I had a July birthday this summer. Again. I threw myself a party. Again. Since my birthday is inevitable and I love throwing parties, I decided to create a set of linens that would work with my three outdoor tables and that I would love to use on my birthday and possibly other times throughout the year. The Outside Inside Tablescape idea was born.
As I was thinking about family this week, remembering that August 22 would have been my mother’s 83rd birthday, I decided to memorialize my parents by a trip through our travel memory lane. My father took all of the old slides with pictures of my brothers and me and converted them to photos. He gave us a photo scrapbook of all of these photos and they are a precious treasure trove that chronicles our growing up and our travels.
This is a personal journey that I’m making today, so if you’re not family or a really good friend, you may find you want to skip my grainy photolog. 🙂 Or maybe you have a similar set of photos in your closet that you’re willing to share …
Flower Garden at Mount Vernon
Although there are lots of photos of me as a baby, it appears that we mostly stayed home or visited family in my early years. My father annotated the backs of the photos and he thought this first one was taken in about 1957 at Mount Vernon, George Washington’s home in Virginia. I turned five that summer and my brother was two. Since Dad was a teacher, we often took extended driving trips in the summer, dragging a variety of camping trailers behind us.
Here’s a more current version of the garden at Mount Vernon.
My dad’s side of the family was from Cincinnati and we used to go to visit relatives fairly frequently. A visit to the Cincinnati Zoo was a treat, and Dad could not resist taking a leggy photo of Mom. Since she’s not pregnant here, this is probably about 1957.
Next on the memory lane is me at John Bryan State Park in western Ohio. Dad says this photo was taken about 1958. We always used to go on a fall color trip every year.
We visited the Ross County Historical Society Museum, in Chillicothe, Ohio.
My grandparents lived near Kansas City, so we sometimes visited them there. We also must have made a visit to the Harry S. Truman Library in about 1958.These two photos appear to be taken from about the same spot, but the second (professional) one has a lot more polish and landscaping!
Every Easter Sunday, after church we would go to what we called Mrs. Aull’s Garden (apparently we weren’t the only people) and take photos in our fancy clothes. My youngest brother is about two here, so it’s probably 1961.
Those yellow blobs on the hill behind us are all daffodils!
The hillside of daffodils still exists, and can be seen here via these copyrighted photos. Aullwood Garden Metropark is still a beautiful place to visit in Englewood, Ohio.
With our little family of five complete and mobile, we began to travel further afield.
And I began to get into those awkward years.
Rocky Mountain High
Occasionally my mom took a picture, but she didn’t seem to get the knack of focusing either.
In 1964, we went to the World’s Fair in New York. My husband, who had a traveling childhood similar to mine, remembers that they served $2.00 hamburgers and everyone thought that was highway robbery!
We went back to Mount Vernon…
… and to Monticello.
I fell in love with the Appalachian Mountains all over again in 1967.
By the time I was sixteen, I had pretty much stopped traveling with my parents and was working during the summer to save money for college. The love of travel that they instilled in me never went away, however, and it’s a rare day that doesn’t find me dreaming about the next reservation to travel I’m going to make.
I’m linked up today to Wanderlust Wednesday at Time Travel Plans, The Tablescaper for “Oh, The Places I’ve Been”, Travel Photo Monday” at Travel Photo Discovery, and “Travel Photo Thursday” at Budget Travelers Sandbox, so stop by and get some more inspiration for your travel bucket list!
Got my bags, got my reservations,
Spent each dime I could afford.Â
Like a child in wild anticipation,Â
I long to hear that, “All aboard!”
Music and lyrics by Bud Green, Les Brown and Ben Homer (1944)
“The things you do for yourself are gone when you are gone, but the things you do for others remain as your legacy.”
― Kalu Ndukwe Kalu
Did I tell you about our family reunion this year? We’ve been having family reunion weekends annually for thirty-one years. Although not everyone comes every year, we have decided that if we don’t have the reunion annually, it could easily die a quick death and we don’t want that to happen. One of the gifts of having an annual reunion is seeing one’s younger relatives grow up and prosper — especially the children. This year, my cousin asked me to photograph her five grandchildren while at the reunion, and with some trepidation, I said I would. They were adorable and I got some fun pictures that expressed the children’s personalities, even though I’m an amateur photographer. As a thank you for my time, my cousin sent me a beautiful flower arrangement, and today’s sunflower tablescape was inspired by her thoughtful gift.
