Old and On the Way

If you know me at all by now

you know that I am an equal opportunity  enthusiast

when it comes to secret places, hidden spaces, the out of the way and the off the beaten track.

These are right in "the West End" of Central London.

(Can you believe these photos were taken on a Verizon phone?)

I am never disappointed by the quiet places and the slow lane.

Weekend Quick Pic and Delayed Corner View - Seven

Seven Things I have to Tell You About Nature, Human and The Other Kind

1.  October is THE season for intensive gardening in Southern California.  In general, fall is the time for planting and for starting your seeds so that you can over-winter young plants in a gentle, nurturing climate neither too stressingly hot, nor cold, with the rains from time to time to keep them ticking over in a semi-dormant state till Spring.  Which, in case you've noticed, arrives in January.  (Yaaaaaaaaaaay!   I'll say it again, that's why I moved here.)  This year I am really trying to integrate that into my life and with fingers crossed, because it's seems already that I am too much away from home in October when I should be planting and primping seedlings.  I'll try to share in the near term with you some of the seeds I've started.  I'm also going to try to plant a mat of vari-colored sedum next to my garage.

2.  Now.  Can ya believe it?   I STILL don't have a camera.  Hopefully one will have landed inside my gate sometime today via Ebay.   You will have to take "landed" very literally because despite my little pleading notes taped here and there around my "property", and at least one grievous case of breakage and associated meltdown on my part, the delivery guys still find it WAY too satisfying to hear that resounding "plop" once they've slung a cardboard box of SIZE across the top of my pickets.

Now you know.  More camera talk later.

3.  There was a coyote on my deck last Friday.  Not five feet from me, where I stood in my sunroom.  He took a dump on my deck and when I knocked on the window, opened it, and authoritatively told him to "Better get going Buddy. NOW!!!!"  Off he leapt back into my neighbors' rose bushes.  From whence he had presumably come.  WHAT WOULD YOU DO?  If you had a coyote on your deck.

4.  When I went to the City of Los Angeles Website to find the Department with whom I could consult about said coyote - (see "3.", above) - I typed (of course) "coyote" into the search window.  And what did the website find for me? The Department of "Human Trafficking".  I do know what kind of world we live in.  But that makes me scratch my head.  What about you?  How many more human, vs. four-legged, coyotes do you think there are in L.A.?

5.  I put some groovy wallpaper up in my bedroom while I was on Blog-Hiatus.

6.  I made a groovy bedskirt to cover my sinfully ugly box springs this summer.  I will show you both 5. and 6.  Later, when I get a camera again.  

7.  (Wow.  We got to Seven quick.)  Yesterday.  Sitting in the sunroom, because it IS, the sunniest room.  I saw a grown lady hawk wrestling (she with her beak, he with his wits and much wriggling) with a young squirrel on my electrical wires.  Not eight feet away!  Me.  Now standing in my sunroom.

The young squirrel got away.  (Whew, not looking forward to the carnage, was I?)  While the hawk, befuddled, swinging a little up and down on the wires, and noticing that I had noticed her, wondered what to do next. Once again opening the window, and authoritatively pressing my harmonica to my lips......(I don't have a police whistle or airgun yet, as recommended by my newfound coyote consultant at the City of Los Angeles).....I sounded a few notes of what can only be describe as "alerts".  They were too feeble to be anything else.  The ladyhawk considered a little longer, and little Mr. Squirrel saw his moment and sprinted off across to the avocado tree.  Well, nothing doing now I guess!  I was still standing there and there were so many obstacles between the electric wires and the avocado tree, me not the least among them.  So the ladyhawk lifted her wings and in a flash, was spreading them fast and disappearingly across my neighbors' roof and the hills beyond.  Did she have babies?  Was she terribly hungry?  Or is she young, too, and practicing?  Why is this the second time in two weeks that she has appeared in my yard?

So that's seven things.

And what conclusion can we draw from what I have just shared with you?  HEY!  I NEED a new camera!!!!  To capture all of this.

So listen all, have a great weekend.  I'm going to the Hollywood Bowl again to see Calexico and Ozomatli.  Cause that's L.A. baby!  (Click the Links to listen.)

WHAT WILL YOU BE DOING?

Pub Love London - The Brown Dog

Oops!  I did it again.

Yes.  I did.  I had just been to Paris in July, and what did I do?

As soon as Jury Duty was over, I turned around and got right back on a plane!

There is a "life-story" behind all of this (well several) dear Readers.  But this is not the moment.

This is the moment instead, to put yourself in my place, on a late, light, summer evening

sharing, by candlelight, with your loved one, mashed beet and smoked mackerel on toast with horseradish (yes it IS yummy, and it's true, we do seem to eat alot of pink things, don't we?)

and good old fashioned roast beef with yorkshire pudding

somewhere tucked into a quiet leafy neighborhood (in this case, Barnes, South London)

And just remind yourself: Life is Good!  Your table is Waiting.  Cheers!

L.A. - Colorforms in My Hood Part 2

Since we're all about "The Homecoming" at the moment ("la rentree") thought I'd start my first serious blog moment back with a few little colorful houses.  C-o-l-o-r-f-u-l  H-o-u-s-e-s.  If you were to ask me how to describe myself in two words, those two might just be the right ones.  It comes pretty close to where I live.  In every sense of the word. And these pictures ARE my home, my 'hood, which is looking pretty good to me after a summer of passing in and out of the looking glass it seemed, in every possible way.

