Weekend

This weekend I realized two very important things: the first being the importance of looking in one's rubber boots before putting them on; the second is that I really ought to buy a proper ice cream maker.

This was the second time (in 7 years, mind you) that I put on rubber boots that were basking in the warm sun by the back door and got stung by ... something. The first time it was definitely a bee. Yesterday whatever it was stung me 3 times and likely died but left no trace behind. There were wasps around this past week when the temperature soared to 29 degrees (celsius), so who knows what other stinging creatures are still lurking around waiting to prey on innocent shins and knees.

The unseasonably hot weather has necessitated several trips for gelato. Sadly, these trips were neither cheap nor up to my standards, which makes me think that it's time to start making my own with a proper ice cream maker (last year I made strawberry coconut milk ice cream using a blender, not at all the same). This base recipe from Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams caught my eye when the temperature soared, so now I'm pretty convinced that an ice cream maker will be the next addition to my kitchen. I can't wait for infusions of vanilla bean and balsamic and herb and coffee ....

Pinspiration Board: Eames Bucket Chair

Certain things become apparent (about one's tastes, idiosyncrasies, not-so-secret obsessions) after spending a fair amount of time on pinterest. I have to be honest and admit that for the first few months after I signed up last spring I didn't really take to it, but it's grown on me, and now I've come to use it as an inspiration board for future rooms/houses/wardrobe changes/food prep. Where before I would have filled a notebook or drawer full of magazine tearaways, now everything is neatly organized under tidy paper-free headings for all the world to see what pinterests me. 

At the moment, apparently Eames bucket chairs and rockers. I think I was more attracted to the styling in these images, but their reoccurrence also doesn't seem accidental. I love how seamlessly the chairs go from ultra modern to rustic farm table. What I would do for a set with the wooden legs... 

  

  

all images via pinterest

sources:

1  Lantliv magazine

2  via Because I'm Addicted

3  Hanna (of Hanna's Room)'s home via A Diary of Lovely

4  Living Inside via Poppytalk

5  via SF Girl by Bay

6  via Design Conundrum

Spring Baking: Lemon Almond Tart

 

Everything about this recipe says SPRING!  Maybe it's the extra hour of daylight (although technically I slept in so it works out to be the same...), or all the juicing I've been doing lately, but I'm in the mood for lighter, fresher recipes. I'm tempted by pretty much anything that involves pastry, and since it's citrus season (not here, obviously, but imported from warmer climates) I think it's a worthy place to start my spring baking.

Image and recipe from Sweet Paul Magazine's spring issue

Dough:
1 cup almond meal
1 1/2 cups plain flour
1/3 cup sugar
1 1/4 sticks salted butter, cold and in pieces
1 egg
2 teaspoons grated lemon zest

Filling:
5 large egg yolks
3/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon grated lemon zest
1/2 cup lemon juice
3/4 stick salted butter, cold and in pieces
candied lemon, optional

1. Place almond meal, flour, and sugar in a bowl and mix. 2. Add the butter and work it into the flour with your fingers. The result should be grainy. 3. Add egg and lemon zest and quickly work the dough together. If it seems dry, just add a few tablespoons of ice water. 4. Wrap the dough in plastic and let it rest in the fridge for at least 1 hour. 5. After an hour, preheat the oven to 375 F. 6. Take out the dough and roll it out to a thin crust. 7. Place in a greased pie tin. 8. Use a fork to prick the bottom. 9. Bake for about 15 minutes or until golden. 10. Cool on a wire rack. 11. Beat egg yolks and sugar until thick and creamy. 12. Place over a hot water bath and add zest, lemon juice, and butter. 13. Beat mixture until it becomes thick and creamy. 14. Pour into the pie crust and cool until servinv.
Decorate with candied lemons.

Little Paris Kitchen

La Petite Cuisine a Paris (Little Paris Kitchen) was, until recently, the smallest restaurant in Paris. I say recently because British chef Rachel Khoo started to cook out of her Paris apartment for patrons in order to test recipes for her cookbook that is coming out in the UK this month, and as such, at least for the time being, it now no longer operates. Instead, her little Paris kitchen can now be transported, so to speak, wherever her cookbook is available. Based on reviews of her dinners that I've come across online, and the recipes she's demonstrated in videos, this will be one to seek out.

