Fete de la Fleur

Every 2 years a huge international wine exposition takes place in Bordeaux

VINEXPO!

The crowning event at the end of the expo is a grande soiree,
La Fete de la Fleur

Only the creme de la creme in the wine trade attend:

chateau owners, distributors, celebrities etc.

Each year it's held at a different grand chateau in the Medoc..
The year I went, it was at the lovely Chateau Cantenac-Brown.
I wrangled an invite by suggesting I should take photographs

for Wine Enthusiast magazine.
A tradition at the Fete is the prestigious awarding of new memberships into
Le Commanderie du Bon temps du Medoc
New and old members get to parade about in claret red velvet robes..
Hugh Grant was one of the recipients, but alas, I did not get his picture :(
Here are the St. Emilion Bon Temps members parading...
After Champagne and hors d'oeuvre on the grounds
there's a grand dinner inside.
In 1997 it was held inside a tent in case of rain.
Between courses there was Cirque du Soleil-style entertainment.
Performers on stilts dressed up as Bon temps members paraded...

Acrobats decked out as corks flew through the air to keep us amused.

I did this party doodle after the Fete...

The dinner menu served was quite simple - just 5 courses.
After all there were 1500 guests attending!
But I was amazed to see the cheese course/fromages served to each guest
individually by special cheese servers, rather than 6 chunks of cheese sitting on a plate.
The piece de resistance was of course, the wine menu shown here.
13 wines served to go with the 5 courses! ! !
I noticed while sitting at the Wine Enthusiast table,

quite a bit of tipping of the waiter to get very large glasses refilled

with some of the world's finest wines...

Hmmmm...
Here is the sad secret that has kept me from following in Ms. P. Hilton's footsteps...

My alcoholic capacity is about 2 THIMBLES FULL!

THAT IS IT!

Anymore than my quota, say 3 thimbles full

and I am known to become dangerously flagrant.

Plus I suffer massive hangovers!

So I did not get to leave the soiree drunk and disorderly :(

But I did get a very nice claret red umbrella (it started to rain)

with the insignia of Le Bon Temps Commanderie on it!

And the truly amazing fact is

I still have this umbrella 10 years later!!!

J'adore Les Cupcakes!

J'adore les cupcakes sounds so...

Well, FRENCH!

I was the "picky eater" in the family.
I refused to eat cake, including birthday cake and CUPCAKES!
I mostly played with my food, lining things up in rows, making designs etc.
How I wish I was still a "picky eater"...
The French really do adore the American cupcake.
Look at these unique cupcake/cones from Helene of Tartelette!
Helene took this beautiful photo too.
I found this interesting 2-layer birthday cupcake from Robyn of
The Girl who Ate Everything.
I love the anatomical view that Robyn took of her own birthday cupcake!
I'm not the world's biggest cupcake eater,
But when ParisBreakfasts reader, Paige L. wrote me,
You don't like cupcakes?
But they're cakes made for one!
You can put them on little pedestals with glass domes...
And, they can sit out in view all day without going stale, so the anticipation builds.
They're art!
So I had to go out and get a CUPCAKE! for Gawd's sake...
and paint it...
Just around the corner IL BAMBINO has CUPCAKE ART
on their walls.
Plus trays and trays full of CUPCAKES.
I think I may be fonder of the Crayola birthday candles than actually
eating cupcakes.

I must admit they are fun to paint :)

Pigment Stores in Florence...

Late last night I got a comment from michael...
He said...What a wonderful pleasure to stumble upon your blog
while researching for pigment stores in Florence...(know any?).
Your blog is beautiful!
Naturally, being of an impulsive nature,
I had to find the name of that pigment store in Florence tout a suite...
ZECCHI!
I started pawing through my fat file on Italy - mostly Tuscany
Such yummy Tuscan earth colors...
I could do a post on that I thought! I'm easily influenced.
Camille Corot went to Italy to paint for 3 years in 1825, and everyone followed.
I got to Italy for wine adventures, shoe design
and a 3 week artist residency in Poppi.
Ideally, I would really like a Fullbright Scholarship researching Gelato...
So far I've heard niente/nuttin'...
Painting while on the train is a fun thing to do in Italy.
There are tons of trains and the landscape is perfect for sketchbook recording.
And sometimes the trains go very slowly.
You can't think about Tuscan colors without thinking of painter, Piero Della Francesca.
His deep reds, ochres, siennas are the archetypal Tuscan colors that always come to mind.

