plantspeople

Mills College Landscape Tour

2012-02-04T10:51:00.000-08:00

I've been meaning to walk through the Mills College campus in the Oakland Hills for sometime now and finally got around to it yesterday. The campus is beautifully landscaped, has two LEED platinum buildings, a native botanical garden, and a medicinal plant walk. Enjoy the tour!

The campus chapel with a gorgeous skylight.

A Spanish style courtyard with a tiled fountain.

The green roof atop the school of business with euphorbias, echevaria, aloes and various succulents

A beautiful and cushy lawn alternative = a fescue meadow.

Along the healing plant tour we stopped at the willow.

A thriving food garden.

A native sage in the botanic garden

many moons

2012-01-23T14:44:00.000-08:00

G and i so love our new many moons calendar. it is beautifully designed by jeremy at rendij studio

one resolution for 2012 is getting to know the moon more, and knowing the cycles. yesterday was a new moon and the transition into aquarious.

Kaapi Coffee Sangati

2012-01-19T14:10:00.000-08:00

In December, G and I started our Sangati coffee sessions: Brass/Vinyl. Each week we set up shop at the Subterranean Art House in Berkeley and host a charming little event that brings people together in the morning for South Indian coffee and Indian classical records. We use coffee beans from Bicycle Roasters in SF, Straus organic milk and sugar grown and processed in the USA. Coffee is one of those things I cannot live without and thankfully come from a heritage where coffee is king. The streets of Tamil Nadu are lined with coffee vendors serving hot hot coffee and people stopping just to get a quick dose. As soon as you enter a house hold you'll be asked if you'd drink some coffee kaapi kuidikerail aa? If you say no, you'll surely be convinced to at least have half a cup just ara cup. I love the sort of cult phenomenon around it. And I admit that I LOL-ed while watching this.

Anyway! The point is that G and I wanted to create some of the special coffee moments we've experienced in India and in our Berkeley cottage with our friends. It's a simple part of many of our daily rituals that is beautiful to share together. The collection of Indian classical Records is a reason to come too..

stainless steel pots for pouring of coffee and milk.

Pouring the hot water through the coffee filter.

Modern Japanese coffee culture meets Traditional Indian.

Just one of the amazing records (and record covers!)

Voila! The finished drink. Served in stainless steel tumblers and davara (the saucer type cup used to pour the coffee back and forth for cooling and frothing).

the meter pour - G froths some milk.

hope to see you there!

happy new year in plants

2012-01-16T21:17:00.000-08:00

so i know that each new year i resolve to write more blog posts, but i really think that this year is going to be the one! so far, 2012 has been great full of great projects and good times with close friends and family. i took a walk through the botanical garden last week and got some fresh inspiration for design & garden. the garden is always abundant with color, texture, good smells and astonishing plants. please enjoy the pics and i hope to connect with more of you in the new year.

stunning spines in the arid house

120 degree angles: nature's beautiful example of efficiency

the view of the bay from the top of the mediterranean area through shirley watts' installation

flowering grasses

blooming fuschias in the meso american collection

cocoa pods in the tropical house. fruits taste like jolly ranchers

(i tasted them in trinidad not in the botanical garden! )

flowering quince from the chinese traditional medicinal garden

banksia from the australasia collection

rhododendron arboretum in full bloom

transforming front yards

2011-12-08T11:37:00.001-08:00

Two weeks ago my friend and design partner Laura and I got our first job installing a garden in an Oakland home. Our job was to clear out and plant three beds in our clients' front yard. They wanted a mix of natives, grasses, flowers and primarily easy to care for colorful plants. They also wanted a flowering vine to trellis up their entrance way. Here are a few photos of the design before and after planting.

The main bed, with lots of "weeds" coming up, a bare fence and existing tree.

After a good weeding we laid out our plants and stones. Our designed was centered around a repeating theme of grasses and succulents. The bed is lined with California poppies. An evergreen Clematis vine is what we chose for the entrance.

Here's a close up of our planting groups. We got the stones from American Soil and Stone. The colorful grasses are Phormium 'jester.' In the background along the fence you'll see a CA native grape that we chose to line the wall.

One focal counterpoint to the existing tree is the addition of a beautiful dwarf Japanese maple 'pixie.' Japanese blood grass provides colorful foliage to the left.

The view from their porch. We mulched the bed nicely to keep out weeds and pull the design together

The far planting bed along the house, overflowing with weeds and with a well established jasmine and camelia plant.

We cleared the bermuda grass, and piled in ground covers, and CA native sticky monkey flowers and poppies.

Designing and installing the garden was great fun. If you know of anyone who needs a little nudge to transform an empty garden space into a thriving native, colorful or edible garden, please get in touch.

Food Rules!

2011-12-01T11:34:00.001-08:00

This semester I've been attending the Chez Panisse Foundation/UC Berkeley class called Edible Education 101, co-taught by Michael Pollan and Nikki Henderson. We had some great speakers including the inspiring Peter Sellars:

With the weather changing and book season in full swing, I've decided to spend a few posts reviewing some of the recent botanical books I've been reading. Books make great holiday gifts, and there's nothing like spending time in your favorite local bookstore, especially one like Diesel Bookstore who recently had a fun customer appreciation pie & wine party with every book 20% off. They also gave away these pins as party favors:

I decided to pick up a copy of Michael Pollan's "Food Rules" with beautiful illustrations by Maira Kalman. The book outlines some basic food rules we ll should abide by, with the pivotal one being:

" When You Eat Real Food, You Don't Need Rules"

My most favorite rule is certainly:

"Place a Bouquet of Flowers on the Table and Everything Will Taste Twice as Good"

I admit, I felt a little dorky asking MP to sign my copy at our last class, but I'm glad I did.

Wicked Plants

2011-11-30T10:42:00.001-08:00

I've finally gotten around to reading "Wicked Plants" by Amy Stewart; and what a terrific book! The book describes notorious members of the plant world known to allure and kill, poison and possess their victims. It's like a horror story for botanists. And believe me it is creepy! Not only are the usual suspects listed - wormwood, mandrake, deadly nightshade, but also some familiar names on the dinner table: corn, kidney, beans and elderberries all have a dark side.

A few fascinating factoids to share (but for the full story you'll have to read the book!):

Coca-cola may still be flavored with the benign agents of coca (Erythrosylum coca) and kola nut (Cola spp.).
Betel leafs (Piper betle) come from a totally unrelated plant from the Betel nut (Areca catechu).
Poinsettias (Euphorbia pulcherrima) are not as poisonous as they are made out to be.
The mandrake (Mandragora officinarum) is another member of the infamous nightshade family.
Poison hemlock (Conium maulatum) killed Socrates and Plato witnessed his death.
In 1961, An unexpected bloom of (I know its not a plant) Blue-green Algae (Cyanobacteria) poisoned anchovies that seagulls in Santa Cruz ate and caused their strange and alarming behaviour. This caught the attention of Hitchcock and gave him the final push to make his film based on the Daphne du Maurier story "The Birds."

It would make a wonderful holiday present for that special someone! Enjoy.

south indian cookery class

2011-10-25T16:43:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I had the good fortune to lead a group of wonderful people in cooking a classic South Indian meal. I have been wanting to do this since returning from our stay in Chidambaram, where i would cook each day in a very traditional fashion - Sambar, Rasam, curry for brunch, Idly/Dosa for Tiffin, Homemade yogurt and rice for dinner.

