Traditional Home’s digitial publication, TradHome, has just exited. Inside, profiles of ten new designers to watch. I’ve got bylines on three of them.

The English-born, Manhattan based Katie Lydon, whose work is as mercurial as she is (there’s a lightness to her rooms that’s particularly appealing); Andrew Maier, who I had to convince to take credit for his work (he kept protesting that he was just a curator for his client’s good taste); and Kristen Rocke, whose work is elevated into the stratosphere by her inspired lighting choices.

Talking to designers about their work and getting a window into how they think and what their process is always feels interesting to me.

See it here.

Designer spring break. Designer Cannes. However you characterize it, Thursday and Friday were nutso. Double that when you’re (that would be me) trying to remember all kinds of little details for your (that would be my) recap for The Hollywood Reporter. But I did meet a ton o peeps.

Here’s the link to day 1.

Check back this afternoon for the link to day 2.

Here is one thing I learned: never ever ever ask people to email you quotes. What you’ll get is a whole bunch of dry PR gobbedly-gook you can’t use with, maybe if you’re lucky, one piece of a line you can use. Getting quotes on the fly is so much better but oh so challenging.

Today (that would be Monday), is all about errands and trying to put the house in order. One thing that I always forget about when it comes to these events is the closet explosion. What to wear is always the biggest challenge to getting out the door.

The La Cinega Design Quarter’s Legends of La Cienega event kicked off last night. I wore real heels — ie over 3 inches — for the first time in 6 months!

Last night’s gala is the start of two days of panels, book signings, open houses and lectures on design.  This year’s theme, Time Capsule: The Past, Present and Future of Design covers old Hollywood to new construction and celebrates, among others, Tony Duquette and Angelo Donghia.  The windows, curated by some of the top names in design — Kelly Wearstler, Thomas Filicia and Mary MacDonald are just some of the people who are participating this year — are the centerpiece of the celebration.  The design community’s spring equivalent of the holiday windows on New York’s Fifth Avenue (and just as breathtaking, especially at night) will be up until May 20th and should not be missed if you’re in LA.  For the full list of participating shops and designers, click here.  

I’ve been doing interviews with some of the designers over on Apartment Therapy and I’ll be covering the event for the Hollywood Reporter.

(image: AG Media)

It’s been a crazy couple of weeks.

• There was the trip to New Orleans to speak on kitchen trends for KBIS.
• Then I got a new gig, writing design things for The Hollywood Reporter. First story out of the starting gate? Interviewing Michael S. Smith, the design equivalent of interviewing Mick Jagger.  This is going to be fun.
• BBE has got me running around, eating too much.  Oh bummer.
• And I’m on my Angeleno adventures, looking for the next big thing in retail to cover for the July issue.
• Apartment Therapy, of course
• And gearing up for La Cienega Design quarter next week. Hopefully somewhere within the madness there will be work! Architectural Digest? Elle Decor? Fingers crossed!  First hurdle to cross: what will I wear?

So this weekend will be all about resting, reading — Michael Chabon’s Telegraph Avenue, Junot Diaz’s This Is How You Lose Her, Louise Erdich’s Round House are all on my nightstand — and catching up on Game of Thrones.

Oh, and blackberry shortcake. More on that later.

I interviewed Jennifer Nicholson for Angeleno last week regarding her new store, Pearl Drop, which is on the deserted stretch of Lincoln between Rose and Venice that’s suddenly turning hip (note the presence of a WursteKuche, a Handsome Coffee Roaster and a Floyd’s Barbershop as confirmation if you don’t believe me). A fashion designer, she’s also Jack Nicholson’s daughter and talking to her was very disconcerting. Not only does she look like him, but she moves her face in the same ways he does. I kept expecting her to break out into, “Here’s Johnny.” But of course she didn’t. She’s got a whole 70s California vintage vibe thing going on which, of course, I love. Throw a little YSL in the mix and you’ve got me down completely. You can just imagine bumping into Kate Moss here. We’d probably wrestle each other for the high waisted brown leather pants that lace up to the knees. Hands off Kate, I call dibs.

I’m in love with these two handbags from Cassidy Lange’s line. The squishy round one is called The London (how appropriate, right?), the other one is The Florence. Cassidy, incidentally, is not primarily a handbag designer; by day she’s VP at MGM. She was the executive on my friend Michael Sucsy’s movie, The Vow. What? You haven’t seen it? If just for Channing Tatum (aka Channing Yumyum), it’s worth a look.

But, back to the handbags. Get them here.

What are you up to this weekend?

I’m planning my first day of shopping since the foot fiasco. Nike, Zara, Forever 21, Top Shop, Nordstrom’s. Looking, trying on, it’s all on the agenda. Also I’m in desperate need of undergarments.

So, quick survey: do you hang up the clothes you’re not taking when you’ve finished trying them on or do you leave them scattered around the dressing room? I definitely fall into the former camp. I’ve never even thought about not doing it. But apparently I’m unusual given how many times I’ve opened a changing room door to discover clothes all over the floor, hangers askew, make up smeared on a blouse. Especially frustrating when I realize it’s the exact style I’ve been scouring the city for and the only one they have in my size. Where is that girl? I’m going to kill her. My best guess: probably at the movie theater, where she’ll leave her popcorn and giant big gulp behind.

Is it that hard to leave things as you found them? Or even a little bit better?

I’m reminded of that famous commerical with the teary-eyed Indian and I have to wonder, with all the talk of global warming and concern about pollution and the environment and recycling, couldn’t we have avoided all this trouble if we’d just lived by that rule? If everyone, from you and me to big corporations, picked up after themselves? And put things back where they belonged, the way they found them?

