Happy Halloween!

At least my husband came home with:
a. candy for the children.
b. my costume.
He's a very good costumer. We named him "Halloween Stylist" of the century. I'm going as Beethoven, he's going as Karl Lagerfeld. Our friend Dave who's visiting from Portland, Oregon said something about wearing a barrel. Pictures (I hope) tomorrow. Until then: Icky, our cat, is dressed as my ANNANN handbag. Nice one Ick!

Free Rice Dot Com

This morning I decided to Stumble on Stumble Upon, which I hadn't done in long time. If you don't know it, it's an "add-on" for Firefox. Type in your interests and hit the "Stumble" button and it will take you all over the web to new websites you've probably never seen.

But today the first was freerice.com. You play by doing SAT-level multiple choice vocabulary and for every word you get right, 10 grains of rice are donated through the Unicef World Food Program. Get smarter and do a good deed this morning here.

Bayeux and Mont St. Michel

Color Therapy a la Normandy

Lovely Fall color inspirations. Fell in love with the poppies growing along the corn fields.

The drive North, Normandy, October 2007

The drive. I wish we could own that old chateau.

Market at L'Aigle. The sausages were delicious.

View from Bill the Conqueror's castle

From the Perche we drove North through Falaise where we visited the castle of William the Conqueror. The next 2 days were pretty bellicose. It was all about the Battle of Hastings and the D-Day invasion, and the search for the perfect omelette.

The Perche

Some pictures from our trip to Normandy. We went to a region called Le Perche--it was quiet and inspiring. The fall colors were beautiful. The apple orchards were in full..uh.fruit and we ate a lot of Tarte Tatinsand drank a lot of cidre and calvados. And ate apples.

A Day for Soup

This week I got an email from a friend to be part of a recipe driven email exchange. Basically you were asked to write a simple, preferably easy to make, off-the-cuff recipe, add your name and the person's name who sent you the recipe at the top of the email and send it to at least 20 friends, who in turn will do the same. Nice!
My Recipe:

White Bean Soup

-can of organic cannelini beans
-fresh sage and rosemary, chopped roughly
-handful of squashed cherry tomatoes or rough chopped larger ones
-about a cup of organic veg or chicken stock
-clove of crushed, chopped garlic
-carrot, chopped
-some chopped Italian kale or chard or something green if you want
-sea salt (always) and white and black pepper and a bay leaf if you have them

Throw it all in a little saucepan, let bubble and then simmer for about 20-25 minutes or til vegetables are tender. Throw in the chopped greens at the end and let wilt. It was great drizzled with a little olive oil to make it more RICH!

BUT then, through Scrappy Girl (that apartment decorating minx)...I found this recipe for this beautiful white bean, kale and pork soup on Kate F_Girl Reporter---(recipe), which I may try tonight. Look at this photo proof! Nice work!

These Painted Rocks

Are just the most beautiful things I've seen. From Julia Likes via (my new favorite blog) Modern Craft, (I think).
As a modern fan of the paper-weight and an die-hard fan of rocks, these would make the prevention of papers flying away glorious!

Shadow Puppets

Andrea Everman's beautiful shadow puppets found on and lifted from the fantastic blog Modern Craft. I love her characters, especially the toothfairy (above) and the yetti.

I tried a shadow puppet project where I cut old paper bags to look like the hanging peking ducks in Chinatown. When the sun hit a certain angle in the room, the ducks cast a big sharp on the wall. I never finished the project though (a Chinatown window) and only have a few paper-bag ducks hanging in my kitchen. Pretty ragged compared to these lovelies but I 'm inspired to continue the project once I catch up with my work.

Drunk by Noon

Congratulations to Jennifer L. Knox (or Jennifer El Knox) on her second book, Drunk by Noon!
I've been a fan of her poetry forever, going so far as to talking her into hanging out with me, getting her drunk and convincing her we've been friend's for a long time.

This is great great readable relatable poignant poetry, but I think the comparison to Richard Pryor is a bit off. I mean, clearly she's funny. She's very very funny (as in side-splittingly so) but she's more Sex Pistols than Richard Pryor. How about Lenny Bruce? Yeah. I'd say more Lenny Bruce.

Also congrats to Shanna Compton and her new press Bloof Books. I love like crazy the logo and her D.I.Y. publishing blog.

See both Knox and Compton at real live readings this coming Friday at 8pm at the Lucky Cat in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

Notes from Le Showroom

I've been meaning to post a few pics from Le Showroom that took place a few weeks ago during fashion week in Paris. It was a difficult season for many because the dollar and the yen are so weak against the euro but it also meant that many more European buyers were out. Below are a few shots of some of my neighbors at the show. There were some great designers there this season.

Mamius from Japan. Her work has such a beautiful, clean minimal aesthetic. She uses natural and organic cottons, linens and silks. This season she was influenced by Buddhist monk robes.

Claudia from Hageli was my neighbor this season. She creates these amazing one-of-a-kind blouses, capelets and dresses from mixing vintage silk scarves in amazing color combinations with new silk, like a gorgeous new species of butterfly. Her stitching and asymmetrical designs were lovely. She's from Paris; no website yet but I believe she said it's coming.

Each season I fall in love in with Hut Up's ethereal dresses, blouses and skirts. So much so that I took home the slate blue dress I ordered last February and am excited to wear it finally. She has a technique of felting and fusing silk with wool (I think...) so that there is minimal stitching and maximal beauty. Her pieces are light and airy and always flattering with a really whimsical air to them and completely unlike anything I've ever seen.

I really like the work of Hiroko Murayama. Her pieces are an interesting mix of delicate feminine and sporty chic. I think she has a love affair with cotton eyelet and sweet lacy fabrics (I'm a sucker for eyelet) and also funky cotton knits and she manages to mix it really well. I loved her cute Guinevere top and tennis dresses. She and her husband, both based in Milan, have also started an amazing unisex bag line, Tra Le Foglie.

Nice kicks eh? These won first prize in a big Japanese fashion competition but I need to find the name of the designer and the competition. But come on...I had to post this pic! Go Aries, go!