You better come prepared with those Tuscan earth colors in your paintbox
or just stay home!
True, you can always pick them up in ZECCHI's in Florence.

Well, I hope I answered your question Michael :)

And Grazie tanto for giving me an idea for today's Paris Breakfasts post!

The Lions of Bordeaux...

When I visited the chateaux and vineyards in Bordeaux

I was knocked over by the profusion of stone lions everywhere.

No wonder!

The kingly lion is sitting right on Bordeaux' coat of arms.
As well as guarding so many entry ways of the finest chateaux..
For example at Chateau Haut-Brion...
Now here's a funny thing...
Where I live, in Astoria, NY
(just 9 minutes from Bloomingdales on the N train
and the most multi-culti town in the USA)
there is a profusion of stone LIONS!
38th street is particularly littered with these stone lions!
Only between Broadway and 34th Avenue,
in case you should go looking for a pride or two...
This has set me thinking...
Have some Bordeauxoise winemakers moved to Astoria? ? ?
Will we soon see some vineyards springing up on my turf?
Did I mention that Bordeaux is also inundated with stone sphinxes?
The French sphinx has a coiffed head and the bust of a young woman.
Often she is wearing ear drops and pearls
and her body is naturalistically rendered as a recumbent lion.
Chateau Margaux has an impressive pair guarding their stairway entry.

Chateaux de Malle makes a lovely Sauturnes, well protected by
a brace of sphinx.

I'm wondering when, exactly an infusion of sphinxes are coming to Astoria?

Could they please come to my street?
We could definitely use a few sphinxes on 31st Avenue :)

Champagne Days...

Yesterday K & S said...you've had the coolest jobs! You ain't seen nothin' Sweetie Darling :)
Paul Bocuse, Champagne Mumm's spokes person,
thought I should do some artwork for them and made introductions.
They gave me a test assignment: Come up with a big group drawing of tons of celebrities drinking Mumm that they could gift to all their employees.
Can you spot Kate Moss?
And there's one of the Seagrams brothers embracing the big bottle. Please note everyone is holding their glass by the STEM! Never hold a champagne glass by the "bowl". Mustn't warm up those bubbles!!!
That group drawing led to this portrait promotion program.
They thought I should paint the portraits directly onto the Mumm bottles?
I foresaw my living room a sea of Mumm jeroboams! The last minute I came up with the idea to print their label design on my watercolor paper. I ended up with stacks of nice neat printed Champagne labels. YAY
One of the perks of this career was I got to stay at the Mumm mansion in Reims... YUM
The Champagne countryside is magnificent and there's a new fast train
from Paris that gets you there in an hour. Don't miss it!
I got to stay a week in Verzy at Veuve Clicquot's country estate.
It was just me and a refrigerator full of jeroboams.
They said, "Help yourself" Right! :)
Someone did pop in to deliver petit dejeuner in the morning and the rest of the time I communed with the grapevines. They still use straw baskets to pick the grapes in Champagne.
There's a lot of partying in the Champagne Biz. These pourers are dressed up as old fashioned "cellar men". They used to turn the resting bottles.
They're fun to sketch...
This is NOT me embracing the big bottle, that's my French boss at Mumm...
This is me partying at the Chelsea Arts Club Belle Epoche Ball held at London's Albert Hall... Well heck, there is a Champagne bottle in the picture! We had to dress up as characters from Degas and Lautrec paintings. I chose a Degas ballet dancer.
I remember Roger Terry, the club concierge, telling me,
"If you add one more satin bow to that outfit, you'll look like a dog's dinner."
Don't you just love the Brits!

Pass the Bolly Sweetie Darling!

How To Peel A Grape...

No, this is not a grape.

This is an Asian pear sitting on 2 chopsticks.

Or rather it's a "spot" illustration of an Asian pear.

For 3 years I did line illustrations for the the Q & A cookery questions
In the back of the book (as they call it) at Gourmet Magazine.
The idea is...
they send you the text and title,

and then you come up with an amusing way illustration,

almost like a mini-cartoon.

