Violet is the name of a cake shop in London

Such a treat this past Friday: went with an American friend, her British husband, and their beautiful new daughter on a little jaunt to Violet, a teeny, tiny, little bakery near their home in Hackney, London's answer to Brooklyn. Violet is owned by Claire Ptak, a transplanted Californian who used to work at Chez Panisse, and now tempts the likes of Stella McCartney and Jamie Oliver with her cakes. I chose a clotted-cream cupcake with lashings of raspberry jam. Delight.

Pics from Violet, and from the rewarding blog, This is Naive.

wish you were here, from Cap Ferrat...

back now in London, after an absurdly beautiful weekend on the Côte d'Azur with a Catalan friend and three Italian friends of hers. We sunbathed on high, quiet rocks, ate trofie al pesto under umbrellas, and browsed in tiny shops smelling of incense and the sea.




Gràcies, Anna; grazie, Fede!

The Aesthetics of the Japanese Lunchbox

must. read. now.

loving industrial restaurant lighting

gorgeous sconces with industrial bendy-arms hanging over the tables at Mile End deli in Brooklyn (image from the NYTimes's tantalizing "makeover of the delicatessen" slideshow). They look awfully like the ones I publicly coveted a couple of years back on design*sponge's xmas gift guide.

(the ones, dear reader, I bought!)

unsalted butter and radishes make a great sandwich if you have good bread

don't think i've ever seen a more beautiful salad than this one of heirloom radishes that penny los santos, a national geographic photographer, created and photographed for d*s.

ps: doesn't "radish pink" sound like the best pink you've ever heard of? pink can get awfully frou frou, but radishes are peppery and spicy and crisp and I'm going to start calling everything radish pink from now on.

the english for "elaichi gulab" is "cardamom rose"

if you would like to practice your hindi, this is a good place to start: "ek glass cardamom rose cocktail milega?" which means, "may i please have a glass of that stunning pink drink?"

pistachio ceilings soften an industrial-chic restaurant in melbourne

What I adore about TRUNK-- the melbourne restaurant that I just discovered from an astonishingly gorgeous blog with a pitch-perfect design sensibility that I also just discovered (lark about) -- is that it marries

THIS aesthetic (fundamentally, that of the 19th c. draftsman's study, an aesthetic vocabulary that we sons and daughters of architects, many of us anyway, speak fluently...)



with THIS...


or rather, a hint of this....



While Trunk is clearly leaning in the Robin Standefer and Stephen Alesch direction, with those dark dark floors and lots of dark shelves and dark tables and industrial lines everywhere, that pistachio ceiling elevates the whole room into something beyond direct historical quotation.

The thing is that my design roots always take me in the direction of wonderful, pre-pre-war architectural bones, deep dark woods and slates and the rough, "quick, grab a pen-- let's sketch it out now" kind of feel. But I am also a girl who loves design elements that are a little (or a lot) more opulent, a little unabashedly pretty, a little delicate and delicious and dazzlingly chromatic.

dear Trunk, we tip our hat.

(& we may even get out our paint chips...I've got two mammoth bookshelves to paint and I'm thinking that a dull absinthe green on the wall, and glossy black for the shelves, might complement and punch up our foamy grey living room...)

summer over-brimming a pimm's cup

Pimm's Cup is my favorite summer cocktail.

It's not really a "thing" here, but in Britain, at summer garden parties or university parties down by the river for boating races, or in a thermos when you're going on a picnic, ideally by boat, and you've got a big hat and a couple of friends and a punnet or two of wild strawberries, it is most definitely a Thing.

yesterday, the New York Times published a recipe for "Pimm's Saigon," which has ginger in it & sounds super divine...


Pimm's Cup inspiration board (with classic recipe) by Polka Dot Bride; she has a good eye for color and her boards are lovely, great for weddings but also parties, and even rooms. check them out here..

film/reading inspiration:
- Brideshead Revisited, by Evelyn Waugh
- Iris (a memoir about Iris Murdoch written by her husband, John Bayley)
- Sylvia (about Plath, the best bits from which take place in Cambridge, UK..)
- and, far, far better than any of these is The Wind in the Willows, the ultimate tribute to "messing about in boats"

Blog Hooky

Ooh, don’t I know it! It's been over a month now! So delinquent, so ... ! There should be a word for it… “Blogvacay”? “Away From The Blog”? “Stepped Out Of The Blog”? “On Leave Of Blog”? “Blog-Hooky?” That’s what it feels like, like I’ve been playing Blog-Hooky.

