it's been too long...

..since my last entry ! I was caught up by New York and a crazy month of  september where I didn't stop for a minute. Two new babies (not mine), fashion week which I covered for Grazia, a weekly French fashion/society magazine. It's been really great to start writing again. It's been very busy too on the cultural front: exhibitions, theater, dance, concerts,  and movies.


Plays  


War horse :  just spectacular, so creative. 
We live here :  a play by the very talented actress Zoe Kazan. Very entertaining and a good story, I really enjoyed it.
The montain top :  angela basset is trully amazing and Samuel L  jackson gives an ok performance as Martin Luther king jr on the night he was assassinated. The play is a bit light and you want to learn more about him.
Venus in fur : I had seen the play off-broadway and was blown away by Nina Ariana performance so I went to see it again tonight on broadway with her and Hugh Dancy. Really smart, witty. A must-see !
Relatively speaking : directed by John Turturro : 3 one-act comedies by three directors : ethan Cohen, Elaine May and Woody Allen. Elaine May is the best of the three and I had never seen Marlo Thomas, she is a real deal !


Dance


Rachid ouramdane : Ordinary witnesses :  part of Crossing the line, a festival organized by the Frech institute, it was the first time that I saw a show choreographed by Ouramdane.The theme was genocide, torure, prison with videos of people who witnessed/endured all the above. Not a fun theme but there was one magical moment where a female dancer spun for 10 minutes and it was so beautiful and powerful.


movies


Week-end : my favorite love story this year. two men fell in love over the course of a wek-end. it's simple story, the two actors are very good and i was in tears at the end. 
Drive : I rushed to see it as i love Ryan Gosling and carey Mulligan plus it won best director at cannes but it was disapointing : no story, very little dialogue (Gosling hardly utters 5 sentences.
Restless :  a small movie with henry hooper (son of dennis and a discovery and Mia wasikowska who I love. A sad story (she's deadly sick) and yet it's filled with humor and romaticism.
The ides of march : Ryan Gosling, Philip Seymour Hoffman and paul Giamatti are uber talented actors but the story is plain.
Take shelter : a very powerful movie with a very strong performance by Michael Shannon who deserves an oscar nomination for his role of a man losing his mind.


Exhibitions 


Nick Cave at Mary Boone gallery in Chelsea. This artist from Chicago sold out his show of weird oversized creatures, the soundsuits, made with different material (beads, sequins, human hair, buttons, sisal) my favorites ones where made of small pieces of wood and make very strange and beautiful figures.
Amelie Chabannes made an installation (also part of Crossing the line festival) on orchard street : a big piece made of different layers of ply wood and  platic filled with small treasures (pictures, broken pieces of ceramic, tiny objects) and for 4 days she worked on putting apart this huge piece. 

Biarritz forever!

My parents met in Biarritz in the Sixties, I spent many summers there so it has a very special place in my heart. The sun is not as guaranteed as in the South of France but who cares when you have your family, friends and excellent food! There is traffic, beaches are packed, surfers have multiplied over the years so the waves are populated and can be dangerous for swimmers but Biarritz and the Pays basque are a unique place. 
We spent an evening in San Sebastian, Spain, to watch fireworks,eat tapas and drink sangria. I definitely want to go back in the day time and discover this very cool town so close to France. 
My favorite restaurant for the past 2 summers, le Madrid, is located in the center of one of the cutest village of the coast, Guethary, food is simple and good, from the terrace you can watch the "scene",it's definitely the place to be and to be seen ! After  le Madrid, you can walk to Heteroclito, a local bar with good music and a nice view.
Les halles de Biarritz is the covered and coveted food market, you'd better get there early otherwise it's a parking nightmare. You find the best selection of "fromage de brebis" (sheep's milk cheese), black cherry jam, gateau basque and great fish.
A friend took us for a beautiful hike in the mountains near Itxassou, we were completely unprepared (we almost lost part of the group due to dehydration and exhaustion !) for it but it was a unforgettable experience : first of all, the beauty of the landscape was magical, the wild horses, the eagles....
A little shopping never hurts so I went to Laffargue (26 rue Gambetta, www.laffargue-maroquinerie.fr) in the beautiful town of Saint Jean de Luz and got a very simple & chic purple clutch. They have a great choice of colors and it's local !




Can't wait to come back next year !




a messy street filled with tapas bars


a beautiful old plaza in San Sebastian

My favorite restaurant !

inside Le madrid

my favorite bar : Heteroclito !

outside the heteroclito

les halles de Biarritz !

leather goods in Laffargue

rue Gambetta in St Jean de Luz

La Madrague, my beach for 25 years...

