Old School Thursday: Icons Edition

Today is National Oatmeal Cookie Day and, you know, that’s actually a food that I think deserves a day. I don’t eat enough oatmeal cookies, but I like them a lot. They’re iconic, yet understated. I like that in a cookie.

In other news, well, there is a lot of other news today. Today in 1792, John Montague, the fourth Earl of Sandwich died. As he gave his name to both the islands and the, well, sandwich, history remembers him fondly. He’s a bit of an icon-maker himself.

More than a century later, in 1904, the St. Louis World’s Fair (aka the Louisiana Purchase Exposition) opened in St. Louis. Not only did the fair produce the Gateway Arch, it is also the place where a) the ice cream cone was invented, b) the hot dog was popularized and c) iced tea also gained popularity. Talk about iconic American foods.

And finally, today in 1952, iconic and food-related toy Mr. Potato Head was introduced. Here’s some trivia, too: Mr. Potato Head was the first toy to be advertised on TV. But certainly not the last.

Artsy Wednesday: Life Magazine Photos

Kirk Douglas and Sophia Loren, eatin' some spaghetti in NYC (1958)

Life magazine, in its most recognizable form, was published from 1936 until 2000, with a six year hiatus between 1972 to 1978. First it was a weekly then, after 1978, a monthly, and it always had an emphasis on photojournalism. The actual title goes back to 1883, but it was originally more of a general interest and humor mag.

Many of the magazine's classic photos - along with new images - are now available for viewing (and purchase) on life.com.

Of course, there are zillions of photos available someplace or other online. But this archive is actually special, mostly thanks to its depth. Today's editor's picks, for example, include slideshows from JFK's first hundred days and from the 1918 Spanish flu epidemic.

But of course, it's the food and the entertaining shots that I love the most - like the one above, which shows Kirk Douglas dining with Sophia Loren and another lady (unnamed) in 1958. It's part of a slideshow all about spaghetti. Totally cool - this shot especially. I love the little details - the little details - Loren's necklace, the padded banquette, the pepper grinder, the white (!) wine - that point to the era. The rest of the slideshow is just as riveting.

A warning, though: don't visit the site unless you've got some time to kill. I could get lost there for hours.

So Much Awesome

Is Don Draper coming to Baltimore? Please?

Ideabook Tuesday: Harbour Island Here I Come

I kind of want to be India Hicks. And can you blame me? Look at her:

Photo courtesy of Habitually Chic

No matter how hard I try, I'm just not going to be able to rock my H&M maxidress that way. Plus, I don't have a ridiculous estate in the Bahamas. Oh yeah, and my dad's not David Hicks.

Anyway, my Hicks love is what inspired this ideabook...which seems awfully appropriate, considering the totally tropical weather we're dealing with right now:

Living the Island Life

more home design ideas on houzz

Trendy Monday: Secret Supper Clubs

I had a nice weekend - good weather, drinks on our brand new backyard swinging chairs (aka the "grownup swingset") and Alicia Barger's guacamole. I kicked it off, too, with a quiet Friday night that involved the new issue of Garden & Gun arriving in the mail. For a magazine with a name that's mostly a punch line (this far north, anyway), it is one nicely written and edited piece of work.

This month's issue includes a feature on some of the South's secret supper clubs - those really, really huge dinner parties often hosted by chefs or young, cool farmers. The kind that I'd love to attend and that I've also been thinking about trying to host (I'm not sure I've got the space, though).

Secret suppers aren't an entirely new phenomenon. In fact, they've been around forever, and I even wrote about Portland's Michael Hebberoy and his various adventures (including an underground supper club) back in January of 2006.

While secret suppers might not be trendy in the truest sense of the word, they are receiving some decent ink lately, including a whole book dedicated to shedding light on some of the country's more impressive suppers.

The question is, then, when does the backlash begin? After all, part of these meals' allure is that they are, you know, secret. But if everybody knows about them, and starts clamoring for invitations, won't the chefs just hang up their toques? Isn't part of the draw that you have insider knowledge?

