Traditional, chick pea hummus is standard weekly fare at Talking Adelaide's HQ. Mr TA has perfected his recipe using our Thermomix and there really isn't anything better when its fresh.
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Closing the chapter on Short St Style
So Talking Adelaide's sub-blog, Short St Style, was left kinda hanging last year.
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Virgina Woolf and frock consciousness
Talking Adelaide agrees with Alyson Walsh, of the stylish That's Not My Age blog, when she writes she's glad to see Joan Didion (pictured above) made the cover of the new book Legendary Authors and the Clothes The Wore, by English journalist and writer Terry Newman.
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Rain dance
Recent rains has me reaching for the wet-weather gear. Talking Adelaide bought her first raincoat since childhood and it's been the year's best investment.
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What I'm listening to......
Anyone who knows, Talking Adelaide, knows TA has been waxing on for years about Podcasts. Listening is the new reading etc.
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Spring mission: Sacrificing carbs not taste
Talking Adelaide is on a mission to find low-carb breakfast recipes.
A good friend of TA has been recently advised by their medical specialist to follow a low-carbohydrate diet. And TA has been asked for help.
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Fantasy holiday destinations for next decade nailed
In May 2015, Talking Adelaide spent eight fabulous days in Los Angeles and Palm Springs.
The whirlwind trip had a deliberate MCM (mid-century modern) aesthetic. My sister Christine Rady (Chris+Hue Design) and I visited the best MCM furniture and design shops and dealers in LA including venturing out as far as Silverlake (thanks Uber) and drove up and down the nostalgic streets of Palm Springs.
The standout was undoubtedly a Saturday afternoon private visit to the Stahl House, above the Hollywood Hills. Standing on the terrace overlooking West Hollywood, I imagined for a moment how cool it would be to stay at this stunning location.
That's me at the Stahl House, West Hollywood.
You can't rent the Stahl House but there are 15 other homes designed by some of the world's leading architects that Talking Adelaide has discovered are available to rent.
TA has been a subscriber to Gwyneth Paltrow's Goop website since it was launched. Like all blogs, it's content is hit and miss but one of its latest items is a gem.
The title says it all: Homes by Famous Architects that you can actually rent.
Not surprisingly it's the MCM ones on the list that appeal most to TA: the Buff & Hemsman house, in the Hollywood Hills; Paul Weidlinger's house at Cape Cold; the divine Philip Johnson’s Glass House (pictured above), in New Canaan, Connecticut; Le Corbusier’s hotel, in Marseilles; the Schindler apartment also in LA. It's earlier than MCM but the Frank Lloyd Wright Schwartz House in Wisconsin is another.
There's no Neutra house on this list but there is an E. Stewart Williams - Frank Sinatra's cool pad in Palm Springs. For foodies, there's also Julia Child's farmhouse in Provence, France,
Which one appeals to you?
Easter eating
Easter represents a much-needed break for many. A shack up the river or over on Yorkes. Camping in the Flinders. Rugged up beach walks.
If you’re not one of the lucky, it’s an opportunity for stress-free entertaining, casual but tasty eating making the best of the autumn produce around.
I’m starting to think about Easter menus and dishes.
What would be on your shopping list?
Leg of lamb? Whole chicken. Seafood for Good Friday?
Rhubarb and new stone fruits such as plumbs? Oranges?
These Nigel Slater Easter recipes, while designed with the northern hemisphere’s Spring season in mind, got me thinking.
I think they’re transferable – sort of trans-seasonal – as they’re not too summery yet.
I’ve also discovered this young American chef, Amy Thielen; her cooking show and book are called Heartland Table. I like the sound of this recipe, Greens with Spiced Butter and Ricotta (although I think I might short-cut with good shop bought ricotta).
I usually make Honey and Orange Madeleines with chocolate sauce (thanks to chef Karen Martini) at some stage over the Easter weekend. Do you have favourites or traditions for your Easter cooking? Please share.
This weekend, I’m road-testing a new recipe for Easter – a plumb and almond tart made with polenta pastry. If it works, I’ll share it.
Honey and Orange Madeleines with chocolate sauce. Source: goodfood.com.au
Love's like a butterfly ......