For example: How To Peel A Grape.
It's called conceptual illustration.
Kind of like being on the couch (the shrink's couch)
but they pay you to free-associate.
As one who loves to free-associate, this was right up my alley :)
You just take the words in the title and see what comes to mind...
words, images any thing will do, but it should be fun!
I can't remember how many times I've used a French beret to solve an
illustration problem - was it a precursor of what was to come?
All the Frenchiness that has taken over my life?
If you do spot illustrations, eventually you get to illustrate some cookbooks.
That means you actually might have to cook, or at least photograph some setups
that look like you're cooking...
These are from an Italian cookbook...
Here's what a page of conceptual doodles would look like.
They don't have these much in Gourmet anymore.
There was a regieme change and out went the illustrations
and in came the glossy photographs.
Meanwhile I sold my appartment and started to "play" the stock market..Ahem.
I found I could make the same money in a few minutes while day trading.
And lose it even faster too :(
So that was the end of my spot illustration days.
But next time you bite into a pita
think camel, think dessert,
NO, wait no I mean DESERT!
Oh whatev...

Corey's Cups...

I met Corey at a French cafe...
Photo by Corey Amaro

I was Googling at 4 AM and out of 1,300,000 French cafes I found this cafe picture. I went to look closer, left a comment and returned to bed. A few minutes later I heard a ding. She responded. Back and forth emails flew. In Provence it was 10 AM - a more reasonable hour. Then and there she dared me to start the blog idea I'd been tossing around in my head. She sent me pictures of her cup collection to tempt me to come visit...
About a week ago I looked at those cup pictures and thought, maybe I should paint them?
We met in Paris last trip and after some arm twisting, she brought along this rose teacup - a great eye for cups.
Sometimes I help Corey with spelling. And she helps me with life choices. That's what friends are for :)
She found me this little demi-tasse at the Paris Flea...
You can meet some nifty people hanging out in a French cafe...

Pages From My Sketchbooks...

Any artist worth their salt

earns their 'bones" filling a gazillion sketchbooks with doodles...

I made these when I was in my bookmaking phase...
Delacroix's Le Voyage au Maroc sketchbooks are one of the best sources
when you're considering starting a sketchbook.
It's both a diary + sketchbook, drawn and written daily records of his Moroccan travels.
I've always treasured this picture of JMW Turner's leather bound sketchbook.
Many of his sketches can be seen in the Tate's Turnercollection in London,
where Turner donated much of his artwork.
Closer at hand is the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven, CT.
You can actually touch a Turner sketchbook!
Make an appointment first :)
A Turneresque page from my sketchbook...
Multi-doodles done in Poppi, Tuscany..
I love to put down blobs of color and then create a little scene on top...
Sketchbooks provide the chance to make quick summaries of what you see
Like a quick camera snapshot.
Spontaneous notation is what it's all about.
Often sketches are more personal, more interesting than the final finished painting.
More color blobs + grape picker doodles...
Chateau doodles.
The thing about sketchbooks is they are private.
You can be as casual and messy and experimental as you like.
No ones going to see what you do...
Well almost no one :)
Some of the sketchbook paraphrenalia you can
"collect" in the name of sketching!
There are endless art supplies out there waiting to tempt you,
and every bit as luscious as any patisserie shop offering.
SOME MORE SKETCHBOOK POSTS:
More Candy Stores
Daffodil Sketchbook
My Venice Moleskine
Wine Tools...
Carnets de Couleur
Moleskine à Table
Moleskine de Voyage #3
Carnets de Voyage #2
Carnets de Voyage
My Bologna

Laduree Patisseries Religieuse...

After much research,

I wanted to share with you my observation that

the French have an obsession with puffy, airy things...
Firstly Laduree's patisserie Religieuse-
Made of puff or pate chou pastry - really 2 cream puffs, one sitting on top of the other and filled with flavored pastry cream. The Religieuse got it's name from it's violet-colored icing matching the cardinal's robes.
There's a long tradition of "puffy" cuisine in France.
Here a soup en croute..hidden under pâte feuilletée.
Plus profiteroles, croquembouches, eclairs, beignets, eclairs, gougères
Height seems to be a desirable thing in France..
Not to be left out of the picture,
French painters love to paint these puffy creations.
Here Manet's "La Brioche."
Manet was inspired by Chardin's "Brioche" in the Louvre
As well as what appreared on his dinner table...
And where would we be without airy, bubbly, fizzy French Champagne???
Another example of the French propensity for puffery.
Marie Antoinette had a very puffy hairdo...
The master of puffy dresses is Christian Lacroix,
French of course.

Here's an exam on French pastry !
You'll find out if French patisserie is
Your cup of tea/votre tasse de thé
and if you have CHEF potential!
BONNE COURAGE

Grape Picker...

