Northern Exposure

We recently rented a 17th century manor house in Scotland that appeared so forbidding as we drove up to it that we wouldn't have blinked twice if the ghost of William Wallace had welcomed us at the front door.  

But inside, it was a different story.  Obviously, the unrelentingly cold weather outside had driven generations of previous owners toward a fierce love of color in their interiors.  While my son and his little friends ran around looking photogenic, I spent most of my time aiming my camera down at the floor and trying to keep everyone's feet out of the way.  The rugs, oh, the rugs!  They were tattered and threadbare and pure perfection.  

And despite the ancestral portraits of grim matrons in mourning wear and neck ruffs gazing disapprovingly down at me...

...I knew that anyone who had chosen this fiery palette had to have had some fire burning within as well.  A postscript:  When I went through my photos later, I found them dotted with small apparitions.  Even now, I shudder.

(All photos taken at Gargunnock House, Scotland)

Sheepish

I just love them.  Fluffy little white things, like pillows scattered on a landscape.  If I ever become landed gentry, I want my two mile long driveway to be dotted with them.

And I love HER.  Rhoda Birley, fearless eccentric and style maven extraordinaire.  Look at her gardening outfit.  Just look at it.  Fabulous.  If you stop by my house on a weekend, yell at me if I'm in the back garden and not wearing some getup like this.

And I can't get enough of England in all its shapes and forms.  The patchwork seams of the countryside have always held a special allure for me.

Now that you've seen my inspirations, this is my foyer.  Can you spot the influences?

Sunday Lunch

The Divine Italian made this lunch for me and our fabulous friend Lydia yesterday.  Roasted kombucha squash with a parsley salad tossed in vinaigrette dressing, sprinkled on top with toasted pepitas.  He also made a heaping pot of moules mariniere, but we devoured them too quickly for me to take a picture of them.  Sorry.

I think I'm becoming a squash addict.  Piero roasted them with the skins on this time (he saw Jamie Oliver do it) and they turned out just that perfect combination of melt-in-your-mouth and crispy.  Thank God it was healthy, is all I can say, because I could not stop myself.  And speaking as someone who really enjoys her crunch factor, the toasted pumpkin seeds gave me the same satisfaction that a huge hunk of La Brea Bakery baguette would have done (but which I'm forbidden to eat at the present time).

Move over, Angelina!

Tattoo this name on your brain:  Aimee Crocker.  Or, as she liked to be called, "Princess Galitzine"  (the title was a remnant of a marriage to a Hungarian royal).   Seriously, this woman lived a life that makes Angelina Jolie's look like a convent girl's.   Born into luxury in 1900's San Francisco, she defied her parents, abandoned all conventions, bought a steamer ship and set east for a lifetime of adventure.  And what an adventure it was.  

Having always felt the pull of the Orient, she knew once she set sail that the Far East was the only place for her.  She tells of living in the harem of an Indian Rajah, of being the sex slave and house prisoner of an Shanghai aristocrat, and of being abducted by a Javanese prince and barely escaping the jungle alive.  

And it's not just she who is ready to toss her knickers at a moment's notice.  Apparently, unchecked hormones were the order of the day.  In India, she meets a prim young girl who ditches her stiff English chaperone for a local Bombay shop owner and spends the rest of her life in blissful (and satisfied) purdah.  Another acquaintance, a spinster and governess to two bratty American children, abandons her charges for a Japanese rickshaw runner.  As Aimee insightfully puts it, "The fact is that her imagination and her normal desires had been struggling against her Puritanical training, and finally, under the influence and freedom and trance of the East, she had succumbed."

But that's just the tip of the iceberg.  Aimee has an affair with a python (yes, that's what I said) and experiences "a strange, tickling sensation that was...very enjoyable."

She meets up with two American expatriate women in Shanghai who promise her an experience she'll never be able to describe, and drive her to a mysterious house where she experiences wild, unspeakable stirrings from the sounds of a violin.

She has a glittering candlelit dinner with two lipstick lesbians in a remote country house in India on the last night of their lives.  The next morning, they are found murdered in their bed.