Also, I'm sort of secretly hoping that there will be something in her book about how to achieve the kind of quintessential-adorable-and-totally-pulled-together French girl thing she has going on.

Behind the Scenes

Stylist Kate Young posted these pics to her tumblr of helping her pals Michelle Williams and Natalie Portman get Oscar ready. I simply love the necklace that Michelle wore. 

Umbrella Envy

Umbrella envy ... is what people who pass by me on the street will be consumed with when they see this beauty:

Stripes. Ombré. And a beautiful red wooden handle. I canNOT wait for it to rain!

image:

twit pic 

Owl Sweater at Burberry Pre-Fall

Burberry really outdid themselves for pre-fall 2012 (whatever that means).

I know I'm not alone in coveting this sweater, so (obviously) I can't for the knock-off version. Sigh.

images

1-4.  Garance Doré

5. Kate Bosworth via Upscale Hype

Downton Abbey // The Paper Dolls

I've heard that Downton Abbey isn't as big a thing in the UK as it is in North America. I've also heard that this might be because the class system as portrayed in the series hits too close to home to most Britains, in that it still very much exists, or something like that.

Whatever the case, I'm about ready to start watching Season 1 for the second time, but trying to pace myself because it will be a while before the third season starts. And Mad Men starts soon. In the meantime, I'm considering printing out these printable Downton dolls. I just love the dowager (and her assortment of emotions - what is a week-end!) and think that illustrator Kyle Hilton got them spot-on. I hope he's planning on putting out more of the cast...

He's also, I've discovered, done paper dolls of the Bluth family (Arrested Development...) and Ryan Gosling as The Driver in the movie Drive. They can be found on his tumblr.

Paint Splattered

I have a tendency to make grand sweeping statements based on very little data, like the time I once said that nothing much happened in the Middle Ages in comparison with the Renaissance for a first-year paper. And now I'm going to say that based on these two outfits at NYFW paint splattered pants are a thing. Printed pants (and skirts and dresses, etc) are certainly popping up everywhere, but artist studio-inspired prints of splattered paint or inkblot patterns have been catching my eye. Probably has something to do with an impressionist-style splattered print on a dress I bought off the sale rack at French Connection in the summer. It had just arrived in that morning from the SoHo store, and the sales guy was so pleased that I fell for it. 

1 & 2. Erin Kling
3. Claire Geist
4. Rhian Grimstead
5. 3.1 Philip Lim paint splatter drape skirt

Birthday Week

It's kind of a big one.

I'm turning thirty, which when written out like that makes me kind of queasy, so I'll refrain from doing that again. I'm not at all daunted by it and feel ready to leave behind my 20s, and to welcome in the new decade I'm trying to find the perfect cake recipe. Yes I will be making my own birthday cake, it's one of my great pleasures in life, and this way I get to choose. 

There have already been two birthday celebrations (and three birthday cakes) in the last few weeks, and since I've provided all three of them (happily), I kind of want to pull out all the stops for my own. Cake #1 was chocolate with peanut butter frosting, cake #2 was David Leibowitz's carrot cake, and cake #3 was gluten-free, chock full of dates and ground almonds and a LOT of chocolate - it was fudgy and soo good that I had to request my sister take the remainder out of the house because I was justifying eating it for breakfast, lunch and snacks (you know, because of the dates, it was healthy...).

Right now I'm torn between two routes: do I make the outrageously sugary and delicious-looking (and -sounding) pumpkin s'more cake that I've been eyeing since the fall or one of Babycakes' cupcakes, which is more in line with my new baking philosophy - also delicious-looking, but requires a slightly revamped pantry. I'm borrowing the Babycakes cookbook right now, and every one of her cupcake recipes is calling my name. I have no idea what half of the ingredients are and what they do (xanthan gum?!) but I love baking with coconut oil and almond milk, and am trying to eliminate sugar (so far fairly successfully, aside from the above cake list) and since Erin Mckenna, Babycakes founder, is the queen of vegan and sugar-free baking, and also so darned cute, I'm set on one of her recipes in the hopes that it will make me more like her.