J'adore butterflies. Live ones fluttering in the garden; dead ones pinned behind glass; metal ones - one of my favourite necklaces is a silver butterfly from Witchery, that I've had for years.
No surprise then I've a tad obsessed with this new season collection video from the house of Valentino. It might also have something to do with the soundtrack - Artie Shaw's Stardust. He was a legendary US clarinetist and big band leader. You'd know his recording of Cole Porter's Begin the Beguine. I'm partial to big band music from the 1930s-40s - Moonlight Serenade by Glenn Miller is a fave. Going to listen to Stardust all day.
Watch the video here - I'll have the olive satchel, please.
Valentino shoulder/satchel bag SS2015
Typical looking Sephora store overseas.
Sephora coming to Australia .... when to Adelaide?
Best news since clothing retailer Zara came to Australia, is confirmation that mega-cosmetics retailer Sephora is now opening its first Australian store.
The must-do shop in Euorpe, especially France - it's everywhere just like Boots is in the UK - is opening in Sydney's Pitt St Mall, before Christmas.
It already has an Australian website but doesn't appear to be selling through it - yet.
It's not just the great brands - for men and women - that Sephora will bring, hopefully it will also be their exceptional prices. I bought Chanel make-up in Epernay, in France, last year that was as price-competitive as duty-free in Dubai. Like within a couple of $$s for the Aqua Vitalumiere foundation compacts.
This report on Fairfax's Daily Life says: Sephora Australia will launch new brands every month for the first year, introduce a customer loyalty program and offer cosmetics and hair care products at US prices, which are significantly cheaper than what Australians pay for cosmetics.
Yay!! You can keep up with what's happening by "liking" Sephora's Facebook page
If you love cosmetics and skincare - and TA is addicted - the stores are colourful and enticing. Being inside a Sephora store gives a shot of retail-therapy that online shopping can never match.
Inside a Sephora store - displays that invite you to touch, test and of course, buy.
Bright, colourful and attractive - Sephora celebrates cosmetics.
In the soup
Two kinds of gazpacho courtesy The New York Times
I love soup – making it and eating it.
Almost all soups especially veggies (except pumpkin – cos it repeats on me unfortunately) but chicken, prawn and duck too.
Spicy, creamy or clear – really there’s never a wrong time to eat a soup.
So while we’re feeling chilly here in Adelaide, they’re feeling the heat in New York, which is why the New York Times Magazine has featured a food spread on cold soups. All variations on gazpacho
They’re so pretty to look at and sound so delicious.
The best gazpacho I’ve eaten was for lunch in Madrid, the summer of ’89. The restaurant was not far from our hostal, the waiters wore traditional white and long aprons. It was bright red and served with crunchy fresh bread.
I plan to give all of these a go this coming summer. Check out the recipes here.
Left to right: Avocado and Pea; Cucumber, Grape & Hazelnut; and Kale and Olive.
Left to right: Romesco Style; Grilled Gazpacho; and Tomato, Radish & Tortilla.
New York June 19 - Grange Hermitage 1952. Photo: Milton Wordley, A Year in the Life of Grange
Wining about Grange
It’s hard to imagine life without wine.
Living in South Australia and having “grown up” working in the media, wine was and has always been part of life. And there have been many, many good ones.
While Talking Adelaide is openly un-parochial about wine – with a winemaker in the family (David Lloyd of Eldridge Estate Red Hill) on the Mornington Peninsula and a slight obsession with Champagne, and Chablis, and Burgundy….- there are lots of local wines that are truly wonderful.
Of course there is one wine from South Australia that has an international reputation above all others, Grange, bien sur. Although winemakers around Beaune must live in a bubble because none of the ones we met in May this year had heard of it.
Anyway, the point of this post is to congratulate our dear friend, the brilliant photographer Milton Wordley, whose book A Year in the Life of Grange is up for an international book award. It has won the International Gourmand Wine Books 2013 Award in Australia and now is up for the international category.
Morning tea tipple at Penfolds. As you do.
As Milton has said: “The story of Grange has fascinated me for years. From a rather rocky start, this South Australian wine has become the most famous Australian wine. People all over Australia, wine lovers or not, know of Grange. Serious wine collectors all over the world collect it. It is a wine of the world.”
