Let's Chat

We are going to try something a little different this afternoon. Instead of a post about interior design, style, or entertaining I thought it would be fun to have a little chat about something completely different - music.

I want to know what is your absolute favorite movie soundtrack. If you can't narrow it down to just one tell me all of your favorites. My choices are very creative but what can I say these are my absolute favorite movie soundtracks ever.

The Graduate soundtrack needs no explanation. I'm an uber Simon & Garfunkel fan so of course I love it. The Garden State soundtrack was such a wonderful surprise. It introduced me to The Shins and Nick Drake, brought Colin Hay back to life and it has a Simon & Garfunkel song on it. The soundtrack won Zach Braff (the compilation producer) a Grammy Award for Best Compilation Soundtrack for a Motion Picture. I have soft spot for Zach Braff because he's a Jersey boy and I loved Scrubs but I think he makes a better Compilation Producer than an actor. Sorry Zach, I still love you.

So, what's your favorite soundtrack? Do you like this chat idea? If this goes well perhaps I'll do it more often.

Update: A tweet from @maggierose just reminded me that I have another favorite - Vanilla Sky. Camera Crowe is amazing.

ModernEmotive - Back in Business

modernemotive, an ecofriendly paper goods and design company, opened its doors to esty about a year and a half ago selling simple and modern greeting cards printed on FSC certified paper made from recycled materials. Adele, the shop owner and one of my favorite twitter friends, made a business decision that I incredibly bold. She took her beautiful shop, that was picking up steam and becoming more successful, offline. It was a difficult decision I'm sure but it gave Adele time to evaluate her business strategy, outsource printing, prepare for wholesale orders, and most importantly design a new line of products.

The modernemotive shop reopened last month and I love all of the new products. The work + life notepads for home, office, and kitchen are especially great. They are beautiful and functional with just the right amount of humor mixed in.

I am really happy to see that the calling cards are back in the shop. I loved them when they were initially released but never ordered them for myself. I searched for other calling cards while modernemotive was closed but couldn't find other designs that I like as much as these. It's time for me to stop procrastinating and finally order myself some cards!

What do you think of the new line of products at modernemotive? What's your favorite new item? I think mine is the "Rome Wasn't Built in a Day" notepad.

Happy Monday!

Hello all, how was your weekend? We braved the oppressive heat and made a trip to the local farmers market. The trip lasted just long enough (about 15 minutes) for us to pick up enough items to pull together a delicious early summer evening feast.

crab & corn chowder and caprese salad

The chowder was so good it was worth all of shvitzing I had to do to shop for the ingredients. Hope you had a lovely weekend and are surviving this extremely warm summer.

Marie Claire Maison: Colour

I have a book review for you today. I should let you know right off the bat that I was not approached to write this review, I bought this book with my own dough because I thought it looked interesting. Let's get into it, shall we?

Marie Claire Maison: Colour
Bridget Bodoano
ISBN-10: 1844005046
Hardcover, 160 pages


I was doing some fantasy European shelter magazine subscription shopping on Amazon one afternoon when I stumbled across this book. I say fantasy shopping because getting European magazine subscriptions delivered in the US is often pretty expensive. Marie Claire Maison - France is one of my favorite magazine and I love clicking through the galleries on their website. While searching for the magazine I found the hardcover coffee table book, Marie Claire Maison: Colour. The focus of the book is to provide practical advice on how to use color to enhance any decorating scheme. Discussions about how to utilize color are punctuated with beautiful photos from previous issues of Marie Claire Maison.

The first chapter talks about the origins of raw pigments, how and why certain colours complement one another and the effect of colour on space. Other chapters discuss how to successfully use strong shades, historical colours, muted pastels and watercolour tints.

I enjoyed the discussion about the psychology of color but I was really pleased to see that author stress that you do not need to study color in depth to find what colors suit you. The most important thing to remember is that you should trust your instincts and not be afraid to act on your initial response to a color.

If you are a complete novice and working with color terrifies you this book will be really helpful. There is a lot of background information provided including the definitions of important color terms like Hue, Tint, Tone, etc.

And the best part, of course, is being able to flip through the book and drool over the fabulous Marie Claire Maison eye candy. I bought this book used (in like-new condition) which I often do and paid about $9 so I would definitely say it was worth it. I probably would not pay more than about $15 for a used copy of this book. The book was published in the U.K. so finding a new copy may be difficult and expensive.