Of course, as I say that, I'm also thinking: if you know of any in Baltimore, I know one blogger who wouldn't mind an invite...

Art Geek Cool

David Stork uses computers to create 3-D depictions of famous paintings.

I'll have more once I actually read the article, which will happen sometime between now and Monday. But for now, just: cool.

Entertaining Friday: Baby Showers

Despite the fact that babies are born year-round, it seems to me like most baby showers take place during the spring and summer. Maybe I'm just projecting, since that's when mine were.

At any rate, last weekend was my friend Mandy's baby shower, at my house, hosted by a kind of mish-mash of friends and relatives. Since it was at my house, though, I got to do the fun part - the menu planning (although Mandy's sister, Jennifer, insists that she got to do the fun part - the invitations).

Mandy has a special love for little things, so we decided that we'd focus on tiny food for the shower. Plus, it started at 2 p.m. - that post-lunch, pre-dinner time that's perfect for finger foods.

The menu included, among other things:

• Basil cups with goat cheese (a serious Kit's house staple)
• Mini-vegetable frittatas, courtesy of Ms. Martha Stewart
• Finger sandwiches (cucumber, radish and fig + blue cheese)
• Cupcakes (obviously)
• And a lot of other stuff

If you're having a

daytime party this summer, I can't recommend the basil cups highly enough. They are so cute.And now...pictures (some courtesy of Jennifer):

Tea Sandwiches

Basil Cups with Goat Cheese

Mandy and Dixon (who totally, unsurprisingly, thought it was his party)

My High School (Girl) Friends

Old School Thursday: High Culture Meets Low Edition

Today is huge – for real. Well, today does carry on the “random lobby gets its day” tradition - it’s National Cherry Cheesecake Day. But today is also St. George’s Day – he’s the patron saint of farmers. And that’s just getting things started.

Today Bermuda celebrates the Peppercorn Ceremony, a big pompy and circumstancey parade during which the Mayor and Governor of the island collect a symbolic rent of one peppercorn from the inhabitants of the Masonic Lodge. By all accounts, it’s a pretty entertaining exhibition.

In less symbolic news, today is Shakespeare’s birthday (1564) and the anniversary of his death (1616). I’ve written before about Shakespeare here.

Much, much later, and important in a different way, today in 1985, Coca-Cola announced that it was changing its secret formula (at the time, 99 years old). We all know how the New Coke experiment turned out.

More successfully on the big brand front, today in 1992, McDonald’s opened its first location in Beijing. Seventeen years later, China’s still not a democracy, but it is arguably more open than it used to be. Thanks, Ronald.So today, to celebrate? Shakespeare and pepper and Coke and Big Macs? That runs the gamut, huh?

Artsy Wednesday: Laura Letinsky

We have a lot of parties. Not surprisingly, then, I spend a lot of Saturday and Sunday mornings wading cleaning up the remnants of the night before, wishing I'd thought to put the cheese away earlier and wondering how, exactly, 10 people managed to use 30 glasses.

Those mornings must be why I'm so drawn to Laura Letinsky's still life photographs of post-meal, post-party tables. They beautifully capture that feeling of post-party stillness and muted sadness, of drama passed. But they're pretty, too, with careful color and delicate detail.

Though not really right for my house (and out of my price range anyway), I love the idea of hanging a Letinsky photograph in a highly trafficked spot in an open kitchen. Perfect party centerpiece.

Ideabook Tuesday: Intriguing Corners

Habitually Chic recently wrote an interesting post about staging a house for a photo shoot and how to look at and arrange a room to take cool shots. Right after reading it, I clicked over to The Selby and looked at some of his very tight photos that show the tiny vignettes that give a room its color. Looking at both blogs got me thinking about designing a room as a whole vs. designing individual corners of it.

At my house I definitely design for the whole - I'm sure everyone does, really - but when I look around, I can see some Selby-esque corners of the space I live in, and that makes me happy. It also inspired this:

The Intriguing Corner

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Trendy Monday: Charleston

I've never been to Charleston, South Carolina, but I've always wanted to go. In pictures and movies and books it looks beautiful and gracious and appropriately slow. Plus, the movie Shag was more than a small force in my adolescence (yes, I know it was set in Myrtle Beach, but still...SC).

