Sunday, April 29, 2012

Marché Aux Puces! (Literally: Market of Fleas!)

Another adventure in Paris begins... 

John, Julia, and I are heading out today to visit the famous Marché Aux Puces, in search of wonderful gems and fabulous deals. Or at least something kinda cool...

Julia is in search of an oil painting of some sort, and I'm in search of... well, let's be honest... I tend to go with my whims and fancies more than looking for a specific piece at flea markets, so I'm looking for anything especially fabulous. I think John is in pursuit of a watch, though I've been trying to discourage him from buying a used watch in a foreign country. Somehow that seems like a recipe for disaster, or at least a recipe for ending up with a broken, irreparable watch and without a chunk of money.

I'll report back with all of our finds and bounty! Hopefully we'll have great success...

Á bientôt! 

*Whoa! Did I forget to mention that Julia joined us here in Paris to celebrate her birthday?!? She arrived on Monday and heads back to New York City tomorrow... Her presence could account for my especially erratic blogging over the last week. I've been merrily caught up in our galavanting all over the city, and we've been having an absolute blast! We've attempted to eat almost everything you have to eat (sadly there are still so many restaurants left on the list), done lots of shopping and touring, and spent our days cruising the city on rented bicycles, which is really the optimal mode of transportation in a city this beautiful. I can't believe she has to go home tomorrow... there is never enough time in Paris. : ( 

Saturday, April 28, 2012

Almost D-I-Y in Paris!

John and I saw this fantastic looking vase while window shopping in Paris this past week. Initially I thought we could make something similar for considerably less than the listed price tag (€22.00 or $29.00) but upon further inspection (a trip to the local wine store), we realized that wasn't quite true. Either way, $29.00 didn't seem like an unreasonable amount of money to pay for a cool-looking-vase-cum-vacation-momento, so we decided to spring for the original version.

However, I thought I'd encourage my readers who aren't wandering aimlessly around Paris this week, to try to "build" one themselves.




** Be warned: This D-I-Y will require you to do some martyr-esque amounts of drinking, but I think it will be worth it in the end. : ) **


The step-by-step for this project is simple: 
STEP 1: Buy three glass bottles of three varying sizes, all of the same color glass (as in: all clear glass, all green glass, all blue glass...) I say clear or green because I had imagined using different wine bottles, like a full sized white wine bottle and then two smaller dessert wine bottles, or some combination like that; however you could also use three vintage bottles which tend to come in more colorful hues if you prefer... The obvious upshot to using wine bottles is that you'll also get to drink the contents in order to use the bottles, so although you're probably spending at least $29.00 on the wine, you do get the added bonus of some "obligatory" drinking. Bottoms up! : )


STEP 2-A: Once you've chosen your three glass bottles, cluster them together like the photo shown above. Make sure that the sides are actually going to touch, and then use a glass-on-glass adhesive to connect all three bottles at the points where they line up nice and tight. (FYI: In my experience, glass-on-glass adhesive is strong, but not SUPER STRONG, so I wouldn't recommend being too hap-hazard with this bottle arrangement once you've glued them together. I would recommend lifting all three bottles at once, and supporting them from below.)

STEP 2-B: Alternatively, if you're feeling non-committal about the bottles you've chosen, use a pretty ribbon or what I call "paper ribbon" (I think it is officially called "raffia", the sort of straw-ribbon-stuff you often see at florists) to tie all three bottles together. Either approach should give you a fun vase that's great for a center piece of varied heights. This kind of vase is particularly perfect for flowers with long, skinny stems and big blooms on top, like roses, freesia, peonies, ranunculus, gerbera daisies or lilies. I'm thinking even lilacs would look great in this vase, which is perfect for this time of year...

Bonne chance avec le projet, mes amis! 

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Occupé, occupé, occupé! (Busy, busy, busy!)

I know I should be vigilantly posting from Paris, but we're having such a good time, it's been slipping my mind, and evading my calendar...

