White Sand

New Blog

2009-07-07T03:04:00.000-07:00

Dear readers,

Come see my new blog Le Geek C'est Chic at wordpress.

Yours truly

Easy Peasy Cous Cous

2009-03-11T02:38:00.000-07:00

by special request for MaBelle:

Pine Nut and Raisin Cous Cous

serves 4

2 cups dry cous cous

1/2 stick of butter

1/4 cup raisins

1/4 cup pine nuts

1 large onion

3-4 cups broth or stock

Bring broth or stock to a boil. Immediately toss in the cous cous and raisins. Cover and let sit for 15 minutes. In the fratempo (meantime), toast the pine nuts in the oven or on a pan and finely chop and brown the onions. Add pine nuts, onions, and butter to the couscous, and fluff with a fork. Goes well with piping hot, sweet mint tea.

Gusto Vinoteca

2009-02-24T14:13:00.001-08:00

Bold. Sophisticated. Subtly sweet. Unusually mature and gets better with age. Lasting, warm, berry kiss. Perfetto.

Grinewald

2009-02-24T14:02:00.000-08:00

White velvet

Barthelona

2009-01-20T15:17:00.000-08:00

December floods

2009-01-20T15:13:00.000-08:00

G e n i a l e.

2008-11-20T05:57:00.000-08:00

Art Basel 2009 beach towels benefitting the Art Production Foundation. Genius. Ed Ruscha available here

Room with a view

2008-11-03T08:05:00.000-08:00

Celebration of the African congregation at the Chiesa di San Salvatore in Campo

Recent bouquets

2008-10-29T08:02:00.001-07:00

The last two bouquets from the flower lady who has the most adorable bassotto nano (dacshund) in Rome:

They smell incredible.

Very delicate and pretty, picked out by Macu

Picasso Museum, Antibes

2008-10-29T07:43:00.000-07:00

Joie de vivre

Pecheur oisif

Couteau, oursins, lampe

Striped shirts and sea urchins...of whom could these last two remind me?

Non si fa

2008-10-23T09:39:00.000-07:00

There is a common phrase that accompanies interactions between Italians and us stranieri. Perhaps we've encountered it in a restaurant, while attempting to order a cappuccino past noon, or when walking out the door, even mid-summer, with wet hair.

Non si fa!

It's not to be done. Ever. Period.

I love the arbitrary stubbornness of the phrase, and how seriously the watchdogs of Italian tradition take it. Lately, I've been coming up with my own list:

Order rainbow-bright cocktails with names containing innuendo... feed pigeons... stop in the middle of a sidewalk to take a picture or phone call...

2008-10-20T15:23:00.000-07:00

little ripe lemon tree, Tivoli Gardens

Ode To a Lemon

Out of lemon flowers
loosed
on the moonlight, love's
lashed and insatiable
essences,
sodden with fragrance,
the lemon tree's yellow
emerges,
the lemons
move down
from the tree's planetarium

Delicate merchandise!
The harbors are big with it-
bazaars
for the light and the
barbarous gold.
We open
the halves
of a miracle,
and a clotting of acids
brims
into the starry
divisions:
creation's
original juices,
irreducible, changeless,
alive:
so the freshness lives on
in a lemon,
in the sweet-smelling house of the rind,
the proportions, arcane and acerb.

Cutting the lemon
the knife
leaves a little cathedral:
alcoves unguessed by the eye
that open acidulous glass
to the light; topazes
riding the droplets,
altars,
aromatic facades.

So, while the hand
holds the cut of the lemon,
half a world
on a trencher,
the gold of the universe
wells
to your touch:
a cup yellow
with miracles,
a breast and a nipple
perfuming the earth;
a flashing made fruitage,
the diminutive fire of a planet.

