Lemon tarts are one of my favourite desserts. Chef James Henry from the restaurant Bonesin Paris has perfected the lemon tart, according to Garance Doré and her team who visited the restaurant while in Paris. He shares his recipe which is big enough for a large dinner party, or to last you a while if you’d prefer not to share.
For Pastry:
2 ¾ cups of pastry flour (preferably *type 55 bio which is an organic lump-free wheat flour from France – which is what they used for this recipe). You can use all-purpose.
5 oz. malted barley powder
2 ¾ cups butter
2 ¾ cups sugar
1/4 tsp. salt
1 egg yolk
5 oz. milk
Mix dry ingredients, stir. Add butter and fold in. Finish with wet ingredients, stirring to an even consistency.
For Frangipane (filling):
1 1/8 cup almond powder
1 1/8 cup soft butter
1 1/8 cup icing sugar 4 eggs Zest of two lemons
Mix sugar, flour and butter until combined to a good consistency
Add eggs and stir to finish
Plus: 10 meyer lemons for slicing
Directions:
Roll out pastry and fit evenly to a large tart shell, put in fridge to rest for two hours
Slice 10 meyer lemons finely crosswise and remove all seeds
Blind bake shell until golden, let cool and then fill with frangipane
Layer thin lemon slices on top of frangipane
Bake in oven at 350 degrees fahrenheit for 20 minutes uncovered, then cover with foil and bake for another 20 minutes
Check regularly by inserting a small knife – if it comes out dry, tart is ready
*the type flour used for this recipe – see #’s below.
Voila ! Bon appetit !
Bones / 43, Rue Godefroy Cavaignac – 75011 Paris, France
A lesson in numbers – for popular European flour types:
French flour type numbers indicate the ash content (in milligrams) per 10 g flour. The numbers are a factor 10 lower than the German types. Type 55 is the standard, hard-wheat white flour for baking, including puff pastries (“pâte feuilletée”). Type 45 is often called pastry flour, and is generally from a softer wheat (this corresponds to what older French texts call “farine de gruau”). Some recipes use Type 45 for croissants although many French bakers use Type 55 or a combination of Types 45 and 55. Types 65, 80, and 110 are strong bread flours of increasing darkness, and type 150 is a wholemeal flour. Note that there is no type 40 French flour like the German type 405, the closest is type 45.
Eli Broad inspires both admiration and fear in the L.A. art scene.
John Baldessari’s “Overlap Series: Palms (with Cityscape) and Climbers,” from Eli and Edythe Broad’s collection. COURTESY MARIAN GOODMAN GALLERY
Despite the enormous sprawl and diversity of Los Angeles, it still has the power dynamics of a small town. When people refer to “Eli,” everyone knows whom they mean.
Broad, a multibillionaire who made his money in the decidedly unglamorous businesses of tract housing and insurance, is the Lorenzo de’ Medici of Los Angeles—the city’s singular patron, especially of the arts – a man who can close his eyes and see the future.
Photo: Martin Schoeller
After creating shareholder wealth by providing vital homebuilding and retirement savings services through the two Fortune 500 companies he created – KB Home and SunAmerica, Inc. – Eli Broad and Edythe, his wife of 57 years, are now devoting their time, energy and resources to philanthropy.
Although Broad is the subject of constant conversation, few people are willing to criticize him openly. He often declares that Los Angeles should not be a “one-philanthropist town,” but the lack of competition has worked to his advantage.
Los Angeles ranks forty-first in charitable giving among American cities, behind Minneapolis and Detroit. Still, Broad envisages L.A. as comparable to New York in its prominence and its cultural reach, and, in the past decade or so, it has indeed joined the world’s great art centers, with a thriving artists’ community, art schools, museums, and a rapidly increasing number of galleries and collectors.
In the sixties, when Broad started building his fortune in Los Angeles, the city had no serious opera, ballet, or theatre. It had a flourishing group of artists—Ed Ruscha, Robert Irwin, John Baldessari, Ken Price, Larry Bell, Edward Kienholz, and others—but they relied on New York galleries to show their work. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) didn’t open as an independent institution until 1965, nearly a hundred years after the Metropolitan Museum; it was built not with old money, like such institutions as the Whitney and the Frick, but, in part, with funds from an entertainment-business committee headed by Tony Curtis and Billy Wilder. The local attitude toward contemporary art was often unwelcoming. In 1966, LACMA showed Kienholz’s “Back Seat Dodge ’38,” which depicted a couple having sex in a car, and it provoked such an outcry that the county threatened to withdraw funding.
