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November 15, 2010It's Guy Fawkes Day!Here is a nice, cold, wet and rainy London day for you to enjoy. It happens to be the house in Ladbroke Grove where Caroling DeCamp Benn Lived and worked from 1932 - 2000. (http://openplaques.org/people/2444) I was more taken by the gleaming red paint on the door, that was reflected back in the wet pavement.Please visit www.martinarts.org to find out how you can contribute your recycling materials to the important upcoming EcoArt project! All those empty wine bottles and pizza boxes you don't want the neighbors to see? They can become art!

November 10, 2010Here is a Thanksgiving craft for you! Place cards which will set the tone for your Thanksgiving meal. Print the PDF on card stock, cut out on the dotted lines, fold, inscribe with your best penmanship and arrange judiciously. Gobble-gobble!(If you are reading this on line and want the PDF, email me at fineartdaily@gmail.com)

November 9, 2010This is not verisimilitude. This is food that has been styled. Cranberry jelly is another one of the last minute items thrown onto the Thanksgiving table just as I am peeling my fingerprints from the roasting pan in my annual attempt at mastering gravy prep. Perhaps I will add it to the Tall One's responsibilities this year - although I wouldn't want to interrupt the flow of his mashed potato concentration. Once he grasped the concept that cream makes all the difference in the mashing process he has gone to town with the potatoes - which are surely more important tha...

November 8, 2010Here are green beans in an almost natural state - before those Thanksgiving cooks get their anxious little hands on them and boil them down to a gray, congealing mass, covered with canned mushroom soup and French's fried onions. When I do remember the green beans (there have been a couple of Thanksgivings when the Beaujolais Nouveau caught up with me) I try to cook them in a flash; steamed for just a couple of minutes, before slipping them into a Revere bowl, when they are a bright spring green and crisp as an apple. If someone offers to bring the green beans to your...

t's Food Friday!We have to keep it simple today since some of the Gentle Readers will be gearing up for the scrum at the H&M opening in Palm Beach. (Charles and Camilla are going,too. I'm on deadline, so I hope they bring me something nice!)I have raised a family of renegades. They do not like pumpkin pie. They do not like pecan pie. They do not like apple pie. At birthdays they demand Boston Cream Pie, and at Thanksgiving they expect Chocolate Pudding Pie á la Ken. It is a secret family recipe, rather like Rice Krispies Treats. Be sure to sigh, and dust yourself with flour so p...

November 4, 2010While I pursue the Thanksgiving theme I was struck by an odd coincidence. We have a collection of odd sterling - wedding gifts, hand-me-downs, thrift shop treasures and eBay bargains. We have pickle forks (very handy at Thanksgiving), cake forks, ice cream forks, cruets, ladles, salt bowls, punch bowls - a vast compendium of serving implements from another time. Lady Marjorie would perhaps smile sadly at the assortment of napkin rings - which I hasten to assure her I only use for the most ceremonious occasions. She thought napkin rings were so middle class - clearly ...

November 3, 2010Maria von Trapp can have all the brown paper packages she wants - one of my favorite things is a nice, 1950's-style bowl of pickles on the table at Thanksgiving. And while I suppose we could have a bowl of them any other night during the year,it seems more Thanksgiving-y to set out a little dish amid the clamor and chaos that is our family celebration. Along with the celery bowl and the olives, the cranberry jelly replete with the striped indentations of the tin, the gravy boat and the beans that have almost been forgotten, again.I saw a kingfisher sitting on the rai...

November 2, 2010I was thinking about Thanksgivings we have celebrated, and naturally, remember the year the Pouting Princess and I were in London. Generally we are not sweets-driven, and are lured instead to salty snacks. But we kept finding ourselves with our stubby little noses pressed up flat against the shiny windows of cupcake shops and pastry shops and bakeries and pâtisseries, where there were always throngs of happy people taking away wee parcels of confection. Visit me on Facebook: Fine Art Daily

November 1, 2010Rabbit, rabbit, rabbit, tibbar, tibbar, tibbar. Have I got it right now, Meems?And now the countdown to Thanksgiving has begun. Although I suspect that some of my Gentle Readers are more interested in the H&M opening in Palm Beach on Friday... It is time to assess the china and silver, and see how many emergency trips we will need to make to Williams-Sonoma (which happens to be in the same mall as the new H&M). The gravy boat is fine, but one of the big, ancestral blue and white platters has sprung a big crack. Might have to wander south to acquire another. Ma...