So I've always sort of wanted to visit, but the need has never been pressing.

A couple of months ago, though, Mike took a business trip to Charleston and spent the day sending me texts about all the amazing food he was eating. I was jealous.

Then, a few weeks ago, Becky from Hatch took a Charleston trip of her own and when she came back she posted some of her photos on Houzz (including that one on the right). They're everything I'd imagine from what I've read of the city.

But now I'm worried that I waited too long and missed the window. Charleston has obviously been invaded by the great washed...the urban masses flocking from NYC and San Francisco and LA. Can the city's character withstand the flood? I don't know - since I've never been there. I do still want to visit, but sentences like these, from a recent Elle Decor article on the city, send chills down my spine:

“Seven years ago my husband, Jonathan, and I told our friends that we were moving to Charleston, and the reply was ‘Why the hell are you doing that?’” says Lulan’s owner, San Francisco transplant and ex-Hanoi resident Eve Blossom. “Now when I tell people in San Francisco where we live, they say, ‘My gosh, I was just there’ or ‘My friends recently moved there from L.A.’ West Coasters have taken notice.”

They say that like it's a good thing.

Entertaining Friday: Restaurant Review Roundup

I've been writing a lot of restaurant reviews lately...just not here. My Examiner column is bursting with them, though. So, to spread the wealth around, here's a quick roundup:

• Grapevine Cafe - Greek-American in Cockeysville. Great apps, not-so-great entrees. Learned the hard way that we should stop trying to go to restaurants that cater to the over-65 crowd.
• Hamilton Tavern - Local and American in Lauraville. Cool interior, great wine list, solid bar food.
• Saigon Remembered - Vietnamese by Belvedere Square. Some kitchen glitches, but good flavor and great rolls.
• Samos - Greek in Greektown. Seriously awesome.

So there you have it. The most legitimately "entertaining" spots are Hamilton Tavern (for the hipper and younger, or at least those who don't mind a little noise, especially on the weekends) and Samos (for everybody. Literally, everybody.) Although, with the right company, I'm sure anyplace could be entertaining...

Old School Thursday: Saints and Icons

Today is a big day for the saints. It’s the Feast of St. Drogo (patron of coffee house owners and keepers) and also the official day for both St. Magnus of Orkney (patron of fishmongers) and St. Bernadette (patron of shepherds). That’s a lot of lesser-known saints. And on top of all that, it’s National Eggs Benedict Day. I don’t think that has anything to do with the Pope, but it does keep it on theme.

Beyond the Church, today’s a big day for mid-twentieth century pop culture. Today in 1941, the original Elsie the Cow died. Elsie, originally a cartoon, got famous as the brand icon for Borden Milk. The “real” Elsie, who was really originally named “You’ll do Lobelia” (wordy?) was chosen to represent the brand at the 1939 New York World’s Fair.

Fifteen years later, on April 16, 1956, the wine-making, grape-stomping episode of I Love Lucy aired for the first time. Footage from that episode is really, really famous – and makes me wonder if old Lucy episodes are still running on TV. If not, will classic episodes like that one and the candymaking ep be lost to future generations? That seems sad.

So that’s it. To celebrate? Milk, wine and eggs Benedict, of course.

Artsy Wednesday: Cocktail Attire

In case you missed it...on Friday's "Entertaining" post, commenter TheSlapster left a link to an awesome set of Mad Men illustrations on Flickr. Created by an illustrator named Dyna Moe, they've been used everywhere from newspapers ("Mix It Up" to the left illustrated a Minneapolis Star-Tribune feature on show-era cocktails) to Rich Sommer's Christmas card to the cast.

The illustrator originally created the drawings as screen savers - one for each episode. She also - very nicely - encourages downloads for personal use. Though if you wanted to actually, you know, patronize, she's got several things for sale.

