Candy Daily.

Spring's been sweet thus far, with lots of lounging in tall grass,

lemon verbena ice cream for breakfast (both those orders were for me, by the way),

and a weekend away with a brand-new family member (top photo from Max's Instagram).

Another sweet detail? Being a part of Team New York for Daily Candy's Spring 2013 Street Style Awards. See more here, and vote for us, here. Many thanks to Daily Candy for having me!

Wishing you all a wonderful weekend! Any plans? (I'll be at Yacht Rock Brunch and am looking forward to settling into my Greenpoint sublet for the month - can't wait.)

Bottom ice cream photo by Angela Kohler. Daily Candy photos by Stephania Stanley.

Thoughts to Think About.

For the past year or so, I've collected quotes that speak to me, recording them in a little book that I carry with me everywhere. Sometimes I'll go for weeks without opening it; other times, it's my bible. Below, three that have stuck with me lately:

Said inventor R. Buckminster Fuller: "When I'm working on a problem, I never think about beauty. But when I've finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it's wrong." (Thanks, May.)

Photographer William Eggleston: "I am at war with the obvious." (Read more, here.)

And says writer Margaret Atwood: "In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt."

In looking for a photo of Atwood, I came across her Proust Questionnaire for Vanity Fair. In it, she reveals that she would like to live in a tree, and that her greatest fear is "a bear attack in a forest fire." I have to admit that I don't know much about Margaret Atwood, but this made me love her immediately.

Photos, top to bottom: Elliott Erwitt, Magnum Photos; Geoffrey Biddle; Deborah Samuel.

Honeysuckle Syrup, Flowery Fritters.

In honor of what might be the nicest day we've had in New York this year, two recipes with a floral focus. In the first, Hannah of Honey & Jam makes syrup out of honeysuckle (it's "bottled summertime," she says). 

In the second, Mimi Thorisson batters acacia flowers ("that smell and taste like honey, with a hint of jasmine, bergamot and orange blossom") in milk and rum. They're then fried in oil and dusted with sugar. "The flowers usually bloom between ten to fifteen days, a very short-lived thrill," she writes.

For more on edible blooms, visit 101 Cookbooks and Bon Appetit. See also: mango with rose petals and seashore honey. Happy spring! 

Top photos by Hannah Queen of Honey & Jam. Bottom photos by Mimi Thorisson of Manger.

Sense of Shelf.

It's Nice That's weekly series "Bookshelf" - in which artists, writers, designers, and creative thinkers list their five favorite books "in the whole ruddy world" - is an addicting and fascinating read. I was just talking with a friend the other day about how revealing bookshelves can be. My own is admittedly sparse (I've been doing most of my reading on a Kindle lately, and I don't even own a real shelf), but I consider the two tall stacks that I do have an ever-expanding work-in-progress.

Thoughts on a personal top five: Just Kids, The God of Small Things, possibly Jesus's Son by Denis Johnson, and something by T.C. Boyle and Geoff Dyer. You?

Photos, from top to bottom: set designer Anna Lomax; Antiques Roadshow's Marc Allum; Anna Lomax's Chapelle du Rosaire; Why Cats Paint, owned by Dazed and Confused editor Tim Noakes; Hilary Greenbaum of The New York Times Magazine; photographer Will Sanders.

POV: Captured.

POV ("point of view") is a new series that addresses many of the same themes covered in my Equals Record column: growing up, saying yes to adventure, learning to embrace a quarter-life crisis. Each POV entry will include a photograph and a short reflection based on what’s pictured. While my previous column focused largely on ideas, POV will focus on moments - glimpses, glances, tiny stories.

The afternoon of Memorial Day, Megan and I lay in the grass at McCarren Park. She read a book. I tried to write. Moments after we settled, a plastic bag blew by, landing at my feet. “A tumbleweed,” said Megan, and took a picture. Minutes later, I photographed her shoes, buried in dandelions. We both snapped shots of leaves, rays of sunlight, blades of grass. 

Nearby, a man lay shirtless on a blanket, strumming a guitar. His girlfriend, in a lace-up poncho with fringe, spun circles around us in rollerblades. The air smelled like soil, like summer. The sun burned our eyes and we let it.

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I’ve always felt an urge, an anxiety, to record things. When my family moved out of our house in Hawaii years ago, I took videos of each room in painstaking detail. When we traveled, I’d take notes - the color of the car we’d driven, the position of my chair at the dinner table, snippets of conversation as my brother and I fell asleep in strange rooms and strange beds.

Moments like these seemed fragile, fleeting. Like something sacred.  And, always a scatterbrain, I didn’t trust myself not to lose them.