I really only got to pick grapes one time...

That was at the October harvest in Riquewihr, Alsace,

one of the most beautiful harvests anywhere.
And that was only because Ed Lauber of Lauber Imports

put in a good word with one of his vineyard suppliers.

My payment for standing around holding grape shears in my blistering hands,

was sitting at the long vineyard table and sharing a huge wluscious lunch.

In Alsace, grape picking is a family affair,

so everyone knows everyone else and

every member of the family shows up to help out with les vendanges.

At Regaleali Vineyard in Sicily I just watched as the pickers

sing, chat and pick the grapes in a most leisurely fashion.

You can take cooking lessons there with the Countess Anna Tasca-Lanza too.

I only imagined these Tuscan grape pickers...

I was never there at harvest time,

but Tuscan vineyards are some of the most beautiful and idlyic.

In Napa Valley, California, the grape pickers don't walk.

They run or rather race to get the job done.

More imagined grape pickers, this time in Burgundy where

they used to carry big straw baskets/paniers on their shoulders.
You can sometimes still find these at French ebay...

You'll find all kinds of wine-related goodies on ebay.fr!

I should know.

I used to spend hours there looking for so-called still life objects :)

I've got a kitchen closet full of taste-vins to prove it!

Imagined 19th century Bordeaux pickers...

More imaginary grapepicker doodles.

The figures are more fun to draw than the grapes...

I'm way better at wielding a paintbrush

than a pair of grape shears/secateurs if I may say so.
Some passerby on La Route du vin in The Medoc insisted on taking this quaint picture

Grrrrr :(

Street Artist...

One thing I've never done is be a street artist...
But it sure looks like a lot of fun!
Here's an easel set up at the Piazza del Duomo in Florence.
This artist has his bike handy
so he can take off for lunch or at a moment's notice..
And he's painting on site while waiting for sales!
He's got a sweet little economical painting set up.
*Note the water bottles under the tray for watercolors and drinking.
Isn't every tourist tempted at sometime or other by these artists?
I bought this tiny watercolor of the archades at the Santa Maria Novella church.
This painting is just 2 3/4" x 2 3/4"
I went back to find him again on another trip but forgetaboutit!
A Parisien print dealer along the Seine...
Boy would I just LOVE to set up my portfolio like this
and try to sell some watercolors in Paris :)

Here's another kind of street artist I can't resist!
Especially the crepes with citron...

Being a beach artist isn't so bad
even if you don't make any sales.

Macaron Architecture Lesson...

It's funny but a year ago I had macarons on the mind too.

On August 17, 2006...

Pierre Herme Macaron photo by Fanny Zanotti of Food Beam

And then I read about

Fanny Zanotti's 6-week stage at Pierre Herme on Food Beam!!!

Fanny goes into delicious detail of what goes on behind the closed kitchen doors at PH...
She tells us of the bucket where all wrecked macaron lids end up = a sort of circular file.

How we would love to get our hands into that bucket!
I also learned from Fanny that the baked macaron lids are called coques - meaning shells..

Immediately I thought of CLAM shells!
Am I alone in seeing the resemblance?
Two lids containing a delicious filling...
I was reminded too of when Barbara Bleu (shown here) and I went to Bofinger
and shared a plateau a coquillage - a yummy melange of shelled goodies.
Clam shells were also used by 18th century British watercolorists
to hold their paint splodges when they painted outdoors.
So clams + macarons + watercolors are all kind of related
if you see what I mean...
After all, a lot of architecture comes right out of nature.
I can only think of the macaron/clam combo at the moment,
but I'm sure this is the case...
So the next time you're about to bite into that macaron...

Think CLAM please/S.V.P.

PS!

Dorie Greenspan has written a wonderful history of the macaron

you can chew on, while digesting this clam-mac thought...

CHANEL on my mind....

I stopped by Merisi's Vienna late last night

and thought Ah Ha! There is my post for tomorrow!

Merisi has shown the Chanel windows on Kohlmarkt 5 in Vienna.

As has Paris Parfait on rue Cambon in Paris of course.

I thought I'll show Chanel on 57th Street in New York!

tra-la :)

I had BIG plans to be out in front of the windows at 8 AM!