You know what I don't like, though? The reminder that Don Draper is nearly as old as my Uncle Jack.

Ideabook Tuesday: Inspired by Painters

I'm almost just surprised that it took me as long as it did to create an ideabook of rooms inspired by specific artists. But here it is:

Artsy: Inspired by Great Painters

more home design ideas on houzz

Do You Know Your State Capitals?

I do (thanks, Mrs. Puckett, from all the Benfield Elementary 5th graders). But if you don't and/or if you like M&M animation and watching people's hands move really, really fast, check this out:

Trendy Monday: Recession Dining

At the end of last week, the NYT ran an article on how people are scaling back and turning thriftiness into the newest trendy obsession. Like many NYT trend pieces, it seems possible that the entire article is built around a couple of the author's more obnoxious friends, but unlike some of those articles, the overall point of this one is valid. The economy's tight and people are trying to make the best of it with some new habits.

The article, and the new appeal of the thrify lifestyle, reminded me of a conversation I had last Christmas. We were out with a bunch of my high school friends, doing our semi-annual "get together, drink and talk about the old days" thing on a random Sunday night at a bar in Fells Point. One story lead to another, but the theme of most of them "remember that time when we did that thing and we were so young and so loud and so annoying but it was SO funny? And how did we drink that much anyway?"

After the 10th or so story, my friend Mike, an environmental scientist who's kind of a hippie (more than the rest of us, anyway) and lives in Seattle with his awesome wife Polly, looked at everyone and started laughing. "Back in Seattle," he said, "when we get together with friends it's all 'what are you doing with your CSA' and 'we're thinking of growing flax so we can make our own clothes'." It's never about this stuff."

Which cracked all of us up. Obviously.

I can guarantee that things won't get so bad around here that I'll start weaving my own clothes. But I do have plans to, at the very least, be a little more efficient with my CSA vegetables this year. Thrift isn't a bad thing.

Fortunately, being thrifty doesn't always mean scaling back. This week, for example. On Wednesday, Sotto Sopra (410-625-0534, 405 North Charles Street, Mt. Vernon) is "celebrating" tax day with a Dollar Pasta Night. For a donation to either the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society or Our Daily Bread, plus just one dollar, diners can choose from a menu of nine pastas. Choices range from spaghetti alla puttanesca to penne with salmon and Pernod.

Not exactly the dollar menu at McDonald's, but it'll do, right? It's definitely the kind of thrifty living I can get behind.

(I'd recommend calling to reserve a table in advance. Sotto Sopra will be taking reservations from 5 to 10 p.m. And really, I would recommend going, especially if you've never tried the restaurant before. The food is delicious and really, what a great deal.)

Yellowtail, Maipe and the Evolution of a Region

Last week, I had a conversation with my mom about how delicious and cheap Maipe malbec is, and how funny it is that it, and other Argentinian wines, are suddenly everywhere. She mentioned that she'd read something about Argentinian wine makers turning to the US market because domestic wine drinkers got bored with the very common, very cheap grape. Sales in Argentina started falling flat, so the industry looked a little to the north and next thing you know, every wine store around is sporting endcaps full of malbec.

When I hung up the phone, I started to worry, just a little, that Maipe has the potential to be Argentina's Yellowtail (minus the critter label). Just like the Australian wine, Maipe burst onto the scene and all of a sudden, all my wine-drinking friends are all over it. It's like 2001 all over again. (My first sip of Yellowtail was, BTW, at work. Our kickass PR guy, Tom, brought a bottle to the office one day and my department, good trendspotters that we were, shared it.)

I'm not feeling much better about Maipe's situation after reading this really good Mike Steinberger article on Yellowtail's role in the decline of the Australian wine market. The argument is, in a nutshell, that thanks to Yellowtail, Australia's brand as a wine-producing country is stuck firmly in the "cheap and fruity" space, so wine drinkers looking for more sophisticated products (either because they really like them better, or because they want to seem like they know what they're talking about) avoid Australia. The key sentence:

As a result, consumers came to equate Australia with wines that were flavorful but also cheap and frivolous, a perception that became a major liability when those same consumers got interested in more serious stuff; rather than looking to Oz, they turned to Spain, Italy, and France.

