Emily Davidow
Dark. Chocolate. Sorbet. and Ice Cream at Grounded NYC
Posted on 04.23.08 by Emily

Sarahicecream


Grounded (28 Jane St, New York NY 10014 map) just introduced sorbets and ice creams, handmade by the multi-talented Sarah (pictured above), who also plays awesome banjo.

darkchocolatesorbet.png

Dark chocolate sorbet blew my mind. The chai ice cream with crystallized ginger also won top marks. Other flavors to check out: mint chocolate cookie ice cream, spiced strawberry sorbet, Grounded house espresso ice cream, chocolate ice cream, mango cardamom sorbet and coconut creamsicle sorbet.

Filed under: emily approved and food and happiness and nyc and taste


Salad Days in New York
Posted on 03.31.08 by Emily

Salad mix with broccoli raab flowers photo by Emily Davidow

My photo of Yuno’s Farm’s salad mix with broccoli raab flowers above is featured in this week’s New York Magazine in an article called “Salad Days” on page 104. The article reveals that Nevia No, “co-owner of South Jersey’s Yuno’s Farm, exotic seed seeker andartful arranger of what might be the most beautiful produce stand in town,” returns to Union Square with “a bevy of tender greenhouse greens, plus overwintered broccoli rabe and spinach.” Yay! Spring’s arrived.

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Filed under: about me and emily approved and flowers and food and happiness and news and photography and shopping and taste


links for 2008-02-12: connect the dots la la la la
Posted on 02.12.08 by Emily

Filed under: activism and advertising and animals and better world and creativity and culture and links and love and marketing and photography and science and taste and technology and travel and video and webstuff


NZ Notes: Sorry S.P…. I’m leaving you for Antipodes
Posted on 12.06.07 by Emily

Antipodes Sparkling Water from NZI love bubbly beverages: Champagne and sparkling water are always my drinks of choice. Among the sparklers, Antipodes stands out.

Coming from a deep natural aquifer to the surface in Whakatane, New Zealand, Antipodes has real mouth appeal. It’s less aggressively carbonated than my usual brew, San Pellegrino, and it’s easy on the eyes too.

Dressed in classic Mrs. Eaves, Antipodes complements any table without overpowering it. The oviform bottle echoes the round beads streaming up when opened. It’s a happy thing to hold.

I know, I know… you have issues with bottled water. I do too. But a girl’s gotta have a vice, and until I can pour sparkling from the tap, I’ll order the bottle. (When out… technically I could make my own at home.) If it makes you feel any better, Antipodes is the first premium water to be certified carbon neutral in production and export, and they plan to be carbon neutral to any table, hotel room or home anywhere in the world by 2008.

Antipodes is currently served only in hand-picked great restaurants around New Zealand, hence their restaurant list is a good guide to the restaurants I want to try. You can order Antipodes by the case for home delivery in the United States through New Zealand Natural Goods, but at $60 for 12, I’d have to consider it a design element to justify it. Oh, wonderful! Oprah already did.


NZ Notes: Auckland Hilton: White & Bellini
Posted on 12.06.07 by Emily

Lychee and rosewater brulée with brandy snap wafer

Overlooking Waitemata harbor’s expansive blue vista, the White Restaurant at the Hilton Auckland features a cool palette, warm service and delightful meals.

Starting with our first favorite meal of the day, highlights of the breakfast buffet include poached pears with vanilla beans, blueberries with cinnamon sticks and apricots with cardamom pods. These are delicious over the bircher muesli, as are the fresh melon selections.

The coffee is also excellent, but there are a couple of terms you need to know if you’re not from down under: Flat white is the local favorite, which has less milk than a latte, less foam than a cappuccino. Long black is a double shot of espresso with a little hot water, basically a stronger americano.

Lunch favorites (click to see):

Arriving late afternoon at the Bellini Bar downstairs, we are pleased to note that nothing is wasted — the cocktail menu features the “poached pear and vanilla julep”, which is basically breakfast muddled with torn mint and bourbon. As a blueberry girl, I’m partial to “Russian spring punch”: fresh blackberries and blueberries shaken with 42below vodka, freshly squeezed lemon juice and a hint of sugar, topped with Cloudy Bay Pelorus.

Of course, not everything is perfect. There’s wi-fi at the bar, but you have to pay an extortionate fee of NZ$14 per hour or $29 per day. To add insult to injury, if you’re staying at the hotel you have to pay again in the rooms (where wi-fi is not available) to connect via ethernet. Perhaps it’s for the best… otherwise you could end up drunk video iChatting your friends in Calcutta out loud from the bar.

White Restaurant & Bellini Bar
at the Hilton Auckland
Princes Wharf, 147 Quay Street
Auckland, New Zealand 1010
+64 (09) 978 2000

Filed under: culture and emily approved and food and senses and taste and technology and travel


Sweet Pre-Trial Discovery: Papabubble
Posted on 10.30.07 by Emily

Papabubble NYCPhoto by Robyn Lee, ‘the girl who ate everything,’ some rights reserved.