Broad apparently found a lot of contemporary art ridiculous. In the beginning, he thought Roy Lichtenstein was a joke; now he has a major collection of Lichtenstein. He would ask everybody who was informed what their opinion was and put together his world view based on that. That’s what a good C.E.O. does.
For more than half a century, Broad has taken inspiration from a paperweight on his desk. On it is a quote from George Bernard Shaw: “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world. The unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”
The Broads’ first major purchases were a van Gogh, a Miró, a Matisse, and a Modigliani. Broad saw that art brought entrée into a different kind of social life—one in which, travelling to any city in the world, he could have connections to artists, collectors, and dealers. “When you’ve got the big house, and you’re driving a Jaguar, what differentiates you from every asshole dentist in the Valley?” Shelley De Angelus, who worked for Broad as his curator in the eighties and nineties, said. “Art was a way for Eli to distinguish himself.”
Now the Broad’s are the philanthropists behind a new contemporary art museum being built on Grand Avenue in downtown Los Angeles named appropriately, The BROAD.
The BROAD
The Broad
The Broad has suffered some significant delays in opening, but on September 20th, when the doors do finally swing open, Angelenos can expect to find an entirely columnless, sky-lit gallery designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro. And then all the impatience will surely be forgotten. The museum will house and continually exhibit Eli and Edythe (aka Edye) Broad’s collection of contemporary art, which is one of the largest and most significant worldwide. Plus, they’ve got great taste and have amassed large collections of works by artists like Cindy Sherman, Roy Lichtenstein, Jeff Koons, and Christopher Wool. The fact that restaurateur Bill Chait of Bestia and Republique fame and Tim Hollingsworth of The French Laundry are teaming up on the restaurant next door should provide LA residents with even more incentive to head downtown.
Eli & Edythe Broad
Source: (for the Billionaire) condensed from a large article How Eli Broad took over Los Angeles by Connie Bruck for NewYorker.com
In Charles Perrault’s Cinderella, he concludes the tale with the cynical moral that no personal advantages will suffice without proper connections.
Disney
When I was very little I was certain that I saw a fairy sitting on my window ledge one morning and it whispered my name. When I ran to the window to take a closer look it flew away. Maybe it was just a grasshopper making a noise in the wind that sounded like my name, but I can still remember it vividly to this day. I like to believe it was telling me that it would look out for me.
I still believe in angels
When I was three I was in the back seat of a taxi cab and leaned on the door and fell out onto a busy street wearing one of my little frilly dresses (of course). My parents didn’t even notice right away perhaps they planned it? but I got up, brushed my dress off and started running like hell towards the car that dumped me. They were horrified as soon as they noticed me missing the next day a few seconds later. Our family doctor paid a visit to the house to check on me later that day and couldn’t believe my luck – not one single scratch and not a mark on the dress.
Then on another occasion as much as I loved to swim, I almost drowned. My mom caught me spinning around in the ocean waves (baby sitter nowhere to be seen) and pulled me out grasping for air just in the nick of time. The angels or the universe or a fairy godmother was looking out for me. I almost changed my name to Deberella.
So let’s just collect our thoughts here for a second:
Disney
This “Fairy Godmother,” whose whole purpose in life is to make Cinderella happy, showed up for the first time EVER in NINETEEN YEARS to spoil her with materialistic things, FOR A F*****NG DANCE, and it will all only last for a few hours? YOU GAVE THIS POOR ORPHAN HAPPINESS THAT WILL LAST SHORTER THAN A LORD OF THE RINGS MOVIE?
Like where was this Fairy Godmother when she was forced to scrub floors?
DisneyDisney
But like all fairytales, there was a happy ending
Source: (for Disney photos & last paragraph) Christian Zamora Staff Writer for BuzzFeed
I’ve been giving more thought lately to the fact that there might be something to this mind.body.spirit (MBS) fixation.
to be more at peace
MBS: It’s nothing new in life but now it seems we’re getting it shoved in our faces more and more. What with almost more yoga studios opening up than coffee shops and the latest trend (which is really an ancient practice) of meditativeworkshops. I think it means we need help or at least direction. MBS pretty much covers everything. It encompasses our ‘whole’ being. Infact the three work together as a unit to create a ‘whole’. If all three are in sync you have more power. I thought I would touch on the subject of how it has affected me personally. I’m working on all three areas simultaneously to expand my mind and improve my thinking, my body and create a general feeling of lightness and well being.
