I'm excited to share that I've had another poem published here today on the e-zine Everyday Poets. Everyday Poets is a site I check daily-- not only to read poetry being written by poets from around the world but for frequent inspirational essays on themes and form.

This particular poem "The Trophy Bride" came together through a funny set of circumstances. After long reflection on a character I'd played in the Funny or Die short film above-- reflection concerning what I felt I'd done well versus what I felt I could improve on after finding it challenging to bring depth or sympathy to such a shallow character-- around that time I happened to read an Everyday editor's post on Greek mythology and (what with having trophy wives on the mind) wondered to myself: how did Midas's wife feel about her husband's obsession with the finer things...? A poem was born! I hope you enjoy it. Thanks for your support :)

Last week I had a lot of fun masquerading as a professional photographer for What I Wear, covering different aspects of Africa New York Fashion Week. First I attended the panel discussion on "Africa as an emerging market for luxury, sustainable and eco-fashions" hosted by FIT in Chelsea, where I arrived late and dripping. Last week in NYC the weather oscillated between hellish and just plain too damn hot-- an Indian friend of mine said he felt as if he were back in Bangkok where he spent last winter! If that's winter in Bangkok, I'll take a few miserable weeks in NYC over a whole season of this muggy, unbreathable air. The weather made it a little difficult for me to get around, and since I was late for the discussion I felt blessed that the parts I did catch really captured my imagination and taught this provincial Brooklyn lass a thing or two about modern-day Africa.

Above: Panel Discussion at Africa New York Fashion Week
Below: Funny FIT student fashion exhibit  a la Barbie 

As I came in the panel was finishing up a discussion on companies giving back to the community through participating in outreach programs versus donating portions of their profits. I don't quite agree that a company volunteer policy is as effective as donating cold, hard cash, but the thought of speaking out without really knowing my subject in a crowded auditorium was... impossible. What sort of responsibilities do you think companies have to their communities? Any recommended reading on the subject? Instinctively my heart said "no" to their conclusions, but to make a convincing argument people need more than my personal feelings. I love discovering areas I need to brush up on, and this is one of them. So personal note to self-- it's something I'd like to read up on and discuss on here again especially since my husband is on the board of a  Nobel Peace Prize winning charity that does give poor people money and actually changes their lives... That's why they won the Nobel Peace Prize! But for now I'm content to listen and soak in other thoughts on the matter. 

The next subject was lighter: the Afro Fasionista.

A long line of designers sat at a folding table while Adiree, the director of AFNY--beautifully dressed in an African print 50s-style sheath and the same platform ankle boots featured on the model above-- stood at a podium mediating talks alternating between the technical aspects of importing raw materials from Africa and the more personal-- what makes a woman an Afro fashionista.  The designers hailed from around the globe-- Cameroon, South America, nearby Queens-- and thus all had vastly varied experiences, cultural backgrounds  and perspectives to draw on making the discussion all the more intriguing, but they all agreed on one point: African women are emerging from poverty, from war, from times so hard they couldn't think about anything so superficial as their hair or clothes and of late they are much more exposed to Western styles. The result is an incredible fusion of the two cultures. Gustavo Garcia, an African-South American designer, urged the audience to google street-style in Nigeria and South Africa. African-American designer Robin Shumays talked about the importance of details in an outfit to give it an African flair compared to thinking only in terms of tribal prints or an overall African look.

Another designer via Londona and Zimbabwe-- Farai Simoyi-- concurred saying, "An Afro fashionista incorporates her culture in what she puts on. It's not just about the prints. It's about being different but incorporating that African tradition. When I incorporate a piece of Africa in my clothes, it's an education to others, because they think African fashion is very dramatic. They see it, and they think, oh it's good. I can wear that."  She went on to shake her head over the recent issue of Vogue devoted to the newly popular and so-called "exotic" fashions of Africa. Ms. Simoyi related how apparently, after initial excitement faded that the West was paying attention to Africa at all, the issue was not well-received in Africa. "It is a very contreversial topic in Africa. Months later people are reading it and thinking: hmmm, what was that about?...You can be African and be contemporary. People need to be educated."