So a very warm hello again!! … and also a little peace-offering to all of you in the form of my twist on a classic summertime drink:

Phoebe’s renowned Ginger-Basil Lemonade, otherwise known to me and my main man
as

Jal Gingera:
makes one pitcher
- 3-4 lemons, juice reserved
- water
- sugar to taste (tons- at least 2 cups)
- two inches of a piece of ginger, peeled, grated and the gratings squeezed of their juice
- basil leaves, roughly torn up
variations:
* a little green or black tea (almost better than original)
* instead of basil, smash up sticks of fresh lemongrass, and add to pitcher; & add green tea if so desired.

Mix all ingredients; chill well. Pour into icy glasses that have been stored in the freezer. Sugar rims. Serve on a weekday night after Thai take-out, with pitcher and glasses on a tray to your main squeeze alongside a pack of cards. Suggest a friendly game of gin rummy. Turn on Ray Charles, or Otis Redding, or Amy Winehouse, a little too loud. & then play to win.

oh, hot July, sticky in the day and smooth at night…

xx p

um yes, I’m back, & no, I haven’t gone away to become a bridezilla, and yes, I will be updating regularly this summer, 3-4 times a week, while I write the manuscript of what will become, at some point, a real live book. But that’s a story for another time.

(thanks to pinkiestyle for the img!)

the glorious over-the-top-ness of golden-y provençal and persian prints

I've been feeling so inspired recently by densely textured prints, and loving the seventies feel of floor-to-ceiling calico... these Persian and Provençal rooms are both so crazily beautiful, and make me wonder whether Provençal patterning originally developed from the Moorish influence of the middle ages; the patterns seem so similar. (I'm not an expert but certainly the architecture of Sicily and northern Spain show Moorish influences; why not Provençe's textiles?)

This William Morris wallpaper from my beloved Charles Rupert (wonderfully reminiscent of this) is making me dream big dreams. I'd love to punch up its occidental primness with some eastern accents.

images, from top: pics of the hotel Royal Champagne, via côtéMaison; charles rupert; elle decor.

the surreal proportions of Volckamer's 18th c. botanical prints

Thanks to Giornale Nuovo for this incredible feast of startling but yet endearing images from Johan Volckamer's Nuremberg Hesperides. G.N.'s source suggests that these prints, generated from a wintry German countryside, show a longing for the warmth of the Mediterranean that only the wealthy could afford by means of hot-houses and orangeries. ("Hesperides," I've just learned, is a synonym for "the blossom garden culture of the 1650s to 1800s"). The citrus fruits here do seem to have become substitutes for large, looming suns...

I would so much love to have one of these prints to brighten the winter, together with, I think, a Meyer lemon tree.

Catalan taste

I would really like to find out who designed the elegant lighting in this posh Catalan pastisseria that I visited while in Girona.

On that sweet note, here are some photos of beautifully plated dolce that were served to us at the end of a decadent lunch that my friend Anna's parents treated us to. I loved the tiny palmiers, the size of your thumbnail (second from right), and the chocolate cake served in the deep glass bowl.

Easy design in everyday life

Helsinki caught me by surprise-- instead of being an impeccable, don't-touch kind of city, it was a really liveable, and yet highly elegant urban oasis. I had lunch at a restaurant that sold only salad (the Finns eat very simply and healthfully): how delicious! particularly because of the bowls they were served in-- large, white, china bowls, that were stacked on top of each other waiting for each client to customize.

* * * *
Later on that day, I spotted this woman wearing a green version of a vintage Marimekko dress that I have, passed on to me by my mother; made me feel confirmed in my sense that Helsinki is a city about wearable, liveable, design...design with longevity. (Her dress is her mother's too! She was wearing it on top of red trousers. So cute.)

Drink up

"Thou, silent, spicy form dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold, Sweet Pastoral!"

My ode to Blenheim Ginger Beer-- the sweetest, spiciest, roughest, toughest noon-time drink I know.

cherry season in montréal

I haven't been to Montréal very recently, but my friend Aliki lives there with her husband Yves, and they have two cherry trees in their backyard, one sweet, one sour... She makes the most delicious jam from the cherries and I have this feeling that being young and married in Montréal with cherry trees in your own backyard must be one of the best kinds of young and married there can be.