Good company and good baked... goods!

	Twinkie Cupcake! Shared with lilbunny, 9/22/07 somecaféwhosenameIforgot butit'sneartotheyarnshopCloseKnit Ho-ho-kus, NJ

	Pumpkin Chocolate Chip "Muffin" made and shared with starbright oogi, 11/17/07 Philadelphia, PA

HELLO?

Seriously.

HELLO?

no dairy and no soy make zuppe SOMETHING SOMETHING

YOU GUYS.

I am on Day 2 of a two-week low-iodine diet and HOW can people live without dairy or soy or whole eggs, or the algae-based thickeners which make life awesome! OH THE INHUMANITY. I swear both the chocolate chip muffins and the cream cheese in the break room are audibly taunting me!

I thought I would be all excited to cook'n'freeze lots of vegetable-y goodness and bake pan after pan of slightly indulgent muffins and cakes (no butter, no egg yolks, but sugar is allowed).

But alas, my days have consisted of:

• oatmeal
• fruits (I know, me! and fruit! and me, dependent on fruit!)
• nuts
• rice (limited amounts)
• potatoes without skins
• safe mom food such as dal, ground turkey (limited amounts), cabbage
• salad with vinegar & oil dressing, and the dreaded baby carrots
• coffee or pure cocoa with sugar
• hours of mental anguish over what the hell to eat
• hours of mental blahs because of hunger
• fantasizing about milkshakes and cheese

But now I've got a pile of greens at home, and in the immortal words of Kara Janx from Project Runway 2 -- all I want to do is smoke it. Why, oh WHY, did I ask for kale when it probably takes cream, cheese, or soy sauce, or an ungodly combination of all three to make it edible for immature palates like mine?

I really do adore processed foods. I mean, making your own vegetable stock! WHO DOES THAT?

Well, maybe Elisa Jimenez from Project Runway 4.

$10 T-shirts.... until 12/16

A variety of cheap, cheesy, cute and cool shirts. I have a bunch from here and remember talking to some frillseeker(s) about them ... www.threadless.com

MAKE IT WORK!

He's (almost) ba-a-a-ack!

We've survived through Top Chef 2, Top Design, Shear Genius, Top Chef 3 (!), Tim Gunn's Guide to Style, aaaaand Heidi Klum's limited edition cosmetics collection for Victoria's Secret (by the way, some very tempting stuff!) but NOTHING could replace the high of the one, the only, the sublime Project Runway!

Well, Project Runway Canada has been doing a pretty awesome job, but, well, there's none of The Divine Tim Gunn! Though Brian Bailey (mentor) and Iman (host, judge) come pretty close to divinity, Iman especially. If you need a fix between now and Wednesday's premiere of Project Runway 4, check out PR.ca on msroyalt's excellent and addictive youtube page.

For a taste of Season 4, check out the bios for the de-SIGH-ners at the Bravo site. I know, I know, the site hurts my eyes too. Maybe we should wait through a couple of seasons of Top Web Design before Season 5 of PR?

buy handmade

Zuppe, those cookies were delicious! Autumn brings out the baker in people. Even me. I have an inkling to bake pumpkin bread. And a few weeks ago, I made yogurt scones. Yummy.

Anyway, I have a friend makes T shirt designs. Check out here her creations here: www.amuse.etsy.com

Also, she directed me to this website about a documentary on indie crafters. They're a bit too serious for my tastes, but 8 minute documentary shows some pretty nifty crafts. http://www.mediabistro.com/unbeige/crafty/handmade_nation_gets_made_69456.asp

Cookie monster

Last week I was excited to make some cookies. I played mad scientist
with this recipe:

1/2 cup shortening (unsalted butter)
1 cup white sugar (mostly organic; I would maybe use less sugar next time)
2 eggs
1/4 cup milk
1 1/2 3/4 cups all-purpose buckwheat flour
3/4 cup almond meal (from Trader Joe)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 cup raisins chocolate chips (half semi-sweet, half
milk chocolate)
1 2/3 cups quick cooking oats

DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
Grease Lay some foil over cookie sheets.

