Carolina in my mind...

I returned a few days ago from a first time visit to North Carolina, in Chapel Hill to be precise where a friend had moved to from the bay Are where we met.
Expanses of green meadows, surrounded by dense forests that go on and on is what will stay in my mind. Beautiful homes, horses grazing, myrtle bushes that romantically explodes in soft lilac like bundles of blossoms, trails that lead you through the forest to your friend's house back yard, a heat that make you crave mango lassies from a smiling owner




ice latte from a cafe deep in the woods....

We walked in front of Lantern, a cute restaurant that had just won a James Beard award. Unfortunately timing was wrong and we did not get to try it, I leave you with the specials in the window.

I loved the decor and the window sill decorations of simple flowers and produce:

Culturally: it was quite inspiring: between a powerful performance by the Bill T. Jones company, to an exhibit at the North Carolina Museum of art in Raleigh called "30 Americans" a retrospective of contemporary African Americans artists. Loved Nick Cave, Henry Taylor, Carrie Mae Weems.
Thank you S for a wonderful time !

back to food

Oh yes, food.when Spring releases the greenest green and the delicate edible blossoms. When I am inspired by these colors and tastes.

Had a wonderful dinner at Commonwealth in the Mission in San Francisco. The restaurant setting matched my outfit : black, grey and white: simple, austere, elegant ( the decor....). Leaving the main act to the food, which is a delicate fusion of Japanese ( aesthetics and ingredients) , French nouvelle cuisine( simplicity of perfect products barely seasoned),molecular gastronomy (foams and recreated parts), with of course, seasonal, local, organic produce.....
we started with 3 light dishes :
an asparagus with crushed avocados, nasturtsium petals,olives ( caramelized and pulverized),chicory root, almonds and meyer lemon.

second was another salad: radishes in various forms( pickled and shaved mostly) goat milk butter ( the twisted ribbon laying on the top: interesting, pretty, but tasteless), sunflower seeds.

another salad of spring peas,yuba, black trumpet crackling.silken tofu, coconut milk ( foamed),thai spices( undetectably subtle)


presentation was very pretty, and a bit fused over, making for a very nice picture but a sense of overwought thinking and plating,
then onto more assertive dishes:
a grilled squid, ham hock, bacalao croquette, swiss chard, cilantro pistou ( French for pesto, sounds a bit better, no ? now that pesto is so common)

a branzino, with wilted gem lettuces, oyster nettle puree ( another pesto renamed puree), preserved lemon, caper and balsamic.That was my dish, and I thought the fish cooked perfectly and the wilted gems, genius pairing.

desert was a peanut butter semifreddo, chocolate ganache, with "frozen pop corn" which was a salted buttery cream that evaporated on your tongue.very playful and grand with the peanut butter/chocolate combo.

The second desert was a frozen goat yogurt with a coulis of strawberries . Again, a disappearing act on the tongue, light and fresh.

The meal was very good, the portions on the small side ( perfect for me), the flavors light and delicate. I thought it was an experience, may be more visual than gustatory.
Speaking of light and fresh, I quickly made the celery sorbet that was featured in the Sunday New York Times: LOVED, loved it. The celery flavor is there, but with the sweetness, other tonalities emerges: anise, grass,clover blossoms). DId a shot with it paired with lemon zest sorbet, and as I was getting ready, I shot my little prep tray of garnishes.



Obviously there is a trend in the culinary world to turn some ingredients upside down, and use fruits with proteins, or vegetables in deserts.
Here is another example: a Pierre Herme macarron that I had in Paris this march: orange-carrot-cinammon ! it might be less shocking toAmericans with their carrot cake, but it felt like a vary daring pairing in a French patisserie.

vivid

I liked these two images together.Kind of busy, messy, with bold colors.They have no relation to each other, except that I took them because they caught my eye at some point, and they share a certain exuberance, wild colors certainly do that,and bring a dynamism to a photo or a painting.
You have a fishmonger display at a parisian outdoor market last month ( I bought delicious prawns to fill avocados halves, one of my Mom's favorites) and a tray of ingredients used for a job last week.The shot was done, and I had gathered the stuff to discard.
On the well worn dark tray, it looked like a old still life.

candid

capturing the soul in a photo portrait is daunting.Is it an elaborate plan with particular lighting and set or is it just snapping the shutter the moment you feel the vulnerability, the truth revealed.May be a little of both.

brightness and contrast

How I love flowers ! the poignancy of the impermanence,the diversity and beauty of nature, the delicate fragrances, the tender powders that turn magically into honey.Now that early spring has arrived here, the streets are lined with pink blossoms, and the tiny buds are forming on the branch of my fig tree.How I love spring !

These new paintings that I call landscapes are on their way to Florida where they will hang at theStudio B.we will see if they are a match to the white sands and turquoise water.

the colors of my life

Funny how colors can brighten a mood, add some spice or give a jolt. I like colors in the natural realm, in the life around me. In my art, my palette is somber. I just buy black and white paint, and sometimes, I mean often, it gives way to grey. For instance, when last week, I looked up and saw this late afternoon sky firing up my kitchen window, I had to capture it

or when I had lunch with a friend at cafe Fanny, I wanted to remember the folds of salmon against the pickled onion,the blue of the water in the glasses and the warm richness of the pear tart


or when last Saturday, Alisson and her partner had a lovely party at their store Home 101.There was champagne served with exotic syrups from June, a guitarist accompanied 2 delicious singers,the yellow walls made the space fresh and warm at the same time.


yes, I love colors, but they scare me too.

