on early summer and sweets at breakfast

  

well hello

happy summer!

::::::::::::::


i like sweets for breakfast 

more than at any other meal in fact.

it's a habit i picked up 

in my apprenticeship days.

an assigned task

that led to a lasting affection.

 

back then
when we were finished 

baking the breakfast pastries

and set to start on afternoon tea

we'd stop for morning coffee.

i was the newest on the team then

 and it was my job to sort our break.

it was easy to remember,
it was always the same.

day after day, morning after morning
chocolate and butter sandwiches 

and small cups of coffee.

i'd take warm white buns

straight from the rack,
the kind with little hats on top.

i'd rip them horizontally

and place a thick slice 

of cold unsalted butter inside

atop that, two chocolate batons.

and i'll tell you what,

it was delicious

ALL CAPS DELICIOUS EVEN.

we'd stand to eat them

rushed by the clock ticking,

eager to get on with our day.

it's a memory akin to
the one i talk about here.

it was a little bit of perfection for my then, twenty year old self.

with that though, let's get back to today.



i like early summer almost as much as i like sweets at breakfast.
i like the start to the season.





i'm particularly taken with 
the colours of roses
and the round heavy of peonies.


i like other people's gardens
their pretty scents

and their look-at-me beautiful.




i'm fascinated with how
trees turn from willowy silhouettes,
to tall kind of, minarets of green.




i like how grass,
that seemingly days before
wasn't there
now stands 
near four feet tall.


i like that along the train tracks

beside the place where i sometimes live

there's a strip of wild like that.
apparently one day bare 

then the next all sorts of green.


 there's a perfect spot for my table there

alongside a white bush that blooms.

and you know what
there's a special kind of beauty 
in watching the 

city wake up from that place.

sheltered in that little spot of green

right in the centre and untended of it all,

yet right in the middle of the city.

there's magic in that

magic in eating sweets for breakfast there. 

magic in the company 

i keep there.

toodles friends.
xo, n 

photos: michael graydon 

props & styling: me

:::::

+

a story about HG in the latest issue 

of anthology magazine

you can purchase a copy here

+

a new collaboration with my good friend

tara of seven spoons.

find out more here.

eeep! 

+
birthday wishes to my sweet and super talented friend celine today!

+
if all goes well, we'll be updating HG on monday.

::::::::::::::

this scarf

brian's italy photos.

the colours in this post

this ice cream sandwich

this necklace (via)

these slip ons

this lion 
this green in sorrento

these pots

this little guy

this place

this project

this nan in the making

this swing

this cake stand

:::::::






PS:

curious about the recipe?

i'll be including more recipes here soon 

but for now, here's

a quick run down of my process.

the pavlova we ate that morning 

was one made with a recipe really

similar to this one. 

it had brown sugar plus white 

and was topped with a tart grapefruit moussaline.

(that's about 50% curd and 50% whipped cream give or take)

we topped that with early summer fruits

macerated in a tiny bit of homemade raspberry jam, 

vanilla bean, water and lemon zest

that we let stand in a covered bottle for just over an hour.

:::