Felice Compleanno mi amore' !!

(here's a little taste of what I offered in honor of Scott's 44th yesterday)

Kir Royale

*
Formaggio Taleggio

Olive di Cerignola

Noci Assortite

**

Antinori-Tignanello 2004

Pappardelle ala Bolognese

Rapini ala aglio e pecorino-reggiano

***

Torte al Cioccolato


E l'amore di Famiglia

New York Superlatives (or how to make 4 days with kids manageable in Soho)

We've been lucky enough for the past 15 or so years to have family in New York City making trips frequent and affordable. Scott's sister and her husband live right in the heart of Soho and my bro and his family live just across the Brooklyn Bridge in Dumbo. We visit maybe 2 or 3 times a year, each time with a different agenda basically due to the age of our kids.

This recent visit was just perfect....and here are some particular highlights, recommendations and suggestions.

• BEST WALK WITH KIDS THAT LIKE TO WALK

My brother, my kids, Colby, Maia (6 and 9 yrs. respectively), and myself walked from Dumbo to Soho, right across the Brooklyn Bridge.

• BEST 4 HOURS TO REMIND YOURSELF THAT IT'S OKAY TO BE PATRIOTIC

Statue of Liberty, including ferry, monument and stroll around Liberty Island was terrific. Especially haunting was the dramatic change in the NY skyline looking across the river....none of the landmarks or descriptive placards had been edited since Sept. 11, 2001 so they all had the twin towers depicted.

BEST PIZZA FOR EVERYONE
(that happens to be right in Soho)
Lombardi's - claiming to be the first pizzeria in NYC
32 Spring St.
Thin crust....straight from Naples, IT.
Awesome.

BEST VIEWING OF THE COGNOSCENTI
(of the painfully cool)
Apple Store (a former US Post Office)
103 Prince Street
I was busted for staring at least 4 different times.


BEST 'JUST POKING AROUND' STROLL WITHOUT KIDS
(while in Soho)
Thompson Street, Broome Street, Prince Street, Mercer Street, Crosby Street, Spring Street

Matta
Kid Robot
Fragments
Dean and Deluca


BEST CREATIVE DOUGHNUTS FOR ALL
Doughnut Plant

From NY Magazine, Mark Isreal was just a toddler when his grandfather died. But years later, Isreal discovered a gift the elder left to the family: his recipes. One particular dessert, an eggless doughnut, intrigued the baker, and what started as a lark—wholesaling the gooey, organic sweets from a basement—has turned into a booming retail business of exemplary pastries. Just ask Martha Stewart, who featured the oversized delicacies on her show and had a batch delivered just before she was incarcerated. Now entrenched on Grand Street, Doughnut Plant indulges with delightful flavors such as Valrhona chocolate, ginger, pumpkin, and coconut. Isreal keeps repeat customers guessing by baking different flavors every month or so, but locals anticipate the seasonal specialties: roasted chestnut doughnuts in November, rose petal doughnuts around Valentine's Day, and a blueberry striped version during baseball season. In 2004, the baker introduced a square-shaped jelly doughnut, with organic raspberry or strawberry spread evenly throughout so there's no danger of a big glop landing on your shirt. The retail space is tiny, but you can get a mouth-watering view of the kitchen through purposely designed portholes and watch the team of bakers at work rolling, dipping, and glazing the treats. — Susan Avery

BEST PLAYGROUND WHEN YOUR KIDS JUST HAVE TO RUN
Brooklyn Bridge Park Playground
Right at the end of Main Street, under the Manhattan Bridge overpass....complete with the loud, rankeling noise of the overhead subway.BEST CD TO LISTEN TO WHILE DRIVING TO AND FRO
(4.5 hrs. one-way Boston to NYC)
We don't do DVDs in the car. It's just good, ol'fashioned travel games and music. Kids get there music now and then. We get ours.
Radiohead - In Rainbows is just so smooth.
So beautiful.
Beautiful yearning angst.

Radiohead - In Rainbows - Weird Fishes_Arpeggi

Back from NYc. Great trip. More to tell....but need to share this amazing, unbelievably beautiful cd we listened to as we drove our 4 hours down and 4 hours back.

