Wednesday's Wordle: The eternal question

Shuesday: Money Shoes

I have another pair of money shoes, but wouldn't these be good for summer/resort season?

Oh Dita

Why must you Teese us so?

Photos of the year.

Wednesday's Wordle: Twas the night

Shuesday: Matchy matchy

These would go beautifully with this little dress I picked up on sale, but I think it's a bit much. Also, in case you hadn't noticed, it's this cold out, so there will be black opaque hose, which means no open toed shoes. Which means I'm more likely to sport these.

Wrap her up

I'll take her home with me
Wrap her up, she is all I need
Wrap her up, Give her to me, wrap her up

It's coming to the end of the year, and the FUG Girls have done us the tremendous favour of addressing the sins and the stars of fashion in 2008. Lists of 10 are so convenient, no?

Briefly:

It Takes a Rare Man to Pull Off a Mustache. And if that man isn't George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Jude Law, or Robert Downey Jr. — all of whom have taken, and failed, Lip Lawns 101 — then odds are it also will not be you. Unless you are Victor Newman.

Leave the Jumpsuits to Professions That Demand Them - Blake Lively, Gwyneth Paltrow, Maggie Gyllenhaal; jumpsuits are bad, mmmkay?

But Fish Scales Can Be a Good Thing - Marion Cotillard (Warning: Attempt only under professional supervision.)

Whatever Solange Wears, Do the Opposite. (When your sister has invented a split personality just so she can wear a metallic robot hand, and you still look more cracked out than she does, something is terribly wrong.)

Don’t Fug Up Your Youth - Evan Rachel Wood, Taylor Momsen, wash your faces!

Being on a Reality Show Doesn’t Make You a Fashion Designer - Too many to count.

Shopping a Lot Doesn't Make You a Designer, Either - every other celebrity in Hollywood.

Looking Good Is Still the Best Revenge - Anne Hathaway

We Are So Over Sex and the City - SJP

The Perfect Sparkly Minidress Can Make People Forget That Time You Shaved Your Head - Ms. Spears

Wrap her up

... hold this thread as I walk away

And speaking of sweaters, there's never a bad time of year to revisit the holiday sweater phenom. A single pair for your enjoyment.

Previously in sweaters.

Better than writer's block

An early holiday gift arrived chez FG, and what a gift it is. I was watching Iron Chef America several weeks ago, and (as I recall) Chef Morimoto served sashimi on a block of Himalayan salt. I mentioned it to Someone, who did his homework, and winging its way from Portland came a very, very heavy block of salt.

Suggestions:

Arrange thinly sliced carpaccio or sashimi on a cool salt platter. Watch as the food salt-cures while at the table, gently cooking the edges and bringing on just a smidge of mineral-rich saltiness.

Place a large square tile of salt under the broiler. Wait 30 minutes, then remove the tile with a kitchen glove. Set on trivet at table, and saute fish, meats, and veggies. While cooking, your food will take on a light saltiness.

Place a large platter of Himalayan salt on the backyard grill, and plank grill a fennel-and-lemon stuffed monkfish, a lime-and-ginger marinated flank steak, or a balsamic and garlic rubbed Portobello mushroom.

Heat a large Himalayan salt platter on an outdoor gas grill (best) or an indoor gas stove (use extreme caution). Lightly butter the salt platter, toss on firm bananas, grill 20 seconds on each side. Turn off the grill (important), douse with grappa or bourbon, ignite with a long match. Blow out last flames and serve with scoop of vanilla bean ice cream.

Freeze a block or plate for two hours. Remove, and plate up scoops of ice cream or sorbet. More fun yet, warm lightly whipped sweet heavy cream, egg, honey, and aged bitters, and refrigerate. Remove the salt slab from freezer, pour mixture on it, slowly lifting with spatula, for a salt-tinged ice custard you will not soon forget.

Gravlax: thaw a filet of commercially frozen (for health reasons) salmon, roll in sugar and minced dill, arrange on a Himalayan salt plate, cover with a heavy brick of Himalayan salt, wrap in paper bag and refrigerate for three days, slice, serve with crème fraîche and melba toast or just eat.

Use it as a serving platter for butter, cheeses, or dried meats. When used as a plate for moist food such as apple slices and mozzarella, the food acquires an enhanced salt and mineral flavoring.

Place a large plate on the rack of your oven, preheat, and then bake bread, pizza, and savory pastries.

