teri versus the pate

Yesterday afternoon was...interesting.

Since I'm not a turkey person, I thought I'd indulge in Thanksgiving goodies I actually liked.

And you know that means a Dangerously Delicious cherry pie. Worth all the hype, I tell you. This pie defies hyperbole.

But then I got this brilliant idea...to grab some of Morris Martick's famous French country pate. Thus the adventures began.

• bribe boss to cut out of work early with me with promise of lunch
• attempt to locate Martick the pate guy....thwarted initially, no pickup of phone or answering of doorbell as previously agreed upon
  
• almost get mugged, for reals....eek
• get in touch with Martick...my attempts are not successful
  
• sadly give up for own safety
• take boss to lunch, obsessively worry about lack of pate
• pick up my pre-ordered DD cherry pie...easy peasy (looks like they make out like bandits with Thanksgiving orders)
• one last ditch phone call to Martick.....and he picks up!
• speed-racer dash back to the gnarly part of Baltimore
• finally pick up precious, precious pate from grumpy-yet-lovable Martick
• give half of pate to fellow food-loving friend Noel (we went in on it together - it's a lot of pate)

(pate shown at right in tin foil; as it turns out, a slab of various meats is not especially appetizing until you slice it thinly, place it on a plate and surround it with slices of french bread. Cornichons are encouraged but not required.)


A Thanksgiving feast with a start and finish that I can be proud of providing.

My Sorrow, when she's here with me,
Thinks these dark days of autumn rain
Are beautiful as days can be;
She loves the bare, the withered tree;
She walks the sodden pasture lane.
Her pleasure will not let me stay.
She talks and I am fain to list:
She's glad the birds are gone away,
She's glad her simple worsted gray
Is silver now with clinging mist.
The desolate, deserted trees,
The faded earth, the heavy sky,
The beauties she so truly sees,
She thinks I have no eye for these,
And vexes me for reason why.
Not yesterday I learned to know
The love of bare November days
Before the coming of the snow,
But it were vain to tell her so,
And they are better for her praise.

-Robert Frost

Have you seen Zadie Smith's worthwhile piece for the New York Review of Books?


Versus


Interesting reading.

"The color of truth is gray. "

-Andre Gide

My New Yorker subscription is unfortunately defunct but I had to buy this issue when I was passing through the train station.

Courtesy of the very talented (and Massachusetts-dwelling!) Bob Staake.

It's been wet and rainy, and so I really want wellies.

According to this NYT article, I'm not alone - recessionistas are flocking to sturdy, proven goods right now. Maybe it's the hardy New England Damn Yankee in me but I feel comforted by things that other people have for ~20 years.

Here's my top 3, of the Hunter boot variety:


Aubergine

Black

Midnight Sparkle

Patent Pending

More posters to fall for...

Forget the dresses....there was history to be made.

New pretty dresses from Anthropologie:











The 3rd and the 5th are my favorites - of course.

October 2008 - the books.

The Omnivore's Dilemma, Michel Pollan

The Tapestries, Kien Nguyen

How Proust Can Change Your Life: Not a Novel, Alan de Botton

Perfumes: The Guide, Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez

Austerlitz, W.G. Sebald

The Brief Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz

Consider the Lobster and other essays, David Foster Wallace

Appropriate for Halloween:

I'll definitely be wanting to see this:

As always (but perhaps especially now), this is the place to be for all your insanity/drunken debauchery needs.

Happy Halloween!

Aren't these just gorgeous?


Laboradite bookend


Agate cheese plates (the petrified wood version is quite nice, too.)

Jayson Home & Garden is a dangerous website.

I'd been thinking about attending since the first time I'd heard of it. Before the exhibit closed (ahem, today) I knew I had to see it for myself.

Koons on the Roof:







It was totally worth it.

This past weekend, I did.

With the help of my friends.

Thank you so much.

it's never too late for greatness.

New Yorker article here.

field museum sue

Perhaps my first purchase from 20x200.

inspiration

The most beautiful dining room...

Just done in aubergine, instead.

I've become that person...

...the one that always has earplugs in their pocket en route to a show.

At least I'm about to. I was seriously regretting not having any at the Nick Cave show Sunday night.

I suppose it had to happen at some point.

One more book ...

From the mid-sixties, I'd guess - another of my favorite Bostonians.

An excerpt from the introduction (staying as true to the written word as possible):

Miracles are to come. With you I leave a remembrance of miracles:they are by somebody who can love and who shall be continually reborn,a human being;somebody who said to those near him, when his fingers would not hold a brush "tie it into my hand"-

nothing proving or sick or partial. Nothing false,nothing difficult or easy or small or colossal. Nothing ordinary or extraordinary,nothing emptied or filled,real or unreal;nothing feeble and known or clumsy and guessed. Everywhere tints childrening,innocent spontaneous,true.[...] Nothing believed or doubted;brain over heart, surface:nowhere hating or to fear;shadow,mind without soul. Only how measureless cool flames of making; only each other building always distinct selves of mutual entirely opening; only alive. Never the murdered finalities of wherewhen and yesno,impotent mindgames of wrongright and rightwrong;never to gain or pause,never the soft adventure of undoom,greedy anguishes and cringing ecstasies of in-existence;never to rest and never to have:only to grow.

Always the beautiful answer who asks a more beautiful question