moon safari

noreply@blogger.com (rmm) — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 13:48:00 +0000

♥ ♥

noreply@blogger.com (rmm) — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 13:12:00 +0000

How do you hibernate?

noreply@blogger.com (rmm) — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 14:13:00 +0000

I liked this series about passing the winter time. Add a little bit of Nutcracker music to the above and you pretty much have how I hibernate. Today is the first official snow day in Florence and I'm spending it indoors with a cup of tea and a good book.

happy Tuesday

noreply@blogger.com (rmm) — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 01:22:00 +0000

I want to visit Dordogne.

Fascinated by Olafur Eliasson.

Seven reasons to love wintertime.

Delicious.

New York Times profile on The Sartorialist.

henri cartier-bresson

noreply@blogger.com (rmm) — Sun, 12 Dec 2010 00:30:00 +0000

photojournalist and the grandfather of street photographer

at the SFMOMA

torta di more

noreply@blogger.com (rmm) — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 17:20:00 +0000

"Get your mind off winter time/ You ain't going no where"
- Joan Baez

I won't be making this tart for a while— it's too cold and dreary right now. But next summer, perhaps Rachel and I can step up our Lotus blackberry pie making (unfortunately, I can't find the pictures I took of last summer's pie experiments). In the meantime, I wanted to share this Jamie Oliver recipe.

for the shortcrust pastry
• 125g/4½oz butter
• 100g/3½oz icing sugar
• a small pinch of salt
• 255g/9oz plain flour
optional:
• 1 vanilla pod, scored lengthways and seeds removed
• zest of ½ a lemon
• 2 large egg yolks, preferably organic
• 2 tablespoons cold milk or water

for the filling
• 1 vanilla pod
• 500g/1lb 2oz mascarpone
• 100ml/3½fl oz single cream
• 3 tablespoons sugar
• 3 tablespoons grappa or vin santo
• 310g/11oz blackberries (or other fruit, see above)
• 2 tablespoons blackberry or raspberry jam
• a small handful of fresh baby mint leaves

First you will need to grease a 28cm/11 inch loose-bottomed tart tin with a little butter. To make your pastry, cream together the butter, icing sugar and salt and rub in the flour, vanilla seeds, lemon zest and egg yolks – you can do all this by hand or in a food processor. When the mixture looks like coarse breadcrumbs, add the cold milk or water. Pat and gently work the mixture together until you have a ball of dough, then flour it lightly. Don’t work the pastry too much, otherwise it will become elastic and chewy, not flaky and short as you want it to be. Wrap the dough in cling film and place in the fridge for at least an hour. Remove it from the fridge, roll it out and line your tart tin. Place in the freezer for an hour. Preheat the oven to 180ºC/350ºF/gas 4 and bake the pastry case for around 12 minutes or until lightly golden.

To make the filling, split the vanilla pod in half lengthways and scrape out the seeds by running a knife along the inside of each half. Put the mascarpone, cream, vanilla seeds, sugar and grappa into a large bowl and whip until shiny. Have a taste – you should have an intensely rich, fluffy and lightly sweetened cream with a fresh hint of grappa. If you can’t get grappa, you can do it without, or add a swig of vin santo instead.

Once the pastry has cooled, get yourself a spatula and add the sweetened cream to the pastry case. Smear it all round so it’s reasonably level, then cover it with the berries – place them lightly on the cream, no need to push them in. If you want to be a bit more generous than this, feel free, and if you want to mix your berries you can do this too. Next, in a small pan, melt down a couple of tablespoons of jam with 3 or 4 tablespoons of water. Stir until it becomes a light syrup, then, using a clean pastry brush, lightly dip and dab the fruit with the jam.

Sprinkle with the baby mint leaves before eating. Great served either as one large tart or as small individual ones. Lovely with your afternoon tea. Either serve straight away or place in the fridge until you’re ready to eat it.

fafi

noreply@blogger.com (rmm) — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 22:28:00 +0000

french graffiti artist fafi

here

gauguin

noreply@blogger.com (rmm) — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 10:31:00 +0000

at the D'Orsay

thanksgiving in paris, part II

noreply@blogger.com (rmm) — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 00:31:00 +0000

Thanksgiving evening, Florent and I caught a train out to Luce (a tiny suburb of Chartres) to see AIR. It was just a community center venue, with maybe 150 people at the show, but despite being miniature, the concert was great. The band really capitalized on improvisation and played several alternate versions of their songs...

... we got some snow inside the show too...

... at one point, the comparative attractiveness of the band members came up. When we disagreed about who was better looking, Florent informed me, "Well, we have different taste. [Pause]. You know... you have shit taste"...

...Florent, apparently having watched the wrong YouTube video, thought I was dragging him to some mediocre pop-rock concert, which means he gets even bigger brownie points for braving the Chartres snow. Especially since the concert ran so late that we missed the last train home to Paris. Night life in Chartres in nearly non-existent, but we ended up passing a couple hours at "The Privilege"— one of the diviest discotheques I've ever had the "privilege" of visiting. We both completely passed out on the 4.30 a.m. train home and I walked back into the St. Germain district just in time to see the sun rise and to be the first customer of the morning at Poilane (a.k.a. the best bakery in the entire world)...

