girl getaway

its a gorgeous sunny warm saturday morning and i am daydreaming about spending the weekend in a seaside postcard that looks like this

riding around on this

while wearing this

and eating these

with these

and these!

maybe a drive up the coast then? whatever you have planned, have a lovely daydream come true weekend!

live from london

according to the bbc, almost 2 billion people worldwide watched the much hyped catherine and william royal wedding this morning. i slept through it, although now, watching the highlights on the morning news, i have to say it all looked very beautiful and i loved that they drove off after the reception in the very regal aston martin. 

there has been only one event to come out of the uk that actually did succeed in waking me up before dawn -  i sat glued to the tv and vcr for over 12 hours and was so so sad years later when my brother taped over the 8 hours of vcr tape i had so lovingly recorded, commercial free!  i doubt any televised event will get me out of bed before the sun comes up these days, unless maybe if all these guys reunite for a reunion show - maybe. 
hip hip hooray!

a page from a library

excuse the poor quality. i tore this page out of an old library book 21 years ago (yes yes, i know)!

kimpling was awarded the nobel prize in literature in 1907, making him the first english language writer to receive the prize, and to this day its youngest recipient.  i love this poem. perhaps a little too inspirational, but still true words and perfect advice for the young lady who was ripping up library books!

born in the usa

the president released a copy of his original birth certificate today in the hopes that it will finally silences all the ridiculous birthers, pundits and 'sideshow and carnival barkers' who insist on rambling on and on about obama not being born in the states and therefore not eligible to become president.  my guess is that this won't finally silence everyone, but if it just shuts donald trump up then i applaud the decision. let's hope we can finally put this waste of time story aside - although i predict that they will just find some other fake clueless non-issue to start bombarding our media air time with - oh i know - obama is muslim, lets start bitching about that one again!

obama birth certificate press conference

empty glass

i am generally an optimistic glass half full kind of lass. i believe in happily ever after and rising through the ashes and beating the odds. i have seen people go through the worst and come out the other side, better and stronger and wiser. i have read about losing it all and gaining yourself and living in the knowledge that your grass is just as green as the other sides. i believe in solutions and forgiveness and that good prevails, no matter how uphill its road may be. i believe in opposites attracting and impossible odds winning. 
with one big exception.
i don't believe in peace. let me clarify - i don't believe in the peace in the middle east that everybody sits and plans and reports and circles around. i don't believe it's possible.  whenever we talk about it and demand it and work to try to organize it, religion is thrown into the mix and it is all downhill from there. religion, i think, is a detour to peace. i've been reading and hearing about this impending peace for years, and the more time passes the more i am discouraged. peace is not possible, not under the blanket of religion and ethnicity.  bosnia, palestine, rwanda, india, pakistan etc etc... - shia, sunni, jew, hutu, tutsi, serb, christian, hindu, sikh - on and on and on.
sometimes i miss that, now blurred, wide eyed we can change the world attitude of mine.  i miss the hope i had when the people of iran voted a couple of years ago or when arafat and rabin shook hands on the white house lawn 18 years ago. opportunities full of substance with inevitable hollow results.
so maybe i'm not that much a glass half full kind of girl after all. maybe i believe in the heart, but not the mind and i believe in the people but not their god.  yet i still keep reading and wondering and thinking, maybe, just maybe one moment, one decision, one voice will be the tipping point.  maybe.


one more try


"when it is darkest, men see the stars".   - emerson

say cheese

a dear friend of ours gave us an amazing gourmet food basket last christmas and the star of the show was a delicious revelation and my current guilty food obsession. cowgirl creamery red hawk cheese.

cowgirl creamery is a woman owned and operated organic artisan cheese creamery in northern california. they have about a dozen different cheeses rotating seasonally and my favorite is the their 'red hawk', a triple cream aged cow milk delight. the little ball will stink up your fridge and your house with its unmistakable cheese scent but your nose will forgive you the second you try a piece on warm toasted bread. it's delicious and smooth and creamy and a cheese revelation as far as this cheese head is concerned. you can order their cheeses online, purchase them at whole foods or pick some up at their san francisco or washington dc store locations.
bon appetit! 

