hyphy

Dot came for dinner last night. brought some life to the quiet cottage, until then it was just the noise from the just baked corn chips over the French news that were heard. Then, it was ice in the shaker for a mojito, with persian mint from the garden, while the braising liquid over the fennel branches was bubbling away.dinner of heirloom tomatoes,basil and garden lettuce, freshly caught Pacific halibut poached over the fennel,mashed baby potatoes, and a special gluten free just backed brownie with vanilla ice cream for significant who is allergic to wheat.Music started, and Dot was teaching us some Hyphy moves. I finally got the smooth moves of the bird wings and the angry/funny face writing parking tickets in the air.

day lifter

just came back from having to take Dot to work, flat tire on top of things....I was in my pyjamas, hurtling down freeways .... nothing like trimming a few bushes around the fig tree and ending up with an uplifting wedding like bouquet.

marathon

it has been a busy time.Work in Chicago with Jeff K. was wonderful as usual. Nothing like feeling valued and appreciated. It is like a high, a feeling of floating on your creative air. I walked on Michigan avenue ( magnificent mile) one evening after work.bustling,flagship stores, full buses going to unknown destinations, a crowd of worker bees, without style or a sense of fun.Home in time to catch Dot's new adventure in crisis mode with her car going to the junk heap.... what to do ? then starting on a job with the most recipes ever produced in a day: 12, an average of one per half hour... that is marathon food styling, a new Olympic sport. So my canvas stays idle, a bright red square, welcoming me each morning,waiting .

automne

My friend the squirrel comes over and climb on the tall branch and stares at me with his big black eyes.I rush to the kitchen to grab some pistachios from the fridge and throw them at him.Today he came practically right up to me,grabbed one and went back to his perch, holding the nut and chewing it carefully, filling his cheeks. When he bounces from branch to branch, dry leaves fall, caught by papyrus plant or other bushes.It is autumn. I kept these apple leaves because I knew that they would make a poetic picture of fall.they seem to dance, a little sad, losing their brightness.

hidden pleasure

I love checking this blog.
It is as fluffy and light with a crunch as a parisian meringue. Written in French by a young artist who has also become a fashion journalist, snapping young , beautiful and stylish women . a fun treat. Better than magazine flipping......

some like it raw

I am working on this raw food project. This is the first image. a pasta dish made out of thin strands of zucchini, with a dynamite sauce of roma tomatoes, onion, garlic, moroccan and greek olives,basil, rosemary,hemp oil and pink salt !!!

portrait of the artist as a young man

This is a sweet picture. While in Paris, I had a visit over a raspberry mousse cake with my cousin Muriel. She had found in some family album this photo: Taken in the late 40's, just after the war, it is the grand debut of my father's acting career. During the war he was imprisoned in a concentration camp in Austria, from which he escaped. he came back home to Paris, gaunt and resolute to start his artist life. He had the main role in this comedy that set him on a life path .It is him in the straw hat in the middle.

slow week end

San Francisco was the host city to a mega celebration of artisan made food, the slow way, the hand made way, the seasonal way.I quickly sniffed a rotting mackerel. The concept is good of course, but America being it itself, it had to put on a giant 3 day event,with 60 000 people expected to wait in line for a tasting of what I can buy easily at my Farmers market, thank you. I have been a slow food shopper ( and cook) for over 20 years ( even longer if I count the hippies years of bulk grains and home made yogurt) and growing up in the skirts of French mother and grand mother, I know how to appreciate food the way it is intended.
My friend J, who make the most delicious preserves, syrups,fruit cheeses etc conterattacked with her own slow food fringe event, she felts that one had to see the hand made , artisan food made, live as we say. her are some images from my visit to her kitchen as I moved slowly from one table to the next, talking to friends and sampling her creations (the fresh currant grapes in the fennel syrup was otherwordly).





The weather was beautiful, which enticed the body to go slow.Outside long lunches, gardening, and walk on the side of the Pacific, massages listening to Carla Bruni last CD, reading "the plegue" by Camus, cooking the slow way some amazing shelling beans from this wonderful farmer from Bolinas, Annabelle( saute a mirepoix of celery, shallots,carrots,thyme, bay leaf, add the fresh beans and braise in a organic vegetable broth).A kind neighbor brought a flat of apples from her back yard and we ate some slowly, relishing the sweet juices and the crisp bite.