I am one of those consumers - somebody who, in 2001, was just starting to get into wine. And I drank a lot of Yellowtail. So much that at some point, I just couldn't take it anymore (Steinberger refers to this phenomenon, aptly, as "fruit-bomb fatigue"). When Cooper and I started getting serious about wine, we looked mainly to France, Spain, and Italy, with a touch of California thrown in. And recently, to Argentina.

What I wonder now is whether knowing why we've been avoiding Australia will make me give the country another chance? I'm not sure. And will I slow down on the Maipe, so I don't ruin it for myself. Unlikely, honestly.

But it doesn't seem fair, somehow, that wine makers should be subject to marketing-driven trends.

Then again, life's not fair. So I'm not sure why wine-making should be any different.

Entertaining Friday: Mad Men

Remember parties are fun, historically accurate themed parties are legendary.

It's a good thing I can laugh at myself, otherwise Stuff White People Like would make me cry. Believe me, I know I'm not the only person who likes the idea of Mad Men-themed party. God, I love the Drapers. Even if the food is hideous. The drinks, though. We'll always have the drinks.

Old School Thursday: Chickens and Other Proteins Edition

Happy Passover, happy Easter and happy National Chinese Almond Cookie Day. No, I don’t know what that means, either.

Today in food history: the deaths of the curious. Starting most recently, today in 1850, British chemist William Prout died. He was the first to classify foods into carbohydrates, fats and proteins. Dr. Atkins and the entire town of South Beach salute you, Dr. Prout.

Fortunately for Dr. Prout, his work didn’t actually kill him. Not so for our older member of the curious club. Today in 1626 Sir Francis Bacon died. Besides having a fabulously food-oriented name, Bacon was famous for all sorts of things, from philosophy and writing to diplomacy and even possibly writing some of Shakespeare’s plays (if you’re into that sort of conspiracy theory). It’s his cause of death, though, that gets him a mention here. Apparently he was doing an experiment with a chicken stuffed with snow, trying to see how long the animal would be preserved by the extreme cold (smart, really). Not so smart, though, that he didn’t catch a cold himself – one that he died from a month later.

Artsy Wednesday: Radical Cartography

Last week, Apartment Therapy linked to the kind of site where I can lose hours and hours of my day. Radical Cartography is the brainchild of Harvard grad student Bill Rankin. AT honed right in on some of the prettier, older maps, like these maps of the Mississippi River from 1944 - and they are definitely worth a look.

But from a research geek perspective, I was more interested in some of the maps that Rankin and his friends created themselves. I'm still batting around food mapping ideas, and I found a lot of inspiration here. For example...

The density of the Hispanic population throughout the US - this has surely impacted food choices and offerings, right?

Thinking historically, I wonder how the creation of the National Road influenced regional cuisine. The families that traveled the road, did they leave bits of their histories behind? Can we still see their influence today?

This little series of simple maps might have resonated the most with me. Rankin and two of his colleagues created their own "personal maps" of cities. This one, of Philadelphia, shows Rankin's movements around the city, how he gets around, and what he does. Overlay a bunch of additional people's maps on top of this one and you have a really interesting study of city use.

Artsy: Duchamp at the National Portrait Gallery

The Dada movement has always appealed to me. I'm into the humor, the nonsense, the vacillation between being intellectual/theoretical and not taking anything seriously at all. It's no surprise, then, that I'm a fan of the absurd work of Marcel Duchamp.

The double-exposed photo of the artist above, though, has always kind of creeped me out. I think it has something to do with whatever Nick Bantock book it's used to illustrate (I can't remember which). As much as I love Bantock books, they always leave me feeling a little unsettled. Which, I think, they're probably supposed to do.

All of this is a long way of saying that I enjoyed Blake Gopnik's article on the Duchamp show at the National Portrait Gallery. It's not long, but it's an interesting look at Duchamp's concept of identity, using the show's 100 portraits (and self-portraits) of the artist as a backdrop. The key quote, as I see it:

A portrait can't get at the essence of its sitter -- because such essences, Duchamp says, do not exist.

