Who's Your Little Fuzz Butt?

What do you serve your pet's food in? Fine china? Crystal like in a Fancy Feast commercial? Do you match your dog dish to your decor? Your cat bowl to your color scheme?
Here's a little pet dish roundup. Maybe there's something you'd like to get for the adorable one in your life.

Buy Fuzz Butt HERE

I got these for Cholo three years ago at Target.
They don't have them anymore but they have others HERE

Buy Psycho Kitty HERE


from These Creatures

Get this at Bloomingdales


Jonathan Adler


e-mail me your photo with your pet and his/her bowl and I'll do little post
mizvtheb@yahoo.com

All Saints Reprise

We were ready for Halloween kids at our house!

We went to a tango Halloween party last night. Some of us were talking about the small number of trick-or-treaters coming to our respective doors these days. Unless you live in a gated community, it seems like kids trick-or-treating house to house in a city is nearly extinct. Of course safety issues are valid, but in our cases the kids, parents, grandparents, all of them our neighbors, know who we are.
One person suggested that Halloween has sadly been taken over by adults. And it's true - the street is filled with costumed revelers far from childhood years. The decorations festooning the outside of homes are getting more elaborate each year, and they are hardly childlike. This year I saw an entire New Orleans style cemetery (complete with crypts and theatrical lighting) created in someone's small front yard.

I didn't put up Halloween decorations (click on images to a larger view) until yesterday when I got home from work. It was kind of fun decorating for the moment at hand. I have tons of stuff in the shed, so it was easy to haul out a couple of boxes and be ready a half hour later for trick-or-treaters.

It was a cool night, so we wrapped up and wigged out, and opened a bottle of wine and sat on the porch waiting for the kids.

Cholo looks so cute next to the giant Snoopy. This giant tacky suburban lawn ornament cracks me up!

My wicker fan chair awaits my best Morticia Adams fantasy. I love the crows! Do you use them too? A friend of mine set a whole bunch of crows out on her front lawn and the real crows had a fit, cawing and screeching until she removed them!

So I'm taking down the Halloween stuff, and thinking about making a journey to the cemetery to partake in another New Orleans tradition. I am reprinting the following post I did last year about today, All Saints Day.

Calling All Saints

Our first trip to New Orleans in 1999 coincided with Halloween and All Saints and All Souls Days. Although we are Catholic, we had never participated in the traditions of going to the cemetery on November 1.
Our friend Sabina took us to our first All Saints cemetery experience to St. Louis #1 and St. Louis #2, probably the two most famous ones since they are in The French Quarter.
We have no family grave to tend, but we go to take care of the grave of our dear departed friend Miss Anne. It's nothing really, just a little kindness that makes us feel good. The cemetery is very peaceful, and doing some little mundane chore, like sweeping off the the headstone and leaving flowers and some trinkets, is very comforting.
Our loved ones rest far way from us, so having an adopted loved one to tend to makes us feel a part of this time and place.
All over Louisiana, people are tending the graves, washing tombs, sweeping up, planting new flowers, leaving trinkets behind.
Sabina and I made a yearly visit to St. Louis #1 and # 2. We have no one there, but we visited our favorite tombs, including Voodoo Queen Marie Laveau's. You mark an X on her tomb, asking that she guide you and grant a wish in the coming year. Sabina is no longer here (she moved away after Katrina), and I just don't feel like doing this without her.
We'd also bring candles and flowers, and candy, and sometimes little bottles of perfume. I'd bring tango things too, and a personal trinket from my jewelry box.
Though it's a family thing, it is also a solemn day for the church, and the priests come to add their blessings.
It's a custom that has been going on for nearly 300 years. It takes place during the day, unlike other ceremonies in the New Mexico that take place at night.

Now This Is What I'm Talking About

There are certain magazine articles that instantly speak to who you are, or what you are trying to be. The current issue of Veranda (March 2009) is talking to me. Especially the editorial called "Charleston Single House New Attitude" restoration and interior design by Eric Cohler, photos by Jeff McMara, text by Elizabeth Gaynor.

Eric's family is from Chicago, and he grew up in New York, and he now boasts, "I claim Charleston as home."
A traditionalist with an appreciation for contemporary design, Cohler refers to his interiors as a "classical veneer with a modern core." He notes that all design was once "contemporary" and startling for its period. In this spirit, he believes good work from all "contemporary" periods can marry with tradition.


This is the kind of decorating that I aspire to. A mix of things old and new done up with a New York edge. I too have claimed a southern city as my own, mildly restoring an old house, and doing its interiors. But I never lose my edge ha ha.


