Working It in Red Shoes

Tory Burch Georgia Ballet Flats in Triple Red suede, on sale now for $129. I love the square toe, but admit they will look better on a demure foot than in my size 11. But still....

Pops of crimson footwear rocked two nights in a row this week at NYC events.

At a Work Like a Girl Q & A Tuesday on the Upper West Side (led by Erika Ayers Badan, kick-ass CEO and thinker, with trend forecaster Valerie Jacobs), a woman in the audience wore fresh red flats with dark neutral pants. The pants were the foil and the shoes were the pretty, energizing grounding. Like all flats, they looked good worn barefoot (or with low-cut, no-show Peds). Your pant hem should not drag or pool over the skimmers. Trim cropped or skinny pants work best. The shape of the shoe was feminine, the way it framed the foot, but not unprofessional. Fun. Work Like a (Very Smart) Girl and look good doing it, too.

For the on-stage discussion between Katie Couric and Bobbi Brown at the 92nd Street Y re the new book Still Bobbi, Katie chose strappy red slingbacks with a kitten heel. Bare legs, white button-down shirt, black and white delicately patterned midi-length skirt. The shoes were everything. Smooth-looking, shapely legs help. Made me think about how I need to moisturize more with a nice body butter. (Hello, looking at Homecourt's new body collection.)

And there was an audience question about red lipstick. Can everyone wear it?

"Absolutely not," Bobbi said. The color makes a strong statement and not everyone can or even wants to own that. It depends on your personality, she noted. On who you are.

"Does anyone in the audience have on red lipstick tonight?" she asked, to prove her point. One woman near the front waved her hand and pointed proudly to her mouth. But the auditorium was darkened.

Oh, and Bobbi had a clean, short mani in Poppy, her signature orange-red color. I've seen her wearing it on Instagram. I bought it in town at the Jones Road store and I love it, for pedis and manis. My home mani lasted for 5+ days without chips, and I do a lot of dishes and garden without gloves. The kit includes a two-in-one base and top coat.

I enjoy soaking up events like these not just for style and substance watching but also for being at the heartbeat of it all, New York, New York. 

The magical ruby slippers Judy Garland, age 16, wore in "The Wizard of Oz," 1939. Showing their age here, and drab and depressing compared to today's color-drenched footwear. 

Photo from The Smithsonian.

A First Time for Everything

My marshmallow-making debut today.

The formatting is off a bit whenever I start a blog post on my iPhone and then finish it here on my Rose Gold MacBook. So please forgive all the extra spaces between paragraphs! A while back, I read that beauty visionary Estée Lauder loved chocolate-covered marshmallows. I think it was in something written by her granddaughter, Aerin Lauder, who is also a beauty visionary--and author, style maven, socialite, trendsetter. Williams Sonoma approached her to sell a line of AERIN tableware. She has a jewel-box shop in Southampton [I visit it on my summer day trips] and is opening a second Hamptons location.

In fact, the legendary whipper upper of beauty creams loved candy, period. When I went to a panel discussion last Saturday at the Architectural Digest Spring Design Show in NYC, Aerin said:

Estée had a little refrigerator full of candy in the family room, with boxes of candy. She would say, 'Take one, take two, take whatever you want.' She was fun.

Now that would be my kind of grandmother. Yet somehow, Aerin and her sister, Jane, are slim and beautiful, not carrying around any candy pounds.

I find it fascinating that on esteelauder.com, you can find A RECIPE! from a popular Soho chef--even a marshmallow video, which was very helpful, as the sticky confection is made, in this case, from powdered gelatin, water, light corn syrup, sugar, salt and vanilla bean seeds scraped from the pod.

You must boil the sugar syrup in a covered pan for 10 minutes, until it reaches 240 degrees F. on a candy thermometer. I do not own a candy thermometer now, so I just stuck with the 10-minute guideline. 

But the syrup was so hot and you beat it into the gelatin for so long [15 minutes] that the whisk extension on my red handheld KitchenAid mixer [the only mixer I have right now, and I've had it for years] got red hot hot hot and actually broke off at the stem. Yikes. I hope to mail the whole shebang back to KitchenAid and get a replacement, but I don't know...and plus, the postage would be a lot.

I'm proud of my kitchen crafting today. The marshmallows seem a little plain-Jane at first but then when you dip them in the dark chocolate and let it harden, they turn into glamour girls. I did eat about four of these light ladies, but packed the rest up in cellophane bags with pretty Easter stickers--to give to others. I gave a bag of six to the mom of Punchy's playmate today.

I left a baggie with three marshmallows on the kitchen table for Dan and Punch. [Darn, they almost passed vegan Figgy's test--no egg whites!--but that powdered gelatin contains collagen from animals. So, no.]

What happened to the all the rest of the marshmallows? Dan asked when he came in.

He was impressed with these. I also have to thank him for running to Kings yesterday when I said Please get me good dark chocolate, not a bag of Tollhouse chips. He came back with two nice big Scharffen Berger 70% Bittersweet Dark Chocolate Baking Bars that were on sale; but I only needed one. [I saved six naked marshmallows for the future.]

So maybe I can make them for special occasions, like Easter and Christmas. For me, it's not just about eating the sweets--it's the crafting of them. The candy-kitchen crafting. The chopping and tempering the fine rich chocolate. The dipping [I like Chef Camille Becerra's technique of using two forks.] It's a true passion for me. But as I said under my Instagram post, #backtofruitnow.

Happy Easter to you and yours. Happy Passover, too. Are these kosher? The Lauder family is Jewish. 