-Pablo Neruda

Paradiso Perduto

2008-10-18T02:49:00.000-07:00

2000 year old Villa Adriana in Tivoli

Temple of Venere/Venus/Aphrodite

I call these Giotto trees

wild flowers

ancient olive tree

original wall

library remnants

aquatheater

guest room tiles

each room has a unique pattern

Crudo

2008-10-10T14:52:00.000-07:00

The Ferrari (wine label) Crudo lounge boasts recognition from the wonderful Slow Food organization, a fashionable crowd, and their own in-house DJ, Haldo. The hand-dripped stripes of paint on the walls have a Missoni-esque quality, and black and white art films projected onto the unpainted area glitter from the polished concrete.

Crudo literally means "raw," which is some indication that they serve the best Japanese food in Campo.

Thrill pill

2008-10-05T18:18:00.001-07:00

Le freak c'est chic.

Nightmare Before Christmas "This is Halloween"

"Indian Thriller"

Michael Jackson "Thriller"

White Stripes "Walking with a ghost"

Puppini Sisters "Spooky"

Rolling Stones ft. The Neptunes "Sympathy for the devil"

TV On the Radio"Wolf like me"

Yellow leaf mix

2008-10-02T12:20:00.000-07:00

Emelie Simon Desert (Thieverry Corp remix)

TV on the Radio Wolf like me

Nouvelle Vague Dance with me

Mohanski All the cues (Midiot remix)

Carla Bruni Quelqu'un m'a dit

Christal Castles Vanished

Diplo Must be a devil

Ms. Dynamite Dy-Na-Mi-Tee

Orishas A lo cubano

Patrice Soulstorm

Rolling Stones Wild horses

Kenna Say goodbye

Franco fille

2008-10-02T11:18:00.000-07:00

French fashion knows no rivals. When it comes to visual wit, Sonia Rykiel's Spring 09 Collection is a case in point--Fresh. Playful. Droll. Seductive.

barefoot glam

those shoes!

Nabokov reference?

the show was so well received that those in attendance

began throwing roses from their table centerpieces at the models' feet

rolled up suit sleeves

Obama chic

spontaneous cheekiness

Mushroom Risotto

2008-09-29T14:09:00.000-07:00

Risotto is a great dish because it's a meal in itself. Moreover, you can feed many people with it, and I almost always underestimate how much arborio rice expands. Bon appetito!

To begin, risotto requires two skills: a strong forearm and patience. Since the majority of the cooking is really stirring, I recommend good music or company to keep you entertained in the kitchen.

For 4 people, here's what you'll need:

Long wooden spoon
1/2 cup or 3 large porcini mushrooms
1-2 chopped small white onions
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons butter
1 1/2 cups (300 g) Arborio rice
1/3 cup dry white wine
1 cup (50 g) frehsly grated Parmigiano
quart (litre) of simmering beef broth
A bunch of parsley, minced
Salt and pepper to taste

Preparation:

Chop the onions and sauté them in a few pads of butter butter. Once they're light brown, remove them from the flame and add the wine to the onions to shock the onions (stop them from cooking further) and warm the wine. In a large pot, sauté the rice for several minutes with a 1/4 cup of butter. Stir constantly so the rice toasts but doesn't burn.

Next, stir in the onions and wine. Meanwhile, add broth (you can buy pre-made broth, make it from scratch, or use water and a few beef bullion cubes) to the empty pot in which you sautéed the onions, and warm it over a moderate flame. Once the wine evaporates from the rice, stir in a few cups of warm broth (if your broth is homemade you might want to add a pinch of kosher salt). While it's absorbing, chop the mushrooms. Add the mushrooms to the rice, then continue adding water or broth, stirring occasionally. About five minutes before the rice is done, check seasoning. As soon as the rice is al dente, turn off the heat, half of the cheese, a little bit of ground pepper, the parsley, and cover the risotto for two minutes. Serve with the remaining grated cheese. For wine, you can try an Italian red or use the same dry white you used in the recipe.

Waste not, want more

2008-09-28T12:41:00.000-07:00

Another (considerably easier) fall treat...

