It’s also just a super easy recipe that involves some bomb-cookie making tricks. You cream two sticks of butter with a cup of brown sugar and a 1/2 cup of sugar and then add two eggs… okay, so far that’s normal. But then you grind up a vanilla bean (whoa) and add all that – not the scraped out innards… but The. Whole. Thing.  Step one for epic cookie-ing. Then you mix your dry ingredients and add those: 3 cups oats, 1 1/2 cup flour, 1 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp salt, 1 tsp cinnamon. Your batter is made and now it’s all about the mix ins. And I say the more the merrier (and yes, Cher’s debate speech rattles in my mind when I say it: “If we could just get to the kitchen, rearrange a few things….”).

The next step to surreal sweets is letting the dough rest. Wrap that love dough up and pop it in the fridge. I suggest doing a 30 minute arm work out. But you could let the dough rest for way longer than 30 minutes. In fact, over night is optimal. There’s something about the changing proteins of the eggs having time to get friendly with the other molecules. For real. Ask Harold McGee. Now when you bake them they go from really cold to really hot – and that helps, too.

When you remove the dough from the fridge, roll it out and make heart shaped cut outs – use a cookie cutter or just slice irregular shaped hearts with a pairing knife. Bake at 350 for 8-11 minutes. Let cool. And then decorate with icing if you desire (and get HARDENING icing if you do!). If you’re feeling extra crafty, make a heart-shaped potato stamp to create your own stationary. I did that randomly back in June and then found them the day before V-Day. You could make them a few days post cupid and serendipitously find them at Christmas. Life could be worse!

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I’ve been a West Village resident on and off for the last seven years and am proud/embarrassed to say that I go to the deli a lot. When I am in the city, it’s not a stretch to say that I visit my deli 3-4 times from sunrise into the wee hours, picking up various sundries needed throughout the day.  In the morning I grab a kombucha and some grapes. Afternoons are re-ups on seltzer water and night time ranges from ice cream to pineapple to eggs for the morning. My deli also has an excellent sandwich counter where my guys will scoop out any bagel, add avocado to any on-the-board selection and generally make me anything at any hour. I also get my flowers, my paper towels and my Advil from that same corner store. My monthly credit card statement boils down to air travel and deli expenditures.

So, the week before I turned 28 this year, I was palling around my hood doing my seltzer runs, stopping in for pineapples and treating myself to Ben and Jerry.  I had been in with a friend and spoken about the upcoming parties I was having on Friday night – one at a hotel nearby. We discussed my dress, the start time, the guest list, the day-of preparations.  I was giddy with anticipation. My friend played along – busting me on the fact (true) that I love my birthday like no one over five years old should, going overboard each year – this year culminating in two parties as well as turning a friend’s clambake into an extended b-day event the following day.

We left the deli not thinking about who’d been listening. That evening I returned for Advil and some Tates and the following morning I picked up some cottage cheese. One of the guys asked if I’d be around on Friday. Of course, I said. I’ve never been asked a personal/schedule question by any of the deli men but I didn’t think about it. Later in the day when I went in for Gerber daisies and lilies, he asked me what time. That got my attention but I decided to play it cool.  There’s a dance that needs to go on between those people of the neighborhood we see everyday but whose daily rhythms are ever so different. I thought about my Friday schedule – my birthday party day – and told him likely around 1pm.

As the week went on, the deli guy checked with me two more times. I think I would have been a little weirded out but I was so fixated on the birthday that I kept forgetting to think about it.

When Friday came, I’d totally forgotten about my 1p bodega call time. I went about my day: working from Soho House, taking a meeting in Tribeca and Union Square, purchasing a 2 and an 8 candle, and emailing the hotel to be sure they had the most updated guest list. So, it was to my surprise when, at 2:30p I popped into my spot for a smoked salmon with avocado, tomato and lettuce on toasted whole wheat, the guys greeted me at the door.

What followed was surreal. The deli guys had overheard me discussing the parties earlier in the week and, as a birthday present, had made me a Freesia headdress to wear to my double header soirée.  Talk about being floored. The wreath was a piece of artwork. It was all white since they knew my first dress was tie-dye and the second one was a white lace slip-looking get-up. I nearly cried.  I gave them all hugs and promise to take pictures.