We had about 11 folks in the inaugural class, and I think it went well!! I wanted to be ambitious, so the core part of the class was preparing our own homemade Sambar powder. This became quite time consuming do grind all the spices that we bought for each participant to take home a small batch, so in the end we ground enough to use for the class and sent every one home with whole spices in the right proportions for their sambar podi.

We made sambar, rasam, beetroot curry, carrot salad, and yogurt rice.

Spices required for South Indian cookery: fresh coconut, channa dal, mustard seeds, dried red chilis, black peppercorns, fresh curry leaves, cumin, fenugreek, urad dal, green chilis. (asoefetida not pictured)

The "Anjala Potti" every householder's box of offerings to the kitchen. Mine has urad dal (black gram), methi (fenugreek), (kadugu) black mustard seeds, dhania (coriander seeds), jeera (cumin seeds), somph (fennel seeds), and a little tamarind.

We started out by making our own sambar powder! The key ingredient for good sambar and rasam. Turned out great, but smaller batches are much easier to handle. I would recommend using a smaller spice grinder, rather than food processor.

We made kabocha squash sambar with coconut and tomato rasam with fresh black pepper and cumin. You can tell that the sambar is thicker and more stew like, while the rasam is thinner and more broth like.

Spluttering mustard seeds, the key final ingredient to most South Indian dishes. We made a big batch and added them to the Sambar, the Rasam, the Thayir Sadam, and the carrot salad. Every dish has mustard seeds!!

Our final feast, complete with a few celebratory harvest ales that went nicely with the kabocha sambar! Thank you to our hosts and to all who participated. And to Gautam for taking the photos!

Re-Skilling with Natural Dyes

2011-09-28T12:49:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I went on a road trip to Santa Cruz for the Permacouture Institute. We were asked to present at the Re-Skilling Expo, a day long event dedicated to education around all sorts of "lost" arts (think- beekeeping, making home remedies, fermenting, dehydration, natural building, etc...)

It was a great event and so fun to teach natural dyes with Sierra Reading, a textile student at CCA.

Just a sampling of our brilliant show & tell: onion skins and avocado pits ready for the dye pot, red sandal wood dye & a homemade iron bath. Sierra's beautiful samples of onion skin, safflower and olive dyes.

Sierra showing off our colorful table display. Turmeric dyed prayer flags, Sierra's masterpiece of natural dye screenprinting using purple cabbage. And our dye vats for the afternoon workshop beginning to simmer...

nasturtium presses, black bean dye, and samples from colors made in India earlier this year.

Apple Leaves and Eucalyptus leaves, both harvested from the Permaculture Garden at Merritt College (Was able to take the leaves after a pruning demo)

We had to modify the schedule to give ourselves a 15 minute breather in between sessions!

The spectacular color of Fall's eucalyptus.

Hanging up our colors.

I loved the passers- by who peeked through the window to amaze at these colors from nature!

Fig leaves offering a golden yellow

It was a wonderful day in Santa Cruz. Had to make a visit to the beach while we were there for a quick hello!

Slow Food Sangati

2011-09-26T10:51:00.000-07:00

On Saturday, September 17 The Sangati Center participated in the $5 Slow Food Challenge - A national event encouraging folks to prepare a healthy, local and organic meal to prove that good food does not have to be expensive.

All of our ingredients came from the Berkeley Farmer's Market. We served 50 dinners at a $5 donation/plate

Our all organic menu:

Market Salad - Happy Boy Farms greens - wild arugula, baby spinach, little gems, and salad mix, Purple Cherokee heirloom tomatoes, Kashiwase Orchards 'September Sno' peaches, Frog Hollow Farm cold press extra virgin olive oil, home grown meyer lemon, Tercera Farms shallots.

Main - Massa Organics California brown rice, freshly shelled Tercera Farms heirloom cranberry beans, oyster and shitake with garlic, Full belly farm walnuts

Sweet- Rose Geranium scented strawberries from Lucero farms with black mission figs.

After the meal, of course, there was a beautiful concert presented by the Sangati Center and performed by Mohanrangan Govindraj on the bamboo flute. We had over 75 guests at the concert.

What a perfect evening.

Thanks to the Subterranean Art House in Berkeley for hosting our event and my loyal friends and event volunteers - Josh & Jaia, Zarah and Christine.

every now and then opportunity arises.

2011-09-03T09:47:00.000-07:00

As one of our wedding gifts we were given a juicer, an amazing juicer! This thing has become G's soulmate. When we packed all of our things into storage and headed off to India, he made sure that the juicer was clearly labelled and easily accessible so that whenever we came back it would be front and center in our kitchen. And it is. In our tiny kitchen with just two counters, the juicer has one all to itself. But I cannot complain. Having fresh juice daily is truly invigorating and nourishing! Carrot, Apple, Ginger is the house special, but every now and then we add celery and beets to the mix. The other day we made beet juice and when we went to clean out the juicer (by the way the fiber left over from the juicing process is wonderful in quick breads and muffins!) we found this perfectly carved beet just waiting to be stamped. The natural color of the beet transfered beautifully to my envelopes. Luckily I had just picked up a stack of lovely envelopes (10 for $.25) at my neighbor's garage sale. Beets are often mistaken for natural dye, when in fact, they are a stain. The color rests only on the top layer of fabrics and does not bind to the fiber as a whole, resulting in a color that fades to brown over time. But, the beet with its deep deep magenta hue makes a perfect candidate for stamping.

Amaranth: Stacking Functions Left and Right.

2011-09-01T09:57:00.000-07:00

You may have read an earlier short post I published on the wonder grain amaranth. But I thought I would post again, as I've discovered an absolutely wonderful use of the grain... in sushi:

Homemade sushi: amaranth, cucumber, carrots, fresh ginger, tempeh and shitaake.

You can prepare the amaranth by simply boiling 1 part amaranth to 1.5 parts water. I let the grain boil for about 10 minutes, then I keep stirring until finished to acheive a creamy texture. For the sushi "rice," I added a bit of rice wine vineger and a touch of demerara sugar to the cooked grain for a bit of added flavor. Rolling your own sushi is incredibly easy. It was my first attempt, and I am now a complete convert. Never again a sushi out at a restaurant! I always have either cooked rice in the fridge or amaranth in the pantry. We stock carrots because we love making fresh carrot juice in the juicer. And just about any vegetables work for the filling. And one packet of Nori (seaweed sheets) has about 10 sheets, so the packet I purchased yesterday should last for a while.

Amaranth growing prolifically in the UCBG Crops of the World Garden

Amaranth (Amaranthus sp. ) is truly a wonder plant. It has been grown and used as a food source for some 7,000 years! The seeds have been used all around the world as a grain that serves as a complete protein, a source of fiber and minerals. When we were in India it was available and we used the grains to replace rice, to make chapattis and to make more wholesome dosas and idlies. The grains are gluten-free. They were a staple food of the Incas, who called it "kiwicha" and who also popped the small grains and mixed them with honey to make a sweet candy called "Alegria," which by the way means "joy" in Spanish. Amaranth was also eaten by the Aztecs who called it "huautli"

The plant itself is easy to grow, provides thousands of seeds/grains per plant, and the seeds themselves are easy to cook requiring little water, and not much fuel to do so.

The leaves are also highly nutritious and are consumed across many cultures in Africa and Southeast Asia.

