mirrormirror - Part 7

New York, New York

March 28, 2014 By Paola 13 Comments

So I’m back from two back to back trips to New York, New York – firstly to attend a food photography workshop given by Penny de los Santos (with the Minx and the Husband tagging along) and secondly for Blog Tour NYC and the Architectural Design Home Show. I am still processing all I learned, saw, thought and felt, though I will be blogging the bejeezus out of everything in the coming weeks. Stay tuned for sumptuous shops, stunning restaurants and sexy hotels.

In the meantime, by way of an introduction, here are some of the sights and characters of New York City, which are still buzzing round my head.

One day I AM going to start a Tumblr called ‘Hipsters in their Habitats’.

Loved this hardworking little guy down in the subway.

New York, New York photography by www.paolathomas.com

Love truly was in the air.

Pilgrimage to PurlSoho. Check.

Remember when we did a ‘Go Fug Your Room’ on Diane Von Furstenburg’s NYC penthouse? Well here it is, seen from the magnificent new High Line Park. I couldn’t quite see in to see if she’d taken our decorating advice.

Gorgeous chartreuse green tables and chairs on the High Line, and windows that look like makeup palettes.

Ladies in green.

Photogenic taxis? Check and check.

For some reason people kept mistaking me and my Canadian friend Danielle – fellow foodie and street photographer extraordinaire, for British tourists. Can’t think why.

But I forgave her wearing that scarf when she introduced me to Balthazar’s.

Fabulous street art everywhere.

Can anyone tell me how water towers work? Do they collect rainwater? They fascinate me.

Lots of neon.

New York truly is a melting pot.

And obviously many iconic tall buildings.

I’ve never been a big one for street photography, but I could get completely obsessed by it in New York. We didn’t have a huge amount of time for it on this trip, but I WILL be back. I love this city so much.

Go Fug Your Room! – SJP NYC

March 13, 2014 By Paola 14 Comments

I do believe it’s time for a Go Fug Your Room! It’s been so long that I’m sure we’ve all forgotten how to do them.

Anyway this one seems particularly fitting as I was in la Grande Pomme only last weekend and am flying back out this weekend for Blogtour and of course we’ve all dreamed of having a New York brownstone of our very own.

The pics are screen caps taken from a ‘73 Questions’ interview on Vogue TV. You’ll get an idea of the house from the screen caps but I do recommend that you watch the video as SJP comes across as cute and charming and the sort of person I would tragically like to be BFFs with (though I would have to have WORDS with her about her old-fashioned and derivative new shoe collection).

First of all I think we can all agree that the house has MAGNIFICENT bones – that arch, those stairs, those ceilings, those windows, THAT. LIGHT. And I do find it refreshing that it seems so normal and lived in. How wonderful to see a celebrity who has books and art, whose house doesn’t appear to be styled to within an inch of its life, and who could conceivably occasionally allow her three kids to share the space.

So SJP, take it away.

Loving the hallway, not sure if that’s a rug or tiles on the stairs, but they look like quintessentially Victorian encaustic tiles and so work for me, though I thought that was more of a London thing rather than New York.

I’m struggling with this room though Sarah J. I just don’t like that green on the wall, it just seems too bright and unsophisticated really, especially when matched with peacock blue velvet and hot pink accents, including a pink zebra-striped pouffe thingy (just say those words out loud and you’ll know how WRONG that sounds).

And maybe there are rather too many books and little pictures and tchotchkes and THINGS just cluttering things up. The bar is quite fun though.

OK Ms P. No need to look like that, it’s just MY OPINION (which is what the Minx says when she is about to say something breathtakingly rude).

Let’s move on shall we? Arch gorgeous, artwork lovely, light, windows and fireplace amazing. Possibly one too many ping pong tables. (Seriously?)

But yes, SJP I would be proud of this end of the room too. So pretty. I’m particularly loving the celery green and robin’s egg blue (behind the door) accents – much nicer colours than the green on the sitting room walls.

Here’s the full video, which I do recommend. Her English accent is terrible though.

So, in your considered opinion is this house fugly or not? Feel free to show additional workings in the comments.

