose and we averaged a comfortable 8:26 pace. wished we could have gone for a 3rd loop in this amazing weather, but we'll have to save that for dec/jan/feb :)

central park run

for lunch, we explored williamsburg/bushwick a bit and to whet our appetite, we went for soft-shell gringo tacos at san loco. san loco is a spot we pass by every single evening when we walk from the train station to the apt. when kev asked me if i wanted anything, i was like - pssh, it's alright, im good. MAYBE i'll just take one bite of yours. but when they arrived, i have to admit, it was so darn tasty (i had the beef) that i ate the whole thing! omg :/ poor kevin. instead of having two, he only had one ... the atmosphere is really low key, high ceilings, good music, lots of tables and space, with delicious finger lickin' tacos. we will definitely go back before we leave the hood!

luckily we only had to walk another ten minutes to arrive at our second lunch spot: okonomi, which means "what you like", which doubles as a yuji ramen in the evenings. okonomi was really simple and nice. there were 4 seats at the bar and 2 tables with 4 seats each (12 seats in total), so we were lucky to be seated immediately. we ordered the spanish mackerel sashimi with a dash of yusco as an appetizer and it was magnificent, melting on our tongues almost on contact. then kevin had the trout (top) and i had the tuna belly (bottom) for our fish, and we both added onsen tamago, and i even added a side of uni :) the side dishes were broccoli rabe, swiss chard, tsukemono, and a sweet japanese egg. it was ALL soooo tasty.

it's been so long since we've had homecooked asian food ... and okonomi's preparation and taste really did remind me of tokyo. can't wait to go back!!

okonomi, be sure to get there early - or you'll have to wait!

our delicious lunch setto

after lunch, we took the G-train down to gowanus, and sadly, for our inaugural ride on the g-train, it failed miserably. hahaha ... first of all, the g-train only went for about 4 stops after which the conductor announced it was the final stop on the line and we'd have to get off and transfer to a shuttle to go the rest of the way. after waiting 10 minutes, the shuttle arrived and brought us only another 3 stops when the conductor announced it was the final stop. lol. now i remember why i never took the G-train in the past ...

anyways, we finally made it to gowanus around 3ish and did the self-guided gowanus arts tour, stopping by 4-5 locations to check out probably 10-15 individual studios over the course of the afternoon. i didn't have any specific intentions on the studio visits, other than to enjoy the artist's studio and work and explore gowanus. and we did just that. here are some of the interesting places we visited! i've seen some of the artists' work at crafts fairs throughout the city, so it was pretty amazing to see the studios where theirs works are designed and crafted.

kristiana parn's studio - i love her prints!

rene murray's ceramic studio

yumiko kuga's ceramics

to top it off, we finished our tour of gowanus with the BEST ice cream i have ever had - at ample hills creamery. dude. i love this place! it's so unassuming and unpretentious, especially given the high-quality of its product! and the two servers i interacted with were super fun, easy-going, and nice.

we sampled three flavors: salted crack caramel, malty salty pretzel punch, and pistachio squared, but opted for the malty salty pretzel punch and their small is gigantic! *smile* it has chocolate covered pretzels mixed into malted vanilla ice cream, a heavenly combination of the sweet-n-savory trend.

we're already thinking about how we are going to get ample hills creamery in our ice cream mix. we will be back!!! and for the record, salted crack caramel and pistachio squared were also delicious ...

ample hills creamery's ample menu :)

malty salty pretzel punch

we ended the night with a quiet dinner at nuovo fiore, an italian spot i've been wanting to try for a couple weeks now. we shared the pasta fagiole (soup), butternut squash salad, cavatelli con broccoli rabe and sausage, and pizza formaggio. every dish hit the spot! and it felt relatively light for italian food as well.

just 3 blocks from the apt, and with delicious food, ample seating, and great friendly service, fiore is our new favorite italian spot in the area! doesn't hurt that the entire staff speaks italian either. another spot to come back to ... it's going to be sad to leave williamsburg :(

best: i'm thankful for the cool, crisp fall weekend we got! we spent the entire weekend on our feet (too bad i wasn't still in the walkertracker challenege. would have crushed it this wkd lol)! 

worst: i noticed a bunch of fruit flies in the corner of the kitchen where the stove is, and kevin discovered that there was something spoiled in the kitchen trash which was probably attracting them. gross! good thing kevin has good aim and managed to swat most of them with a rolled up copy of last week's economist. lol. i was envisioning a walter white moment ...

smile: rene murray, one of the ceramic artists we met, opened up her handmade kiln in her studio for us! it was huge! and when her husband told us the story about how her previous kiln had no door and she hand-built a new door by bricklaying it each time she baked, we were absolutely amazed. it was enlightening to see the daily life of an artist, and their passion for their work.