While wandering around Les Jardins Du Luxembourg on Sunday, John and I popped into one of my favorite shops in Paris, Le Jardin D'Olaria, a beautiful little shop full of french-inspired odds and ends for the home and garden. Every time I come to town, I like to stop in for a visit to see what's new and jumpin'. Even if I don't buy anything, (I'm not sure if that has ever actually happened...) it is full of inspiring objets which I file away in my "to-do-to-remember" memory bank for future projects in New York.

A particular highlight of this visit was this brilliantly colored dining chair, pictured at left, which caught both my eye and my interest. A pair of these clustered together in a little conversational corner of a living room or hallway, or a whole set surrounding a stark ebony dining table-- either way-- would be utterly fabulous! I like the idea of taking a very basic, "quiet" frame, and then choosing a wild-and-crazy fabric to step it up a notch, adding a little punch to the room.

Nice work, The French. 
I can always count on you for a little inspiration! 

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Good excuses for not starting on home renovation project sooner...

A few posts ago, I mentioned that John and I are planning to start another major home renovation project in early May, putting up a wall to divide our guest room ("the room that we walk through") into a smaller bedroom and creating a little hallway that will lead to our bedroom... Why aren't we starting now, you ask? Since when do I ever delay tackling a gigantic, mess-producing home improvement project? (Okay... sometimes, but this isn't a case of typical procrastination.) We've got a good excuse for procrastinating! It's because we're not in New York! You might remember that a couple posts back, I also casually mentioned a little international travel... Well, it turns out it wasn't so little.

We're actually back in PARIS for a couple weeks, celebrating the wedding on our friends Martina & Malik (they are our Parisian soul mates, the french-speaking version of John and me, only with better style and better manners.)


Then we're hopping on another plane, and flying to RIO de JANEIRO, Brazil, to celebrate ANOTHER wedding-- the wedding of my brother and his fiancée Thais! All of this is very exciting and we're already having a blast...

Because our priorities are in the right place (?), we've primarily collected pictures of beautiful food at this point, but I promise we'll get around to some more productive "design-based" photos before we head off to Rio...

In the meantime, enjoy a little bit of Parisian eye candy... 

The strawberries shown here are silly good. Like, why-eat-another-strawberry-that-isn't-like-this-ever-again amounts of good... I'm actually genuinely concerned that these strawberries may overshadow all my future strawberries. Maybe it is actually better not to know that something this delicious exists?

These artichokes are another parisian anomaly-- literally larger than my hands! Literally! I haven't yet had the hootz-pah to try cooking these bad boys, so they remain in my memory only as the largest-freaking-artichokes I have ever seen, until next week when I'll hopefully muster the courage to find out if they're the most-delicious-freaking-artichokes I have ever eaten...



I promise I'll be in touch with more good updates and stories during the next few weeks-- we have lots of good news to tell, so don't forget to check back soon! 

The Key To A Successful Easter Dinner

Chef Max, pictured above.
Pretty sure he's going to
be embarrassed that this is the
photo I'm using...
Two Sundays ago, our great friend Max invited us over for his annual Easter Dinner. We've been doing Easter Dinner with Max and company for the last few years, and every year Max finds new and exciting ways to out-do his dinner from the year before. This year was no exception, but luckily he didn't change one of my favorite dishes, his famous risotto, which has been a staple at every one of Max's Easter dinners... WHOA-- RISOTTO!!

After some begging and pouting, I managed to drag the recipe out of him, and am posting it here for all to enjoy! Note: This is not the healthiest recipe for risotto, but it will bowl you over with its deliciousness and is well worth a week's worth of light lunches if you ask me. Go on and live a little. You only get one crack at life!

Max's Famous Ridiculous Risotto:

2 cups of arborio rice
1 cup vermouth
1 – 1 ½ large pinches of saffron
6-8 cups of chicken stock (homemade is best but I often use better than bouillon)
½ - ¾ cup butter (a lot I know)
1 large onion finely diced
3 cloves of garlic finely minced
¾ cups grated parmesan cheese
2-3 heaping teaspoons of unsweetened mascarpone or crème fraiche.
3 cups frozen peas
½ - 1 cup chopped flat leaf parsley
Salt and pepper


Serves 4-6


1.) 15-30 minutes prior to starting the risotto, place the saffron in the vermouth and make sure it is submerged. It should give off some of its color to the vermouth.