The key element in making Eric's interiors so fresh, and NOT a theme park look dedicated to Swedish style or French style, is his brilliant use of modern art. Juxtaposing contemporary paintings with old furniture is a formula that excites me.

My humble version of this look book

Though I don't have the breadth and depth and budget for really good pieces of art, I manage to eke out the look I love. The Will Barnett print (entitled "The Young Couple") is modern art and "real" and valuable (and will be more so as Mr. Barnett is well into his 90's if you know what I mean). I found it discarded in the corner at the dregs hour of a tag sale, leaning in a corner with its glass broken, and a price tag of $10. At first I thought it was just a cheap but good looking replica, but when I got it home and took the glass off, I discovered that I had a treasure (now auction valued around $2000.). I would also love to have a painting by an artist I love, and I am saving up for the day I can purchase one.

Flat weave geometric pattern rug in my living room,
something else used in this look book

Ah Marilyn! Anyone who loves modern art has to have a Warhol Marilyn. New Yorkers are especially fond of using Warhol, as he was one of ours and added so much to our dreary little lives. I also love these chairs.


Now stop that howling at this past horror that was my living room. This is my little Marilyn done for me by local artist Mario Ortiz for $20. Right now it's languishing in a closet, unframed and unloved, a victim of a revamp of another restless episode. Seeing this Veranda story has shamed me, and I am taking her out of the closet directly to the framer.


You can see why I love Eric's chairs! I had my rickety salon chairs from Spain recovered in white faux leather with nail head trim. I had the nail heads spaced a little apart to give the chairs a more modern version of the traditional nail head spacing. Yes dear reader, welcome to the sick mind of the decorator's attention to details.



The chandelier over the table looks very much like Julie Neill's design she calls "Savannah" - though no credit is given for the one in Veranda. I'd love a JN chandelier for sure!

HERE

The pattern rugs throughout also resonate with me, as does the glass coffee table and the symmetrical furniture arrangement, as well as the brown and white color palette.

White furniture, glass table, flat weave rug, symmetry, antique pieces, brown & white...
My edge is the saturated color walls instead of the pale ones of the look book
I'm always learning and revamping

Erato coffee table would be perfect for this look

More great art, a coastal reference, an oversize lantern, painted furniture, sea grass rugs, touches of hides and animal print - well it all speaks to this girl. Do buy this issue of Veranda. It's a good one, and there are some more pictures of this Eric Cohler home. They look so much better on the large page, and nothing can replace the pleasure of holding a book or magazine in one's hands.


Another decorator, the great New Orleans talent Gerrie Bremmerman, uses modern art to great effect with antiques and traditional furniture. It is a great design lesson to use especially when you live in an old house and need to honor it, but not live in a Civil War reenactment.
Here she uses the painting of young artist Amanda Talley, someone we all love here in New Orleans. Read all about her in a great post by Julie Neill HERE.

Bremmeran Designs

I chose a few pieces of art to share with you, ones I think would be perfect for this look book.

I would love to have this Amanda Talley work on paper. It's pretty fab isn't it?


Julie Neill supports young artist in a major way by featuring them in her shop, and by buying their work for her personal collection in her home. I think since Julie was a Fine Arts gal herself, and a painter long before she became a powerhouse business woman, she has a sensitivity for introducing living New Orleans artists to the world. In her shop and in her weekly listings on Bond and Bowery (search in Fine Art), you can find artists Michelle Tullis, Jonathan Shaw, and Kent Walsh, and a surprise artist. The prices are not cheap, but they are fair and affordable, and terms of payment plans can be broached.

Michelle Tullis at Julie Neill's shop and on Bond and Bowery

Jonthan Shaw at Julie Neill's shop and at Bond and Bowery

Kent Walsh at Julie Neill's shop and at Bond and Bowery

And Surprise!
A painting by Julie Neill that I would love to own!
For sale at her shop and at Bond and Bowery

So here's the formula for this fab look book:

• Modern art
• Antique furniture, especially a settee or daybed
• Nail head trim on a white chair
• Geometric pattern lightweight flat weave rugs (and sea grass)
• Glass tables
• Symmetry
• Painted furniture
• Large lanterns and chandeliers
• Honoring the tradition and architecture of a house
• New York edge
• Edited and interesting collections
• Edited zebra print

