Happy birthday to the second pair of intrepid feet in these pictures!
The Getty Villa, Malibu
Roadtrip along U.S. Highway 1
At the edge of a cliff, Big Sur, CA
Braving the snow to see fall colors, Eastern Sierras, CA
On a platform around a pine tree 100+ feet above the air, zip-lining gear attached
Waiting in line for the iPad, Century City Apple store, Los Angeles
Morton Peak, San Bernardino Mountains
For the craftiest, coolest geek I know, who walks the world with me one adventurous step at a time, may all you wish for in the universe come true. Happy, happy birthday!
You guys, remember my friend Sara’s wedding in Santa Barbara that we went to in the summer? It’s been featured on the wedding blog Style Me Pretty! All the beautiful details that Sara planned for came together with help from their wedding planner Joie de Vivre. And all these lovely photos by Ian Grant make my heart sing. That cake! I still dream about how pretty it was.
I know for a fact that Sara put a lot into making her big day a wonderful experience for us, too, down to the votive candleholder favors made by her dad. Yes, as in MADE, because he’s an actual potter in Hawaii, with a kiln and all. He even made me the cake stand I used in this post, and I only use it for very special occasions.
And, one last story. That beautiful cake in the first photo? Well, that sugar peony on the second tier had had ENOUGH of being ignored off to the side and decided to fall. I was actually walking toward it to take a closer look when it slid down the side of the cake. HORRORS! There was chocolate cake under the frosting, so you could see brown cake through a small gash that the fallen flower had made. I grabbed the closest butter knife and fixed it ever so gingerly, repositioning the flower and working the buttercream in strokes as close to how the cake was originally decorated. I have to say, I didn’t do a bad job retouching! Sara sent me this photo today of me working the buttercream, and it made me laugh. The camera caught my “Gently…gentlyyyyyy…” face.
Congratulations again, Sara! For the beautiful wedding that we’re now re-living through these lovely photos, and for the kick-a** mention on SMP.
The smell of good bread baking, like the sound of lightly flowing water, is indescribable in its evocation of innocence and delight…
…[Breadmaking is] one of those almost hypnotic businesses, like a dance from some ancient ceremony. It leaves you filled with one of the world’s sweetest smells… there is no chiropractic treatment, no yoga exercise, no hour of meditation in a music-throbbing chapel that will leave you emptier of bad thoughts than this homely ceremony of making bread.
Upon the insistence of a friend who loves going to independent films, this weekend we saw Kings of Pastry, a documentary about the three-day Meilleurs Ouvriers de France competition.
This is the Olympics of Pastry Arts in France, three rigorous days of sugar sculpting, cake decorating and buttercream piping like your life depended on it. It takes place every four years, and every pastry chef dreams of earning the right to be called “One of the Best Workers of France,” and wear the coveted tri-colored collar that’s the mark of a true artisan.
Not surprisingly, I had a lot of fun watching the movie. I marveled at the artistry that went into each of the showpieces, gasped when sugar towers cracked and teared up when one of the contestants felt like he couldn’t go on. For a foodie like me, it was a treat for the eyes and the imagination.
Having said that, I left the movie with two questions. The first: Where are the women? All the chefs were male, and I imagine a woman’s touch would fare well in the delicate chocolate swirls and sugar flower petals that the competitors have to work with.
Apparently, there are different categories for the competition, and in Pastry Arts, no woman has ever competed. The only woman who has ever won was for the Hot Food category, but none ever in Pastry Arts. This is also probably because that field in the French culinary world is dominated by men who have come from a families of male bakers. How sad! I’d like to think that in the coming years, the competition will start to see more women.
The other question I had was, “Why do most of the designs look, er, old?” Don’t get me wrong, each and every one was an exquisite work of art. But I had a feeling that the competition needs a dash of modernism. But maybe that’s just me. Perhaps the competition has a traditional aesthetic that it aspires to keep.
J. | 
11 21st, 2010| 
Happy, happy birthday!