In North America, amaranth was used by the Hopi as a natural dye as a brilliant source of deep red. This particular species of amaranth now carries that name, 'Hopi Red Dye' (Amaranthus cruentus or Amaranthus cruentus x A. powellii)

Amaranth is easily grown in our Bay Area climate. The grains are also available at most grocery stores or natural food stores. For my friends across the country and in between, Whole Foods is a reliable source of Amaranth grains. I encourage you all to try it out! And if you already have, try it in a new way, replacing rice, adding loosely cooked grains to salads, making Alegria, or....

oh how i love when you get to eat flowers!

2011-08-21T20:56:00.000-07:00

today i got inspired at the temescal farmer's market when i saw some beautiful squash blossoms at happy boy farms. i've always wanted to make stuffed squash blossoms, but just felt like they were too complicated and hard for me.

so i just went for it and decided today was the day. the nice woman at the stand gave me the encouragement i needed. (it didn't hurt that the organic blossoms were 10 for $1.00!!)

i hopped over a few stalls and visited cowgirl creamery where i picked up some delicious fromage blanc to stuff them with.

the whole process was so simple. i washed the blossoms and allowed them to fully dry on a paper towel. then i stuffed each little blossom with about a spoonful of fromage blanc, while i heated some olive oil in a skillet (i didn't do a deep fry, but rather a pan fry). i prepared a batter using flour, water and seasalt.

i also roasted some padron peppers to go along with. these are my favorite summer find. simply delicious broiled with a lil olive oil and sea salt.

another happy boy find was the Piel de Sapos melon. mmm mmm mmm so sweet!!

DIY Indian weddings are possible.

2011-08-20T17:21:00.000-07:00

I'm just back from two weeks in Findlay, Ohio, The place where my sister and I grew up. She got married there last week. I was asked to do the arrangements for the centerpieces as well as make the flower garlands that are used ceremoniously for the hindu wedding ceremony. It was a bit of a challenge to find local, organic flowers, but I did my best. I worked with a local florist and we were able to find some local options to mix in with the not-s0-local. My sister's good friends also grew some of the flowers and foraged locally for wildflowers to mix in as well.

Another important aspect of the ceremony is the Mandapam. This is the 4 postered structure that the ceremony takes place in. It is meant to represent the couples' first home. I constructed the mandapam from black bamboo and adorned it with the traditional mango leaves, banana plants, and handmade fabric vilva garlands.

I'm thinking I might get into the business of Handmade South Indian weddings, any takers?

Here are a few pics of the arrangements and the garlands!

Mum, carnation and rose garlands.

Goldenrod, Aster, Alstroemaria, Sunflowers and Red Roses. For the vases I collected old tin cans and wrapped then in hand stamped kraft paper with twine.

what's growing in findlay ohio

2011-08-18T08:19:00.000-07:00

ornamental cabbages

yarrow

floriforous jasmine!

brightly colored coleus

these flowers will never fade

2011-08-07T19:32:00.001-07:00

this week, we're preparing for my sister's wedding here in findlay, ohio. you might remember these pretty fabrics that i picked up in chennai earlier this year. well we are in full swing and have made 177 fabric flowers for all of the wedding guests as favors and festive adornments! there are roses, dahlias and poppies in an assortment of corsages, pins, and hair clips. i love the dahlias best.

the yellow accents and flower were dyed with turmeric!

enjoy!

Nectarine Sherbet

2011-07-19T14:54:00.000-07:00

A few days ago I tried out this oh-so-simple nectarine sherbet recipe from my friend at Yummy Supper and it came out sooooo YUM!

I'm sure it can also be adapted for all the other stonefruits in season now!

Richmond Grows & Dyes!

2011-07-18T09:38:00.000-07:00

The surprise of the day - Avocado pits!

Our cold turmeric dye bath

Participants preparing their samples using Shibori techniques

Showing the homemade Iron mordant

"How many of you love plants!?"

I am so happy after a successful workshop. The feeling of inspiring others with the colors of natures is so satisfying and enjoyable. Thank you to all the participants of Permacouture Institute's first Seeds to Sew workshop at the Richmond Public Library this Saturday. And huge thanks to Rebecca Newburn for organizing and starting the Seed Library there.

I'll be teaching another introductory natural dye workshop outdoors at the Berkeley Eco House on August 27th - Hope to see you there!

Fennel Dye

2011-07-15T13:13:00.000-07:00

In preparation for tomorrow's workshop at Richmond Grows I started a fennel dye today. Yesterday as I was out and about picking up some rusty objects (post on that coming soon) when I saw a nice clump of fennel growing in the parking lot. After asking I harvested a bunch and brought it home with me.

Today I threw the leaves and flowers into a 5L glass jar and poured hot water over the leaves. I'll let this steep and stew overnight and tomorrow during the workshop we'll boil up the leaves with our fibers.

With so much fennel growing everywhere, this makes sense as a wonderful dye for our area. But, always be sure to ask the landowner before you go out with your clippers. Another very important point is that this plant, though introduced and invasive, is a very important habitat species. It is the host plant for the Anise Swallowtail butterfly. After checking in with the land-owner also be sure to avoid harvesting caterpillar eggs along with your dyestuff.

Seeds to Sew: Tagging Dye Plants at the Richmond Seed library

2011-07-06T10:07:00.000-07:00

Last month, with the Permacouture Institute, we launched our "Seeds to Sew" project at the Richmond Grows Seed Library. Yesterday I went over to the library and got to use the nifty new stamp we made to tag seeds.

This logo indicates that a seed in the library has natural dye properties and encourages you to grow dye plants and begin creating beautiful colors from nature. There are helpful plant lists and natural dye recipes available at the library.

And on Saturday July 16th I'll be teaching an introductory workshop on getting started with natural dyes at the library from 1pm-3pm. You can sign up here

lichen/moss inspiration

2011-07-02T11:09:00.000-07:00

flower buffet!

2011-06-26T16:30:00.001-07:00

yesterday for my sister's bridal shower i decided to set up a "flower buffet" as fun favors for all of our guests. i stopped by gorgeous and green and selected an assortment of their organic, pesticide-free local flowers and foliage and then set them up by species to make a diverse display for guests to choose from! it was a great activity and i think people really enjoyed it! the flowers added color and decoration to the party and at the same time made floral favors for our 10 lovely ladies. as added floral value - we all went to brunch at flora before. enjoy!

berkeley eco-house

2011-06-14T17:32:00.001-07:00

laundry to landscape system

nifty drinking fountain out in the garden

green roof, of mostly succulents

broccoli!

allium bud about to blossom. and delicate spider web to the left.

planting of the greywater system

straw bale demo/display window

we finally made it over to the berkeley eco-house (now that we live on the same block!). it is a wonderful demonstration house and garden brought to us by berkeley's ecology center. the house features a solar heater, solar panels, greywater system, rainwater catchment, and all the other "green fixings" indoors (because there are tenants, our tour was outdoors).

the garden is a thriving permaculture garden with lots of veggies, swales, a strawbale tool shed with living roof, greywater fed irrigation, and more.

i encourage all of you local folks to make a trip over to the eco house for one of their tours and workshops and support the ecology center by getting a membership!

garden for butterflies, birds, and bees

2011-06-09T13:17:00.000-07:00

i was so happy to receive this picture of the native sidewalk garden we planted two and a half years ago on the corner of shotwell and 22nd street. the garden was built as a part of the mission greenbelt - a project dedicated to lifting up concrete and planting gardens in the mission district of san francisco.

we planted a selection of california native plants specifically selected to attract birds, butterflies and bees.

happy to see the garden thriving! plant more gardens people...

kew gardens - the mecca.

