I think this photo sums it up well. The pic is from someone’s dining room (for the life of me I can’t remember when I found it), but I can see the book arrangement working just as well in an office. I really like the play between the colorful books and the spare, architectural photographs.

Today Paul-Jean and I went to an event I’d been anticipating for a while now — one of Prairie Fruit Farm‘s “dinners on the farm“. This is the third year PFF has held this dinner series, and this was our second dinner. Last year the 8-course vegetarian feast was so spectacular, I couldn’t wait for this year’s meal! Each dinner in the series is held around a theme, and tickets sell out within weeks of being posted to PFF’s website.

For non-Champaign-Urbana readers, Prairie Fruits Farm is Illinois’ first farmstead cheese making facility, which means that they milk their goats on the same farm that they make their cheese. The farm is owned and operated by Wes Jarrell and Leslie Cooperband, a couple I seriously admire. They have opened up their farm to the community through events like the dinner series and their Saturday farm breakfasts (among other things). They advocate for local foods through these events, and allow people a real glimpse into farm life — last time we were at a breakfast our friends got to see a goat give birth! (We were busy stuffing our face with frittata).

Which brings me back to the dinner. “Ode to the Tomato” featured guest chef Paul Virant from Vie Restaurant just outside of Chicago. Each dinner is open to 40 guests, who sit family-style at two long banquet tables. Dinner is from 4pm–8pm (though we finished off dessert at around 9 this evening). The evening starts with a selection of hors d’oeuvres and chocolate mint tea with honey from PFF’s apiaries. We grabbed our plates and jars of tea and wandered the gardens and visited the goats. The reception was followed by a tour of the farm by Wes, and then it was on to dinner. And my, what a dinner it was!

Pics of the dinner after the jump.

I was so busy devouring the hors d’oeuvres, I forgot to take pics of them. The rest of the meal is below though, save the dessert, which arrived after it was just too dark to take any more photos.

Below, the first course: old school sungold tomato aspic, with smoked rushing waters trout, bacon and shallots, and a sweet corn chow chow. This was definitely my fave course. The aspic was velvety and the smoked fish with onions and bacon divine. The corn was too sweet for me though, which is a bummer, because I do love me some corn.

Below, the second course: slow-baked aunt ruby tomato with a fresh chevre and herb crust, and arugula. The arugula is from Blue Moon Farm, which has the best greens I’ve ever tasted.

Below, the entree: san marzano braised dietzler farm beef cheeks with yukon gold potato gnocchi, a medley of okra, juliette tomatoes,  sweet and hot peppers, and mollisol pecorino. I’m not a huge beef person, but this was melt-in-your-mouth tender. The gnocchi were perfect, and the okra nice and smokey.

Below, the cheese plate: angel food and moonglo cheese with tomato jam, honey-apple compote, and whole wheat sourdough. The cheese was all from Prairie Fruits Farm, and the moonglo paired with the apple compote was stellar.

Dessert was a tomato and apple tart with ricotta ice cream. I wasn’t too keen on the tart (too sweet for my taste), but the ice cream was fantastic.

Overall, dinner was lovely, and worth every penny. A large part of the fun was also meeting the people who sat around us. Since it’s family-style seating, it feels like being at a dinner party at someone’s place and meeting their friends. This was a seriously foodie crowd, but that’s t be expected at this sort of event. I’m definitely one of them . I was pleasantly surprised at how many people came from Chicago, which reminded me how lucky I am to have such an amazing place so near to home.

Oh my good lord. Yesterday when I wrote about independent magazines I had only heard about Rue, since their first issue only came out yesterday evening. I took a look through it today and it’s stunning. It’s 261 pages of sheer beauty, and really gives Lonny a run for it’s money. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge fan of Lonny, but the interiors seem to have a fairly over-the-top aesthetic that leads to a certain feeling of sameness after a while. Not so with Rue. I feel like I could spend a good hour or so flipping through the pages of Rue and still come across a little tidbit or two that I missed on the first several read-throughs. And bonus points, the design of the mag itself is really lovely.

