by Sam Tackeff | Dec 5, 2011 | Restaurants, Tea
Tea Project #1
MEM Organic Earl Grey (pot, $2.95)
South End Buttery, South End, Boston
Here’s the thing. Sometimes, when you have a grand idea for a project that will make you happier, and you haven’t quite figured out all the details, you just start. And see what happens. You shouldn’t wait on the things that will make your heart soar. I have this plan, to taste 500 different types of tea – and to share the experience, the tea, the moment, the people, the places, and what I’m reading – and this is the start of the project.
I was at Lekker, in the South End, buying a tea pot, naturally, and solicited advice for where I could find a good cup of tea. Mara, the kind shopkeep, recommended South End Buttery. I had not been there, so I headed off for my first “official” cup of tea.
I took notes that looked like this:
South End Buttery. MEM Tea Imports. Organic Earl Grey, served in a metal tea pot, on a marble bar. Paired with turkey chili (which ended up being a very good hearty vegetarian chili, a fortuitous error), even on such an un-seasonally warm day at the end of November. Soundtrack: Lena Horne. Wait, make that Lena Horne, and then what can only be described as music that sounds similar to the Queer as Folk soundtrack. Glam pop? Crowd: Young, old, mostly hip South End crowd. I don’t think I’ve ever been more jealous of the variety of fall jackets. Dog friendly! They have dog treats at the door.
A remarkably small amount of Apple Macintosh Computers. As in, yes, I do believe I was the only one.
What I like about Earl Grey: It’s my favorite type of tea. Black tea, flavoured with bergamot oil (a type of citrus fruit). Maybe it was a mistake starting out with my favorite type of tea, so early in my project. But, I’m going to go ahead and say that I can drink different brands of the same tea. You wouldn’t limit yourself to one bottle of Riesling, why do the same with tea?
{What I was reading:}
Design*Sponge. They have this really great series of “Sneak Peeks“, where they showcase the homes of creative people of all disciplines.
My notes from TEDxCambridge. Still working on getting those typed up.
This article about how Twitter helps a small business thrive. (I’d like to think I had a small hand in that one – it’s all about Celia using Twitter at Omnivore!)
Thanks to this lovely post about breakfast at bigBang studio – re-discovering the WGBH Streaming Classical Radio Player. (Warning, it starts playing nearly immediately if you click).
Food in Jars. Just what it sounds like. This happens to be one of my favorite topics. See : Strawberry Cheesecake in a Jar. I’m also happy to say that my back-ordered shipment of Weck Jars from Heath came in the mail last week, and I’m in love.
The websites of two small bakeries in the Bay Area making me hungry from afar: Marge Bakery and Starter Bakery. Both are wonderful choices for holiday treats.
Well, that’s it for now. We’ll see how this all shapes up.
by Sam Tackeff | Dec 2, 2011 | Blogging, Tea
(Coveted Teapot via Heath Ceramics)
“The answer, I believe, is identifying the things you love (particularly the little things) and seeking to experience them each and every day.”
A friend of mine emailed me a few days ago to let me know that she really liked this quote I had written. I was completely flattered, but also a little bit surprised because I didn’t remember writing it – sometimes the words just end up on the page – but sure enough, there it was, and it was a nice thought to savor this week.
And so, here, I’d like to introduce to you a little project I’m embarking on. While working on my life list, of the big and small things I want to do and accomplish and learn, one of my happy topics was tea. I love tea, I drink a lot of it. I love the moments that surround tea drinking, and tea culture. With tea, I’m calm and peaceful, creative, and sometimes challenged. So I decided to add tea to my list, 500 unique moments with tea, and I’m going to try to share as many as I can here with you.
There is something so wonderful about starting a new passion project, and adding a new sense of purpose to your life, and finding a new lens through which to look at the world. I’ve been having fun shaping this adventure – and I think it’s going to take on a life of its own as it goes along.
In designing this project, I wrote out a series of questions, and I think I’d like to share them with you, in hopes that maybe this inspires you to take on a project of your own. For this part of the process I really wanted to put ideas out there, without any intention of answering them (yet). I find this is a good exercise to start any type of project.
- What is this project really about? Is it about tea? Is it about people? Places? Solitary moments? Shared moments? Moments where I feel alive?
- How do I best communicate this project? Public vs. Private?
- Do I want to take 500 pictures of tea? (Yes.) How can I make these pictures tell a story?
- What do I want to write about? How do I organize my thoughts to share? How much, or how little can I share?
- What type of consistency am I looking for? One cup a week? One cup a day? Should I have a schedule? Do tea tastings count?
- What books do I want to read about tea?
- What are the greater themes that relate to tea?
- How much depth do I want to give to this project?
- Does this stay on The Second Lunch? Do I dedicate a website to the project?
- How can I subsidize the project?
- What if I decide that I really want to have 500 cups of coffee? (This could have easily been five hundred types of cheese, another passion of mine, but that got nixed because 500 one ounce pieces of cheese could easily translate into 14 pounds in the long run. Tea is a little more up my alley.)