lovely easter

i spent the weekend in la jolla - a beautiful coastal suburb of san diego. my family lived there for two years, from 1980 to 1982, and i have really happy care free sunny memories of my time there. it was an ideal place to be a sixth grader and a perfect end of the rainbow destination two years after we had left iran.  it was also the hardest place to leave and i never felt so homesick for a place as i was for la jolla after we moved away. not tehran, not london and years later, not washington. la jolla was heaven to a 10 year old!
a lovely easter weekend, spent with lovely family in a lovely city having a lovely brunch and now topped off with my favorite loveliest easter treat. tanks easta bunny!

mo-chica

last month ricardo zarate was voted food & wine magazine's best new chef of the year (there are 10 chefs picked nationwide each year).  5 months ago, his restaurant mo-chica was chosen as one of the 99 essential los angeles restaurants by jonathan gold. 
so in keeping with our commitment to try all 99, we headed downtown yesterday to the mercado la paloma and the little food court were mo-chica is located.

ceviche del dia (yellowtail)

causa del dia (crab)

lomo saltado

we shared the three dishes pictured above, all of which were amazingly fresh and delicious.  the fact that mo-chica is located in a little latin market south of downtown with no pretension or famous chef attitude just adds more reasons to try this true find.  zarate has been a chef in both french and japanese kitchens for the past 15 years and those influences are perfectly represented on mo-chica's peruvian menu. his next venture is a new restaurant, picca on the west side, opening next month. I predict high praise, ratings and demand for this second restaurant and a mention on next years essential 99 list.  delicioso!
3655 South Grand Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90007
(213) 747-2141

snoopy says

snoopy and i have a long history - some of which falls in the 'i could tell you but would have to kill you category" and this post is thankfully not about any of that!  

i cut out this cartoon strip from the washington post sometime in the early 90's and have had it in one journal or another ever since. i loved the world charles schulz created and how sometimes his daily strips hit the nail of my life right on the head. finding this old strip in a box of old papers and binders this week was no exception.

happy friday!

shooting the messengers

yesterday, tim hetherington, a combat cameraman, photojournalist and director/producer of the documentary restrepo, was killed while working on the front lines of misurata, libya (getty image photographer chris hondros was also fatally wounded).  a massive loss of two men who's life's work gave us front row access to the worlds growing and ongoing conflicts - (chris hondras's photographs just happened to be on the front page of the los angeles times print edition yesterday morning).
restrepo is an amazing, timely documentary that should not be missed directed by a brave filmmaker and journalist who surely will be.
tim hetherington's film, pictured below with some other amazing documentaries i've seen on netflix the past 6 months, will move, challenge, inform and provoke you. some are uplifting, some heartbreaking and all worth your time and attention.
loss in libya

     

Hallelujah

today's album on repeat - jeff buckley's grace and another song from life's soundtrack.
i will never forget the first time i heard this song in the fall of 1994.  still to this day its quiet beauty catches me off guard.



*bonus damien rice cover
*bonus rufus wainwright cover

2 years on

i read this speech last night - almost 2 years since it was delivered in cairo. so much hope and yes we can and yes we did was riding on every word... 
so many stopped and watched and listened and wondered what it all meant.... so many are still wondering...
obama at cairo university - 06.04.09