She finds herself without funds in Europe at the outbreak of WWI, travels steerage on a ship from Naples to New York and is proposed to by an Italian fruit vendor.   (She declines, gracefully.)

And there's so, so much more.  Through it all, she remains eager, unflappable and unrepentant. Hence the title, "And I'd Do It Again."

Why hasn't her life been turned into a movie yet? 

Revolt. Read.

If you live in Los Angeles, get in your car and head to 830 North Highland (between Melrose and Santa Monica) NOW.   Berkelouw Books is tragically going out of business and their ENTIRE inventory is 50% off.  Henry Berkelouw, the ever-so-charming owner, has amassed a wonderful and highly idiosyncratic library of antiquarian books, collectibles and sought-after tomes.  I discovered it two weeks ago and have been back five times already.  Below are some of my fabulous (and highly reasonable) finds:

I can't wait to dig into the Cecil Beaton one...I've read three other books by him and have become slightly obsessed with his glamorous life and bitchy commentaries about all the luminaries he encountered.  

The Harold Nicolson book was an exciting find because he was married to Vita Sackville West, author of "The Edwardians" and "All Passion Spent" and one-time lover of Virginia Woolf.  Their son Nigel Nicolson's marvelous account of his parents' enduring relationship, "Portrait of a Marriage" is one of my favorite biographies ever, but until now Harold has always been a bit of a cipher.

"A Hermit in the Himalayas" looks like a breezy read, and as I'm going back to northern India next month, it will feel especially relevant.

And as for "Vulgarity in Literature", what is there NOT to love?!  The title, the beautifully illustrated cover, and of course, the prose of the great man himself.   I consider it a capital find.

But the piece de resistance of my treasure-hunting at Berkelouw Books will have to be saved until my next post.  A book so titillating, so compulsively readable, that I finished it in a single evening and haven't been able to get the authoress out of my head since....

Hitting the Spot

We had a little furnace situation over the holidays:  it stopped working.  Now we live in Los Angeles, so I'm not suggesting we were in a dire situation or anything, but it WAS in the 30's and 40's, and maybe my blood's gotten thinner, but it was c-o-l-d.  We turned on the Aga oven, had a constant fire going and I drank copious cups of Earl Grey tea, but nothing seemed to do the trick until The Divine Italian whipped up lunch for me (pictured above).  Nothing fancy, just some homemade tomato soup with grilled cheese soldiers, but it warmed me to the absolute core for the first time in three days.  Molto grazie.

Good Times

Usually we travel over Christmas.  We overpack our suitcases, stop off briefly in frigid Michigan to see my family and pick up a rotovirus or two, then usually keep flying east until we land somewhere in equally chilly Europe.  We can always count on at least one delayed flight, lost luggage somewhere along the way, and severe jet lag which ends the day before we return home.  Fun.

This year, we decided to stay home.  But everything was so relaxing and calm that I decided I didn't have enough chaos in my life.  So I invited the neighborhood over for a night of holiday caroling.  That day, Piero and Luca watched "Fred Claus" while I decorated the tree and followed their directives on where to hang the ornaments.

It was a small tree.  I'm not a huge Christmas person anymore (maybe because I'm not a huge Christian anymore; my travels east have led me on a new path) so I had to run out to Pier One at the last minute and buy some red and gold balls.  I threw a single strand of lights on it and called it a day.
Luca was psyched.  Piero was more gripped by the antics of Vince Vaughn.
Then I got a whole tableful of sugar ready for the kids.  The game plan was we'd practice our songs once here and then they could all fill up a goody bag of treats and we'd hit the streets.  I had a cauldron of mulled wine for the adults and one of hot chocolate for the kids -- you know, just in case they didn't have enough sugar.
Look at those little cherubs.  Lovely, lovely little creatures, each and every one.  

Five minutes after this photo was taken, their blood sugar soared through the chimney and all hell broke loose.  I take full and total responsibility.  Next year, I'll be stocking the table with low-glycemic foods like chickpeas, celery, bulgur and hummus.