2. In a medium bowl, cream together the shortening and sugar until
smooth. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then stir in the milk. Combine
the flour, almond meal, baking soda, salt and cinnamon, gradually stir
into the creamed mixture. Add the raisins chocolate chips and
quick oats; mix until just combined. Drop by rounded spoonfuls onto
the prepared cookie sheet.

3. Bake for 8 to 10 12-15 minutes in the preheated
oven. Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before
removing to a wire rack to cool completely.

I'm only sorry I didn't take any pictures before they were, er, gone!

Questions for the Keebler elves in the crowd:
1. Do you think a mixture of half butter and half applesauce would work? Or would it be too "moist"? (Ewwwww.)

2. What about using less sugar? Would that alter the texture a lot?

Sometimes I be bored

So I had a random, abstract word in my Google search bar, and decided to search for it in Google Maps, on a whim, to see what came up. It's kind of fun, really.

Try it!

The Vartan is Back

Welcome back to network television (of the non-reality-tv-kind)). I spent WAY too much time in front of the TV last week. IMHO: Some big "mehs" included: "K-ville", "Dirty Sexy Money" and "Big Shots" (more below). A major disappointment included: "The Bionic Woman". Some fun times were spent with: "Chuck" (Adam Baldwin as a "Best Buy" saleperson!), "Gossip Girl", "Bones", "Smallville" and "How I Met Your Mother" (which introduced me to the term "tramp stamp"). And damn you "Brothers and Sisters" for making me cry. Again.

So I won't be watching "Big Shots" again, if I can help it. But it appears that Couch Baron on TWOP and I are in agreement that if we were to watch it again (unfortunately for CB, it seems like it's his job to watch it), we would only be watching if for the Vartan. (Check out the funny page 3 of the Big Shots recap -- that's what the link is to!) Even on a show where I guess he's supposed to be alpha-male like, he comes off as so cuddly :).

I missed most of "Chuck" this week due to the NL Wild Card playoff game. I *really* don't want to talk about that. It's 4.5 hours of my life I will never get back. And I think I was actually grieving yesterday. For reals. But like I said, I don't want to talk about it. Back to "Chuck": the Sci-Fi channel reruns the "Chuck" eps over the weekend, I think, so I might still catch it. "Bones" last night was fun, with the Boreanaz acting particularly goofy at the end, which is always a good time. Tonight is definitely Gossip Girl.

And just when I thought I'd given up on network tv...

"Productivity is overrated"

So say we all!

So you think you can e-mail me? Sure, you can. But you may not hear back for awhile. Or ever. That is why you should seriously consider hitting me up AIM-stylee.

So you say you don't want to download a whole new program and stuff? That is why you should [Fergie voice] check it out!

So now you too can be subject to my every passing thought! (My ID is in my profile here.)

Top Chef sightings

Went to the Mushroom Festival at Kennett, PA, today. http://www.mushroomfestival.org/

I feel like I had heard about this festival when I was at Swarthmore, but when I mentioned to a few Philly people about it, they'd never heard about it! Sadly, the festival felt more like any other street festival (with some of the fried food being made out of mushroom rather than something else) than something that really featured mushrooms.

It did have really good ice cream by a local place--Woodside Farm Creamery. http://www.woodsidefarmcreamery.com/index.htm

I also got to see part of a cooking demo by Ilan Hall and Miguel Morales---of course, I was one of like four people who raised their hands in the filled tent when Miguel asked who in the room had never watched Top Chef. They were both trying very hard to be funny and charming--and sometimes they succeeded. I had to leave to return to Philly before they actually made anything, but Miguel did discuss how to make the dish he was preparing (Monte Cristo sandwich with portabello mushroom caps as bread) vegan, so he got big points for that.

The appeal of fashion

I'm sure many of you saw this article in last weekend's NYT. Reading it made me think of all of you. Plus the writer uses what I think must be one of the most fun words in the English language: flibbertigibbets!

The Hills are Alive....

Sorry, it was a punnecessary evil.

Some of you know that I'm wont to be addicted to certain television shows for the clothes alone. I don't mind a dash of contrived drama, either. Case in point: Sex and the City.