*photos courtesy of the nytimes

lulu monday

it's monday, and that, you lucky reader, means another installment of the ynotj lovely things i love and want to share list!
my cousin #3 (i am #2, her sister is #1) called me last week, super excited about a recent find. "lulu.com, have you heard of lulu.com"? she was so excited she was practically yelling into the phone.  i had never heard of it, so while still on the phone with her, i typed the address into my browser, lulu.com. 
lulu is an open platform publishing site.  you write the novel, cookbook, poem, song, whatever -  and they help you with all the tools you need to print and publish your work.  they provide you with an ISBN (international standard book number) and help you globally sell and market the book (via amazon, barnes and nobel, etc...)  their service packages can also include editing, book reviews and publicity.  okay, so of course none of this is free and a quick search while on the phone with #3 revealed that hardcover, publisher grade books are expensive to print and that lulu gets to keep 20% of all your possible future profit - but there are softcover or ebook options at a far lower cost and i am still very excited about this new find and all its possibilities. 
sure lulu is not random house or harpercollins, but it is a great way to get started once the work of actually writing the next masterpiece of literature is done. oh, and if the idea of typing away in self imposed exile for a year daydreaming about a pulitzer (which by the way will be announced today) rubs you the wrong way, then you should also note that they print and publish beautiful calendars, cd's,  photo books and art portfolios.  lovely. lulu.

280sl

these babies were born the same year i was and i think they are the most beautiful cars ever designed.
it's a perfect day for a drive up the coast - happy sunday!

el clásico

real madrid and barcelona play this afternoon and again on april 20th, on april 27th and may 3rd (in the champions league semi-final).  for this girl who watched almost all the matches during last summer's world cup and rooted for españa (but only after brasil was heartbreakingly sent off by holland in the quarterfinals of course) it is a four game mini world cup reunion dream come true! 
to commemorate today, we will be bouncing in front of the tv with segura viudas heredad mimosas and jamon serrano y tomates 'pantomacas'. 
vamos barça - no wait, messi is on that team - vamos los blancos! 

for some background on this 'clásico' team rivalry - click aquí! 
and aquí!

bowler dream

i dreamt of bowler hats a few nights ago.  everywhere, everyone was wearing one, like that perfect scene in the 1999 film remake of the thomas crown affair. i was my very own verison of rené magritte's self portrait,  Le fils de l’homme - and just as in the painting and the film, the entire dream felt like a perfect intersection of surrealist visual art and modern-day cinema.
so this morning i take a stroll down bowler memory lane.  from the stuffy british bankers on the streets of my 1979 london, wearing what i thought were the silliest hats i had ever seen to stanley kubrick's a clockwork orange, and it's disturbing opening scenes of alex and his droogs, wearing bowler hats while engaging in an evening of "the old ultra-violence", its odd shaped hats galore. but most prominent in my bowler flashbacks is milan kundera's novel, the unbearable lightness of being, and sabina's relationship with her bowler. in one scene, she straddles a mirror on the floor of her studio, completely naked except for a bowler hat (in the movie, unlike in the book, she is wearing lingerie).  it was bowler hat as sexual emancipator, and in 1988, one of the most powerfully subtle erotic scenes i had ever read (or seen). 
all this memory from a dream of stuffy black hats - i think i need to go back to bed - sweet dreams and happy friday!

tattoo you

i want a tattoo - well, i already have one - a small dime sized flower - so small in fact that some have lovingly called it "a mistake, not a tattoo"!
but now i'm thinking it's time for another, bigger, bolder tat. something in farsi, something with my name, something with my history, something with the future.
here are some samples i've found online - in the right hands persian calligraphy makes the most simplest of words a piece of art (the first below is "peace").

. 

capitol school yard

i required copious amounts of pastries and coffee to recover from headaches received while trying to understand the antics behind the government shut down threat that went down in washington last week. i don't understand the game of chicken partisan politicians play and how once again family planning*, job training, environmental policies** and international aid*** are being used as pawns in this tiring and insulting push and pull. 
this past sunday morning i read nick kristof's nytimes op-ed piece and my headache went away - only to be replaced by bewilderment and anger, which at this point i guess i can live with, because who can expect anything more coming from the school yard up on the hill.  john boehner should walk out to his next new conference, shove harry reid aside, stick his tongue out at the cameras and threaten to beat up the reporters if they don't hand over their lunches. what ever happened to by the people for the people and where are all the hall monitors?