As I started to put together the elements of the tablescape that would complement the sunflowers, I didn’t really think I had enough yellow to make it work. Then I took a trip to the linen closet, where I found the coordinating placemats and napkins with yellow stripes and checks. It was still pretty pastel and the napkins carried a lot of pink, so I added a few pink-tipped carnations from the grocery store to the arrangement.
Then I began shopping for dishes in the cupboards. Of course, I had to start with my signature style — using grandma’s china and silver. This pattern, Stanwyck by Noritake, belonged to my next door neighbor and when she died, her kids gave me the entire set. The fragile blue and gold filigree pattern balances the bold orange and yellows of the Quimper salad plate.
While reading blogs this morning, I saw a post from Dawn at We Call It Junkin where she used her corn on the cob plates in her design. Brilliant, I said to myself, and since imitation is the highest form of flattery, I added my white stoneware corn dishes to the table with their yellow corn stickers. Who said I didn’t have any yellow stuff in my stash?
 After that it was easy — just pull more French pottery from my collection courtesy of my beloved mother-in-law, including the Quimper candy dish filled with dark chocolate coated almonds, a pair of candlesticks, and a French butterfly. I added our wedding crystal, silver napkin rings, and my Gorham Trilogy flatware and got out the camera.
Voila! A sunny tablescape inspired by the sunflowers of southern France and enhanced by my collection of French faience. I’m pretty sure my mother-in-law would have loved the whole thing, and I miss her most at this time of the year because she’s not there to share the family reunion with us. Family is a true gift that cannot be underestimated or forgotten.
I’m linking up this week at Let’s Dish with Cuisine Kathleen for the Summer Fun Challenge, Open House Party with No Minimalist Here, and Tablescape Thursday at Between Naps on the Porch. Be sure to visit these creative bloggers for lovely photos and inspiration.
Got my bags, got my reservations,
Spent each dime I could afford.Â
Like a child in wild anticipation,Â
I long to hear that, “All aboard!”
Music and lyrics by Bud Green, Les Brown and Ben Homer (1944)
I’m an Anglophile recently masquerading as a Francophile. I have not been to Italy yet, but books about Italian culture are certainly on my radar, as we are planning a trip to Italy in the spring with travel writer Linda Dini Jenkins. When my husband bought me a book for my birthday by Tim Parks about rail travel in Italy, I was pretty happy.
Although I’ve never been to Italy, I’ve been a Frances Mayes stalker follower for many years. Her blog is a delight and most of my mind-photos of Italy come from her Bramasole books. I’ve previously talked about Frances here and I’ve referred to her many times over my years of blogging. I’ve also had guest bloggers share their wonderful experiences in Italy, including friends Debbie and Kathy. I’ve been putting together trips to Rome for relatives this week and I’ve been drinking a lot of Italian koolaid. I was ready for Italian Ways: On and Off the Rails from Milan to Palermo.
Click into the photo to read another point of view from an expatriate reviewer.
Although Mayes gave us some idea of the Italian sense of time and place,  Tim Parks’s almost sardonic take on Italy and its social structures came as kind of a culture shock to me. I should have know better; many of my blogging friends refer to issues with Italian trains, including Marisol at Traveling Solemates. We have our own issues here in Chicago with trains as well. I don’t know why I was surprised. Italian Ways: On and Off the Rails from Milan to Palermo is exactly what the reviewers say it is — a revealing look at the dynamic between tradition and innovation in modern Italy. Another reviewer describes Italian Ways in this way.
“For every moment that Italy annoys Tim Parks, there are two in which it delights him.”
That’s pretty much the premise of Italian Ways. Parks tells the stories of his train travel in Italy through vignettes of the rail system and of the people he meets along the way — and it’s funny and poignant.
