Before & After The Farmers' Market

Follow Me To Work - LA

Last August, while I was in New York, this post invited you to discover my itinerary to work. I'm in Los Angeles now and last week, I worked in Hollywood. Of course, in LA it's all about driving. Follow me!
When I get off the freeway, I love glimpsing at Dorca's - this tailor used the outside walls of her shop as an advertising billboard, with figures in a compellingly naive style. The other wall is all in Spanish, and prominently offers quiceañera gowns, to be worn to girls' lavish 15th birthday parties.

Los Angeles is a super multicultural city. After passing by the Latino tailor place, I stop at Sunset and La Brea for a Middle Eastern treat - Mashti Malone's ice creams in flavors such as rose water, saffron and (my favorite) orange blossom with pistachios, are irresistible.

A few blocks down, when I drive past the crazy Chinese theater, I know I almost reached my destination. While the tailor place and the ice-cream parlor are the real thing, the Chinese theater is gloriously fake, a crazy take on an imaginary Oriental style.

And for a good laugh on the way, there's always the "Let,s Relax" sign put up by someone who is obviously very confused about spelling and punctuation - who doesn't love a great typo?

At my desk - out of my Sesame Street tote come stumbling out a notepad I adorned with Ingres's superb portrait of Madame d'Haussonville, sharp pencils and, of course, an apple.

At Home

From top:
Fresh plums from the Santa Monica Farmers' Market...
A wonderfully warm 100% wool throw woven in Argentina, from luxurious brand Alta Pampa. So expensive but so worth it - as I may be moving very soon to a freezing cold place, I really need this...
Bill's Bees is a tiny local Los Angeles company that offers, in addition to honey, a few all-natural natural skincare products such as this magical almond-scented balm.

Weekend Gourmand

From top: pure pomegranate juice, snap peas and cherry tomatoes (all from the Venice Farmers' Market), Syrah wine.
What does the word gourmand (see title of my post) mean? It's very difficult, if not impossible to translate into English. Basically, it's used to refer to someone who enjoys eating. But a gourmand is not necessarily a gourmet - a gourmand is not always picky about the quality and complexity of the food. It is more of a simple hedonistic quality; a gourmand always wants more, but there are no negative connotations (a gourmand is not a glouton!).
For instance, yesterday at Stella's in Silverlake when I poured gallons of maple syrup on my lemon ricotta pancakes, I was really being a gourmande...

A couple of fun links:
Models reading books backstage during Fashion Week
and
Gustavo Arellano asks: Frugalistas - what took you so long to become Mexicans?

Villa Carlotta

One of the things I find fascinating about plants is their Latin names - Citrus Paradisi, isn't that exquisite and tempting? The Villa Carlotta is indeed famous for its botanical gardens. Fragrant with gardenias, dotted with hundreds of camellias, it includes some very exotic specimens and spectacular landscaping.
The Citrus Tunnel for instance, which is literally a tunnel made of orange, lemon and grapefruit trees of all kinds, seemed like something out of Alice In Wonderland.
Inside, the villa, we discovered some moving sculptures. I adore how the hard, cold marble can convey the limpness of a Madonna's hand, the delicate curves of a body. Really, how can marble dance?

Textures

From top:
Trees in Pacific Palissades...
My new corduroy pants from J.Crew (the matchstick model, in "Shadow" color)...
A coconut I have no idea how I'm going to split open...

Volunteering With Food Forward

Some time ago, I posted about how, in bounty-laden California, people have been getting together on private properties to pick fruit that would otherwise just rot away. This is done, of course, with the kind authorization of property owners, and the fruit is then donated to food pantries.

I just joined Food Forward here in Los Angeles - "a grassroots effort by Angelenos to help fight urban hunger." And on Sunday, I participated in my first orange pick. With a group of volunteers, we descended upon a garden in Northridge, reaching for oranges packed with sunshine and sugar; we then loaded the fruit-filled crates into an old blue hatch back car. All the oranges we picked will be distributed to struggling people around the LA area.
Writer's Almanac: The great Irish playwright Bernard Shaw, who gave us My Fair Lady via his witty, sharp and just plain wonderful play Pygmalion, died today (Nov. 2) 59 years ago.

Weekend Treats

Summer In A Jar

My mum just spent a few weeks with me in Los Angeles and she left me an edible present that is much more than just blueberry preserve - it's also the sweet taste of summer in a tall jar, and a testimony to her impeccable talents in the kitchen. (You can follow her step by step recipe on her blog)
She loves making preserves, pickles and other treats that allow us to hold the tastes of summer in our plates well into the winter, as they used to do back in the days when the seasons dictated what produce was available. Let's just wait for a chilly, damp fall morning to spread some of this precious blueberry preserve on a still-warm slice of toast, with a cup of tea.

