Off - or, rather, on - the wall.

On my last day in San Francisco, Faith and I took a drive out to Flora Grubb Gardens, a florist-cum-design shop deep in the Mission District. Loyal New York Times Weddings & Celebrations readers might recognize the name; Flora hosted her brother's wedding reception at the store, and the union was featured in the Vows column.

It's a pretty nifty place; Faith termed it the Anthropologie of flowers, and that's about right. The store sells plants, pots, stationery, cut flowers, garden furniture, Ritual coffee, brownies and assorted decorative objects.

Among its coolest items, though, are the walls of tightly-packed succulents. You can buy a small version, as small as 11 inches by 14 inches, but why would you do that when you could cover a whole wall of your apartment in such an amazing, gravity-defying mix of texture and color? It's living art, and I love it.

Flora Grubb
1634 Jerrold Avenue
San Francisco, California
415.626.7256

Green (and purple) things in the city.

On Saturday, all of Union Square Greenmarket smelled of lilacs. It seemed every vendor in the park had bunches of them for sale. It was heavenly.

And this NYC Grows woolly pocket garden was pretty cool, too. Each pocket was planted with a different vegetable, flower or herb. Pretty freaking neat, and a reminder that, even in this most urban of landscapes, we need plant life to keep us sane, healthy and well-fed. (I planted my windowsill herb garden this weekend; how about you?)

Come for the wine, stay for the garden.

On our Wednesday in Sonoma, Jeremy had arranged for a tour and tasting at C. Donatiello Winery in Healdsburg. Five of us bundled into one of the rental sedans haunting the driveway and drove north to Westside Road, a gorgeous, slightly winding street that follows a ridge perched alongside the Russian River.

C. Donatiello is a relatively new winery, founded in 2006. Chris (the C. in C. Donatiello) started his career in wine and spirits marketing & sales, moving west from New York to start this boutique winery three years ago. They specialize in Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, two of the Russian River region's most popular grapes. The winery estate itself has a few vineyards; additionally, Donatiello sources grapes from several vineyards around the valley.

Our tour included a look into the entire process, including the harvest, de-stemming, pressing and fermentation - but the highlight, for me, was a visit to the garden planted down the hill from the winery's tasting room. Designed to echo the flavors and aromas found in Donatiello's wines, the garden is planted with fruits, herbs and aromatics representative of Pinot and Chardonnay. Even the steps are planted - each tread is lined with mint, rosemary, and the like, so that their scents follow you as you scuff your shoes against them.

After poking our noses in all around the estate, we headed into the tasting room for a different sort of tour: an extensive tasting of Donatiello's Pinot Noirs and Chardonnays. Most of the wines we tasted were single vineyard wines (meaning the grapes in that wine all came from the same vineyard), and there were a few that really grabbed me.

The Branley Chardonnay was slightly spicy and citrusy, with hints of apple. It's one of the few oak-aged Chardonnays I tasted and liked on our Sonoma trip. My favorite, though, was the Hervey Pinot Noir. It was full of different fruit and berries, but still smooth and round in the mouth - sometimes I find Pinot to be a bit too dry, but this one was creamy and soft.

Chris had joined us for the tasting, and mentioned that the Hervey would be even more perfect for drinking in about 15 years. My brother and sister-in-law conferred, and decided (Very generously!) to buy me a bottle for my 30th birthday, not to be opened till my 45th.

I'll keep you posted on how that turns out.

C. Donatiello Winery
4035 Westside Road
Healdsburg, CA
800.433.8296

Up close and personal, part three.

The greenhouses at Stone Barns sit at the foot of a hill, spreading out below the titular stone barns and outbuildings, fanning down toward the bluffs that line the banks of the Hudson. In a landscape dominated by natural materials, flora and fauna, their glass, plastic and steel silhouettes seem a bit out of place, an invading force overtaking a rural idyll.

That is, of course, until you venture inside.

Filled with lettuce, carrots, seedlings, and two rabbits, the greenhouses are row after row of fun - walking along the neatly-spaced plantings, you find greens you never even knew existed, and, in Cristin's case, see your first ever still-in-the-ground carrot.

Deer tongue lettuce is in abundance, as is a rainbow of chard. Among the seedlings, we saw arugula, oregano, and thyme - labeled "Summa Thyme," for your chuckling enjoyment. As someone who has only recently begun to grow her own herbs (and one persnickety Meyer lemon tree), the sheer plenty of it all was fantastically inspiring. Yet another reason for my first home purchase to be a place upstate, where I can renovate, garden and entertain to my heart's content.

