Tomorrow we get ready for Thanksgiving, and the day after we will pretty much plan the day around the preparation and consumption of food.
I love the city of New Orleans. I love the architecture, I love the culture, I love the history and I love the food. This is the only place I've been that felt familiar to me in so many ways..immediately familiar as does Paris.When people in New Orleans talk about going 'home', they are referring to Paris, France.It's the oddest thing... and yet it feels perfectly natural that they should do so. What New Orleans has though..in spades i s a sensibility towards hospitality that Paris does not. And hospitality is so much about food. The French enjoy the act of perfecting a compositon that is flavours and textures... but the attitude is that you HAVE to enjoy it.Much more autocratic than hospitable.
I am of Greek background where from hospitality and food go hand in hand- bred into your bones from birth.That is why New Orleans culture makes sense to me. I love the combination of French sensibility and southern hospitality; the attention to detail with every nuance that is French, and the wonderful, warm, welcoming spirit that thrives in Louisiana. Greeks and those from New Orleans don't compete in the kitchen to out do one another in an egocentric battle to see who's best... they compete to see who will satisfy their guests the most! AND I get that. I cook to please others. I cook for myself because the creative blend of textures and flavours in a dish are an immediate , and incredibly creative outlet... but I also cook because I know the pleasure it will bring to those that can share in what I've made. I create spaces, artifacts and compositions with words.... but the cooking affects the senses in a way that is far more sensuous. People often comment upon the visceral affect of my design upon them; but the cooking is about taste, smell and the company we share when having a meal. These are such different ways to enjoy ourselves than the tactile, and visual effects of spatial, plastic and literary creations.
Bon apetit le jour de Thanksgiving.
Mi casa es su casa.
Be well
Ke na pis efharisto ya tin kali zoe
I love the city of New Orleans. I love the architecture, I love the culture, I love the history and I love the food. This is the only place I've been that felt familiar to me in so many ways..immediately familiar as does Paris.When people in New Orleans talk about going 'home', they are referring to Paris, France.It's the oddest thing... and yet it feels perfectly natural that they should do so. What New Orleans has though..in spades i s a sensibility towards hospitality that Paris does not. And hospitality is so much about food. The French enjoy the act of perfecting a compositon that is flavours and textures... but the attitude is that you HAVE to enjoy it.Much more autocratic than hospitable.
I am of Greek background where from hospitality and food go hand in hand- bred into your bones from birth.That is why New Orleans culture makes sense to me. I love the combination of French sensibility and southern hospitality; the attention to detail with every nuance that is French, and the wonderful, warm, welcoming spirit that thrives in Louisiana. Greeks and those from New Orleans don't compete in the kitchen to out do one another in an egocentric battle to see who's best... they compete to see who will satisfy their guests the most! AND I get that. I cook to please others. I cook for myself because the creative blend of textures and flavours in a dish are an immediate , and incredibly creative outlet... but I also cook because I know the pleasure it will bring to those that can share in what I've made. I create spaces, artifacts and compositions with words.... but the cooking affects the senses in a way that is far more sensuous. People often comment upon the visceral affect of my design upon them; but the cooking is about taste, smell and the company we share when having a meal. These are such different ways to enjoy ourselves than the tactile, and visual effects of spatial, plastic and literary creations.
Bon apetit le jour de Thanksgiving.
Mi casa es su casa.
Be well
Ke na pis efharisto ya tin kali zoe
WHO are these guys?
Soo... as I enter year two of the dating scene... never really having 'dated' before since I married young and took a couple of years since the divorce to get my feet under me... I am constantly AMAZED by some men's skewed sense of reality... how they arrive at their misperceptions truly baffles me.
I have come to accept that I am fortunate to have choices... men seem to be eager to meet and interact with me. Following that though..... their expectations are sometimes a bit crazy!
I was introduced to an older man ( and I mean OLDER...in his eighties with replaced knees and arthritis) last night... a cultured, travelled gentleman that I thought would be a nice neighbour to hang out with. He took my casual invitation to meet up while we were both in New York in December to be an time exclusive committment to get better acquainted.'wink,wink'.. HOW THE H.... did he come to that conclusion from..." I'll be there at the same time, I would like to introduce you to a couple of my friends"...??!!!!
Then there was the date last week, who assumed we were an item , introducing me as his partner, when we had only just met.He got ditched in a nano second as I avoided him peeing on my leg.
Another incident was the man whom I met for drinks...who proceeded to tell me that living on the other side of town was going to be an inconvenience as I was now in a relationship with him... this was after meeting him for the first time with no intermediary conversations and a five minute acquaintance....and he wasn't joking. I thanked him for the drink, and left. Is this tactic called, "Assuming the sale?"
