TUESDAYS TEXTURE 081611

Moss growing on a palm tree trunk.

SUNSET SUNDAY 081411

TUESDAYS TEXTURE 080211

Fishtail Palm

TUESDAYS TEXTURE 072611

Begonia

SUNSET SUNDAY 072411

TUESDAY TEXTURE 071911

LETTUCE AND ARUGULA

SUNSET SUNDAY 071711

TUESDAYS TEXTURE 071211

Variegated Fern

SUNSET SUNDAY 071011

SPICED RIGHT

A few weeks ago I realized we had no good spices to make a curry, so I went on a major spice shopping spree. John and I always loved getting the banana chicken curry from RICE in NY and since we had plenty bananas on hand I decided to try a banana curry of my own. I found a few recipes I combined and came up with this. The only thing that I think was wrong with it was the brand of coconut milk we get… CHAOKOH. We buy a case of it from Costco and it has a bit of a strange flavor to me. It tends to not stay as creamy as the brand I prefer… THAI KITCHEN and I will start buying that from now on.


1 tablespoon olive oil
2 carrots, peeled and sliced,
2 mini red peppers
2 mini yellow peppers
2 mini orange peppers
(you can use all one color if you cannot find mini's.)
1/2 cup frozen peas
1/4 cup diced pineapple
1 medium onion cut into 1/2 wedges
1 sliced banana
2 boneless chicken breasts
2  cardamom seeds

For the sauce:
2 bananas
3/4 cup coconut milk
2 teaspoon curry powder
1 teaspoon garam masala
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon ginger powder
coarse salt and pepper to taste
1 tablespoons chopped cilantro

Basmati or Jasmine rice

- In a food processor or blender, add banana, coconut milk, curry powder, garam masala, cinnamon, cayenne pepper and ginger and process until smooth.

- Preheat oven to 425ºF. Lay 4 large pieces of aluminum foil on a work surface, placing 2 on top of each other in a + pattern. Place one sheet of parchment paper on top of each

- Toss vegetables in olive oil and place half of the vegetables in center of each parchment paper Smash the cardamom seeds and place one on top of each vegetable pile. Top with 1 chicken breast. Season chicken with salt and black pepper.

You can see the smashed cardamom seed in the center on the bottom image.

The sauce mixture in the food processor.

- Pour banana-coconut milk mixture over each chicken breast, dividing evenly.

- Seal foil/parchment packets by bringing together 2 opposite edges and folding them down together. Place packets on a rimmed baking sheet and cook in oven for 30 to 40 minutes.

- Let cool a few minutes before opening.

- Carefully open foil packets. Place rice in bottom of serving bowl and spoon packet contents on top. Garnish with cilantro.

SUNSET SUNDAY 070411

Today my not be Sunday, but it is a holiday which makes it feel like a Sunday. Here are some sunsets from the last 2 weeks. Sorry we have been missing in action, but we have a really good excuse... we promise. More on that later.

TUESDAY'S TEXTURE 062111

White marble tombstone covered with black lichen.

INK TO PAPER

I was gathering up printed materials for clients over the passed year and decided to post it all as one. After working in the digital ether for most of my days, it's a welcome change when a client comes to me with a print project. Seeing the ink on paper and holding the finished product in our hands lets us experience how our designs fit in the physical world.

I have more print jobs happening at the moment, but hopefully it won't be another year before they see themselves featured in the halls of CFC.

Client: Green Room  
Project: Thank You Cards  
Printer: GreenerPrinter  
Dimensions: 2.5 x 2.5 inches

Client: Reverend Catherine Paretti
Project: Business Card
Printer: PrintingForLess
Dimensions: 2.5 x 3 inches

Client: M. Sutherland Fine Arts, Ltd
Project: Gallery show and opening invite
Printer: PrintingForLess
Dimensions: 5 x 7 inches

Client: Island Endodontics
Project: Log design, stationary and business cards
Printer: GreenerPrinter
Dimensions: 3 x 2.5 inches, 8.5 x 11 inches, #10 envelope

TUESDAY'S TEXTURE 061411

CYMBIDIUM ORCHID PETAL

GRAYSCALE

The business card.

I recently had the pleasure and opportunity to work with a former colleague again, Josh Geurtsen,  on his new logo, website and business cards. Josh, a licensed Interior Designer, and I worked together at TODD OLDHAM STUDIO for about 11 years. Although we shared the same office space for several years, we never really got to collaborate much until Todd had his Todd Oldham by La-Z-Boy collection. Josh would work on the actual furniture frames and styles while I myself focused on the textiles and accessories.

In early 2010, Josh and his family bid a fond farewell to NYC and relocated to the San Francisco Bay area. The formation of JOSH GEURTSEN DESIGN in May 2010 marked the beginning of a new phase in his lifelong pursuit of creating and transforming spaces that are unique in character and harmonious with the world around them.

Now that Josh has several of his own design projects completed and several in the works, it was time to put together the website we had been discussing for the past year. In our initial discussions, Josh mentioned he wanted something clean, black, white and gray using the font Futura.

With that in mind, I developed this site with clean, gray blocks of "color" which were to represent steel beams that intersected at certain points. I also wanted it to look somewhat like, but not entirely like a blueprint or plan view of a room. When you look at the galleries, the images sit on a white background with white blocks identifying the name of the section and gallery you are in. It was my intention to make these white blocks look like hallways or corridors that lead you to the next space. It was a great and seamless collaboration that took less than 40 hours to complete on my end. I made a template for Josh to put his images in so that they would all be the same size and would be guaranteed to fit in the site. By doing so it saved time and $$ on the production.  It's always nice to get to collaborate with the client who has a specific vision of what they want to see as with Josh, who created his own collages for the ABOUT and CONNECT pages.

Up next is another gallery site for a good friend and several new logos... stay tuned.

TUESDAY'S TEXTURE 060711

GRASS IN SIDEWALK CRACK

SUNSET SUNDAY 060411

TUESDAY'S TEXTURE 053111

DANDELION SEED POUF

SUNSET SUNDAY 052611

SUNSET SUNDAY 052311

Thanks for sticking with us as we know it's been over a month since our last post. A few things came up that have kept us from keeping on track... but we're back and ready to go. So sit back and enjoy a bit of aloha with these sunset images from the past week.