I've come to be addicted to The Hills. Not only is it a "reality" show, it's a spin-off of a reality show. More so, it's a reality spin-off of a reality show that was inspired by a teen drama. I'll give you a moment to sadly shake your heads there. [e l e v a t o r m u s i c]. 'Kay?

So anyhoo, The Hills stars Laguna Beach "grad" Lauren Conrad. Lauren goes to the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising (Hi, Nick-from-Project-Runway-2! Hi! I miss you!), and she interns at Teen Vogue. We see Lauren manage work, school, friendships, and relationships. All the while, she and her friends wear some damn cute clothes. Basically, it's like all the mini-soap-operas I made my Barbies perform, only it's "real" life. You know, I kind of always hoped they'd come alive. The Hills is much less creepy than that would be, though. The show is in its third season (wow! OK, well, they're short), and there's much more buzz around it than ever because of the DRAH. MAH. that happened last season (Machiavellian boyfriends, major friendship upsets, backstabbing gossip - all of which is continuing this season.) Lauren also now has her own clothing line, plus a deal with mark. cosmetics (offshoot of Avon aimed at a younger crowd). It's become MTV's huge new(ish) thing because we all know music doesn't matter anymore...well, unless it's the most au courant single by some up-and-coming warbler that just happens to express the agony and ecstasy of a morning-after-drama brunch at [insert trendy cafe here].

Where is the fascination for me (aside from cute outfits) you say? Well... you'd think that seeing your life on TV would clue you in to some patterns, some leitmotifs perhaps -- but it just doesn't seem to happen. There is a twisted, yet very well-dressed, voyeur in me that enjoys watching this.

The ADD Book Club

This is a list of books I've started but not finished*, in no particular order:

The Great Indian Novel by Shashi Tharoor

Word Freak by Stefan Fatsis

On Beauty by Zadie Smith

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

The Fourth Bear by Jasper Fforde

Color by Victoria Finlay

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke

... and I think I read one page of A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth. It's almost 1500 pages long - I think I have a used copy somewhere.

ETA: The End of Mr. Y by Scarlett Thomas

Do you do this, for whatever reason? Do you start books, put them down, and inexplicably not pick them up again? They're not bad, they're not boring -- but somehow, you give them the brush-off? Then you might want to join my club.




*The ones I can remember. This does not include the many quarters and thirds of books I've read in waiting rooms or friends/relatives' houses; or the ones I've been required to read in school but skipped. I wish I could remember all those, but I never write them down.

okey-dokey tokidoki

i couldn't resist. i answered the siren call of the dailycandy.com 30% off online discount for the le sportsac summer tokidoki collection. i got it in the mail yesterday and it's as cute and as satiny as i had imagined it would be.

i plan to use it on my travels. can't exactly find an excuse to use it for work. perhaps for the gym? how can we get some more mileage out of this purchase ladies...money doesn't grow on trees you know! but then again another cliche says that life is short...seize the day. oy vay.

ain't the graphic print cute!

Malarkey!

I am pretty stressed out right now by many things, one being the fact that Blogger has a vendetta against my HTML (sincere apologies for the spacing f'ups on this one), but that doesn't mean that I can't enjoy the simple pleasures of life, especially those that Bravo offers -- namely, my first reality show crush of the season, Brian Malarkey(!), of Top Chef 3:

I've found that I tend to crush on men who are either (a) arrogantly snarky, (b) scary lonerish types, or my latest favorite (c) brilliant but self-destructive -- or some droolicious combination of any of the above.

Malarkey falls squarely in the (c) category. I am convinced, from his alternating between joyous, affable hype man and maniacal, perspirating, short-circuiting-waitron ... that our Malarkey (I will spare no opportunity to say/write "Malarkey"!) may be either a cokehead or speedfreak. Or both. This is not the first time I've had a crush on a nattily dressed perhaps-drug-addict (the first case being a young attorney who was allegedly a former coke addict, but who charmed me with a rico suave one-on-one title and survey tutorial - yes, you may take a moment to fan yourselves). Malarkey(!) can sculpt the most primordial of sea creatures into a high-end delight, but he'll also use the same skeelz to kill some innocent lipid-challenged senior citizens with deadly and verboten lobster broth.

