Dame Edith Sitwell on Cowslip Cream

a young Sitwell photographed by Beaton

in 1952 Dame Edith Sitwell in her "unpopular electric eel in a pool of catfish" way that only she could do- gathered old English receipts that used wild flowers.

Here from her A BOOK OF FLOWERS (1952)

Cowslip CREAM

"take the Cowslips when they are green and in Blossom, and bruise them in a mortar, and to a good handful or two so done put a quart of Cream and boil it up gently with them. Put in a blade of Mace, season with fine sugar and Orange-Flower water. Strain it and draw it up with the yolks of two or three Eggs, and clip off the tops of a handful of the Flowers and draw up with it and dish as you please." ~ Joseph Cooper (cook to Charles I) The Art of Cookery, 1654

there's more...

the cowslip

and from Cooper again

"Take two ounces of Syrup of Cowslips, and boil up in your Cream, and season it as before; thicken it with the Yolks of three or four Eggs, and put in two ounces of Candy's Cowslips when you draw it up; dish it in basons and glasses, and strew over some Candy'd Cowslips.

there's more...

from Mrs Mary Eales-confectioner to Queen Anne

CANDY Cowslips or any Flowers or Greens in Bunches~ from The Accomplish'd Lady's Delight, 1719

Steep your Gum Arabic in Water, wet the flowers with it and shake them in a cloth that they may be dry, then dip them in your sifted Sugar, and hang them on a String tied across a chimney that has a Fire in it they must hang two or three days til the Flowers are quite dry.

louderbach

louderbach - notes

Troy Pierce's new project out on M_nus. Techno master gets bent sinister, not unlike Brinkmann's when horses die: early-industrial cemetery jams. Killer stuff and killer cover, imagine vampires at the disco, like Bauhaus in the Hunger.

floating points - love me like this

floating points - love me like this

absolutely gorgeous downtempo lazer-funk, a housed-up remix of an 1983 original. recalls the trippy erotic depths of cole medina's beegees re-edit from last year. seriously killer tune. get busy with it.

channeling Audrey again

Carla Bruni- Sarkozy channeling Audrey Hepburn's classic Givenchy Look in Spain, done beautifully.

the up swept chignon the sash, sans tiara

Hepburn-more royal than the Royals except perhaps Bruni and Grace Kelly, Her Serene Highness Princess of Monaco.

Hepburn in Roman Holiday

Princess Grace

Hollywood Royalty

Back 2 da city

Headed off to a party called 'Back 2 da city' in Newtown Johannesburg, on Monday the 27th April which was freedom day and a public holiday. Tons of Hip-Hop and fashion kids from around Johannesburg came together and we documented it.

'Take Away' the group.

Catarina from Skip & Die our dutch musical friends at Go-Go Bar. (http://www.myspace.com/skipndie)

Lolo Veleko photographer extraordinaire.

DJ KenZhero (http://www.myspace.com/partypeoplesa)

Dylan Culhane (Writer & the new editor of Vice South Africa)

One of the Smarteez.

Another one of the Smarteez.

A lekker Wors.

Actress Masello Motana.

King T.

DRESS& ROOM

Cool
elegant
historical
MODERN

Balenciaga
the fall collection by Nicolas Ghesquière
describes as" Parisian"

shown at the Hotel de Crillon

makes
me
think
of
rooms
like
this one
by
VEERE GRENNEY


sheer
powder pink
flesh
nude

fog
lilac
glass

or
these
by
BILL SOFIELD
sleek
secret

sophisticated
confident

see two great posts on:
Grenney(click) from Cote De Texas
Sofield(click) from Mrs. Blandings

Balenciaga photographs Marcio Madeira
Grenney photographs Grenney Design website &
Fritz vonder Schulenburg
Sofield photographs by Simon Upton

Vaux Le Vicomte

Roman Bust

Vaux Le Vicomte

Ceiling bathroom

Nicolas Fouquet's bed

Madame Fouquet's chambers

Madame Fouquet's chambers

Bust of Architect Le Brun

Madame Fouquet's chambers

Heavenly gardens

If there was every an unlucky person in French history, Nicolas Fouquet could almost take the prize. When he celebrated the finishing of his splendid chateau on the outskirts of Paris, he invited Henri XIV and his subjects. The chateau had been designed by Louis Le Vau, the gardens had been beautifully laid out by Le Notre and the painter Charles Le Brun was called.

Here he gathered the rarest manuscripts, paintings, jewels and antiques in profusion, and above all surrounded himself with artists and authors. They say that in Vaux Le Vicomte the first dining room in the sense as we know it today was created.

In August 1661, Fouquet threw a party that rivalled the most magnificent parties in French history, at which Moliere's Les Fâcheux was produced for the first time. The splendour of the entertainment and Fouquet's beautiful Chateau sealed his fate. Jealous with rage, that he dared to have a home more beautiful than his, Henri XIV set about destroying Fouquet and building Versailles. Henri XIV called all the same three who designed Vaux Le Vicomte to make his castle the biggest and the best.

Three weeks after Fouquet's party the king took Fouquet to Nantes and had him arrested by a captain of musketeers. The trial lasted almost three years, and its violation of the forms of justice is still the subject of frequent monographs by members of the French bar. Public sympathy was strongly with Fouquet, and La Fontaine, Madame de Sevigne and many others wrote on his behalf; but when Fouquet was sentenced to banishment, the king, disappointed, commuted the sentence to imprisonment for life. He was sent at the beginning of 1665 to the fortress of Pignerol, where, according to official records, he died 19 years later.

Fouquet wrote at Pignerol:

I loved my elegant chateau, the graceful arabesques of my parterre,

my sheets and falls of water. I took so much trouble to acquire it.

Now I will never see it again.

I'll never see my orange trees...