That night, I wore the crown with pride, bragging incessantly where it had come from. I could have stayed home and watched Friends reruns and I still would have had a great birthday; the deli men made me feel like a star. Kindness always touches the heart and the kindness of New Yorkers is a treasured gem. A New York moment for the books.

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What’s in your bag? When you pack for a trip, in your handbag, in the pockets of your jeans…?

Rosebud salve, passport, rose water and gum. I’m a nut about feeling fresh and smelling good.

You have 5 minutes to pack up – a trip for which you’re not sure of the duration. What do you take?

My journal, a toothbrush, sunscreen, sunglasses, jeans, penny loafers, over-sized loosely knitted sweater (I can’t get out of my Wildfox IMAGINE Peace Sign sweater, it makes people smile when you first meet them, a good ice-breaker) and a tank top.

What is your most essential article of clothing?

Everything I own is comfortable to a certain extent.  Rarely to do I suffer for fashion.  Once in awhile I’ll wear a ridiculous pair of heels or extremely tight leather skirt, but only one piece at a time.  Tight leather on bottom equals cashmere on top. 5inch heels are paired with a loose and flowing dress.

What are the top 5 songs you need to have access to hearing at all times?

‘Jolene’ by Dolly Parton

‘My Way’ by Frank Sinatra

‘Only If For A Night’ by Florence and The Machine

‘Night Air’ by Jaime Woon

In The Mood For Love Soundtrack

Anything from Sigur Ros

What is your preferred hummingbird beat/cities you like to frequent?

I can’t go more than 6 months without seeing New York.

What’s something crazy that you did to follow your passion? (Like, did you live out of your car for a month? Drive 10 hours to pick up a certain, weird material you needed?)

When I was 17 I knew that LA was the only place for me.  I packed up my car and drove into the unknown with $500 in my pocket from a side job I had back home. I lived out of my car, worked days and nights, fought heart-pounding loneliness, all to create the life I knew was possible for myself.  Failure was not an option.  Back then I didn’t have specific direction, I was going on a feeling.  I wasn’t sure how my art would express itself, I only knew that I felt something inside that was pushing me forward.  That guttural feeling is still what drives me today.  I am very grateful to it.

What is one tip you have for traveling – a beauty tip, a survival tip, a culinary tip… ?

No matter where you are you are traveling, let go of yourself and what you know.  Allow the culture, food, people and traditions to overcome and inspire you.  If that means sleeping on a dirt floor or eating pig brains, so be it.  Do so with a smile and gratitude.  Always be open-minded.  Life is far more enriching when you can let go and absorb newness around you.

Beauty tip: water, sunscreen and a GOOD attitude. Never underestimate the outside beauty inner peace radiates.

What makes you a good house guest?

I believe in the age old saying, treat people how you want to be treated.  Therefore I am always respectful, tidy and make it a habit to leave a small gift and flowers for my host/hostess.  To be welcome in a person’s home is an honor; I treat it as such.

What’s a recent or favorite meal you had while bouncing around the globe?

In Laos, my best friend and I were served an incredible salted river fish.  It was a warm evening along the Mekong and needless to say, we had seconds.

Where have you had your best night’s sleep?

I slept like a baby on the first night of my month-long stay in India.  It was a hard bed in a hot room, but I was so grateful and thrilled to be there (maybe a little jet-lagged) that I fell asleep instantly and awoke with a sense of great peace and contentment.  I might as well have slept in a cloud above the heavens.

Who would you like to travel with – three people (you guys can caravan together or on separate trips)?

My little brother and I had to travel together a lot as children. My parents divorced and my father moved to Brazil for work.  We had such unique experiences bouncing around South America that really shaped and bonded us. We haven’t traveled like that as adults for various reasons, the main one being health.  I would love to experience New Orleans with him for the first time.  Jazz, bourbon and gumbo.  Take a trek through the back bayous, just me and him.