While I was in London, I got an email from Rose to whom I’d offered my apartment after LG left. She’d come in to dirty sheets, dead and rotting flowers and a refrigerator that reeked of old, spoiled food.

Ummm…waddup with that?

Maybe it’s the result of reading too much Agatha Christie as a child but I want to leave without a trace, no fingerprints behind, you would never even know I’d been there…except for the faint whiff of my perfume.

Am I a traitor to my hometown if I say that I prefer my adopted state’s flag?

As I mentioned the other day, seeing Pomme’s guest room on Design*Sponge again clinched it.  My lust for flag, specifically a vintage California state flag continues unabated but the the price for the real ones (and by that I mean the made-of-cotton-or-linen ones not the new made-of-nylon ones) might mean hocking my first born.  With a few washings however, this one from insta-hipster outlet Urban Outfitters might be a good substitute.

True, at 2 x 3 it’s a good bit smaller than the ones I’ve been eyeing and there is the fact that it’s actually marketed as a rug but, considering it means a savings of $425, it may be worth it til I win the Lotto or stumble upon a vintage one at a flea market.

I need more calcium in my diet.

Especially if I’m hoping to live another few decades in an upright position.  Whatever I’d been eating was, apparently, not enough.  More cheese had to come in.  So did more yoghurt and kefir.  I started snacking on almonds.  And I added more kale.  Kale-cium they should call it.

Now I don’t know about where you live, but here, in LA, kale is the Ugg boot of the food world.  It’s everywhere, mostly in slightly wilted salads (see above salad from my brunch at the Roof on Wilshire on Sunday.).  I feel pretty sure that you can’t open a restaurant — excuse me, gastropub — unless you’ve got a kale salad on the menu.  (And, don’t forget the brussel sprouts, the craft beer, the organic chicken, the artisanal cheese, the pig’s ears and the pork belly.  I feel certain there’s some irony in having pork belly and kale salad on the same menu.).

The Catering Elf jokes that they will kick you out of LA if you  don’t have kale in your fridge.  Kale jail  I call it.  So I’d bought some frozen kale at Trader Joe’s.  Just in case.

But there’s only so much kale salad a person can eat.  I had to mix it up or I was going to go insane.  (Not to mention that it’s a…well…particularly chewy green.  Too many kale salads give me a headache).  Here’s something every cook learns early on: when in doubt, you can always make it into soup.  What about kale soup?  I’d thrown part of that frozen package of kale into the pot when I’d made some chicken soup but a just-kale soup needed something more than chicken stock to float in.  Then I remembered a soup that my dad always made in the summer when I was a kid.  Schav or sour grass (sorrel) soup was like summer in a bowl, cool and crispy with radishes and cucumbers and sour cream.  Why couldn’t I substititute kale for the hard to find and spring-specific sorrel?  Turns out I could.  Plus, with the addition of yoghurt…a girl be getting her calcium on.  Yes, soup for the win.

Chilled Kale Soup
adapted from The Essential Root Vegetable Cookbook by Martin & Sally Stone
For when you need a little more calcium

• 6 cups water  or chicken broth
• 2 packages frozen kale or 2 pounds fresh kale, washed, stems removed and coarsley chopped
• the juice of one lemon
• two bunches of scallions, white and green parts, trimmed and sliced
• 2 tablespoons salt
• 1 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
• 1 pint yoghurt or kefir
• 6 red radishes, thinly sliced
• 1 small cucumber, quartered and thinly sliced

In a Dutch oven, bring the water or stock to a rolling boil.  Add the kale and lemon juice.  Cover, reduce heat to a simmer and cook for 20 minutes (10 minutes if you are using frozen kale).  Remove from the heat and allow to cool to room temperature.  Refrigerate for two hours or up to 24 hours.

Place the scallions in a bowl large enough to hold the finished soup and sprinkle with salt.  Using a pestle or a heavy flat bottomed glass, crush the scallions with the salt, using a twisting motion to force them to release their juices.  Mix the wilted mixture with the pepper.

Add the yoghurt or kefir to the scallion mixture and stir until well blended, then combine with the soup, one ladleful at a time, until well combined.

Garnish the finished soup with the radishes and cucumbers.

What did you do this weekend?

• I saw a school production of Charlie and The Chocolate Factory that riffed off the original movie. Which version of the movie do you like this best, this one or this one? Oompa loompa doompity do, I’ve got another puzzle for you.
• Saturday, there were errands. Great glorious errands and chores and driving around to get them all done in the car by myself. Oh vehicle, how I’ve missed you. Thinking, listening to music, the quiet rhythm of the road.
• Unfortunately, no one has learned how to drive while I’ve been off the road. Why doesn’t anyone in LA know how to use turn signals to alert other drivers as to what they’re thinking?
• Sunday, the dreaded Marathan. Now less dreaded since it no longer boxes me in. But still, it always catches me unawares and I’m held a prisoner of my own house or at least the neighborhood. I went out and cheered for a bit and then Rose and I escaped for brunch and another BBE review, courtesy of Eric Greenspan’s The Roof on Wilshire. The food is good; the roof view, spectacular (see above). The drinks, redunk. I’m having so much fun eating food and meeting chefs.
• I’ve got a lot of errands planned for this week — all the ones I’ve been unable to do! — and some adventures too! Also, the handyman is supposed to finish painting my bedroom. That’s the plan at any rate but I’ve had enough experience with him to know that you never know when he’ll show up. Fingers crossed! I let you know.