In reading the Christian Science Monitor’s review of this book, I also clicked into their list of top ten travel books to read before you go to Italy. My goodness, I had forgotten about A Room with a View and Daisy Miller. Those are going to definitely be on my reading  list for this year, along with a few more visits with Woody Allen in To Rome With Love.
So — should you read Italian Ways? Yes, but be aware that as Andrew Martin of The Observer says, this is a “warts-and-all” look at Italy’s trains and culture. It’s not a love story to Italy like Frances Mayes has penned in Under the Tuscan Sun and its sequels. As a traveler, I want to know about the warts I might encounter while traveling, so for me, it was a great book! Thanks, Music Man, for an excellent birthday present.
With the availability of bicycle rentals in so many cities, travelers have the option of getting some exercise while seeing the sights from a different vantage point. Here in Chicago, Paris-style Divvy bike racks are popping up all over the city, and not just along the lakefront. I’m not talking about you hard-core folks who go to Provence on bicycling tours, but with soft-core city cycling comes the need for soft-core bicycle clothing and gear, and that’s where we’re traveling today.
Looks like Paris, doesn’t it? But it’s Chicago!
As a middle-aged woman, the last thing I want to do is wear skin-tight bike shorts around town while sightseeing or going into a restaurant. I was thrilled when a friend referred me to Terry — the “original women’s bicycling store.” At Terry, I found the perfect solution to my dilemma, the padded bike skort.
Terry’s Flare Skort is the perfect solution to bicycling in cities.
I own this skort in the print and in black. It has a padded bike short underneath with leg bands that are not too tight, and the skirt has two large hip pockets where I put my iPhone and use the Map My Ride app when riding around town. It comes in plus sizes and is comfortable enough to walk around in, even with the padded seat. It hits me just above the knee at my 5′ 2″ height, and is a respectful length. Normally I wash my bike gear in my washing machine, but this week I washed it in the bathtub (as I usually wash clothing while traveling). The padding took two days to dry, so be aware of that, but I probably could have squeezed out more water with towels. It will fold up into a small ball in the corner of your suitcase and come out looking brand new.
All over Europe, we have seen women commuting on bikes, dressed in their work clothes. I don’t know if they are wearing bike shorts underneath their dresses, but they could do that as well. With a simple bike short liner under your dress, you can pedal in comfort and modesty even in your cute sundress!
With a basket and my bicycle togs, I can get my exercise and my errands done.
I also picked up an old Vera Bradley small backpack at a garage sale this summer, and was really excited about it. It’s lightweight and breathes, so even if I actually carry it on my back, it’s comfortable. It’s big enough to put my wallet and my camera in it, leaving my removable basket for library books, groceries, or goodies from the farmers’ market. It’s a win-win, both at home and while traveling, but I would choose a more sedate pattern to use in Paris :).
Next time you are packing for a trip, try taking along a bike skort. Worst case scenario is that you will use it as a cute skirt…
I’m linked up today to Wanderlust Wednesday at Time Travel Plans,   The Tablescaper for “Oh, The Places I’ve Been”, Travel Photo Monday” at Travel Photo Discovery, and “Travel Photo Thursday” at Budget Travelers Sandbox, so stop by and get some more inspiration for your travel bucket list!
I really struggled with the title of this post. I feel as though it should be Adventures in Food Styling rather than highlighting the Seafood Cobb Salad that I remixed and then photographed twice for my home kitchen. Whatever the title, I’m baring it all today in the hopes of helping you to be a better food stylist by learning from my mistakes.
Seafood Cobb Salad Remixed and Rephotographed
We are always looking for what we call “Joe’s Fish” when we travel — the local seafood restaurant that offers wonderful seafood at reasonable prices that only the locals know about. Recently on our trip home from Ohio, we were determined to take the time to find a good lunch place near Indianapolis. By using my Yelp app on my phone, I found Mitchell’s Fish Market in Carmel, Indiana, and we were in luck! While not exactly Joe’s Fish, Mitchell’s is a supper-club style chain with excellent seafood and meat options on the menu.
My out-of-focus photo shows you how Mitchell’s styled this Seafood Cobb Salad.