After the talk I wandered around Chelsea for a bit, thinking about what the designer had said, passing Revolution Books on 26th Street where I photographed this poster before stopping into Buffalo Exchange down the block and picking up a Tarnish cashmere scarf with a vaguely African feel to it. I might not have noticed it  otherwise in the glorious pile of thriftstore possibilities. I also photographed an African-British clerk who I thought embodied some of what Mis Simoyi was talking about. Plus I was practicing for the actual shows. I felt pretty nervous about asking total strangers if I could take their picture...

Above: Yay, revolution! Revolution Books on 26th street in Manhattan featured lots of anti-violence against women posters last week. Take THAT Tosh 2.0. If you're unfamiliar with this story, click on this link and NEVER watch his show again. I hope Comedy Central takes him off the air. Yes, he's free to say what he wants, rape jokes et al, but that same freedom makes me free to hate him for it.

Below: A British and African clerk at Buffalo Exchange kindly volunteers to be my first model. I LOVED her cheeky hat. She confessed it was difficult to figure out outfits for this time of year: freezing indoors/ torrid outside. I think she looks terrific. I could never pull off those shorts.  

Above: The beautiful cashmere-wool scarf I bought  on consignment after being inspired by Ms. Simoyi's call to incorporate just a little bit of Africa into a look.

After the discussion and shopping trip I felt better prepared to attend and photograph the actual shows at AFWNY held downtown near all the law firms and the US stock exchange. But then disaster struck. I felt so ill from the heat I could hardly move for a few days. I even missed a friend's wedding. I was that sick; there was no way I could travel. But I really wanted to give this whole professional photographer thing a go, so I forced myself to get up one of the three nights of the shows and dab on some cosmetics to cover up how pale and green I looked. My hair hung so lank about my shoulders and overall I looked so terrible, I was afraid no one would let me take their picture, when in fact...people couldn't have been nicer. Only one person even said "no" and she couldn't have been sweeter about it. She apologized, because she didn't think she was dressed up enough, but I thought she looked gorgeous. But so did lots of others (look gorgeous and say yes that is), so I worried for nothing. Enjoy the pictures!

Below: I kinda liked this action shot better than the more posed shot I also got. And I LOVED her dress and natural, beautiful smile.

Above: I loved the pattern of this woman's dress and her heavy necklace, but she would only pose with her two friends. They all looked great!

Below: I love how this man bashfully agreed to be photographed and then struck a perfect, professional pose.  

Postcard Shorts is a wonderful site for fans of micro fiction. The site only publishes stories so short they could "fit on a postcard"-- so about 250 words or less. I've been exploring the Japanese prose poem form called haibun this summer (more about that here) and challenging myself to describe moments using as few words as possible. My biggest weakness in writing is self-editing. I can go on and on (as readers of my blog know :)). If Flaubert described good writing as finding "the one precise word" no matter the time or effort involved-- and his efforts involved spending a lot of a time in "the shouting alley" shouting his works aloud to himself!-- then I am in trouble. Today I feel like  I'm winning the battle...even if not the war.  My first micro fiction story "Concerning a Lost Balloon" was just published. You can read it here and then enjoy paging through the site. You could spend hours: there are many stories that are like little gems on there, and I am very honored to be included among them. 

The German poet Goethe once said: "People should talk less and draw more." With that injunction in mind I decided to let the art of my very good friend, Glen Farley, speak for itself with these beautiful paintings and these short koan-type answers  to my questions.

When did you know you wanted to be an artist? A painter? I never knew, it is just the way I am and have always been.  As a child I was always getting in trouble at school for covering every page of my schoolbooks with drawings or for drawing portraits and landscapes during class instead of paying attention.  

Did any artists inspire you before you began?  Not really.  Like I said, I had begun drawing and painting as a small child before I was aware of any artists or even of the idea of an artist as a distinct type of person.  However, when I was maybe 7 or 8 I remember being very inspired by a artist / carpenter who my father had hired to create a large stain glass window to adorn a cabin he had built in the Adirondacks. 

Which artists inspire you the most now? Kirchner inspires me more than any other artist, but I am also very fond of Klimt, Gauguin, and Utamaro.

