gleamed issue no. 12
Filipino home design, funky-gourmet kitchen items, & lunch recipes on demand.
What are you looking forward to this spring? Personally, I just can’t wait to spend more time outside. Walking around NYC, the energy shift is palpable—more people walking on the sidewalks, bars and restaurants are bustling, the gym is packed. Daffodils springing up from the dirt are inspiring me to re-watch “Big Fish” for the umpteenth time.
One of my favorite spring effects is the return of lingering. We’ve already noticed at grotto that our tables are sticking around longer, especially in the glass-terraced garden area, where friends and lovers seem to linger all night until we come in to remove our tableside fairy lights and shells full of chocolate pearls. We should all be allowing ourselves more time this spring to linger—at our favorite bar, on a picnic blanket, at a friend’s place with another bottle of wine. I hope you do.
xx,
Austa
I’m feeling…Gohar World Studio Lunch
Lunch is probably my least favorite meal of the day. Maybe that’s a controversial statement to make, but I’ll explain: I feel like most of the time we’re eating hurried lunches to get back to work, so the meal tends to feel rushed and uninspired. Whenever I go to a restaurant for brunch, best believe I’m ordering a breakfast dish.
Regardless, I’ve been loving reading the lunches sent to me by text message by gourmet-funky brand, Gohar World, founded by two sisters and offering curiosity-inducing takes on kitchen and serving items. Case in point: egg chandeliers, baguette bags, and scrubby garlic.
They have a fun (and free) text service you can sign up for, which will have a recipe they’ve been making in their studio sent to you every Thursday afternoon. The backlog of their recipes is also available to view here. I might not always make them, but they definitely inspire me to think twice about lunch, which is saying something.
A petite story…Filipino Interior Design
While visiting my grandmother a while back, I came across a coffee table book she had on Filipino interior design. It struck me that there is so much underrated and never-talked-about cultural design, especially in any area of the world that isn’t Europe. While we in the U.S. tend to obsess over French and Italian-inspired decor, for example, there is so much to discover, appreciate, and be inspired by elsewhere. Traditional design sites love to highlight Euro-centric homes and trends, while both historic and modern design in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East are often overlooked.
With that said, my partner and I just began planning a trip for my birthday (much later this year) to the Philippines to reconnect with my culture (and hit the beach), so I thought it would be interesting to delve a bit into the design philosophies there.
One of my favorite aspects of Filipino design, and what inspires me to bring an extra suitcase on my upcoming trip, is a holistic focus on locally sourced natural materials that are minimally altered from their original state. “The connection between the rural Filipino home and nature is so close that its design and construction are dictated by its tropical environment,” the book reads. “Within the personalized environment of a Filipino home the old blends with the new, the natural with the synthetic, the traditional with the contemporary. This is an eclectic environment, a special enclave like no other. It is a living space where, even in the city, individuals live in touch with nature.”
One such natural material is capiz, a translucent, iridescent shell, which is used often to create tiny paned windows that create a beautifully diffused light and offer privacy. Some designers also use capiz on the ceiling, to draw the eye upwards and create a lovely surface for light to bounce off. Other common materials include caning and rattan, tons of woodwork, stone like Ara-al (Filipino slate), and earthenware Vigan tiles. Filipino homes also tend to have tons of plants—one of my grandma’s favorites is the flowering Hoya cumingiana. It also helps that more than half of the total Philippine plant population is endemic, meaning it’s found nowhere else on the planet.
Filipino design also lends itself to creative methods for incorporating your heritage, both cultural and ancestral, into your home. The Philippines are home to dozens of diverse communities—many of which have their own local weaving traditions. Bedding, blankets and upholstery can reflect your own native weaving patterns. Many Filipino homes also contain antiques or heirlooms passed generation to generation, creating timeless decor items that hold power and sentimental value.
Typical heirlooms might be as large as a quality wooden dining table or a baul (storage trunk), or as small as a vase or dishware set. To incorporate this philosophy into your personal design is to adopt the idea of purchasing quality items for the future—not only your own but for future generations of your family (if climate change doesn’t take us out first, that is).
When I think of Filipino design on the whole, I think of warmth, family, texture, and the seamless combining of different cultures to create a home of true depth.
In next week’s issue…a grotto cocktail recipe to spice up your rotation.