And, yes, of course you're all invited.

Cucumbers + chicken = heaven.

On Monday morning, I had a work call at 9:30 (that's right, I'm very dedicated). After that, though, it was staycation all the way.

Since my mom was staying with me, and had meetings of her own all morning (over the phone, natch), I decided to vacate the premises as best I could. I took the opportunity to hit the market for some chicken, cucumbers and bacon (the better to fuel up for my staycation, of course).

On Tuesday morning, I seasoned said chicken with salt, pepper, and thyme (from my windowsill - it's so nice to have access to fresh herbs at a moment's notice again) and roasted it. It's well-documented on this blog how much I like to have cold chicken lying around at all times. In this case, though, I will admit I had a plan in mind for at least some of the meat.

While the chicken cooled, I set out some vinegar, oil, mustard and an egg yolk on the counter. Once they'd reached room temperature, I whisked the yolk, mustard and vinegar together, adding a pinch of salt and a grind or two of pepper. As I whisked, I drizzled in the oil - drop by drop at first, then in a thin stream, until the egg yolk had taken on all the oil and had become...mayonnaise.

Honestly, if there's a pleasure more basic or delicious than homemade mayonnaise folded with warm chicken, cucumber, chopped shallots, and finished with some chervil and chives, I don't know it. I truly don't.

Queenie's Chicken Salad

Breast of one roasted chicken, cut into 3/4-inch cubes
1 Kirby cucumber, seeded and cut into 1/2-inch chunks
1 small shallot, finely chopped
1 tbs. chervil, finely chopped
1 tbs. chives, finely chopped
1 to 2 tbs. homemade mayonnaise
Salt and pepper, to taste

Combine the chicken, shallot, cucumber, chervil and half the chives in a medium bowl. Add the mayonnaise a bit at a time, folding the ingredients into the sauce, until your salad has the desired consistency. Season to taste with salt and pepper, sprinkle with the remaining chives, and eat as soon as humanly possible.

Serves one, generously.

If you can't find chervil, substitute a teaspoon of flat-leaf parsley. If you don't want to make homemade mayo, substitute two tablespoons of commercial mayonnaise mixed with one teaspoon of sherry vinegar.

Branching out.

I'm not really terribly gifted when it comes to gardening - but I don't kill everything I touch, either. Over the last couple of years, I've become braver and bolder when it comes to choosing and growing my herbs, and this year will, I think, be the best year yet!

Last week, I visited the Greenmarket with my friend Cristin to pick out my herbs for the year, and this morning I re-potted them - now all that's left to do is water and spritz them regularly, and make sure that they get plenty of that New York sunlight.

I branched a little out of my usual thyme-basil-sage trinity this year, adding some lemon basil, lemon thyme (which smells absolutely insane) and chervil (which I can never, ever find at the grocery store) to the mix.

Wish me luck!
From left to right, we have sage, sweet basil, lemon basil, chervil, thyme, lemon thyme.

Getting my hands dirty.

I've never been a prolific gardener. I don't have a black thumb, per se, but I've never really made a point of nurturing and caring for plants. In the last couple of years, though, I've finally realized how nice it is to have fresh herbs around when you need them, and, even more than that, how much life and verve plants bring into a home.

My friend Nick gave me a Meyer lemon tree for Christmas, and my success at keeping it alive for more than six months gave me the confidence to go out and find some more green things for the windowsill. So, yesterday morning, armed with $15 and a dream, I went down to the Union Square Greenmarket and bought two basil plants, a thyme plant, and a little sage bush.

I brought them home (carefully, on the subway) and transplanted them into the Ikea pots I had waiting. The whole process took about 20 minutes (though I did make a bit of a mess), and now I have a gorgeous-smelling assortment of plants. I've already used the thyme - snipped a few twigs to flavor the chicken I roasted tonight for this week's dinners.

I feel quite handy, and can't stop sniffing the air above my little garden.

Update: Not dead yet!

My adorable little Meyer lemon tree bore its first ripe lemon last week. It was teeny tiny, only about an inch across. When it turned yellow, I plucked it off of the branch and sliced it open - there was very little flesh, mainly rind, but what there was smelled heavenly, like flowers and lemons mixed together. But not in a floor polish kind of way - just fresh and clean and springy.

Now the tree has two new lemons growing out of a new branch, and three little branches have sprouted from its trunk. I'll be transferring it to a deeper, wider pot this weekend, and I can't wait to see what it does with all that new real estate.