The Dinner Party Reveal

We are insane party givers. We just love to give a party, especially a dinner party.
But the boogie man recession has us on the ropes with the funds needed to properly entertain, so we called out the troops to help us put together a pot luck dinner party.
It coincided with Chinese New Years, so we had a fun theme to riff on.
You can see our kitchen in it's every day state, the real way we live as opposed to the fluffed up magazine life we see in our mind's eye.
It's a large kitchen, actually comprised of the original 100 year old kitchen and a bedroom that has been done away with.
The stairway goes up to the camel back, a second floor just on the back of the house, where Alberto's office is.
Alberto is a playful scamp, as he dons his chef hat from Argentina, and decorates his face with his Fu Manchu look with a burnt wine cork.
He did wash his face and change into a dashing red shirt for dinner ha ha.
He's preparing the Long Life Noodles with chicken and mushrooms.
It was Alberto's idea to have a kitchen
party, to make a chef's table in the
kitchen since we had a rather large
group of 14 to seat.
We had to shift some things around,
which is my speciality as the middle
of the night furniture mover.
Wine glasses were hauled out. I used to have about 60 glasses, but got rid of most of them. Now I have odds and
ends that I mix and match to complete a table setting.
I also have a collection of Edwardian
silver plate flatware that is our
everyday silverware. I have never babied it, throwing it into the dishwasher everyday. On special occasions like this, I polish it all, and it always comes out looking
fabulous. It's mostly a matching set,
though I have added pieces that have
a similar look over the years.
Our usual sit down dinner is for ten people, but we have been known to
do a seated dinner for 50, using all of our own things, by mixing and matching.
We started shopping a week before
the party. Alberto also constructed
a table top at this time. Two days before the party we started food prep, and shopping for decor. Some of that shopping took place around the storage shed, and from my magic closet and cupboards, and from the garden.


I knew the color scheme would be red, because of our Chinese New Years theme. I wanted to get quince branches for an entry bouquet, and red tulips and red and pink carnations for the table. Alas, even the reliable flower department at Whole Foods didn't have anything except some sick looking over priced tulips. But they did have perfect Clementines that I really had to have. Not to worry.
Wal Mart and Sams usually have pretty good basic flowers at an inexpensive price.


Because I was on a recession budget here, there was no running to the cute boutique flower shop.

But Wal Mart had nothing today! And I was running out of energy and time.
So I went to faux! I got all my flowers at Wal Mart for around $20.! I also picked up red cocktail napkins and a couple of plastic tablecloths and the tiny paper parasols used for "kookielau" drinks, and some gold stickers I needed too, and some great plastic martini glasses for the saketinis.

I also picked up some red envelopes and wasabi green place cards from The Stationers, a terrific shop on Magazine Street. A couple of more red linen napkins from Belladonna finished the decor shopping.

I started the decor in the dance parlor where the front door is.
The entry table got a stack of red envelopes.
It's a Chinese tradition to give each
person a red envelope with money it as a good luck token to insure prosperity for the coming year.
You give an even number of bills; odd numbers are considered bad luck.
I usually get the traditional envelopes you can find in Chinatown, but the local Asian market didn't have any.
So I got pretty red envelopes and wasabi place cards suggested to me by Jane at Stationers.
I picked up some funny money at the Asian market with 5,000 dollar bill denominations, and put four of them into each envelope.
I added little gold stickers on the front and the back of each
envelope to add a little bling to the bling.

I moved our kitchen table into the empty dance parlor, centered in the room under the chandelier.

The table is an old rusty thing I
dragged into the house from the street years ago.

The kitchen table really looks good in this room. It coordinates with my rusty cart which I paid good money for.
The dining chairs came into the dance
parlor from the kitchen too, placed
in pairs in the corners, to provide a
couple places to sit down with a drink.

The center table became the saketini bar, with a huge arrangement on it.
I dragged a garden urn from the yard and cut some bamboo poles to size to make an arrangemrnt.

This bamboo is left over from the wedding decor I did years ago for our dear friends Joe and Sabina.


Add the mini paper parasols, and the faux Chinese lantern flowers from Wal Mart, and stuff the uber trendy Foo dog into the urn, and a red Chinese tassel to gild this overblown lily.


Clementines in a Lucite shell bowl, red napkins, and giant confetti add to the mix. I found some animal candle sticks, and they seemed perfect, a monkey and a fox illuminating the Year of the Ox. The little gold frame has a sign in it that says "Happy New Year 2009" in beautiful calligraphy. It was actually a very special greeting card from friends in Key West. I'm telling you, I use everything!

Cholo wants to know: What's up Mom?

