far

"Leaving home and loving home don't have to be at odds with one another. Despite what our grandmothers' rib-cracking hugs lead us to believe, our families never intended to keep us-only to   make and teach us, and to love us enough to let us go...

...our secure base is our people, not a location. Those relationships can stand firm among the zigzagging, sling-shotting trajectory of our nomadic lives."

-- Kelsey Snell (for Kinfolk Magazine)

lean on me

Photographs by Bertil Nilsson for Kinfolk Magazine

family

"A family is a network of people who care for each other. 

You can be born into one or build your own. It can contain hundreds or two. Real family values have nothing to do with where we live or how we know each other -  they're about how we treat each other. "

-- Nathan Williams and Georgia Frances King
Kinfolk, The Family Issue

Essential

"Deciding what is essential in our lives isn't about paring back our belongings and forgoing our beloved but unnecessary frivolities: Instead of determining how little we can live with, it's about working out what we simply can't live without."

-- Kinfolk Magazine/The Essential Issue.

Recipe: Natural Home Cleaning

All-Purpose Cleaner
1/2 cup vinegar
1/4 cup baking soda (or 2 teaspoons Borax)
1/2 gallon (2 liters) water
Mix all ingredients into water in bucket. Store and keep in spray bottles.

Tough Scrub
1 cup baking soda
1/4 cup salt
10 drops citrus essential oil
5 drops tea tree essential oil
Combine all the ingredients and store in an airtight tub.

Dusting Spray
1 cup distilled water
3 drops essential oils
Combine in a spray bottle and use with a cotton cloth.

Degreaser
1/2 cup lemon juice
1/4 cup baking soda
5 to 10 drops citrus essential oils
Combine to make a paste and use a damp cloth to wipe off.

Glass Cleaner
1/2 cup white vinegar
1 gallon warm water
2 tablespoons lemon juice
Mix in bucket, store solution in spray bottles.

All found via Kinfolk. The glass cleaner is a gem!
(image by me)

Recipe: stuffed salt and vinegar potato skins

This is sooooooooooo tasty (and simple!) check out the recipe over at Kinfolk.com.

Recipe: Cardamom Coffee

Cardamon Coffee
By Diana Yen, author of A Simple Feast: A Year of Stories & Recipes to Savor & Share  for Kinfolk.


Adding spices and a pinch of salt to my morning coffee pot is a habit I developed after drinking a delicious spiced Turkish coffee that accompanied a flaky baklava dessert. This recipe makes a delicious cup of joe to enjoy in the early hours, but it also serves as a lovely sip after dinner. I chose to use cardamom for its aroma and slight smokiness, but you can play around with any spice that inspires you. Ground cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and star anise would also be wonderful.

Tools
Stovetop espresso coffee maker or French press

Ingredients
Ground coffee beans
1 cardamom pod (cracked) per cup of coffee
Salt
Milk
Sugar

Method
In an espresso coffee maker or French press, brew your coffee as usual, adding a cracked cardamom pod and pinch of salt per cup to the ground coffee before brewing. Add milk and sugar to your liking. The end result should be smooth with a floral spiced aroma.

Nice little detail!

Recipe: Cardamom Coffee

Adding spices and a pinch of salt to my morning coffee pot is a habit I developed after drinking a delicious spiced Turkish coffee that accompanied a flaky baklava dessert. This recipe makes a delicious cup of joe to enjoy in the early hours, but it also serves as a lovely sip after dinner. I chose to use cardamom for its aroma and slight smokiness, but you can play around with any spice that inspires you. Ground cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and star anise would also be wonderful.

Tools
Stovetop espresso coffee maker or French press
Ingredients
Ground coffee beans
1 cardamom pod (cracked) per cup of coffee
Salt
Milk
Sugar
Method
In an espresso coffee maker or French press, brew your coffee as usual, adding a cracked cardamom pod and pinch of salt per cup to the ground coffee before brewing. Add milk and sugar to your liking. The end result should be smooth with a floral spiced aroma.

Recipe from A Simple Feast: A Year of Stories & Recipes to Savor & Share by Diana Yen & the Jewels of New York via Kinfolk

the case for crying

"Salty tears have a communicative power beyond words and reason. But what happens when the waterworks are nothing but crocodile tears, caused by exhaustion, frustration or even a stubborn onion? 

In Roman times, when their husbands went to sea, sailors’ wives used to keep “tear bottles” to capture their watery woe. When the sailors returned, they could literally measure how much their wives had really missed them: It was a pretty, albeit controlling, idea. But what was to stop the women from filling the jar with the seawater their loves had sailed away on? It’s as salty as tears, and it would certainly withstand a taste test.

People don’t have to be sad to cry. If I’d been a Roman sailor’s wife, it would’ve been an easy deceit: When I’m tired, I can cry enough to fill a whole tear bottle without the slightest tinge of sadness. After all, tears can express the whole gamut of human emotion, and most of them don’t deal with despair: They can represent ecstasy and joy right across the spectrum to fear, frustration, shock, powerlessness, anger and empathy. But it’s exhaustion that brings me to tears."