But such is Malarkey's enthusiasm for the sea. It is one of the many qualities he shares with one of my other favorite TV personalities -- Spongebob Squarepants.

Both have names that are fun to say.
Spongebob!	Malarkey!
Both enjoy oceanic environs.
Spongebob lives in a pineapple, under the sea.	Malarkey works at the Oceanaire Seafood Room (San Diego, CA, big ups to lilbunny), where diners are invited to enjoy the "sea of Ultra-Fresh fish".

Both are extremely enthusiastic about their work, occasionally in a narcotically suspicious way. Please also note the similar eye color of sparkling ocean blue.
They take pride in creating meals from ground-up seafood substances.
Krabby Patty.	Seafood Sausage.
They also take pride in dressing for special occasions.
	He smuggled his suit in under his chef jacket! And look at that flower!
But the underside of enthusiasm is the crash-and-burn....
"Spongebob is as optimistic and earnest as a sea-dwelling sponge gets, but he can't seem to avoid getting himself - and usually everyone else around him - into trouble. While trying too hard, he tends to do things wrong - really wrong - which usually spells disaster." -- Nickelodeon	"Running around in a flop sweat, his eyes rattling around in his skull like pachinko balls.... Brian cracked under pressure and "lost it" so completely that he, too, was lucky to not be tying up his knife roll at show's end." -- Anthony Bourdain

I really hope Malarkey(!) succeeds with Restaurant April tonight. I will be in tears and in need of consolation if he is booted.

ETA: I am sad to report that LL Cool Tre was the one eliminated in this past week's show. He was my pick for the winner, but I'm sure he'll do amazingly well for himself in the real-restaurant world.

I hope that doesn't give you nightmares!

All Spongebob Squarepants images, Nickelodeon. All Brian Malarkey images, Bravo.

What's your favorite violent/horror/action movie?

So there was a recent speaker-phone discussion among some of this blog's participants about violent movies and I feltI'd pay homage to three of my favorite movies ever, all of which address different types of violence in unique ways.

Throw Your Dandias In the A-air...

and wave 'em like you just don't ca-are.

Not as cool as updating live from the event, but I thought you all would get a kick out of it. I just returned from the Garba/Ras event of the wedding I'm attending this weekend - the wedding I've been dreading/anticipating for the past year or so :P

Garba is like a line dance, only in a circle. I tried to follow one round, but really could not. I was sort of pulled in without being taught the steps, though.

Ras (a line dance with pairs, where you hold two decorated sticks [dandias} and hit your partner's sticks in rhythm, then move on down the line) was a little easier to pick up, somehow, even though there were (potentially dangerous) props involved. I even learned something called "12-step", which all the kids were excited about. But by the time my aged curmudgeonly self learned it, the Ras part of the dance was over.

OK, that's all for now. There may or may not be a Part II to this tomorrow. Thank you all for listening to me b!tch and moan about this for the past 9 months or so!

Speak now or be forever subject to my whims...

well, for six months, at least.

Speaking of design - I'll take requests for color combination ideas or visual themes for frillseekers 3.0.

Paint Chips sans Crimping Iron

Watching the horror of Bravo's "Top Design" inspired a false nostalgia in me for HGTV's "Design Star". I say "false" because I've never seen "Design Star" -- I would only read about how much better it was than "Top [of the dumpster] Design". The judges on Bravo's show (one of whom was very fond of the titular crimping iron) made it seem like such random, bitchy dreck (and not the awesome kind like Tyra dishes out on ANTM) that it made the show extremely unpleasant. At least with "Top Chef 2", it was left to the contestants to do that.