- How long will this take? Is five hundred unique cups of tea enough? Can I double up? 500 blends of tea? Am I going to have to drink 1000 different types of tea? (aka.. will this spiral out of control).
- What do I want to get out of this at the end? Is the visual record enough? Is there a book in the making?
- What type of expertise am I trying to gain? Is this about savoring the experience? Cataloguing data? Keeping score? How do I make sure that I keep this enjoyable?
- Am I allowed to quit?
And so here is where you come in: I’d love to solicit ideas to help me shape this project. Make it better. Make it more fulfilling for me (and for you). Do you have your own passion project? (Share a link here if you’d like!) I wholeheartedly welcome (and encourage) comments, or emails (sam at thesecondlunch.com) to help strategize. You will be thanked profusely, and who knows, maybe get something out of it in the long run.
by Sam Tackeff | Nov 22, 2011 | Random
This is the window in my bedroom, and outside you see the frigid weather we woke up to three weeks ago. So cold, that the windows were fogging up. Fortunately (aside from that freak snowstorm), we have had a bit of reprieve. The snow melted. Maybe because I refused to take any pictures of it, or acknowledge it at all, it went away. Please just let me continue on with that fantasy.
Today, I want to share with you some photos that I’ve taken on my phone over the past few weeks. New England has been bracing itself for winter. We had a brief scare a few weeks ago, but I think most of us agree that we’d prefer to wait for a bit before another blizzard comes along.
We’ve been preparing. Gloves have been purchased (and one mysteriously lost already), and the coats have been taken out of storage. The heat has come on. We have these old radiators that clang and hiss and sound like tea pots. In fact, they sound so much like tea pots, that I routinely find myself running to the kitchen to turn off the burner. This has happened more than a half dozen times.
Even though fall is my favorite season, the quick descent into winter can be stressful, so I try my best to stay active and aware of my surroundings to ward off seasonal blues. Lately, I’ve been taking long walks in the afternoon, listening to RadioLab, from the beginning of season one. Even when I’m having the worst morning, the second I put in my headphones and get moving, things start looking up.
I don’t usually carry my camera with me when I go for long walks, but I do make a point to take photos with my phone. I love that I can capture moments and feelings on a whim, on the device that is always in my pocket. Here are some of my favorites:
1. Halloween in small town New Hampshire has some definite perks. I wasn’t there to trick or treat this year, but I’m sure sorry I missed it. The neighborhood has some hard core celebrators – my favorite being the orthodontist who has a police detail because he hands out super size candy bars. Dan Brown also lives down the road, and puts up a pretty good Halloween scene at the end of his half mile long driveway. Last year it was a graveyard for writers.
And here’s one of the gleeful pumpkin ghouls that popped up all over Portsmouth. This one was in front of our synagogue, screaming out Mazel Tov! Or maybe dancing the Hora? Who knows?
2. Another moment I felt the need to capture was this unicorn birthday party I attended. It also happened to be the birthday party of Raquel, my current favorite kindergartner. Her mom Ruthie is good friends with my mom, and I’ve been pretty lucky to spend time with them since moving back East.
Raquel is brilliant, and quite precocious. She’s a firecracker, and I can’t wait to see her grow up. But for now, I’m enjoying spending time with her at soccer games, and festive occasions like this one. Kids are pretty awesome.
3. I’ve been stumbling across plants that are unwilling to give up for the season. They make me smile every time. I’ve been taking a lot of pictures of my neighborhood, and am constantly surprised at the leaves, plants, and flowers that refuse to die even though the temperature has dipped down into the forties, and probably for good.
I’d also like to note that half of the time my phone captures better macro shots than my camera.
4. This is Hubble, my beloved cousin-dog. He’s a teenager – in human years – so life happens a little bit slower nowadays. In an episode of RadioLab I listened to yesterday, Jad and Robert were discussing how time likely exists at different rates for different animals. Think about how the hummingbird experiences time, versus the time sensation of a whale. Hubble was an energetic puppy, but now he spends most of his life relaxing, and I’m pretty sure that time has slowed down for him. Although, here he is on the kitchen floor, and don’t let the posture fool you, he’ll still jump up for handouts and crumbs.
5. And some more flora, still hanging on. I love these papery husks despite the fact that they look like the wings of moths. Random factoid: I’m actually terrified of butterflies and moths. I sat on one as a child, which started a mortal fear that has lasted for decades. It has gotten better over time, but I once had a legitimate panic attack on a Bloomingdales escalator due to an installation of fake white hanging butterflies. No fun, no sir-ee-bob. I’ve learned to appreciate them from afar, but they still make my adrenaline surge. Sigh.
6. And now, let the festivities begin! I’ve been watching in amusement as people have been going over to select their birds from the plastic wrapped rows at the market. It’s a different ballgame out here, and I sort of miss watching the line wrapped around Drewes’ in Noe Valley. And can I say it? I don’t really even like Turkey… well, maybe the next day in a big pot of Maneshewitz Lima Bean Soup with Barley… but I could probably do without the bird entirely. Blasphemy!