ile de Ré

After Porquerolles, I spent a couple of days in L'Ile de Ré on the Atlantic Coast. The easiest way to get there is to take a TGV (high-speed train) to La Rochelle, it's about 3 hours from Paris. Then 45 minutes of driving and you are there !
The biggest asset of this island is THE FOOD !! In Les Portes, the village where I stayed, there's a 6 day food market (and cute jewelry and clothing too) and for a New Yorker, it's just heaven. 
From 9 am to 1 pm, from tuesday to sunday, the village goes a little crazy and the two rivals café on Place de la Liberté, La Case à vent et le Bazenne, are packed. If you are a parisian (or used to be one), you are guaranty to bump into many people you know. Because of the quality of the food, you have tendency to cook at home but there are three places that I highly recommend : for lunch on the Trousse-chemise beach : Chez bernadette (officially called La cabane des trois hiboux) a little shack with plastic chairs and simple food : avocado terrine with crab, mussels. On a rainy day (Ré has a micro-climate and it tends to rain more that in the south.., we rode our bikes 15 miles to La cabane du Feneau  on the road de Loix : also very simple, you are surrounded by salt marshes and you eat the best sea food nicely presented in a box (see picture below), we had a mix of sea food followed by grilled gambas. Everything in your plate comes from the restaurant's farming sea food so it couldn't be fresher !Try the caramel rice pudding it's a killer..
For dinner, one of the nicest restaurant is Le Chasse-marée, the owners are Daniel and Pam (an American transplan) Fauquenot. it's located on the place de Liberté and has a nice terrace so so you are in the middle of the village action. 

spreads selection

fresh flowers from the market

the mixed sea-food basket 

my room !

walk on the beach with paci & paciana

Porquerolles

Last summer, I  discovered this magnificient island in France. I went back this year.
Porquerolles is off Hyères, south of France, you fly or take a train to Toulon. A navette (20 minutes water ride) takes you to the tiny port that can be scary at first as flows of beach goers (mostly French) show up early morning and leave with the last navette at the end of the day. So first you try to avoid  the "tourists", then you rent a bike (the island is almost car-free) and you can enjoy a truly amazing place. Go early to Notre Dame, a far-away beach, water is turquoise, tons of fish to look at and occasional jellyfishes..
Restaurants are pretty good but I recommend "La plage d'argent", the only restaurant on the beach, it opens for lunch everyday but for dinner only tuesdays and thursdays. Simple food and killer sunset.
Unfortunately you can't buy  fish on the island unless you are willing to wait for hours for the poor fisherman who usually shows up with a couple of sad-looking fishes..There's only one tiny supermarket. A couple of fruits/Vegetables stands and only one organic one where you can find Pourprier, a kind of salad that's succulent, super tasty tomatoes, peaches that are grown on the island.
In Porquerolles, you bike and you bike a lot, it's a real paradise and at night, children meet up on the "place" to sell jewelry they have made, stones they have painted and with the sales go to Cocofrio for a ice cream (violette.fig, speculos, white peach and yogurt are amongst my top 5).
A drink at 7pm at the exclusive "Mas du langoustier" is a must but be prepared for the bike serious work-out to get there..but you can also rent a pointu (see picture below) and go there by boat !

a pointu, a local boat

Notre Dame 

After a night in the plane, I crashed the White fairy tale Love Ball hosted by Russian super-beauty Natalia Vodianova andValentino at his Chateau de Wideville outside Parigi. That evening, once again he fashion world and jet-set mingled, they were a lot of princess dresses but only two real princesses (Mette-Marit of Norway and Clothide de Savoie), The MC was the fun Anne Hathaway. While guests were eating their potatoes with cream & caviar, I was backstage as the models were getting ready for the fashion show : NV had asked 45 designers to design a dress to be auctioned for Natalia's charity, Naked Heart,that provides playgrounds in Russia. The evening was produced by The inevitable and super-talented Alex de Betak, music by Michel Gaubert.

the set 

the show rehearsal

Odile Gilbert at work

Backstage

natalia's back  & patrick demarchelier

the line-up

at last cigarette before the show

natalia's finale

Michel Gaubert's Jill Sander's shoes

A day at rockaway beach

First came the surfers, now the hispters. 
On saturday, I drove to Rockaway beach with 3 girlfriends. I had been hearing and reading about that beach in Queens for some time. My friend David Selig, owner of Rice and N, opened his Rockaway taco in 2008 at 95th street and for the past 3 years it was basically the only place where you could find decent food (and the best fish taco!).
Summer 2011 :  David won a bid from the city's Department of Parks and Recreations to transform the three concessions stands on the boardwalk into a cool and healthy mini food-empire. The biggest concession is on 97th street and includes Rockaway taco, Baby cupcakes (a vegan bakery from LES), Veggie Island (vegetarian sandwiches and juices, a Thai, a beer bar. On the 86th st concession, Ripper's opened his grass-fed burger spot and attracts Brooklynites missing their favorite restaurant in Bushwick, Roberta's, a partner.
The surfers used to ride on 90th but it's getting a little too crowded so they moved their spot to 67th street.
I'm coming back in september. This is a real New York treasure !

the boardwalk

the line for the original Rockaway taco

at 95th, around the corner for Rockaway taco, Veggie island

the 86th street concession stand

stakeboarders on the beach

hipster from Queens !

David Selig, the culinary revolutionary of Rockaway beach

  

Meet the Bumbys !

At the Krug House party this week, I received " a fair and honest appraisal of my appearance" by Jill Bumby, the female half of The Bumbys. Self-proclaimed performance artists  Gill & Jill operate next to each other, wearing glasses and masks, hats or wigs (red this time). In front of them, an old fashioned typewriter. They glance at you, write, glance again, write again. The "assessment" last maybe 1 or 2 minutes (and I had to wait a good 20 minutes in line) and they are pretty good at what they do ! Here's what I got : "There's something very rock n roll about you. You're a secret weed smoker or something, you konw a few of the Stones. Your smile is like an atomic bomb of cute. You're not one of those women who never get a husband. In fact you've probs been married a long time. You're what's know as a catch. In not time if you play your cards right you could be hanging with Michelle Obama."