2011-06-01T13:23:00.000-07:00

magical dusk in the rock garden

a good reminder of the plant parts from one of the oldest flowering plants, magnolia

floribundiforous!

inside the glass house

One of the beautiful Japanese maples

the oldest potted cycad in the world.

the tree walk - i had to come down when i realized i was afraid of heights! but it was beautiful!

the lightening around 6pm

i made sure we spent a day in kew gardens. it was a brillant masterpiece of landscaping, plant collections and a shrine to the early days of horticulture and botany, exploration and ethnobotany. here are some of my favorite shots - we took a break at the cafe for some afternoon tea and then headed back out for some of the most exquisite light.

treasures from the museum of maritime medicine

2011-05-29T11:14:00.000-07:00

this spring i was lucky enough to attend international symposium of natural dyes in la rochelle, france. it was an amazing meeting of chemists, artists, craftspeople, and leaders from all around the world working to preserve and protect natural dye traditions while finding new meaning and beauty of color in our modern world. there will be lots of upcoming posts on the conference, but for now i'd like to share some snaps from our field trip to the museum of maritime medicine in rochefort, france. at the museum we saw a beautiful collection of plants, collected on sea voyages and used for medicine. the museum was a cabinet of curiosities just waiting to be photographed.

botanical illustrations of woad.

an old drawing of a dye atelier in action.

bottles of medicinal herbs

when life hands you galangal

2011-05-23T13:40:00.000-07:00

i'm back tracking a bit, but as i was looking through some photos from our recent trip to india i had to post this one. in month 4 or so, i really began craving different cuisines. i realized how lucky we are in the bay area to have so many cultures mixed together and to have so many food traditions woven together. i thought hard about what i could make while in our house in chidambaram, going to the markets and smelling different greens and roots and decided i would make a thai feast.

i decided to make a green curry and a peanut, red chili eggplant dish with brown rice and green mango salad.

garden garments part 2

2011-05-16T11:05:00.000-07:00

the dark grays from the kadukkai seeds with iron bath and vellum (unrefined whole cane sugar)
gorgeous resist patters from clothespins with onion skin dye.

red sandalwood with added neem for some medicinal properties.

annatto.

hi friends, we are back in action in sunny bay area. i am taking a step back and returning to india to post about our second garden garments workshop that took place in chennai. this time around we had 25 people from all different backgrounds and ages and it was a truly inspiring and fun afternoon. we experimented with 7 different dyes: nocchi (Vitex negundo), turmeric, onion skins, madder, annatto, kaddukai (myrobalan), and red sandalwood.

la ville fertile: urban gardens in paris

2011-04-22T11:08:00.000-07:00

a wonderful exhibit on at the palais chaillot right across from le tour eiffel. questions the use of space in the urban landscape. and ponders the reality of living in an green urban jungle one day.

one of patrick blanc's masterpieces. this one is at the musee du quai branly.

a garden design by burle marx, one of the most renowned landscape architects, famouse for his design along the copacabana beach in brazil.

spring blooms at the large botanical garden right in the heart of the city.

the viaduct converted into a lush green walkway. la promenade plantee, from appx the bastille to gare du lyon and further.
lovely plantings along the rue de roisers in the marais (the place to go for a good street falafel)
by the gare du nord station. another PB masterpiece

enough sleep, plenty of water, and laughter (ok, and just a few organic beauty products)

2011-04-02T00:21:00.000-07:00

today i'm going on a bit of a tangent to share with you the contents of my toiletry kit, specially equipped for these 4 months in india. they are nearly all organic, natural and made from plants. i dont usually do advertising here on the blog, but i am really happy with these products and from what i know support the businesses who make them. i admit that i went on a bit of a splurge to create this kit before i left the states, but sometimes when you're really far from home some organic beauty/health products really do the trick to revitalize and rejuvenate. the kit does include a few items that i've picked up here.

but, no matter what, i truly believe the best cosmetics/medicines are enough sleep, plenty of water, and laughter.

here we go!

dental care: we use rupam's one drop only tooth gel made with himalayan rock salt, miracle soap flower essences, myrhh, peppermint, spearmint, clove, cinnamon and anise oil. you really only need one drop and this small bottle has lasted us 9 months so far. rupam makes her herbal products in sonoma and can be found at the grand lake farmer's market on saturdays. i always carry around some cloves and some cardamom pods as they are the best mouth freshener after a meal and also work great for motion sickness or nausea. these tea tree cinnamon toothpicks are also super refreshing and helpful when eating out or an the go.
hair care: shikakai (Acacia concinna) is an amazing plant whose seed pods are dried and ground up to make wonderful hair powder that leaves your hair feeling luxurious and smooth! everyother day i use our tried and true dr. bronner's miracle soap. nothing beats his fair trade, organic, castille soap. we like the unscented baby-mild kind. if you haven't seen the documentary on him, i highly recommend it-- what a guy! i picked up this cute wooden comb at the local pharmacy here.
health: could not live without these 5 little bottles! from the left: rainbow grocery's home blend multivitamin and mineral with green superfoods & whole food concentrates (1 a day!), source naturals wellness herbal resistance liquid - 1 dropperful a day for prevention, several during times of imbalance, wellness fizz - i take this before long crowded bus or train journeys, and finally two great tinctures made by wishgarden herbs - these have been so helpful. the serious cough soother also works great for sore throats and the digestive-ease has been the perfect antidote to questionable street food.

weleda: "in harmony with nature and the human being since 1921" is a great swiss company whose name comes from the name of the celtic goddess of wisdom and healing and whose practices are based on rudolph steiner. they make amazing body care products. i believe they also make homeopathic medicines, but have yet to try those. the wild rose eye cream on the far right is probably the biggest splurge on this page, but it smells so beautiful and is really refreshing. i dab on a bit every night before i go to sleep. skin food in the middle is a lotion that i swear by, it is made from all organic sunflower seed oil, pansy, biodynamic calendula and rosemary this stuff is to die for. and my wild rose deodorant helps combat the sticky heat in addition to being a soothing scent.

my cosmetics: josie maran argan (Argania spinosa) oil stick, Tatcha Japanese blotting papers made in the 300 year old geisha tradition of 100% Abaca (Musa textillis) with specks of gold, Julie Hewitt organic Camellia Balm (i use it as lip balm and eye balm), RGB nail polish - formeldehyde, toulene and DPB Free!!! and tokyo Milk solid perfume scented with rose, geranium and hyacinth (this is the one product listed here that i am unsure of).

mosquito repellent: certainly among the two most critical products. i love both of these all natural repellents that i picked up here. i think it's always best to use whats available locally to combat the local mosquitoes. the citronella balm is made by last forest herbal products and the Collibri roll-on is made in Auroville from lemongrass, vetiver and a blend of other herbs.

miscellaneous: blum naturals organic chamomile towelettes are so refreshing after an overnight train journey or to fold up over your eyes after along day in the dust and pollution of the city, couldn't live without natracare's organic cotton, biodegradable, perfume and chemical free tampons, aveeno naturals sunblock, and cleanwell's organic anti-bacterial spray made from thyme and oregano oils.

sources:
bay area, usa- pharmaca integrative pharmacy, herringbone at erica tanov, rainbow grocery, rupam's apothecary, berkeley bowl

chennai, india - econut, restore, naturally auroville

natural dyes at the organic mela, chennai

2011-03-27T23:12:00.000-07:00

Last week I was a part of a wonderful "organic mela" put on by the Safe Food Alliance and ReStore Chennai. the mela (festival) was held in the Semmorzhi Poonga, the new park in central Chennai. It was a hot Saturday afternoon and there were hundreds of people who were coming through. The various booths included information on GMO, pesticides, local varieties of rices, and vendors selling organic groceries and handloom, organic cotton shirts. There was delicious food and the most refreshing drink made from organic palm sugar and lime juice.

