Just Another Sunday

I am not sure why I have started but not finished so many posts lately.  All I can say is that my days are jam packed and I wish I had someone to follow after me to finish all that I start and organize what I am seeing and doing!  I am going to try to catch you up….

This morning started at the Rancho Santa Fe market; I brought this large vase with me~

As well as a quantity of my vintage coppers to show a client who is ordering similar~

I pick up vintage French pastry items when I can.  They were nice today displayed on the linen towels with the coppers~

We have not thrown away a French wine cork in a decade, in Laguna or in Beaune.  This is part of the French thrift to never throw anything away that might be repurposed, including wine corks or bottles.   I’ll tell you about the bottles later, but in a hurricane shade or glass vase, the corks make a great surround for a simple pillar candle, and men love them because the heat of the candle with corks emits a faint fragrance of wine and earthiness. Champagne corks also make amazing drawer pulls, and I’m on the hunt for a dresser with dozens of small drawers to use all the champagne corks. Open a bottle, toss a cork in; when the hurricane gets too full, it usually gets gifted; I have so many, call me if you want to buy some~

The copper itself was a huge draw at the market, no wonder why~

Despite the time it took to polish some of these this morning, I love the solidity, the permanence, and the patina of old French copper!

I brought a few sterling and vermeil serving pieces along….love to see the array of handles~

Towards the end of the market, we hopped over to Chino Ranch for a book signing; if you love hearty salads, I highly recommend this book and I will TRY to work it in to a really great giveaway soon~

We were treated to these samples while we waited our minute with the author; how pretty is this wheat berry salad, served on a radicchio leaf and garnished with nasturtium?  Drizzled with lemon vinaigrette, it was amazing.  I will show you how to make this soon~

The lovely author of this book is Jeanne Kelley.  She is based in Los Angeles, where she has her own little urban homestead going on, with chickens and bees….we chatted about her culinary training in Paris and travel in France and my favorite endive-roquefort salad, which is in the book of course…..

Thumbing through the book, I noticed she has a few market baskets for harvest and display, but nothing like my French baskets.  After a quick visit to the car, I offered her a gift, the Bandol or the Eze?  “I want them both!” she said.  Raquel got her cookbook free in the exchange, and everyone was happy.  Oh, except maybe for those of us who saw several other salads like this fennel & orange & beet, set aside but not served.  Seems it looked so good, someone had helped themselves to a few beets~

I loved this one too, with peaches and corn; I can’t wait to sit down and go through this book this week…in my spare time….

Meanwhile, we are just getting to the early part of summer and the season still has long legs.  More this summer from Chino Ranch and Jeanne Kelley’s salads~