I'm looking forward to getting cooking.

Snow 2!

Previously

If you want to destroy my diet ...

bring peppermint patty brownies to work, and move me to a town that delivers 18 kinds of gourmet mac and cheese to my door in any kind of weather via an online ordering system.

I'm going to be one of those people who joins a gym in January, I can feel it. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Wednesday's Wordle: Santa Baby

Shuesday: Silver bells

It's definitely Christmas time in the city - there's even snow today!

And these look like those bows I only wish I could make on the tops of the presents.

All I want for Christmas

This is extraordinary.

But I'd settle* for a beautiful necklace from WendyB. Or this ring ...

She's even having a sale! Le sigh ...






* (ha! I should be so lucky!)

Wednesday's Wordle: Coming on Christmas

Love that song.

Shuesday: Good things come

To those who wait ...

I'd been searching and searching for /the/ perfect pair of grey shoes, and lo and behold, from the desk across the hall came these lovelies.

Hello again, four inch heels ...

In which the Misses Bennet encounter Facebook

	Charles Bingley is buying a house!
	Mrs. Bennet became a fan of Charles Bingley.
	Kitty Bennet can't stop coughing!!!
	Charles Bingley is now friends with Mr. Bennet and Sir William Lucas.
	11 of your friends are attending Assembly at Meryton.
	Fitzwilliam Darcy is dreading this evening.
	Charles Bingley and Jane Bennet are now friends.
	Elizabeth Bennet is not handsome enough to tempt a certain gentleman. Ha!
	Mrs. Bennet had a most delightful evening!
	Mr. Bennet wishes that Mr. Bingley had sprained his ankle in the first dance.
	Elizabeth Bennet promises never to dance with Mr. Darcy.
	Fitzwilliam Darcy became a fan of Fine Eyes.
	Caroline Bingley is all astonishment.
	Lydia Bennet became a fan of Officers.
	Kitty Bennet became a fan of Officers.

For more, Austenbook.

See also, Hamlet.

This is going to hurt like hell

I was talking to a friend last week, who's super news-savvy, but who hadn't heard of the recent acid attack on school-bound girls in Afghanistan. (I'm not sure how to tag this post, exactly, but please consider yourself warned before you read this article - the photo and the text are disturbing.)

After the divorce was final, Mr. Jamsheed came to say goodbye to the children, and then pulled out a bottle and poured acid on his wife’s face, according to her account and that of their son. (...) Bangladesh has imposed controls on acid sales to curb such attacks, but otherwise it is fairly easy in Asia to walk into a shop and buy sulfuric or hydrochloric acid suitable for destroying a human face.

Since 1994, Ms. Bukhari has documented 7,800 cases of women who were deliberately burned, scalded or subjected to acid attacks, just in the Islamabad area. In only 2 percent of those cases was anyone convicted.

To help, visit Progressive Women's Association.

Wednesday's Wordle: You think?

It looks so much kinder and friendlier in a puffy font with pretty colours, doesn't it?

Wordle

Shuesday: Holiday!

Ooh, I'm wearing these at the cocktail party I'm hosting!

Shopaholic: Part Two

Tis the season when the shopping guides come calling, and this year, the "Under $100" category's going to wear itself out. My own selections:

• For your local FG, dessert plates just as fashionable and fabulous as she is. Plus, can't you just see a molten chocolate lava cake melting all over them?
• Gold rococo dolphin place card holders - they're sweet! - although you may have to send me to the Met to get them for you, as they are, unfathomably, not online. Because people want to be told where to sit, damnit.
• For the person you've been wanting to provoke into conversation beyond small talk all year, Kara Walker's book, After the Deluge.
• For that certain someone whose phone is always under charged, leaving you hanging with half the party address, or who can never find their various devices, a compact do everything charging station is a gift for you and for them.
• For that adorable person who thinks they are the first person to discover Brooklyn, art honoring their choice of borough. Or a pendant in the shape of the Brooklyn Bridge.
• Amazon also always has stacks of coffee table books, as does the Met. If you don't know your friends well enough to know their style or favourite artist, shame on you. My fav local chef recommended Modern Glamour, by Kelly Wearstler, for me, and he has yet to grace me with his presence in my tiny kitchen. (I can't say that I love what she does to her hair, but I did love what she did to the Viceroy Palm Springs ...)