So, then, how is this about food? I'm not quite sure, but I've been trying to connect that last quote - about essences - to ingredients. Because I think that while Duchamp's point is partially valid - in today's parlance, every human can create his own brand - I also think it's impossible to completely erase the core self in favor of that brand. Duchamp may have created new identities for his portraits, but dada was such a part of his being that no matter how far he departed from his "usual self", the simple act of departure pulled him back.

Just like with food. You can dress up an ingredient, make it work a different or unusual way, but at its core, it is what it is. It'll do what it's made to do.

Too much of a stretch? Probably, right? But still, interesting article. And a show I wouldn't mind seeing.

Ideabook Tuesday: It's the Jetsons!

The real mid-century vision of the future...in all its animated glory:

The Modern Jetsons Pad

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Trendy Monday: Places to Watch

The May Food & Wine arrived the other day and, with it, a "go list" - the world's best food cities plus 20 "rising star" restaurants in the food world. For anybody paying close attention to global food trends, there aren't a ton of surprises, but it's interesting reading anyway.

The "best" food cities are mostly what you'd expect: Tokyo, Barcelona, New York, London and Copenhagen. The most interesting inclusion on that list is Copenhagen, which the magazine calls an "avant-garde stronghold." That's very F&W of them. I'm trying to imagine what #5 would be on, say, Bon Appetit's list. Something in Italy, maybe? Shanghai?

The rising star restaurant list provides a little more geographic diversity, with spots in Hong Kon, Lima, Dublin, Buenos Aires and Melbourne. Oddly enough, Momofuku Ko is included on that list. I guess I have a hard time thinking of a restaurant that's gotten that much ink as a "rising star."

But that also might just be because I read a lot about newish restaurants?

(As an aside, this is my 800th post on M&G. I've been writing for just over 3 1/2 years and writing every weekday (minus a couple of days last fall when I was in the Bahamas) for almost a year and a half. Wordy, huh?)

Entertaining Friday: DIFFA Tables

Becky from Hatch (who somehow only posts things that I like) shared some photos of David Stark's table at DIFFA Dining by Design in NYC last weekend. The photos, taken by Gustavo Campos, are awesome and the table is so cheeky and fun and deceptively simple looking. It makes me want to throw an indoor picnic:

An elaborate indoor picnic. Maybe with food that all looks like one thing, but really is something else - like eggplant tempura "soft crabs" with some kind of fresh corn salad that's molded into little "ears of corn." Something like that.

As a whole, the DIFFA tables are really inspiring (you can see some more here) and full of energy. A good reminder that dinner's not just about what's on the plate.

Old School Thursday: Wine and Letters (+ Cooper!)

Today is National Peanut Butter and Jelly Day. That’s an iconic sandwich, I can get behind it having it’s own day (I wonder, though, how grilled cheese feels about the PB&J’s day being in April which is, as everybody knows, Grilled Cheese Month).

Even more importantly, today is all about the vino. It’s the Feast of Acan, the Mayan god of wine and it’s St. Urban of Langres’ Day. He is the patron saint of barrel makers, coopers (also Coopers?) and, logically, vintners. After all, where would the vintner be without the cooper?

In other news, today is Big French Birthday day. On April 2, 742, Charlemagne was born and centuries later, in 1840, writer Emile Zola was born. Some sources say Charlemagne was a bit of a foodie, serving peacock and loving Roquefort and inventing sauerbraten and, possibly most importantly, introducing the knife as an alternative to eating with the hands.

Zola, who I mostly think of in conjunction with this Manet portrait, was something of a food-lover himself, throwing lavish dinner parties and including detailed descriptions of meals in his books.
So, then, wine and books to celebrate today?

Artsy Wednesday: Silhouette Masterpiece Theater

Wouldn't this look awesome in my living room? Or maybe this one. Or this one. One of these cheeky little monkeys is joining my collection, and soon.