Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Happy Halloween "Trick or Treat"


Here's a "treat" for you !

via Pinterest

Dark Chocolate, salted caramel topped shortbread goodies*

Prep Time: 5 minutes
Cook Time: 15 minutes
Total Time: 2 hours
Yield: 64 - inch bites
Ingredients
For Shortbread:
10 tbsp. salted butter, melted
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 tsp. salt
Zest of half an orange
1 egg yolk, whisked
1 2/3 cups All Purpose flour

For Caramel:
14 tablespoons butter
3/4 cup light brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
3/4 cup light corn syrup
2 tsp. sea salt
1/4 cup heavy cream
1 1/2 tsp. pure vanilla extract
1/4 tsp vanilla bean paste
Sea salt flakes, to top

Instructions
1. Prepare an 8×8 inch pan with parchment paper with the edges of the parchment hanging over two
of the sides. This allows you to remove the bars easily once cooled.
2. Combine the melted butter, sugar, salt and zest with a fork in a large bowl. Add the yolk and again
combine with the fork. Add the flour and stir with a heavy spoon or your hands and combine the
dough until it is well combined. Place the dough in the prepared pan and press down evenly with
your hands until the pan is covered. Refrigerate for 30 minutes to one hour. Remove and bake at
350 for 25-28 minutes, until very lightly browned. Allow to cool while you are preparing the caramel.
3. In a heavy bottomed pot, such as enameled cast iron, combine all caramel topping ingredients
save for the extract and bean paste. Bring to a boil and stir until sugars are dissolved and the
mixture is well combined. Using a candy thermometer, watch for the goal of about 230 degrees.
Allow to boil at this temp for several minutes, until it begins to climb over 235. Stir continuously.
Remove from heat and stir in the extract and paste. Allow to cool for a couple of minutes, then pour
over the shortbread base. Once chilled, top with melted chocolate and sprinkle with sea salt.
Notes
For chocolate topping, melt 1 cup dark chocolate chips and 1/2 tablespoon shortening in the microwave.
Heat at 30 second intervals, stirring after each. When smooth, use as directed.





Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Autumn


Photo by D. Wagner


"No Spring,
nor Summer beauty
hath such grace,
as I have seen in one
Autumnal face."
-John Donne

Monday, October 29, 2012

The Purpose Afterall



THE PURPOSE OF LIFE, AFTER ALL,
IS TO LOVE IT,
to taste experience to the utmost,
to reach out eagerly and without fear
for newer and richer experience." -Eleanor Roosevelt

Sunday, October 28, 2012

This, I Said





I knew, in the silence that followed, that anything could happen here. It might be too late: again, I might have missed my chance. But I would at least know I tried, that I took my heart and extended my hand, whatever the outcome.
"Okay," he said. He took a breath. "What would you do, if you could do anything?"
I took a step toward him, closing the space between us. "This," I said. And then I kissed him.” 
― Sarah DessenThe Truth About Forever


Saturday, October 27, 2012

What Was That All About?



“Sometimes you wake up from a dream. Sometimes you wake 

up in a dream. And sometimes, every once in a while, you

wake up in someone else's dream. ” 

― Richelle MeadSuccubus Blues

Friday, October 26, 2012

The Uniqueness of YOU



 
"The one thing that you have that nobody else has is you.  Your voice, your mind, your story, your vision. So write and draw and build and play and dance and live as only you can." Neil Gaiman

Thursday, October 25, 2012

Who Are You Going To Listen To?

"Let me listen to me and not to them."
-Gertrude Stein

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

The Bee Hive



"He also didn't like a lock of my hair and said that he couldn't get into the moment without the hair being just right. I quietly knew that he was anxious and that the hairdo wasn't the real issue. But we all let it go and came back to the scene sometime later."-Madeleine Stowe




Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Feeling the Music



"Give me the beat boys 'n free my soul... 

I wanna get lost in your rock 'n roll."
- Doobie Brothers

Monday, October 22, 2012

The Creative Mind



“Everything you can imagine is real.” 
― Pablo Picasso

Sunday, October 21, 2012

A Show of Hands



“Those who believe in telekinetics,

 raise my hand.” 
― Kurt Vonnegut

Saturday, October 20, 2012

Ad Reinhardt


From the Yale University Art Gallery

Red Abstract, 1952

Reinhardt began exhibiting his work in New York City in the 1940s, when ambitious painters were recasting European models and the aims of modernist art. Yet while Abstract Expressionists like Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, and Barnett Newman incorporated a subjectivist ethos and biomorphic forms, Reinhardt insisted on the purely visual aims of abstract painting and by the late 1940s worked exclusively with nonsymbolic, geometric forms. In the 1950s, Reinhardt limited his palette to a single color, moving from red to blue. Red Abstract offers no trace of painterly gesture, nor any subject apart from the intricate visual rhythms and relationships that comprise the picture field. After 1953, Reinhardt made only black canvases. An influential teacher and writer, Reinhardt’s theories on art impacted mimimalist artists of the next generation.
 via: Snake Ranch

Friday, October 19, 2012

Do Tell



"Tell me who admires you and loves you, and I will tell you who you are." -Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve

Thursday, October 18, 2012

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Quality

"Quality is never an accident: It is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, intelligent direction and skillful execution. It represents the wise choice of many alternatives."-William A. Foster

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

How We Become Human



"I have missed the guardian spirit of the Sangre de Cristos those mountains against which I destroyed myself every morning I was sick with loving and fighting in those small years.  In that season I looked up to a blue conception of faith, a notion of the sacred in the elegant border of cedar trees becoming mountain and sky.
This is how we were born into the world:
Sky fell in love with earth, wore turquoise,cantered in on a black horse.  Earth dressed herself fragrantly, with regard for the aesthetics of holy romance...Their love decorated the mountains with sunrise, weaved valleys delicate with the edging of sunset.  This morning I look toward the eas tand I am lonely for those mountains though I've said good-bye to the girl with her urgent prayers for redemption.  I used to believe in a vision that would save the people carry us all to the top of the mountain  during the flood of  human destruction.  I know nothing anymore as I place my feet into the next world except this: the nothingness is vast and stunning, brims with detailsof steaming, dark coffee ashes of campfires the bells on yaks or sheep sirens careening through a deluge of humans or the dead carried through fire, through the mist of baking sweet bread and breathing. This is how we will leave this world:on horses of sunrise and sunset from the shadow of the mountains who witnessed every battle every small struggle."
Joy Harjo,
from How We Become Human

Monday, October 15, 2012

Directives from the Heart


image via flickr


"Follow your heart and intuition,
they somehow already know
what you truly want to become.
Everything else is secondary" -Steve Jobs

Sunday, October 14, 2012

A Need for Solitude



“One who will not accept solitude, 

stillness and quiet recurring moments...

is caught up in the wilderness of addictions;

 far removed from an original state of being and 

awareness. This is 'dis-ease.” 
― T.F. HodgeFrom Within I Rise: Spiritual Triumph Over Death and Conscious Encounters with "The Divine Presence"

Saturday, October 13, 2012

Not Going There



"It was a phase I needed to go through but it wasn't a destination."
- Todd Rundgren

Friday, October 12, 2012

My Mantra


"Every day, think as you wake up, "Today I am fortunate to have woken up. I am alive, I have a precious human life. I am not going to waste it. I am going to use all my energies to develop myself, to expand my heart out to others, to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all beings. I am going to have kind thoughts towards others, I am not going to get angry, or think badly about others. I am going to benefit others as much as I can." 
- His Holiness The Dalai Lama

Thursday, October 11, 2012

Who You Are



"Don't bend; don't water it down; don't try to make it logical; don't edit your own soul according to the fashion.  Rather follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly." -Franz Kafka

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Just Do It!



"To practice any art, 
no matter how well or badly, 
is a way to make your soul grow.
 So do it."
-Kurt Vonnegut

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

A Happy Place

Image courtesy of P. Nishio



"Use your present moments to activate thoughts that are in harmony with the seven faces of intention


(creativity, kindness, love, beauty,


expansion, abundance,


and peaceful receptivity)."
-Dr. Wayne Dyer

One's Make-up

“If you want to know what a man's like,
 take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.”
-J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Monday, October 8, 2012

A Fun October Saturday

Took the morning Metro "blue line" this past Saturday from Long Beach to downtown Los Angeles.  I was meeting up with some friends for an exhibit at the FIDM ( Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising) Museum. 
Taking the metroline into L.A. is easy and inexpensive.  


Once I exited at the 7th street Metro center stop I just walked two short blocks to FIDM.  




It was a beautiful fall morning and a great day for exploring the downtown Los Angeles area.

It wasn't too long before my sister Joce arrived and also my friends Kip and Judith.


Great to have all the friends together for a day of fashion and fun.  Hey Wendy we love your hat!
A little gift exchange fun...
Something for all of you Ryan Gosling fans, "Color Me Good"

 Two stylin' ladies fit right in at FIDM. There's also a current millinery exhibit as well.

   Currently at FIDM:  "The 6th Annual Outstanding Art of Television Costume Design".  Admission is free and this exhibit runs through October 20th.  If you are in the area I would highly recommend visiting the gallery. 

You will see costumes  from Boardwalk Empire, Game of Thrones, 
Smash, Magic City, Pretty Little Liars, Pan Am, Once Upon a Time and many other t.v. shows.

Amazing to see the costumes up close and personal and to read about the research and long hours dedicated to crafting such wonderful costumes.  

A selection of pieces from HBO's "Boardwalk Empire". John Dunn Costume Designer

These period pieces from the PBS series  "Downton Abbey" were lovely.

While you are there be sure and browse the wonderful gift shop.





A must stop before lunch is shopping at the FIDM Scholarship store. Located just outside the museum all proceeds from purchases go to the students of FIDM.  Local merchants donate some of their wares to the store and customers like us are able to benefit from items that are sold at greatly reduced prices. Fun place. 



The Panini Cafe is our go to place for lunch and it's conveniently located just across the street from FIDM.








A really fun day with my fashionista friends.  Thanks 
Wendy, Kip, Joce and Judith 
for a
not so ordinary Saturday in October!


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