Little House in the City

Here is undeniable proof from the 3rd grade, that, indeed, I've always been like this. It's poster sized. I think the hand drawn USA stamp is a nice touch.

Dear Laura,

I understand you have been very busy for the past 18 years since I first wrote. I was really sad I never heard back from you, but I've gotten over it. Just wanted to let you know what a big impact your books had on me as a child. I remember lying in bed and just reveling in the knowledge that a salted ham wouldn't rot. I also hoarded half and half's from 7-11, shaking them all the way to school and wondering why they never turned to butter.

Thanks for that.

Love,
Amy

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Rolling Homes, the sequel.

Remember this book that belonged to my mom? I still haven't found my own copy. I know it's got to be out there somewhere, sitting in a used book store with a $7 price tag. The thought of paying $50 on amazon or ebay is less appealing. Cheating, if you will.

When I visited my folks last week, I pulled out my mom's copy and took photos of nearly every home in the book. You can see them all here. This book still hits me hard, it was my favorite to look through as a kid and dream about all the wonderful places I'd go in my pickup truck turned Conestoga wagon. Sadly, my life's taken a turn for the more.... stationary and responsible.

But there's still hope, I'm only 25. I have many adult years ahead to shirk off "responsibilities", "student loans" and "income taxes" in my rolling home. The future looks bright.

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Pie baker

This past month I've fallen off the cooking bandwagon. It's hard to adjust from cooking for two people to cooking just for yourself. Cooking for one is so lonely.

Not to mention it creates a big old mess and there's no one to help with the dishes after. This weekend I tried to get back into the swing of things by making my beloved boss Christine a very, very homemade looking birthday pie, with varying degrees of success.


I managed not to burn it, which was nice. But I don't think it was quite the masterpiece Alice Waters had in mind when she wrote "The Art of Simple Food". Hmm.... oh well. At least sweet Kristi took a few a nice pictures of it.

Despite all that, I am still hopelessly devoted to The Art of Simple Food. I know this is hardly a revelation to anyone who follows cookbooks or Alice Waters or farmers markets in the least, but this is the first book to ever steal my heart away and get me really excited about cooking.

I'd be lying if I didn't say that some of the charm of her book comes from the sweet engraved illustrations but the recipes are all gems, too.

The baking section has been hitting home these days, I think it has something to do with this whole thing. I seriously dream in pies and tarts these days, just can't get enough.

I'm dying to make a fruit galette like this one, but next week I'm 99.9% sure strawberry shortcake is going to be on the menu instead. That is if I can prep it without eating all of the strawberries first.

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The Big Top

Tonight the circus leaves town.

Instead of going, I spent the evening looking through my beloved children's book "Great Days of the Circus". Who knew a little dumpy 60's pictorial could have such great original images?

I was a big fan of the circus as a kid. Not so much the ringmaster bit, but the popcorn and elephant rides. It was like a big glittery zoo with men in tights.

At the impressionable age of 8 I saw a PETA expose on the circus that soured the whole experience a bit. I cried. But I still love a bit of circus romance, especially an old timey circus.

You can't forget the sideshows. Here's Lambert, the giant baby.

Side note- Some of my favorite X-Files episodes of all time are the sideshow ones, oh so good!

The actual photos of the performers are just so heartbreaking. This sweet little girl makes me, the stay at home curmudgeon, want to run away with the circus.

So amazing.

And yes, I love a girl in a dainty white Edwardian dress with a whip and a handful of leopards.

You know she was a toughie.

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Ancestral Scrapbooking

At Elmwood, there is a darling Victorian scrapbook that was assembled by a little girl and I think it was my great grandmother, Helen Robinson.

It has a burgundy leather cover and sweetly scalloped fabric pages. The scrap is a bit worse for wear but I love it just as it is.

My great great grandmother Ella had four children; Harold, William, Helen and Elizabeth. Helen, the oldest, was my grandfather's mother.

That's great grandma Helen, on the right. I come from a long line of hair bow wearers and scrapbook makers.

I adore how tattered her cutouts have become. Missing head and all, the kitty reminds me of Alice's Cheshire Cat.



Is that a blue velvet tam? I want it.




Aren't these wonderful? It's things like this book that argue a pretty convincing case for being a pack rat. 100 years ago all little girls made these and sob, I'm sure most of them got thrown away!

(Thank god, I uploaded these photos before this week's computer meltdown.)