* policy provisions attached to the bill would ban federal and local funding for abortion and birth control

** the environmental protection agency, long a target of conservatives, will see a $1.6 billion cut, representing a 16 percent decrease from 2010 level

*** the bill would cut U.S. contributions to the united nations and international organizations by $377 million, and to international banks and financial institutions by $130 million. it also would prohibit pay raises for foreign service officers, although other federal employees would not be affected    

                                                             * washington post 4/12/11

proof in poetry

i had written an entire fabulous post about pablo neruda and how much i adore his poems and how at age 16, when i first came across the below verse, i instantaneously knew that i had found proof that simple words strung together in perfect procession on a piece of paper could alter your head and heart. 

My love,

We have found each other
Thirsty and we have
Drunk up all the water and the
Blood,
We found each other
Hungry
And we bit each other
As fire bites,
Leaving wounds in us

but in the haste of cutting and pasting poetry verses, i accidentally cut and deleted everything i had written -  so i will just leave this as is, a post to tell you how beautiful and timeless the works of pablo neruda are and how every once in a while, i pull out one of the two books pictured below and find proof all over again.  

I like for you to be still

It is as though you are absent
And you hear me from far away
And my voice does not touch you
It seems as though your eyes had flown away
And it seems that a kiss had sealed your mouth
As all things are filled with my soul
You emerge from the things
Filled with my soul
You are like my soul
A butterfly of dream
And you are like the word: Melancholy

I like for you to be still
And you seem far away
It sounds as though you are lamenting
A butterfly cooing like a dove
And you hear me from far away
And my voice does not reach you
Let me come to be still in your silence
And let me talk to you with your silence
That is bright as a lamp
Simple, as a ring
You are like the night
With its stillness and constellations
Your silence is that of a star
As remote and candid

ask a persian

we could all use a laugh on monday mornings, and i think i have found the perfect remedy for this monday's installment of the ynotj lovely things i like list. and because its monday and you probably have a hundred things to get to before noon, i'll keep this post short and sweet and just tell you to go ahead, click on this hilarious link and ask a persian!! 

the most wasted of all days is one without laughter -  e e cummings 

sunday stillness

egg porn

chances are that if i am sitting across the table from you in a restaurant and there is a dish with an egg as the star ingredient, i will order it.  not a far fetched choice for breakfast or brunch but i am talking about dinner here.  if you know me in the slightest, then you are already well aware of the fact that i absolutely heart heart heart eggs and there are two restaurants here in los angeles that serve two of my all time favorite egg dishes. these two fantasy egg dishes are delicious and comforting and a perfect way to start off your dinner, leaving room for the rest of the mouth watering dishes served at these fantastically delicious restaurants.

last night we found ourselves at mario batali and nancy silverton's osteria mozza, overly delighted at every dish that was placed in front of us, which naturally included my fantasy egg dish #1: the 'ricotta & egg raviolo with brown butter'. It is a single large ravioli,  filled with fresh ricotta and a whole egg that poaches slightly while cooking.  when you gently slice into it, the soft orange yolk filling spills out and mixes with the brown butter sauce. nothing i have ever eaten has excited me so much as this dish did the first time i tried it a few years ago, i couldn't stop thinking about it, and this year we tried our best to duplicate it at home as part of our christmas eve dinner.

fantasy egg dish #2 is the 'crispy white polenta with farm fresh egg, wild mushrooms and parmesan' served at josh loeb and zoe nathan's rustic canyon restaurant. it is a perfectly cooked sunny side up egg over a crispy fried polenta wedge served with a light mushroom and parmesan sauce. i could eat two orders all by myself, but have so far willingly shared my love and split the dish as an appetizer amongst dear friends. 

i think i need a moment to myself now - bon appetit!