But then spring has a weird effect on me, I want to paint nests and birds, and use a lot of lime green. We will see what this spring will do.

press pause

painting by Soutine

I am guilty. I have abandoned my virtual atelier for faster updates and snappy shots. It is difficult to stay motivated when you write in a void.At least on FB I get quick "likes" or funny "comments" from dear friends.But then again, I cannot tell details about my life , stories to whisper in your ear, sights for you to discover. It is also due to the fact that for the past 6 months, I have rented a real atelier, a private space where I can go paint, stare into the colors, feel the knots of stress disappear as I find my creative center. So, as you know there are so many hours in a day, and when I am not working, well, I go paint, and breathe.But today, I will tell you a few facts:
Growing up in France, a big part of my diet was meat and potatoes. Now I still LOVE potatoes, but as a child, as my mother reminded me some years back, I did not like red meat. I always felt that I was chewing the flesh of my tongue, eating flesh felt wrong. And I still feel that.I was just in Paris recently, and I was walking in front of the local butcher, when this caught my eye:

It brought back floods of memories: horse carcasses dripping black blood from the horse butcher,some amazing Soutine paintings of butchered meat that shocked my young sensibility, guillotined heads of veals,boars etc on counters....
Was it the week delivery, or half week ?... The driver was also the person who carried the half beasts or whole pigs on his back, bend in half, with his white cloak stained red.


As I snapped these, a mother with her three young children watched , the kids ,curious and puzzled, the mother turning to me" it is really interesting, no ?"
So at Thanksgiving, I also go meatless.I actually like my plate of corn bread, sweet potato puree,mushromm gravy and cranberry sauce.It just feels right.

primitive being

I do not want to do a "Gauguin" and leave family and friends behind for some tropical heaven( and paint my life away), but I have to admit it.....I love the islands .Of course living there might be a different and overly quiet existence from a week's vacation but still...the changing colors of nature that I never grew tired of admiring, the warm caresses of the breeze making the heat pleasant and bearable,the luscious ripe fruits, creamy and sweet,

the ocean, always present, always deliciously warm, the pace, more slow and zen: Hawaii is one paradise on earth.

One day, we stopped at a road stand and got some local produce: papayas,limes,sweet onions and a big purple sweet potato. That night I sliced it and boiled it, looking forward to its rich sweetness. It looked strange and made my fingers black from peeling it.It was not as good as hoped unfortunately.We made up for it with home made rum cocktails with fruit juice and lime.

Bangkok memories

Yes, it was truly an adventure. Everything new, exciting, overwhelming at times, in a word:intense.Bangkok is busy, with loads of traffic , tons of people , swatches of bold colors mixed with contemporary graphic designs, smells,heat, and food everywhere.Downtown is a medley of funky and modern buildings or giant malls where Thai people flock for shopping or eating in large,noisy and busy food courts.My hotel was very pleasant and the view from my 26Th floor window gives you a bit of Bangkok skyline:


The colors of Thailand are gold and purple.The Buddhas are gold, and the taxis are bright pink. orange, green and purple.
Altars are everywhere, even at busy intersections, where anyone can stop and pray.There is a booth where you can buy beautiful flower offerings ( I bought the one you see for 60 cents: 12 incense sticks, 1 small candles and three small garlands). For this special " lucky" Buddha, there was some live music and dance throughout the day.Across my hotel, there was a vendor on the street who made gorgeous flower garland offerings all day, that people would buy for their home or office altars. Can we be as grateful ?




As I said,gold is a favored color.As you leave the airport, the freeway is lined up with golden Buddhas, and the Grand Palace will deliver a lot of gold:


Other temples, some by the side of the river ( they are called vats) are intricately covered with tiny bits of mosaic:

One day we rented a boat for an hour drive on the river and the adjoining canals.I was a little shocked to meet this tempestuous brown seemingly untamed waterway in the middle of a big city. Big swatches of wild plants floated by at a brisk pace.After we left the modern high rises and the ancient temples, we entered the maze of canals where old wood houses on stilts lined the calmer waters.Crouching under some foliage, some peddlers in tiny boats waited in the shade to burst out at the first sight of a boat to sell us trinkets. I bought a black buddha for Dot.




I was told that Thai people eat six times a day, and you believe it when you see all the food carts lining the sidewalk: from cut fruits, to chicken liver satay, to noodle soups, to ice coffees, you will see throngs waiting for a small meal or drink on the go.My favorite became a breakfast staple: sweet sticky rice. A man, crouched next to his mounds of cut rolls of sticky rice, cooked with coconut milk and red beans in a bamboo stalk,was selling briskly. He was gone by mid morning, all sold out.
at the bigger stalls with tables and dishes, this is how they cleaned them:

It was fun to eat on sidewalks, sometimes with the photo crew, sometimes not



then other times, it was very pleasant to sit by a pond in a tropical garden, and indulge in delicious salads and pineapple fried rice. It was at the preserved house of a visionary American named Jim Thompson , who settled there and started a thai silk company in the fiftiesHe disappeared one day in the jungle, which add to his mystique.He built himself this beautiful house made of traditional and exquisite older buildings made of teak.The rope across the front door is made out of a flower garland....
is is now a museum showing his incredible collection of antiques and art.


After the visit , we jumped on a tuk tuk for a death defying ride through the maddeningly busy streets of bangkok.


Bangkok strives to be a modern metropolis, and it was thrilling to check out some amazing restaurants, some doubling up as galleries showing some incredible art.
One restaurant was high in a skyscraper, infiniti pool next to the open terrace.The other was in a giant pod like building where performance art took place as we dined reclined on white beds, bathed in a pink glow.

cocktails were exotic and food was delicious

as I walked one last time to my hotel down my now familiar street,I noticed that the lotus bud that I had marveled at, had finally opened.One last gift from bangkok.