The best laid plans of mice and men are paved with good intentions on the route to Hell...
When I got there at high noon, I might as well have turned my back to the windows

and just shot the street traffic :(

Still Chanel must be given her due.
Black and white is usually a sign of Spring on the way...
But Mme Chanel was never one to follow the crowd.
And these haircuts make me want to run out and get bangs
Tout a suite!
I had a haircut like this as a kid and stick straight hair.
Something happened along the way and the sticks are wavy now...
The scarlet lips are fun too...
Ruching and pleats on white chiffon shirts...so Chanel!
As are chains and chains of pearls and logo whatnots...
This L.L.Bean-style boot kicking the pearls around is a bit of shocker!
Is there a Chanel store in your town?
Please run out and take pictures, preferably not at High Noon!
Be sure and let me know...

Pierre Herme's ISPAHAN on My Mind...

I've had Pierre Herme's ISPAHAN on my mind lately...
If you look in my Favorites at Flickr that just about all you'll see...

Don't you just know it!
I went to take a look at Pierre Herme's site
AND
HE'S HAVING AN ISPAHAN CONTEST!!!

Sometimes I feel truely psychic...
No I did NOT say PSYCHO!
This is the box of ISPAHAN goodies you get if you win!!!
If you want to see Pierre Herme creating at his drawing board
Just click here!
Did you know that the 'Ispahan' rose, also known as 'Rose d'Isfahan'
and 'Pompon des Princes' is one of the finest Damask roses?
It's also one of the most beautiful and fragrant of all roses.
And if that wasn't enough, it's very hardy and tolerates poorer soils!

Did I mention that Herme's Ispahan is made of:

Biscuit macaron a la rose,

Creme aux petales de rose,

framboises entiere

letchis.

Next trip to Paris, in October, I'm going early,

VERY EARLY to Pierre Herme's shop.
You won't catch me there on any Mondays either!

When it's closed :(

And I'm taking my Ispahan to this cafe table.

I hope I can find it again

I plan to do a color match on this table :)

PS

Here's a secret...shhhhhh!

Someone who works at Pierre Herme PARIS bought 6!!!

of my watercolors when the sale was on :O

I hope he gets a chance to see them sometime...

Gary Cooper and My Father...

My father always thought he looked like a little like the movie star Gary Cooper.

Putting this post together I can see a bit of a resemblance...
"Coop" was known as the strong, silent type.
And my dad certainly had his quiet moments...
Plus my dad owned The Princess Movie theater in a small town in Iowa during the Depression, so he had plenty of chances to check Coop out.
My father was 6'2" tall with green eyes, red hair and freckles. Here he is, looking ever the proud groom when he married my mother, a city slicker from the East :)
His mother died when he was just 16, so he ran away from home (Iowa).He joined up with the Royal Canadian air force and flew crates over France.He never got to go to college but he loved to recite Walt Whitman and other poets by heart.
Like me, he had a varied work life. He won ice skating contests, rolled logs, sold ladies shoes until a jilted date walked in the front door and he ran out the back.
He was a terrific dancer and he won my Mother's heart on the dance floor.
I was supposed to be a boy. "Charles" was going to be my name.
So I went with my dad on fishing jaunts and to baseball games and the hardware store. I loved learning to put the worm on the hook and eating ballpark hotdogs. I still love snooping around hardware stores..and pastry shops.
My parents used to fight over my future -
what I was going to do when I grew up.
My mother wanted me to go to art school, well fashion design school in fact.
My dad nixed that. I could only go if I became an art teacher.
I was not consulted...
If they just knew how I've run the gamut :)
An old generational photo - me and my dog Pumpkin, my father and my two petites nieces, Anabel and Louisa. Recently I found an old letter my father wrote me a few years before he died when I was 33...
Dear Carol,

Just a note to say all is well including Pumpkin who is enjoying the cool sea breezes. Your itinerary sounds very exciting (I was in North Africa for a souk book) and I am sure that you will have a grand time along with your work.
I am so proud of you to have accomplished all of this on your own. I realize how hard it is to break in, in New York as competition is so keen. Your well on the way and things will come much easier, now that you know how to do things as well as being a full fledged authoress. (ref: Street Markets book)
As you look back you will appreciate the hard work and seemingly unrewarding efforts, but now everything is beginning to fall in place.
Best of luck, drop a card or a little note when you have time
Love
Dad
It does kind of sounds like a letter Gary Cooper would write... :)

Tout A Sweet...