What else inspires a painting? People? Things? Places? Everything and anyone really - the color of the sky as it gets dark, the pulsing red coals of a campfire, the sound of the leaves flickering in the wind, the painful sadness expressed in a stranger's eyes, the delapidated and ruined factories along the Hudson River that are being pulled back into the Earth by vines and trees.

Do you find it hard to make time to paint? No, just the opposite. I have to remind myself to do other things beside painting, like eating, reading and spending time with the people I love.

Could you talk about  a specific painting and maybe something you discovered while painting it? About the painting, or about art, or about yourself? I am not sure that the answer to this type of question could be communicated in prose. 

Why do you love painting? It connects me to the beautiful and the mysterious.  Whenever I am not painting regularly, I feel as though I am only half alive, a stranger to myself who is merely watching life pass by without actually living it.

Glen Farley has a website http://www.glenfarleystudio.com/.

Below is a clip of Henry Miller reading from his book To Paint is To Love Again. Like me he liked to spend the time he wasn't writing drawing, or in his case painting watercolors. In this clip he talks about how friendship is more important to the development of an artist than money or anything else. It's good stuff. Have a listen....

                                                                      Photos courtesy May Yoon, Featuring Designs by Danny Tang

I know I promised an interview with the painter Glen Farley and coverage of Africa New York Fashion Week, and those are all still coming. I promise. In fact just yesterday I covered my first fashion panel in New York on sustainable luxury fashion in Africa at FIT, and I'll be covering the first of the fashion shows tonight. Afterwards I'll be recording two flash fiction stories as podcasts for Everyday Fiction-- the touchingly sweet and wrly funny "Back Roads" by Madeline Mora-Summonte and Barbara A. Barnett's truly hilarious tale of dating travails "The Little Things."  Night-time is the only time I can record anything. All day long there are planes overhead in Brooklyn. I had stopped even noticing the constant buzz until I started doing these podcasts.

So...long story short! I'm really busy, but I've been wanting to post this list ever since I got into a fascinating conversation with one of my girlfriends the other day-- why are old movies so much better than new ones? Whether you disagree or agree with that statement, you have to admit the choices below are all works of art as much as they are films. Or do you? Again feel free to disagree. I also fudged timelines a little, which might make a purist shudder at this list. Some of the films are more recent than others-- the state of black and whiteness is what counts for this list. Any suggestions to add? Any favorites of your own? Disagree with any? Feel free to leave a comment and educate me some more. I have my mom to thank for most of my old film education so far-- she used to force me and my sister to watch old movies, and we'd moan and complain. Then we'd be so enchanted by the actual film once it started and we'd gotten over our prejudice against its age, we'd watch them over and over... and over again until my mother was the one moaning and complaining. Enjoy!

1. Casablanca-- Best lines, best music, best acting, best noble reason to love and let go. Best movie ever.

2. The Ghost and Mrs. Muir-- For a long time this love story between a ghost and a widow was my favorite love story of all time. I'm not sure what that says about my teenage years. (Actually I am sure, but this isn't about me!) Rex Harrison is salty and wise and codgery. Gene Tierney is the most beautiful, graceful woman I've ever seen. The book by R.A. Dick (pen name of one of those adorably eccentric British female writers) is darn good, too!

3. Pride and Prejudice-- The 1940's version. Germaine Greer kind of remains my favorite Elizabeth as wonderful as the BBC's Elizabeth was, and this is the only role I ever really loved Laurence Olivier in. Some people would put Rebecca on this list because of him (not to mention Hitchcock directing and Joan Fontaine's spot-on performance), but I think I encountered it too late-- after I found out what a jerk he was to one of my favorite film stars-- Marylin Monroe-- and after I'd read the exquisite book by Du Maurier. For those who've read P and P, Hollywood took alarming liberties with the tale-- this is a short, more charming, happy version. But hey, it was war-time when they filmed it, so cut them some slack.

4. All About Eve-- Did I mention I love Marylin Monroe? She kind of steals the only scene she's in in this film, but generally Bette Davis was never better (in my opinion). She plays a grande dame diva to end all grande dame divas: "Buckle your seatbelts; it's going to be a bumpy night." Indeed.