I hosted a small table on natural dyes. We showed off some of the beautiful samples made by a friend highlighting local sources of plant dyes. I prepared a cold turmeric bath and those who came by made a little textile from the bright yellow color. I believe that we raised awareness about textiles and the abundance of local sources for beautiful color. It was an inspiring day for me and I am very thankful for the opportunity!

To see more photos visit this link

Crossandra infundibuliformis, Firecracker flower or Kanakambaram

2011-03-10T00:14:00.000-08:00

our shrub in the backyard

never ending blooms!

very cool seed packet i found at a roadside seed seller in chidambaram

my harvest for today's garland

tying on

making my way, pair by pair, knot by knot

final garland

i had a blast today doing something that i've always wanted to do, but never got around to it - making flower garlands to wear in my hair. one of the simple luxuries of being in india is always being able to buy flowers in the market to tie in your hair. while usually they are made of jasmine, these kanakambaram (Tamil) flowers are another favorite. when i was little i would always prefer these bright orange flowers to the fragrant white jasmine. the flowers last a couple of days without wilting and the peduncles (flower stalks) are strong and forgiving when tying the flowers together.

we're lucky to have a large shrub in the back yard that seems to unceasingly produce flowers. i harvested a handful and sat down to begin stringing.

you start by taking two flowers and tying then end to end together with a knot. then you continue to add pairs until you have a full "maram" (as they sell them in the market) or arms length worth.

i was brainstorming on what sturdy and florabundant plants we could use in the bay area to make garlands, any ideas?

coco de mer, double coconut, beautiful rump

2011-03-09T18:49:00.000-08:00

a seedling growing

i was horribly afraid one of those 20 kg seeds would fall on my head

these strange coconut palms, native to the seychelle islands, were quite the sight at the royal botanic gardens in peradineya, sri lanka. the seeds are the largest and the heaviest in the world taking 5 years to mature and weighing upwards of 30 kgs!! it is a true case of island gigantism having also the largest female flowers of any palm and the longest leaves!

there's a story that when sailors came across these floating seeds in the ocean (where they get the name 'coco de mer'), they imagined them to be the beautiful buttocks of island ladies. this mythology corresponds with the archaic botanical name Lodoicea callipyge, where 'callipyge' is from greek words meaning "beautiful rump!" This later contributed to the legend that the nuts were aphrodisiacs.

With the seeds being highly valuable and prized, the plant is now threatened in its native environment with only two wild populations remaining, but can be seen in botanical gardens throughout the world.

Its true botanical name is Lodoicea maldivica and it is the sole member of the genus Lodoicea.

the nuts are apparently used in ayurveda and chinese traditional medicine.

A truly strange and intriguing plant!

all fruits begin as flowers.

2011-03-03T20:14:00.000-08:00

banana's have one of the most beautiful inflorescences (cluster of flowers on a single stem). when you peel back the brachts (often mistaken for petals) to reveal the fruits forming inside it really is a treasure and an image that reinforces teh fact that all fruits begin as flowers. i remember going out to some school gardens while working at the uc botanical garden and showing children the banana flower next to a bunch of bananas. it was an aha moment that i continue to have to date!

banana flowers (varzhapou) are used in south indian cookery. they add a special flavor to masala vada and can also be made on their own. this recipe is from one of my great aunties and is made with buttermilk.

chop up the flowers into small bits and boil in 1 cup of buttermilk plus a pinch of salt and pinch of turmeric until tender. remove from heat

heat oil and add mustard seeds (most), urad dal (a little), fenugreek seeds (very few) and a couple of curry leaves

add spice mixture to banana flowers! serve as an accompaniment to rice and sambar.

variations can include adding grated coconut, red chilis or garlic.

bananas are another multipurpose plant, cultivated throughout the world for its fruit, flowers, stems - all for eating and also its fiber, which can be made into strong yarns and textiles. its leaves are used as plates and parcels.

for more information look to Dan Koeppel's book " Banana: The Fate of the Fruit that Changed the World" and visit his banana blog here.

Moringa oleifera

2011-02-12T08:36:00.000-08:00

ok folks, for those of you who have been reading (thank you!) i have discovered what i think is my new favorite plant. with many uses for timber, dye, medicine and probably the most nutritious food around the winner is.... Moringa oleifera, in Tamil "murungai maram" (murungai - kai for fruits, murungai - keerai for leaves). Moringa is grown all over the world in climates equivalent to USDA zones 9 and 10. it is not frost tolerant, but is very very drought tolerant.

i grew up eating this tree's tasty fruits - referred to as "drumsticks" as they look just as their name sake. my family would put them into sambar and i would be the first to go in and pick out all the drumsticks from the stew.

only recently did i learn of the wonderfood that is the leaves - today we harvested local leaves and i am de-stemming them in the photo above to make into a dish. the leaves are somewhat tangy. the leaves contain beta-carotene, vitamin c, protein, iron and potassium. they are said to be particularly beneficial for breast-feeding mothers and young children with one tablespoon of dried leaves providing 14 % of the protein, 40% of the calcium, 23% of the iron and nearly all of the vitamin A a child needs from age 1 -3!!!

i also learned through the video below that many are working to spread knowledge of this tree and its nutritional benefits to malnourished areas of the world.

as far as the trees dye properties i have yet to test, but supposedly in jamaica the sap yields a blue dye!

the flowers are also used in traditional medicines.

certainly a miracle tree in my book.

onion skins

2011-02-03T07:24:00.000-08:00

onion skins. they have got to be on the top dye list for me as they yield a glorious glowing gold AND most importantly, they are a perfect by-product dye. most of us use onions on a regular basis in the kitchen. what i do is keep a glass jar on top of the refrigerator and as time goes just add my skins to the jar, when its full its time to dye! one thing just to make sure is that you leave any of the fleshy bits out of your jar - they will decompose soon and add moisture and rot to your other skins!

Five-Leaved Chaste Tree : Vitex negundo or Nochhi

2011-02-01T22:25:00.000-08:00

A new discovery, which yielded at beautiful green is the plant Vitex negundo (Tamil "Nochhi," English "Five Leaved Chaste Tree"). This plant is a member of one of my favorite plant families the Lamiaceae - a family that includes salvias and most of the fragrant culinary herbs - lavender, basil, mint, thyme, etc...

We prepared the dye bath by boiling up water and adding a nice big bunch of Nocchi leaves. We added our pre-mordanted raw silk and handloom cotton.

If you add soda ash to the dye bath - the color should be a more teal-turquoise ish blue green.