I would love to travel back to India with a yogi and do a month long stay in various ashrams. One month of scheduled teaching, growing, breaking, failing, building, loving.  It’s always been a dream of mine to have a guru to call me out and keep me in line, if at the very least, a month.

Before I die I want to go off alone.  Experience Ireland, Nepal, Japan, anywhere that is calling me at the time, just get lost and be left to my own devices.

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What’s in your bag? When you pack for a trip, in your handbag, in the pockets of your jeans…?

In my bag: one German book that I end up never reading , a magazine, my Macbook pro, external hard-drive, granola bar, sketchbook, notebook, mini color felt tips,  lipbalm and red lipstick. In my jeans-pocket: a Post-It with things I should definitely get done on that day

You have 5 minutes to pack up – for a trip of which the duration you’re not sure. What do you take?

A denim shirt, a white shirt, a flower-print shirt, 2 pair of jeans, one tailored jacket, leather jacket, boots, oxford, heels, Lost in Translation DVD, sketchbooks, pens, paint, portable scanner…okay, this was actually if I had 50 minutes to pack.

What is your most essential article of clothing?

Denim shirt.

What are the top 5 songs you need to have access to hearing at all times?

Coldcave – ‘The Trees Grew Emotional and Died’, SBTRKT – ‘Never Never’, any Patti Smith song, Kevin Shields – ‘City Girl’ and Pachelbel’s ‘Canon in D Major’.

What is your preferred hummingbird beat/cities you like to frequent?

Brooklyn, Tokyo and Paris. Brooklyn is where I currently live and have my studio, so it’s the place I need to come back to. Paris: the more I go, the more I like it, and now I’ve come so far that I want to live there for a while in the near future.  Tokyo is where I was born so going back is always very special, its the place where my most favorite people, food and culture is.

What’s something crazy that you did to follow your passion? (Like, did you live out of your car for a month? Drive 10 hours to pick up a certain, weird material you needed?)

I love this question… I wish I can say something great but the only crazy thing I can think of is that a while ago, I had to create a hand-drawn animation within 1 month. Every day I woke up at 8, worked until midnight, slept and did the whole thing all over again for the whole month. I didn’t do much apart from drawing and by the time I was done, I lost 11 pounds and didn’t know who I was anymore. The next time I’m making an animation I need an assistant and a cook.

What is one tip you have for traveling – a beauty tip, a survival tip, a culinary tip… ?

When I travel, one of the most important things is…food! I always ask local people I meet where they eat or if they recommend a place and its a small adventure to just go.

What makes you a good house guest?

There will be enough booze for everyone else because I get really drunk with 2 glasses of wine.

What’s a recent or favorite meal you had while bouncing around the globe?

My most recent trip was my trip to Munich, Berlin, London and Paris in January.  In Munich, I always love my grandma’s breakfast with the best German bread. But then after eating too much bread for a while, I liked the Pho in Berlin, especially in a Vietnamese restaurant called Onkel Ho, in London the new Austrian coffeehouse ‘Kipferl’ was great.  In Paris, I like eating galette for lunch at the ‘Breizh Cafe’…but in general I love breakfast buffets in hotels when I travel.

Where have you had your best night’s sleep?

Wherever it is very silent!  Until last month, I was living very close to the highway and I got used to the constant car sounds in the background. I recently moved to a new place which faces a backyard and realized that it actually makes such a big difference when I sleep.

Who would you like to travel with – three people (you guys can caravan together or on separate trips)?

- My mum, because every time we travel together something so funny happens that I have to laugh everytime I look back.

- Erika, my best friend who I once travelled with to a beautiful island called ‘Yoronjima’ in Japan and that was one of my best trips of my life and I hope I can go there with her again.

- My boyfriend Arashi; we’ve been to so many places by now and it is always inspirational and special. He always somehow manages to be friends with people we meet and since I’m quite shy I always enjoy that, too.

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Hummingbird Beats is a celebration of what it takes to push the creative life, a make-it-work mentality. A Hummingbird stops time, instills joy, moves constantly with total focus, seeks sweetness, and symbolizes infinity – infinite love, light, energy, joy. Us hummingbirds are unwavering in pursuing our passions, no matter the “normal-ness” we may have to sacrifice … For all this, it helps to know a few tricks in the kitchen.

