More Pen to the Paper

Very much enjoying this book from Brooklyn based illustrator Claudia Pearson. 

I have always wanted to illustrate some of my favorite recipes - or do a drawing of what

we had for dinner and send it as a thank you note - and I'm hoping this book will help me do that.

A Classic Book for the Holidays

I am so happy to be offering this book at the store.  It's a collection of three Capote short stories, vaguely autobiographical, about his life growing up poor and rural and not quite fitting in.  Okay, not remotely fitting in.  Here we see the tender, sensitive, young Capote,  early on, demonstrating  his sense of style and his flair for the dramatic. I try to read the Thanksgiving Visitor every year about this time and I always end up bawling.  I would love to read this aloud at Thanksgiving with a group of folks.  A little wonky but why not? We seem to have lost the fine pastime of adults reading aloud to each other.  Or perhaps it is something we do as couples more often.  You know, "Honey, check out this story in the paper today".  But not so much as a group.   I love it when someone reads aloud to me.  It is like being transported back to childhood.

A Fall Food Palette

 I have always loved the warm, woodsy, nutty brown colors of the fall landscape paired with a soft, soothing, creamy white.  Always!!!  And now it appears to be right on trend which makes us happy because it means there's lots of fun product out there: like the extremely versatile creamy burlap runner and the plaid napkins seen above.  My manufacturer calls it their Belgian inspired offerings.  Ha!  We call it Little House on the Prairie.

 And oh happy days, here comes Chronicle Books cookbook cover that's right in the same colorway!  We are super excited to dive into this cookbook.  Homemade butters, Irish Stew and soda bread all sound pretty perfect right about now. With great photos and fun  illustrations, this cookbook makes you want to cook.  And isn't that what a good cookbook ought to do?

 

So here I go, and just for entertainment purposes,  I think I'll cook food that's all in my nutty brown and creamy color palette too!!!

Click here to see post about my other favorite Chronicle cookbook.

Favorite New Book at Passionflower

Thanks Mindy Carpenter over at the Papaya Blog for turning me on to this new book The Art of Instruction  from Chronicle Books.  It's  full of old botanical and natural history charts used to teach sciences in days gone by.....especially love the ones with black backgrounds like they've used on the cover. There is a wealth of material here for anyone into collage work or nature based art.  Or who just wants to look at nature from a different perspective. Or who would like to stir the imagination of a child.  Remember they are instruction books after all.
   
               

And said same book displayed open.  Which I think is an underused way of displaying books.  At home,   I like keeping a favorite book on my sidetable and opening it to a different page each day.  Because one shouldn't just judge a book by it's cover.  Right?  Even thought I definitely did in this case.  Happy surprise to find it so beautiful inside.