But with Vern Yip and Cynthia Rowley (annoyingly named fictional memoirs aside) on the "Design Star" team - how could it suck? OK, OK - I must have said that same thing about Todd Oldham, but I had no idea he'd given up carbs and all the brain cells that died without that precious, precious glucose. Vern Yip was one of my favorite designers from "Trading Spaces", and Cynthia Rowley makes handbags that I salivate over (as well as being a quirky '90s fashion design it-gal whose name brings up lots of real nostalgia for me... of course, ditto for Todd Oldham but let's hope Cynthia's not as robotic).

I have not read any published reviews of the show, but I'm willing to give it a go. Anything to try to get a bit of Tim Gunn-high, even by proxy.

when: July 29, 9.00pm (EST)
where: HGTV


Episodes of the first season are available at the HGTV website. I may love them already for that alone.

Bag lady...

That was my mom's nickname at work for awhile. That is also a brilliant song by Erykah Badu, one of my favorites of hers, actually.

Bag lady you gone hurt your back
Dragging all them bags like that

I know I'm not the first person ever (or here, even, right, starbright oogi? hmm?) to go through what I'll call bangst -- but I figure I'd share mine in the hopes of healing.

This week I got it into my head that I need a new bag. Not just anything, but SOMETHING.So I've decided to use the interwebs to research this thing known as the "it" bag. I don't really want someone else's "it" bag -- I want my own. Not to say that I have not coveted "it" bags in the past.

I mean... it started a few years ago, with my yearning for this:

[amazon.com, bunnyshop.blogspot.com]

... a Marc by Marc Jacobs Stella. Preferably in aqua....or any color except pink. And now I don't even think it's possible to find one easily. Or maybe it's too easy now. Or something. I don't think I could have bought it then, though, and I guess I can't now, even if I could afford it. But it doesn't have the same freshness, anyway. I still love the shape and the straps, but the patch pockets look a little wimpy. I'm not fond of the shiny press-lock thingies either.

Sadly the current MBYMJ styles do not inspire the same lustful feelings in me. Quinn, Faridah and Deborah are a'ight, but somehow... meh?



[nordstroms.com]

OK well actually....kind of hot for that teal Quinn now. Damn.... She had dumps like a truck, truck, truck... I've always been fond of trapezoids. And the buckles on the Deborah straps? *melt*
[Interesting reading: this handy-dandy history and guide to avoiding fakes. ]

More recently, on a shopping jaunt with km, I fell hard for the Chloe Bay bags (below, below). Then I remembered I'd seen the Chloe Paddington (belooow, left) in Bazaar a couple of years ago and felt like it was another high-end bag I could covet in addition to the beloved Stella. And then after some fervent interweb trawling, I discovered the even more expensive Chloe Silverado (belooow, right) and Edith (not pictured) totes.

[net-a-porter.com]

But these bags are all fantasies. Castles in the sky, with chunky hardware. Though I like to pick up a fashion mag or two from time to time, and though I knew that Mischa/Lindsay/Sienna/Nicole/Kate/Kate/Kate were the ones making these bags "it" -- I wasn't really burned out on them. And so I would think of them, constantly, and how shocking it would be if I actually did buy one, because one would cost more than the rest of what I was wearing, all together.

I guess nobody ever told you
All you must hold on to
Is you, is you, is you

Well what kind of straps do I hold onto me with? This week I tried to pin it down. I looked up a bunch of "mid-range" "independent" bag lines. I even looked through my backissues of Lucky(bastards) and used the damn "YES!" stickers. [sidebar: I still find it weird to say "bags". They're "purses". But it seems weird to say "purses" because these things are freaking huge. "Pocketbook" is practically Shakespearean - it's like "bodkin" or "varlet".]

As I told lilbunny today, a lot of the thrill in this for me is the sticker shock, and the potential exhilaration of buying something yoooooge like this. But also, it was kind of fun for me to think about what exactly the hell I wanted: to put aside all the Debbie Downer-ism of price and functionality, and think about aesthetics. Now it might seem to you that I do a lot of that -- but I really don't.... Or I guess I don't think about it systematically, so this was new to me. And now that I think of it... probably pretty boring to you. Er, sorry.