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A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

Ashamed that I lived in Brooklyn, loved reading and had never read Betty Smith's classic "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn", I tucked my tail between my legs and bought a copy at my favorite out of town bookstore a few months back.
Turns out, Betty Smith grew up only a few blocks away from my apartment and used the streets of her childhood as the setting of her beloved book. The first chapter was filled with the likes of Grand, Graham, Manhattan, Devoe, Metropolitan, Ainslie not to mention the park by my house, the local school, our library, the old Greenpoint hospital.


What a treat to be able to look into my neighborhood 100 years ago with the eyes of a 11 year old girl.

"Serene was a word you could put to Brooklyn, New York. Especially is the summer of 1912. Somber, as a word, was better. But it did not apply to to Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Prairie was lovely and Shenandoah had a beautiful sound, but you couldn't fit those words into Brooklyn. Serene was the only word for it; especially on a Saturday afternoon in summer."

Not true anymore, but that's why it's so dreamy.

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"Rolling Homes"

For the last of the pillaging my mother's book shelf series may I present "Rolling Homes", the crowning jewel of hippie books in my mom's collection.

Mind you, I don't actually own this book yet. It can get pretty pricey on some of my trusty sources ($125, are you kidding me?) but there is one ending soon on eBay today and if any of you outbid me, I'll never forgive you.

Published in '79, it surveys the hippie phenomenon of wandering homes converted from pickup trucks, school buses and big rigs.

My favorite, the hitched Conestoga wagon trailer with removable ceiling, perfect for all your stargazing needs.

Half gypsy, half Laura Ingalls Wilder, I would die to take one of these on a roadtrip.

Now I've never been one for trailer living but I think I could easily handle this parked in the New Hampshire woods for the summer. Add a little porch, Victorian gingerbread trim, and of course a woodstove, I might even extend my stay through fall.

Curbside living? A real possibility, considering New York's looming "great depression". If next you see me I'm covered in saw dust and wearing tie dye, don't panic. I'm escaping the housing crisis and building my own rolling home.

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"The Illustrated Hassle-Free Make Your Own Clothes Book"

This is another classic tome of my mothers, found on eBay after many years of fruitless searching. It's basically a Dummy's Guide to Sewing Hippie Clothes and the little drawings are so wonderful. I love how crooked they are, even I can draw like that!

Their amazingly cute kids clothes ideas. A fringed vest is pretty adorable on a kid, and only on a kid, however.

These two women are pretty neat ladies. They dedicated the book to their swamiji (they must have lived on a commune!) and they are always referring to their husbands as "their old men". My old man this, my old man that, so endearing.

They also dole out some funny hippie wisdom such as "Men should be able to get over their uptightness about making clothes, about doing all kinds of things they have been brainwashed into relegating to women." Ha.

and regarding tailored clothes..

"We don't use darts because we don't use bras- they give your clothes a sort of funny shape.....except the no-bra kind which are better than most." Sounds like my family alright.

Also, how to make a dress with a tee shirt for a pattern. The directions are pretty loosey goosey and I totally ate them up in middle school. I ruined countless pairs of jeans by adding a triangle of fabric at the hem to make them bell bottoms, as I learned in this book.

These days I've moved on to making these little pouches out of leather to keep my camera in.

Thanks, mom, for finding another good one!

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A recreated bookshelf: Converted into Houses

Some of my mother's books are just too special to waste away on her wicker bookshelf back on the homestead so I recently started the undertaking of recreating a "best of the best" of mom's collection back here in Brooklyn.


Some of her books captured my imagination so fully that I'm still hooked on them 20 years later. I've been trolling used book stores, eBay and the wonderful abebooks to find my favorites so I can have my very own copy, as I wouldn't want disturb the family archives.

First up is the wonderful "Converted into Houses", published in 1976. It contains a multitude of amazing (and amazingly hippie dippy) spaces and their conversion into living quarters.

I was born from wheat bread baking, chicken raising, overall wearing, tepee building, mountain hiking, skinny dipping, yoga doing parents in a depression era farmhouse; so these hippie dwellings remind me of home.

A former chicken coop.

A former butterscotch factory in SoHo. Hmm, I wonder why I love houseplants.

A tugboat. And yes, we totally had those wicker chairs when I was a kid!

A schoolhouse in Sebastopol.


It just goes on and on; sailboats, train cars, ice houses, fire stations, churches, mews, railroad stations, water towers..... My grandpa's mill house would have fit in perfectly.

Some girls are scared they'll turn into their moms but I say bring it on. She's a gentle and kind soul with a great eye for all things eclectic. While I can't run off to Woodstock like she did or hitchhike all over the world (student loans and a fear of no showers), I'm happy to live vicariously in her books.

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