Things I've Been Loving

There have been a few things I've been loving lately, whether it be an album, an inspiring t.v. show, the occasional book (I'm a notoriously bad reader, but I'm trying), lyrics, or even a tool in my shop.

Anthony Bourdain.  I love this guy.  He's anthropologie meets food and I can't get enough of his show "No Reservations".  I started watching him a few years ago and have been hooked ever since.  I read his book "Kitchen Confidential" and really enjoyed that.  My most recent favorite episode was one featuring a restaraunt in Spain called El Bulli (the Bull) in it's last days being opened to the public.  The place was run by chef Ferran Adria and focused on a menu that did things with food people have never imagined.  I would love to try and explain the food, but I can't!  It's so new, so something you've never seen, so something you won't see anywhere else...and they closed it.   But this is where it got inspiring.  Chef Ferran closed the place because he wants to reopen it in a few years as a creative center.  A place where people can come and try new things with food.  A place where not only chefs are welcome but architects, writers, teachers, thinkers, musicians, builders, painters, and whoever else that wants to blaze a new trail is welcomed too.  He doesn't want to look at food the same way anymore.  He wants to expand the boundaries and find new worlds.  I love it!!  Anthony's episode that featured this place ended with a man who learned under Chef Ferran saying..."I came here with no spirit, and left with a soul."  It was beautiful.

Other things in the "I've Been Loving" category are Paul Simon's new album "So Beautiful or So What", the expanding vocabulary of my daughter (she's now saying "this, this", "hi!", "flowa" (or flower), and a few others...love it!  And lastly, really been digging my chisel.

So Beautiful or So What

I’m going to make a chicken gumbo
Toss some sausage in the pot
I’m going to flavor it with okra
Cayenne pepper to make it hot
You know life is what we make of it
So beautiful or so what

I’m going to tell my kids a bedtime story
A play without a plot
Will it have a happy ending?
Maybe yeah, maybe not
I tell them life is what you make of it
So beautiful or so what

So beautiful
So beautiful
So what

I’m just a raindrop in a bucket
A coin dropped in a slot
I am an empty house on Weed Street
Across the road from the vacant lot
You know life is what you make of it
So beautiful or so what

Ain’t it strange the way we’re ignorant
How we seek out bad advice
How we jigger it and figure it
Mistaking value for the price
And play a game with time and love
Like a pair of rolling dice
So beautiful
So beautiful
So what

Four men on the balcony
Overlooking the parking lot
Pointing at a figure in the distance
Dr. King has just been shot
And the sirens long melody
Singing Savior Pass Me Not

Ain’t it strange the way we’re ignorant
How we seek out bad advice
How we jigger it and figure it
Mistaking value for the price
And play a game with time and love
Like a pair of rolling dice
So beautiful
So beautiful
So beautiful

Lastly, two books.

1.  The Cathedral Within.  This book focuses on social entrepreneurship which is the field which Harp Design Co could be considered in.  The book talks about the ancient cathedral builders and the lessons we can learn from them.  So Inspiring!!

2.  Zen Way, Jesus Way.  This one is on the way and I can't wait!!  It was written by my great uncle, Tucker Callaway!  I just learned about it actually from my cousin Michael (his blog is bullarkey).  I've known my great uncle was a missionary in Asia for years and years but I didn't know he wrote a book comparing Zen Buddhism and Christianity.  He actually practiced Zen Buddhism for the book!  I'm so proud to have a great uncle who had the courage to expand his boundaries and explore what others in his world could easily just write off as stupid or heretical or just plain bad.  As a Baptist missionary he really could've gotten in trouble for the book, and maybe did, I don't know...but he did it.  I haven't read it yet, and I don't know what to expect but I don't care.  I'm just glad to know of another explorer in my family tree (there are quite a few of us I'm learning : )

  

Have a wonderful Tuesday.