2.) Bring the stock to a light simmer and keep warm. There is no need to simmer it continuously, but it is easier to work with stock just below that temperature. I also find it easier to fully season the stock with salt and pepper, therefore removing the need to season your risotto as you go along. If using store bought or instant stock be careful, as they are often very salty to begin with.


3.) Melt the butter in a large wide heavy-bottomed saucepan. Add the onion and garlic and cook gently while stirring. They should soften and begin to turn translucent, but they should not brown. Add the rice and stir so that the butter fully coats the rice grains. Season with some freshly ground black pepper and salt. Add the vermouth mixture to the rice, and increase the heat to a simmer. If there is not enough liquid you can add a little more vermouth as needed. 


4.) Stir until the rice has just about fully absorbed the liquid. Add in a large ladleful of the hot stock and cook over moderate heat, stirring continuously. When the rice has almost fully absorbed the stock, add another ladleful of stock and continue. Continue in this fashion, stirring throughout, for roughly 20 minutes, although cooking times may vary. 


5.) When the rice is just shy of al dente stir in the frozen peas. You can stop when the rice is al dente, although some prefer a more tender risotto, in which case you can continue to the desired texture.


6.) Remove from heat and stir in a healthy handful or two of parmesan, reserving the rest to add tableside. Mix in the mascarpone or crème fraiche one spoonful at a time, fully mixing it in. Fold through the parsley. Serve and top with parmesan as desired and enjoy.


Straight from the horse's mouth, folks! 


I can promise you, from my own eating experience, that this is an exceptional risotto recipe. The "magic ingredients", what really seems to set it apart from all other risottos, is the soaking of the saffron in vermouth, which opens the saffron up and allows the flavor to more fully penetrate the risotto, and then, of course, adding a couple of heaping spoonfuls of mascarpone at the end to (considerably) up the creamy/fatty content. Normally, I try to ere on the side of healthy when we're cooking at home, but it is well worth it to add the mascarpone, so live a little! Take the plunge! 


Bon appetit! 

Sunday, April 15, 2012

Ps. Check out my new website!

I nearly forgot to mention that my ASTRONAUT (genius, rocket-scientist, mensa member) of an assistant, the brilliant and beautiful Emily, just finished revamping my company website, and I'd love it if everybody would swing by and take a gander. Feel free to post lots of positive comments and glowing reviews that I can pass along to Emily, and of course, if there is any productive constructive criticism, we'd love to hear that too...**

www.11211design.com

**HOWEVER, if you're just in a bad mood and feel like smashing someone's dreams via the anonymity of the internet, keep it to yourself. : )

A "LUCKY" Inspiration...

I'm a little embarrassed to say that I was reading "Lucky Magazine" last week (in my defense, I was on a treadmill, so this isn't what I was doing with my non-existent spare time) but in Lucky's defense, I also came upon a terrific piece about organizing and beautifying your closets that I found both inspired and inspiring. And best of all, my favorite idea was also a cheap one! Please take note: that might be the first time those words have ever been written. This is a big day for the D-I-Y world. 



John and I are planning to tackle some major apartment-overhaul projects in early May, and one portion of that will be reorganizing our existing closet arrangement to make a better use of the floor space and ceiling height of the new "closet area". The plan is to construct a wall in our existing guest room (lovingly known currently as "The Room We Walk Through" because we use the room primarily as a grand hallway to get to our bedroom) dividing it into two separate spaces: another small bedroom and a more narrow, defined hallway with a wall of closets running along one side. We'd initially thought we'd use something like the built-in looking closets shown below, also from IKEA... but I'm really liking the prospect of having an open closet for some pretty display, with folded sweaters and shoes on show like the picture from Lucky suggests. That arrangement includes a $375.00 Hemnes cabinet from IKEA, which I'd probably do in the white finish instead of the more funky grey finish shown above...