MIND
The mind is an amazing tool. There really is no limit to how much you can learn if you set your mind to it. You have to challenge yourself otherwise it’s too easy to get lazy. I’m opening a new chapter in my life. I used to read all kinds of books so now I’m trying to get back to reading more often. I prefer non-fiction or fiction based on fact. Books like Kite-Runner and Poisonwood Bible I couldn’t put down. I like books that teach you something. I’m interested in language and am trying to make more of an effort to brush up on my Spanish. My blog was created out of having an inquisitive nature and an interest in many topics and a forum for things I care about. I’m wondering if I’ll ever run out of new things to talk about since I’ve written well over 1,000 posts to date. I never gave the numbers much thought until the WordPress people alerted me to that fact and said congrats.
I have an active imagination which sometimes works against me. It lay dormant for quite some time but it’s being re-activated.
Once in grade school we had to write a composition incorporating satire so mine was entitled “Jet Black and the Seven Warts” (a rendition of the Snow White fairytale in case you didn’t get it). It was about a beautiful black girl who had some issues to deal with. The warts were really euphemisms for her troubles and her not being able to get past what she saw as warts and not feeling worthy. The teacher took me aside but I got an A+.
I try to use imagination in cooking too by taking different recipes and making them my own and even inventing new ones. I like variety. If I try something in a restaurant that I like I’ll try to re-create it at home as best I can without having the recipe.
When I was little and found out that the meat I was eating came from slaughtering an animal I told my mother I wanted to be a vegetarian. Luckily I liked vegetables but she didn’t like that idea so she played a harmless little mind game with me telling me that there was another kind of meat that was really made out of vegetables, not animal…not too far off from what you can get today with tofu & tempeh, etc. Anyway, I believed her and would always ask “what kind of meat are we eating, the kind from the animal or the one they made to taste like that?” Of course we were really eating the animal but by the time I found out the truth 15 years old it was too late. To this day I don’t eat veal, rabbit or lamb (unless we go to Stepho’s Greek restaurant and someone else orders the roast lamb & I have to sample it because it’s so good). I have a thing against eating baby animals – it’s better if they have a life before I dig in. I do have a conscience but it is somewhat hypocritical.
My mom had a terrible birth with me. Infact she nearly died and didn’t see me for about a week later. But then she went on to have two more. Apparently you can train your mind to forget the pain.
I listened to Shirley Maclaine talk about her own journey at the Unique Lives event and explain how you have to listen to your gut and follow your intuition. Sometimes your mind tries to play tricks with you so you have to sort out what is real and what is not. Sometimes that’s a challenge but I think deep down we do know the answer. I believe with a strong mind and will you can create the life you want.
A healthy mind can only be found in a healthy body – Nelson Mandela
BODY
Since I took my first running workshop about 5 years ago I’ve been running ever since. My very first run was the Vancouver Sun Run 10K and when it was over I went home to a big surprise party that my family and friends threw as if I had just completed running the Boston Marathon. How could I top that (I mean the party)? From there the next goal was to train for the Nike Women’s half marathon in San Francisco but the real reason was to get the Tiffany necklace handed out at the finish line by a handsome fireman wearing a suit. I did this run twice and last year the Vancouver SeaWheeze. Nike wasn’t only about the necklace only a bit, more the fireman it was a fun run through the streets of San Francisco and went to prove to myself that I could actually complete it.
Now when I’m out running by myself my mind runs right along with me and I think about a lot of things during my much shorter runs.
In the day of the Jane Fonda Workout (I once went to her studio and took a JF class in Beverly Hills – wore a cute outfit with matching headband ) I never felt that yoga was the answer to getting in shape because it wasn’t fast enough.
I used to not be into it so much, preferring workout classes using weights instead but now I’ve gone back. I’m not a super yogi type girl but I enjoy the variety of styles and postures and am starting to see results especially when we focus on the core. The core is very important and this time I want to get right down to the abs. I’ve never really had abs (certainly never a six-pack) but I always knew they were only too shy to come out. Now I’m starting to see some signs. I’ve never felt sexier. It makes me want to work harder on getting leaner, more defined and fit. Not skinny (I don’t like skinny) just in the best shape possible for myself. It’s a personal goal. Especially since my last trip when I came back and couldn’t fit into a pair of jeans I wanted to wear. I just found my tightest pair and was able to not only get into them but do up the zipper (because getting into them doesn’t mean having to do them up). It’s because I don’t hold back on holidays. For the most part I eat really healthy but I have to have a piece of chocolate or something sweet every day. I’m crazy about all kinds of cookies. If it’s true that you are what you eat then I’m the United Nations. I enjoy food too much and don’t exercise any enough self control. It’s one (there are a few more) of my weaknesses. It’s just that this last trip it caught up to me. But now I just have to use my mind to control my body to lift my spirit.
