Mocha Cioccolata Yaya

Oh, Augustus Gloop, ruiner of childhood's peaceful sleep. Your movie demise has kept so many of the world's therapists gainfully employed since 1971.

 But I'd be lying if I didn't admit that I too crave the dark stuff.

This week especially. I'm detoxing from last week's See's and Cadbury binge, and last month's run-in with the Girl Scouts and their tasty baked goods. Newly back to my paleo ways, I find myself missing sugar a lot today. I'm all out of coconut milk so there will be no nice cup of chocolat chaud. Instead I'm mixing up a little body scrub that I use with skincare clients and rarely think to make for myself. It's a perfect treat for my intention to care for myself as thoughtfully as I try to care for others; to take the long view and do what is best for my body, not just what seems tastiest at the moment. As nice as a piece of something sweet would be, there is something more satisfying about trimming down and having beautiful skin. So tonight it's a mini spa night for me.

This scrub is so delicious and it does such gorgeous things for the skin. It should only be used for the body, not the face. I shared it on my business blog last winter and I'll share it here now with my wishes for a very delightful evening.

Rich organic oils soften while the chocolate's high antioxidant content nourishes tired, rough skin. Espresso temporarily lessens the look and feel of cellulite. And the scent? Pure heaven.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup coconut oil
1/8 cup half and half
1/8 cup coarsely-ground espresso
2 tablespoons macadamia nut oil
1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder (tonight I am substituting ground raw cacao nibs for higher antioxidant content, because I happen to have them on hand.)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (alcohol-free)
10 drops sweet orange oil

Feel free to play around with ratios. If you like a scubbier scrub, decrease your liquids and add more espresso. If you prefer something less invigorating, add less espresso and more oil. Additional macadamia nut oil is excellent for aging skin in need of rejuvenating. Less scrub and additional half and half is great for sensitive skin, or substitute with heavy cream.

Obtain all organic ingredients whenever possible. Coconut butter will be solid at room temperature, so begin by melting this, still in the bottle or jar, in a container of hot water. When softened, mix all ingredients and use right away. Cap leftovers tightly and refrigerate, using the remainder within four days.





Second Thoughts, Serge and (Last) Fin de Siècle French Rap

I may have been a touch harsh on myself and my lack of style yesterday; I am lately more of a cardigans-and-jeans type than a scrungey 15-year-old boy type, but either way it's getting old and the urge to learn how to dress myself before I am aged is getting stronger. I appreciate your feedback a lot.

Today I wrote a bit about food and drinks on my other blog. Tonight I'll prioritize sleep and leave you with a cool little video from an artist I like a lot. This is Senegal-born French rapper MC Solaar sampling the classic Serge Gainsbourg/Brigitte Bardot song Bonnie & Clyde. Youtube won't let me post that video but it is well well worth watching by clicking here. (I may be biased toward the original; my husband and I recessed to it during our wedding ceremony.)

I don't know how to dress myself

It's true. I really don't. I commented recently on the amazing Aesthetic Alterations blog that I can't rock a biker jacket because my style is too androgynous. AA rightly replied that a biker jacket should be perfect for an androgynous look. Too true, but my comment was ill thought-out: it isn't that I try to be androgynous in my dress. It's that I literally don't know how to dress myself. I have no idea what looks good on me and what doesn't. So my resulting outfits are usually a variation on v-neck, jeans and big boots theme. If I dressed in a more stylish or feminine way then a biker jacket would add an edge. As it is, I frequently feel like I walk around dressed like a lazy 15-year-old boy.

I recently commented on a French style Yahoo group I am part of that most of the usual must-have clothing lists are lost on me. I wrote, "I like a little black dress as much as anyone, but I look ridiculous in avaiator glasses, old in pearls and terrible in 'classic white shirts.' And don't get me started on trench coats. They're mad sexy on everyone else but I've never met one that didn't make me look like a double-breasted caramel puff." I should add that I am trying to understand why scarves are de rigueur for those who want to pass as stylish. I have experimented lately but I can't help but feel that scarves just nudge me closer and closer into sartorial middle age.

