Rooster Party ~ 2010

Last fall when Barb hosted her first Show Us Your Roosters Party, I was thrilled. With roosters plentiful around HFTS there was no question that I wanted to join in the fun once again.

Detail of Man's Tie

The rooster is a revered and beloved image in many cultures so it is no surprise that there are many of us that enjoy the decorative nature of these handsome guys.

Chickens, both hens and roosters are often out and about around our home.

This little boite ancienne Reglisse Zan once held French licorice candies. Now long empty, it remains appreciated for the simple joy of the graphics.

Whimsical hand carved "poultry" are colorful folk art pieces from Oaxaca, Mexico that are usually on a shelf in a guest bath. They wandered outside for a little fresh air. Those of you here for Pink Saturday might note there are plenty of pink accents on many of these.

Large jug by Capelo and two small plates by Gorky Gonzales are each made in Guanajuato, Mexico. Both of these famous potters are renown for their beautiful ceramics.

A petite brass and enamel place card holder is likely from the 1940s.

Vintage Chinese mud figures in various poses like to gather in a group. Each are about 2"-3".

A pair of larger Chinese roosters 8" tall are near by. I like the way this one is reflected in the pewter pitcher that stands behind it.

Most recent to join the flock are a pair of vintage Chinese roof tiles found while in Santa Fe.

Once guardians upon the roof of a home or public building in China, these two now stand guard in a bookcase.

A ceramic tea caddy made into a small lamp features a barnyard gathering.

Does your mother know you're out?

A petite paper maché snuff box was found at an early morning London flea market years ago. This one simply puts a smile on my face!

Yes, roosters are definitely in the category of A Few of My Favorite Things.

Carpe Diem ~ Seize the Day!

The older I get the more I realize that this motto is one I want to live.

Barb has set a beautiful rooster tablescape so be sure to visit Barb @ Bella Vista. Links to all who are participating in The Second Annual Show Us Your Roosters Blog Party can be found on Barb's sidebar.

Thank you to our hostess Barb and to the ladies hosting the following weekly parties. More information about each of these memes can be found on my sidebar.

Friday Finding Beauty @ Dipity Road

Show & Tell Friday @ My Romantic Home

A Few of My Favorite Things @ Bargain Hunting With Laurie

Pink Saturday @ How Sweet the Sound

Thanks for stopping by to visit. Details for the Anniversary Give-Back at HFTS can be found at the top of my sidebar. Hope you'll participate.

Orange is for Marmalade

"Orange was his favorite as he never tires of telling us. It is, apparently, a more interesting color. Many of William's favorite things are orange. Not oranges, nothing that prosaic. It's not that William is opposed to fruit. He likes a nice kumquat, especially in preserves. But the things he enjoys that are orange include paella spiced with saffron, Monarch butterflies, the Orangemen of Northern Ireland and of Syracuse University, and especially traffic cones."

(LOVE AND OTHER IMPOSSIBLE PURSUITS, p.8-9)

If you'd like to know more about William, the precocious five year old whose favorite color is orange, pick up a copy of Ayelet Waldman's LOVE AND OTHER IMPOSSIBLE PURSUITS. William and the other personalities in this novel are certain to keep you amused. You can read more about this book in my Food For Thought review here.

I do appreciate an occasional paella spiced with saffron, and Monarch butterflies have always fascinated me with their amazingly vibrant orange wings, but orange to me is marmalade.

Growing up, my mom usually made biscuits on Saturday morning, but here in our home it's Sunday mornings that often mean fresh baked biscuits ~ piping hot out of the oven, lathered with sweet cream butter, and a dollop of orange marmalade. Though my husband is the chef in the family, I'm the biscuit maker in our household. And see that vintage cutter? It was the biscuit cutter that belonged to my grandmother as a young bride, has been passed down through the family, and has been in my kitchen now for almost 30 years.

Can you smell the aroma of fresh baked biscuits?

I've set our vintage breakfast tray just for you.

Orange marmalade is made from the peel of Seville oranges, sugar, and water. The peel, somewhat bitter, is what gives orange marmalade it's distinctive taste. Seville oranges are high in pectin which helps set the mixture.

Go ahead and lather 

up plenty on your biscuit.

It's the perfect combination

 of sweetness with a tangy bite.

Orange is across the color wheel 

from blue which makes them complimentary colors.

The contrast of complimentary 

colors creates a vibrant look.

Blue, a cool color, gives the impression of calm and will help sooth your morning while the orange, a warm color, will help you feel energized for the day ahead.

I especially like the striking 

contrast against fresh white or neutrals.

The multiple fabric weaves and designs outlined with chain stitched embroidery add wonderful texture to this textile from Anthropologie.

It's actually meant to be a dish towel, 

but I like to use it as a tray cloth.

The linen napkin edged 

in lace adds yet more texture.

So settle in and enjoy 

your little morning treat.

You're sure to find plenty of 

orange color among the Sunday comics.

Hot biscuits, marmalade, 

and fresh squeezed orange juice.

