summer city weekend

i suppose it's not technically summer, but it felt like it this weekend. it was the best! i visited a friend i hadn't seen in a while, repotted some plants, and went on two long walks. i saw prospect park lake from a new angle, there was a street fair on fifth.... plus, hhh made brunch AND dinner. to more of the same, all summer long. 

a view of the williamsburg bridge from greenpoint.

midtown manhattan is across the water.

i'd never come to this part of the lake before. 

an apartment building in prospect lefferts gardens. 

grass in a basketweave parquet pattern, outside prospect park on ocean parkway.

have a great week! xoxo

greenmarket finds

i remember the first time i came across chocolate mint (mentha x piperita 'chocolate'). it was in the tea and herb garden at stone barns and i was shocked. for some reason, i'd always thought that the combination was something that andes chocolates invented. 

claire and i went to the union square greenmarket earlier this week after a day of sightseeing (lots of visitors lately!). since it's impossible for me to be in a place that sells plants without buying some, i got this little quad of herbs. the chocolate mint is the lower left one. its leaves are a richer green than the regular mint i have growing rampant in my meadow box from woolly pockets. i also got some chamomile, thyme, and chives. yum.

clockwise from upper left: chives, thyme, chocolate mint, and chamomile. 

things i like (#4)

a golden necklace of half moons, for rare dress-up days.

a hydrangea, because i love flowers (especially pink ones). 

nougat-macarons, from le salon in taiwan. who ever heard of such a thing? hhh ate the ones claire brought before i could take a photo.

a petite ceramic container from the basement of laitai flower market in beijing, currently housing q-tips and cotton balls in my bathroom.

a garden in gowanus

on the corner of carroll street and denton place, there is a small community garden with a hot pink tree. although i've now lived for over a decade in cities that experience all four seasons, it's still pretty incredible to see the transformations - especially in trees. (you might know this already from the way that i've marveled at my japanese maple.)  

 the garden didn't used to look like much, but got a makeover last year by bette midler. or to be more precise, her non-profit conservancy organization, the new york restoration project. apparently bette is very concerned about this sort of thing. who knew? architectural digest recently featured several of nyrp's green spaces throughout new york city, which is when i realized the background to our neighborhood garden. nyrp manages 52 gardens throughout the five boroughs, and cooperates with nyc's parks & rec department, as well as with americorp. 

it's now a nice place to have lunch (which you can pick up at root hill, just across the street) or read a book. on my last visit, there was a composition book on a table, soaked from the recent downpour, so i guess kids do homework there as well. 

plant-wise, there's a lot to see. in addition to that gorgeous tree (is it a redbud? crab apple? update: garden compass told me it was an eastern redbud), there is also birch and what i think is a maple tree. there's also a "fragrance walk" with azaleas, mint, sweetbay magnolia, and ruby spice summersweet. schoolchildren from p.s. 372 next door tend to the edible garden, which included parsley, mint, rosemary, and lettuces the last time i check. (hhh and i often wonder if we are allowed to pick them? have not yet done so.) design-wise, it's actually pretty hard core. there is a "high performance storm water infrastructure," which helps to keep the area around it from flooding. one of the plaques in the garden shows the history of gowanus and why flooding occurs, and explains how the fancy-schmancy technology underneath the park (i don't understand terms like "bioswale" and won't pretend to) diverts/absorbs 150,000 gallons of floodwater a year, preventing it from overwhelming the city sewers. (nice for me, since we live just across fourth avenue.) 

urban gardening is the best.

aesthetically, it's a basic palette of unvarnished wood and brick, laid diagonally. the planners also reused some benches and concrete from the previous iteration of the space. it's modern and simple, and i wish so hard that bette midler would do the exact same thing to our yard.

speaking of our yard, it's still in an unusable state but progress is being made. a man came into our apartment today with a thermal gun (which is not for violent temperature-taking but spotting water inside walls and under floors, apparently) and told me that water is no longer going where it should not. (whew!) but it's still a long way from looking like this. 

the "fragrance walk." 

edible gardening in raised beds.

mesh to keep the bugs out. 

looking towards carroll street. 

that shade of magenta! 

stop by if you're in the neighborhood! and if you want to learn more about the gil hodges community garden, you can. 

a lovely backyard (not mine)

on a sunny day not so long ago, lizzy and i were practicing chinese in this lovely backyard, which belongs not to me but to albero dei gelati. that place is full of surprises. for months, i thought that they only had gelato. organic, sustainable, and addictively delightful gelato, mind you, but just gelato. then winter came, and they put up a sign in the gelato window telling me that i could go inside for gelato. well, once i went inside, i got a lot more than gelato.

it was a gorgeous spring day, unlike today.

i got, like, three kinds of tuppo (which they kindly explained was italian brioche): chocolate, cream, and raisin/honey. then i spotted some focaccia pizza, which i added to my bag. i'm pretty sure i also got some sort of tiramisu, but at this point, who can remember? (numerous subsequent visits have blurred my precise memory of that first foray indoors.)  then i discovered that they had really good frittatas that come on a platter with all kinds of other things like cheese and bread and salad. anyway, enough about the food (for this is not a food blog), and onto the backyard. this was the newest surprise from albero dei gelati. 

pockets of green are always especially enchanting in a city, and this backyard enchanted my pants off. the pots of herbs on the yellow shelf are cute, but look at those tables! they are salad tables! i mean, what more can i say? and that green fence is pretty cool too. 

i'm intrigued by the idea of putting a ladder (see below) in our yard so that i too can have hanging plants. but then i remember my paranoia about people rappelling (or if i had a ladder, climbing) into our subterranean yard. also, would it crash to the ground on a windy day and squash all my flowers? i also think about what would happen if a bird/squirrel died after descending into the yard. but you know, that's not really on topic so if you want to hear my thoughts on that, you can ask in the comments.

the ladder that sparked my paranoid trains of thought. it looks great there, though. 

the space was definitely conducive to expanding one's linguistic repertoire, and also to eating, drinking, and general relaxation. they also have wifi. i can't wait until the weather clears up so i can go back. what is "gelato" in chinese? lizzy? anyone? 

in addition to the salad tables, you can sit in this bright corner...

..or at these ikea green tables.