chocoholic

friends leaving to go out of town = boooo.
getting delicious chocolate souvenirs when they return = hooray!
last week h & mp went to new york for 48 hours and brought me back these 2 beautifully packaged and so so so delicious chocolate bars from mast brothers chocolates in brooklyn. food and wine magazine wrote that mast brothers are "the best new american chocolates" and i wholeheartedly agree. the brooklyn blend and fleur de sel were so absolutely amazing  and now i must try to get my hands on all of their other amazing flavors (and keep the pretty paper they come wrapped in).
have a melt in your mouth not in your hands, dark chocolate filled weekend!

bottom photo courtesy of mast brothers

walkabout

sta travel australia sponsored 3 guys, 44 days, 11 countries, 18 flights, 38 thousand miles, 2 cameras and almost a terabyte of footage...resulting in 3 amazingly edited little videos -  which naturally makes me want to hop on the next flight and eat, learn and move my way through a dozen countries...

finger licking good

sometimes you have to listen to your body and give into your cravings.  on a day when the weather got cool and the clouds blanketed everything, all my belly was craving was lots and lots of meat. a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do - and this girl and her friend ate their huge portions of delicious saucy baby back ribs, corn on the cob, baked beans (the corn bread not so much) all courtesy of baby blues bbq in venice, a great little bbq joint on lincoln serving the best bbq this side of the 405 (the weho branch is not worth your time, so skip it and head to venice). 

finger licking, tummy filling goodness. 

needless to say the craving was happily satisfied and a need for a lazy full belly afternoon nap quickly ensued. 

wangari muta maathai

the first female african recipient of the nobel peace prize died this past sunday. wangari maathai worked tirelessly over the past decade planting over 30 million trees throughout africa through her green belt movement. she received the nobel prize in 2004 for her "contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace".  from what i have been reading about her the past couple of days she was a graceful and powerful force - a force as strong and nurturing and beautiful as the trees she helped protect and plant. 

music monday - r.e.m.

r.e.m announced last wednesday that they are breaking up after 31 years together and so naturally this music monday is dedicated to one of my favorite bands and a song i listened to constantly in my room and later in my car (on whfs and on all sorts of mix tapes) for more than a decade starting in 1984 - the quasi anthem of my youth, having grown up a couple of miles from rockville. 

6 months

it's friday - it's sunny - it's the first day of fall - it's been exactly 6 months since i set off on this blog journey (on the first day of spring)..... i think i'm a sucker for anniversaries!

have a celebratory, season changing,  milestone filled weekend...

palestine

it came as no surprise yesterday at the united nations general assembly, when president obama voiced his opposition to the palestinian authorities bid for statehood. it comes as no surprise that obama has double backed from his speech on the same stage last year, where he called for a palestinian state within a year. it comes as no surprise that president obama's approval rating continues to slide - and we who voted for him continue to scratch our heads and wonder when he is going to stand up for and follow through on all the beautiful words and hopes and plans he had us believing three years ago. 
i think robert fisk's recent article in the independent, the rebuff obama received,  and the picture below of palestinian president, mahmoud abbas sums up the current state, mood and prospects of peace and fairness and equality in the middle east.

photo courtesy of damon winter for the new york times

friends of bill

the annual clinton global initiative meeting is taking place in new york this week. the initiative was established in 2005 by bill clinton in an effort to unite the world's deepest pocketed philanthropists and world leaders in finding and funding solutions to the world's most pressing concerns and causes. 
i've watched a few of the live webcasts on livestream and facebook and have to say, they are all interesting, if not inspiring. 
since leaving office, bill clinton has become an international rock star, sometimes a bit too much of a celebrity - but he continues to shine his light, influence and street cred onto the world most neediest causes, which in my book is more than what our current crop of elected politicians and candidates are offering and capable of these days. 

ready for the goon squad

almost every book review and about half a dozen people i know have been raving and recommending jennifer egan's a visit from the goon squad all year...so tomorrow, without much further ado, i am going to get under the covers and see for myself what all the fuss is about... 
i have a pile of books i want to devour in the coming months - and the goon squad seems like the perfect appetizer. 

music monday - holocene

bon iver is playing a sold out show at the shrine auditorium tonight. the guy from small-town wisconsin who recorded his debut album alone in the woods four years ago (and one of my favorites of all time), released his second, and equally haunting, moving and introspective self titled lp a few months ago. 
both albums hold prominent positions on my playlists and flows through like warm water over chilled skin.

this is music born from a brilliant musician and lyricist and this is my favorite song from his latest album.

click for bonus beautiful live performance 

bag lady

the temperature has dropped 20 degrees in the last couple of days and fall is in the air - almost time to bring out the winter sweaters and jackets and boots and dark leather bags.
i am still smitten with my two year old sissi rossi black hobo but this year i'm craving and dreaming of a more classic structured bag like these lovely's below. 