Milton spent 18 months documenting the story. The result is a book totally produced in South Australia. Concept and images by Milton; words by Philip White; design by John Nowland, printed by Finsbury Green.
The book was launched on October 18, where else but at Penfold’s Magill Estate. It was a picturesque Adelaide morning – fancy drinking Grange 2004 for morning tea! With smoked oyster pasties and Grange pies by Anne Oliver.
Don’t just believe me how beautiful this book is, here’s what some others think.
James Halliday: “one of the most amazing books to ever appear on the Australian vinous landscape.’’
Huon Hooke: “an extraordinary book.”
Max Allen: “This is the biggie: one for the obsessed wine collector who already has a cellar full of great bottles. Yes, it is a lot of cash to spend on a book, but this exceptionally well-told tale of Australia’s most famous wine is also an incredibly limited, absolutely gorgeous work of art, beautiful to hold, to read, to pore over.”
Whitey and Milt at the book launch.
Here comes the call to action: if you know someone who loves and appreciates wine and a great story, then why not consider A Year in the Life of Grange ? Perhaps as a group present, a mega-Kris Kringle? There are three editions, starting at $785.
You can find out all you need to know here at the book's website.
Blood and bone in Botanic Gardens
Talking Adelaide is just a tad obsessed with Aimee Leduc, the detective heroine in Cara Black's Paris-based crime series, in which each book is set in a different arrondissement of the French capital.
So it was with interest TA received details of the inaugural The Body in the Garden, a crime and garden writers’ festival in Adelaide Botanic Garden this weekend.
Hilarious. Mixing garden writing with crime. Love it.
BTW check out Talking Adelaide's spring roses. These are St Jude the Obscure and there are so many buds (you can seem in the background) in TA's garden that it's going to smell like Guerlain's perfume factory this spring-summer. This David Austin variety was chosen because of its scent and heavy head of petals.
Talking Adelaide's spring roses.
But back to the writing festival. It's organised by Rose Wight and Penelope Curtin, experienced arts, literary and festival practitioners in Adelaide.
TA is a fan of UK actress Brenda Blethyn's work as English detective Vera Stanhope in the TV series and Vera's creator Anne Cleeves is on the program; she is joined by Toby Musgrave, one of the UK’s leading authorities in garden history and design; Hakan Nesser, winner of the European Crime Fiction Star Award and three-time winner of the Best Swedish Crime Novel Award and British garden writer Charles Elliott.
Check out the program here.
Festival's spooky promotional image.
Spring in your step on this yellow floor. Picture: Elle Decor
Living bold, living colour
Talking Adelaide has been a bit quiet of late. Real Life has been taking precedence over Dream Life.
TA will try not to be so neglectful in future.
Just found this interior house spread in US Elle Decor and felt like sharing. TA doesn't know of anyone in Adelaide who embraces colour so much. Do you? Would love to know.
We tend to love white, white, white. TA got lots of comments when the front door was painted yellow and one bedroom got a pink wall - inspired by US Vogue's European editor-at-large Hamish Bowles' apartment (see below). Hardly splashing about a Pantone chart.
This is a story and picture spread about the home of Oscar de la Renta's publicist Erika Bearman, who I happen to follow on Tumblr - where her mantle is OscarPRGirl.
The interior is by hot US interior designer Miles Redd. Not all of it is to my taste but there's plenty to swoon over.
Two of my favourite colours appear in the palette - yellow and Tiffany Blue. Enjoy!
Making a first impression at the entrance. Picture: Elle Decor
Pianist Kathryn Selby. Picture: The Daily Telegraph
Sundays in Elder Hall with Kathryn Selby & friends
One of Talking Adelaide's favourite Sunday outings is an afternoon concert in the gorgeous Elder Hall, North Tce.
About five times a year, one of Australia's top pianists, Kathryn Selby, comes to town for an afternoon of brilliant chamber music accompanied by two or three other young musicians, all at the top of the games. For a couple of years, the concerts were by Trioz, which included Adelaide violinist Niki Vasilakis.