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What’s in your bag? When you pack for a trip, in your handbag, in the pockets of your jeans…?

Parker 5^th pen, Moleskine, MacBook Air, iPhone and iPod, Lumix LX5, whichever book/s I’m reading, headphones, cheap sunnies, my New York MetroCard and my London Oyster Card. Plus YSL Touche Eclat, Lancome Hypnose mascara, MAC Studio Fix and a Chanel Rouge Coco Shine lippy because I honestly can’t remember the last time I didn’t have to do my make-up on the run.

You have 5 minutes to pack up, for a trip of what duration you’re not sure. What do you take?

Chargers! Passport! All of the above, plus at least one pair of beloved jeans, a few extra pairs of underwear and my sneakers because I’m a zealot about the joys of running around in fresh air, wherever I am. Also: more books (I still don’t own a Kindle). And a functional credit card, clearly, so that more books and other necessities may be purchased if I’m away for weeks on end.

What is your most essential article of clothing?

A pair of Jimmy Choo biker boots that I bankrupted myself with a few years ago as a present for finishing my novel and have basically never taken off. They’re quite battered now, but go with everything from vintage print dresses to jeans; and, because they’re made out of non-synthetic leather, can be worn right through from winter to summer. Plus you can walk a million miles a day in them, which is handy.

What are the top 5 songs you need to have access to hearing at all times?

Five? Are you kidding me? I am a music junkie, I have to have access to everything at all times. I even have the clunky retro iPod because it’s 160 GB and I panic when I can’t listen to a lot of music. I’m a classical and jazz nut, but I also love hip-hop, rap, soul, disco, indie, rock’n’roll, much pop music. Name a musical genre and there’s almost certainly something in it that I heart. I’m addicted.

What is your preferred hummingbird beat/cities you like to frequent?

I’m a born & bred London girl and I’ve lived in New York for the past three years. I’ve also lived in Paris, so I’m obviously biased towards those three. I’m also mildly obsessed with San Francisco, Cape Town, Melbourne, Barcelona, Stockholm and St. Petersburg. Freetown, Sierra Leone, where I met my man also scores pretty high – most people have no idea but it has one of the most staggeringly beautiful coastlines I’ve ever seen. It’s a magical place and has about seven tourists a year.

What’s something crazy that you did to follow your passion? (Like, did you live out of your car for a month? Drive 10 hours to pick up a certain, weird material you needed?)

Even as a teenager, I knew I had multiple passions: writing, music, storytelling; a giant creative curiosity that was never going to be satisfied by doing one thing only. In the UK, it’s not really acceptable to try and juggle different lives so I think the craziest thing I did was just silently refuse to accept this. For so many years after I graduated, people would say, ‘Wait, but I don’t understand – are you a novelist? A journalist? A musician? An actress? A broadcaster? When are you going to make up your mind?’ I used to shrug, smile sweetly and then just get on with it.

What is one tip you have for traveling – a beauty tip, a survival tip, a culinary tip… ?

It’s going to sound nuts but I truly believe that J.S. Bach’s Well Tempered Klavier, a long suite of short solo classical piano pieces, has some kind of mystical, medicinal property to restore equilibrium and ward off jetlag. I listen to it on long transatlantic plane journeys, as a backdrop to whatever I’m reading or working on, and I get off and I’m fine! If I don’t have it, I’m broken. Crazy, but true.

What makes you a good house guest?

I bring a lot of good wine and a Diptyque candle. I play the piano. I’m scrupulously tidy (despite being a mess magnet at home). I donate books. I take my hosts out for dinner. And I never, ever, ever expect them to look after or entertain me.

What’s a recent or favorite meal you had while bouncing around the globe?

In Caracas, Venezuela last month, I ate at this incredible restaurant called DOC in which they source the best local, seasonal produce the country has to offer – we ate phenomenal lobster, unbelievable cured hams and cheeses, delicious salads. I was expecting the Venezuelan cuisine to be all fried pork and rice, like previous South American experiences, but this place really blew my mind. I’m also smitten with the shoestring fries and the buttermilk fried chicken at Verjus in Paris which I ate the other day. Too magnifique for words.