I knew I liked bold hardware and a generally rugged-yet-cute look (still talking bags and not boys here). I knew I wanted leather, and a tote, shopper, satchel, maaaaybe a hobo (again - bags, not boys) shape. From perusing various bag blogs and the entertainingly named BagBorrowOrSteal site, I tried to pick out the common denominators (without balking over the math).

I like (not all once):
• rectangular/trapezoidal shapes or slouchy versions thereof;
• pockets on the outside;
• wide, flat straps;
• contrasting topstitching;
• a sprinkling of studs or grommets;
• either glazed leather or the buttery soft super-matte kind;
• a color that's neither black nor brown (favoring grey, blue and yellow right now).

I can do without:
• fringe or lots of tassels;
• ruchingruchingruching;
• quilting or chain (ick);
• any shape that looks "organic" or bodily (ick ICK).

But anyway. Newfangled brands that I like so far:
Kooba. Gustto. Gerard Darel. SHIH by Stephanie Lin. Hayden Harnett. Tano. ANI. Gryson. Aleya NY. Rachel Nasvik. Frye (OK not so new!) Ananas. Tylie Malibu (could I really buy something named that, especially when it's all looking Laguna Beachy?)

I'm told these are the shiz, but I say "whatevs": Anna Corinna, Botkier, Rebecca Minkoff (though her colors are nice).

Bag lady
Let it go, let it go, let it go, let it go
Ooh, ooh
Girl you don't need it


I'd like to believe that.

[in other news, we need a new background and template. any suggestions?]

Lucky Bastards

Dear Lucky,

You won me over with ON-TREND and WELL-EDITED -- those were just too, too fabulous and continue to be endless sources of amusement.

You made me gag a little with STATEMENT-Y and VINTAGEY, but again -- I forgive because I realize that other words and phrases ALREADY IN FOTHERMUCKING EXISTENCE *ahem* may be too clunky to use in a given blurb, or too long to fit neatly inside your cute little thumbnail product images which collaborate so well together to create the small multiple layouts that I love.

But you've lost me with WORK-Y.

There's no excuse for it. PROFESSIONAL, TAILORED, CLASSIC, SHARP and, yes, even TWEEDY are sobbing in a corner, and they cannot be consoled. Also sobbing with them? The entire English language.

Also, those pants are suffocating that girl's crotch, and the pleats just add bitchslap to injury.

<3 zuppe

Frillseekers: Live from Central Park

Shall we party with Ozomatli?

Ozomatli
Babylon Circus
DJ Joro Boro
Saturday, June 30, 2007
From 3:00 PM to 6:00 PM
Central Park SummerStage (free)

"It’s a day of fusing music styles at Summerstage, as a band, a circus, and a DJ sample everything from gypsy folk to Jamaican dub."

What do you think?

Death is Not an Option.

You must choose.








Top Chef's "finest". Later I might add a selection of Top Chef's "passive-aggressivest" for your choosing pleasure.

I finally saw part of S1's Episode 1. There's just something about those Irish men. I know he kind of sucked, but I could listen to him yell about nothing for hours....:






OK, maybe just one hour.

Spread out over small increments.

I vote for Team Season 1 for tonight's showdown!


...So it was as predicted -- Season 1 totally destroyed Season 2. I can't believe how much affection I had for Stephen after the gritty kale that was Season 2. My newest life motto:

"I've been executing this sort of excellence for years now."

Oh Stephen, you slay me with your effortless brilliance.

she makes torture look sexy

this is why jaslene is hot. congrats to her!

i know this is a wee bit of a late congrats for the season ended a few weeks ago but i must say: i'm super happy that Jaslene won America's Next Top Model! her story of overcoming an abusive relationship, getting therapy and getting strong is also quite a nice back story.

hip hip, hooray!













.

Shuffling Sincerity

The Frillseekers love of the Irish has been well-documented and now I add another piece of pop culture to the pile. The movie, "Once", set in Dublin is charming. It's the story of a guy who sings folky songs on the streets and his relationship with a woman who sells flowers and cleans houses, but who is also a musician. I really liked the dynamic between them-- always an undercurrent of sexual tension but also something else. In A.O. Scott's review in the NYT he said, "While there is an evident spark of attraction between them — Ms. Irglova’s teasing directness works beautifully with Mr. Hansard’s shuffling sincerity — “Once” is far from a conventional love story. It is, instead, the story of a creative partnership that develops by chance and that involves a deeper, riskier bond than mere sex ever could."
Any review that has "deeper" and "riskier" in the same line as "sex" already has me sold.