It is a relaxed couple of hours; each time it seriously feels like you are catching up with old friends. Selby, or one of her players, doesn't hesitate to address the audience before each piece to explain its origins and why it fits in with the program's theme.
This is no intimidating, snobby classical music event. It is a casual afternoon of invigorating music by musicians at their peak. The applause is hearty and appreciative. And at half-time there is Adelaide's best afternoon tea to be had: home-made cup cakes, slices and biscuits, with the left-overs snapped up on trays by the departing audience. It all goes to a good cause too.
Selby&Friends' 2014 program is out and it includes an array of big names (Mozart, Brahms, Schubert, Debussy, Tchaikovsky) including a whole afternoon in May devoted to a Talking Adelaide fave, Beethoven. It also names Selby's guest artists.
You can check out the program here. A subscription to the concerts before November 1 saves 20% - essentially 5 concerts for the price of 4. And the next concert is Sunday, September 29 - perfect, gentle afternoon after a big Grand Final Saturday.
Check out Selby&Friends' 2014 program. Link above.
25 shades of yellow
J'adore jaune.
I've been sitting on this post for a while but given there's a hint of sun and more to come, it seemed appropriate.
Friends and family would probably say my favourite colours are pink and red, when actually they're yellow followed closely by a colour with the official trademark name Tiffany Blue. It's close to a robin egg's colour and is a produced by Pantone exclusively for Tiffany the jewellery company. Shades of aqua and turquoise come close and they just happen to go well with yellow.
My love of yellow starts with my front door - which is a lemony shade of yellow. I am more attracted to citrus shades of yellow rather than the golden variety. As one of my favourite bloggers Mark D. Sikes wrote in June: "Nothing say hello like yellow! sunny, fresh, warm and chic! Instantly lifts, instantly brightens, instantly welcomes! lemon yellow, golden yellow, mustard yellow- whatever shade, hello yellow!"
For some time I've been collecting images on yellow to create a picture gallery and have just seen street style photographer Bill Cunningham's latest video on the New York Times.
Bill who has a canny knack for noticing street trends on Manhatten streets, has picked up on the popularity of yellow as an autumn hue especially among those lucky enough to attend the latest Spring Summer '14 collections showing in New York Fashion Week.
Watch Bill's vid and enjoy my gallery. Splash out on a bit of yellow this weekend.
Bill Cunningham of the NY Times says "joyous sunflower colours were a favourite of many women during Fashion Week, on shoes and print dresses"
The ethereal and doomed Miranda (Anne-Louise Lambert) in Peter Weir's Picnic at Hanging Rock.
Packham a picnic at Hanging Rock
Apologies for the gap in between posts; my (new) day job has been my focus for the past few weeks.
I was a kid when Peter Weir’s Picnic at Hanging Rock was released in 1975 but my mum took me to see it anyway.It was love at first viewing and remains one of my top 10 favourites.
Everything about it – the cast, the art direction, the fact it was about school girls, a mystery and the brilliant soundtrack* – pushed my buttons.
My sister and I had long hair, a similar colour and length as Miranda’s (Anne-Louise Lambert) and we already wore it tied back in the up-and-down style.
We had a dress up box of long skirts and lacy tops and could pretend we were boarders at author Joan Lindsay’s fictitious Appleyard College.
We even pestered mum to drive us up to Clare just so we could stand outside and look at Martindale Hall, Mintaro, the film’s location for the school.
Later, my grandmother’s copy of the original book (1967) was passed around us girl cousins and we all read it and became slightly obsessed with the “mystery”.
So, it’s with interest that I read this week that British fashion designer Jenny Packham – a favourite of Kate Middleton’s – says her latest collection (Spring 2014) is inspired by Picnic at Hanging Rock.
The Telegraph fashion writer Luke Leitch wrote: “Spots, beads and floral studs cascaded in abundance in a collection that was inspired by Peter Weir's 1975 film of Picnic at Hanging Rock, with novelist Joan Lindsay's unsettling yarn of schoolgirls lost in the Australian bush. In honour of the period, there were Edwardian touches including unlaced satin bootie-heels and delicately pleated, high-necked, floor length gowns in Farrow & Ball shades.
