tinker

The ideal Sunday morning coffee accompaniment or a happy place to retreat to when the only real solution seems to beat your co-workers senseless, I give you Jason Beck a.k.a Chilly Gonzales a.k.a. Gonzales, a Canadian-born electronica producer who turned to his lifelong piano training to create blissfully minimal pieces like this. 

Bonus points are also due for his footwear and jewelry selections.

xx,kk

puppy love

Meet my new puppy, Barnard! Tom Ford, himself, could not design a better dog.

(Lots) more pictures to follow.

xx,kk

how a gentleman cooks breakfast

You may think that a fried breakfast is something that doesn’t need a recipe, but I guarantee that if you follow this one you’ll never regret it. 

1. Wake up in a Georgian country house with a hangover of biblical proportions. Slide your arm from beneath the slender alabaster neck of the recumbent debutante and silently pick your way through the detritus of last night’s party to the kitchen.

2. As soft golden sunlight arcs low across the paddock and gilds the chromework of the Aga like melted butter, find a big pan. 



3. Heat an unconscionable quantity of oil to a gentle simmer and slip in the freshly made local sausages. Sausages should not be pricked and never fried. The intention is that they should poach in the oil. 



4. As the sausages poach make tea. If it is a proper farmhouse there will be a gigantic ‘Brown Betty’ teapot of the type used to fortify British battalions throughout the last Great Unpleasantness. Add a spoonful of leaf tea (need we mention the sordid subject of bags?) for each person and ‘one for the pot’. At this point the kettle will start its song, beginning the process of gently awakening the recovering partygoers. Pour the water over the leaves. The tea serves the same purpose to a hungover Englishman that chicken soup serves to a Jewish New Yorker with a headcold and hives. This is not cooking…it’s an emergency clinical intervention. An Englishman’s mother will offer him tea as first response medical aid even if his arm has been severed by a combine harvester. 



5. Move the sausages to the warming oven, pour off all but a light glazing of the oil and begin to brown the bacon. Much has been written about good bacon and I do not propose to repeat it. Suffice it to say…smoked…streaky…thin…crisp. Place in the warming oven when done. 



6. Open a can of Heinz baked beans -accept no substitute- these are not so much a foodstuff as an architectural element of the finished plate. Think of beans as colour and a concealer of disheartening flashes of empty plate between meats. 



7. Mushrooms and tomatoes may be grilled at this stage but no gentleman would consider eating them. They are vegetables. Vegetables are a form of table decoration. They aren’t food - they go next to food. As the great Dr Johnson should have said ‘Vegetables are what food eats’ and I have no intention of disagreeing. 



8. Americans eat hash browns at breakfast. They are disagreeable to an Englishman. I understand that the French, who can make food out of almost anything, use them to sole espadrilles. 



9. There are many different ways to cook eggs but most of them are purely of interest to invalids, children and the feeble-minded. The correct or ‘proper English egg’ is fried with lightly browned edges in the fat left over from the bacon. At the last minute, oil is flicked over the top of the yolk to seal it. This dangerous procedure causes the yolk to form a perfect, golden, viscid capsule, the violation of which with a rough shard of toast, is the nearest that an Englishman will permit himself to unbridled sexual ecstasy. 



10. While the eggs are being coaxed into tumescence the first of the walking wounded will have arrived in the kitchen. Ignore the bashful looks and tousled hair and administer tea in large quantities. Mugs enable fingers to thaw and many a tryst has been sealed by a coy glance over the chipped china rim. The more robust may be set to the simple task of toast. 



11. Working quickly, lay down toast, top with an egg, flank with bacon and sausage and fill the spaces with beans. Serve forth.

jam on this

If, like me, you are busily preparing for the upcoming Eatpocalypse 2011, then you will, no doubt, also be contemplating its corresponding playlist. Lucky for you, I've got you covered. 

After scouring the internet for a decent medley and continually coming up with the inaudible or hokey, I plugged in my earphones and took DJ-ing into my own click-happy hands. Playlist serving instructions: pour yourself a big bourbon, grab a fork, press play and stuff your face like leftovers don't exist. Enjoy!

Cocktails

1. "Bennie and the Jets," Elton John

2. "The Walk," Mayer Hawthorne

3. "One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer," by Amos Milburn

4. "Wade in the Water," Ramsey Lewis Trio

5. "It's a Shame," The Spinners

6. "You Send Me," Sam Cooke

Dinner

7. "Since I Fell for You," Gladys Knight

8. "A Sunday Kind of Love," Beth Rowley

9. "Shine on Harvest Moon," Rosemary Clooney

10. "Blue Moon," Bucky Pizzarelli & Skitch Henderson

11. "You Always Hurt the One You Love," The Mills Brothers

12. "Some Strange Rain," Cotton Jones

13. "Blood Red Sentimental Blues," Cotton Jones

14. "I'm Sorry," Eric Clapton

15. "Be Yourself (Nash)," Robin Pecknold

16. "Harvest Moon," Neil Young

17. "Walkin' After Midnight," Patsy Cline

18. "I Only Have Eyes for You," Flamingos

19. "Bluebird," Paul McCartney

20. "Ballad for My One True Love," Mason Jennings

21. "Flight Attendant," Josh Rouse

Dessert

22. "Samba da Bencao," Bebel Gilberto

23. "Queremos Paz," Gotan Project

24. "Tane Mahuta," Ruby Suns

25. "Space Kay," Daniel Lanois

luminosity

I liked the picture of the chandelier so much, I decided to replicate it for myself. Just bought this image, now all I have to do is find a suitable frame and hit print. 

Stay tuned for the results!

xx,kk

jam on this

Because, the truth is, the Guards are good.
xx,kk

furry friend

I'm currently working on adopting my very own puppy-face-smudge-love-schmou (did that make you pukey?), but first he's going to need some nice things: 1. dog bowl by Bauer Pottery 2. collar by Found My Animal 3. squirrel! 4. rope leash by Found My Animal 5. dog bed by Suzanne Kaiser Collection

xx,kk