Of course the question being, do I really have the motivation and organization to keep that looking like "pretty display" or will everything go to pot and be a motley disarray of toppled shoes and crumpled sweaters a week after we install them? Possibly, but I'm entertaining the idea for now, and then we'll make a final decision at showtime...

Saturday, April 14, 2012

Falling off the wagon... And then climbing back on!

The week between Passover and now has been a hectic one-- full of MANY humongous meals, plenty of work, and a bit of international travel to boot. But let's start at the beginning and work our way up to today...

First things first, John's aunt Irene taught us all a valuable lesson over the passover weekend. Irene perfectly demonstrated the importance of reading the instructions if attempting a D-I-Y project, when she "potted" sprigs of parsley in tiny pots of soil for the seder dinner. Though initially very cute, they quickly became very dead because Irene had neglected to read the part of last week's tutorial about potting parsley plants rather than potting pieces of parsley. Without the root system to keep it hydrated, the parsley wilted almost instantly, and we had slightly sad, though very funny, centerpieces for our seder dinner.

As Irene said, "Live and Learn.... And always read the directions!" Even better news is that she printed up a copy of the instructions from last week's posting and packed them up with the little terracotta pots for next year's seder. Now that's planning ahead!

Thursday, April 5, 2012

The Eames Chair, Revealed!


My magician upholsterer finished work on the famous hand-me-down Eames lounge chair yesterday, so I eagerly zipped to Long Island City to pick it up. It is fabulous, wild-and-crazy, and I'm pretty stoked about the transformation it brings to the living room. The upholsterer also had some left-over fabric, so he's making me a couple of throw pillows on the cheap, which should integrate the bold IKAT fabric nicely into the more neutral palette of the sofa. All in all, a very exciting addition to our ever-evolving home!


I mean- wow! That baby's got charisma! We don't have to mince words here folks, it isn't an "unstated" piece by any means, but I think it's a fun pop to add to our palette. The upholsterer also re-stuffed the ottoman and the chair, so in addition to looking great, it's now super comfortable. Originally I had a little guilt about not trying to do this project D-I-Y, but now that it's here, I can see the unquestionable benefits of leaving some things to the experts. He clearly knows what he's doing, where as things are a little foggier (and more profanity strewn) when I attempt a reupholstery project. : ) 


Revisiting Last Year's Passover Decorations!

I can't believe it's already been a year since I posted about the little parsley-pot-name-tag decorations that I made with John's aunt Irene last Passover... Since that time is now upon us once more, I thought I'd post the idea again since it was such an easy-to-do hit last season. The original idea came from Better Homes & Gardens, but mysteriously, I haven't been able to locate the piece online, so we're having to make due with the snapshots from last year's seder table... The "How-To" is pretty self-explanatory-- the gist is this: Buy little tiny pots, little tiny parsley plants, and little planter tags... Pot all your tiny parsleys into all of your tiny pots, and then write all of your guests' names onto the planter tags. Stick one tag into each pot, and then use this to create your seating arrangement at the table. 

It's a perfectly festive (and edible) way to keep your ultra-conservative aunt away from your hyper-liberal brother-in-law, all in the name of decorations! Voila!

Specifically What You'll Need: (Assuming you've got 25 guests...)
*25- Little Terra Cotta Pots
*25- Little Parsley Plants (I actually bought 6 biggish plants of parsley and then split them up to keep the cost down, but either way would work)
*25- Little Plastic Planter Tags (which I am writing each guest's name onto...)
*Maybe a little extra soil, but I didn't need any because I bought the bigger plants.
*Patience and a little psychosis. 

This is our end goal... Cute, right? 

This is also an excellent activity to bestow upon the younger members of your dinner party if they're getting antsy, waiting for the matzah ball soup to be served. Plonk them down on a coffee table covered in newspaper and let them go at it. They can even write all of the names on the tags, and then you can team up to figure out the careful nuances of the seating arrangements. If you get them started early enough, you'll have an army of little martha stewarts on your hands for every holiday! 

Happy Holidays Everyone!