As a nod to the 1970s styling of Weir's film, there was check, pussy-bows, wide-legged trousers and crazily frizzed hairstyles on the models - as if they had been dragged through a bush as well as lost in it.”
Check out my gallery below, which combines original stills from the film with shots from Packham’s latest collection, plus a few of Kate Middleton in Packham tacked on the end.
(*In June, I experienced an amazing moment of synchronicity. The real Hanging Rock is in Victoria, near Mt Macedon, but there is also two geographical locations called Hanging Rock, in NSW; one is an old mining town in the Northern Tablelands, but there is also an area called Hanging Rock in the Southern Tablelands, south-west of Sydney. If you’re driving from Sydney towards Hay on the way back to Adelaide, as Monsieur D and I were in June, you pass a sign that says Hanging Rock. On June 24, we were heading towards Hay, listening to ABC Classic FM countdown its second 100 top film soundtracks – and the exact moment we drove past the Hanging Rock sign, host Guy Noble introduced the soundtrack to Weir’s film. Freaky.)
Gabrielle 'Coco' Chanel
Happy Birthday Coco Chanel and King Karl's tribute
Tomorrow Monday August 19 is Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel's birthday - it is 130 years ago since she was born in Saumur, France.
Her legacy as a fashion designer and founder of brand Chanel continues strongly, well after her death in Paris in 1971, aged 87.
Fashion as we now it today, not just clothes, but handbags, perfume, accessories such as costume and fine jewellery, was groundbreaking when done by Chanel in the 20th Century.
Yes, she was a driven woman, a businesswoman, her worked hard to protect her company (even associating with the Nazis) but intentionally or not, she also was an early feminist, as her relaxed style of clothes after World War I started to liberate women from the dated and literally strait-laced customs they had endured.
Newer fashion labels and designers have arisen since Chanel appeared on the cover of Time magazine as one of the 20th century's most influential people (the only fashion designer) but there is something classic, special and luxurious about owning a piece of Chanel, even it's just a mascara or lipstick.
Back in May, Karl Lagerfeld, Chanel's creative director and the keeper of the Chanel flame, released his black and white short film, Once Upon a Time..., to mark 100 years of the company – in 1913 Chanel opened a shop in the seaside French resort town of Deauville in 1913.
The 18-minute film (video link below) stars the gorgeous Keira Knightley (a face of the Chanel brand) as a young Chanel and a host of models and names, many of Karl’s muses, in the supporting cast. It's really delightful.
Keira Knightly as Chanel circa 1913
Financed by Chanel’s ill-fated lover Arthur “Boy” Capel, the seaside shop saw immediate success, and the rest has been history.
Opening scene in Once Upon A Time by Karl Lagerfield
The film was apparently improvised, the stars making up their lines as they went along. Chanel is shown being helped by her aunt Adrienne — played by actress Clotilde Hemse — as she caters to wealthy clients. Karl has imagined where she might have picked up her famous trends and influences: “Tweed jackets are very chic on a woman,” she observes in the film.
When English novelist and famous gardener Vita Sackville-West — played by Saskia de Brauw — looks through the windows of the store toward the end of the film, she asks herself, "I wonder what it will be in 100 years from now?"
Step back in time 100 years. Enjoy.
Catherine Truman's "fish gates" behind the Art Gallery of SA.
Reflecting on gender divide in Adelaide's street art
There are 108 pieces of public art in Adelaide’s inner-city, from behind the Zoo in the north to the south parklands near Greenhill Rd.
I didn’t personally count them, that’s just how many are tagged on the excellent (but slightly dated) walking guide to public art published by Adelaide City Council.
It’s dated because it doesn’t include the 11 additions on the Bike Art Trail, which Talking Adelaide has posted about previously here. Among the other 108, the oldest dates from 1923; it's in the Art Gallery’s northern courtyard, the bronze sculpture La Vierge a l’Offrande (Virgin of the Offering) by Emile Antoine Bourdelle (a prolific French sculptor).
Impressive is just how many women feature on this list of 108. My attention to the gender split was inspired by this year’s London Art Audit – which found that in east London, only 14 per cent of public works of art were created by women, while in the boroughs of Westminster and the City of London it's just 8 per cent (of 386 public art works). The Guardian’s story about the audit by East London Fawcett (ELF) is here.