Update: Oh and thanks to commenter Becky for reminding me that I blogged about SJP’s glorious house in the Hamptons more years ago than I care to remember. She is one lucky girl.

poll by twiigs.com

Menton Mon Amour

March 11, 2014 By Paola 1 Comment

Did you know that around 80% of American tourists in France only go to Paris? Which is a crying shame as the rest of France is so spectacularly beautiful, so deeply fascinating and so incredibly varied from region to region.

Gelateria at sunset on the Menton waterfront

I was fortunate enough to be invited to lunch in Seattle last week by the France Tourism Development Agency and several regional French tourist boards, as they keen to spread the word in the US that France has much more to offer for travellers than just Paris.

As long time readers of this blog or followers of my Instagram feed know only too well, I have a very soft spot in my heart for Menton, the gracious old city on the very eastern edge of the Cote d’Azur, a hop, skip and jump from the Italian border.

The beach where we swam every day

We rented an apartment there for three weeks last summer and it occurs to me that, what with one thing and another, I never shared any photos with you. So these are for those of you who might be planning your summer vacations and may need some encouragement to get out of Paris.

Menton Mon Amour photography by www.paolathomas.com

It’s the colours of Menton that get to me most. The warmth of the coral, ochre, mustard and terracotta, punctuated by bursts of brilliant blue from shutters, sky or sea. And everything bathed in the most astonishing clear dancing light.

We rented an apartment full of antique furniture in a cute residential neighbourhood just behind the casino, about fifteen minutes walk from our favourite beach.

The Minx learned to sail (it’s so useful that she’s at the French immersion school here as we can put her in cool French camps).

And we spent endless days just hanging out on the beach, and endless warm evenings watching night fall over the Mediterranean. That sea. It does something for my very soul.

Tomorrow we’ll be visiting Menton’s fabulous covered market. I have a lot of holiday snaps to inflict upon you get through. (What is a blog for after all?)

Heart Shaped Cake

February 20, 2014 By Paola 3 Comments

Dear hearts I am back! Had a bit of a recurrence of the health problems which plagued me last year – adrenal fatigue, I’ll write a blog post about it one day soon – but I’ve been resting up and feeling good again.

And I need to get back to full blogging capacity because I’ve had some fabulous news that I’ve been bursting to tell you for some time now.

I’ve been chosen to be one of the featured bloggers on Blog Tour 2014 to New York City where we’ll be visiting the Architectural Digest Home Design Show and partaking in all sorts of fabulous shenanigans. Here’s the official announcement from organisers Modenus. Not sure how I managed to slip in among all those eminent interior designers to be honest.

I don’t know much about the itinerary as yet, except that we will be staying in a sexy midtown Manhattan hotel and spending a day at the Design Show. The last day of our tour will be organised by Tina and Sarah of NYC interior design studio Franklin Eighth. You may remember Tina as a monthly guest blogger on this very blog, so I know it’s going to be good.

Anyway, all this means I have the best possible reason to boost up this blog and my social media presence again, so do stick around for the ride. I’ll let you know a lot more details on the itinerary as I get them. #BlogTourNYC is happening from March 18th to 22nd.

In the meantime, here are some random pretty pictures of the chocolate heart shaped cake I made for my dearest best beloveds on Valentines Day. I again used the deliciously tasty and extremely forgiving ‘Mom’s Chocolate Cake’ from the first Macrina Bakery cookbook and the heart-shaped pan I bought ages ago from Ikea.

I frosted it with my usual buttercream (2 sticks/8oz/225g of butter to 6 cups of sifted icing/confectioner’s sugar) and added a little pure raspberry puree for both colour and flavour. I used a Ateco 825 icing nozzle, as I don’t have the rose tip that everyone else uses. Need to rectify that.

If you make and eat this cake please think of me. Due to the aforementioned adrenal fatigue I’m not actually supposed to be eating sugar. Ugh.

