Hi Happy November! Time for some Coffeeeeee with Kate in these dark autumnal days- nice to have a warm cup of coffee and some chat … 

WHOA NELLIE October flew and it’s been quite rough!

The whole situation in Gaza is so depressing and overwhelming- I hope all your loved ones are safe and ok- I have family and friends in Israel - Palestinian and Israeli- sending wishes for peace and love out into the universe every day. 🕊

October has been a busy month for us here at KAD HQ and beyond!

 Have I mentioned that I also co-own a knitting shop? The Knit Cafe, here in Toronto, celebrated 20 years of being open this month! It’s a lovely local yarn shop where people gather to knit , learn knitting and other fibre crafts, and to shop beautiful unique supplies as well. 20 years ago I lived in a big old house with a bunch of dear friends– we had a weekly knitting group that was just wild every week- so many people, so much fun!- so we decided to make it official and basically that’s how we came to open our little knitting shop and cafe- there were 4 co-founders who are still great friends today- plus one employee we invited to join as an owner early on, so there are 5 of us who co-own this fuzzy woolly very fun venture. 20 years! Kristin has been posting a countdown of 20 great memories/aspects of the knit cafe on our instagram- check that out here. 

In other news, a new book about my grandfather the philosopher was recently published - it got a great review in the London Review of Books! He was not only a pretty big deal in the philosophy world (when I was at university i would find him quite often cited in the feminist theory I was studying– very thrilling) –it turns out he was also a major WW2 deal!! The work he did was completely classified so we had no idea– not even my grandmother knew (or she kept his secret well!)–  until the UK govt declassified all the WW2 secret service stuff and then it came out, all chronicled in this book–  J. L. Austin, Philosopher and D-Day Intelligence Officer.

Here’s a great pic of my grandparents and my dad (Richard) and his siblings from back in the day (from the book). It’s a wild story!! 

Speaking of new books… I recently got one of Assouline’s gorgeous gigantic very frivolous and fun books about incredible holiday destinations- I chose Capri!

Not just for the fabulous orange, pink and gold cover- but also the (mostly vintage) sun-drenched images - including a few from Casa Malaparte where the 60’s classic Contempt was filmed. Brigitte Bardot, Jean-Luc Godard, primary colours… YES PLEASE! J’adore the french new wave, carrement! 

The fall arrived and we are ALL over root veggies right now. I made this fabulous recipe from the NY Times cooking section- I added pomegranate seeds, toasted walnuts and lots more pepitas and I skipped the honey (it’s already sweet with the molasses). SO YUMMY. And very pretty- I made a flower in the salad bowl because of course I did!!!!!! 

Our KAD community has been growing so we set up a “Stockists” page and sorted them by location. So many great spots to check out (and shop some KAD IRL) around the world! Yay!!!  We are thrilled to share all the beautiful shops that stock Kate Austin pieces!