3.1phillip lim

chloe

marni

and a fall winter bag naturally needs a companion dress, which brings me to this lovely leather pocket tencel dress from steven alan and classic origami wool crepe dress from jcrew.

have a lovely bag full of goodies weekend.

peruvian perfection

according to a recent wall street journal article - peruvian food is the next big thing on the restaurant scene - a declaration my taste buds agree with. 
i absolutely loved my visits a few months ago to mo-chica and picca, ricardo zarete's two local modern peruvian (with a dash of japanese) restaurants. i ate some of the best seafood, tasted some of the best and most unique small plates and sipped on the best pisco sour in town. 
my growling belly is ready for another visit - before the local wall street readers grab all the seats.

arroz con erizo

seabass ceviche

black cod anticucho

photos courtesy of picca restaurant.

photo master

i spent hours between the age of 14 and 17 in a photography darkroom. i imagined the romantic world of a national geographic photographer the best gig in the world and mentally placed myself and my canon on the front lines of the gaza strip as rocks and intifada flew by.

along the way, i gave photography up as a career prospect because frankly i was impatient and non-technical and could not for the life of me master the light meter on my canon t70. 
a year or two later the photography bug and talent and patience and keen eye passed down in my family and landed here, on an amazing photographer who has the unteachable but innate ability to capture a moment or a look or an emotion unlike any photographer i have come across. 
contact kj for your next special occasion photography needs and see for yourself how beautiful images and moments develop.

9/11

unless you were under some sort of rock (or a beautiful lush isolated island without television, which is were i would have loved to have been), you were probably made very aware on sunday that it was the 10th anniversary of what is now collectively referred to as 9/11. the old footage and a pile of documentaries were all over the tv channels all sunday. 
but for me,  the new york magazine 9/11 encyclopedia issue was by far the most moving, eye opening and interesting of the bunch. beautifully compiled images, stories and articles that can hopefuly still teach us something we have yet to learn from that tragic bright blue skied day ten septembers ago.

photo courtesy of google images

music monday - the national

these guys played at the hollywood bowl last night...an amazing band and one of their most beautiful songs.
matt berninger's baritone has me hypnotized.

farm shop

this was my lovingly delivered take-out lunch from the one and only, always amazingly delicious, famrshop

a delicious perfectly crisp and juicy poached chicken salad with little gem lettuce, green beans, soft boiled eggs, radishes and celery root remoulade.

 

this was of course followed by dessert - a vertical chocolate brownie tasting followed by chocolate covered oreos and graham crackers from edelweiss chocolate factory (needless to say after someone in the office yelled 'chocolate' i completely forgot about the fact that i needed to take pictures - so no pictures are available of the chocolate afternoon coma scene).

have a deliciously sweet and savory weekend!

jahan jam

it is the end of sour cherry season so i grabbed about 3 pounds at the market a couple of weeks ago and decided to try my hand at making jam, channeling my dormant and well hidden persian cooking skills.
i pitted, macerated, cooked, jarred and thanks to db, labeled my new found product path to kitchen goddessness.
the jam turned out delicious, and i gave a couple of jars away (okay, 3 pounds of fruit only makes about two and a half jars)  so i'm guessing more jahan jam jars are on the horizon!
look for one in a holiday gift basket coming to a special occasion near you.  

hump day

an out of sorts day in need of a pie chart

peach present

it should be by now no secret to you that i love pastries. last week, i received a delicious fig pastry and this past weekend, as compensation for a couple hours of baby sitting services, i received this lovely, delicious huckleberry peach present which i devoured while the baby slept. (it was dark, hence the poor orange lighting in the pictures below)!

hooray for huckleberry and hooray for friends who spoil me with baked goods!

gracias baby v and mama m!

true grit

okay, i'm not sure why i never saw this oscar nominated movie when it was released last year. i even had an academy screener last february, but for some reason or another, i just didn't get around to it. well, last night, we finally sat down and watched a blu-ray dvd of true grit. 
based on the book by charles portis and beautifully adapted for the screen by joel and ethan coen, this remake of the 1969 john wayne classic stands as a testament that it is possible to remake a great movie and make it even better. 
the acting is superb, the cinematography is reason alone to watch the movie, and the story is a classic american tale of family, revenge, justice and redemption. 
i was exhausted when i started the dvd, but after 10 minutes i was glued and riveted and then afterwards even watched all the blu-ray disc's special features, which included a great little documentary about charles portis, who's 5 books i am now looking forward to tracking down.
most of you have already seen this film, but if you are a fool like me, rent it tonight and fall in love with the best of of what big money hollywood has to offer. 

hang ten

a storm off new zealand last week has turned up on our shores this week, with high surf advisories and occasional 10-12 foot swells. local surfers are naturally jumping for joy, gathering at sunset, topanga, county line and of course malibu.
db paddled out into 5-9 foot sets at sunset beach and here are a few of my riveting, action packed photo snapshots. 
have a totally rad and epic weekend. 

more pretty posters

el jefe just told me about jason munn and his beautifully designed music and movie posters....each poster is screen printed, signed and about $30 dollars. so so lovely. 
new designs are posted for sale on his site regularly, but hurry, as each print is available for a limited time only.
time for some new, bare walls.