Baby Blue Jay

Guess what we found in our garden this morning?? A hatched baby blue jay egg (with feathers)! And the dead baby bluejay in the bottom! Kidding. Looks like it hopped off, ready to spread its wings :)

Rainy Days on Wednesdays

I woke up this morning to a rainy day. I then continued to have a discussion with the boyfriend about not understanding people who liked gloomy rainy days. People talk about wanting to snuggle and cuddle indoors with hot chocolate and whatnot, sit by the fire -- ok maybe that's taking it too far. For him, rainy days means no school, building pillow forts, making paper boats and watch it go downstream... For me, it means being too cold and wet out to do anything productive (except build pillow forts i guess...) Anyway, our conversation got cut short because the rain stopped, the sun started to peek through the dark clouds, and I had to rush to get my camera to capture the calm.

Happy Heart's Day (with peanut butter on top)

I just wanted to share something I shared with a friend a couple days ago.

I told her that it's a really exciting time for our generation / people our age, because we're starting to venture out and do our own things. It seems to me like it's the start of us taking over as the generation in charge of shaping the world. There's someone fulfilling a dream of getting her work published with Chronicle Books, another who finally quit one of his day jobs that paid the bills, but kept him from pursuing the volunteer work he's always wanted to do, another who's working her ass off on weekends to eventually do what she really wants to do full time one day (soon), another who is sticking to his guns being an independent developer, maneuvering the sometimes scary but mostly exciting and rewarding path of being his own boss, another who started his own company because he was tired of seeing his ideas go to waste, and another who is getting ready for her first fashion show, sewing like crazy, and deciding on all the big and small details that come with it.

Then there's me. Learning slowly but surely how to live the kind of life that I want for myself. I guess this isn't much of a couple-y vday message, but I think with everything I mentioned above, it's our hearts that we put on the line.

Happy heart's day!

Eggling

My cousin Yaz got me an eggling :) Thanks Yaz!

Pixie Dust

This makes me happy! Colored sugar I bought at a cake supply store. For anyone reading with access to Williams Sonoma, DON’T BUY FROM THERE! They will rob you blind! $8 at WS vs. $1.50 at the supply store.

Sunday Afternoon

Burrata Ball

My cousin and I went to Bottega Louie last week where she introduced me to burrata, a mozzarella shell that houses more mozzarella and cream. As one article put it, silky on the outside, creamy on the inside. I enjoyed it so much that I decided to do it again with some from TJ's (Trader Joe's) to enjoy on this perfect windless day.

Tomatoes aplenty!

So our tomatoes have been multiplying like rabbits. We harvested around 25 ripe ones this morning. We get about that many every week. The plant's already "died" once or twice since we planted it (maybe that's the natural life cycle), but it just keeps growing again and giving birth to fruit a couple weeks or months later. So to anyone who wants to start growing their own food, this is a really hardy one. Even if I wanted to kill it, it just won't die.

Recipe snapshots

We all blogged about Ikea's cookbook, "Homemade is Best" because of its eye candy quality, but I have to say it lacks a certain depth and thoughtfulness that I've found in photographer Marina Ekroo's collection of food photography in which she captures every step and ingredient in one photo. I love clever anythings.

See the others in her portfolio.

VIA GOOD

Giant Shells

I am by no means a cook, more like an assembler, but that doesn't stop me from wanting to get these giant pasta shells! From What Katie Ate. Click the image to enlarge.

Jessica de Jesus: The Energy Debates

While posting my stuff on the portfolio website Behance, I came across this girl's amazing portoflio. Her name is Jessica de Jesus and what caught my eye was the GOOD magazine cover she helped with during her internship there.

Browsing through her other work, I came across one called The Energy Debates, which I thought was really genius, really thoughtful and innovative.

Spring Onion Pancakes

UPDATE!   My Auntie Angie's response to my question on whether they sell these locally:

"There is in the Chinese supermarket but BAD, compared to the ones from Taiwan.  Even in Taiwan there are so many kinds, its Key's officemate who comes from the south (Tainan) - he said he can get us the BEST onion pancake there is, same one who got the powder for you.  He is now my best friend!! Anyway, everyone even in the office is asking me.  Would you believe I brought 60 pcs and all are gone except for the last 4 which I am protecting with  my life!"



