Thursday, July 15, 2010

Vacation picture of the day

Colorado!

There she goes... there she goes again... (Bcn 080 fashion week)


Hi there! Yesterday I was at Barcelona 080 Fashion week and I spent the day there with Albert and Josep. I met some wonderful people, as javi or Manuel Bolaño, the designer whose show was closing the day; and I saw almost all the shows!


Josep's Adidas... SO COOL!
This was a dress and shoes made by Manuel Bolaño... spectacular!
Krizia Robustela, inspired in baywatch; it was really funny. 
Yiorgos Eleftheriades, so minimal but really great. 
Alexis Reyna; I didn't like the clothes but the show was really nice and original, full of color.
Juun J; the only two pieces I liked from this collection were these two outfits; it was a little bit boring for me because I had the feeling that I was looking to the same outfit during almost all the show. 
GORGEOUS Manuel Bolaño. I loved everything: the music, the outfits, the lights... you can see the full show here.

These days I'm having so much bad luck and I'm sad about it, so I feel sorry if my blog it's a little bit off... I'll come back soon with my good mood, as always :)!

Blouse - Forever 21
Shorts - Zara
Belt - H&M
Socks - Topshop
Shoes - Tao Bao
Bag - Swimmer

Creative Space

I have been working on my new Office/Craft/Art room for a while now. I wish I had a before picture to go along with the after but I don't. It was so ugly before. The walls were a darker blue color, very horrible. It was used as a second guest room...basically a room we never used unless we had company. (We have two guest rooms). I recently started working from home, & needed a "creative" environment to work in, alas the remodel came about. I painted the walls a light yellow, sanded some old bookshelves, and painted them white. The room is so bright and happy now! Since then it has been a continuous diy project. I found an old mirror taken from the trash at our old apt building & created a new frame for it out of fabric. Who knew it could look this good! I also needed an inspiration wall and had these old wire shelf things that I turned into my new "magnetic" inspiration board. Being a designer, I am in love with typography. I got these great letters from Joann's and spiced them up with scrapbook paper and modge podge. There's more to do, but it takes time and money...I'll post new pics as I progress. If you see something that I need or should do in my room, I'm open to suggestions! (click to enlarge)

Rick Tramonto and Wendy’s salads



July 15

Rick Tramonto got his start cooking with Dave Thomas at Wendy’s.

“I still know the chili recipe.”

That’s what he told a number of journalists recently at the Institute of Culinary Education as he assembled the chain’s new salads in front of us.

I think it’s a little risky for a fine-dining chef to associate with fast food.

You might remember that another celebrity chef from Chicago, Rick Bayless, was in a national TV ad back in 2003 promoting Burger King’s new and ultimately unsuccessful line of low-fat chicken baguette sandwiches.

BK actually tapped two celebrities to promote those sandwiches, Bayless and Rachel Ray.

I think Ray was an excellent choice, but Bayless seemed like a silly one. He wasn’t yet famous enough outside of the food world for him to impress many Burger King customers, and in the world of food-elitists where I dwell, he was (and still is) a champion of local, seasonal, touchy-feely food from cute farms. He advocated strongly against development of genetically modified organisms (in fact, I’ve never managed to get a call back from him when writing about his forte, Mexican food, but he was on the phone instantly when I was writing about GMOs) and in general was viewed as an opponent of “Big Food.”

Many of those relatively few people who knew Bayless’ reputation at the time were hurt, puzzled or outraged by his appearance in a BK commercial (although, for what it’s worth, from what I understand he did insist on trying the sandwich before promoting it, so that’s something).

Times have changed, lines have blurred, many fine dining chefs are opening burger joints, and Tramonto, if memory serves, has never wrapped himself as tightly in the Slow Food mantle as Bayless has.

Indeed, he said the spirit of quality and training that he got at Wendy’s is part of his DNA.

He also said he met his wife — I assume he meant his ex-wife, celebrity pastry chef Gale Gand — at Wendy’s where she was making sandwiches while he was flipping burgers.

Tramonto looked like he knew his association with Wendy's could be controversial in the food snob world, and he seemed relieved, or at least glad, when I told Wendy’s corporate chef Lori Estrada how much I liked the avocado ranch dressing (it’s true, I did; the pomegranate vinaigrette not so much, but I’m not in to lo-cal dressings).

And although the Rick Bayless-Burger King association was scandalous for about 20 minutes, both Bayless and BK survived quite well, and if I hadn’t just dredged it up again that episode would have been relegated to the dustbin of history.