Reading this prompted me to carry out my own unscientific audit by counting how many women appeared on the City of Adelaide public art walking guide.
Of the 51 pieces listed as being in the Riverbank, Adelaide Zoo, Festival Centre and North Tce precinct, there are 15 by or co-credited to women. That’s 29 per cent.
Of the 57 found across the rest of the inner-city and parklands, 20 are by women – that’s 35 per cent. A lot better than in London, but still under-represented when it comes to men.
The earliest piece of public art by a woman is the rather lovely modern looking sculpture in the Pioneer Women’s Memorial Gardens, by Ola Cohn for landscape designer Elsie Cornish.
Ola Cohn's sculpture in the Pioneer Women’s Memorial Gardens
It appears the next work by a woman didn’t appear until 1963 – Norma Redpath OBE only died in January this year. Her Immortal Warrior bronze is outside the former Reserve Bank building (now part of Flinders Uni) in Flinders St, near Victoria Square.
Then it was a gap of another decade, until 1973 when the Adelaide Festival Centre Trust acquired Ultimate Form, by legendary UK sculptor Dame Barbara Hepworth. I’ve seen this piece dated 1970 and 1971 – either way it didn’t appear hear until the Festival Centre was opened (this year is its 40th anniversary). Bronwyn Watson writing in The Australian last year quite rightly says this piece “graces” the AFC’s lawns. It does.
Barbara Hepworth's Ultimate Form outside the Festival Theatre. Picture: The Australian
Watson wrote: “The sculpture, Ultimate Form, is from Hepworth's Family of Man series, which was completed not long before the artist's death in a fire in her studio in 1975.”
Arguably the most popular piece of public art in Adelaide is by a woman – the four pigs in Rundle Mall. This work unveiled in 1999, is actually called A Day Out, by artist Marguerite Derricourt. Angela Valamanesh, partner to fellow artist and husband Hossein, has several credits as does Margie Patrick (in the Westpac House foyer); while just three indigenous women (Eileen Karpany, Pantjiti Tiyangu McKenzie and Chetana Andary) also make the list.
Two of my personal favourites are by the same artist: Catherine Truman. Slate Pool Walking – known as “the fish gates” in my family (and pictured at the top) are at the back of the Art Gallery and her Way of Seeing – those beautiful perpetually autumnal leaves that hang off the north face of the David Jones building.
Catherine Truman's autumn leaves or Way of Seeing on North Tce.
Have you got a favourite piece of public art in Adelaide? Share.
Apples and customised doppelgängers
Apple. A fruit. A record label. A computer used by graphic designers.
Remember the first time you saw, let alone touched an Apple product?
Do you remember why Apple computers are called Macs? As in Macintosh?
Cousin Sarah is a graphic designer and we shared a house for more than a decade from 1992. She used an Apple at work.
So did the graphic designers at Messenger, where I worked. We had PCs, they had Macs. Graphic artists or designers were the only people I knew who worked on an Apple/Macintosh product.
In the late ‘90s, Sarah brought her own Apple into our home – a turquoise iMac. I remember looking at it as if it was alien. But soooo pretty.
Now I’m sitting here writing this on my MacBook Pro; I’m on my third iPad and iPhone. I look at iTunes and the App store more often than my washing basket.
For a while I was mostly buying books iBooks (and Kindle) until I discovered Diesel and Booktopia.
In 2013, Adelaide finally joined every other reasonably sized city and got it’s own Apple store. An early 21st century mark of maturity.
Apple founder the late Steve Jobs is the subject of a new Hollywood biopic, and is portrayed by Aston Kutcher. I’m no orphan when it came to being surprised by the casting.
Aston Kutcher as Steve Jobs.
One of my favourite websites, Into the Gloss, sums it up really well. The trailer is enticing. And Kutcher looks the goods.
I must admit I’m also looking forward to seeing Naomi Watts portray Princess Diana and Nicole Kidman do Princess Grace.
Check out Into the Gloss’ top 37 biopic players in this slideshow and Aston's trailer here. And the Diana trailer here.
How many of these films have you seen?
Naomi Watts as Diana.