TCOY

1. Nice hot bath with the rest of my DollyMoo salts [made in Montclair].
2. Got to my support group, even though Dan took the car to drive Punch to her soccer game and Figgy took the bike to get to work. I walked 15 minutes to get there. Then I walked another 15 minutes in town and 25 minutes back home.
3. Had Asian salad.
4. Think I will sauté a pear now. Sis sent us fresh pears for Easter from Harry & David.

Makeup & a Movie with Bobbi Brown

The movie was "Scatter My Ashes at Bergdorf's," and the Bergdorf's color [for shopping bags, signature ribbon on silver boxes, etc. is purple].  I took home a lavender iced mini cupcake and purple-tipped lipstick cookie for Figgy.

If you were sitting on the couch next to me, you'd catch a note of Bobbi's Party, spritzed on from the bottle in the bathroom at the Bobbi Brown Studio in Montclair tonight. The scent is pretty, and I like the way it's lingering.

The Montclair Fund for Educational Excellence fundraiser tonight was a huge hit--packed house. I enjoyed it, yet felt lonely. My friends Anne and Elly bought $50 [lowest tier] tickets too, but our schedules changed--it's Elly's wedding anniversary, so she headed out to a late dinner with her husband, and Anne had to pick up her Nikki from cheerleading. I was waiting for Punch's grandma to arrive to take her for the weekend and she hit bad traffic, so by the time I drove Figgy to art class, I didn't get to the event till 7, though it started at 6. I overlapped with dear Anne and Elly a little, but otherwise, I was alone among pretty PTA people. I saw a lot of faces from years past but was too shy to interrupt their conversations. I said hello to a couple of women I know.

Anyway, purple prose: 

• On the way in, when I stopped to buy $20 worth of raffle basket tickets, I noticed a dish of purple-and-green foil wrapped chocolate hearts. Put a couple in my purse to bring home to Figgy. 
• The movie. Missed the beginning, but ate up the part I saw. [Bobbi was also in it.] I kind of grew up at Bergdorf's stylewise--it was the place I loved to visit on lunch hour. And where I first laid my eyes on these brands: Kate Spade, Tocca, Milly, Tory, Aerin, Annick Goutal, Wolford, Emilio Pucci.
• Bobbi Brown is petite at the podium. She did a Q&A session, and I liked it when she answered a Q about how a young person could follow his or her dream. "Work hard and do what you love," she said. "And take a year off and work for free."
• Nice perks. Not only did the Champagne flow [and it tasted good], but people filled Chinese takeout containers with food from Wah-chung restaurant in town and ate it with forks or chopsticks while the film rolled.
• Bobbi's flight of makeup artists was available for touch-ups, and attendees got a 20 percent coupon to spend at her makeup bar. I used it toward lipstick in Brownie [Bobbi is famous for pinky browns] and a tube of Beach shower gel. Going to use it tonight, can't wait. Love how it smells, like Coppertone on a breezy, blue-sky August day on the beach.
• The lipstick shaped cookies! So clever. And the shade? Purple. [Wouldn't like that on lips, but like it in sugar icing.] A nice woman watching over the coffee and tea table said they were from the Little Daisy Bake Shop [please note--I bought the small blue cake pedestal pictured above at Little Daisy on my birthday].
• The mini cupcakes, iced in purple, donated by Cupcakes by Carousel, on Church Street. Appropriate, since when I once had a luscious cupcake at the frozen yogurt/cupcake stop on 5F at Bergdorf's, I asked the waiter where it was baked. He checked the box and said Cupcakes by Carousel.
• Good coffee.

TCOY

1. Private Benjamin.

2. Read and rested.

Sunday Night

I love this Emilio Pucci/Guerlain bronzer with stylin case. Makes me look tan + alive.

Grateful for a misty day that was productive. My energy is on the rise. I enjoyed meeting with Anthony, whose life story I'm working on. We meet at Starbucks on Valley Road for 1 to 1 1/2 hours on Saturday or Sunday, and it can be pretty fascinating. Today it was. I have pages and pages of notes I've taken. He also pays me by the hour each time, and that makes me feel good [valuable], too.

Good night.

TCOY

1. Good tooth care. And: I even put on moisturizer and makeup today, which I have to admit feels good...to know I defined my brows and lashes, swept on some eye shadow, brushed on some bronzer. I felt more polished and pulled together.
2. Sauteed spinach and garlic for lunch, served with squeeze of fresh lemon and sprinkle of sea salt.
3. Walked Sug around block once with Figgy.
4. Whole Foods for blackberries, salmon salad, yogurt, rainbow chard.
5. About to wash a load of delicates.

The Bobbi Brown Makeup Studio

Bobbi at Studio. Photo from beautifulmakeupsearch.com.

One perk of living in Montclair is that Bobbi Brown lives here, too. I once saw her at the quickie nail salon; her white fluffy dog beat out Sug in a dog costume contest [Sug was a Girl Scout, with tiny sash]; and her makeup studio [and store] is right on Lackawanna Plaza.

Today I popped in there with a couple of girlfriends. I ran out of time so didn't get to buy the pretty POWDER PEARL EYE TRIO set I wanted to pick up for a gift.  But I'll be back. I have to confess, tempted to get one for me, too. I do love Bobbi's pearly, shimmery shadows and the chunky sponge tips on these wands will make it easy and fun to sweep on color.

Paulette, the makeup artist who helped my friend, said what we all know deep down: "When you look good, you feel good."

And yet.....yet. Somehow I went out for dinner and a movie with H. and another couple without a scrap of makeup on my face, except lip balm. I was working with Fig on her college application process and then it was squeeze in short nap or do makeup. Sleep wins!

Oh well. Tomorrow is another day. And I did do some things that contribute to my inner beauty today.

TCOY

1. Support group.
2. Walked in Brookdale Park for 45 minutes with Elly.
3. Walked Sug around block.
4. Short nap.