Summer Substacking . . .

Trying a New Format, A Little This, A Little That -- Food, Garden, Art, Travels, What I Wore . . .

I started putting this newsletter together a few days ago, but then a 17-year-old granddaughter texted to suggest she come for dinner and some Buffy-watching, and then she suggested we play with watercolours two afternoons later. And you don’t say no when a granddaughter wants to visit! And then my Italian class went for lunch after our last class before our summer break. . . Another busy week. Good busy. But busy . . .

Now here I am, trying to add some words to the photos I’ve uploaded, and I have a deadline: I’m heading off to visit friends for three days in a little seaside city on a big island, and Paul’s going to drive me to the ferry as soon as he gets back from yoga class. I haven’t packed yet. So. This newsletter may be (even) less edited than usual.

As the subtitle above suggests, I thought I’d play around with a different format for the summer. A bit lighter on the words but hoping still to offer something substantive in a variety of categories. Let me know what you think.

And last bit of preamble: A great big warm welcome to all of you who’ve come to visit me from my friend Sue’s blogpost yesterday! She’s surely oversold me, claiming I’m any kind of Cool (not at all how I see myself). But fun to read and think about the Geezer Paradox through her eyes and lively prose.

Now to get on with it.

First, Something Foodie . . .

A delicious beet salad that also looks pretty on its plate.

I ate it at one of those sidewalk tables in Rome (in “our neighbourhood,” Salario) last fall, and snapped a photo of the lavagna that let us know what the day’s specials were.

The top item there lists the ingredients for the beet dish which I meant to recreate at home: Carpaccio di Barbabietola con Yogurt, Mandorle, e Finocchietto.

Thin slices of raw beets with yoghurt, almonds, and fennel. I’ll have to play around a bit with a dressing — I’m sure there was olive oil involved (I mean, we were in Rome!) and probably a light vinegar . . .

Reminded me of a Beet Millefeuilles that I once had on a sisters’ trip to Paris (wrote about that dish in a post about eating in Paris, way back here). Those beets were cooked and then sliced thinly, then layered into small stacks with chèvre, drizzled with olive oil, and topped with toasted pine nuts. Easy to make up (okay, the layering could be a bit fiddly) and plate singly as appetizers or have 3 or 4 as a fairly healthy lunch.

Then Something Art-y:

These photos are all from an exhibition— entitled The Soul Trembles — in Paris’s Grand Palais of work by Chiharu Shiota, an international artist born in Osaka and now living in Berlin. My granddaughter, daughter, and I arrived the day before it closed, and I managed to get us tickets for that last day. All three of us agreed that the show was well worth challenging our jet-lagged energy levels.

I’ve written before about how well the space of the Grand Palais lends itself to hosting these large-scale installations. The Soul Trembles was another brilliant example as you can see, I hope, in the photographs I’m sharing here of one large work.

Here’s what the artist herself said about it

I wish I could transport you all to that space, so that you could experience the fullness of the aesthetics — the poetic richness of that red against the other neutral hues; the constant shifting of fibres and and suitcases moving with the air — which in turn was moving as people moved past; the contemplation encouraged by the words, by those weathered cases. . . .

There were numerous other works in other rooms, also aesthetically and emotionally and intellectually engaging, and I took many, many photos (I try not to be one of those visitors who stand in front of something you really want to see, obscuring your view as I take photos, but I do want a few memory aids to think about later.)

Let me know if you’d like to see more from this exhibition. I could do a separate post someday. . .

And now for,

Something from the Garden:

If you’ve only just found your way here, thanks to Sue’s post, you won’t know that we “garden” in containers on a fairly large terrace on the rooftop of an urban condo.

And the exciting news from the garden this week is that Paul’s investment in two funny little tomato plants — strangely squished; leaves just different enough than our other tomato plants to raise an eyebrow; and even when the tomatoes are red-ripe, they’re hard to spot under all the foliage — has paid off with the first few handfuls of cherry toms:

He’s done the math and figured these two have already paid their rent — everything else this summer is a bonus!

Mending Creatively (and Visibly!):

A favourite warm-weather shirt of my husband’s, that I’ve been adding stitches to for the last couple of summers as the linen gives way at the collar and at the side-seam/hem that his cross-body bag rubs against. As you might be able to see in the collar photo above, I started out last summer with a more discreet thread, but I’ve decided to have more fun as the wear becomes more evident.

And he’s been wearing the shirt just as often, even with those splashes of colour

Enough that I begin thinking of what colour I might add next summer! ;-) (In case you’re wondering about process at all, the red stitching in the photo above is worked through the shirt fabric and a small (hemmed) patch of calico. Very loosely sashiko-inspired stitching following the lines of the gingham check.

And, to close — and because some of you have come from Sue’s blog, so I know you care about these things — A Few Recent OOTDs (Outfits of the Day):

The skirt is a 2024 purchase, the sneakers are a few years old; the marinière and the scarf came home with me from Paris this past spring.

Same skirt with an 8-year-old sweatshirt and the Birks I bought in Rome last summer because my old ones were falling apart and it was Way Too Hot! to wear closed toes!

Finally, for a family dinner a few weeks ago, I pulled out a Gap skirt that I’ve had from the early 00s; I don’t think I’ve worn it in a decade. The weather was still cool enough (not quite 20, Celsius) that I could wear it with a very light roll-neck, long-sleeved top. Thinking I might play with it a bit more this summer . . . maybe even into the fall or winter with tights and boots. . .

And that’s it. I’ve just looked at the clock and realized that Paul will be halfway through his yoga class yet . . . I have about an hour to pack and shower and eat my breakfast. Better run. . . .

But I’d love to know what you thought of the post format. And comments on the content are also very welcome. Would you like to see more of the Shiota exhibition, for example? Have you tried a similar beet recipe? Or want to share your own favourite?

Or just click one of those little Hearts as you pass through, just to let me know you were here and perhaps saw or read something you liked. A little encouragement goes a long way! Thank you.

Chat soon,

xo,

f