Preserves are very easy to make, and they're a great solution to the predicament of overripe fruit. The very simple recipe is to add equal parts sugar to diced fruit, and stir constantly over a high flame. With figs a-plenty this season, I made a fig jam that goes well on bread with pecorino (sheep's cheese). Since figs are naturally very sweet, I used a little less sugar, but enough to caramelize the concoction to the right amount of stickiness (about half the volume of the figs). Here, I used green figs, but I recommend red ones since they have a thin peel that adds a rich color to the jam. To store it? Use cup-sized nutella jars with the no-mess lids.

If you like figs (like me) and cheese (like me), fresh figs also make great snacks or appetizers if you peel off the tips and stuff them with a little goat cheese. With a dot of balsamic vinegar syrup, they're delicious.

Fall flora

2008-09-28T10:58:00.000-07:00

Nothing makes a work desk more inviting than some fresh flowers...
so when I was at the flower market I picked out these teensy margherite (daisies).

The flower lady suggested these to go with them.

I don't know what they're called, but their red stems look like coral and their blossoms look like pomegranate kernels.

And they're lovely.

My favorite Caravaggio

2008-09-28T09:46:00.000-07:00

When you see a Caravaggio, you understand why he is so universally admired. So much, in fact, that one of the curators of the Medici's Pitti Palace in Florence notoriously ordered several paintings to be cropped and repainted with black backgrounds. The effect has the quality of directing our focus on a specific moment, a gesture, an individual.

The Inspiration of Saint Matthew is one of the reasons I live in Rome. It has remained in the same chapel in the San Luigi dei Francesi church for which it was intended for hundreds of years. The light from the window above it seems to glow into, rather than onto, the painting.

The atmosphere of the Baroque church matches the quiet intensity of the scene.

To this day, petite Italian widows come in pairs to kneel before it as they've done since 1602.

Cute as a button

2008-09-27T09:10:00.000-07:00

A tiny little shop in Trastevere, established generations ago, sells only buttons (only in Italy!). Shelves stacked to the ceiling display buttons of every imaginable material, shape, and size. I asked the shopkeeper to see these because I liked the intricate, slightly oxidized, brass frames and the unique cuts of mother of pearl. When she enthused, "Sono del fondo del mare" ("They're from the end of the sea"), I knew I'd take them.

I funghi porcini

2008-09-27T07:30:00.000-07:00

These delicious mushrooms are back in season in Rome, and I was lucky enough to find a small basket at the Campo dei Fiori market yesterday.

Fresh, wild, porcini mushrooms have a distinct hearty flavor that goes well with meat, risotto, sauces, or even on its own with a little nepitella. I've discovered that Romani prefer parsley to the Tuscan herb nepitella, but I recommend trying the latter. It is a minty thyme relative that goes well the the nutty taste of the porcini.

When I came home with a handful of these treasures, I couldn't wait to taste them (it's been a year since I last had fresh porcini, and their season is a brief period in the fall) so I sautéed two with a spring of the parsley bed in which they arrived and some crushed garlic in extra virgin olive oil. Tonight, I plan on making my absolute favorite porcini recipe with the rest: risotto ai funghi porcini! (Recipe post to follow)

If you get your hands on dried porcini, which should be available at a grocer's such as Whole Foods, you can use them if you let them soak in a small dish of water for half an hour, and of course, use the remaining broth in your recipe.

What's in a name?

2008-09-19T14:27:00.000-07:00

When setting out to find an appropriate sobriquet for my blog, I wanted to choose something that encompassed the air of intrigue in which I perceived my post subjects. Immediately, White Sands, New Mexico came to mind.

This dramatic landscape is elegant and unusual. Dunes of ivory gypsum from the nadir of an ancient ocean shift and swell with the desert wind. Its remote silence and deep sky attract crowds of midnight guitarists and love struck stargazers during meteor showers. Ghosts of waves rolls across the ancient seabed, spraying bleached sand into the air. It is a void--a broken hourglass.

In its stark minimalism, it unfolds over miles of land like canvas for the imagination.

Benvenuti a tutti

2008-09-08T16:50:00.000-07:00

Welcome to my blog! Inspired by Golden Lady, I'd like to give friends a window into life in and around the Eternal City.