The building that my boyfriend and I moved into a little over a year ago houses an incredibly tight-knit little community.
A bunch of the folks who live there have owned their condos for years, if not decades, and we’re lucky to rent our place from a lovely couple who live just a short distance away in a different building that’s more convenient for them. They and the other long-time residents have welcomed us with incredible openness and for that we are grateful.
One of their most beloved events is the yearly summer barbecue that’s held in the backyard. A couple of the residents are majorly talented and dedicated gardeners, so in addition to the backyard simply being a lovely place to sit for a few hours on a weekend afternoon, many of the dishes made to share invariably include fresh vegetables grown on the premises—kale for salads, a variety of pestos and caprese salads made with recently picked basil, etc. Everyone usually invites over a few friends and other neighbors from nearby buildings for a true community-style gathering.
This year, we met a couple, mostly in passing, who live just around the corner. “By the way,” one of our downstairs neighbors nudged us emphatically, “they sell honey made by the bees they keep in their yard. Some of the pollen they gather probably came from the plants in this garden. If you see the ‘for sale’ sign in their yard, just ring the bell and they’ll sell some to you.” Our eyes grew big and greedy in our heads and we nearly started salivating at the idea of this fabulous-sounding treat.
For what felt like weeks after, we’d find any excuse to walk past the couple’s magical little home, hoping to see the “honey for sale” sign in the yard, to no avail. We were worried we’d missed out on the surplus completely. But one particularly gorgeous Saturday afternoon, I was coming home from getting my hair cut, and even though my route back from the train didn’t take me past their house, I felt the intuitive pull to go out of my way. As usual, my intuition was right on the money—the elusive sign was out front at last. I even had extra cash in my purse left over from the amount I’d pulled out of the ATM earlier in order to tip my hair stylist.
Barbara met me at the door after I rang the bell and she offered me a choice of different size jars and a choice of creamed or liquid honey. I happily opted for the biggest possible jar of the creamed honey and practically threw my money at her, so happy was I that she was home, that we’d finally connected, and that she was keeping freaking bees in the first place.
“Guess what I just did!” I howled in triumph as I walked into my apartment, raising the golden jar over my head like a trophy for my boyfriend to admire. We instantly headed to the kitchen and set upon the jar with teaspoons. It was, quite literally, the best honey I’ve ever had in my life. It’s delicately floral in a way that I’d never tasted before, even with other local honeys that I’ve bought or tried from the farmers’ market. And of course there’s that indefinable something that flavored it even more subtly, considering that the bees who made it did probably visit our yard and garden on their flights of pollination and considering that I’d just shaken the (sticky) hand of the woman who helped make it all possible.
Y’all, I fucking love living in Rogers Park, if that’s not already abundantly apparent.
So, in the spirit of that local honey, I’m just gathering some bits of sweetness for you this month, hoping the combination of it all might add up to something similarly surprising and nourishing.
I subscribe to a lot of newsletters and I buy a lot of natural products, but I could probably easily eliminate most of them as long as I got to keep Kings Road Apothecary. The newsletter that shopkeeper Rebecca Altman sends out on the weekends is beautifully written and filled with keen insights and observations about the natural world and our relationship to it.
The products she creates—teas, tinctures, body oils, and whatnot—are a joy to use. Not to mention her monthly surprise boxes, based around a theme or specific ingredient, are one of the remaining subscription-style delivery services that I happily continue to spend money on on a regular basis. This stuff is the real deal—sustainably harvested, organic healing wisdom. I’m super nerdy about how much I love her stuff and everyone else I’ve ever introduced to her work has become similarly obsessed. Catch her on Instagram to start and allow yourself to become smitten.
Earlier this fall I started singing with the Chicago Artists Chorale, and I forgot how much my brain and ears change when I’m regularly reading music, singing in four (or more) part harmony, and following the guidance of a genius conductor (in this case, the inestimable Tom Vendafreddo). Recorded music always just sounds different after I’ve been in that choral headspace for a two-and-a-half-hour rehearsal, so when I’m taking the train home afterwards, I don’t want to squander that heightened aural sensitivity on the same old indie rock stuff I listen to most mornings on my commute to work. After a recent rehearsal, I decided to really sink my ears into local jazz guitarist John Moulder’s album Bifröst.
I must have listened to the title track at least two times in a row, if not three, and I’m usually not the type of person to put a song on repeat. It’s a stunning pas de deux between Moulder on electric guitar and Bendik Hofseth on tenor sax, which rides a tight groove for most of its eight minutes before exploding into an incredibly exciting freak-out at the end. Over the next few days, I kept demanding my boyfriend listen back to the track with me and help me pick apart all the technical nuances of what Moulder was playing. “Did you hear that? How did he do that dive bomb thing??” My ears keep craving the sonic intelligence of what they’re doing together. Fantastic stuff.
Chocolate perfumes
Whenever the weather starts to shift and the cooler temperatures start to blow in, I get excited about being able to reach for my dense, sweet, and warm perfumes again. In this kind of mood, sometimes I want my vanilla perfumes, sometimes amber, sometimes incense; right now, I want chocolate. An initial idle grab for my decant of Cadavre Exquis somehow turned into a full-blown chocolate obsession.
My Olympic Orchids scents are the first obvious ones I pull out: California Chocolate, Seattle Chocolate, and Cafe V. But Orto Parisi’s Boccanera got a rave compliment from my boss as I was walking past her desk. (I felt almost embarrassed to send her the link to the fragrance’s description on Lucky Scent’s website: “Boccanera means ‘dark mouth’ in Italian. Nature offers dark holes that express sensuality in an erotic dark way, and this fragrance is no exception.” Yikes!) Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab’s Centzon Totochtin is an old favorite that I’d nearly forgotten about, and Keith Urban’s Phoenix is a cheap thrill that always delights me. Haus of Gloi’s Dank Chocolate scented pumpkin body butter is an insanely rich treat after a shower or just before bed. Now I just need to order a new decant of Arquiste’s Anima Dulcis and I’ll be completely armed for a delicious smelling autumn.
Queen of Peaches 