I's not that I don't know what suits me. It's more that I don't yet know how to dress my age. Lifestyle is a factor too. I love vintage (1940's suits my curvy frame) and I've mentioned before that I'm an aging alterna-whatsit, but dressing for the day is difficult when kid-schlepping sans auto means something I can walk in and get muddy, and something movable like upmarket yoga wear is what's appropriate for my work with skincare and massage clients. I'm also terrified of color so I wear a lot of black and grey and denim.

That all said, I did buy these fab shoes today. $15, not made of plastic, and decidedly impractical. But they aren't (too) mumsy and they aren't black and they made me as happy as a pair of shoes is likely to.

I read a lot of blogs on the subject and I am always interested in hearing how others hone their personal style. How do you know what works for you? How do you make it work for you?

La musique - AIR

A foggy, rainy Monday with breakthrough sun by day's end. It's the perfect day for a moody, atmospheric soundtrack. Do you know the amazingly talented French duo, Air?

Jean-Benoît Dunckel and Nicolas Godin play an intoxicating psychedlic retro-tinged "chillout" electronica that is some of my favorite and some of my most precious music of all time.

I've had the great pleasure of seeing them live a few times. The best was a few years ago at Oakland, CA's historic Paramount Theater. This is a classic deco building where I'd previously only seen Miles Davis (in high school; the kind of event for which I believe the phrase pearls before swine was invented).

Air are a surprisingly upbeat live act. They're funkier that you'd think by listening to their recordings and they play all kinds of interesting analog musical equipment like Wurlitzers and Moog synths to geek out on, if you swing that way. Aside from that the band has been the soundtrack to so many important things in my life. In 2001 I met the man who would become my husband. Air's 1998 album Moon Safari was the soundtrack to our courting and falling in love in taxi cabs and clubs all over a city that was riding a dot.com fairytale high about to come crashing down. In 2004 they were still playing tracks from that album in the smoky little bars of Paris when my husband proposed to me there atop la Tour Eiffel on a windy January night. In 2008 I gave birth to my son listening to that same album. (I remember being vaguely embarassed that a song called Sexy Boy played during one conversation with my midwife. But ultimately the music soothed me to a place outside of time, outside my head.) This profoundly gorgeous, otherworldly music has truly been some of the most important in my life.

I am 10 years older than when I first heard this song. I'm a mother; I've moved to the suburbs. And it's been many years since I have consistently been as optimistic and carefree as this music still reminds me, occasionally, to feel. As it begins sprinkling again I want to offer two sweet Youtube finds: the first is an odd studio video of Moon Safari's hypnotic opening track La Femme d'Argent.

The second is the same song with scenes from Antonioni's classic 1960 film Eclipse.

A lovely drink of something warm and a very lovely week to you.

greetings

Friday Wilde

 

"One's real life is so often the life that one does not lead."

Paris at Night, Patti Smith on "Love on the Left Bank"

There is some delicious stuff on Vanity Fair online this week. First, someone pointed an online group I am part of in the direction of these marvelous nighttime Paris photographs, mostly from the 1920's and '30's.




Brassaï, La Casque de Cuir, 1932. From vanityfair.com

 

Robert Doisneau, The Stairway, 1952. From vanityfair.com

 

The full set is available here.




As lovely as the nighttime photos are, it was this feature that really got my attention. A 1954 photo-novel called Love on the Left Bank by photographer Ed van der Elsken’s has just been reissued. There are some amazing photos from the book on the web site, with this intro from the tremendous Patti Smith:

 I opened it and was greeted by a dark and intriguing café scene on the grittier side of the City of Light. It was Jack Kerouac, Parisian-style. I was especially captivated by the image of a girl, the likes of whom I had never seen before. She was Vali Myers, the Beatnik gypsy mystical witch who reigned over the rain-soaked streets. With her wild hair, kohl-rimmed eyes, loose raincoat, and cigarette, she offered herself with abandon and self-containment. She mirrored what I aspired to aesthetically—to be unconscious of style, yet style itself.

Below, some shots from this book that I must get my hands on this very instant.



all images from vanityfair.com



(Seriously, where has this perfect-for-me book been all my life, and why am I just hearing about it now?) The full set is here, with more information about Patti Smith here, and more about Vali Myers here.