Reporting from New York Criminal Court, 100 Centre St, Jury Duty, Day 2. Wow, the wheels of justice move slowly. At least you can now enjoy wifi while you’re waiting to be called, so bring your laptop (Twitter, Facebook and Meebo blocked). But during voir dire, you are expected to pay attention even while you’re not being interviewed. Not continuous partial attention but laptops, iphones and sketchbooks away total attention. You may observe, meditate, be present, and check in with yourself. You can also suck on hard candies*.

Lucky for you, Papabubble just opened a few blocks away [380 Broome St at Mulberry St, 212.966.2599]. This wondrous candy laboratory with outposts in Barcelona and Tokyo provides the ultimate in jury duty lozenges: fruit candies that look like Venetian millefiore glass, peppermint pebbles and addictive chocolate-filled coffee bites. They also handcraft giant lollies, gold-tipped finger rings and even anatomically correct hearts (which I would definitely not advise sucking on in the courtroom). If you’re feeling thrifty, note they also have bags of aesthetically inferior ’seconds’ that start at fifty cents.

* Note you can, but you may not… I am not offering legal advice. Don’t follow me. At least be quiet about it.

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Filed under: ask emily and consumerism and creativity and culture and design and emily approved and food and nyc and retail and shopping and taste


Sweet Potato Lentil Kale Soup Recipe
Posted on 06.10.07 by Emily

Sweetpotatolentilkalesoup-1

I love everything about this soup — the way it looks, the way it tastes, the different textures and how easy it is to make. It makes a fine meal all by itself. If you try it, I’d love to hear your experience.

1 c. dried lentils (your choice… this time I used French green, but have had lovely results with red and the black beluga ones too.)
6 c. low-sodium organic vegetable broth (or cooking liquid of your choice)
1 onion, chopped up
a few cloves of garlic, smashed or sliced
3 sweet potatoes or yams, all chopped up
1 or 2 bunches of lacinato kale (or greens of your choice)
1 splash of olive oil
1 tbsp curry powder (or to taste)

Splash a little olive oil in the bottom of a big pot and sauté garlic and onion for a few minutes until fragrant and translucent. Then toss in everything but the kale and bring it to a boil. Simmer for about 15 minutes, then toss in the kale. Simmer for 15 minutes more, then serve. Excellent with a crusty grainy bread or brown rice. Enjoy!

Filed under: ask emily and emily approved and food and happiness and health and love and senses and taste

Comments: 2 Comments


NY Design Week Highlights: Haute Green & ICFF
Posted on 05.21.07 by Emily

HauteGreen

 190 507610526 68B94E7Ae3 S 192 507634609 6F4Bd80D48 S 227 507637899 B664631A22 S 224 507637245 F45C4D5D5C S 230 507639339 D87810C5F1 S 194 507638913 1170527C3E S

HauteGreen’s 2nd exhibition of sustainable design that’s both aesthetically pleasing and friendly to the environment offered many delights. I’m not sure how I’ve lived so long without The Green Light, by xDesign (Natlie Jeremijenko, Amelia Anon, Will Kavesh), a botanical lamp, terrarium, and airfilter all-in-one. I also loved My Secret Garden, a rug made from discarded blanket scraps by Studio Jo Meesters, and Our Flesh and Blood, a chest of drawers made from reclaimed intricately carved furniture, an FSC-certified plywood base and drawer fronts screened with images by Art With Function. More photos from Haute Green.

ICFF

  • corona solar lightsThe Corona solar light, designed by Shane Kohatu and Emi Fujita, is a solar powered outdoor LED lighting system that can be staked to the ground, attached to a wall or placed on a tabletop. It uses no glues or fasteners, and is easy to diassemble for recycling.
  • loll designs + douglashomer adirondack chair that glows in the darkAfterGlow, a glow-in-the-dark recycled plastic adirondack chair made from 100% post-consumer recycled high density polyethylene (HDPE), a number two recyclable plastic (i.e., milk jugs), developed as a collaboration between Loll Designs and Douglas Homer.

  • May all your days unfold as delightfully as Molo design’s paper and textile seating and textile softwall (used as a bar setup at ICFF). Their felt rocks rock, naturally.

  • Amaridian offers modern, sexy, tribal furniture and accessories from South African designers, including rocking bench and bug screen.Amaridian at ICFF

  • Mio: Nomad architectural systemMIO’s cork ModuTiles and cardboard Nomad architectural system. Also their softbowls, featured also at Haute Green. Ok, we love everything they make, especially the recycled cardboard PaperForms acoustic weave tiles/3d wallpaper. Appreciate how their catalog lists the materials, design and origin positive aspects of each item (renewable, recyclable, compostable, recycled, closed-loop manufacturing).

  • transneomatic at icffFernando & Humberto Campana’s TransNeomatic container made of re-used scooter tire and natural wicker for Artecnica’s Design With Conscience project that pairs designers with artisans around the world. Transneomatic bowls are produced in Vietnam using scooter tires rescued from landfills.

