If You liked KC You're Gonna Love Kansas

So by now you have realised that I was in Kansas City for a couple of days. The raison d'etre for the midwest excursion was a little business and a visit to the renowned Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art but I grabbed the chance to take a side trip into Kansas to meet with home builder and food blogger Marilyn of Simmer Till Done in the "coolest college town in the US".
I've been following Marilyn since her house blogger days, admiring her design aesthetic and vicariously enjoying the thrill of the chase as she tracked down plumbing fittings, vintage hardware and decorative items on ebay. What kept me reading was her writing; her turn of phrase and wry humor that permeated every post. Towards the end of construction she began to post the recipes and mouth-watering photographs of food that eventually became Simmer Till Done.
Let me tell you that in real life she doesn't disappoint. Meeting Marilyn was like catching up with an old friend; so many stories to share, experiences to expand upon, blogs we love and bloggers we know. We talked as we toured the town, I learned the history and fun facts (the town grid is made up of numbered streets crossed with states in the order they joined the union); we chatted as I explored her beautiful house and met her lovely family including the famous Cleo and wandered back into town for coffee. Five hours later we were still talking. Here's just a taste:


Perfect bites of happiness: She baked Rugelach and sent me home with a doggy bag full.


She's a bit of an alchemist, turning simple ingredients into homemade Limoncello and other flavored liqueurs - smooth and sweet with an unexpected kick at the finish


She showed me this breadboard in real life


and took me to a bank to eat artisanal antipasti and salad. A side note: Do you know how difficult it is to eat when you just can't stop talking?
Another fun fact to finish? Her town has some 90,000 residents. Marilyn seems to know each and everyone personally - either that or it is also the friendliest town in the midwest!

Guess Where I Was: Part II

Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art


Shuttlecocks


Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art


Louise Bourgeois Spider


Kansas City kicked my butt, culturally and culinary-wise.


Martini with olive and a twist


Jack Stack Barbecue smokey BBQ ribs


Pulled Pork and Hominy Pizzole with Carrot and Cauliflower Salad and a Sandwich at Café Sebastienne at the Kemper Museum



Inside-Out Burger at Blanc Burgers and Bottles

Guess Where I've Been: Part 1

Europe?


Seville?


Not Geneva - though there was a fountain


Maybe Tuscany for the Boar?


Florence?


Not Venice - although there were gondolas...

All will be revealed in due course. Happy 4th!

Borderline Kinky

This was going to be a slow day. Hang out with the guest who has a wedding at the weekend. Get hair done before I shoot off to Kansas for a couple of days, followed by mani-pedi, couple of hours by the pool...
It went according to plan until we were derailed by lack of appointment for pedicures coupled with no-breakfast-induced hunger pangs. (Your mother was right: Breakfast IS the most important meal of the day.) A light lunch in town seemed like a good idea. We'd be in and out and back on track in a hour...
Three and a half hours later (we know this because guest had to feed the meter three times) we were ... let us just say... so relaxed we had to walk around town for an hour or so before we were fit to drive. And when I say walk I mean going from store to store admiring the jewelry and taking advantage of the 50% sales. I have done my holiday shopping, people, six months early!
We needed to make a quick stop at the wine store (No, not for us, we were wined out; this was a present for a party on Friday) and my afternoon was about complete when I read this:


Seriously? You had me at "expressive bouquet of violets"...

Bonus of the day: Returned home to find Franken won. Officially. My day could not be fuller.

Tip of the day. This is where you need to go when in Huntington for lunch, especially on a quiet Tuesday. Sssh. I promised I would not breathe a word about the generous waitstaff...

Panna Cotta with Caramel Sauce

It's been a while since I posted anything food-related on the blog. A combination of laziness, greed (do you realise we have to wait to eat while I take shots?) and twitter. Blame twitter. It's so much quicker to post 140 characters online than mess around with html.
Anyway, I am actually inspired by this lack of summer to make some dishes rather than the usual "Go to store, pick up salads, cheese and pate, open wine and call it a picnic" meals we eat this time of year. Yesterday I used up leftover polpo, peppers, rice and tomatilla salsa with frozen prawns, sauteed garlic and 1/3 bottle of white wine for a simple, summery lunch and made a Panna Cotta with fresh berries for today's dessert. I had planned to serve it with red berry coulis and fresh cherries but then I saw something that made me think why not drizzle it with a little Caramel Sauce? Heaven.
Panna Cotta is one of the easiest desserts to make. Really! It's just cream jelly (Jello). I'm not even going to bother to write out a recipe, there are hundreds around, each as simple as the last. Try David Lebovitz's below. And if you have any doubts about making your own caramel sauce go and see Marilyn at Simmer Till Done. She will hold your hand, mop your fevered brow and guide you through the process for perfecting sweet, buttery and slightly salty caramel. You'll never go back to a jar again!

Panna Cotta
David Lebovitz has a perfect recipe with tips
(If you oil the molds as he suggests you won't have to do what I did and ease them out with a knife, see photo. Do as I say, not as I do!)

Caramel Sauce
I told you: Go see Simmer

Red Sky at Night

There was a terrific thunderstorm last night and I shot this in the middle of it (from the safety of the porch). Kind of looks like the house is on fire, doesn't it?

Reading about blogs and more pink..

A while ago I challenged six bloggers to write about Six Uninteresting Things That Made Them Happy. Let's check in and see what they are up to.
From ThirteenEleven: I learned something today about Pink. Like who is responsible for those pink 50s bathrooms? Mamie Eisenhower, that's who... Who knew?
Over at the House on Red Hill S has been catching up on her blog reading but hasn't yet throught of 6 things that make her happy...
Just Off the Taconic did post her list and some pretty photos to go with it
Nadine at Bouler Design Group got her 6 things in early and is now having literary thoughts
Heidi at faboolosity is having an existential moment
Kathleen is beautifying the yard over at House Things I Like
What are you up to today?

Pierre Paulin Dies

Iconic French designer Pierre Paulin died June 13 in Montpellier, France at the age of 81. Although he began his career designing for Thonet-France, he is most famous for his abstract and sculptural fabric covered foam on metal frame furniture that was produced by Dutch firm Artifort in the 1960s:


Ribbon Chair


Mushroom Chair


Little Tulip


Orange Slice


Tongue Chair



In the 1970s and 80s, two French Presidents, Georges Pompidou and Francois Mitterrand, invited him to furnish rooms in the Élysée Palace, and President Nicolas Sarkozy paid tribute to Paulin declaring "he made design into an art form". Last year a retrospective of his work "Pierre Paulin, le design au pouvoir" was held at the at La Manufacture des Gobelins - Le mobilier national in Paris. His designs are in the permanent collections of museums worldwide including MoMA in NY and were used in the futuristic Elrod House setting of the 1971 James Bond film “Diamonds are Forever”.


His last design, the Flower Chair for Magis debuted at the ICFF May 2009.

Moss

I don't know why I bothered to plant moss when I could have waited a couple of weeks and just transplanted it...


Except that things never grow naturally just where you want them...

So far not summer

You may have heard that it's been a tad wet in New York. In fact it's rained most days for the past month or more.


It's been so humid the past week that I have moss growing everywhere - the Irish moss I planted is doing very well


some moss appeared on the path


and on my patio umbrella.



The visitors who came to hang out by the pool will leave disappointed. The only creatures to have dipped a toe in there are the frogs... So far no sign of summer.