The same bonbon shop loaded with caramels, BLEU DANS L'ILE, on the ile St. Louis is also loaded with NOUGAT.

In fact they carry bonbons from all over France - French regional specialties up the WHA-ZOO! Truely, the range of regional goodies in France is astonishing.And more often than not you can't find them outside of their home region!!!

Multi-colored NOUGAT...I couldn't resist taking all these endless pictures of NOUGAT...
There is dark nougat (with Lavender honey) called Noir de Provence.
Almond nougat · Dried cherry nougat glace · Fruit nougat · Fudge nougats · bla bla bla There are no end of variety of NOUGATS and most of them come from
MONTELIMAR, where it was invented so to speak in the end of XVIIème century. Arnaud Soubeyran makes 67 tons of nougat there every year.
But first Olivier de Serre had to bring in Almond trees from Asia to Provence.
Really NOUGAT goes back to the Greeks. Anywhere there was honey and almonds and egg whites around. To make Nougat à l'Ancienne you need:
28% of peeled roasted almonds (at 180 degrees)
20 - 50 % Lavender honey
2% pistachio nuts.
Mix Lavender honey with water and sugar, stir the contents to 130 centigrade, pour the syrup into whipped egg whites, add the almonds together with a little vanilla. Traditionally it's stirred in a copper cauldron (see the arrow). Spread it on to rice paper, cool, cut into squares the next day and Et Voila!
Here is the "regional NOUGAT" I picked up in Cape May. A chunk of hardened marshmallow with severed gum drops embedded. Need I say more...
I must admit as a kid I relished this tooth-destroying sweetie.

But I've moved on to the French stuff! :)

Dedicated to the one I love...

John saw this watercolor dedicated to Angelina...

And requested if he could have the same watercolor
but with his friend, Caterina's name on the cup.
What a good idea!
I got to thinking...
Marie-Noelle has been coaching me in the art of Frenchie ecriture handwriting...
I forget what she calls it, but I know she'll remind me shortly :)
Wouldn't it be fun to add French terms of endearment to the watercolors
Known as, Les Petits Nom et Les Mots Doux
There could easily be thousands of these terms of endearments in French...
Here are just a few to choose from:
Pour les petits et même les grands, Joli coeur, jolie rose, louloute, ma beauté, ma belette, ma biche, ma biquette, ma canaille, ma chatounette, ma chérie, ma choupette, ma choupinette,ma belle, ma choute, ma cocotte, ma coquette, ma dame de coeur, ma douce, ma douceur, ma drollière, ma grenouille, ma jolie, Ma minouchette, ma noisette, ma petite bichette, ma petite bichette, ma petite chérie, ma petite crotte, ma petite frite, ma petite hirondelle, ma petite perle, ma petite princesse, ma petite puce, ma poule, ma poulette, ma poupette, ma princesse aux pieds dorés, ma souris, ma tortue, ma minette, mimi, mon amour...
Etc! Etc!
Just be sure you get the masculine/feminine correct!

And while we're at it..
Don't forget The Shirelles song:

Each night before you go to bed my baby
Whisper a little prayer for me my baby
This is dedicated to the one I love
This is dedicated to the one I love
This is dedicated to the one I love
This is dedicated to the one I love

Deperately Seeking Steamers...

I've been playing hookey
Gone fishin'...
M.I.A. (missing in action)
I went off to the seashore and and I left my camera home no less :(
I was visiting my friend, Vicki in Cape May, New Jersey,

who owns The Merion Inn.
The Inn has been winning and dining folks and all-round general whooping it up
since 1885!
It's a restaurant, not an "inn"
but you feel like you should put on your Gibson Girl hat and gloves
when you enter the premises - it's very Victorian.
And their Strawberry Shortcake is nothing to sniff at either!
But the sole purpose of my little hiatus, my MISSION was to have the
STEAMED CLAMS of my childhood...
I nearly drove Vicki mad with my constant blather,
WHERE ARE THE G-D STEAMED CLAMS in this G-D adorable town!?
We did have so-called "steamed" Little neck clams
and on a floating skooner too,
at the Lobster Net or Lobster Nest or some such place...
And I had clams on the half shell there too - they were Little necks,
NOT CHERRY STONES! :(
At The Merion Inn I ate nothing but CLAMS CASINO 2 nights in a row,
which are the best clams casino I've ever had.
No one in all of Cape May has any idea what STEAMERS are either :(
They are NOT Quahogs! Grrrrrrrrr
As soon as we hit town last night I made a B-line for first my camera
And then to Black Pearl on 37 West 26th Street (NYC!)
to have a mess of STEAMED CLAMS, served with their broth and drawn butter.
I had half a dozen CHERRYSTONE CLAMS too just for good measure.
Then I headed home to recover from achieving MY MISSION at last !
Oh, by the way, did I mention they do have macaroOns in Cape May?
AND very beautiful beaches...