Pomegranate (Punica granatum)

2011-01-31T23:30:00.000-08:00

pomegranate is certainly one of my favorites fruits. its deep red color and juicy gems within are so refreshing and healthy. this ancient plant is native to iran and northern india and is widely cultivated in the mediterranean, india and tropical africa. if you've ever wondered how many seeds a pomegranate has within - guess no more, the average among varieties is 613!

pomegranate skins are a great by-product dye. we collected ours from a local juice shop, by just asking for their left over peels. i set the fresh skins out in the sun to dry for a day, then we boiled them up with water, submerged our mordanted fabric and voila! a gorgeous reddish brown!

garden garments in chennai

2011-01-30T21:48:00.000-08:00

hi folks! i got lots of great photos to share from our two part natural dyeing workshop held in chennai last week. the word was put out to the reStore Chennai listserve, and there was a great response. the workshop was full of ten lovely ladies (and one little lady named isha), who each brought something beautiful to the table. our colors were vibrant. inspiring two days for all!! i'm going to break up my posts by each color that we used, starting with turmeric, a classic. happy dyeing!

turmeric/manjal dye

2011-01-30T21:39:00.000-08:00

probably the easiest of all the dyes is turmeric. especially in india, where it is so abundant. turmeric is one of the few dyes that you can prepare in a cold bath - no energy is needed to heat the dye stuff. we simply put 100 grams of turmeric powder in this bucket of cold water. used rubber bands to create resist patterns and then dropped our cloth inside. we left our fabric overnight, just to soak in the color. no mordant used on this cotton, which was actually an old veshti!

curry leaves and turmeric: a very indian natural dye

2011-01-24T06:09:00.000-08:00

today i finally got my hands into some natural dye work. i thought i would try using curry leaves, as we have an abundance of them growing at home amended with several left over stems from the market. the curry plant is native to india and is a tree Murraya koenigii. it is a mainstay of south indian cooking flavoring rasam, sambar, pooriyal, pongal, etc... etc.. etc...

this was my first test dye in india, so i was a little nervous not having my usual tools with me.

i am in chidambaram and didn't quite know how to procure alum, the mordant i most commonly use for cotton, so instead i tested out giving the cloth a nice soak in some warm salt water. i found a beautiful handwoven white towel for my experiment.

after soaking the fabric for a bit in the warm salt water i started boiling up a nice big bunch of dried curry leaves. i let the leaves boil over a low heat for about 40 minutes before adding my cloth. afterwards i let it boil for about 1 hour. the dye bath was a beautiful though faint golden copper color. just to give it a rich yellow tinge i decided to add one spoonful of turmeric powder. instantly the colors merged - i let it simmer for about 20 more minutes before removing it form the heat, rinsing my cloth and hanging it to dry!

beautiful colors from nature. just what i needed to get inspired and excited for this week's natural dye workshop that i am leading in chennai - hope to have goods pics from that to share.

thanks for visiting. d

Tulsi: Holy Basil

2011-01-17T21:53:00.000-08:00

Our plant behind the house in Chidambaram

Dried Leaves for Tea

Many have heard of this wonder plant, sacred and useful, Tulsi: Ocimum sanctum (Syn. O. t
enuiflorum).
There are many varieties of Tulsi - a variety of basil, whose Genus itself has 40 odd varieties. The most common cultivars are Krishna, Vana and Rama and some say that it has been used for over 5000 years in India.

This plant is easy to grow in a warm climate. It is a perennial that reseeds itself in hot climates and can be grown as a summer annual in more temperate areas such as the Bay Area.

The plant, which some say to be a reincarnation of Krishna is adored and adorns many Indian households, most giving the plant a special alter style pot and offering flowers and other such puja items to the plant as they would other religious icons.

Tulsi is used as a immune booster, to fight off coughs and colds, for relaxation and stress-relief and as a digestive-aid.

You can eat a few fresh leaves a day, or add them to your water for fragrance. Or, most commonly, you can dry the leaves and prepare a tea. You can also infuse the leaves into honey to use.

sugar cane - nature's candy

2011-01-15T22:28:00.000-08:00

Saccharam sp. -- the plant we know and love for helping add a little sweetness to our lives. There are some 35 species of sugarcane, members of the grass family Poaceae. Sugar has an extremely long and not all that pleasant history, to read more on this topic I highly recommend Sidney Mintz's book " Sweetness and Power"

Here in Chidambaram, where sugarcane is cultuivated in all the surrounding fields along with paddy, the purple sugarcane is honored during the festivities of Pongal. After using them for the festivities, we get to cut open the stalks and chew on the yummy pith - savoring the sweet water within. Lining the streets here you will see vendors selling fresh sugar cane juice - I had once believed that they added water to the sugary nector, but no! The stalk contains so much water. We first split the cane, then skinned off the outer purple layer and cut the stalk in to small bits - just like candy. You chew the bits to release the yummy sweet liquid then spit out the fibrous remains. so sweet and tasty!

Pongal: A harvest Festival

2011-01-14T19:54:00.000-08:00

Happy pongal from Chidambaram. Pongal is a harvest festival celebrating the abundance of crops and giving thanks to the sun god and cows for food and milk. Preparations for Pongal have been in full swing. Yesterday we headed to the market to get beautiful fresh purple sugar cane stalks to decorate our home with and eat after the festivities, fresh ginger and turmeric with their stems and leaves to use to prepare the pongal with. Pongal literally means to boil over, and in the morning on Pongal day, a dish called "chakara pongal" - a sweetened rice pudding is prepared, as the milk boils over the pot adorned with the turmeric and ginger leaves, we chant " pongal - o - pongal" boil boil!

special kolams are made to decorate the outside of the house.

a simple recipe for my version of chakara pongal:

Ingredients:

handful of cashews

1 tsp. freshly ground cardamom powder

1 tbsp. jaggery

1/2 cup rice

2 cups milk

ghee

1. heat the ghee in a pot and add the cashews, once browned add the rice and saute a bit until ric is clear

2. add the jaggery, milk and cardamom

3. stir constantly to avoid the bottom from burning

4. chant pongal - o-pongal!

5. enjoy

HAPPY PONGAL

2011-01-14T19:47:00.000-08:00

coconut water and palm fruits

2011-01-07T08:54:00.000-08:00

one of the things i enjoy most about being in india is definitely the fruits. the top photo is of palm fruits - called "nongu" in tamil. it's squishy inside is like a lychee.

below is an all time favorite - although i have to confess that when i was younger i had a serious aversion to it, it is "eleneer" or tender coconut water. this has to be the most refreshing, rehydrating beverage. and the beauty of being in india is that one can have one every day. when finished with the water you can crack the whole thing open to eat the yummy "meat" inside.

2011-01-05T23:13:00.000-08:00

while in coimbature, i had lots of time to take walks and simply admire the nature around us. there were so many lovely flowers and i appreciated nature's beauty. each flower, so different, in color, size, shape and form, each complicated, yet meant to perform the same simple function. each with a beautiful fragrance and ephemeral glow. i reflected on our own ability and blessing to blossom, each day, over time.

i was especially amazed by the bouganvilla- a common plant, whose colorful brachts (the pink parts are not flowers, but modified leaves that attract pollinators to the tiny white flowers within) are abundant and even adorned our little cottage back in berkeley, but this variety was cauliflorous - it's flowers emerging right from the stem.

the beautiful yellow queen (Pachystachys lutea) and the white spider lily (Hymenocallis narcissiflora) were taken at the new botanical park in chennai.

everywhere around us is beauty, in nature and each other. take a moment to enjoy and appreciate.

tiffin carriers

2010-12-29T08:53:00.000-08:00

going to pondy bazaar in the t.nagar neighborhood of chennai is like walking through a maze of everything and anything you ever wanted. that is if all you ever wanted were cloths, shoes, plastic buckets, sticker bindis, hair pins, safety pins, sweets of all kinds, fresh flowers and fruits, street foods, saris jewellry and of course "ever silver" - the name that a certain type of metal is referred to. we stepped into Rathna stores to buy some thali plates - the ones that have seperate compartments for each dish and i was just amazing by the quantities of items they had. my favorite area was where the tiffin carriers were. tiffin carriers are perfectly designed containers for storing all you need for "meals" - rice, sambhar, rasam, a kuttu and a curry, curd, pickle and appalam.