I adore. Two thumbs up. Can’t wait to go look through it again. And on that note, have a great weekend!

More pics from Rue after the jump.

The folding of Domino mag was a real blow to those who looked forward to poring through the lusciously-styled but actually accessible interiors in the magazine (ahem, me). Domino took a down-to-earth approach to interior decorating that I could actually relate to, though yes, they did occasionally feature $10,000 sofas. But, they also sourced their furniture and accessories from retailers that I could actually afford, and showed how a girl could DIY a lot of the looks on a normal-sized budget.

Since the demise of Domino, design blogs have filled the void to a certain extent, but the past year I’ve seen a steady stream of new Domino-esque publications. I was super-excited when the first issue of Lonny Magazine came out, and I’ve really enjoyed every issue since. Earlier this week, Grace at Design*Sponge announced a new pub,  Anothology, that will actually come out in full, glorious print. Then Katie  at the Neo-traditionalist announced that Lonny issues will now be available in print as well. Yay for independent publishing!

I’ve assembled a mini roundup here of new designs mags, both in print and online:

In print:

• Anothology
• Uppercase Magazine (more graphic design than interior design)
• Lonny

Online:

• Rue
• Lonny
• Standard
• 1 by Frid

Check out some fun interiors from Anthology and Lonny below the jump.

From Lonny, who also just launched a new website with a gorgeous archive of photos:

From Anthology:

Happy Friday! Here are a few links of stuff I came across this week that made me look twice:

• Book clutches by Kate Spade, via Oh Happy Day
• Mr. Darcy proposal dish towels on etsy. Swoon!
• I want to make these savory broccoli cakes. Check out what they look like cut in half. So fun.
• Just discovered this amazing food blog via Destined to Design.
• This new app from Cartolina makes me want to get an iphone stat.

Plan for the weekend: clean up guest bedroom, spraypaint lamps I found at a garage sale, and take some nice pics of our house to share with you guys.

Pic via Design Crush.

These photos leave me breathless. Danish photographer Kim Holtermand captures the stillness and clarity of these landscapes so painfully beautifully. They remind me of British Columbia, and the ethereal mornings of the gulf coast islands.

See more of Kim’s amazing work on Behance, and more pics from this series after the jump.

Via fffound.

Before

After

You may recall this post from way back in March where I mentioned Paul-Jean and I had just bought the Bienal counter stools from Design Within Reach. Well, here’s the grand before and after. The before really wasn’t that bad, except for the stools being slightly too low for our counter and too hard for Paul-Jean’s bony bum. I didn’t seem to have that problem . We got the stools from the previous owners of our house and I think they came from World Market. The new stools (though not that new for us by now) are super super comfy and stylin. Plus the seats are real leather and the construction is solid, so I see these babies with us for years to come. Spenny, but worth it (we did get them on sale though with free shipping)!

Lucy of The Design Files has a great interview with photographer James Greer on her site at the moment. I’m loving his photo of Melbourne artist Adriane Strampp‘s living room (above), as well as that great black painting above the couch (painted by Ms. Strampp). I’m looking for large-scale artwork for our office and guest bedroom at the moment, so these shots are great inspiration.

1. I loooove that egg chair! From a lucky 4-year-old’s room via Ohdeedo

2. Photo by Todd Selby from the  home of Stefano Tonchi, via Casa Sugar

3. Colorful, cheery, and close to the floor. Via Ohdeedo

4. via Splendid Willow

Hello Mr. Swizz-Style Stadler Form Otto Fan! Crafted from steel and oiled African sapele wood, Otto is slightly out of my pricerange (hello $200), but oh, how I would love to replace our current bedroom fan with this one.

A few weeks ago lightning struck our house (so says the electrician who fixed the power-outage in our bedroom), and a whole bunch of our electronics and appliances got fried, including our relatively new bedroom fan. So I really am in the market for a new one. The vintage-looking Hunter fan that we lost was actually great — relatively quiet, attractive, and powerful — so I’m probably just going to reorder it. But man, I do like me that Otto one.