I moved onto the living room. Beyond vacuuming and dusting, the only thing I did in here was a vase of red and pink carnations on the coffee table.

Alberto loves to build things, and he
really loves to make things for me. We are lucky to have a funky garage,
and off street parking in the middle
of New Orleans. I also have my own shed that holds all the party decor, and holiday decorations.
We used to have a dance studio where
we gave weekly dance parties.
We also did many tango festivals,
that required a unique decor for two
dinner dances given during those
festivals. I keep everything if it doesn't get trashed, knowing that some day I'll recycle it.


Anyway, that's why we have so many
folding chairs. They were part of our dance studio supplies.
The garden pedestals came in from outside to use under the table top Alberto constructed of three pieces of plywood.
We were going to use saw horses, but
they were too wide.
I used a king size piece of quilt batting I had left over from doing
some fabric treatment on bedroom walls. I folded it half to make the
table top extra luxe. An extra long
banquet tablecloth was the perfect size for our chef's table in the kitchen.

The next thing to do is my favorite! Time to set the table.
I do this the night before, actually going in the wee small hours of the
morning.
It's quiet, and I'm very mellow after
the hustle and bustle of the busy few days leading up to the party.
All the dishes and glasses have been washed, and the silver polished.
I have so many sets of dishes, and for this party I chose what I call my catering plates, a set of simple white heavy china with a gold rim.
A red runner made from two folded
plastic tablecloths goes down the length of the table.
Five small silver glass julep cups are filled with a dozen carnations in each, half red, half pink.
I use a pair of pruning shears to cut apart the flowers that come in a bundle of six attached flowers.
Using individual stems makes a better looking bouquet.
Each person's place has a plate down with a red linen napkin simply folded on top of it.
Silverware is placed on each side of the plate, fork tines down, an old Euro custom I've been doing for years. A pair of new chop sticks
is placed on top of the napkin.
Then the place card.
Small white ironstone salt cellars,
and small and large divided dishes
go down the center of the table, to be filled with mustards and plum dipping sauces later.
I fidget and fuss and have such a great time doing all of this.
The over size confetti squares get
tossed down. After all it is a New Years celebration!
But wait! What else can I add???!!!
I've asked the guests to please wear red, but sometimes my wishes are
not obeyed ha ha. So I remember the boxes of Mardi Gras beads in the shed.



Local lore has it that all the houses in New Orleans are tilting because of the weight of all the Carnival beads that we catch every year, and then stash in attics. I had a pristine unopened bag of red beads waiting for this party.
Each person got some beads to put on, thus able to wear something red for the overall festive effect of this themed party.


Even the crappy baker's rack in the kitchen got cleared
off for the night. I can't part with this thing, because it
houses all of our cook books, dish towels and napkins,
and has the all important, albeit mini size, junk
drawer.

Tonight it's the dessert buffet.
The vintage cake stand and platter awaits the dreamy
sinful pies that Julie contributed. The vintage majolica pitcher with the caranations, has a plum blossom on it!

Everybody brought such delish offerings!

Chris and Joe brought Spring Rolls that were
the perfect appetizer served at the saketini bar
in the dance parlor.

Jessica and Thomas made the best saketinis I ever
had! Vodka, sake, and a paper thin slice of cucumber.
Mitchell made a tasty fried rice.



I did the braised ox tails, and they were really good. It was a two day
cooking process, and I will do it again!

Barbara and Edwin made a fantastic
Asian salad.

Todd and Thomas were in charge of bringing the wine, and they got into the spirit of the theme, by wrapping the wine bottles in what they called
"recession rap."



Jessica brought the Chinese green beans and all the saketini fixings, and Jon brought the magic.

The island in the kitchen is piled with platters
waiting for the food to come out. I had lots of
chopped parsely and green onions on hand for
garnish.

We love the way the big chef's table looks in our kitchen.

Can you see the island in the back of the shot was used as a serving buffet?





Even my office got a little change - this fab wing chair usually lives a corner of the kitchen near a window. I've left it in my office for now, because Cholo and I really like it here.




The best thing about a party are the people! We invited 14, and we were 12 that night.
The age group was varied, the converstaion great! It was very late when the party broke up.
It took a few days to break it all down. We washed the dishes that night, and sent everyone home with red envelopes, oranges, and left overs. They left us with gratitude for gracing our home with their good company.




You can do this too! All this red would make a great Valentine's table setting for two to twelve.
If you don't serve Chinese food, just remove the chopsticks. If you want less bling, don't use the
confetti or beads.