ORANGE

you are extroverted

cheerful, impatient and loud

you seek adventure

your down to earth attitude

is very attractive

you love sports and nature

you are quite talkative

you are always willing to help

but you will never be pushed around

So how many of you out there consider orange to be your favorite color? Any of you see yourself described above? Leave me a comment to let me know.

Don't miss the Give-Back. August is Anniversary Month @ Hyacinths For The Soul. Leave comments here on the original post to be included.

Thank you to the ladies hosting the following weekly memes. A click on the link will take you to a list of others participating this week. You can find more information about each of these events on my sidebar.

Tablescape Thursday @ Between Naps on the Porch

Jenny Matlock's Alphabe-Thursday

Rainbow Summer School

Vintage Thingie Thursday @ Colorado Lady

Celebrating ~ Giving Back

Calligraphy by Kay Johnson, 1985

In the spring of last year, my good friend Maggie @ Normandy Life and also the blog mistress for Quimper Club International recruited me to be guest blogger on the QCI blog for the month of September. At the time, I honestly didn't know what a blog was, so I went about cruising blogs to see what Blogville was all about. It wasn't long before I discovered Between Naps on the Porch and Susan's weekly Tablescape Thursday. That in turn led to Confessions of a Plate Addict. With Susan's irresistible porch settings and Debbie's Quimper tablescapes (and other French inspired posts), I was totally hooked. I had spent months visiting what was becoming a long list of favorites. So with the encouragement and guidance of Maggie, Susan, and Debbie, Hyacinths for the Soul became a reality, and I took the leap and jumped in with my very first post on August 2, 2009.

~Twelve Months ~

~More than 120 Posts ~

~Almost 300 Followers~

It's been an amazing year. I had no idea how much pleasure this thing called blogging would offer. HFTS has provided a creative outlet that has led to hours of fun and a whole new circle of friendships, not to mention that I've become much more tech savvy along the way. I follow and read your blogs with great admiration. The amazing number of individuals who generously and graciously share their talents and creativity continually amazes me. I learn from each of you every day. So thank you to all who visit, comment, encourage, correspond, and share your individual talents and creative spirits. You, to me, are unique in all the world.

Detail of Original, Signed By Ange, 2010

Recently, a very special blogging friend sent me a piece of her original art. Earlier in the year Ange of Signed by Ange had invited her readers to leave a comment with their favorite quote. I was the incredibly lucky individual whose name was drawn for a special gift.

Ange took my favorite quote, worked her calligraphic magic, and created a uniquely charming piece of art . . .

Which traveled across the Atlantic from Ange's home in Toulouse, France . . .

And now has a place of prominence in my little office, where I can see it as I work on creating posts for HFTS. (Please excuse the odd color variations in the above photos. Not sure why the same wall looks two different colors.)

Of course, Ange, being the dear that she is also sent along a delightful assortment of bits and pieces for me to use in my own art projects ~ all little jewels of French ephemera from the countryside in Toulouse, France.

Included in the package was this delightful little card.

And this very thoughtful note.

Meet Ange ~ wife, mom, long-distance runner (across glaciers, deserts, & oceans), educator, calligrapher, artist, blogger, wordsmith, friend ~ I hope you'll stop by to visit Signed by Ange. Her blog posts this summer are few as she is taking a bit of a holiday, but look for her to be back soon. I think you will be charmed by her talent, her sense of humor, her joie de vivre.

Ange, I treasure this unique piece of your work with its cool shades of blue, beautiful calligraphy, and the special 1996 French stamp with Madame de Sévigne and her quill pen.

I've been the recipient of several wonderful gifts from friends in Blogville, so in celebration of the first anniversary of HFTS and in appreciation of each of you who give me inspiration and encouragement daily there will be a drawing for a give-back gift at the end of the August.

~Just follow the usual routine ~

~

To be entered leave a comment on this post.

~

For a second chance, leave a separate

comment telling me you are a follower .

~

If you post the celebration button

on your sidebar or share it in a post,

leave another comment for a third opportunity.

~The gift ~

a package containing

something old,

something new,

something French,

and most certainly, something blue.

Visit often in the coming weeks for more clues. Winner will be announced September 1, 2010. I hope you'll like the gift package I'm putting together.

Feel free to grab the button below and link it back to this post to help me get the word out.

Thank you to the ladies hosting the following weekly memes.

A click on the link will take you to others participating this week.

More information about each of these events on my sidebar.

Blue Mondays @ Smiling Sally's

Mosaic Monday @ Little Red House

Three or More Tuesdays @ The Gypsy's Corner

Show & Tell Friday @ My romantic Home

Finding Beauty @ Dipity Road

Love and Other Impossible Pursuits

LOVE AND OTHER IMPOSSIBLE PURSUITS

by Ayelet Waldman is available here on Amazon.

I give this book *****

It's been awhile since I've participated in Food for Thought, the bimonthly book review blog hosted by the talented Jain of Once in a Blue Moon and Food With Style. I'm pleased to join in this week to share a book I'd recommend. I read Waldman's book totally unaware of the controversy about this author. My husband, an avid reader of Michael Chabon's works, had picked it up out of curiosity because he noted that Ayelet Waldman was the wife of Michael Chabon. He enjoyed the read, thought I would as well, and passed it along to me.

