Herman Zapf

Contemporary German calligrapher, teacher, book designer and type designer associated with Stempel, Linotype, Hell, ITC, and Bitstream. It was in 1935 that Zapf started on his course to becoming one of the 20th century’s most significant type designers and calligraphers by buying writing manuals of Rudolf Koch and Edward Johnston, and teaching himself. In 1938 he worked at the workshop of Paul Koch in Frankfurt, learning about punchcutting and other techniques of fine printing. He joined Stempel later that year, alongside the punchcutter August Rosenberger. He began to design type for them the next year. During World War II Zapf was a cartographer. Zapf has designed some of the 20th century’s most important fonts, including Palatino and Optima. He recently worked with David Siegel, Apple, and Linotype to create Zapfino, a font of his calligraphic handwriting; special features enable it to adapt itself to the text it is displaying. • Hermann Zapf died on June 4, 2015 in Darmstadt, Germany, aged 96. -MyFonts

More Ottolenghi dishes

Two more very yummy dishes from Plenty More by Yotam Ottolenghi, fennel with capers and olives, and saffron, date and almond rice. Fennel recipe here and rice here. I used brown rice instead of basmati rice, I had to adjust water and cooking time. Enjoy.

Flourless Chocolate Cake

It is Uri's birthday today, I made my chocoholic husband a Flourless Chocolate Fudge Cake by Yotam Ottolenghi. It is the real deal with baking the cake in two stages, waiting for it to cool down completely before you start the second stage, 5 eggs and one cup of butter. This is once a year treat, the cake is VERY rich and delicious. It goes very well with plain whipping cream (no sugar added). One note regarding the recipe, for the second stage instead of baking 20-25 minutes I had to bake it for 30-35. I have to say that everything I made from Ottolenghi books came out amazingly delicious. • You can find the recipe here. It's from his book Ottolenghi the Cookbook.

More of Fogo Island

Uri's photos of Fogo Island / June 2015 • Find more here.

Hot pink

New woven labels. I hope to share some new ideas soon.

Happy Father's Day

Dragons

This is our dracaena (dragon) tree (with a few Photoshop filters applied, I just couldn't resist). • The name of this beautiful tree has mythical origins: for his 11th labour, Hercules had to bring back three golden apples from the garden of the Hespérides, which is guarded by Landon, the hundred-headed dragon. Hercules killed Landon and his blood flowed out over the land, which began to sprout ‘dragon’ trees. –Arkive • We have a few trees in our yard for about 8-10 years. This is the first time it's blooming, beautiful orange red berries.

Pita with Za'atar

Lat night was Middle Eastern Dinner Feast. Home made pita bread with za'atar topping that tastes like the original thing. Dough recipe in English here, topping recipe in English here, the recipe is from Saha. Meat patties that I already made a few times and posted the recipe in Hebrew here and in English here, I used around 350g ground meat this time. Home made humus and Persian green rice, recipe in Hebrew here, #2, and a very similar recipe in English here. I didn't use fava beans but it sounds interesting. Bon Appétit.

Fogo Island

Fogo Island / Canada • Photos by Uri Rodan. More here.

My daily crop June 2015

Here is my crop for today: shishito peppers, thai hot peppers, jalapeños, zucchinis, Persian cucumber and meyer lemons.

Warm salad of corn, zucchini and tomato

We have so many zucchinis in our vegetable garden, I decided to make this yummy, healthy warm salad. My recipe is based on this recipe, but I changed a few things. Ingredients: 2 ears corn, husks and silks removed • 1 1/2 tbs olive oil • 2-3 medium zucchinis, halved lengthwise and thinly sliced • 3 garlic cloves, minced • Hot pepper, halved, seed removed, chopped • 20-25 cherry tomatoes, halved • Salt and pepper • 1/2 cup of chopped parsley • 1/2 cup of chopped cilantro • 1/2 cup torn basil Directions: 1. Cut the tip of each corn. Using a sharp knife, slice downward to release kernels. 2. In a large saucepan, heat olive oil. Add zucchini and garlic and cook, tossing, until bright green, about 3 minutes. Add corn and hot pepper, cook, tossing, about 3 minutes. Add tomatoes, cook, tossing, about 2 minutes. Stir in parsley and cilantro, cook, tossing for 1 minute. Add salt and pepper. Remove from heat and stir in basil. Bon appetite.

Giuseppe Capogrossi

Giuseppe Capogrossi was born on March 7, 1900, in Rome. In 1922 he completed his law degree but soon after devoted himself entirely to painting and joined Felice Carena's atelier. 

—www.guggenheim.org • More here.

Raw Color for Arco

More here.

Coming soon

I'm working on a few new projects, more info soon.