From Radiohead. In Rainbows.

Out of Office AutoReply: President's Weekend

Growing up in Kansas, we had one Spring Break. One week off from school in March. Just five days. School started right around Labor Day and ended before Memorial Day. A week in December and a couple of random days here and there and that was the school year.

Summer was bookended very clearly by Memorial Day weekend and Labor Day weekend in Kansas, and probably much of the midwest.....summer was a good stretch of 12 glorious warm weeks.

Not the case in New England. Kids start school around Labor Day weekend but school doesn't end until the third week of June. They get the expected week off between Christmas and New Year's, they get a whole host of random days, including Jewish holidays, legal holidays and probably some illegal holidays.

Then they get this week off in February highlighted by President's Day. And another week off in April. (Highlighted by Patriot's Day, which in Massachusetts celebrates or commemorates the 'shot heard 'round the world ' - or so I think).

And even though I've had the kids in the Brookline public school system for nearly 5 years this February week catches us by surprise ever friggin' time. No big ski plans. No Carribbean week. Nuthin' planned.

So-what we do? We head down to NYC and visit family. This trip's all about Scott's sister and brother-in-law who live in Soho. We've done the museums....lord knows we've toured all the Lower Manhattan playgrounds, we've done the zoos, the parks....

might just be time to play the role of a tourist and hit Ms. Liberty.

And ever the dork that I am, every time we visit Scott's sister, Leslie, I'm convinced I'm going to have some star-sighting. To name a random few that I've spotted: Nathan Lane, Bjork, Christy Turlington, Jon Stewart, Paul Rudd (friend and former neighbor of my brother's...I actually talked with him and shook his hand), Ana Gastmeyer.....etc.

But I am a total dork about it....like, I can't walk down the streets and sidewalks without getting all buggy-eyed, constantly scanning for some recognizable face.

And I'll stop at nothing. I could've sworn I saw Telly Salavas or Yul Brynner.....

.....but then I remembered that they're dead.

Aimeriez-vous le dîner mon amour ?

Every now and then we'll use St. Valentine's day as an excuse to go out on a full-blown date. Last year there was a nasty winter storm that kept us inside with bad take-out and the Thursday night NBC line-up. Year before that we waited 2 hours for high-end sushi to be delivered.

This year we planned a little more wisely and made reservations at one of our old favorites in Boston.

Est ici les zygomates.

Pronounced 'lay zee-goh-maht', and roughly translated from French to mean the muscles around your face that you use when you smile.

Scott and are usually pretty suspect of theme-dinners but never really turn a nose at prix-fixe and this joint's got some good ones. Granted, we haven't been to Les Zyg in a while....but hopefully our hearts and stomachs will be contented tonight. Stay tuned.

I {heart} you

Many thanks to all the greeting card companies we've got ourselves this one day in the whole, entire year that's earmarked for big red hearts....what we love, why we love, how we love and who we love....hearts and love. Love and hearts.

I love my family and my friends beyond words but on a more shallow level I also covet many things. Things that make my smile or feel good that are already in my possession....things that I know I can't take with me when that final day comes but until then, j'adore ces choses:

What I {heart}:



New York Times, particularly Wednesday (food and dining edition), Thursday (Style and health edition) and Sunday (massive compendium edition)


Jutta Neumann bags and sandals.




Hable Construction
Fleur de sel







A well-made cocktail
Black tea with milk







Dosa apparel

Christina Lehr t's


Frye boots











Fiorentini + Baker boots and wedges



















Calypso - Christiane Celle



Lucky Brand jeans


















Utility Canvas wrap dress

New Yorker mags








Food & Wine mags

Bvlgari perfume








Molten Brown shower goo



Fromager d'Affinois (no bite or bitter Brie flavor, just creamy goodness)






Television. Specifically: Anthony Bourdain, Project Runway, Flight of the Conchords, Real Time with Bill Maher, and The Daily Show


Angela Adams rugs













Old, retired pull-down maps of Europe







Melissa Joy Manning jewelry























Margaret Solow necklaces











Stewart + Brown organics

Kerry Cassill






















and my kid's bum

Winner's Snob?