Fancy Hotel of the Week – Chateau Whistler Christmas

January 13, 2014 By Paola Leave a Comment

We’ve just concluded a weekend of festivities for the Minx’s birthday and it feels like the New Year has finally started. I actually love this time of year as I feel no guilt about sitting indoors in front of my computer, hiding from the unremitting greyness and gloom of a Seattle January, and can actually get sh*t done. Although Christmas feels like a long time ago now, I just wanted to share some photos of our trip to Whistler this year, mostly because we had the most wonderful time. We don’t have any family here in the States, so it’s become our tradition to drive up to Whistler and take a pampering break in a hotel. This year we managed to score a deal and stayed for the first time at the Fairmont Chateau Whistler, nestling at the foot of Blackcomb Mountain in Whistler’s Upper Village. And all was utterly perfect. Unfortunately for our finances it was so perfect that we might just have to return every year, deal or no deal. From the minute we drew up at the front entrance, it felt like Christmas had begun. Yes, roaring log fires, a quite ludicrous number of Christmas trees, life-sized gingerbread houses, beautiful wintry walks across the golf course, a big Christmas dinner-dance, macarons and chocolate fondue on tap, a very hard-working Santa and Mrs Claus, and even a Christmas stocking hung on the door of everyone’s room on Christmas morning are going to very difficult to beat.

There was obviously also far too much scope for ‘sparkly light’ photos. Apologies. The Minx-sized gingerbread house was all completely edible and smelt incredible. The view from our room. Not much snow (though enough for the Husband and the Minx to enjoy their skiing) but the golf course was still pretty. On the night before Christmas Mrs Claus read to the kids under the tree. Then we had enjoyed eiswein and macarons in bed while watching a relaxing movie. And Santa’s special stocking delivery the following day was a really magical ouch. Amazing food, gorgeous decorations and quite a good band actually for the big Christmas dinner-dance.

It was really hard to leave.

Edible Seattle January

January 6, 2014 By Paola 1 Comment

The Minx went back to school this morning, the Christmas tree will be packed away tonight, a watery sun is turning the lake to molten silver and finally I am back at my desk with two grumpy cats who hate the cold. Happy New Year to me.

And January has started in the nicest possible way with my very first editorial photographs in the January/February issue of Edible Seattle !

I can’t show you much until the issue leaves the newstands but here is a sneak peak at my new regular seasonal cake column (which will be appearing in every other issue), featuring my recipe for Spiced Parsnip Cake with Bourbon Brown Butter Frosting. I will be able to share the proper photographs and full recipe with you all here in a month or two, but in the meantime I recommend that you get the magazine if you’re in the Seattle area. Loads of fabulous seasonal recipes to be found within its pages.

I also recommended to new editor Tara that she interview the inimitable Vicky Brown of Little Brown Farm whom I met on the Whidbey Island Farm to Table Workshop. Vicky gave an inspiring and thought provoking interview, and Tara was kind enough to use a couple of the photos I took at the workshop to illustrate it. Of course it is totally impossible to go wrong with cute baby goats.

Again I’ll share the proper pics of our trip to the farm with you at a later date.

In the meantime there is nothing more exciting than seeing your work in print, here’s hoping I get more used to it in 2014!

Weekend Link Love

January 4, 2014 By Paola Leave a Comment

Here is a photo from my winter wanderings around the golf courses of Whistler and here are some more tidbits from this week’s wanderings around the Internet.

This article about focusing not on goals, but on systems is really resonating with me. I’ve been trying to improve it over the last year, but nobody in our house is good at systems and I spend SO much time looking for things or reinventing various wheels. I’ve also started watching this CreativeLIVE course from Ari Meisel on the same subject and it’s definitely furnishing plenty of food for thought so far.

At the same time, I don’t think the systems within my body are working terribly well (I’ve put most of the weight I lost recently straight back on) so this article about losing weight without dieting made a lot of sense. I think there’s a lot that needs to be fixed and I don’t want to struggle AGAINST my body anymore.

This article TOTALLY works with this year’s quest for more ‘deliciousness’ in my life.

Whereas this time capsule Paris apartment is my dream home. Surely the movie of this story must be coming out some time soon?

And finally these bodymaps of the physical manifestations of human emotions are just mindblowing. Here’s wishing you lots of happiness and love in 2014!

We’re having one last weekend of festive fun – hosting a British Christmas party and then going to see the panto today, followed by SingalongaSoundofMusic on Sunday – and then #maythelordandallthesaintsandangelsbepraised everyone goes back to school and work on Monday.