Hope you enjoyed this review and let me know if you would like to see more of them in the future.

The Brass Menagerie

Apparently I have a thing for brass animal figures. I had no idea before today when I took a look at my etsy favorites and saw they were the last seven items I added to the list. They are cheeky and glamorous at the same time and would look great tucked on a bookshelf or displayed on a console table.

1, 6, & 7. high street market 2, 4, & 5. jwhite 3. modish vintage

And that coy fish has my name written all over it.

Tasteworthy: Frisee Aux Lardons, Well Sort Of

Remember about eight months ago when I told you I was ditching the weekly Tasteworthy Tuesday column because I would feel guilty when I was not able to keep up with it the schedule? I decided that instead of a weekly column I would keep it more relaxed and post recipe and entertaining ideas when I had time to prepare them. It looks like I'm better off having a set schedule because since I made that announcement I have not produced a single recipe post. Shame on me! Truth is the meals I was cooking during that time period were pretty uninspired. Recently I made a big change to my diet and it's that I no longer eat meat but still eat seafood and dairy. I made the decision for many reasons I'll explain another time. Making this major change to my diet has revitalized my desire to cook. I now have to come up with meals that will satisfy a meat eater and a non-meat eater and also adapt old favorites to be meat free. Today's recipe is all about adapting it to be meatless.

Frisee Aux Lardons is hands down my favorite salad. I love it for brunch, lunch, dinner, or whenever. The French really know how to do a salad right. Lightly dressed frisee, salty blue cheese, crispy chunks of slab bacon, and a poached egg oozing warm yolk over all of it. Since I still eat dairy and eggs adapting this recipe wasn't that tough but the question was could veggie bacon stripes really be used as a substitute for slab bacon. Turns out it can. It's not the same, obviously. It is not even similar but it does the job of giving the salad the salty smoked flavor that real bacon would.

Frisee Aux Lardons

serves 4

Ingredients:

1 head of frisee, rinsed and chopped or torn into bite sized pieces

4 eggs, the closer to farm fresh the better

4 - 5 strips of smart bacon or as I like to call it facon

a few ounces of French blue or Gorgonzola cheese, cubed

1/4 c. red wine vinegar

3 tbsp. olive oil

salt & pepper to taste

Instructions:

Cut veggie bacon strips into bite size pieces and heat in a skillet for a few minutes. Be sure not to over cook this stuff or else it will turn into cardboard.

Wisk together red wine vinegar and olive oil and toss with frisee. Add warmed veggie bacon and cheese to salad and incorporate.

In the meantime poach the eggs in a gently simmering pot of water for 3 to 5 minutes. Tip: adding a few tablespoons of white vinegar to the poaching water helps the egg whites stay together.

Divide frisee amongst 4 bowls. Top each with a poached egg and lightly season with salt and pepper. Enjoy!

Rising Currents: Projects for New York’s Waterfront

MoMA Exhibitions
March 24–October 11, 2010
Architecture and Design Galleries, 3rd floor

On my most recent trip to the Museum of Modern Art I stumbled upon a fascinating exhibit that I was surprised to find in an art museum. I love that MoMA is embracing the creativity required by urban planners, landscape architects, etc. to address issues like climate change and potential sea level rise.

Here's the project blurb from MoMA's website:

The architects-in-residence program at the P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center brings together five interdisciplinary teams, including Architecture Research Office , to re-envision the coastlines of New York and New Jersey around New York Harbor and to imagine new ways to occupy the harbor itself with adaptive “soft” infrastructures that are sympathetic to the needs of a sound ecology. These creative solutions are intended to dramatically change our relationship to one of the city’s great open spaces.

It's a really fascinating exhibit and I highly recommend it. I especially enjoyed the artificial oyster reef proposal to clean up the Gowanus Canal and the soft shoreline ideas for Lower Manhattan. Be prepared to do a lot of reading because each proposal display contains a ton of information.

See, science can be beautiful too. Check out those pilings made from recycled glass proposed by Matthew Baird Architects for the waterline of Bayonne in the Kill Van Kull. Much more interesting than the standard massive concrete ones that are currently used to stabilize shorelines. Much more beautiful too.

More information can be found on the exhibition's interactive website here.

Photo Credit: Michelle Verdugo