Read the rest of the essay here 
Words by Romy Ash Photograph by Anja Verdugo for Kinfolk.

Undocumented Hours

"Much of my time is spent in isolation, in the beauty of the silent, intimately tracing the ridges and ravines of my character. My time is also spent in community, where I find sacrifice and compassion, moving and charting the courses of friendships. In work also, through the wringing and gripping toil of my hands, I find contentment and confidence. But I am an introvert without a camera. I am a friend without an audience. I am a baker without a blog. The cumulative collision of my life’s meaning, the arching composition and texture that keep this heart beating, exist without any traces of documentation.

I know full well that beauty and art dwell here in these unseen places. And often, as a writer, and in a sense an artist, I feel compelled to share it, to prove that I am living an artist’s life. Snap a photo, draw up a post, compose a quippy 140 characters—all to tangibly account for the many pinnacles of my productivity and accomplishment..."

 Head over to Kinfolk to read the rest of these Words on undocumented moments by Rebecca Parker Payne  
(Photograph by Nico Alary)

A Guide to Napping

Naps are important to me, especially on days when I teach early morning through to late evening, so I loved the 'Guide to Napping like a senior' in Kinfolk Magazine this issue by Georgia Frances King.
My favourite tip includes another of my most treasured pastimes...

'The Nappaccino Drinking coffee before attempting to nod off may seem counterintuitive but recent studies have suggested it could be the perfect power nap utility. If you drink a strong cup of Joe and then take a nap immediately afterward, the caffeine will kick in after your ideal 20-minute sleepytime. This will wake you up naturally and jolt you out of a post-snooze-daze.'

From experience (I've invested alot of time getting this just right ; ) I would also recommend having a little snack before hand. After lunch is prime nap time!

I'm off to have one now....

 (image found here)

ice age

"Glaciers are simultaneously ancient while also being constantly reborn. Formations like these have sometimes been around for thousands of years, though the water they contain rejuvenates through a forever shifting process of melting, moving and refreezing. Their hunks of bright blue ice may seem immovable, but they’re actually perpetually roaming the lands they form on top of, albeit quite slowly."

Photos by Vishal Marapon

Inspiring words and photos from Kinfolk Magazine

Tunring into my Mother

"...Your mother has charted these waters before you and has learned the hard lessons. And now we are learning them, finding ourselves choosing so many of her same paths. It's partly adulthood and partly our genes taking over. There's nothing to be guilty or embarrassed about: More likely then not, your mom was cool long before cool existed, and she deserves the credit. Soon enough, I hope to have kids of my own, and I'll wear my mother prouder then I ever have. I hope I can love them with the same tenacity and grace that she loved me."

 -- Rebecca Parker Payne
(From Turning into my Mother for Kinfolk Magazine)

photo: me and my mum.

Lemon and Lime Soda

I'm addicted to this stuff....

How to make homemade yoghurt.

I really love yoghurt. It is my breakfast of choice most mornings and I was really happy to find out how to make it, it's so easy! I hope you find this recipe from Kinfolk as useful as i did...

Words by Kinfolk Team Photographs by Ali Harper Prop Styling by Ginny Branch Food Styling by Katelyn Hardwick

Follow these instructions to make your own creamy yogurt at home. 
There is plenty of discussion about dairy products these days and whether they are good or bad for you, your bones, your belly and the environment. But when it comes to yogurt, the news is generally more positive. Like many fermented foods, yogurt offers great health benefits. It sounds a bit off-putting to eat foods with live cultures, bacteria or microbial strains, but scientists seem to keep discovering that eating this fermented milk product is good for us. Of course, making your own yogurt and home takes a bit of time, but it’s so easy and cheap—plus, you will know that it isn’t loaded with processed sugar and food colorings. Use fresh fruit, nuts, granola, honey or other fun stuff to make it feel like a dessert, pour it on top of a fruit crumble for breakfast or use in place of sour cream on taco salads and other savory dishes. You may find that you only want to eat yogurt you’ve made yourself.
Ingredients
1 quart milk (full fat milk makes thicker yogurt)
1 tablespoon existing plain yogurt or powdered yogurt starter

Tools
Glass jars and lids
Thermometer
Large pot
Kitchen towels
Smaller pot (or double boiler) for heating milk
Large bowl filled with ice water for ice bath
Method
Heat up the milk until it just begins to simmer (185°F). The mixture should start to froth but not boil. If you aren’t using a double boiler, be sure to stir it to prevent scalding.
Meanwhile, fill a large bowl with ice and cold water.
Once the milk has reached 110–120°F, remove it from heat and place pot in the ice bath, but keep stirring to help cool. Milk needs to be slightly warm but not too hot.
Now, whisk in one tablespoon of store-bought yogurt for each quart of milk used. You can also add a teaspoon of white sugar to help the bacteria grow.
Pour the milk into the jars and screw on the lids.
To incubate, put the jars inside a large pot of warm tap water. Keep the temperature to as close to 100-110°F as possible.
Cover pot with lid and keep away from light. Let sit for about seven to nine hours.
Refrigerate for several hours before serving.
Note: If you like your yogurt to be thicker, dispose of the whey (the liquid on top).
Makes 1 quart