WTF Friday-Kim Kardashian’s Handbag

January 3, 2014 By Paola 9 Comments

I thought it was about time for a good old-fashioned WTF Friday, just in case the following passed you by in all the Christmas madness.

While I was thrilled to get camera equipment for Christmas, Kim Kardashian was ‘lucky’ enough to receive a specially-commissioned one-of-a-kind gift from fiance Kanye West, her very own Birkin bag, hand-desecrated er, painted, by artist George Condo! Which apparently shows a naked Kim being punched in the face by naked momager Kris Jenner. Because, of course.

If you too would like to possess such a ‘gift’ then the basic Birkin will apparently set you back a meagre $40,000, while a George Condo original recently sold for more than $1 million, which makes it all the more sad that poor Kim is having to walk round with holes in her jeans.

And now I promise never to mention Kim Kardashian on the blog again. Apologies.

Life is Delicious

January 2, 2014 By Paola 7 Comments

I’m not a huge believer in resolutions, though I do like the idea of taking stock and making ideas and plans for the year ahead at the beginning of January. In fact this year I’ve decided that my new year will start on January 6th, as we’re still in full Christmas mode here – the Minx is home from school, the Christmas decorations will stay up until Twelfth Night and we still have various gatherings and activities planned.

Detailed resolutions don’t seem to work for me but I like the idea of choosing areas of focus for the year. Last year was The Year of Photography, The Year of Getting Fit and The Year of Getting Organised and I’d say I achieved one out of three (the photography), though I did make progress on the other two (and yes I DID tidy my desk). So this year is going to be The Year of Marketing (this blog is going to be a big part of that) and the Year of Getting Fit/Getting Organised 2.0.

I also love the idea of choosing a word of the year though I’ve never done it before. This year though, my word chose me.

I hit a big birthday at the tail end of last year and decided to give myself the present of a life coach and have been working with the inimitable Susan Hyatt. Though I’m very grateful for my lovely life and know I’m so much luckier than most, I wanted help with the stress, adrenal fatigue and insomnia which laid me so low this time last year and also help with building my new photography business.

We’re just starting the process and it’s been a fascinating so far, though there is still a lot to do. But the one thing coming out loud and clear so far is that I don’t stop enough to smell the roses and just ENJOY the simple things of life. That instead of rushing around from place to place that I should take the trouble to stop and just BE.

I got back from Whistler to find that Susan had sent me a special word charm necklace that she had commissioned from her best friend, jeweler Frances Cadora from Studio Fran, who makes the most spectacular one-off hammered silver pieces (I do LOVE my friends, but how lovely to have a tame jeweller at one’s disposal).

I was a bit teeny bit sceptical about someone else choosing my word, how could they know better than me?

But Susan did. She chose the word DELICIOUS and it is perfect and wonderful and feels just right. (I also feel honoured as she runs a fabulous online program called ‘Life is Delicious’ so it feels like she is lending me HER word).

So 2014 is the year that I look for deliciousness – in food, in photography and in life in general.

Have you chosen a word of the year? Or an area of focus? Or are you sticking with old fashioned resolutions? Or are you perfect just the way you are? And if you want to commission Fran to make you your own word charm necklace for the year then I’m sure she’d be delighted to hear from you. (Oh and even her gift boxes are beautiful, handmade and covered with gold leaf).

So This Is Christmas

December 20, 2013 By Paola 1 Comment

I was planning a more thoughtful blog post this morning, but then this morning THIS happened, so the kid and I are at home and planning to go sledding and bake gingerbread cookies.

I think this will be my last blog post of the year, as we are again off to Whistler on Sunday. If you’re at all interested in our exploits I will of course be Instagramming the shit out of them. Come and be my friend here.

Have the most wonderful end of the year wherever you are, thank you for all your emails and comments and interest in 2013 and I look forward to seeing you on January 2nd.

I’m so excited by my new blog and really can’t wait to see what 2014 brings.

It was a bit of a ‘soft launch’ of the new blog this month, so I could iron out a few wrinkles. Back with a VENGEANCE in January though. You won’t know what hit you.

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