fabric flowers

2010-12-27T21:06:00.000-08:00

i love being send on a mission. my sister, who is getting married in august, is making fabric hair clips and boutonierres for all her guests, so she's asked me to pick up a variety of fabrics here in india for her project. luckily i stumbled upon dastkar andhra's exhibition which is running now in chennai. they are an ngo that works on preserving natural dye traditions as well as handloom fabrics. i ammended my purchases there with some lovely silks from RaSi, a mylapore insitution next to the Kabbali Koil. using the inspiration board she gave me i selected a number of fabrics. i had a lovely assortment of green shades for the leafs, but unfortunately they got sent back to the US with my mom! maybe we'll get a photo of them soon to post.

semmangudi

2010-12-23T04:49:00.000-08:00

after marriage it is customary to make a visit to one's paternal village to seek the blessings of the ancestral god or "kula devam" (pictured above). ours is in semmangudi, a town made famous by the legendary carnatic vocalist semmangudi srinivasa iyer.

we made a visit to the home where my great grandfather used to live. it is still in it's original condition, with a gorgeous and huge lime tree in the courtyard.

i love seeing our village. it is just one lane with houses on both sides, the typical tamil nadu village home with pillars in the front and a courtyard inside and low ceilings through the walkways.
we also have a very interesting practice of honoring any sumangalis (married women) in the family who have performed sathi by paying a visit and doing a namaskaram (prostration) to the poovada pani. no photos of this somewhat mystical practice.

treasures from anokhi

2010-12-15T21:06:00.000-08:00

hi friends! we've south india where we'll be spending the next few months. it is just wonderful to be back here. the weather is so pleasant in december, though the first few days of our arrival were completely washed out due to the leftover monsoon rains. i've been enjoying the coffee soo much, the food and especially the guavas, which are in their prime.
no trip to india would be complete for me with out an immediate stop to Anokhi to get some beautiful salwar sets and miscellaneous textiles. each year i am impressed with the new prints they have and increasingly zero waste production.
Anokhi has been know for over 40 years for it's environmentally and socially responsible business practices, employing women, paying fair wages and using organic cottons and plant dyes.
Everything is hand embroidered and hand block printed. They have shops all over India, but their homepase is in Jaipur where they also have a textile museum.

there are capers and there are poor man's capers

2010-08-10T15:42:00.000-07:00

i think the caper bush is such a beauty. the leaves are solid and round, with a dark green sheen. the tutu-like flowers are white with lavender colored stamens. the buds of the caper bush are what is used in capers. the buds are picked when young and then pickled in brine to make those delicious yummy capers that we put in our pastas and salads, etc... if the buds are let to flower and fruit the fruit is the caper berry and can also be pickled, used in jams and curries.
BUT news to me was that nasturtiums have been called "poor man's capers" as you can pickle the young green seed pods to make a similar tasting tart treat! fascinating i say! nasturtiums are a wonderful plant for a garden, they grow fast and easily and the colorful flowers are edible and make a great addition to salads or garnishes on deserts. The leaves are beautiful and design-worthy in arrangements.

Elderberry

2010-08-02T15:28:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I know I just said that Amaranth was my favorite plant, but now it's Elderberry. With medicinal, edible, and dye properties it is a winner!

here are some images from a recent dye experiment. this was with the leftover berries from my sister's Elderberry Cordial.

I put about 2 cups of elderberry mush with water and brought to a boil. I then added a few pieces of handwoven nettle fabric and some silk-wool scraps. I boiled for 1 hour solid. Then, I turned off the heat, covered and let sit over night. In the morning I removed my fabric, rinsed and enjoyed the gorgeous wine-color!!

The slight difference between the elderberry dyed nettle (left) and natural (right)
I loved this two tone effect on the wool silk!

J'adore Amaranth

2010-07-31T10:35:00.000-07:00

A Rose and an Amaranth blossomed side by side in a garden,
and the Amaranth said to her neighbour,
"How I envy you your beauty and your sweet scent!
No wonder you are such a universal favourite."
But the Rose replied with a shade of sadness in her voice,
"Ah, my dear friend, I bloom but for a time:
my petals soon wither and fall, and then I die.
But your flowers never fade, even if they are cut;
for they are everlasting." ---- From Aesop's Fables

I think amaranth is one of my favorite plants. In permaculture we talk alot about stacking functions and the amaranth is truly a multi-functional plant indeed. You can use the flowers to make a gorgeous dye. You can grind up the seeds make plant based paints. You can eat the highly nutritious grains. You can eat the highly nutritious leaves. The plant is so gorgeous it makes your eyes hurt. It can be a cut flower. Time go to plant some amaranth in my garden.

amorphophallus diversion

2010-07-26T11:29:00.000-07:00

Lawsonia inermis

2010-07-13T19:46:00.000-07:00

all of these beautiful images by paige green photography . thank you paige!!

henna or mehendi or maradhani is the dye from the plant Lawsonia inermis. The plant is native to Northern Africa, Southern Asia and parts of Australasia. We used to have a tree in my grandparents house in Chennai. The leaves are dried and powdered then mixed with water and sometimes eucalyptus oil to form a paste. The paste is then applied to the skin. When dry a mixture of sugar and lemon is applied to avoid the henna from chipping off. You can keep henna on any where from 30 minutes to overnight. For the wedding I kept mine on over night. It was the darkest 36 hours after application. It is such a beautiful art with rich designs from many cultures. The plant can also be used to dye clothing.

wedding detour

2010-07-11T14:09:00.000-07:00

imogen the florist. we ordered bunches of local, organic wildflowers from the nearby full belly farms. imogen did a beautiful job assembling them into the centerpieces.

zarah and valentina hanging up the handmade love flags that jaia and i stitched from beautiful sari fabric scraps and turmeric dyed bamboo fabric

meredith's lovely calligraphy on the name cards. when i was in india in february i got the name cards printed on handmade jute paper and the beautiful little bejeweled boxes from a local handicrafts shoppe.

hi friends, if any of you are out there. i'm going to put up a series of photos from the recent wedding! i can't help but. it was a beautiful weekend of events. i know when i was out looking for ideas and people's experience there was very little in they way of merging south indian ritual and tradition with local, organic, DIY. so here's my attempt. i'm starting with a few set-up images from our saturday pre-wedding dinner and reception at the headlands center for the arts in marin. it is a beautiful historic building, with lots of charm. we got there early morning and my "swat team" of friends and family helped with all the set up.

inspiration

2010-04-14T21:19:00.000-07:00

they just don't make stamps like they used to.

