Herzog & deMeuron's Dominus Winery

Following up on my post about the Bird's Nest and Herzog & deMeuron, I wanted to post some photos from their Dominus Winery project in Napa Valley (photos from dezeen). One of the first things I did when I moved to LA from the East Coast was to come up to visit my sister in the Bay Area and go see this building. Unfortunately, its not open to the general public, so I have never gotten this close, but even from the road, its really cool.

More Bird's Nest

Some great photos (via Arch Daily) of Herzog & de Meuron's Olympic stadium, the Bird's Nest. To generalize broadly, architects (including me) love the interstitial spaces of buildings. This is a great example of using this space in between -- not outside, not inside -- and making it alive and animated. The more I see of this building the more I like it. (previously) And, of course, I love the view of the Water Cube!

Review: Food Books

This week's Email Book Club book (see my previous post here) is Service Included by Phoebe Damrosch. Its about her time working at Per Se, famed chef Thomas Keller's NYC restaurant. From reading the first chapter, I'm intrigued and really excited to read the rest. That's not surprising, though, because I love reading most of those behind-the-scenes food and restaurant books out there.

The Papa Bear of these books (at least for me) is Kitchen Confidential by the one and only Anthony Bourdain. If you haven't read it, I can't imagine why. It is fantastic -- a fun read, great stories, really funny. Go read it now!

Another food book I liked (though its not up there with Kitchen Confidential) is Heat by Bill Buford. The best part of Heat is Mario Batali from the Food Network. The man is clearly crazy. I'd love to meet him.

American Wife Book Giveaway

I liked this book a lot (see my review here), so I thought I'd bring your attention to a contest at Pop Culture Junkie to win a copy all your own! Enter here and let me know if you win.

Slow Blogging Week

My office moved this week, and our internet access is down for a while, so I won't be posting much this week. I'll leave you with something cute to look at instead!

Currently Reading

I have two books I'm reading right now to review. One is Adventures with Purpose by Richard Bangs -- its an adventure travel book in which the author visits places in order to bring attention to either an ecological or humanitarian crisis there.

The other book I'm reading is Last Days of Krypton by Kevin Anderson. Its not something I would normally pick up (I actually got it for my husband to read, but he is too busy with school starting) but I'll see how it goes!

Out today - American Wife

Just a reminder that Curtis Sittenfeld's American Wife is available today. I reviewed it here and also linked to an editorial from Maureen Dowd here.