When France Came to the Conran Shop

A litte leftover from my Spring trip to Blighty......

We wandered into the Conran Shop after a game of tennis and what a nice surprise:

In celebration of the Patisserie des Reves (some of their lovely ladies, above) arriving in London

The Conran Shop was having a "French Monday Night" with goodies, free champagne

and a lot of French flavors

including these yes, CHOCOLATE vintage irons and espresso pots

splatter platters (actually they're Italian but they look very Cote Sud, don't they?)

old French cars - the Conran Shop IS housed in the old Michelin building -

stocked and stacked with French niceties.  We had our usual poke around to see what was new.

I thought this table setting had a very French vibe.  (C'est a dire bleu-blanc-rouge.)

(And in another direction entirely - who knew that Hundi lamps were back!?)

Couldn't resist these blossoms with the blue in the background.  I'm sure SOMEWHERE in France looks like this at least once a year.

The bicycles, too, are Italian I guess, but we just won't tell anybody, shall we?  I see myself toodling through the Tuileries on one of them.  In a striped top and Repetto ballet slippers.  With a ribbon in my hair......nice dream, huh?

Anyway shall we just say:  VIVE LA FRANCE!!!! and VIVE LE CONRAN SHOP!!!!!! and leave it at that?

(More Conran Shop posts here, here, here and here.)

In Living Color

Not all cat pictures are the same.  Some are special.

 

Here's a selection of images

that celebrate the specialness

of

(via Poetry of Material Things)

the natural world

around us.

Art, I think,

 
is about

(via Quill and Fox)

throwing into relief or in other words, asking us to look again and recognize

the extraordinary

(via Poetry of Material Things)

in the ordinary and the usual.

(All other images via Petit Cabinet de Curiosites)


 i.e., asking us to LOOK AGAIN and with love.  How was the weekend?


Bonus link:  Very cool interview with a guy who writes about and studies our Material World, Mark Miodownik

For a Summer Sunday - A Favorite Eating Place in L.A.

Rocio's Moles de los Dioses

Oaxacan style moles.  And tortillas made of nopales.

A menu of 13 Moles, and excellent fresh clean beautiful Mexican food.

If I were just visiting L.A. I would definitely not miss this.  Unless you're a Oaxaqueno already!


YUM!

Peaceable Paradis

In case you missed it......

Do you know about "imprinting"?

I think you learn it in Psychology 101.

If you acquaint yourself intimately within something or someone very early in life

it "imprints" itself on you and you spend the rest of your life feeling a great familiarity and even, LOVE for it. 

I guess the psychologists also call it "attachment".

These guys started life together and they now seem very attached.  Can you believe it?!

Pictures by, and story at:  Noah's Ark.

Have a great weekend everybody!

Backyard BBQ

I think it's called H&R Vintage on Fountain Ave.

in Silver Lake (L.A.)

It's a good place to stop.

To start up your backyard barbecue look.

Cuz yeah, it's summer!

Mullins Car Museum, Oxnard CA - Strawberry Fields Forever.....?

Not my usual kind of post but

this blog is about "Paradis" and for certain kinds of persons

(many of the male persuasion)

The Mullin Automotive Museum (in the middle of Oxnard's strawberry fields) could be it!  

So the Paradis family celebrated Father's Day about a month early

(Anyway these cars definitely rate as ART and are endearingly artisanal.)

and had a wander around this place admiring some wonders of

early Modern France and the achievements and impeccable taste of the Italian/Alsatian/French

Bugatti family.

It's a collection which includes some stories of neglect

distress (which I found quite beautiful)

and even some tragedy.

Mostly it was about the excitement of shiny metal

revving engines

vitality, verve and possibly, murderous curves.

It was a grand day out.

We finished up with lunch here in Camarillo, a place mostly known for it's "Discount Designer" outlets.  You might be surprised as I was that a mall restaurant serves almost better and definitely bigger lobster rolls than I've had anywhere in NYC or L.A. and a quite good New England clam chowder (not - too creamy or potato-ey - I am very picky about my seafood.)  Get there quick before it all goes downhill!