here a Grail, there a Grail

I seek perfection in all things, a sage once said.

This must be a tiring way to live, unless that sage had someone else doing his shopping for him. The individual selection of carrots and string beans comes to mind. Otherwise put, sages don't know everything.

But who among us can escape being bombarded with 10 Best lists?

And doesn't every 10 Best list, or 3 Best, or Absolute Best, have an equal and opposite list or statement? Wasn't that sage made to take high school physics?

Rather than filling the closet or the fridge with BESTS - which will be consumed by marauding husbands (fridge) or sisters (closet) or daughters (other closet) - or co-workers (long spiral-bound notebooks with narrow lines and wide margins, where have you gone?) - should one accept that there may be no best, or that a Best may be at best transitory?
I saw a scarf in a store window that was the (my) Platonic ideal of scarf-ness. The design was witty, the colors worked with colors I find myself wearing often...

rare and lovely but doesn't seem ever to have been reissued;
occasionally said to have turned up in vintage stores

The store was closed because it was late at night - Himself's favorite time to "browse" - and we were leaving the next morning. I couldn't find the scarf in the US, and then life intervened, and by the time I had a few minutes to think about scarves again, the children were in school and I was being asked to volunteer in classrooms. Granted, that didn't last long - I remember bringing an old fashioned ice cream churn and ingredients to the school, lining everything up, and then sending the children out to wash their hands before we actually got started. The teacher, horrified, bleated about not wanting to stifle spontaneous creativity. I countered with wanting to stifle spontaneous salmonella. End of digression.

another rarity, originally issued in 1947 and reissued in 1990(?)

So I looked for my scarf, chatted up salespeople, trolled eBay, trolled other sites, got some work done inbetween, and years later the scarf appeared on one of the secondary market sites. Turns out I wasn't the only one stalking it. Sigh.

I don't have Grail shoes. I admit to owning a lot of shoes, but...

For a long time, I had a particular kind of necklace (torque) in mind. I had no idea how such a thing would come to be mine, unless I went crazy and bought it at the jeweler's retail store. However, people I love were depending on me.... My patience and dare I say self-sacrifice were rewarded when someone listed the necklace on eBay. The pictures included close ups of the hallmarks and of a defective hinge. I pounced. I had the hinge repaired at the retail store. Very little "optional" spending for a while all the same.

Here's a Grail recipe - Best ever Chocolate Pot de Crème! Typically a pot de crème is a baked custard in a little pot, very fussy because the little pots have to bake in a water bath and have to be snatched from the simmering water in the hot oven without being dropped, and then cooled in a particular way. So what good is a famous recipe if noone is ever going to survive the making of it? Fortunately I came across this recipe, a lot of people have reprinted it in a lot of books, so you don't have to credit me with a discovery, but you should make this.

Organize some cute little cups, this is very rich and this is one time you don't want to put forth generous servings. For convenience, put the cups on a baking sheet or other flat pan. Put into a blender: 

1 cup of bittersweet chocolate chips
1 ½ tablespoons of cognac, or rum and cognac mixed
2 egg yolks  

Bring one cup of light cream to not exactly a boil but you want it to have tiny bubbles around the edges of the pot. Be sure it's light cream, the recipe won't work otherwise. Note: half & half is NOT light cream.
Pour the hot scalded cream into the blender jar, put cover on tight, and blend until the chips stop rattling. Pour the mixture into the little cups, and refrigerate at least 4 hours. I usually cover each little cup with a piece of plastic wrap. You can do these a day ahead.
To serve, put a blob of whipped cream on top of each little cup. Smile.

I hope the shirt shows up as white on your screen,
my screen isn't having a good day