Where have you had your best night’s sleep?

Tough call. In a hut in rural South Africa in the middle of the bush with a gazillion stars and even more frogs. Camping al fresco on the beach on Banana Island, Sierra Leone, lulled to sleep by the crashing waves. Or in New York, at home, in my bed with my husband, where the perma-noise of traffic, sirens and general buzz is no less enticing.

Who would you like to travel with – three people (you guys can caravan together or on separate trips)?

If I could bring people back from the dead I’d pick Martha Gellhorn, in a heartbeat. Easy. If not: my husband James because there’s no-one better at throwing a few basics into a backpack, jumping on a plane and being up for an adventure somewhere on this globe; my best friend Amber, who’s the world’s funniest, most gung-ho, most curious and generally glorious travel companion; and my mother Gillian, who took me on our first girlie jaunt to NYC when I turned thirteen and set in motion an unstoppable love affair with the city.

Follow Clemency on Twitter @clemencybh or at her website at clemencyburtonhill.com

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What’s in your bag?

Purse: empty gum packages, mociun+baggu shopper, kaweco fountain pen, lens cloth, memory stick, makeup bag full of Mac lipgloss, Warby Parker sunglasses, action pad, pocket knife, passport wallet, library book (Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian)… Pockets: metro ticket, euro, a guitar pick (which is funny since play without a pick but I have them all around me. I think my musician friends slip them in my pockets, hoping I will take the hint or something…)

You have 5 minutes to pack up – for a trip of which the duration you’re not sure. What do you take?

Acne jeans, frye harness boots, vintage t-shirt, denim work shirt, hippie wrap skirt, puffy vest… this combo is always good.

What is your most essential article of clothing?

Boots… definitely boots.

What are the top 5 songs you need to have access to hearing at all times?

LuckyBones – ‘Together We Are All Alone’, Townes Van Zandt – ‘If I Needed You’, Jackson C Frank – ‘Tumble in the Wind’, Tom Waits – ‘I Hope that I Don’t Fall in Love With You’ , Dylan – ‘Simple Twist of Fate’, Damien Jurado – ‘Everything Trying’… I’m really into old skool country at the minute – Buck Owens, Doc Watson, George Jones, Merle Haggard… hard to choose 5!

What is your preferred hummingbird beat/cities you like to frequent?

Paris and Dublin… I love Ireland so much, it’s in my blood. I’m singin’ ‘Dublin Blues’ every time I return home…

What’s something crazy that you did to follow your passion? (Like, did you live out of your car for a month? Drive 10 hours to pick up a

certain, weird material you needed?)

Once I covered my body with gesso for a self portrait… that was pretty nasty

What is one tip you have for traveling – a beauty tip, a survival tip, a culinary tip… ?

When I travel long-haul, I don’t wear any make-up, just make sure I have lots of moisturizer as the circulated air in planes makes me feel dried out… I carry a make-up bag with a little foundation, blush, mascara etc in my purse and right before we land, I will do a freshen up… hard to feel pretty when being picked up in an airport after a long, sleepless plane ride – this helps! I also like to travel with a Billy Kirk card case with a chain… I hate being saddled with a heavy purse when I wander… this little wallet pares me down to a credit card and ID and it feels secure in my pocket without weighing me down.

What makes you a good house guest?

I’m really easy. Don’t need a fuss or much space and I can live out of a small suitcase…

What’s a recent or favorite meal you had while bouncing around the globe?

The 7 course meal at the Hotel Du Nord, Paris, New Year’s Eve!

Where have you had your best night’s sleep?

I sleep like a log in Ireland… perhaps it’s the Guinness ;)

Who would you like to travel with – three people (you guys can caravan together or on separate trips)? 

Terri is my current running buddy… we travel well together, like the same activities, food and she is a great navigator. My friend Currie, the maven… she will know all of the cool places to shop and eat. And my friend Lisa for color and laughs.

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