Jasmine Pearls, pre-brewing:

And steeping: 

Yesterday, on my way home from picking up that role of film, I passed by that corner, and the house had been demolished. Developers reclaiming what had turned into a wild space. Now there’s an empty lot, with prime real estate for new development.

I also enjoyed seeing the old and new right next to each other in Chicago: Walking in Wicker Park and seeing a historic Victorian next to a modern home, or in downtown, where you can see the story of the skyscraper developing from the Tribune building to the Willis (Sears) Tower. Below is the new walkway to the Art Institute of Chicago with the old, new and newest:

The other awesome part about Chicago was the water, and I particularly enjoyed walking along the river, where I could see so much of Chicago’s architecture, beauty and history. I saw architecture from almost every era, including old factories covered in ivy and repurposed as condos. And crossing the river from the Loop, it appeared as though the water found its way into more than just the river. Perhaps this image can remind us that Chicago was initially built on a swamp:

So here they are, images of friends cooking out:

And thank you to everyone that helped out by modeling or assisting.

Pu-erh tea falls into the latter category, as it can be interesting to watch the tea turn the water a deep, dark red. Pu-erh is an aged tea that has an earthy flavor, it is lower in caffeine than black tea and is often made into tuo-cha’s which are compressed tea cakes, wrapped in parchment for storage. This tuo-cha was in the shape of a bird’s nest:

To brew, I just drop a tuo cha into a pot of water and it very slowly breaks down and brews from the bottom, creating these interesting scenes I mentioned earlier:

Someone compared the scene in the tea pot to Ayer’s Rock. What do you see?

Post your guesses in the comments. And you have to be specific.

PDN’s Photo of the day
This blog posts a photo a day (surprise!), and the photograph can come from almost anywhere–news, advertising, fine art, etc.–and it is worth checking out at least weekly.

Boston Globe’s Big Picture
NYT’s Lens
Both of these photo-blogs are news centric, and have stunning photographs from current events. The Globe’s blog started the trend for the photo-a-day blogs, but the NYT’s blog has a way cool interface.

New Yorker’s Photo Booth
This is an interesting blog that dives into the meaning, history or background of photographs and photographers, most of which appeared in print in the magazine.

too much chocolate
This exhibits current, mostly fine art, photography and fosters dialogue and community between photographers.

The Photography Post
This is kind of cheating, as this site I use to find other blogs that contain awesome images.

Burn Magazine
Burn was started by a photographer to help fund and publish photographers covering amazing stories, whether they are personal, newsworthy or just interesting and visually appealing.

Humble Arts
This site houses monthly online exhibitions of emerging fine art photography.

The first image is of my first meal, breakfast. Below is smoked salmon on top of bleu cheese and bread. I washed it down with some tea, all the while thinking that bleu cheese and salmon was a weird combination. I feel though that this dish set the tone for the rest of meals, where I tried to order something that sounded a little strange–but usually turned out pallatable.

The next image is a rack full of jamon. It seemed that every restaurant that wanted to prove it was good would hang as many ham legs from the ceiling as possible. This particular scene is from a market. As a side note, I have not eaten any ham in a month.

If I was not eating ham, I was probably eating fish–and probably anchovies or sardines, though I did have a little tuna and squid.

All in all I was satisfied with the food in Spain because it was cheap and good–it is worth noting that the more expensive meals I had were no better than the cheap ones. I especially enjoyed ordering a small beer in Granada and receiving a free tapas dish.