I ordered the special salad of the day, a Seafood Cobb Salad, and a lobster tail. As I do, I took a photo of the plate, but my iPhone seems to be having some issues with focusing. Maybe I’m doing it too quickly; I only include it to show you the original styling of this presentation.
Once home, I was determined to remake this delicious salad. I gathered together the makings of the original salad — two lobster tails, a can of crab, one pound of shrimp, two hard-boiled eggs, and a pound of bacon. Yes, the ingredients were expensive, but I made enough of the meat mixture to separate into frozen packets for at least four more servings. I spent a long time looking for the right recipe, but finally just created my own. I cooked the bacon until it was crisp but not crunchy, boiled the lobster tails for seven minutes and then immediately put them in ice to stop the cooking. I opened the can of crab, and thawed the precooked shrimp and pulled off the tails. I chopped it all into bite-size pieces. Pretty darn easy.
Most lobster roll recipes call for a mayonnaise-heavy dressing, but I tried lightening it up a little by adding a fat-free raspberry vinaigrette to some mayo. That worked nicely, giving the dressing a slightly sweet taste that was not overpowering. I put the salad on a bed of red-leaf lettuce and started taking photos.
This is where we get into the food styling fail. This is actually the BEST photo I got of the bunch.
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So what’s a girl to do? Remake the salad and buy a new lens.
With purchased lobster roll salad and more carefully thought-out styling, I rephotographed the salad with my new 50mm/f1.4 lens. What a difference!
First I tried it in a clear bowl a la Rachael Ray. My new Monet tea towel made a nice backdrop.
 Then I tried it in the white bowl again. It’s amazing what a good lens and some careful food styling will do to essentially the same photo, isn’t it?
What’s the moral to this story?
Both salads were very tasty; it’s pretty hard to screw up lobster. The bottom line is that in food photography, good equipment makes a difference, but it’s important to thoughtfully style the photograph before you use that fancy lens!
To Visit:
Mitchell’s Fish Market, 14311 Clay Terrace Blv., Suite 100, Carmel, IN  317-848-FISH
I’m linking up today at Open House Party Thursdays sponsored by No Minimalist Here. Be sure to stop by and visit some of the creative bloggers sharing their work!
Got my bags, got my reservations,
Spent each dime I could afford.Â
Like a child in wild anticipation,Â
I long to hear that, “All aboard!”
Music and lyrics by Bud Green, Les Brown and Ben Homer (1944)
Recently a friend asked for book recommendations on Facebook. Knowing that she was planning a trip to France in September, I responded immediately with some favorites from my literary journey through France over the last few years, including The Paris Wife and Extremely Pale RosĂ©. Everyone else responded with highly regarded cross-cultural novels and nonfiction, making my suggestions appear somewhat frivolous. But did I back down? Non! I offered up an even more frivolous choice — Mary Kay Andrews, the Princess of Beach Reads.
This summer I read several important and lengthy novels, including Paris by Edward Rutherfurd and Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese. In the privacy of my car, however, I’ve listened to three Mary Kay Andrews novels, and trust me, they are the perfect beach reads (and car reads).
I’m always looking for books with a cooking connection, so pulling Deep Dish off the shelf at the library wasn’t much of a stretch for me. I DO live in Chicago, home of the best deep dish pizza in the world, just in case you forgot. Not so much about pizza after all, Deep Dish is a sweet little confection about the rivalry between two television chefs. Since it’s a beach read, you already know what happens to our dueling chefs — they fall in love and we hope they will live happily ever after. Nuff sad about that one.
Next up was Hissy Fit, another sassy tale about an interior designer who finds her fiancĂ©Â fooling around with her maid of honor at the rehearsal dinner. Humiliated, she tries to rebuild her life by restoring and decorating a crumbling antebellum mansion for the “new guy” in town, who just happens to be fabulously wealthy and willing to spend whatever it costs. Hissy Fit surpasses what one might expect from the title, with charming and well-drawn characters and lots of references to antiques. Chick-lit romances usually end with the girl getting the guy, and this book is no exception, but Andrews has created characters that we like and some we dislike, and the reader cares about them. Another satisfying beach read.