2010-03-29T23:16:00.000-07:00

not that i have time for a new hobby, but i am simply in love with these vintages botanical stamps. they are so beautiful, have botanical names, and some even have messages like " plant for a more beautiful america." i got these from Verde Studio on etsy.

fibers & dyes

2010-03-17T12:38:00.000-07:00

look at these gorgeous colors from nature! they were made by students of Sasha Duerr Fossel's Soil to Studio Class, Garden volunteer Cynthia Dakopolos and yours truly. I am so inspired by the depth and range of each one. The photos don't do justice, so please come visit the fiber & dye exhibit at the UC Botanical Garden.

http://botanicalgarden.berkeley.edu/root_images/programs/winter_10/fiber_dye.html

back to basics

2010-03-17T12:31:00.000-07:00

I started this blog to explore the wonderful/essential relationship we have with plants in our daily lives. And I have been a very bad blogger. So here's my public decree of commitment to keeping up this blog! There's surely no lack of beautiful things to post!

a tree grows in richmond

2009-12-15T22:47:00.000-08:00

flowers & fruits
the garden

I am really proud to be a part of an amazing project at Verde school in Richmond. The docents of the UC Botanical Garden have been working with this school, to give our tours & programs in their amazingly diverse and thriving school garden. The school, has little money for field trips, but they are a culturally rich school and with parent and grandparent volunteers in the garden they have a wonderful array of edibles, medicinals and native plants. I was fortunate enough to come along with the docents to watch them present our "grocery store botany" program to the 1st graders at Verde. Here are a few images from their garden.

inspiration: dio de los muertos

2009-11-18T22:35:00.001-08:00

fall festival at ardenwood farm

2009-10-26T12:35:00.000-07:00

treasures from the spanish table

2009-10-16T22:32:00.000-07:00

i recently went over to the spanish table in berkeley and was amazed by what treasures they have. it is brightly colored with everything from cookbooks to saffron, white wine to paella pans, this is definitely a goto place for the rare and special items you might need in your pantry.

i bought some TAZA organic guajillo chili chocolate-- perfect for baking, hot chocolate or for cooking. it comes in this pretty disc and is stoneground in small batches somerville, mass so i couldn't resist.

my second treasure was some marcona almonds in rosemary honey.

hapazome = brilliant

2009-10-15T12:46:00.000-07:00

i recently learned about something called "hapazome" or flower pounding. a couple of weekends ago, the ecological artist rebecca burgess came to the uc botanical garden to teach a wonderful day long workshop on native plant dyes. little did we know that we'd leave knowing all that and more! i was enchanted with hapazote. the amazing textile artist india flint apparently coined the term. it is a way of using fresh flowers and immediately extracting the pigments and sealing them into our clothes or other fabrics. it was so easy, so gratifying and so beautiful.

you begin by laying down your piece of fabric. we used t-shirt scraps. then you lay fresh flower petals on the cloth as you'd like. we used a few such as nasturtium, pansy, cosmos.

then you lay another piece of cloth over the flowers-- if your using a t-shirt or big piece of fabric you can simply fold over the cloth. we then sprayed the fabric with water and soda ash or wood ash mixed in a spray bottle. when the cloth is saturated you can begin pounding:

my favorite thing about it is this: the flowers fade, but then, once they do you can keep pounding new flowers into your cloths or sheets or any fabrics to create these beautiful collages of your history and the flowers you've come across. the fabrics become histories of our lives and beautiful stories of our natural world. i LOVE it! thank you rebecca for teaching me this beautiful art and to your wonderful brother michael who took this great photos.

go native!

2009-09-21T08:50:00.000-07:00

ok, i know i haven't blogged in a while, it's all because my camera was kidnapped to halifax and without a camera i feel lost. words?! i'm not a good writer! my blog is about plants plants don't talk and i don't have to talk to them to enjoy them.

nonetheless. now that i am without a camera i will attempt to catch you up on some happenings... and borrow a photo from the botanical garden.

just yesterday i was at the botanical garden learning all about butterfly friendly plants. yes, it's true, many of the host plants for butterflies tend to be on the weedy and even invasive side. a perfect example is fennel. fennel came to california from asia and spread to become one of the more weedy of the weedy. fennel is now the favorite host plant of the anise swallowtail butterfly. well interestingly enough there is a california native host plant and it is called Yampah (Perideridia kellogii). Not only is Yampah an important food source for the anise swallowtail, but it was also an important food source for California Native Peoples.

And to make matters best, we do sell Perideridia sp. at the Botanical Garden-- it's a plant rarely found in nurseries.

papermaking with papyrus

2009-07-25T15:28:00.000-07:00

more from the green gala- these ones by david gilbert

2009-07-23T12:22:00.001-07:00

OCELOT: hand dyed using itajime shibori technique in San Francisco

Jonathan David Baker's multi-directionally pleated dress made with seaweed and organic cotton, tux jacket made with recycled nylon and recycled tire rubber

TINC: designed by Savannah Knoop made with sea weed and wood pulp, peace silk, and organic cotton canvas

ashley helvey's d felted organic wool dress from a predator friendly farm

the moon: lace pillow lava dress: vintage slip, lace bits, silk and cotton handkerchiefs, napkins and doilies. annatto dyed silk shirts over dyed with black walnut hull

painting with plant & earth pigments

2009-07-23T12:16:00.000-07:00

gorgeous indigo paints. the lighter circles were tinted with titanium dioxide

adding yellow ochre to the dragon's blood

madder

our materials

the muller- "if it's not mulled, it's not paint"

Last night was part 2 of a 3 part course i hosted at the uc botanical garden at berkeley. judi pettite, a local painter who uses only natural pigments, was our teacher. we experimented with reds, oranges blues and greens using plants such as : madder, dragon's blood (a resin from a number of trees), goldenrod, cosmos, woad, indido. we also used the precious lapis lazuli and ochre- a natural earth pigment. mixing these pigments with gum arabic and grinding them with a muller we made paints. it was such a satisfying and beautiful process.

mr. larkin at the botanical garden's green gala

2009-07-04T15:50:00.000-07:00

fashion show in the redwoods: sasha duerr & ashley helvey : photography by cara mia

2009-07-04T15:48:00.000-07:00

wedding!

2009-06-08T06:55:00.001-07:00

rock paper scissors fundraiser

2009-06-08T06:47:00.000-07:00

macaroons in hayes valley

2009-06-08T06:43:00.000-07:00

suppenkuche

2009-06-08T06:41:00.000-07:00

pho clement

2009-06-08T06:39:00.000-07:00

sangati center

2009-06-08T06:37:00.000-07:00

santa clara bbq

2009-05-10T11:37:00.000-07:00

castro valley: eat and dye a rainbow

2009-05-10T11:36:00.000-07:00

discarded to divine

2009-05-10T11:32:00.000-07:00

a visit to the dogpatch

2009-05-10T11:30:00.000-07:00

piccino for blue bottle coffee
kitchenette

spirit of place : anna and lawrence halprin at stern grove

2009-05-10T11:29:00.000-07:00

Neem: The tree of life

2009-05-10T11:26:00.000-07:00

new pathways

2009-04-15T00:32:00.000-07:00

an auto rickshaw in SF

2009-04-15T00:30:00.000-07:00

plants of potrero hill

2009-04-15T00:05:00.000-07:00

april flowers

2009-04-15T00:00:00.000-07:00

handmade friends of the ocean

2009-04-14T23:47:00.000-07:00

a few of my treasures

2009-04-14T23:39:00.000-07:00

tie dye with turmeric

2009-03-30T20:48:00.000-07:00

2009-03-19T20:11:00.000-07:00

nataraja koil chidambaram

2009-03-19T20:09:00.000-07:00

patterns on the wall

2009-03-19T20:07:00.000-07:00

cashews and rosella

2009-03-19T20:04:00.000-07:00

sprouting

2009-03-19T20:03:00.000-07:00

hand woven bed

2009-03-19T19:54:00.000-07:00

the colours of nature, fermenting indigo, lac dye

2009-03-19T19:49:00.000-07:00

crafts council of india

2009-03-19T19:43:00.000-07:00

ayurvedic herbs galore

2009-03-19T19:42:00.000-07:00