Isn't this charming? A simple, seasonal display of small pumpkins on a porch on Bell Island in Rowayton. Clapboard, chrysanthemums, tousled autumn grasses and a white porch. There was another house on Rowayton Avenue that had at least a dozen similarly-sized pumpkins placed all along the stone wall that edged the front yard. I thought that I could have that look here in Florida. I bought 3 wee pumpkins and arranged them on the little bench in our front yard (I would say front garden, but right now the weeds outnumber the flowers). I have also artfully arranged some Indian Corn on th...

October 19, 2010The leaves hadn't all turned when I was in Connecticut last week, but there were glowing patches of golden radiance as we zipped around with Henry Clay, who had many appointments to keep. And then I kept getting turned around, ending up in New Canaan twice. Getting lost is an excellent way to see the sights! Visit Fine Art Daily and The Chestertown Spy to read more!

October 18, 2010This is my new friend, Henry Clay. I was visiting Connecticut last week, and spent some time hanging in the dog park with Henry and his many energetic friends. We rambled around the fenced area, chasing tennis balls, sizing up our companions and their humans. The original 101 Dalmatians got that right. Everyone did have a slight family resemblance - except for the crazily marked Australian shepherd, with his bright blue eyes and wild ocelot spotting. His human was calm and quietly funny. Henry was always very swift, shot from canons, in the beautiful sunny and golden ...

September 30, 2010Here is my interpretation of a tiny corner of the Chihuly Ceiling at the Norton Museum in nearby West Palm Beach. You need to abandon your inhibitions and throw your head back to marvel at the bold colors and myriad shapes and layers and his sheer audacity. You are under the sea, awash with the sound of a waterfall, marveling at his ingenuity, abandoning the conceit that art is flat, rectilinear and on a wall. And now you need to go see it for yourself! The Norton Museum. Visit Fine Art Daily to read more, and The Chestertown Spy to see my latest illos.

September 29, 2010As much as I enjoyed the visiting Van Gogh on Free Museum Day I was also giddy with our old friends in the Norton Museum's permanent collection. This is a humble little homage to the real Chagall Anniversary Flowers, which he painted when his dear wife died. His pain is palpable in this exquisite, shimmering canvas. And imagine this, you can find just around the corner, any day of the week. Amazing. And I haven't even begun to wax poetical about the Chihuly Ceiling! The Norton Museum. To read more, stop by Fine Art Daily. And to see new illos, visit The Chestertown...

September 27, 2010Did you take advantage of the Smithsonian's Free Museum Day? I sure did. I mooched around the Norton Museum in West Palm Beach for a couple of hours, brushing shoulders with lots of arts lovers, trying out the cell phone tour, watching a worker painting gallery walls a satisfying Blue Man Group blue, and toured the galleries, dancing with Chihuly, Warhol, Dufy, Wyeth, Rockwell, Henri, Degas, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Matisse, Hassam, O'Keefe. Eakins and the blindingly brilliant visiting Van Gogh. You have until February to visit the man, so take yourself down there. Wear ...

September 23, 2010Happy First Day of Autumn! And how, in South Florida, do I know that the seasons are changing? Was it the Harvest Moon last night with its attending glittering near-by Jupiter? Was it all the news about Fall Fashion Weeks in New York and London? Excellent warning signs, but the true indicator that time is swiftly passing us by on this tilted planet was the aisle of Christmas lights and extension cords nestled in with the Halloween candy and cheesy imagination-free costumes at Target yesterday. I was not alone in my horror. I overheard another shopper shriek to her ...

September 22, 2010The last day of summer!It is hard to go wrong with masses of beautiful, shiny fruits or vegetables. That's why well-arranged produce departments are always so appealing - with symmetry, color and balance.(Beauty and the inherent danger that plucking one piece from the middle will bring the whole display down in a loud, embarrassing, crowd-satisfying incident.) I bet these artichokes sold well on Saturday. And if you bought a Portobello mushroom at the West Palm Whole Paycheck on Saturday I hope you washed it well. I listened to a lululemon-clad blond stick mommy ex...