And here's some shots of the snow coming down near Tuileries...

thanksgiving in paris, part I

noreply@blogger.com (rmm) — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 14:05:00 +0000

When done right, Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. I'm blessed with a family is only dysfunctional in the right kind of ways to keep it from being boring. Trying to recreate an American Thanksgiving abroad, let's face it, was only going to result in disappointment and homesickness, so I decided to embrace the opposite extreme— a completely off-the-wall weekend avec mes amis a Paris.

I went and saw the at the quirky, macabre Deyrolle taxidermy boutique...

... and ate seasonal du petit pain aux raisins from Poilane bakery...

... Jenna and I got Pierre Herme's holiday macarons (chestnut with green tea and dark chocolate... in place of pumpkin pie!). We ate them at St. Sulpice fountain, but only after a "macaron fashion photo shoot."

autumn playlist

noreply@blogger.com (rmm) — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 21:55:00 +0000

keep it light

noreply@blogger.com (rmm) — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 21:21:00 +0000

kanelbulle

noreply@blogger.com (rmm) — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 12:45:00 +0000

seoul

noreply@blogger.com (rmm) — Sun, 14 Nov 2010 16:31:00 +0000

My adorable friend Kia is spending the year in Seoul, Korea and loving it. She took these beautiful photos of the Lantern Festival. Her stories about Korean McDonalds and all-night clubs are making me think about stopping by the ethnic food store this week and trying my hand at making Korean food.

fanny b.

noreply@blogger.com (rmm) — Sat, 13 Nov 2010 16:11:00 +0000

here

summertime on the rogue

noreply@blogger.com (rmm) — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 12:25:00 +0000

I feel so far away from myself.

noreply@blogger.com (rmm) — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 12:12:00 +0000

15 writers

noreply@blogger.com (rmm) — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 22:54:00 +0000

This was harder than I expected. Writers who have stuck with me, either by weight of their ideas or stylistically.

My junior year AP lit teacher once said it was important to know what your favorite authors looked like, so that you could recognize them and have meaningful discussions if you ever bumped into them on a plane. A nice thought.

cinnamon bread

noreply@blogger.com (rmm) — Sun, 07 Nov 2010 22:51:00 +0000

Baked cinnamon bread today! This recipe was great... and fun to play around with since it's a sweet bread, but dough, rather than batter. It took a while, with the rising and kneading, but was super easy and completely worth it.

I also finished the hat I impulsively started knitting. It's a little big. Well, actually, it's huge. But it's cozy. I love days where I can ~~wake up at 1 p.m.~~ sleep in, knead bread and knit. It makes me feel like Laura from Little House on the Prairie. Well, like Little House on the Prairie with Lady Gaga.

to quilt or not to quilt?

noreply@blogger.com (rmm) — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 21:25:00 +0000

I'm kind of thinking about tackling a true patchwork quilt. I'd be stitching it by hand and scrounging cool fabric from thrifted things probably. But... well, it would be kind of "Little House on the Prairie" of me. And I could work on it while watching my way through the biblioteca's collection of Hitchcock movies. And maybe it'd be the right kind of project to lift whatever clouds these are...

p.s. Some exciting news! Paola found a conversation partner for me, I think.

volubilis and moulay idriss (day 5)

noreply@blogger.com (rmm) — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 13:29:00 +0000

From Meknes, we made a side day-trip out to the Roman ruins at Volubilis... You can just see the last of the moon fading away over the top of the ruins here...

... and to the nearby religious/ historic city of Moulay Idriss. We wound our way up the narrow streets of the city— which is built on/into the hills like Gondor— for a panoramic view. The green roofed mausoleum is the burial site for Moulay Idriss, the man who introduced Islam to Morocco.

Note the hat... and the white jeans. A brazen decision to trek Morocco in white jeans. In retrospect, I like to think of it as a cavalier-like-Indiana-Jones move.

meknes, morocco (days 4 - 6)

noreply@blogger.com (rmm) — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 12:59:00 +0000

In Meknes, we indulged and stayed in a riad, a traditionally styled building arranged around an courtyard garden.

Mint tea. Also known, apparently, as Moroccan whisky. Either way, it's delicious.

I loved the main gate of the Meknes imperial city...

... and this horse.

fes, morocco (days 1 - 3)

noreply@blogger.com (rmm) — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 10:36:00 +0000

Leather and wool production is central to Fes industry. We visited a tannery hidden deep in the heart of the ancient city.

There were stray cats on every surface.

Going into the maze-like souqs, there were more things to see than I could look at.

Lots of pretty shoes.

And spice shops. I stopped here for a while to chat in French with the friendly guy, about my age, running this shop.

The Batha summer palace, converted into a spectacular museum with an enormous Moor-ish riad (garden).

milano, italia

noreply@blogger.com (rmm) — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 17:18:00 +0000

Milan is beautiful.

We stopped in this beautiful public park... it was so refreshing to be able to see autumn after a week in the Moroccan desert and the treeless streets of Florence. I felt like I could breathe a little lighter.

Side shot of the Milan Duomo, and then the beautiful stone floors of the cathedral.

day of the dead

noreply@blogger.com (rmm) — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 16:19:00 +0000