Better late than never?

You guys, I have a lot of random stuff about my attendance to the Unofficial Yet Awesome California Frillseekers Conference that I haven't posted yet. So, I might just post this stuff even though it might be a month (or two) "old". Would that be weird? I just haven't had the patience to deal with computers much lately :/

To keep it entertaining (and themed)....

Here is a cute image I just adore (it's one of those internet memes I was briefly obsessed with learning about):

...and here is a wee preview of the above-mentioned California happenings (image copied from The Imaginary World):

I never trusted the American voters

Tonight there was a miscariage of justice. The "American people" chose Jordin, who is cute and occasionally soulful, and Blake, a beat-boxer who is riding on JT's popularity, over Melinda, the most talented singer and exciting performer on American Idol. It is an obvious point but it makes me sad that people voted for youth and a conventional idea of beauty over talent,experience, and Tina Turneresque sass.

All About Eve

From what I remember, some of you watched All about Eve for a class when we were in college. I just saw it and really enjoyed it. I liked all three female leads (and Marilyn's bit part) and thought that Anne Baxter (Eve) played the conniving ingenue in a perfectly creepy way. I even thought there were some interesting and forward thinking ideas about gender in it, but then I got to the scene where Bette Davis starts talking about what it means to be a woman (i.e. having a man) and I was reminded that it was made in 1950. I especially enjoyed the scenes in New Haven, the place where "shows have 'out of town' openings for New Yorkers who don't really want to get out of town". I am starting to understand the Bette Davis cult following: I loved how brash, ambitious, and stylish she was. What do you remember from the movie?

"Oh no you didn't...."

...said Ryan Gosling in a charmingly joking manner.

I am sure that Aging Cowgirl may be, er, disappointed, but that was one of my favorite moments in the movie "Half Nelson". Which she made me watch. But it's good. So I'd make you watch it too. But I'd make you watch "The Wire" first. Then I would ask you the difference between snorting, smoking, and freebasing because I still can't get my head around it.

Aging Cowgirl, I think you should definitely watch "Murder by Numbers" for another take on Ryan Gosling's scary/seductive quality. He does it so well.

But to tide you over until Netflix delivers it to you, here are scans of a recent article about him (sorry for the wrinkly pages):
Page 1
Page 2

And something I made especially for you, with something else Goslingy to follow soon:

[click for link to larger one you can download]

it's baaaaaaaack!

After last week's surprisingly satisfying GG ep, I am all revved up for more... and quite excited about the return of the one, the only, VM. So grab your suntan lotion and boogie boards, ladies, 'cause we're heading back to sunny So. Cal.!!

shangriLALALALALA

I am in Los Angeles. So far I have seen....

weird things....

pretty things....

and LOTS of yummy things.

more soon!
<3 zuppe

Too Good to Pass Up

Remember when they made you climb rock walls in gym class and you had to wear a horrible harness you created yourself out of much-used-by-many-other-sweaty-teens nylon webbing (in horrific colors like pepto pink)? Yeah, this is how you looked.

So maybe it wasn't you who was subjected to that kind of public humiliation, but I know you can take pleasure in others subjecting themselves to it.

It's all kinds of awesome.

Spotted today....

lilbunny, I do believe I spied one of your henchmen on my property today!