5.Laura-- Another incredible movie starring the world's loveliest woman-- Gene Tierney-- playing the world's most loveable woman in the darkest of film noirs. A great film noir, and perhaps not coincidentally, another great book written by another unknown woman writer-- Vera Caspary.  

6. The Maltese Falcon-- Absolutely 100 percent the best film noir. Humphrey Bogart redefines hot. Brad Pitt is way too effete or pretty or worried about his looks to really be an M-A-N (you can just tell) in comparison.  The writing is so sharp it could cut through twenty new Spider-Man movies and leave them (I wish) for dead.

7. Vivre Sa Vivre-- Don't let the Frenchness or the slow unrolling of the plot or the gradual but powerful characterization scare you off. I have never fallen in love with a character the way I fell in love with Nana, Anna Karina's character, in this film. Never. It was almost like falling in love with a real person and well-worth the two-hour investment of time.

8. The Philadelphia Story-- Katherine Hepburn and Carey Grant are at their crackling best in this whip-smart film. The dialogue is superb, just word-perfect, quick in wit and deliverey. Jimmy Stewart plays a loveable, bumbling and much more...I dunno...vulgarish (if that's the right word)....maybe we'll say wiseacre/ street smart version of his character from It's a Wonderful Life.  Great cast, great story, great script and interesting to contemporary audiences for the first glimpses of how people felt about modern paparrazzi.

9. Pepe Le Moko-- I first fell in love with Jean Gabin upon my third (or maybe fourth) viewing of Renoir's La Grande Illusion. A teacher had made me watch it when I was way too young for it-- its talk of honor and a changing world was lost on my teenage self-- later I came to love that movie. But I won't include it here. That's for the hard-core old cinephiles. These choices, including Pepe Le Moko, are all really accessible to modern audiences. If you've watched or loved any American film noir-- even something as contemporary and kinda trashy as Sin City-- I think you'll love Jean Gabin in Pepe Le Moko. He's kind of the French Humphrey Bogart--he's more than that or different and just as great rather-- but that's a good visual reference starting point to work your way into this foreign tale of intrigue in a Moroccan bazaar.

10. The Lady Vanishes-- Early Hitchcock, awesome dialogue, a young  Rex Harrison, a spirited heroine and Miss Marple (before she was Miss Marple) kicking ass and taking names-- what's not to love?

I could go on and on, but I do have to run...so here's a quick run-down of a few more runner-ups.

Runner-ups for Top Ten: Jules et Jim (best writing, Jeanne Moreau is swoon-worthy cool), Baby Face (ah! The Great Barbara Stanwyck-- tough as nails, smart as can be, and beautiful. They don't make 'em like that any more: where did all the great old actresses go?) The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (great adventure pic where Humphrey Bogart dares to play unlikeable),  The Three Faces of Eve (a weird, cool old movie with Paul Newman's lifelong love and wife), Roman Holiday (no list is complete without Audrey Hepburn and this fairytale could disppell any feelings of gloom or cynicism as it does for its (dropdead gorgeous) hero Gregory Peck. Born Yesterday (With one of the greatest, funniest, most under-stated performances you'll ever see by Judy Holiday) And last but not least Angels Over Broadway (with the world's other most beautiful woman, Rita Hayworth, and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. at his most brilliant combined with an oddly touching and sweetly naiive script about love in New York, gamblers and self-loathing)


Did I leave anything integral off the list? What do you think?

We actually had this dish for dinner last week, one of my favorite things to do on occasion: have breakfast for dinner. Yes, my husband and I live life on the edge! At any rate this was a really easy and particularly delicious recipe-- half from our favorite cookbook My New Orleans: The Cookbook by John Besh and half Ryan's devising-- so I wanted to share it with you all here. Enjoy!

Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour,                              1 teaspoon salt
plus more for dusting                                    5 tablespoons cold butter, preferably European style,
2 tablespoons baking powder                    diced
2 teaspoons sugar                                            1 cup whole milk*

1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Sift the flour, baking powder, sugar and salt into a mixing bowl. Using a fork or a pastry cutter, cut the butter into the flour until it resembles cornmeal. Add the milk (*we used lowfat buttermilk), stirring until the dough just comes together to form a ball.

