New ways to eat your onions

Desperate to kill two birds with one stone - my abundance of onions and my cookbook challenge for the month of March, I turned to Alice Waters. Alice, the kitchen goddess of Berkeley, California, knows a thing or two about vegetables. If she talked to mere mortals she'd tell them to use the freshest ingredients you can find and cook them simply. In fact, she does talk to us in her textbook-quality cookbooks, of which I only have one:

Please forgive me, Alice, for not taking this photo in natural light.
(This is the closest to my self-imposed deadline that I've ever prepared a post. Please all 3 of you readers forgive me, too.)

It being March and veggies not really singing to me in the grocery stores, I decided to see what Alice had to say about onions. Onion Confit was the first dish I made. You just put a bunch of onions in a large heavy pot with butter, red wine, red wine vinegar, sugar, and a couple other things I'll leave out lest I get sued, and let this cook down until you can't believe you live in the most heavenly place on earth. The result is raisiny onion purple magic. I used it in peppery pasta with chicken and kale and in scrambled eggs with mushrooms, but my favorite way was inside grilled cheese sandwiches with goat cheese and smokey cheddar. (Truth be told I'm in the middle of a love affair with smokey cheddar).

Then I made Baked Spicy Onion Slices, pictured above. These I never actually ate (they are still in my fridge - just took that picture 5 minutes ago) because I didn't plan what to pair them with. They still smell very good. I know they look like soggy rice noodles crossed with small intestines up there, but I believe they still have a purpose. If I didn't eat 2 cups of onion confit the week before I made them, they would have certainly stood a chance.

So thank you, Alice. I never did either of these things with onions yet both were so damn easy. I'll be doing them both again - albeit not back to back.

Power of the part

What hair color looks best on you? Your skin tone and eye color will influence this. Your natural color as a youngster is likely close to ideal (I just made that up). Personally I'm so confused by my hair color (is it warm? is it cool?) that I often hope my future head of gray will be my most glorious.

What hair cut looks best on you? You've taken the magazine quiz -the shape of your face, your bone structure, your hair line, your hair type - all of that comes into play. (If only hairdressers could just look at us and KNOW. Then ADVISE.)

Let's say you've figured all that out. Now let's start over - Where should your part be?

For a lot of people it's probably a no-brainer (and a rather asinine topic for a 360 word essay). It is where it is! I remember looking in my bedroom mirror when I was around nine or ten and noticing, that most definitely, my part was on the left. I am someone with a part on the left. The moment is strangely clear as day. Was that a choice I made? Was I copying Debbie Gibson? Did my mom train it there by brushing in that direction for years and years beforehand? I'll never know.

Many more years of skull expansion and perfectionism-shunning later, my part is where it wants to be - on the right for the first centimeter (not too far right), anywhere it wants (haphazardly middle or so) after that. When I coerce it to the left I feel off kilter. It is where it is!

But what part looks best with these eyes and these eyebrows and this facial symmetry and this hairline and these cheekbones and this hair texture and this hair cut? Having recently veered away from my (temporary) signature do, my vanity demands this question loom large.

Cut and color? Those will take years and money to get right. But the part, with its simple power, that I can play with today.

And lastly, if any of you know of a hairdresser who answers these questions with accuracy, however cruel, please let me know! I'm getting more daring with age.

Learning by disliking

I spied a much-lauded interior recently, and hated nearly all of it. Maybe I'm in a hating mood. It's March after all, and work still gives me the vomits, and one of my cats is enduring quarantine. It's practically the time to get my hate on. Therefore I revisited my hatred over and over, just to be sure. I questioned it. Was it real? Am I just feeling pissy? Is it jealousy?

Behold the offender:

I like the floors. I like the botanical prints. I like the stool. I like the tea towels. Who am I kidding. It's just too fucking white! White white white. I especially hate the built-in shelves being full of white space-filling bullshit. AGHHHH. And it seems this was part of the Domino color issue (which I haven't read). Perhaps this space was featured for the white lovers, and "pops of color" were pointed out as if extra significant.

This is not me. I'm not judging this designer, I'm judging myself - and this is so useful. I'm learning what I like by spotting dislikes. But I'm not flat out hating on it. I'm analyzing why it doesn't attract me. Surely this is part of the enlightenment learning curve (as I've alluded to before). Kudos to me.

Later that same day I got a glimpse of Sarah Jessica Parker's NYC townhome. The video is one silly Pantene commercial, but nonetheless, my love of color is reaffirmed:

Check out all those colorful book spines!

Formal polka dots have happened

The Academy Awards were kind of a letdown for me this year, sartorially. Nothing blew me away. There was the pretty, the flawless, the boring, the dated, and... where was I? Oh right. I was falling asleep.

Upon further investigation I found two looks to remember:

I could try my whole life and never have eye make-up as perfect as this picture of pregnant perfection, Olivia. And Emma, I know people think you phoned this in, but when you have that body and that face and that hair and that youth, you can do whatever the hell you damn well please. I consider this edgy meets formal meets understated, and you rock it.

But where I really found some fun was at the after parties. I mean, formal polka dots, people:

Leslie is like, Girl, this is how you do formal polka dots. Who puts sheer polka dots on their midriff? Elisabeth Moss. That's who. And I don't hate it. Both get bonus points for knowing that polka dots should be paired with a bold lip.

Don't like the background color of this dress in the images on the left. It look dirty, like it was dipped in bong water. On the right, however, well... now we're talking. This may be the Zooeyest of all Zooey dresses ever donned.

Although sadly not in the polka dot realm, these are my best of the best. These are the dresses I'd buy if in a position to buy amazing dresses:

What's going on there, Karen O, and why am I insanely drawn to it? Evan, that color, that cut, that slink. Well done. Hate the hair, but well done. Oh Penelope, you hot mama you. That dress looks comfortable yet sexy and fun. On me the black would not do, but of course that doesn't concern you.

All images screen captured from Jezebel.