Well I hope everyone had a great long weekend! The weather here in Toronto was ridiculously beautiful and the city emptied out into the North for May 24.

We had a long overdue charcuterie dinner with Celine and Jin on Saturday night. You’re probably familiar with Celine’s wonderful blog: Bonjour Celine. Juli and I had a date with The Cheese Boutique (Aka paradise) to pick up some cheese, meats, and olives. Everyone there is so helpful and you get to taste so many samples!

Celine and Jin brought 4 dozen oysters from Oyster Boy to start the meal off. Jin learned how to shuck oyesters in P.E.I so he taught me the trick and soon the pupil became the master and I managed to shuck most of the bunch while Jin gave them a scrub. It took a while to shuck all 48 oysters but only a few minutes to eat them all!

On Sunday, our friends Jen and Taylor invited us over on Sunday for a Lost season finale party.

Did anyone else watch?

Jen is a thoughtful entertainer, catering to all of our special dietary needs via 3 different types of nachos, vegan pigs in a blanket, veggies and hummus. Thanks J & T!

An exciting addition to the mjölk shop were these four beautiful white risers designed by Peter from Studio Junction and created by master wood worked Clayton. It also features most of the new Japanese products we found on our trip!

Peter and I were channeling Tadao Ando when positioning the risers together.

The risers use a balance of positive and negative space to anchor them in our showroom. We also love the angled detail of the edges which feel great to the touch. The items on the riser are from our first shipment of a line of paper products by Naoto Fukasawa for Onao (the box it all came in declared “japanese paper is mystery”). They are all made from a water proof and tear resistant paper that actually gets softer with use.

We also got new wooden tags created for all the products in the store. They’re so unique and really compliment the designs we carry.

Some notable peieces that need to be mentioned are the beautiful and poetic f,lo,w,e,r,s ruler, with hand picked and dried flowers placed in increments of 1 cm and cast in acrylic resin. There are also handmade Japanese works by Mitsuru Maeda including wooden spoons, coffee measures, and lipped bowls. I still need to add them to the website!

Monday we drove up to the cottage. It was insanely hot out and we forgot to bring our bathing suits (and shorts)! We’ll take our cat Isha up with us next time. We don’t like leaving her at home alone and upon our return she was pretty ticked off with us. I am so tempted to get a leash for her so she can come out on the deck, but is that a slippery slope? I can’t have her begging at home to go out. Sigh poor indoor cat Isha.

We also picked up the PS Svarva floor lamp by Front. We’re both big fans of Front and probably wouldn’t find many opportunities to own one of their pieces, so we ventured off to Ikea to grab it before it’s too late (Juli was totally busted by a mjölk customer…blush). It’s a stunning, edgy design that works well with the Marcel Wanders dining table at the cottage.

We have decided that for the summer, the mjölk shop will be CLOSED SUNDAYS & MONDAYS. Please check the website for up to the minute hours of operation.