2. Turn the dough out onto a well-floured surface. Gently pat the dough down with your hands and fold it over on itself. Pat the dough down and fold it over once or twice more. Loosely cover the dough with a clean kitchen towel and let it rest for a half hour or so.

3. Being careful not to overwork the dough, roll it out until it is 3/4 to 1 inch thick. Cut dough into biscuits using whatever cutter you like. (We used inverted juice glasses, just like John Besh's grandmother :)) For more biscuits, use a smaller glass.

4. Place the biscuits on a cookie sheet and bake until uniformly golden brown, 10-14 minutes.

Besh's note: A light hand with the dough makes all the difference. Fold the dough over several times to add flaky texture.

1. Crack four eggs into a bowl and add two tablespoons of milk, a pinch of pepper and beat. 

2. Melt one pat of butter on a non-stick pan. 

3. Heed the key to making great scrambled eggs: A) do not flip the eggs until the eggs have set then flip them only once or as little as possible, and B) take them off the heat just before they look cooked, because they will continue to cook once they've been taken off the heat.

4. Add any/all of the following-- slow-roasted tomatoes, prosciutto or ham and sharp cheddar cheese. Sprinkle with sea salt.

I'm very excited to share with you that my flash fiction story The Italian Lesson is now available as a podcast on iTunes and Everyday Fiction. Please check it out here. I loved the experience of recording it, and Everyday Fiction has asked me to do more. Everyday Fiction is a wonderful resource for writers-- even when they reject your stories you get detailed feedback from their team of editors, and when they accept them you also get feedback from your readers on the site's forum. It's an invaluable learning experience for young writers. I'm delighted to be able to work with them in another capacity as well. 

I've done a lot of voiceover work in New York, and it's been some of the most fun I've had as an actor. It's nice not to have to worry about hair or makeup or lighting, which unfortunately actors, even male actors, can become incredibly focused on instead of their craft. I worked with a famous actor once who was getting beaten to death by a gang of thugs in a fight scene. Between each take his own personal makeup assistant would come on set to touch up his foundation and fix his hair! 

Please watch out for more links to stories I'll be reading and recording-- some my own and some by other writers.

               Photo courtesy May Yoon, Dress by Danny Tang, Makeup by Gil Aldrin, Model Isabella David

For about a year and a half, from around the time I began this blog till about four months ago, I lived on the corner of Prince and Broadway in Soho. I'd venture to say at the mere mention of that crapulous locale anyone who lives or has lived in New York City automatically clenched their teeth and stopped breathing. If Hell truly is what Jean-Paul Sartre calls "other people", the corner of Prince and Broadway is the apex of Hell. Soho has become the place to shop in New York City, and since that is what most tourists come to New York to do most of those tourists end up there-- right there on that much beaten block of cement between the subways at Prince and Houston. It is one of the most crowded, impersonal, elbow-jostling spots on the planet, and I had to live there-- my husband's lease was unbreakable, or so we thought, for more than a year. Happily, we did manage to break the lease and move to peaceable Brooklyn, but just as I began to breathe again I found out my mother had cancer. I realized I couldn't live that way-- always waiting for life to be perfect before I could enjoy myself.The stress from those few months taught me the most valuable lesson I've learned so far. There are always going to be things out of your control, but what you can control is your reaction-- that bit's up to you.

Just like all moral lessons it sounds oh so pat and easy. Oh, of course! Don't be stressed out. Be relaxed and enjoy life. Carpe diem, blah, blah, blah. No, it wasn't as easy as all that. I had to make a lot of changes in my life and lifestyle first. I've found luck gets on your side if you only give it a chance to. And chance led me to  a thin, little book I happened to pick up at the Javitz Center Green Festival where I'd volunteered to model for Hemptopia Apparel.

