Sonu Blog

Curl Up With Some Colorful Reading This Weekend

I just wanted to share a couple of things with you!  Check out the following links for a few articles that I was fortunate enough to be included in recently:

Washington Home and Garden's report on how to design a space for room sharing siblings and the Trends Ideas.  I don't know about you, but I certainly shared a room with my sister for years.  I'm better for the memories, both good and boisterous!

The All Business post on hot colors for 2010 includes information from several sources on color in the upcoming year.  Everyone who's heard is talking about Green in the upcoming year.  See one reporter's summation here.

Last, but not least,Trends Ideas Magazine's interview about kitchen design and color gave me a chance to get in the kitchen (theoretically, anyway).  This magazine is published out of New Zealand which is loads of fun for me since it offers me a chance to hear that gorgeous accent from the journalists!  They cover trends globally and put out issues about specific areas like kitchen, bath, etc.  Look for them at many bookstores and news shops.

Hope it inspires you to think colorful thoughts over the weekend!

John Besh's My New Orleans Gets to the Heart of the Meal

If you're anything like me, you savor every detail of a recipe.  You consume every angle of a dish and it's sumptuous colors and textures.  Your pulse races at the idea of creating a beautiful, delicious meal for friends and family.  I've come across a book that's as passionate about it's subject of food.  Chef John Besh's My New Orleans is a true cooking bible that has been lauded as "an act of soul" by musician Wynton Marsalis and complimented by Chef Mario Batali as having "captured the true, sweet, and honest voice" of New Orleans.  

Three hundred and seventy four pages with 200 authentic recipes, captivating stories, and gorgeous photos that will steal your heart and make you want to visit New Orleans, too!  Dorothy Kalins, founding editor of both Saveur and Metropolitan Home Magazine (wow), worked with John on this labor of love and was kind enough to share her perspective with me here. 

I am so inspired by this book because, like good design, it defines a time and place.  It brings you to John's hometown and paints a real story of what it's like to be from such a culturally diverse city.  My thoughts go immediately to the inspiration of color from such a rooted place.  Though we often only consider the colors of Mardis Gras when we think of New Orleans, there are layers of colors that really define this city.  Could the inspiration for decor have come from the local food?

 

I'm feasting my eyes on the colors in the book and getting colorful ideas for decor. What colors say New Orleans? 

  
 If you'd like to see photos by Nick Harris from our video shoot, see Nick's Gallery on Flickr

 

The palette could include the soft fluid colors of the air and water there or the ink-like figs and blackberries?  Perhaps the pearlescent oysters and steely blue crabs or the saturated palette of Mardi Gras?  The brilliant color of natural spices must be mixed in there somewhere!  In the end, maybe it's the harmonious balance of all  these colors as they're woven together by natives of New Orleans with confidence and style. 

 

The best part is that John's book is donating part of proceeds to Cafe Reconcile, a New Orleans-based non-profit that focuses on at-risk youth and teaching them skills needed to work in hospitality and restaurant industries. 

 

Kudos to John and Dorothy for capturing all this in full color with My New Orleans-- Bon appetite, y'all!

Garden Color

A few weeks ago, I started looking into fun ways to approach gardening and landscaping.  I found a fantastic guide to landscaping from Sunset Books called 365 Days of Garden Color.  This 672 page book isn't just a really good paperweight; it's full of ideas on landscaping based on style and color preferences that work in specific US and some Canadian regions. 

It's a good start for someone like me who loves the end result, but has no clue where to start.  Hundreds of shrubs, trees, and flowering plants are outlined in this book in great detail from ideal care right down to the space it requires to thrive.  With the images of each one and the hand sketches of suggested gardens, I'm hoping to create some bloom for next year.

I also went to their site, www.sunset.com/garden/, where they share great ideas and tip year round, too.  What are some other ways to go about learning to landscape?  Do you have a favorite site or source you can share?