Scott has such spooky-weird (and record good) luck with all those random drawings one may see around for free stuff. The man must put his business card in every fishbowl he sees.

For instance, over the years he's won the following:

Aeron Chair for our home office

Half a case of wine

2 bottles of Laurent-Perrier

Garmin StreetPilot (GPS thingamajiggee that I'm selling on eBay since you can't possibly use one of these things in former-cattle-paths-ye-olde-boston and I think I could get maybe $150 for it)

Free yoga classes from a local yogi

$125 from the 2007 Final Four NCAA Basketball tournement

and today he apparently won a gift basket from Starbuck's....

but the man refuses to join the drifters and vagabonds that loiter our street corner with their scratch tickets and enter the lottery....

Sometimes Rhymes Are Fun!!!!

"Hey Colb, you sure you don't want any more juice?"





"I said No- Ya big Ho!"

"Yes We Can Obama Song" by will.i.am

I know this has been going around for a couple of days...but in a word, for me, this represents

i n s p i r a t i o n

Savez-vous de l'absinthe?

Absinthe, or this bastardization of the crazy absinthe of yore, is making a come back. Scott brought back a couple of small bottles from some past trip to Europa a while back. They sit quietly on our monster liquor shelving unit, adjacent to the Maker's Mark.

While I'm not entirely interested in the taste....I'm thinking it's a lot like Pastis or Orzo or Sambuca (in that licorice-y, bitter, tongue-sucking family).....I do love all the hype and vintage stuff you see everywhere. So Parisienne circa 1920s.


First, a little history on the la fee' verte :

Art and the influence of absinthe

It has been labeled as mind altering, and even been the blame of murder back in 1905. It’s a strong liquor and some even label it as a dangerous drug. It’s called Absinthe, the Green Fairy.

Absinthe started out as a medicinal tonic invented by Dr. Pierre Ordinaire to administer to his patients. The concoction was made by distilling alcohol similar to moonshine in a plethora of herbs. Some of the herbs commonly used were anise, fennel, Angelica, Hyssop, Licorice, and peppermint, but the most notorious of them all was the grand wormwood. Wormwood was the herb that caused Absinthe it’s biggest controversy due to the thujone content. Thujone is a terpene found in wormwood and is blamed for absinthe’s secondary effects, which were hallucinations, convulsions and madness. All unfounded might I add.

Absinthe has a very sordid history due to the prohibitionists of France during the 1800’s. It also has a huge presence in art over the years. Many of the artists, poets and writers living or visiting Paris and living in London in the late 1800’s were absinthe drinkers. With a over 21,000,000 liters annual consumption, absinthe was a very popular drink among the aristocrats down to the poorest working man.

Absinthe was the subject of many art works by very famous artists over the years, but not always correlating to their personal consumption. Jean Francois Rafaelli was a heavy drinker of absinthe, and was used as a theme in many of his paintings. Henri de Toulouse Lautrec was also a heavy drinker of absinthe but devoted very few of his works to the Green Goddess.

Some people claimed that Absinthe Liquor was an aphrodisiac, Ernest Christopher Dowson claimed in his writings that “Absinthe makes the tart grow fonder”. To some artists of the period, hallucinations caused by the Green Fairy claimed to be mind stimulating and essential to produce the works of art they created.

Two of the most famous paintings with Absinthe Alcohol being the subject matter is “At the cafe by Paul Gauguin and “The Absinthe Drinker” by Pablo Picasso. Both of the paintings were similar and featured a blue seltzer water siphon near glasses of absinthe.

Other notable artists associated with Absinthe liquor: Ernest Hemingway was probably one of the most recent artists who partook of Absinthe Green Fairy. Hemingway drank absinthe way after it was banned in most parts of the world. Some works he did that mentioned of Absinthe was Death In The Afternoon and For Whom The Bell Tolls.




























Love the art nouveau....so dreamy and surreal.