SPIRIT
A healthy spirit can only be found in a healthy mind – me
Okay this is a tough one, how do you describe spirit. It’s just a feeling right? As in you either have a good spirit or you don’t. No, it’s more complicated than that.
For whatever reason I do believe in karma so I try to be mindful because there’s always that little voice that says “it will come back to you if you’re not careful.”
It’s trying to do the best you can. I realize that’s it’s very difficult to be all things to all people. I’ve at times spread myself too thin and it doesn’t really work to anyone’s advantage, especially mine. I’m trying to let go of some things that are beyond my control and not let my emotions get the better of me – mind over matter. So far I haven’t successfully succeeded but I will. My intuition is very good and I’m trying to pay attention to tap more into my *psychic ability which I think is about clueing in to the energy around us. When you’re able to tap in, that’s when things begin to open up and all kinds of magical stuff starts to happen. It’s eerie but fascinating what you can draw to you if you open up your heart. This is truly “the secret.” I was talking to a friend the other day about a person we both know who we find to be emotionally draining and so we discussed having boundaries and having to say “no” and be okay with it. We have to be giving but we have to protect ourselves at the same time. Negative energy is not healthy so if you experience that trapped feeling you have to let go. Looking after yourself is not a case of being egotistical or selfish it just makes you stronger. I think we have to look after ourselves before we can look after another.
Basically in a nutshell improving our MBS is work in itself but rewarding and it will help to make us better human beings.
Balance your mind, body and soul. If any of these three things are out of balance our lives will be in a state of constant turmoil and unease – walking my talk.
Photo: d. king
Any thoughts?
Psychic messages: Just as I was typing in the word “SeaWheeze” above I heard my phone message me. It was from the “SeaWheeze” people letting me know that friends and family can sign up to volunteer at the run adding – “If they’re anything like you, we love them already.”
On Sunday a friend was over for dinner. As soon as I said “let’s open up some bubbly” her phone had a new message. She showed me what it was – a friend sent her one of those moving images….of bubbles!
A new beauty launch. This time by actress-turned-CEO Jessica Alba as she branches out, adding a beauty line to her Honest Company, known for its eco-friendly household and baby products.
Jessica Alba didn’t build a $1 billion company by playing it safe.
The Honesty Company has turned Jessica, 34, into a bona fide entrepreneur – and a rich one at that – and now the gorgeous mom-of-two is set to sell a new line of cosmetics from the all-natural and organic-focused brand.
The Instagram account for Honest Beauty launched and started teasing the new line a week ago, but yesterday the brand shared a sneak peek at the upcoming collection.
‘Take a first look at the development of our color collection,’ reads the caption under the snap, which features pink and red-pigmented products that appear to be lip glosses and blush powders.
Pretty pigmints: The brand’s Instagram account shared this image teasing the line’s offerings
The cosmetics will likely be marketed as eco-friendly, safe, and sustainable, which are all major tenets of the company and characteristics that Jessica has been vocal about in the past.
‘There’s a real need for beauty products that aren’t like piling dirt on your face, are healthy and don’t make you sick but actually work and feel luxurious,’ she told Cosmopolitan.co.uk earlier this year.
Jessica opts for natural or non-toxic makeup products that are free of the following ingredients:So do I. Look forward to seeing what the products are like. I’ll probably be falling for some come Fall.
I love beach cover-ups even if I’m not going to the beach. In honour of the first official week of SUMMER here are some lovely ones to consider.
hunky dory beach companion
I like having a light little something to wear over my bathing suit. Kind of like wearing a négligée to bed – not nearly naked. A little something to take off and put on again if there’s a breeze. These remind me of St-Tropez when I was in St. Tropez…that one time in my life….but still they remind me of there. I’ve been wearing a lot of neutrals this summer with a sprinkling of floral and more skirts and dresses so these all-white covers are so fresh looking, very pretty, flowy and romantic. Perfect for a beachy picnic. Careful not to spill the berries.
Elegant long white lace summer beach dress 2015 with long wide sleeves, open back and side slits. This is your dress, if you are looking for a fancy beach cover up.
Gorgeous white lace long sleeve summer beach cover up 2015 with deep v-neck.
Casual short white lace beach summer dress 2015 with three quarter sleeves and wide neck.
Funny, as I’m posting these I’ve come to realize that I’ve been wearing more black this summer and more white this past winter. Proves there is no right or wrong anymore in fashion as long as the weight of the clothes fit the season. Still working on the beach bod. By the end of this summer I’ll be perfect really good!
We’re talking about what is considered the Oscars of the fine dining world – the 50 BEST – the results were compiled from an “independent” voting panel of 1,000 judges who discover and celebrate the diverse gastronomic talents and communities across the globe.