The Stress-Free Habit: Powerful Techniques for Health and Longevity from the Andes, Yucatan and the Far East by John M. Perkins felt nice and thin in my hand. A quick read I thought, and when I opened it up and read the first page I liked the tone of the author-- equal parts practical and mystical. John Perkins is a businessman who spent a lot of time travelling the world and working for the Peace Corps in his youth. I wouldn't say it was the book that changed my life, but it was a book that helped give me the tools I needed to make the changes I wanted to make anyway. Below I've shared Mr. Perkins five basic rules for living a stress-free life. If those pique your interest or speak to you in any way, I'd encourage you to order the book. Like I said it's a quick, concise work, well-written and very informative...Maybe it will change your life even! Okay... and maybe not, but it's not a huge investment of time or money, so if you're suffering from anxiety the way I was and don't want to try out medications as I didn't, why not give it a shot?**

I immediately passed this book along to a friend. These notes are from my journal, so any changes from the text are accidental and inadvertent. It's pretty basic, practical advice though, so I hope I got it mostly right.

1. Be who you are...
            
       Okay. I agree. At first this almost sounds like those pretend zen-sayings: always remember you're unique. Just like everybody else. However, if you read the passage in context what I think the author was trying to say here is something that sounds at first ridiculously simple, but if you think about it is actually quite profound and quite contrary to popular thinking. Be the person you want to become right now; you don't have to put off being the person you want to be, waiting for other people's official say-so. For example I was recently waiting to be seen to audition for a short film. In fact the producers were very behind, so there were several of us all waiting and waiting outside the audition room-- some of the other actors had already been there for hours! Finally, the waiting time became ludicrous-- every 30 minutes a head would pop out asking us to be patient-- so we all started talking and laughing. I found out we were from all over the world-- Paris, Oregon, Israel, but we all had this one thing in common-- this desire to express ourselves through playing a character. At that moment I realized it wasn't so much about getting the part-- my reasons for waiting there like that for hours. It was about wanting to be there, wanting to be a dreamer around other dreamers--real actors are the chummiest, nicest folks on Earth. It was just nice to be there in their company and to be one of them. I think what Mr. Perkins means is don't wait to get the part or get published or get the job to feel like you're your authentic self-- an actor, a poet, a policeman, what have you. To me this was a revolutionary concept. It put my thinking on its head. And that moment in the audition room sort of sealed the simple concept for me.

2. Balance the problem-solution concept: try to see problems as an issue for which you seek a solution. The lack of the solution is the problem. 

        My experience breaking a lease in New York City and then going through the arduous process of finding a new home in Brooklyn happened before I read the book, but in retrospect that experience helped me feel the kind of agency I think Mr. Perkins means you should feel in the face of most problems. Instead of seeing our lease as an insuperable block to our happiness, my husband and I finally acted to change our circumstances. We did end up losing some money, but by working with the real estate company we didn't face any legal action or lose as much money as we had first worried. It was worth so much more than money anyway to find a home that could handle a dog, two cats and two human beings. It made us both realize how important it is to face problems and act on them rather than just letting things go and remaining miserable for months... Life is too short! 

3. Concentrate. Get in the habit of concentrating and compartmentalizing. 

        This chapter is the most business-oriented out of all the chapters in the book. Here Mr. Perkins notes the number one quality all the CEOs he's worked with posses-- the ability to concentrate 100 percent on the task at hand, complete it before moving on to another task and then concentrate 100 percent on that. I've been working on compartmentalizing and scheduling my time, and it really does help me not only to accomplish more but to feel less anxious and stressed while doing so. It's this flipping from one topic to another, trying to get as much done as possible, internet-surfing, rushing off to do something else that leads to the most stress. Whatever it is I'm doing, whether it's brushing the puppy's teeth or working on my manuscript I try to give it my full attention before I move on to the next task. Not to mention it's a nice feeling just getting things done whatever they are versus frenetically wiling away the hours trying to get everything done and accomplishing nothing at all.


4. Have faith. Believe in what you know is right; a religion, yourself, an idea, a goal. 

       This is definitely a quality I brought to New York and that living in New York has tested more than any other. New York City is a place for the very ambitious, what one of my favorite poets called the worshippers of "Mammon"-- i.e. money. It's hard to keep your perspective here. Everyone I know is so damn talented and successful-- vice presidents of banks, professors at Harvard, world-famous yoga teachers. Sometimes it can be hard to remember that there are other qualities that count more-- both to personal happiness and to quality of life. I've met some very famous people and some very wealthy people, and I have to say it's really true what all the poets and musicians and preachers try to warn us vain, silly humans about: they are not the happiest people I know. Not even close.  Focusing on what I believe in and what makes me happy has helped me remember who I am and not what I feel like would impress other people most. Again that sounds obvious...but life has a way of getting to peole I've noticed. One day, ifyou're lucky, you wake up 50-- you can be lonely and jaded or you can be young at heart. I want to be the latter.

