List 46

Love: Miette's Rose Geranium Macaroons. My friend John Q insisted I try one and it was lovely. I instantly wanted to buy a dozen to serve as the finale to a Spring dinner party. Maybe proceeded by this recipe for Asparagus, Leek and Morel Lasagna, baked in individual dishes.

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Lasagna-with-Asparagus-Leeks-and-Morels-358231

Like: Bar Agricole's Long Rhum Buck with ginger and lime, which tastes as bright as Spring.

Discovery: "I Wish You Love" is an equal parts pretty and sad song about letting someone go. Its lyrics span the seasons, beginning with "I wish you bluebirds in the Spring to give your heart a song to sing..." Keely Smith recorded the original in 1957, but it's been done by loads of people, from Sinatra to Dusty Springfield and a hundred vocalists in between. Rachel Yamagata's 2005 version is a modern take on the standard.

Obsession: Flowering tree branches. I love seeing all the tall metal buckets at flower stands filled with branches dotted with pink, yellow and white flowers this time of year. If it didn't cost an arm and a leg to fill up a vase, I'd want to have a massive branch arrangement in our house every week during Spring.

Complaint: Most Falls I pledge to plant flower bulbs in Winter so come Spring I'll have my own garden from which to cut flowers for the house. And most Springs arrive with my having never gotten around to it. This year, again, my garden is sans tulips.

List 45

Love: Plum, Daniel Patterson's newish spot in Oakland. It's a study in approachable artfulness. The interior is warm and inviting, and the food is delicious - high end, yet never stuffy (and organized into categories like snacks, starters, vegetables, animals and desserts). Go with four people so you can sample the whole menu.

Like: Pillows from Jonathan Adler - especially his modern take on old grandma needlepoint pillows. I particularly like his British Flag pillow and his one for Flint, Michigan (which is where my Mom grew up).

Discovery: Pickle-brined chicken. I tried this recipe last year for the first time and loved the super simple brine idea, which imparted an interesting, but not overpowering, flavor to the chicken.

http://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/pickle-brined-chicken

Obsession: Painting walls and floors black. This hasn't made the jump from thought into action yet, but I'm considering trying one wall in our bedroom (which is similar to the walls in the first room below). And perhaps the floor in the backyard guest studio will be an old salvaged wood floor painted black instead of a new grey hardwood floor, as originally planned.

Complaint: The Permit process at the City of Berkeley has pushed back the start of our backyard construction project by 8 months. But we're finally starting in a week. This is a before shot of our all-but-falling-down garage. By mid-summer, it should be replaced by studio with French doors to the garden.

List 44

Love: Listening to my old records on our new record player. It brings back a lot of memories of a time when pretty much 90% of the music I loved was from the U.K.

Like: Never Let Me Go. Last week I read the book, by Kazuo Ishiguro, and then watched the film. I guess the story would be characterized as literary science fiction, although it's very much a quietly observed character piece. It's set in the recent past (the 1970s-early 90s), and takes place in England. And while the film adaptation trimmed some of the book's details, both versions are ultimately haunting and touch upon fundamental questions of humanity. One reviewer of the book summed up its affect nicely: "Only after closing the book do you absorb the magnitude of what his characters endure."

Discovery: We recently had the good fortune, courtesy of our friends Gareth and Clare, to experience a proper English Sunday lunch. (Or linner? Drunch? Not sure what to call it when you eat at 4pm.) Apparently, lard is the key to brilliant roasted potatoes. Not pictured but definitely present: the requisite yorkshire puddings.

Obsession: Mr. Darcy. Sigh. Pride & Prejudice is such the boringly obvious girl thing to love, but I cannot help it. The book is an annual read, and both the 1995 BBC series and the more recent film bring the story (and the man) to life in very satisfying ways.

Complaint: My impatience for my Mini Countryman to arrive. It's currently on a boat crossing the Atlantic. Three more weeks to go. Bollocks.

List 43

Love: Old-school animal masks. They were a staple in every store leading up to Halloween when I was a kid, and are part of a wonderful sequence in Breakfast at Tiffany's. The buyer for Oakland's Rockridge Kids seeks out vintage-y things and found some recently. I put them up on the wall of Stella's room - a kid's version of a line of trophy animal heads.

Like: Pink is not my color by a long shot, but I was able to find one pink paint I like when Stella begged for a pink bedroom: Serena & Lily's Punch, which looks a lot like the pink in the Tennenbaum house, as you can see if you compare the mask picture above with Richie's gallery below.

Discovery: The New York Review Children's Collection - a small imprint that reissues classic books that never should have fallen out of print. The books look beautiful (hardcovers with red spines) and the stories are wonderful. Take, for example, the 1940s Jenny Linsky series, about a black cat with a red scarf who lives with her retired Sea Captain master in Greenwich Village and joins The Cat Club, whose members include Mr. President and Concertina.

Obsession: "Yay! Breakfast dinner!" is the marketing spin we put on nights when we get home from work with too little time or energy to cook a proper dinner. But when this means an egg sandwich, there's no shame in the game. Acme bread, a fried egg, some proscuitto, a few shavings of parmesan, arugula and a dollop of pesto and voila.

Complaint: Why have Legos gotten so complicated? You should just start with a box of different sized and colored blocks and build whatever you imagine. I don't mind the character figures, but all these new sets, with their detailed instructions to create a particular model, seem to suck the joy out of it. (Although I will admit that the Architecture series is kind of cool.)