Ostera Francescana’s “dropped” lemon tart. What came first, the name or the drop?
“El Celler de Can Roca” — The place that just topped the list of the World’s 50 Best Restaurants. If you don’t already have a reservation at El Celler de Can Roca, it’s probably too late. The Girona, Spain, eatery won top prize at the prestigious 2015 World’s 50 Best Restaurant awards, held June 1st in London.
El Celler bumped last year’s victor, Copenhagen’s forage-friendly Noma down to third, and pipped Modena, Italy’s, Osteria Francescana into second at the event.
Receiving the award to a standing ovation, head chef Joan Roca i Fontane dedicated the prize to those around him. “This success is also for our family, thanks family for your patience, for our wives, our kids, also our team — the best team in the world,” he said.
This year’s results were preceded by an announcement that 2016’s 50 Best ceremony will, for the first time, not take place in London, but in New York. The move, organizers said, would make the event “truly global.” This will be reflected not just in restaurants we celebrate but also in the locations of the events themselves.
I don’t see Vancouver anywhere on this list. Here’s my vote for the Best Pie: It goes to Savary Island Pie Company in West Vancouver for it’s to-die-forButtermilk Pie.
You have to wonder how in the world these people manage to make these decisions with so many fine restaurants popping up all over. It must be a difficult job. One I wouldn’t mind being a part of.
What do you think? Should we take this “50 Best” with a fine grain of sea salt?
You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus – Mark Twain
While on the hunt for something artistically unusual Christoph Niemann’s name came up.
Christoph Niemann is an illustrator, artist, and author.
Love the dressOLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
His work has appeared on the covers The New Yorker, Time, Wired, The New York Times Magazine and American Illustration, and has won awards from AIGA, the Art Directors Club and The Lead Awards.
His corporate clients include Google, Amtrak, Herman Miller and The Museum of Modern Art. He is a member of the Alliance Graphique Internationale.Since July 2008, Niemann has been writing and illustrating the whimsical Abstract City, a New York Times blog, renamed Abstract Sunday in 2011, when the blog’s home became The New York Times Magazine. For his column he draws and writes essays about politics, the economy, art and modern life.
He has drawn live from the Venice Art Biennale, the Olympic Games in London, The 2012 Republican Convention and he has drawn the New York City Marathon — while actually running it.
Niemann is the author of many books, most recently “Abstract City”. His latest project is an interactive, animated app called Petting Zoo.
In 2010, he was inducted into the Art Directors Club Hall Of Fame. His artworks have been subject to numerous exhibitions, most recently at Gallery Max Hetzler in Berlin.
Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere – Albert Einstein
With all his good qualities he could still make me mad
He threw caution to the wind and was a gambling man
But he was kind, generous to a fault, funny and naturally tan
Played a mean game of cards and could really shoot pool
But above everything else he was nobody’s fool
He would give you the shirt off his back, his very last dime
He had a good appetite but he would never drink wine
He looked like a movie star and drove fancy cars
Frequented certain clubs but never went to bars
He painted, was smart and even skipped a few grades
A fun loving prankster with personality in spades
He was a ladies man until the time he met my mom
He never wanted to get married but she was the bomb
He was planning to be a bachelor for life
She ruined his plan so he made her his wife
He would stick up for me with the bullies at school
I was embarrassed then, but now think it’s cool
Used to pick me up from clubs late at night
Would see to it that I got home allright
I was wondering what kind of man I would meet
Who could ever come close enough to compete
It’s not a competiton really…but still
It meant finding someone who fit the bill
I will forever miss his laugh and his face
Because a father like this you can never replace
They called him Blackie and he was my dad
He’s no longer here which makes me so very sad
Everyday, but especially today. Daddy’s Girl Forever!
My dad was a character. He thought I was beautiful, capable and smart. He told me he once got out of a speeding ticket (a regular occurrence) by distracting the cop by showing him my photograph. He never got charged. Just an example of the kind of person he was.
I am the eldest of two other siblings. We were blessed with salt of the earth, very loving but overly-protective parents with good values that we took for granted since I’ve come to realize in this day and age it is not the norm. It grounds us and makes us who we are – very close, family oriented (even with no children of our own) good gracious grownups but very childish at times. Because of our upbringing we look out for each other, our partners in life and will put up a fight to make things work out the best we can. Sometimes we can’t but the intention is always good from the heart. We share that in common. Sometimes we argue and fight but always make up in the end. We can decide to break the mold but our parents are the ones who set it. We were very lucky. Maybe that explains why…
I’d rather be an older man’s princess than a younger man’s slave
Girl Who Would be KING on Life, Style and INSPIRATION. 
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