Im Garten der Villa Medici in Rom
May 29, 2011
Muse of the Month
Gene Tierney
Gene Eliza Tierney was born in Brooklyn, New York to prosperous Irish family in 1920. Attended finishing school in Switzerland where is learned to speak fluent French. Stared on several Broadway plays before signing with 20th Century-Fox in 1940.
Tierney was married twice. First to costume/fashion designer Oleg Cassini having two kids- Daria and Tina. While pregnant with Daria, Tierney contracted rubella during her only appearance at the Hollywood Canteen. Daria was born prematurely weighing only 3 pounds and required a total blood transfusion. Tierney's rubella caused Daria's deaf, partial blindness with cataracts and severe mental retardation. Tierney's grief over this tragedy led to a long lasting depression and bipolar disorder. She suffered from many mental illnesses throughout her life which many speculate were a consequence of Daria's condition.During this time, Howard Hughes, an old friend of Tierney, made sure Daria received only the best medical care and kindly paid for all of her medical expenses.
After her divorce she dated John F. Kennedy for well over a year but ended when Kennedy told her he could never marry her due to his political ambitions. Tierney sent a congratulatory note to Kennedy after the elections but later admitted she voted for Nixon stating "I thought he would make a better president"
Tierney married Texas oil baron W. Howard Lee in 1960. They had an extremely happy marriage in Texas till the day he died in 1981. Tierney died ten years later from emphysema. She began smoking after watching the screening of her first movie. She wanted to lower her voice because she thought she sounded "like an angry Mini Mouse"
May 16, 2011
May 11, 2011
Sophia Loren
"Sex appeal is fifty percent what you've got and fifty percent what people think you've got."
Wedding Veils Part One
Birdcage Veils
I've decided I want to wear a birdcage veil paired with a
gorgeous necklace and a very simple dress.
No embellishments, no textures, no nothing- just an extremely flattering and sumptuous dress that is short in the front, long in the back, makes my waist look nonexistent and my boobs look like implants.
Waffle Wednesday
Orange waffles
2 cups flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup pulp free orange juice
4 tablespoons melted butter
3 tablespoons grated orange zest
Orange syrup
1 cup sugar
2/3 cup freshly squeezed orange juice
2 tablespoons dark rum
1 tablespoon Curacao(optional)
1 coarsely rated orange rind
Orange butter
1 stick (1/2 cup) salted or unsalted butter
1/3 cup orange marmalade
Creamsicle Marshmallow Fluff
3 egg whites
2 cups light corn syrup
½ teaspoon salt
2 cups powdered sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
For orange waffles
In large bowl sift together flour, baking powder, sugar and salt.
In separate bowl combine eggs, milk, orange juice and butter; beat well. Add orange zest to egg mixture; pour this into flour mixture beating well until mixture is smooth.
Ladle onto hot, well-oiled waffle iron and cook until waffles are golden.
For orange syrup
Combine sugar and orange juice in small saucepan and bring to bowl over low heat, stirring constantly.
Remove from heat.
Blend in remaining ingredients.
Let cool completely.
For orange butter
Pulse butter and marmalade in a food processor until combined well. Transfer to a small crock or serving bowl.
Creamsicle marshmallow fluff
In a large bowl, combine egg whites, corn syrup and salt; beat with mixer in high speed for 10 minutes or until thick.
Add in icing sugar; beat on low speed until blended.
Beat in vanilla until blended.
*This recipe makes a lot of fluff, but may be frozen for later use, just remove from freezer and stir well with a spoon, or it can be refrigerated for up to 1 week.
Assemble
Serve waffles hot with orange butter and/or syrup with heaps of creamsicle fluff!
May 6, 2011
May 5, 2011
May 4, 2011
NURD ALURT
My notes on the books I've read in the past year
Rich Boy is about a working class Jewish kid, Robert, from the blue-collar suburbs in Philadelphia in the 1950’s using his good looks and natural gift with the ladies to his advantage. Wanting to get out of his neighborhood, Rob leaves to Tufts university where he finds himself in a group of filthy rich kids during which the next four decades he climbs New York’s elite social latter. And on the way he loves, looses, marries, succeeds, and fails. I loved this book.