AND the list goes on... some more offensive then others... some truly scary, and a very few that are charming.The truth is... people really have NO idea what the dating world reality is like for an attractive woman who is open and honest... and a little inexperienced.
These are tough times. Everywhere I go around the country it is the same conversation whether from a clerk in a store, some casual conversation that I overhear, or the conversation on a daily basis between friends and family.
Money and weather... that's about how far the conversation extends, even though we know we need more than that to be happy. Everyone who has made those comments has a roof over their heads and something to eat.It isn't THAT bad- yet love, friendship, health don't get the first chance at sharing their condition with others... usually not.
I think that if we start to share what we really care about in our HEARTS the most... the mentality about many, many things... will change.
When you enter my showroom, you step over an inscprition running on the floor like a ribbon over the threshold which reads," Home is where your story begins."
I put it there, so that people HAD to see it when they stepped into my space....it was a guidline for them... a notice that they were walking into MY story.But I also put it there as both reminder and challenge; a challenge to be aware that they had their own story too, and that their spaces were story board that was their history, their present, their past and a psychological blue print.
I have friend whose 'home' fascinates me.I would love to do an interview with him, because his place is a space to eat and sleep in.... their is no blueprint, except to see that his life is outside those walls ... his life is his work. I have another friend who lives off of the generosity of others... he hasn't had a place of his own for a couple of years, maybe more- and lives like a gypsy contributing for expenses, but with nothing of his own except his suitcase... sort of a luxury homeless. It made me upset when he told me how he chose to live like that."But how do you regroup? When do you really relax, and feel safe and protected? When are you really at rest?"
I think of people in cases of poverty... where home is just shelter- cardboard or a leafy bush, or the doorway of a building for the night... and how DIFFERENT it is for me.
I create things, and things for spaces that people live in and inhabit.... that have stuff. And their stuff means a lot to them. And thieir stuff says a lot about them. A LOT.
What they like, how well off they are, where they've been, even things like, if they are artistic, kind, generous, freindly, organized, messy, thoughtful. It's why we walk into a person's home with the gaze of the voyeur... what will we know that we didn't know before... about them... about their lives and even about their soul.
In the movie, "The Soloist" we see how this homeless man is SO attached to his things, that he carts them around in a shopping cart. We see "them"... grocery bags hanging from their wrists as they walk from place to place and we see them carrying glossy shopping bags to take 'home' where they will put things way... in their 'place.'
And what do we all have in common? Whether we live in a mansion, the back of an eighteen wheeler, out of a suitcase or under a door lintel? What we each have in common is a history and a story that is unique and not so unique... that is who we are and how we got where we are... an accident of birth and circumstance, luck and fortune, drive and determination or loss and pain...we've all been ther, and "Home" in your head, heart or space... is where your story begins.
I put it there, so that people HAD to see it when they stepped into my space....it was a guidline for them... a notice that they were walking into MY story.But I also put it there as both reminder and challenge; a challenge to be aware that they had their own story too, and that their spaces were story board that was their history, their present, their past and a psychological blue print.
I have friend whose 'home' fascinates me.I would love to do an interview with him, because his place is a space to eat and sleep in.... their is no blueprint, except to see that his life is outside those walls ... his life is his work. I have another friend who lives off of the generosity of others... he hasn't had a place of his own for a couple of years, maybe more- and lives like a gypsy contributing for expenses, but with nothing of his own except his suitcase... sort of a luxury homeless. It made me upset when he told me how he chose to live like that."But how do you regroup? When do you really relax, and feel safe and protected? When are you really at rest?"
I think of people in cases of poverty... where home is just shelter- cardboard or a leafy bush, or the doorway of a building for the night... and how DIFFERENT it is for me.
I create things, and things for spaces that people live in and inhabit.... that have stuff. And their stuff means a lot to them. And thieir stuff says a lot about them. A LOT.
What they like, how well off they are, where they've been, even things like, if they are artistic, kind, generous, freindly, organized, messy, thoughtful. It's why we walk into a person's home with the gaze of the voyeur... what will we know that we didn't know before... about them... about their lives and even about their soul.
In the movie, "The Soloist" we see how this homeless man is SO attached to his things, that he carts them around in a shopping cart. We see "them"... grocery bags hanging from their wrists as they walk from place to place and we see them carrying glossy shopping bags to take 'home' where they will put things way... in their 'place.'
And what do we all have in common? Whether we live in a mansion, the back of an eighteen wheeler, out of a suitcase or under a door lintel? What we each have in common is a history and a story that is unique and not so unique... that is who we are and how we got where we are... an accident of birth and circumstance, luck and fortune, drive and determination or loss and pain...we've all been ther, and "Home" in your head, heart or space... is where your story begins.