September 21, 2010We continued on our merry shopping way through the Whole Foods store (we have heard it called "Whole Paycheck") in West Palm Beach on Saturday. There is a dizzying array of shiny, colorful goods to be had at WF. Who knew that there could be so many different kinds of olive oil? Here - just a small selection of their olive oil shelves - are: Toasted Almond Oil, Sundried Tomato Oil, Porcini and Truffle Oil and Lemon and Ginger Oil. When the revolution (or the big hurricane) comes, I want to be locked in a Whole Foods Store. I am someone raised on Mazola Corn Oil as t...

September 20, 2010Seemingly no computer woes! Hurrah!We escaped the bonds of suburbia on Saturday and ventured south to Palm Beach and the mercantile delights therein. We did a little window shopping, and here at Betsey Johnson saw a dress that the Pouting Princess would countenance. My, Betsey's designs have changed! When I was in high school and prowling Greenwich Village looking for second hand jeans and dance wear, I remember a shop featuring Betsey's wild (rubber) designs. It was just around the corner from Danskin, Earth Shoes and an Orange Julius. It's good to see that her in...

September 15, 2010 - Hide quoted text - This is a familiar yard ornament for locals - although I bet you have never seen it in its naked, natural state. On Indian River Drive, just south of Walton Road, there is an intrepid artist, bent on entertaining us passersby, according to the season. We have seen this buoy painted up to look like a red and white fishing bobber, a Pokémon character, the Earth (with cloud cover) and even a jolly Santa. A Gentle Reader recently sent me a link to an article in the New York Times about the Wurman's house in Newport:http://www.nytimes.com/slidesho...

September 14, 2010The War Lord thought that perhaps I was a little outspoken yesterday when I illustrated the folly of our neighbors. So today I am taking a higher road, and showing you the beauteousness of another neighbor's lawn ornaments. This house has a few objets d'art including a fabulous kinetic sculpture, but I would have been trespassing if I had gotten any closer. All are very nice, contemplative, tasteful and items to covet. (Of course, given the opportunity, our yard guys would mow over everything with their usual skill and abandon!)Happy birthday to Sidney! Visit my b...

Best Beloved’s Black Bean and Corn Salsa 1 (15 ounce) can black beans, drained and rinsed 3 ears cooked corn, corn sliced off the cobs 2 large, fragrant tomatoes, chopped 2 bunches green onions, chopped Cilantro leaves, for garnish In a large bowl, mix together black beans, corn, diced tomatoes, tomatoes and green onion stalks. Garnish with desired amount of cilantro leaves. Chill in the refrigerator at least 8 hours, or overnight, before serving. Serve with chips, or as a relish for any grilled meat. Yumsters. Charles was enjoying the salsa more than he was talking with Camilla th...

September 9, 2010My friends at Food52 are having a competition this week for the best recipe for radishes, so I bought a flaming red bunch for experimentation. As as we imagine the summer heat waning and hope that Fall is upon us, these tasty little root vegetables could only invoke summer days for me. Sitting on my parents' back porch, quite possibly after having shucked some corn, I can remember eating cold radishes, plucked from a little Pyrex dish of ice water. Nothing fancy, no rosettes, just radishes with their tops and bottoms lopped off. With a dash of salt to tame the hot, s...

September 8, 2010Fall is in the air. Well, at least we are enjoying the idea of Fall. The gardening season is winding down, and tomatoes are abundant and colorful. We flitted through the Green Market in Downtown Stuart on Sunday afternoon to get our week's supply of local produce. We managed to avoid the siren song of the fragrant, freshly-popped kettle corn - it is just no fun being a grown up, I must say. (We hustled down the street to the Pelican Café for an equally aromatic burger, so there are some compensations.)The relocated Crary House has been safely nestled next door to th...

September 7, 2010Today I am going to ease you back into the work week with something amusing. This is a vintage Citroën with the Manhattan skyline in the background. Very cute, don't you think?We had a nice little cook-out yesterday, and no, it wasn't a cook-in, Ellie. We sent poor Best Beloved out into the dripping rain to char burgers and brats, and then we sat in the surprising bug-free coolth at the outside table on the back porch and chowed down with an alacrity that one would not have suspected possible, considering how many Cheetos, chips and dips and home made corn salsa, ca...
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