5 STARS
Easy for You is a collection of stories about Los Angeles locals. It’s hard to pin point what exactly I liked about this book, but if you are from Los Angeles like I am, this book totally resonates with you. You can visualize every step, every street, and every shop that is mentioned. Most of stories don’t have this deep earthy message to them- but it is interesting taking a peak into these lives and examining what personal and internal struggles everyone deals with.
4 STARS
Whip Smart was NOT what I was expecting it to be. After reading a review on it I was anticipating a novel about a glamorous dominatrix reciting her potentially funny and raunchy interactions on the job. Wrong- so wrong. This glamorous dominatrix was a vegan, heroine-addicted Harvard student. The reality of these "funny and raunchy interactions" were giving men enemas, brutally torturing them, and finishing it off with a rough urinary catheter session.
2 STARS
Based Upon Availability has the same formatting as the movie Traffic or Crash. It tells the story of individuals in New York City and how they all interconnect based around the Four Season’s hotel in NY, which creates the net of this book. I couldn’t put this down. Each room has it’s own story. This book has a rehab-needing female aging rock star, a jealous woman who leaves her sister beaten and tied to bed, a mental woman who believes she is pregnant, men with their mistresses and much more.
5 STARS
Sex with Kings was such an interesting read for a lover of European royalty such as myself. This book compiles true stories and history of the famous and not-so famous mistresses dating from the medieval Europe to present. The author breaks “mistresshood” into several sections- the art of pleasing a king, the mistress and the queen, the mistress’s husband, political power between the sheets, the wages of sin, and royal bastards. I found out that Madame du Barry had chronic yeast infections- and that isn’t a good enough reason to read this then I don’t know what is.
5 STARS
Water for Elephants was mediocre at best. If you haven’t seen the movie then you at least know what it is about. The book lacked depth in it's plot and chemistry development. Three/fourths of the book was painstakingly slow and the little bit left that was exciting wasn’t compelling enough to compensate for the beginning.
1 ½ STARS
Thousand Splendid Suns (the following is taken from Publisher’s Weekly) “an in-depth exploration of Afghan society in the three decades of anti-Soviet jihad, civil war and Taliban cruelty. He impels us to empathize with and admire those most victimized by Afghan history and culture—women. Mariam, a 15-year-old bastard whose mother commits suicide, is married off to 40-year-old Rasheed, who abuses her brutally, especially after she has several miscarriages. At 60, Rasheed takes in 14-year-old Laila, whose parents were blown up by stray bombs. He soon turns violent with her. Although Laila is united with her childhood beloved, the return of the Taliban always shadows their happiness.” I love this author and I loved this book! Seeing a side of Middle Eastern life, especially that of women, clarifies and eliminates any prejudiced or ignorant assumptions I had of the cultural.
5 STARS
You Never Give me Your Money: The Beatles After the Breakup was recommended to me as a must-read biography. I was excited to read in depth about a band I was two generations too young to live through, too young to understand the revolutionary culture surrounding Beatlemania, but so eagerly loved. In all honesty, I wish I hadn’t read it. Not because the book wasn’t good- but because it unveiled these god-like artists (minus Ringo), exposing their very much human qualities and at time vile characteristics. Not one righteous bone in their body. This whole Hare-Krishna-Eastern-Enlightenment high George Harrison was on was complete and utter bullshit. These songs that I had imaged had so much substance behind them turned out to be something that was just thrown together before a session. That is if you could get all of them in one room at the same time. However, those miracles were few and far in between. What I thought was for the love of music was really for the love of those extra zeros added to their checks. Yes, they discussed Yoko and Linda (spoiler alert: it was John’s mummy complex directed towards Yoko is one of the largest factors to the band’s death) but majority of the book was explaining every lawsuit they had which is a volume collection on its own. Don’t let this discourage you from reading this book. If you already have the Beatles pretty well figured then this reading would add a good chunk of foundation to your Beatle knowledge.
3 STARS
Cabinet of Roman Curiosities- Fuck this book.
NO STARS
Books I will read during these following 12 months
May 3, 2011
Lingerie Party
As part of my bachelorette weekend (which just might turn into a week-long bender), I want a night devoted to a lush lingerie party. This night would entail my brides maids and I getting our hair and face did, shutting down either Agent Provocateur, Coco de Mer, or La Perla for a few hours as we sip on bubbly and play dress up in little skimpy garments!
All of this will be professionally documented of course.
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