The Hidden Instinct

Some girls have fantasies of getting married, but my childhood dreams were of always my dream house. It would be quite small, made from wood, and with lots of nooks and comfortable corners. In one version of my dream I have a house with secret passageways, narrow paths behind walls that opened up to a little attic corner….

Imagine this leading to a secret room....

Or wanting to feel hidden in plain sight?

I found these real hidden doorways on the excellent interior design and ideas at Apartment Therapy. Check out these images—some of them are quite cool. If you actually want to have a hidden door in your home, the place to go is here.

We Stain Our Fingers

Yesterday I was walking home from skytrain along Lougheed highway and noticed that the blackberry bushes already had ripe berries on them. So I picked a few and ate a few. They are quite small this year, probably because of the heat, which accelerated ripening; however, they were delicious--sweet, rich, dark, and slightly warm from the sun.

I love blackberry season--it turns the regular Vancouverite into a livin' off the land gatherer and scavenger.

Capilano Hike and Hatchery

View from Cleveland Dam (look how low the water is)

Life-sized models at the Hatchery

Fish and dirty glass no. 1

Fish and dirty glass no. 2

On Thursday I met a few friends from my ESL teacher days. We had planned to go for a long hike after work, but it was raining off and on all day, but we decided to proceed anyway. We took the seabus to North Vancouver from downtown, and drove to the Capilano area. Our first stop was the Salmon Hatchery. Now there had be talk that the salmon run was unusually low this year, so we weren’t expecting much. However, there were so many fish! We saw quite a few of them jump form one level to another.

The fish still looked healthy and silvery—some of the were enormous, some quite small. I’d visited the hatchery before, but never saw any fish, so it was so thrilling. After the fish we hiked for about an hour on the trails up to Cleveland Dam and back down. The forest is so quiet and beautiful when it’s not crowded! So from that perspective, the rain was quite a blessing.

After that we shared 5 appetizers at Taylor's Crossing, a brew pub in North Vancouver. The food was average, but for half price 'ladies night' appetizers, it was a great deal.

It was fun. Hanging out with these friends make me miss my teaching days...but not much!

Sewing Dreams

Sewing is one of my hobbies, but it's something I haven't done in a while. A couple of months ago I put away the sewing machine and the sewing notions that were scattered all over the dining room table when we did a big clean up and had people over. Needless to say I haven't had the chance to take it out again. But I do love sewing, especially when you start a project and it miraculously looks good in the end. The problem is that I'm a messy do-er--whatever it may be, be it knitting or sewing or cooking, the room usually ends up looking like a hurricane hit it. You should see my desk at work--it's the same. I suppose I like to see where everything is, because I tend to forget about a thing's existence if it's not there in front of me.

Anyway, I was browsing in a magazine store one day and came upon the September issue of Burda fashion magazine. If you are interested in garment sewing, this is a really good resource, because each issue comes with about 40 or more patterns that you can trace out (however, navigating the multiple coloured, overlapping, crisscross lines is another matter). So instead of paying 8 bucks for a single pattern, you'd get multiple patterns for 12 bucks. It's a real deal.

Some of the clothes in the issue look fabulous, especially looking forward to the fall. They are simple (the first blouse looks extremely simple to make), and romantic and classic.

I doubt that I'll get around to any of these projects, but who knows? I might start working on that dress I cut out a few months ago....

Cake for Cherry Times

A few weeks ago I ran across this buttermilk cake on this blog, and I thought the cake looked spectacular and easy to make. Yesterday we bought 3 bags of cherries and thought, why not today? I bought buttermilk for the first time too--it is a weird substance. Since my husband was sick, I thought I'd do something nice for him (I made him chicken soup from scratch too!). The cake recipe is here.

I reduced the sugar a bit, since I'm not too fond of overly sweet cakes. And I added a whole loadful of cherries. Here it is before it went into the oven.

And out of the oven it comes. I like how brown it got and how much it seemed to have risen. The sugar on top gave it a nice, crackly crunch.

The cake turned out to be very light, fluffy, and intensely good-looking. The cherries were a great touch in it. I imagine it would be equally delicious with blueberries, also in season!

Charley Harper

"Puffins Passing"

One of my favorite craft blogs is called Purl Bee. There are numerous knitting, sewing, crochet and needlecraft projects to explore, and beautifully illustrated tutorials for the beginner. The blog recently featured the arrival of Charley Harper needlepoints in their store, and I was utterly blown away. It made me want to do these needle point projects so much! I could already imagine it hanging on our apartment walls. But then I realized that the canvas would be about $95, and I’d have to buy the yarn, plus it would take a really, really long time and I’m not so interested in needlepoint….and then it dawned on me that I was actually in love with the pictures, not the idea of needlepoint itself.

"Limp on a Limb"

How have I not heard of Charley Harper? How have I lived without knowing he ever existed? He was an American commercial illustrator and artist (1922-2007), who did both commercial work (“The Golden Book of Biology”, “Betty Crocker’s Dinner for Two”, “Ford Times”) and nature-based work (National Park Service, Michigan Audubon Society, Cincinnati Zoo). His pictures are colourful, graphic, stylized, and with a unique point of view. I also really dig the names of his illustrations.

"Birdfeeders"

The book featuring his work, Charley Harper: An Illustrated Life, is at the top of my wish list. It’s a definitive 400 page compilation of his work, written by designer Todd Oldham, and listed for only $37.77. However, this edition is not yet released. A hardcover version is currently available for around $150.

For an amazing plethora of information about Charley Harper, go here. You can purchase books and prints, but I mainly visit for the pictures.

They certainly are beautiful.

Thank you, Charley Harper!

New Town Bakery

During my lunch hour I hopped on the #3 Main St. bus over to Chinatown. I had the unfortunate luck to sit on something wet--what it may be I don't even want to think about.

New Town Bakery on Pender Street is one of my favorite places--they have the best steamed pork buns and also the best apple tarts and egg tarts. It is certainly worth wet pants. This time I got 6 steamed pork buns, which were bought warm and fresh from the steamer. It was only dinner time that we got to eat it, and those buns were still pretty tasty. The inside is a sweet but savory pork filling, really delicious.

And dangerously addictive.