I highly reccommend visiting.

Just be sure and eat your steamers before you leave home :)

Paul Poiret and My Mother...

Yesterday I went to see the Paul Poiret fashion exhibit at the Met.

It closes this Saturday so you better run if you want to catch it!

At the exhibit all I could think of was my mother, Isabell...
My mother knew she always wanted to be a fashion designer.

Her family was against it, but she won a scholarship to Moore College of Art in Philadelphia.

I only discovered after she died, that she graduated not only at the top of her class, but with the best fashion design collection in 10 years! I found an old newspaper clipping she had never shown me...

She did get to work briefly as an assistent to a reknown Philadelphia hat designer. Part of her duties were chauffeuring him around town. Hmmm...
But then her parents wanted her to "chauffeur" them out to a hot springs resort in California and she had to quit her design job.
She met my father there and 3 days later he proposed! :)
My mother designed and made her own bias-cut silk wedding dress.
My mother often used me as a foil. Together we'd go into fancy designer shops,
where she would try on and secretly examine the construction of the dresses.
Then she'd go home and create her own version. We often made doll clothes together too. Her dream was that I would go to design school and fullfill her dreams of being a designer.
Naturally I was having none of it.
I was REBELLIOUS!
I did go to art school. I went to a lot of art schools. Don't even ask how many!
All I did was draw. I had not one ounce of ambition to do ANYTHING!?
I was 25 when my mother died and I suddenly had to go to design school.
I had to become the fashion designer she always wanted me to be. I high-tailed it off to Parson School of Design in New York. I did work on 7th Avenue for...I'm not sure how long. Then, by chance, I fell into shoe designing and so many other professions. And the rest is, well, my crazy work history...
My path has been so twisty turny...
I LOVE what I'm doing now - Paris macaron watercolors etc.
But who knows where the road ahead will take me next? Did I say my Mom painted and I still have her old watercolor box?
Mom, I hope I've done you proud.

Desperately Seeking Roses...

I've been desperately seeking roses in my neighborhood, Astoria...

It's ain't like Paris here :(

True we have been having heavy rains.

Here's a bud desperately trying to become a rose...
Some other people have all the roses!
WAIT!
A budlette is trying desperately to open!
You Go BUD!!!
I thought roses and macarons would make a good watercolor combo.
Little did I know the local roses would elude me...
Et voila!
A local rose has decided to show it's pretty face :)
Merci!
A lack of roses meant the spoons and cherries get a SECOND ACT!

Second Acts, Third Acts, Fourth..etc.

It's "Career Wednesday" again!

I was listening to Tina Brown talk about her

"second acts, third acts, fourth acts," etc. on Charlie Rose
and I was reminded of some past acts of my own.

I used to use an airbrush and my illustrations were heavily influenced by

Japanese woodblocks for their compositions and coloring.

After a serious injury landed me in the hospital, I got interested in medical art...

Always lemons into lemonade is on my menu :) Really it was the pharmaceutical advertising art you see in all the medical journals.The movie TRON had just opened - the first film to use computer graphics extensively.

I combined the TRON look with old master drawings....
Still using the airbrush (PhotoShop was yet to be) I came up with a transparent,futuristic style that suited medical art to a T!
My first illlustration flyer brought in a ton of work.
Advil ads, Prozac ads, high-tech anything ads became my caviar and champagne.
Medical advertising pays nicely.
I did covers for Time, Newsweek, Business Week, Omni etc.
Are you asking WHO IS THIS PERSON? I've no idea and if I had to pickup an airbrush now I'd be a goner. I did this for almost 10 years.
Hillary Clinton came along with her cutbacks on pharmaceutical wastage-
among them, ads that ended up in the circular file
i.e. the wastepaper basket
i.e. what I was producing
And my very lucrative medical illustration business went down the drain. Around then I volunteered for the James Beard House. And a new career evolved that still kept me in champagne and caviar. From there I went on to wine art, but that's another Wednesday story.