Poll: favorite easter candy?

regardless of religious affiliation, easter is a time of candy extravaganza! i am curious as to what the frillseekers candy of choice is. also a very nice easter (and passover) to those who celebrate.

ps. check out the link for some fab peepage

Predictably Outraged

So I just read the review of The Namesake in the NYT and am predictably irritated by how cheesy it sounds. I didn't love the book so my disappointment in the review does not come from high expectations. I think I am just disappointed that the "betwixt and between cultures" theme is so stagnant. I think Jhumpa Lahiri has written some great short stories and she does meticulous Bengali-American ethnography, but The Namesake didn't hold together for me because the characters, especially Gogol (played by Kal Penn), are not given inner lives. We want to like them but we don't know who they are. What do they want? We are expected to believe Gogol is a nice guy (architect) who is struggling to please his parents. We need to infer most of this from vignettes about dating white women and his relationship with Maushumi, a grad student in French or cultural studies (something with Derrida). As I am writing this I realize that it isn't so outrageous to think that a mediocre book with a few subtle lessons about the generation gap in immigrant families would translate into a mediocre movie with obvious lessons about cultural hybridity.
I still plan on watching it in the next 48 hours.

frillseek with ctowngal in LA!

fellow frillseekers...

i challenge you to find the frillseeking hotspots in LA, via my yelp! reviews at

http://ctowngal.yelp.com

and come visit me in los skandelous to do a frillseeking tour! (aging cowgirl just might....)

i miss you all. :-/

Oscar fashion?

I thought Helen Mirren Kate Winslet and Cate Blanchett looked amazing. Not so much for Kirsten Dunst or Nicole Kidman. Generally, I am not sure how I feel about the one-shoulder dress trend or the bejewelled dresses. Any favorite dresses?

Irish Fiddling! Part III

THE BLACK DONNELLYS. NBC, Mondays, 10pm.

This time the Irish mob is in New York, so it's kind of like Sleepers crossed with The Departed or something. And it turns out one of the actors was actually in Sleepers! I have no idea if this is supposed to be good or not, but NBC may be killing off Studio 60 (good riddance! sorry, Nate Corddry!) a week earlier for it. So at least they think it'll be good - though saying it's better than Studio 60 isn't saying much, I'm afraid.

I think this guy staring off into space is supposed to be the cute one:

... because, well, he's staring off into space. Like an artist might do. And guys? He is an artist. But poor cute boy probably gets drafted into organized crime by his grimy-lookin' good-for-nuffink brothers behind him. Hoodlums!

When to get jiggy: February 26th, 10pm!

Calling All Bakers....

Recent conversations and this NYT article have me in the mood for some Red Velvet Cake. I've never had this concoction and frankly, at this point, I've built it up in my head (and palette) as some heavenly cloud of sweetness. Although I doubt anything will really live up to these built-up expectations, I would still like to try and make some. So I'm asking for some help from my fellow frill-seekers: Any one ever make this kind of cake before? Anyone have some tips/suggestions/recipes? The common destinations, epicurious, etc, leave something to be desired... And the NYT recipe just kinda scares me with the 2c of oil it calls for...

Peace out.

The Google Corpocrazy

So I switched our blog over to "The New Blogger" which is powered by Google (which powers my life nowadays). I appreciate the ease of it all (including all those Google Account deals), but it makes me a little nervous.

One nice thing that "The New Blogger" allows us to do is "label" or "tag" our posts, so that if you wanted to find some baking tip that was mentioned here, you can click on the "food" label. I'm slowly but surely back-tagging (does that sound dirty?) our posts so that one day if you really wanted to do that, you will be able to.

If you got a problem
Yo I'll solve it
Check out the blog
While the mistress evolves it.

That's right. I did use that intransitive verb transitively. Mwahahaha.

Outing a couple more of my obsessions....

So I've confessed this recent one to numerous people:

This is another nice photo from that New York Times Magazine layout, for Aging Cowgirl:

But I'm betting it's already framed in the bathroom, or the bedroom.

But there are more where that came from upon which I promised to elaborate....
For lilbunny:
Now I don't know if they'll really be that funny for everyone who doesn't really like Saturday Night Live, but here goes....
(right click to open in new window/tab)

Lazy Sunday
The Best Gift Ever
Natalie Portman Raps
Andy's Excuse

And from a while back, randomly found on the internets somewhere:
Y'all, the dream is over! Let us remember them at their finest:
Britney Eats For Two (Radar Online)

And for Aging Cowgirl:
Yes, this is how I spend my time and use my valuable grapheeecs skeeelz....

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