Kitchen Confidential

I had the yummiest lunch today. First an entree (which still makes me think of the main course not the appetiser) of ripe--but not too ripe--canteloupe, a dry ham like proscuitto and a balsamic dressing. My Plat du Jour was hot Black Forest Ham and seasoned potatoes covered with melted Raclette cheese. Sooo good. And that's at a little restaurant a couple of blocks from us. It is far too easy to eat well here.

The restaurant was sweet and gave us a free appetiser of oysters. I'm trying to not be squeamish and learn to eat new foods, but it pretty much tasted just like I always figured an oyster would: salty snot. Bleck. I've tried it, not gonna do it again.

I've also finally tried the Rillette du Porc that my husband just loves. It's basically melted down pork. No seasonings or smoky flavor, at least that I can detect. Pork and pork fat. My husband drools just thinking about it. I decided I'd rather have butter or olive oil or Boursin... And we tried some Pate de Campagne too. Hmm, tastes like liver, not for me either.

By the way, sorry for any mispellings above. I have basically given up trying to spell things in any language.

Now about the tv show Kitchen Confidential. It's funny, it's about food, and it has a great cast, what more do you need? Jack Bourdain is a talented chef whose addictions effectively ended his career. Too much sex, drugs, women. Four years and an AA recovery later, he's given a second chance to run Nolita, an upscale restaurant. He reassembles his old team who are used to the ways of the old Jack, not the new one.

As I said, great cast. I'm not going to name them all, but you've got Will Tippin and Xander to start off with. John Francis Daley who was the sweet scrawny geek Sam Wier on Freaks and Geeks has grown up yet is still charmingly awkward. Vaughn, Inara and Sharona all make guest appearances. John Laroquette appears in one excellent episode as Jack's mentor, who has decided to eat himself to death. Very funny.

The tv show is based on Tony Bourdain's book Kitchen Confidential, which you know I love. I'm looking at the Table of Contents right now and the chapter headers pretty much sum up the tv show: Food is Good, Food is Sex, Food is Pain. Characters and incidents from the book appear in the show and like Tony, Jack is anti-vegetarian, anti-brunch and a heavy smoker. Somehow I don't think the real Bourdain would be in AA, but that's just my guess.

I'm rather amazed at how much swearing, innuendo and sexual situations they got away with on network tv. This was a show that should have been on HBO. Probably wouldn't have gotten killed off so quickly, that's for sure.

Watch the show and let me know what you think. I think I still would list the first two seasons of Chef as my all-time favorite restaurant comedy, but it's got the huge advantage of being British. (I'm an anglophile living in the wrong country).

Time to go watch Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban with my husband. You all have a great weekend.

Place des Vosges and Onward

Will and I had another grand day out on Wednesday. We were serenaded by buskers on the metro, first an accordian player and next a duo from South America, maybe Chile or Peru. I took this photo at the Concorde metro station. The words are from a document, the Rights of Man (?), and wrap around the entire station. I love how it's just letters - no spaces or punctuation.

We started our walk in the Marais district at the Place des Vosges. Will said "take lots of photographs, make them jealous." I didn't take a picture of the park in the middle of the square, but it is surrounded by lovely brick buildings and there are lots of art galleries in the shops at ground level.


A beautiful courtyard

metal door knocker

Carved figure on a door. I'm guessing Medusa.

We had lunch from L'As du Fallafel, the Ace of Falafel.

A pretty mosaicked building across the street.

We continued walking and I was startled to see the Notre Dame Cathedral come into view across the Seine.

After a quick trip to Le Rouvray quilt shop (too dark and sky-high fabric prices by American standards) we walked closer to the cathedral.

How is this for an ominous sky with gargoyles?

An Art Nouveau monument to Sevres (the porcelain?) on a wall facing a little park.

I walked all the way home. It took quite a while and I thoroughly exhausted myself, but at I wasn't at home whining about not having my internet. I had a conversation with a boy in the lobby about his cool sock monster that his aunt had made him. It wasn't until I had made it all the way upstairs and thrown myself into the recliner that I realized the conversation had been in English. English! My husband heard rumours that there are Canadians living in the building and I think he might just be right. If I ever get desperate for conversation I just might go door to door.