Summer Rental is a beach read that’s actually about the beach. After reconnecting at a funeral, a trio of childhood friends decide to rent a house together at Nags Head, NC, for the month of August. Each woman comes to the vacation with expectations and secrets, and in this well-plotted and well-paced story, the secrets reveal themselves. In addition, they adopt another woman who needs a place to stay to escape her criminal husband, and of course there are the local men who become part of the ladies’ lives. The crumbling beach house really is an additional character in the story as Andrews creates an arc for the house itself — and Hollywood comes calling to rescue it and the hunky landlord who owns it. This book has just fueled my long-standing desire to rent a house on the Outer Banks someday.
Click into the photo to see Mary Kay Andrews’s advice on beach rentals.
Mary Kay Andrews is the pen name for Kathy Hogan Trocheck, who was a newspaper journalist and has written acclaimed mysteries under her own name as well as the lighter chick-lit fiction. Her deep understanding of life in the South, life in small towns, and her humorous yet gentle take on Southern behaviors make these books fun to read. She also knows a great deal about antiques and thrift-shopping, and it shows up in her characterizations — click here to see her junking tips!
Happy reading and enjoy your vacation!
Got my bags, got my reservations,
Spent each dime I could afford.Â
Like a child in wild anticipation,Â
I long to hear that, “All aboard!”
Music and lyrics by Bud Green, Les Brown and Ben Homer (1944)
We all have our things that we want to buy when we travel. Some of you buy art, and some buy jewelry. My thing is linens.
I was determined to bring home at least one gorgeous Provencal tablecloth when we went to France in April. Normally, I settle for interesting tea towels and pot holders when we travel, but there was no chance I wasn’t going to bring home a special keepsake from our Provence trip.
I won’t keep you in suspense; this is the one I bought.
On our first full day in Aix-en-Provence, I spotted La Victoire on the Rue Vauvenargue. While the men hung out at the market on the square, I made a beeline for the shop with my female traveling companions.
It did not disappoint.
There were tablecloths…
…and bolts and bolts of charming fabrics.
There were tea towels and aprons…
… and bags of all sorts made from Provencal fabrics.
I didn’t have nearly enough room in my suitcase to bring home everything I wanted to buy, but I was really coveting the coated fabrics — so practical!
There was also a charming English-speaking storekeeper and her equally charming grandfather (I think). He did not speak English, but he allowed me to take his photo after I explained that I was going to feature their shop on my blog. 🙂
If you want authentic Provencal linens, I highly recommend La Victoire in Aix-en-Provence. You can order from them online but a personal visit is more fun. 🙂
La VictoireÂ
34 Rue Vauvenargue
13100Â AIX-EN-PROVENCE
Bouches-du-RhĂ´ne
Tel:Â April 42 23 14 36
Fax:Â 21 58 00 April 42
Got my bags, got my reservations,
Spent each dime I could afford.Â
Like a child in wild anticipation,Â
I long to hear that, “All aboard!”
Music and lyrics by Bud Green, Les Brown and Ben Homer (1944)
If you haven’t climbed up to SacrĂ© CĹ“ur in the Montmartre neighborhood of Paris, you haven’t actually lived Paris.
Walking in the footsteps of the artists and performers, ladies of the night, and now millions of tourists, the narrow winding streets of Montmartre take you back to another time. Because its architecture and character is protected by a historic district designation, Montmartre doesn’t change much.
I recommend getting Rick Steves’s Montmartre Walk on Kindle for your smartphone or iPad and follow the tour up the hill. We did this on a sleepy July morning and by the time we got to the top, we were ready to enjoy the quiet reverence of Basilique du SacrĂ©-Coeur de Montmartre. And the views from the top are worth every step!
View from the top of the Sacre Coeur Basilica.
I’m linking up with The Tablescaper for “Oh, The Places I’ve Been”, Travel Photo Monday” at Travel Photo Discovery, and “Travel Photo Thursday” at Budget Travelers Sandbox, so stop by and get some more inspiration for your travel bucket list!
Got my bags, got my reservations,
Spent each dime I could afford.Â
Like a child in wild anticipation,Â
I long to hear that, “All aboard!”
Music and lyrics by Bud Green, Les Brown and Ben Homer (1944)