5. Meditate. 

        Last but not least Mr. Perkins offers some valuable, practical how-to advice about meditation. It's a device to relieve stress that he's found in one form or another in indigenous cultures throughout the world. As part of my mad, vain attempts to be happy last year I got certified to be a yoga instructor. It wasn't really what I wanted to do, but I did take several courses on meditation. I'm no expert, but I found this works well for me.
                    a. Be consistent. I try to meditate every day if only for five or ten minutes. 
                    b. Try to find a quiet spot and make yourself comfortable. I prefer to sit on a cushion legs crossed Indian-style with my hands in my lap. How ever you're most comfortable works but try to keep your spine straight, posture relaxed, shoulders down.
                    c. Breathe in slowly and deeply and exhale slowly and deeply. You can count to ten and then start again or imagine you're at the bottom of a lake and thoughts are bubbles floating by. Don't turn your head to follow them, but don't give yourself a real hard time if you can't concentrate. You can also focus on concepts like love or peace or even just your breath. 

 That's all! If you stumble on this article because you googled stress relief or anxiety, I hope this works as well for you as it did for me!

**I respect anyone's decision to take medication. When I was little I almost died from an allergic reaction  to medecine for an ear infection, so I've always been very anti-drugs of any kind since. This was just my alternate path to peace. If you feel you need professional help, then I urge you to seek it out.  

I have a few new types of posts I'm really excited about coming soon...

• I'm covering Africa New York Fashion Week for the Asian-based fashion site What I Wear. I'm really looking forward to taking boatloads of pictures of that event. Not to mention dressing up as wildly as possible for it!
  
• Either this Friday or this coming Monday (depending on my work schedule) I'll be posting my first interview with an artist. I'd love to do more of these. I'll be interviewing my close friend, the painter Glen Farley. Even though he's one of my best friends in the world, I feel oddly nervous about interviewing another person, but I'm looking forward to the challenge. 

Well Happy Fourth to my readers in America! And thanks for your support and comments. Check back soon!

I'm learning to cook, and this salmon dish is the perfect recipe to learn to cook to: it's easy to make, delicious and nutritious. As I've mentioned in a previous post, Ryan's got me hooked on watching the happy, little world of the Cooking Channel. It was really fun to see Giada De Laurentiis whip up this dish, decide to make it on our own and then go ahead and do it! Here's all you need...

To make the Lemon Brodetto, warm the olive oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat. (We used a big cast-iron pot that is our go-to for cooking everything from soups to rice-- a great investment!) Add the shallots and saute until tender, about 7 minutes. Add the lemon juice, zest and broth. Bring to a simmer and keep warm, covered, over low heat.

To make the Pea Puree, combine the peas, mint, garlic, salt and pepper ina food processor and puree. With the machine running, add the olive oil in a steady drizzle (we didn't do this and it was fine, plop! All at once). Transfer the Pea Puree to a small bowl and stir in the Parmesan (careful you don't put in too much Parmesan like we did!)
Set aside.

To make the Salmon, warm the olive oil in a large, heavy skillet over high heat. Season the salmon pieces with salt and pepper. Sear the salmon until a golden crust forms, about 4-5 miutes on the first side (this sounds the easiest, but is the hardest part. We kinda failed, looked nothing like Giada's perfect filets, but still tasted great!) Flip the fish and continue cooking until medium-rare, about 2 minutes more depending on the thickness of the fish.

To assemble the dish, add the tablespoon chopped mint to the Lemon Brodetto and divide between 4 (or in our case 2 with leftovers) shallow dishes. Place a large spoonful of Pea Puree into the center of each bowl. Place a salmon piece atop each mound of Pea Puree. (We added some pretty sprigs of leftover mint leaves.) Serve immediately.

That was my first cooking lesson! I got a little bored halfway through, which Ryan says goes to show I'm not a cook by nature. I like photographing and scarfing food better than cooking it, but my contributions still helped make the dish! If I can, you can :)