Dan Weise at Open Space Gallery

One of my favorite galleries in my hometown, is Open Space. They focus on street art and are completely entrenched in this world. And trust me, for those of you unfamiliar, it is a unique society all on its own.

A week ago, co-owner Dan Weise opened a show of his own personal work. Dan's work often includes fantastical cityscapes and a unique group of characters whose unique identifier is being square with rounded corners.

Dan sold a lot of work and the refrigerator magnets were a hit! They actually salvaged a fridge door to display them.

Beef Stew-My First Beef Dish EVER!

I went to the Beacon farmer's market this morning looking for some locally grown meat. I discovered Walnut Grove Farms . As former pseudo vegetarian, I asked for some help and the purveyor gave me a basic recipe to follow.

I used the ingredients pictured below:

A bunch of garlic, onion and stew beef, root vegetables and herbs of your choice. Here's the deal:

1. Cut up your root veggies. Here, I sliced carrots and cubed potatoes and turnips.

2. Toss these in the crock pot.

3. Toss your herbs in too. Bay leaf, parsely, thyme, rosemary anything you like.

4. Put a couple of tablespoons of olive oil in a pan get it nice and hot. Brown your beef with garlic and onion. Salt the whole damn thing and dump it in the crock pot. You can even deglaze the pan with wine. Which leads me to mention, that you can add wine to the pot to provide liquid for everything to cook in.

5. Here's where I ran into trouble. My stew was more like ingredients in flavored water. So I quickly made a roux of butter and flour and added some balsamic vinegar and water. I let it cook down and dumped that in to thicken the mix.

In the end. I wound up with a tasty and healthy meal that I served in bowls over wild rice. It needed a lot more salt than I thought, so I added it at the end. (Pepper too!) However, I recommend figuring out how to make your stew sauce thick before hand.

A Neighborhood in Reno, Nevada

The neighborhood my friend lives in is the most eclectic collection of houses I had ever seen. I grew up in East Meadow, NY which is a stone’s throw from Levittown, the epitome of sameness, making this neighborhood even more exciting. To me, It was like a bizarre movie set. All the houses are small and quaint and each one is truly unique.

I love these because they made me feel like they were someone's fantasy:

Now get ready for the real style mashup:

Mod

Craftsmen gone wild!

A Tim Burton slant on the average wood fence.

Giant Sequoias; probably because the homeowner loved Sequoias, so they planted Sequoias.

The original owner must have loved Gothic.

And spent 65% of their building budget on this window.

Spanish Mission style.

No idea, but love it.

Vikingsholm-A Summer Retreat on Lake Tahoe

Lake Tahoe, it has to be one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been. You climb quickly to a high elevation and when you start your descent on the other side, this massive body of water surrounded by pine trees comes into view. It’s so big it looks like an ocean in the middle of the mountains.

In 1928 Mrs. Lora J. Knight built a summer house right on Emerald Bay. This is no ordinary structure. Knight, in love with Nordic architecture, modeled her home after her favorites in Scandinavia. She actually spent a considerable amount of time in the region, studying the vernacular style and noting her favorite qualities.

Many workers, 250 of them, did all the work on-site. All the incredible details, from the tapered beams down to the wood carvings and hinges for the doors were all done by hand, right there. Almost all of the materials came from the Tahoe Basin. Even the granite was quarried from right behind the house.

Complete with sod roof (which grows wild flowers!), wood carvings, painted ceilings and studded doors, I present to you, Vikingsholm.





A View of Emerald Bay-The purchase of this property included the only island in Lake Tahoe. Knight built a teahouse on it. Her daily tea ritual would sometimes take place there.