With the setting in New York City, that fact alone led me to take hold of this novel and jump right in. Once I did, I couldn't put it down. LOVE AND OTHER IMPOSSIBLE PURSUITS proved to be an interesting read about the all too common drama of contemporary marriages: an office affair which led to a broken family that resulted in shared custody and propelled said guilty party into the role of new wife and stepmom.

I'm not a mom nor a stepmom, and this novel's protagonist was difficult to like in many respects, but the book does offer the reader huge helpings of descriptive passages of Central Park. Considering that Central Park is one of my all time favorite places to spend time, that fact alone won this book five stars from me!

Well written, this interesting story is actually very compelling. Complicated relationships, a second marriage, a precocious know-it-all 5 year old, and the tragic loss of a new born all merge to fill the pages of this book. Emilia, a complex character not easy to like, actually won me over early on. Ayelet Waldman skillfully balances it all with wit, satire, and compassion as she leads the reader down a path of mixed emotions.

Five year old William is as much a devotee of Central Park as Emilia. So I admit again, much of the pleasure of this read for me was that a good part of the story revolves around various ventures into Central Park.

Jack, William's dad and Emilia's now husband, first introduced William to Emilia at the Central Park Zoo, one of William's favorite destinations.

Unlike William, the Central Park Zoo isn't the main attraction of this area of the park in my opinion. For me, it is the Delacorte Clock with its dancing menagerie of whimsical animals. The elephant with his accordion . . .

And the goat with his pan pipes

Both join in with the bear on tambourine, the kangaroo tooting a horn, the hippopotamus with violin, and the penguin on drums. It is here where they all perform a repertoire of nursery rhyme tunes as they glide around the clock each hour and half-hour.

Besides the exquisite and familiar images of Central Park that Waldman conjured up in my mind's eye, there were also plenty of opportunities for Food for Thought. First up there is the reference to Emilia's law school habit of Diet Coke and Raisinettes while studying for exams.

William, the five year old step son, is not only a walking encyclopedia of knowledge, but also suffers from lactose intolerance, or at least his mother (most popular OBGYN in NYC) has convinced him that he does. Waldman offers up comical passages throughout related to this perceived illness. I could easily have gone with any number of references that would appeal to my sweet tooth: strawberry cupcakes or dairy free cupcakes; chocolate sundaes or lactose free ice cream; chocolate cheese cake or rainbow sherbet. Oh, and did I mention little William is also a fan of Bernard Waber's Lyle the Crocodile series? LYLE, LYLE, CROCODILE is his favorite book.

Amelia, a Harvard Law grad and an accomplished cook, prizes her time worn copies of ELIZABETH DAVID'S FRENCH PROVINCIAL COOKING and ITALIAN FOOD, which her mom had given her when Amelia left for college. Meals of coq au vin de Bourgogne, or saltimbocca alla Romana were mentioned, and the first meal Amelia cooked for Jack was chilled soup of yellow tomatoes, veal meatballs with artichokes and green olives, and an arugula and fig salad. Dessert was a Meyer lemon cake.

But Amelia, frozen in the fuzzy haze of grief after the death of her infant daughter, hasn't cooked a meal in months. She shops for groceries as if she plans to, but the "plump vegetables, soft ripe cheeses, deep-red wild salmon, organic roasting hens" languish in the refrigerator only to be thrown out by the cleaning service at the end of each week. Chinese take-out substitutes for the nightly fare.

Growing up in a Jewish home is another thread that runs through the pages, and one evening Jack, tired of coming home to take-out dinners, returns home with two bags of groceries intent on preparing his mother's recipe for kibbe. Jack, with his limited cooking experience, begins to forge ahead, a conversation ensues, and Amelia takes over.

So kibbe it is!

Kibbe is a simple dish of ground lamb, bulgur, and spices of cinnamon, allspice, and fresh mint. The meat mixture is formed into torpedo shaped meatballs and baked with olive oil. When served, it is topped with caramelized onions and a mix of pine nuts and dried fruit.

A drizzle of pomegranate molasses tops off the spicy flavors.

Add a side of simple slaw

And another of wild rice with a bit more of the caramelized onions and dried fruit mixture.

Pop the cork on a bottle of red wine . . .

Pour yourself a glass of Merlot . . .

And bite into the savory delight of kibbe.

Though Amelia faces many impossible pursuits along the way, I predict that LOVE AND OTHER IMPOSSIBLE PURSUITS will warm your heart . . .

And leave you feeling as if you have spent a magical afternoon sailing a little remote controlled boat across the pond in Central Park.

For those of you here for Pink Saturday, this post is dedicated to Isabel, a sweet baby girl angel. I'm also joining Laurie's A Few of My Favorite Things as Central Park, Lyle the Crocodile, and cupcakes are definitely on my favorite things list.

Since LOVE AND OTHER IMPOSSIBLE PURSUITS is the perfect choice if you are spending a day reading at the beach, poolside, or just curled up in your favorite chair with the AC blasting, this post will link to The Tablescaper's Summer Sundays.

You can click here to see a list of others participating in Food for Thought this week. All credit goes to my personal live in chef for the food prepared in this post.