Kitchen Reds

Top: plump and sweet cherries in my huge wood bee bowl - which I bought at a yard sale for $2.
Bottom: the tiles in my kitchen are a light, buttery yellow, with bold red tiles along the edges - it's very retro.

Street Fruit

California is so lush that plenty of food just grows on its tree-lined streets. On the street where I live for instance, you'll find lemons, plums (pictured), and even artichokes, as well as fragrant rosemary.
Last week, the New York Times's wittily titled Neighhbor, Can You Spare A Plum? made it clear that it's legal in California to pick fruit that's in a public space, including if the tree grows on a private property but has branches hanging over public space.
All over the country, people have been getting together to pick the fruit, share it among neighbors and distribute it to others - many make donations to local food banks. Here in Los Angeles, Fallen Fruit designs maps of fruit that can be picked around the metropolis; if you are elsewhere in the USA, you can also check out Neighborhood Fruit. Isn't this a great way to bring communities together, get more people to eat healthy fruit and be less wasteful?
A couple of blocks away, a neighbor has a tree that is just laden with bright lemons and now I am itching to ask if I may pick them and start spreading the juicy bounty around...

Red Post

Peaches Peaches

Treats

From the Santa Monica Farmers' Market, some fresh pistachios and juicy tangerines. And my new favorite chocolate, from Scharffen Berger...
At the Market, I also bought some fresh raw orange blossom honey, which I use to sweeten the lemonade I make with lemons from my back yard; I should have also bought their exceptional avocado flower honey. Sigh. Maybe next week.

Everyone who hasn't come across it yet must check out artist Christopher Niemann's great I Lego NY pics published this week in The New York Times.

Let's Stay Home Today...

Southern California was drenched by violent rains these past few days, so why don't we stay in for this post?
As you know, I just moved to the Los Angeles area, so I had to buy some home basics such as kitchenware. When I found these (affordable) plates designed by Sweden's Sagaform (ah, give me Scandinavian design any time!), I couldn't resist. They come from A+R Store, a wonderful design trove in Venice, where I also picked a number of Christmas present - shhhhhh. Would you like us to visit the store together in another post some time?

Also, I recently read that computer keyboards are among the dirtiest, bacteria-laden places in the house. Ever since, I have been cleaning my darling MacBook's keyboard with a slightly damp cotton round and a few drops of tea tree oil. Do the same thing with your cell phone.
Oh dear, I never expected I would end up giving some cleaning tips on this blog! To make up for this, I promise my next post will be about super glamorous world travel - stay tuned!

A Few Wonderful Things

Marie is not only a wonderfully talented artist but also a dear friend and a very generous person - she gave me this amazing, delicate necklace...


It's fig season!


I contributed an article (in French) to an anthology of English literature that has just come out. The reason why I'm excited about this is because, to the best of my knowledge, it's the very first time that my dear Nancy Mitford is included in a comprehensive anthology of Brit lit. I hope that she ends up getting the respect her work should earn her - not as chick-lit forerunner but as supremely witty author, the granddaughter of Jane Austen and Oscar Wilde.

Fruit, Fruit, Fruit!

Together with peonies, fruit are the best part of spring, like a fragrant and colorful blessing.
When I indulge in this delight, I always think of the years I spent in Iraq as a child. I was 5 when my family moved there away from bountiful Kenya; the country was at war with Iran and food was scarce. We were immensely more privileged than most Iraqis: we never went hungry. Our wonderful driver would go to secret places at dawn to procure eggs, and we kept huge quantities of sugar and flour in the house, stashed away from the rats in metal barrels; my family could afford local chickens and pastries. Ever resourceful, my mum managed to throw fabulous dinner parties and to bake the best cakes ever for our birthdays; her Syrian friend Amal, who taught her about Arab poetry, also showed her how to make Syrian rice with raisins and pine-nuts, a recipe I cherish and make to this day.
Oranges and soft, candy-like dates were available but other than that, fruit was rare; Iraq is, after all, a desert. While some people around me had dreams of French cold cuts and cheese, my main longing was for fruit. How I yearned for a simple, fresh, juicy apple! Every time I go to shop for food I remember how lucky I am, and never more so than when I am biting into a piece of fresh spring fruit.