Of course when you're talking about color at home in this part of the world you are absolutely

talking about Craftsman houses.

And the dialogue between home and surroundings.

Plantings with powerful forms

and vivid colorings. 

Of course, being gray does not mean that you are not colorful.

Especially when you are rocking the pumpkin yellow trim.

Where I'm At

I'm still warming up a bit.  So I'll just let the pictures speak for me.  

I will add that these pictures were taken in January.  Cause you can do that in L.A.!

Stepping Back For a Minute

So I'm going to take some time off from the blog.  I've kept saying that I would since the Jury Duty but I think I mean it this time!

Mr. Paradis says I need three weeks of chatting to make up for the three week Jury Duty chat deficit I seem to have suffered.

But more than that I feel like I need to get anchored a little bit more into my life and feel its structure around me.  And to tuck into some soft spaces again.

To explore new paths.

And yes, to find that new darn camera!  I'll be thinking of you all and visiting.  I may not be commenting.  I guess I just need to be quiet in a different way for a little while.  I'll be back in a couple of weeks.  Hugs and toodles!

Los Angeles - Return to Bottega Louie

Hope everybody had a great weekend.  Mine was a bit of a mixed bag, most notable among its events being what seems like a pretty definite demise of my trusty camera.  Remember that Marie Antoinette post?  All those horizontal lines were apparently the camera, and not an effect of photographing video.  And every other picture I've taken since then looks like it was taken in the midst of a white-lightning storm.  So now you know.  (Sad face, I was getting quite attached to that camera!)  Meanwhile I think I still have some Bottega Louie pictures from the Jury Duty era.  I did promise to return there (didn't I?) and ever faithful.......

OK their croissants are excellent, and so accordingly, are their pains au chocolat.  Could be the best in L.A.  That's saying alot considering we have one or two P.Q.'s here, a Bouchon, and a Kayser Bread Bar.

I did not sample the beignets.  But one ALWAYS has to have something to go BACK for.  Isn't it so?

The Bottega Louie grapefruit jellies are a great success.  Somewhere between a classic pate de fruits and the old reliable fruit gummy.  Much tenderer and tangier than the jelly bean favored by past U.S. Presidents.  (If you can name that jelly bean loving President, I'll send you a packet - of grapefruit jellies.)

Finally the pieces de resistance - the macarons!   Aren't they pretty?  I did not sample the green ones, but a few others

managed to make it home with me.  Reminding me why I might not ACTUALLY have lost so much weight further to several sweltering days traipsing around Paris, camera in hand.  Because jury duty came immediately after.  (3 weeks of sitting all day!  And Bottega Louie.)  

Well with all the votes in, that livid blue one with the scattering of gold flecks on it was the clear winner, hands down.  (Who woulda thunk it?)

I've mentioned before that alot of American chefs have yet to figure out that great cuisine is about figuring out how to make something taste MORE.  And they frequently mistake "more" for very aggressive flavoring in one or two dimensions only.  Although these macaroons had a nice pouf-ey crown, and kept their tenderness very satisfactorily in plastic in the frig over a couple days, the fundamental flavorings did not entirely serve them well.  The coffee flavor (yellow, above) tasted only of the sharp edges of a brazilian robusta and none of the round smoky or chocolatey/vanillaey dense flavors that an arabica might have lent them.  The flavor was thin, and verging on sawdust-ey and if you hadn't known it, you might NOT have guessed: coffee.  The pink ones:  rose flavor.  The meringue was not so bad, but the white filling, cloyingly sickly sweet.  Wrong again!  WAY sweet!  The orange one was meant to be a tangerine or satsuma but you know what,  how many OTHER orange flavored macarons have YOU seen or tasted?!!!!  Could there be a reason for that?  In this case, VERY WRONG!!!!!!  (So.  Very.)  It tasted like artificially flavored orange soft drink or childrens' aspirin.   In fact, after one bite and a few days languishing in the frig, it went into the trash.  The flavoring was so overwhelming that it came out in a great big overpowering nose wrinkling whiff as soon as the box was opened.

So back to the winner, the blue macaron, Earl Grey flavored, in fact, with a nice dark chocolate filling.  Don't let the blue put you off....THIS IS THE ONE (you should put your dollars down for!)!!!!  If the chef is reading this, subtle flavoring is the way to go if you're thinking of making more macarons man! 

Isn't that really their charm when you think about it?  Something that is so light on the tongue with mysterious haunting flavors?  It should taste like eating a dream, with the precise flavor just slightly beyond reach, like a memory of childhood which is so utterly specific but unattainable and ineffable all in the same sensation.   It should really NOT be a smack in the mouth with something cross-eyed-provoking that makes you jump off your chair.  You would spill your hot drink down you!

Chefs: if you have any doubts, just ask Pierre Herme!

So I have said my piece.  (Do you care?  In case you don't, thanks for bearing with me!)  It doesn't mean I will NOT be going back to Bottega Louie.  I will, I will.  But I might skip the orange macarons and the Jury Duty part. Now.......... back to my online shopping for a new camera!  Wish me luck! I need it!