2011

I thought I'd start the year by sharing some of my favourite pictures of one of my favourite things - yoga! I have a complete aversion to rigid, instructional yoga pictures but these photographs are something else ... light, serene, joyful, ageless and in the moment ... everything yoga is to me. The model in the picture, Daphne Selfe, was eighty last year and full of good advice - forgo hair dye and wild parties in favour of fruit and veg (and yoga, of course)!

Bare Magazine

I hope everyone had a fantastic Christmas. We have had snow on the ground for the last ten days, so I turned to one of my favourite magazines for entertainment - Bare. It was sadly short-lived - it published from 2000 to 2001 only - but even after a decade, I still miss it. Started by the inspirational Ilse Crawford (I will try and publish a post on her in 2011) it was essentially about health and well-being - articles spanned features on the moon's cycle, light, the spine, sleep, mud - and so much more. One to seek out on ebay with any Christmas pennies accrued ...

Carrot Jam

Occasionally, just occasionally, a little sugar passes my lips. I was given The Seasoned Vegetarian as a present last year and the author is spot-on about his recipe for carrot jam: "Hold on there before you turn the page; this is one of my favourite recipes in the book". That said, I am going to give it a try with some honey to replace the sugar ...

15th of November 2010: 3.30pm

15/11/10, 3.30pm. Foraging for the last of the season's chestnuts ...

Lynn: Front to Back

Friends, friends of friends and friends of friends of friends have cancer. I always recommend this book by Lynn Kohlman, whose career change from model to photographer inspired the book's title, Lynn: Front to Back.

For me, it's up there with only a handful of books that are guaranteed to put me back-on-track fast whenever I feel directionless. I regularly turn to it for inspiration. In quick succession, Kohlman was diagnosed with breast cancer, her mother died, she underwent a double mastectomy and then, after a seizure, was diagnosed with highly aggressive brain cancer.

Despite the subject matter, this book is no sob story. It's about working out what inspires you in life and doing it. From reading subsequent material about Lynn, for example, this interview, I learned that she was in her second marriage, that she'd been sacked from a prestigious job. None of this is in the book. Her passion for photography, yoga, the outdoors and above all friends and family shines through instead. It's not that other stuff didn't happen, didn't exist, or that there was denial at play, it's just that Kohlman's diagnosis forced her to focus on what truly mattered to her. It's a life lesson I take from this book over and over again.

There are many moving passages, especially from friends and family towards the end of the book, but perhaps my favourite is from Lynn's son Sam, who was 17 at the time:

'How to be happy cannot be taught in a classroom. Rafting through Idaho, the last place one might expect to find a New York City kid, I have found that the key to my happiness is in following the things that I have learned to love. This may seem simple and obvious, but I have met very few people who have put this belief into practice'.

Elderflower Cordial

I’m not big on words this week, pictures are hitting the spot instead: very much enjoying these two visual blogs...

I’ve also been slurping elderflower cordial by the gallon. Elderflowers are everywhere at the mo’...

It’s common to use sugar/honey/citric acid when making elderflower drinks. I’m a fan of the honey version but felt like something lighter this year.

This worked well:

8 elderflower heads (some are large and some are small, so use your discretion)
Juice of half a lime
10 dried figs
Jug of water

Put everything into the jug and leave for a couple of days. Strain (eat the figs!) and store in the fridge. I drink this neat (due to the lack of sugar/honey it’s not really a cordial) but you can also dilute it for a subtler effect.

Christina Kim & Dosa

So, you know from past posts that my consciousness with food extends to clothes (with the odd lapse), see here and here, for example. I adored the article on the girl-crush-worthy Alys Fowler’s attitude to money last w/end. I identified no end, particularly with her confusion and lack of fun in a ‘new’ clothes shop.

Speaking for myself, it’s most certainly not a denial of beauty. I love beautiful things and even the odd browse for inspiration’s sake, amongst very expensive shops, but I prefer to spend my pennies more wisely, and there’s undoubtedly a more personal connection to be had with items that have been pounced upon in a village fête, unscrambled from a pile of rags in a charity shop, or sewn together using the remnants of someone else’s dress...

I’m also aware that for some people the idea of rooting through piles of clothes at a jumble sale or entering a charity shop is pure anathema. For these people, may I suggest Dosa. There are plenty of companies, who to my mind, have recently stepped aboard the green wagon but have done little to question the consumerist ethos of ‘buy, buy, buy’ and ‘more, more, more’. In some cases, it’s simply added another layer to consumerism, I must buy it because it’s green. NO!

Dosa is different. It’s been around since the early 80s, quietly crafting clothes and other items, keen to promote and continue ancient crafting traditions, often from remnants, and always with l-o-v-e ... Christina Kim, the company’s owner, like Alys Fowler, is another worthy-girl-crush.

I particularly love how Kim describes when ‘items pass through multiple pairs of hands during their construction, they undergo a “transfer of energy” ... Similarly, she considers the discipline imposed by working with finite resources to be not an impediment but a spur to imagination and inventiveness. Recycling limits you to “essences” she says’. (LA Times: 19/04/09).

Be warned, the clothes aren’t cheap (I’ve picked up my own treasured Dosa pieces on ebay) but as a recent article on Kim pointed out, ‘Something intricately made, yet cheaply priced, means the workers who made them were likely paid very little’. (KoreAm: 01/08/09). I can personally attest that these are clothes designed to be worn year after year, after year, after year ...

Inspired talk on Kim:
‘Kim walks her talk. Home is a small Richard Neutra building in Silver Lake that is perfect in design and function. Everything she needs fits perfectly in this tiny space – there is no excess – no walk-in closets filled with shoes and handbags here. Out of a small kitchen filled with jars of herbs and spices collected in her travels, she cooks exotic vegetables she gets from her friend James Birch, an organic farmer. The food is all colour and texture, and it’s delicious - seriously, like nothing you’ve ever tasted’. (NY Times: 31/10/04).

Inspired talk from Kim:
‘It’s important to understand how things are made, what they cost ... It’s about conscientious production, from beginning to end. We don’t cut corners. We try to think about the final impact we are making’. (KoreAm: 01/08/09).

‘Ultimately it’s the time you spend and relationships you create that make the projects successful. It isn’t the speed of doing things, it is doing things with care and love’. (NY Times: 31/10/04).

Pictures © Dosa and the Los Angeles Times