Harry Potter Posters

Sorry, this is just going to be a quicky post. I had no internet yesterday, which threw me off my game. At least this time I didn't call my husband in tears and I now know how to restart the system.

These are a couple of Harry Potter movie posters that are now up in the metro. I love seeing something so familiar that's just a bit different.

This poster was down by the Louvre. I think. The Hogwarts Express is making an appearance at the Gare du Nord train station here in Paris. At least I assume that's what they mean by "visitez le train." I'm not actually geeky enough to go. Well, okay I would be if I didn't think the place was going to be mobbed.

Today I got a bit of sewing done (actually more rotary cutting) on those Orange Peel arcs that I showed you in my last post. I know how I'm going to put them together. Mostly.

Orphans for Finn

My friend Finn wrote an interesting post in response to my orphan quilt. She challenged me to make another orphan quilt, this time including leftover blocks from everything, not just my favorite colors that go so nicely together.

I can't do it, Finn. I just can't. Throw blue and white and red and white in here with these? And Christmas? Agggh. But I do have enough blocks left over that I could still do another whole orphan quilt. I can't believe how many nine-patches I have laying around.

Leftover houses and my name block that fell out of Bricks:

These heart in hand blocks are more like a UFO rather than orphans. My quilt guild friends of many years ago made them for me. And there's a crescent moon I was trying to make work.

Experimental stars and people:

Now these arcs are truly orphans. I was making the Karen Stone paper-foundation Indian Orange Peel quilt and didn't think to try putting one of the blocks together until I'd already made a LOT of the arcs. Well I HATED the process, couldn't make it work. I think I'm actually going to turn these into some interesting crumb blocks. But first I have to finish ripping all the stinking paper out.

I'm not willing to throw holiday blocks in, or any fabric that has white in it, but how would these orphans look with some refugees from the other side of the colorwheel:

That I could do, Finn.

The kittens paid lots of attention while I was throwing orphan blocks around the floor. Lily watched from the hutch. She's my supermodel:

And a photo from a bit further back. That's an Egyptian embroidery done by a woman from Moqattam there on my bulletin board.

Pokey in the orphan block box:

How I Blogger Photos

Whoops, I accidentally deleted this pic from yesterday's post. D'oh.

This is how I get my photos onto Blogger.

First I edit my photos on Picasa, one of the best tools ever. It's free and I highly recommend it.

Next, I go to File (uppermost left corner) and choose the option "Export picture to folder." It's at that point I can choose what size to make the pic. I almost always go with the 640 pixel option, but I go bigger with complicated pics I want to really emphasize. Pay attention to the location of the folder that you are sending the pics to.

HINT: if you have many photos, name them the same and follow with a number, such as: Khorsabad 1, Khorsabad 2, Khorsabad 3 - it will make uploading them in a specific order much easier.

Create a Blogger post. On the row that has the font options, go almost over all the way to the right side. See the pretty picture of a mountain scene? Click it and you'll get the Blogger Upload Image box. In the upper left corner it says "Add an Image From Your Computer" - choose the browse option and go find the folder where you exported your pics to from Picasa.

Doubleclick on the name of the photo you want and choose your layout. I always put my photos in the Center, that way I don't get text doing weird wraparound things. For image size I generally leave it on Large. Click Upload Image and it will get sent to your blog entry.

Now this Upload Image function is quirky. It works in reverse order. So for complicated posts I write down the list of the pics I want in the proper order. And then I load them starting from the bottom of the list.

Load photos one of a time in this reverse order and you can load as many pics as you want.

Not to get confusing, but there is a quicker option. After you've selected one photo, it has the option of adding another photo. I don't recommend doing more than four at a time because the capacity is limited. These photos will go in the order that you select. BUT if you then choose to do another batch, they will go on top of this one, so you really have to pay attention to what you are doing if you want them in a certain order.

Also check out Blogger's photo help.

I hope all of this didn't confuse you further. Ask questions and I will try to clarify. There are plenty of other ways to upload photos, but this is how I do it.