Saul Leiter - Finding Beauty

Helllllooooooooooo.....!  I'm loving these Saul Leiter photos

that I found in the Guardian over the

weekend.  How was yours?  Snowy?

Funny how these photos look so utterly modern with their

strong graphic qualities, pops of color and wash of neutrals.

"No Great Hurry" a documentary about this photographer came out in 2014 and shows of his work have recently been mounted in Paris, Austria, and now London.  See more here.  And see where I found these photos here.

Summer Stecca-a-Rama - Thanks to Sullivan Street Bakery

So how is everybody?  Staying cool?  It is about to get seriously hot here in L.A. and some of you may know we have some bad fires up North.  The good news is that the week started cool.  In fact, perfect weather for some Stecca-making.

So Sunday night, Mr. Paradis made a quick batch of dough which we let rise till about noon of the following day.  I managed to find time between laundry, gardening and bill paying to pull a couple of these little guys out onto some parchment paper.  THAT'S HOW EASY THIS RECIPE IS!

Plunked some olives and cherries tomatoes onto them, and a quick swish of olive oil.  The flecks are fresh thyme leaves.  Oh and a sprinkling of sea salt.  Then, INTO THE OVEN.

My little helper kept track of the15 minutes of baking at 500 degrees.

Here's where the recipe came from.  NYC's guru of gluten and dough,  Jim Lahey of Sullivan Street Bakery fame.

Somehow I think he must have let them rise a bit after putting them on the baking sheet - NOT in the recipe.  And he rolled the dough chunks into themselves like for a classic baguette (which these are the Italian version of).  I stretched them.  p.s., if your tomatoes are juicy like mine, the dough will sag a bit, too.

But I think they turned out pretty darn good!!!!

(Oh and don't forget to pit the olives before you put them on, says Mr. Paradis.)

Crispy, salty, chewy, light!!!  OMG, you will be happy you tried this at home.  Just as good as these ones from Proof, in L.A (which I posted about a couple years ago) at a fraction of the cost.  Don't be shy, bake them, show them, and share them with your friends!

HAPPY WEEKEND to you FOODIES out there!

(No, really, I mean ALL OF YOU!  xoxo)

Christmas Cheer

Some pre-Christmas nostalgia for you:

You Have A Voice - What Are You Going to Do With It?

Is it a good thing or a bad thing?  Most of these pictures

(New York anti-police violence march, via USUncut)

 (L.A. Garner/Brown/Racism protests)

are from the LA Times  (I wish it was easier to go back and find the link for these things but no....)

 (India - Bhopal protest)

"Week in Pictures"

 (Hong Kong - Democracy protesters)

They come from all around the Globe.

 (Grand Central Station, NYC - Garner/Brown/Racism protests)

Depending on which side of an issue you are on

 (Mexican protests - Missing students)

these are people exercising their human and civil rights.  To others, they are "Enemies of the State".

 (U.S.: Garner/Brown/Racism/Police Brutality protests)

It's hard to say that any of these people have achieved gains by their actions.  So far.

 (Hong Kong Democracy protests)

Should they continue to bother?

 (France - Anti-Development protest)

What would you go out into the streets to defend?

(London - Loss of Affordable Housing Protest)

 (NYC - Garner/Brown/Racism/Police Brutality Protests also below)

What would be your slogan?

A very loved cousin un-friended me on Facebook last weekend.  He also doesn't want to talk to me anymore.  Ever.  He says that I obviously hate everything that he stands for.  If what people believe or endorse is diametrically opposed to what you believe, does that make you enemies for life?  Should you stay silent about your beliefs because you don't want to offend people you love?

I don't think so.  Life is messy, isn't it?  At what point does disagreement become war?  I don't want to know.  But more and more people are finding out.  It's a terrible truth.

It's nearly Christmas.  Wishing you a peaceful Holiday Season.  xoxoxo 

NYC: At the Metropolitan Museum of Art

What can I say about the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York?

Except that visiting the Met

is like encountering the souls

of beloved ones

now departed.

If I were able to move into the museum

like Jamie and Claudia do, in The Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler

I could live with them again in a dream

of forever.

Me and my spirit guides.

It would only take me a couple of lifetimes to learn how to sculpt like an angel.  But I like to think that I'd get there in the end.

Here's a link to the Museum's website - well, especially to their publications which are an underappreciated treasure trove.  Enjoy!

NYC Winter

In NYC in the wintertime, there is one boiler for the whole building, and all the radiator heat rises so

sometimes people have to hang NAKED outside their open windows in 30 degree temps!  (I guess!)

In NYC in the winter, your car will get completely covered with salt.  So....be a proper NY-er.....

DON'T BOTHER DRIVING!

Maybe you could be a new kind of NY-er and GET ON YER BIKE!  (Or, that is, on some corporate entity's mobile advertising unit.)

If you are a proper NY-er, you wouldn't forget to visit Ceci-Cela.   It was one of the very first French pastry shops in town and most authentic.  It still is!  On a NYC winter day, it is a GOOD THING.

A young visitor to NYC once remarked to me that:  "There ARE no cars in NYC, only TAXICABS." (True-ish.)

David Beckham is EVERYWHERE!  There is a reason for that: the Dude is CUT! Yes, even in a white long sleeved shirt.  I'm telling you that from personal experience.  But that's all I can tell you.

In NYC, commerce is pervasive.  Even the quirkiest kind.  This is an "ad" for an antiques auction house.

This is the Bowery Bar.  It used the be the cutting edge of the cutting edge.  Now it's the kind of place you bring your Mother!  Either that, or it's always been your hang-out - piercings, tatts and all and now, you're old enough to be your Mother!!!!   How does that happen?  (So quick?)

This is why I left NYC!  I hate that dirty gray snow to match a dirty gray sky!  (This photo has been lightened and  color-enhanced.   Otherwise it would be just too depressing.)

But change is on the horizon.  i.e., nobody can afford to live in NYC anymore!  So they move away

in order to be able to afford to stay in hotels like the Standard (E. Village) instead?  Apparently.  (I did not.)

You could not have guessed that by the lines outside the Momofuku restaurant.  Can't remember if this was the noodle bar, or Momofuku Ssam.  But then, maybe all those queued-up crowds were from out of town?

In NYC when I visited, I didn't need giant signs to tell me this.  More pictures would have been taken if la Famille Paradis had not been so busy negotiating street-corner lakes of grey slush!

Casa Mono was the consolation for my snowy labors.  It still has some of the best food (tapas) in NYC.  Usually it is chock-a-block with happy foodies.  At 4 p.m. it looked like this.

At 3:45 p.m. it looked like this.  (That is rice pudding with, I believe, a passion fruit sorbet and a candied satsuma sauce.)   Chef's should love me because I completely forget to photograph their food until it is mostly all gone!  But sadly that makes me a BAD, BAD blogger.

Somewhere else to while away your gray winter afternoons: my old favorite:  THE STRAND BOOKSTORE.  Home from home!  Skip the mall-i-fied upstairs and go straight to the basement for that old-school East Village funk!

That was my Sunday two weeks ago in New York City.  How has your Sunday been?