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We joined the Altadena Community Garden (after being on a waiting list for three years… so long I forgot we ever signed up when they called.) Since then, we ride our bikes down there every couple weeks or when we are back in town, and as I toil - for no other purpose than attempting to raise healthy vegetables and do something that doesn’t include a screen. Â
It’s the perfect tangible metaphor for living: We have to weed out the unwanted clutter and invasive influences so that we can grow the best, most nurturing edible plants into being - and then there is the harvest of food we have watered and grown! So thrilling! Meeting neighbors and swapping tips (usually it’s them guiding us:) is another highlight.
So far we’ve grown collard greens, kale, tomatoes (through which we discovered stir fried green tomatoes yum), artichokes, squash (so much grew, we made them the centerpieces at our LA wedding and served an appetizer of squash, goat cheese and pomegranate), sorrel, basil, cilantro (hands down the most essential herb in my kitchen), eggplant, peppers, thyme and parsley (which led to the invention of our parsley pesto). As we become more and more plugged in and disconnected, the garden is a refuge and a physical reminder! I highly recommend, fellow sapiens!Â
Jan 16, 2025
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highly recommend visiting your local community garden and learning from the people there. there’s nothing like connecting with your food sources and your community <3
Dec 27, 2024
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It’s as rewarding as you imagine. This year I planted four tomato varieties and staggered them by several weeks to give me a whole 5 months of tomato snacks. Between the plants I put basil, mint, chamomile, dill.. I haven’t bought a herb in a supermarket for years. I tried to grow celery and leek plants but they tasted nasty: still learning!
Sep 22, 2022
eating something that you have tended to from sprout to bloom to fruit is so fulfilling. on my second story balcony i am growing pole beans, basil, and peppers.
Sep 10, 2024
Top Recs from @ondi-timoner
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If you have a dog, walk them! If not, walk anyway! I have found my whole life that walking is the best way to feed my mind, body, and soul simultaneously… and to see and discover any new city. I travel a lot with my films, and sometimes I clock in 13 miles in a day… On any day at home, it’s a sacred time, as the sun sets and we walk our dogs. But if I can take care of phone calls, listen to podcasts, do Zooms and catch up with my partner and friends while moving my feet down the street, waving at neighbors and taking in the natural beauty that is waiting to be discovered around every corner - I will choose that any day. Wandering around a city is also our favorite way to experience any city in the world.
Jan 16, 2025
This is a book by Austrian psychologist, Viktor Frankl, about his observations of the human condition, recorded while surviving the Holocaust. He identified work, love and suffering as the three ways we can find meaning in life - while suffering is how we can reach our highest potential, because it tests us the most. He observed how vital hope was for survival, and how some people were profoundly graceful and generous in their suffering… like those who gave away their meager piece of bread, or even how a starving woman made the last days on this earth count by appreciating a single track against a blue sky she was able to see through a slit in the wood… It is really the best guide to living I have found.
A few years after reading it, I was approached to direct a documentary about the writers of Netflix’s Oscar-winning “All Quiet on the Western Front” as they adapt Man’s Search for Meaning into a screenplay. They are a power couple facing the biggest challenge of a lifetime: After 22 years of marriage and partnership, sports psychologist Simon Marshall, and 5X World Champion Triathlete, Lesley Paterson, get their dream job to adapt their favorite book Man’s Search for Meaning, but the same day they get the job, Simon receives a call from his doctor telling him that he has Stage 3 Pancreatic Cancer. The film we’ve been shooting follows their journey across the world, retracing Frankl’s life journey while pursuing cures for this deadly form of cancer. Our documentary is shaping up to be a modern Man’s Search of Meaning, because it is all about turning something devastating into a triumph by making it meaningful - and it has changed my life forever to take on the challenge of telling this essential story. Â
Jan 16, 2025
Staying at the Roxy in NY (formerly the Tribeca Grand) is akin to being on an elegant cruise in Manhattan. It’s my home away from home in the city. Everything is there: from live jazz in the massive atrium lobby with the glass elevator zipping up and down and the divine food and drinks (I recommend the lobster roll and a mescal cocktail) in recessed leather booths shaped like teacups, to the gorgeous red velvet theater below - which offers the best films on screen in Manhattan - curated by the brilliant Illyse Singer. After attending a killer film and fascinating Q&A, retreat to the Django, the speakeasy next door, which stays open til 4AM and is often where the hottest underground music acts play… What else could you ask for?Â
Jan 16, 2025