I've been addicted to a couple Taiwanese food items lately. First is some Five Spices seasoning from the street food vendors over there. Second is a new discovery for me -- Spring onion pancakes! They're bought frozen, in pancake shapes; all you have to do it fry them (no oil!) in a pan until they brown. Put them all together and you have a very carb-bloated, sodiumized Nikki. A big thank you to my Auntie Angie and cousin Chiao for introducing it to me. I had about two today.

If you can't get to Taiwan, here, here, and here, are some recipes I found online. Haven't tried any of them yet though, so if you end up trying any of them, I'd love to hear from you!

Etsy: Yokoo

While posting my own stuff on Etsy a couple weeks ago, I came across this amazing store called Yokoo, a seller of scarves and other accessories. The chunky soopascarf is such a statement, but what really does it for me is the photography and styling. I love how the photos feel just like the products -- chunky, rich, and WHOLE, like a coloring book page with big spaces to color. Those were always my favorites.





Here are interviews with Yokoo on Vice and Mint.

GOOD: The 37 or so Ingredients in a Twinkie

Look at this amazing picture show I saw on GOOD! This is making the gears in my head turn with ideas!

A popular rule of thumb among proponents of healthy food is that the fewer ingredients there are in something, better it is for you. With a remarkable 37 or so ingredients, many of which are polysyllabic chemical compounds, Twinkies would seem to embody the antithesis of that rule.

The photographer Dwight Eschliman was never a health nut himself, but he was raised by one; his mom kept her kids away from meat, dairy, or any kind of processed food. When Eschilman went away to college, he loosened up a bit, allowing himself to indulge in all sorts of previously forbidden treats, but by the time he had kids of his own, he found a renewed appreciation for simple, healthy food—and a renewed skepticism of chemical-filled, preservative-laden snacks. He'd also developed a love of disassembling ojects and photographing their component parts.

"Thus, this project," he writes in his photography book 37 or so Ingredients. "It's the product of a kid that was raised to be suspicious of foods that weren't assembled in mom's kitchen, and bordering on obsessive compulsive."

The One Who Got Away

Not only is the content amazing, but so is the website itself -- the interactivity (disappearing smoke) and the navigation (keyboard controlled).

Ceramic Tableware: Simple Details

A couple weeks ago, I decided to drop in on the DWR Tools for Living store here in Santa Monica. I was going to only get this book called How To See by George Nelson only because it was selling for $5, regular price. I have no idea why, but it wasn't as good as I thought. But I couldn't leave the store just yet because I saw these really beautiful ceramic pieces. I didn't buy a whole set, but instead got parts of different sets. I've always wanted to own a flat plate because I don't like my food running into each other, especially if they're saucy. I got three pieces -- two salad plates and a bowl. I really liked the simple details, and I hope I was able to capture it in the photos.

Note #1: For the Eva Zeisel matte white plate, the set consisted of a larger dinner plate and a soup bowl, aside from the salad plate. Each piece had a dimple that continued on through the piece so that each dimple died into the dimple of the piece below it when stacked. I thought that was kind of interesting.

Note #2: Matte white ceramic is not very practical because as you can see in the photo, my fork and knife already left metal marks on it.

Heavenly Potatoes

I still haven't figured out how to classify my posts, but this is something I reblogged from designsponge over at Nikki+Jam. I love the colors and the lighting in this photo.

Prop stylist: Emily Henderson

Santa Monica Farmer's Market

Here are some pictures I took a couple weeks ago of things I got at the Santa Monica Farmer's Market at Virginia Park on Cloverfield/Pico.

Here are the prettified pictures.

And here are the real, "behind-the-scenes" ones:

Yellow

I used to really like purple jacarandas, but I haven't seen any of them this season or this year even. What I do seem to be seeing a lot of are I don't know what kind of trees but they're this stunning shade of amber. And that's what I'm really loving right now.