I'm leaning slightly towards Babycakes' carrot cake, but am super anxious about the frosting. There's always a lot riding on the frosting, and in this case, being free of icing sugar and butter (eeek!) it could go either way. Updates and recipes to follow. Fingers crossed.

Domino Resurrected

Oh happy day, a day I've long dreamed of (for real), when Conde Nast would realize that they were too hasty in pulling the plug on the design magazine that was like no other, and that spawned countless online design magazines after it was gone.

Domino is back, alas not in its former monthly glory, but for now it's set to appear on newsstands as a special edition called Domino Quick Fixes in the Spring and Fall (and fingers crossed it will make it to a quarterly). I can't wait for April.

images via pinterest

Leopard Print Love

My new dress (an early birthday present). 

It's far from the neutral zone, being leopard print and all, but it doesn't actually deviate from my usual colour palette of gray and black. That's why I promptly went to MAC and bought a bright pink lipstick. Girl About Town. That's about right.

image:

lilian silk dress, club monaco

A Spring in Your Step

I currently have my eye on inspiring ways to incorporate colours other than gray and black into my wardrobe. First up: footwear.   

images:

1. unknown  

2. seychelles snapdragon heels in emerald

Gehry & Rodarte x Don Giovanni

How do you bring Mozart to a 21st century audience? If you're the LA Philharmonic you hire Frank Gehry to do your set design and Kate and Laura Mulleavy (aka Rodarte) to design costumes.

Neither are in unfamiliar territory here - Gehry designed his first opera set for a production of Osud at the Fisher Center for Performing Arts at Bard College and the Mulleavy sisters are responsible for the costumes used in Black Swan - but this seems like a challenge on a much grander scale.

I can think of no better way for an opera company to appeal to the masses, though - who wouldn't want to go just to see the spectacle?

costumes for Black Swan

Walt Disney Concert Hall in LA

Frank Gehry's buildings are marvels not only to look at, but also to walk through. For this production he's planning to create a "moving still-life on the stage" in a concert hall that he designed back in the early 90s (the building opened to the public in 2003 after many financial delays).

Brought to You by the Colour Grey

I realized on my way to work this morning that I was wearing almost entirely grey, literally from head to toe, in a fairly grey landscape. It seems that every week the city alternates from spring-ish browns and swampy greens to pristine white. Yesterday: brown. This morning: grey. Currently: white-ish with a strong chance of rain.

1 Joe jeans
2 French Connection coat
3 Wool hat via net-a-porter.com
4 H by Hudson Lille desert boots
5 Falke cable knit knee high socks

image via polyvore

Bâtiment

Experiential art installations are all the rage right now.


This fall there was Carsten Höller's exhibition cum funhouse at the New Museum in New York City. A mirrored carousel, giant mushroom sculptures, a slide that visitors could ride through two floors were just some of the artist's engaging work in the installation.


Currently on exhibit at 104 in Paris is Leandro Erlich's Bâtiment, which consists of a towering mirror onto which an image of a building is reflected. The building itself is merely a facade constructed on the ground, allowing visitors to walk all over it, sprawl out on it, and configure themselves into a scene that is at once dangerous, bizarre, and wondrous in appearance to onlookers of the reflected image. 

installation, 104 in Paris:

Bâtiment, Leandro Erlich au 104 by Palagret:

                                                       Carsten Holler: Experience at the New Museum, NYC:

Jason Wu x Target

On February 5th, get thee to a Target. Jason Wu's collection for Target is perfection and just what I'm looking for (ideal for spring and for winter layering) - minimalist, tailored looks with a nice balance of neutrals and colour pops.

When Target comes to Canada in 2013 (or is it 2014? I can't keep track), I wonder if all these capsule collections will be available north of the border as well...