British Columbia Archives - The Curated House

Kitchen Wish List | The Urban Cultivator

From designers to foodies, today’s find is bound to get you seriously excited! I haven’t been this excited about a built-in appliance for kitchens since the Miele built-in esspresso maker and wine fridge. Well, there’s a new kid in town, ready to infuse any gourmet kitchen with a luxurious love of all things fresh and gourmet. I will seriously be dreaming about this one {neatly tucked into my butler’s pantry, of course} with nearly every meal I make from now on.

As you know, I love fresh herbs for cooking. Who doesn’t? From micro greens to fresh sprouts to the classics like cilantro, parsley and basil, any cook worth their weight in oregano would choose fresh over dried any day of the week. The challenge? Keeping them fresh in the fridge. How many times have you bought a bunch of fresh herbs only to find them limp and soggy when you pull them out to use them?

{image via Pinterest}

In response to this dilemma, we actually attempted to sprout our own herb garden from seed last summer. Let’s just say it was not exactly a huge success. We started out strong with some very exciting sprouts showing up under the lights and constant misting in the basement, but a few long weekends away and a couple of days of unexpected weather once they’d been moved outside and our dreams of organic, seed-sprouted herbs were dashed. We resorted to a few pre-grown pots and set our urban gardening dreams aside for the season.

Well, I’ve found the answer to all of our year-round herb-loving dreams. Friends, meet the Urban Cultivator.

The size of a dishwasher, the Urban Cultivator can be integrated into a fitted kitchen as a freestanding unit with a butcher-block top or easily built-in to any kitchen cabinetry design. This ingenious under-counter-sized greenhouse allows you to go farm-to-table without ever leaving home. Locavores take note: you can’t get much more local than this!!

{image via Urban Cultivator}

The Urban Cultivator – a proudly Canadian innovation – offers the latest and best hydroponic growing technology with pre-programmed optimal growing cycles. It is plumbed to water and hooked up to electrical just like a dishwasher, automatically controlling the light, fan and watering of your four-season, under-counter kitchen garden. Genius. Add to that the fact that fresh greens cut from your own kitchen greenhouse have twice the nutritional value of store bought greens and I am completely sold!

Not surprisingly, the commercial version of this innovative appliance is being integrated into high-end kitchens in restaurants and hotels across North America.

“You simply add 100% organic food once a week and your chosen bounty of fresh herbs and greens will be on their way to your plate. After growing the basics, you may wish to move on to more exotic fare and expand your culinary horizons.”

It’s the details that make me remember a meal. I still remember a stunning salad I once had that was finished with delectable little micro beet greens. The possibility of plating and finishing dishes in my own kitchen with that kind of detail practically makes me giddy.

Needless to say, I am salivating over the possibilities and now officially dying to design The Urban Cultivator into my next kitchen project! Hope you’re inspired to go fresh and local today! No doubt you’ll all be dreaming along with me of your own urban gardening adventures.

xo
s.

Herriott Grace: For the Love of Wood

I have a confession to make. OK, I have a LOT of confessions to make (as you’ll learn over time). But today’s confession? I. Love. Wood. I love trees. I love all the verdant and varying shades of green that come alive in springtime. I love raw wood, turned wood, solid wood, hand-carved wood, exotic woods and all the potential they hold for creating something new. And that is why I am in swoony-heartsick-LOVE with Herriott Grace.

Recently introduced to me by a lovely friend, this heart-warming, Canadian father-daughter duo have me utterly smitten. Their story is a cross-Canada romance of familial love and the now-nearly-vintage charm of receiving packages via Canada Post. (It’s a real thing! People still send packages in the mail. Even brown paper packages tied up with string. It really is one of my favourite things.)

Lance and Nikole Herriott live 3400 kilometers apart: his workshop is in Victoria, British Columbia, and her studio is in Toronto, Ontario. When she first made her home more than halfway across the country, they started to send packages back and forth.

In some of those packages, Lance began to include his own hand carved spoons. He had been collecting wood since the early seventies, and used his best pieces for these gifts. Nikole loved them; their balance and shape, the pieces were made with unmistakable care. She knew they were something special.

One day it dawned on her that others might appreciate her father’s talent as she did, so Nikole asked if he would ever want to share his work. Lance took a few days to think about it. And, after some convincing, he agreed to her plan, but only with people that understood and cared about the time and effort spent on each piece.

She told him, “Leave it to me, I know just the sort.”

And with that, Herriott Grace was born.

(italicized copy via the Herriott Grace website)

There are so many reasons I love this story. First and foremost, it’s about the warmth of relationship between a daughter and her father. It’s about love and belief and possibility. It’s about transcending distance to remain meaningfully connected. And this beautiful process of love and care results in – as you can see below – a stunningly beautiful product. Here are just a few of the lovely pieces now on my personal wish list:

These feather cookie cutters are positively delicious. No doubt the feel of the smooth wooden handles in one’s hand makes the process of creating these lovely cookies all the more delightful.

These gorgeous teak spoons are the sort you will pass on to your grandchildren. Perfect for a fig compote served atop freshly baked scones on a sunny afternoon. To be enjoyed with a cup of tea and conversation with a sweet friend, of course.

I don’t think I would be able to choose which cutting board would be the one for me! Perhaps just one of each, please and thanks.

I might just have to take up the art of pie making if I come to be so lucky as to have one of these lovely, hand-turned rolling pins in my kitchen one day!

This simple, raw-edged, hand-turned bowl reminds me of the one atop a stack of books in my living room. I love the collaboration between artist and nature. As Lance says: “the wood decides.”

On creating the art: “Wood should be treated with hands, not machines. Once you take the money value out of something and do it just because you want to do it as a passion, that’s when you get quality. If you’re doing it for a dollar, pretty soon your value drops and drops, and pretty soon you’re just the same as anybody else. If it’s about how many you can make for a dollar, it isn’t art. It isn’t carving. It just becomes another job.” – Lance Herriott

On receiving the packages: “That box comes and it smells like my parents’ house, and it smells like his wood shop, and it smells like home… I like the mail. I like the post. I like it when things arrive “just so” and when a package is “just so” and when things are put together in a way that is reminiscent of the past. Like a box of just beautiful things with tissue and string and a tag, and as much care went into packaging it and wrapping it and sending it in the mail as went into making it. I like the tradition in that. Things used to arrive in the mail with string around them, and if a little object that we can send can be like that in even a small way, I think that that’s a nice thing.” – Nikole Herriott

I look forward to the day my first Herriott Grace package arrives in the post. No doubt it will be a very nice thing, Nikole. Thank you for inspiring me with your relational, beautiful process and your heart-warming-ly beautiful product.

xo
s.

All photos courtesty of Herriott Grace