  • PIE’s undulating furniture handcrafted from natural materials such as water hyacinth, liana, bamboo and rattan. Furniture collection is available at Vivavi. Founders Bannavis and Michelle Sribyatta founded PIE (Project Import Export) in Spring 2005, the same season they welcomed the birth of their son, π (~3.14).

  • Amenity Home’s adorable non-gender-specific Home Nursery collection made from 200 thread count organic cotton with non-toxic dyes with a foresty theme.amenity home nursery collection

  • YiAhn’s Bassinet that converts to a toy bin and bookshelf, then a chair and table as your child grows.
  • Valentin Vodev’s roller buggy stroller/scooter goes straight to my skating heart.

  • Picture 108I’ve loved Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec’s Cloud Shelving System since it was introduced. In fact, the only reason my walls aren’t lined with them is that they’re made from polystyrene, and I can visualize them offgassing just like the vaporous body they resemble. NeotericHome offers an eco-friendly version made from bamboo. Alas, the main reason my walls won’t be lined with these is that they’re 5.7 times the price of the original. (Disclosure: I don’t actually remember seeing this at the show, but it’s on their postcard.)

  • Design Boom’s DesignMart featured fun cash-and-carry accessories: “Chicken in space” theme embroidered laptop bags, clutch purses and accessories by Mandarin Orange. After washing drip-dry-dishes from giffin’termeer, each piece can stand upright, so the water runs off with no need to towel dry. Mixko’s “English Summer Pendant” with a cottony cloud and glass rain drops.

Filed under: consumerism and culture and design and emily approved and fashion and furniture and love and nyc and observations and senses and shopping and taste


What’s for Dinner, Dog: The Honest Kitchen
Posted on 04.18.07 by Emily
cosmo and george talk turkey
George of DiPaola Turkey Farm explains the benefits of local, free-range, humanely raised, antibiotic free turkeys to Cosmo the Welsh Corgi at the Abingdon Square Greenmarket in New York City.

Today the ASPCA issued an urgent alert stating that the pet food crisis isn’t over and nobody knows anything, including what’s actually poisoning pets. This follows on the heels of yesterday’s recall of Natural Balance pet foods due to rice protein concentrate contaminated with melamine, the same chemical that led to a nationwide recall of more than 100 brands of cat and dog food produced by Menu Foods last month. In between, Nestle Purina Pet Care pulled a selection of Alpo products off the shelves, and Del Monte recalled several brands of pet treats. The FDA blocked imports of wheat gluten from one company in China as a result, but clearly the problem goes far beyond this incident or ingredient.

If the common conventional foods humans eat are full of pesticides, drugs and hormones, what can we possibly expect from ingredients deemed “unfit for human consumption” that regularly go into commercial dog foods, even when they’re not tainted? Sabine Contreras has created an excellent resource in The Dog Food Project, offering label information 101 and specific ingredients to avoid. I’ve been reading a lot of suggestions for making your own dog food at home, but who has the time or inclination to cook every meal for themselves, much less their pets?

When Cosmo was a pup, he ate Iams and Eukanuba, two of the “premium” Proctor & Gamble brands by Menu Foods. He had all sorts of health issues, and thinking diet might have something to do with it, we went on a search to find something better.

The quest was fulfilled when we discovered The Honest Kitchen, which offers several formulations of 100% human-food-grade dehydrated raw pet food. Before it was available in New York stores, Lucy Postins, the lovely founder, used to pack each Internet order with a handwritten thank you. Now the products are widely available nationwide.


Honest Kitchen Products - Dog Food

What a thrill to open the first pack of Force — rather than the usual unidentifiable glop or pellets, I could actually recognize individual ingredients: USDA chicken, organic sweet potatoes, organic celery, organic flax seed, and more. When you add water, it looks and smells like a hearty chicken stew. After a while on the new food, his weight normalized, his coat went from flaky to glossy, his health problems (and copious gas) disappeared. He’s more healthy and energetic now at nine years old than he was at four.

One advantage of dehydrated food is that you can give your dog the benefits of a minimally processed raw diet without having to deal with the safety concerns of storing and handling raw meat. (There are no bones in The Honest Kitchen’s recipes, only muscle meat, so you don’t have to worry about that either.) Another advantage is that it takes up little space or weight, making it ideal for travel and resulting in less packaging waste.

Ideal Bite points out other ways The Honest Kitchen shows they care about conserving energy and championing animal rights. To be sure, I would prefer no animals were killed to feed mine, and at the very least I could certify that any who were had humane treatment and a happy life. But this is the very best dog food I’ve found yet.

The Honest Kitchen Dog Food is wholeheartedly Emily (and Cosmo) approved.

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Filed under: animals and ask emily and emily approved and food and health and love and product review and shopping and sustainability and taste


links for 2006-11-27
Posted on 11.27.06 by Emily

Filed under: animals and art and branding and consumerism and culture and design and environment and food and furniture and happiness and interconnected and links and science and senses and shopping and taste and technology and video and webstuff


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