White shirts. It appears we will never be able to live at peace with our friends and neighbors without a white shirt. Frankly, whoever made a list of "musts" and "best things to have in a wardrobe" that instructs the reader to own "one white shirt" has never tried to live with only one white shirt. If - and this is a BIG IF - you are going to spend the rest of your days and nights in a white shirt - just not possible. We live in a world full of hostile condiments. Ketchup. Mustard. Hot sauce. So if you're going to do the white shirt thing, you don't need one, you need several, and to me this means that you're looking at a serious investment. However, close to the top on the list of things I don't want to spend eternity doing, is wearing a gray t-shirt everywhere. So, after due consideration and a lot of returning, I nominate the white shirts sold at Uniqlo stores and on the Uniqlo website under the heading "IDLF." Those initials stand for Inès de la Fressange, and the minute I tried on, one of these shirts, I recognized that she had given the white shirt situation even more thought than I had. Here are some of the good points: properly sized collar, 100% cotton, fabric, lapped seams (no serging!),  "pearl-y" buttons, manageable cuffs, enough room at the bottom without looking like a vintage minidress. I'm particularly happy with the cuffs, because they can be comfortably rolled up or turned up without having to create the Flying Nun's wimple at each wrist or elbow. Here is the best part -  the cost is quite reasonable,  as there's always a promo or a markdown, and for what you'd spend at the IDLF store in Paris, you could buy 3 or 4 of these babies on the web and spend your time in Paris - um - otherwise.

a few more Grails and after all that, a possible fail

The first time I saw the word "Grail" used in connection with a shopping venture was on the Purse Forum, Hermès scarf department. The ladies were discussing their "Grail scarves". I got it immediately. I had two Grail scarves in my life at the time: the scarf that showed scenes from the Bayeux tapestry, and one that depicted adorable little monks and pilgrims climbing up Mont Saint Michel. The Guillaume scarf was the one I'd bought on our first trip to France together, we'd been to Bayeux in the days when the Tapestry was pinned up to the walls of a simple building, you could walk right up to it, no alarms, no plastic. I was close enough to see the textures of the yarns and the types of stitches. Viewed like that, even though the lady embroideresses were the wives of the conquered British nobles and probably weren't all that happy, you could detect some irony. I loved it. My favorite scene in the original (1066 & all that) Bayeux tapestry* is the one where the invading French, having landed at Hastings, immediately unload kettles and cauldrons and cooking tools and boxes of food, obviously not wanting to risk living off the land. When we reached Paris, I made right for  Hermès and when I saw the scarf, I knew it was meant for me. I treasured it until it disappeared at the same time a household employee informed me that our washing machine wasn't working and she'd be happy to drop off that week's laundry at our local Fluff 'n' Fold. The towels, shirts and stuff were replaced in due course, but the disappearance of the scarf hurt for a long time. Anyway, for years I sought to replace that scarf, and when I learned that Hermès repeats classic designs from time to time, and also that unsold stock moves around the world from location to location, well, Lancelot and Perceval had nothing on me. Finally, I found my Bayeux tapestry scarf in the colors I wanted, finally, found it at Harrod's of all places! And the other one, I saw the cute little characters climbing the mountain in a silk Hermès blouse at a vintage store, but never on a scarf. Still looking. The Hermès search service doesn't apply to hunts for scarves that are so old they have value as antiques, alas.

The Grail of last winter/spring was the Margaret Annie, a Liberty shirt sold by J.Crew, and that Quest was described in an earlier post,  I actually got the shirt at a site-wide promotion after a lot of huffing, puffing and early rising. I've admired it for months. Know what? I haven't worn it yet. I don't like it with a black or navy blazer, it reads, dunno, somehow like a lady who needs to get out of the house more. That combo just lacks energy. I don't like it with jeans either. It's fine with more tailored pants, and I've been trying pencil skirts, but I really think this needs some more movement, maybe pleats? On the skirt, not the pants. Well, it looks great in the closet.



And I now have 2 gardenshade floral skirts, which were so cheap I felt I really should have a duplicate. The hem can be lowered about an inch with the help of hem facing, since generous hems and seam allowances are not part of the design equation these days. So one will have its hem lowered. This skirt is great with a denim shirt, navy linen shirt, chambray top, pale aqua cable linen sweater (very light weight). There's also a pale mint green featherweight cotton short-sleeve cardigan from a few summers ... maybe I should have grabbed a third skirt?

Another quest was a very lightweight cotton print skirt named Flora. Oh, right, the Goddess of Little Spring Vegetables! Every time I saw that skirt, I felt I should be paring and trimming cute little baby veggies with a sterilized cuticle scissors. But no. While I was having vegetable visions, the skirt appeared and disappeared. Again, finally it turned up. The print is gray and rust on cream, which sounds the wallpaper in one of the unfortunate boarding houses that George Orwell visited, but it's actually quite nice. The fabric is so light that I feel it would look skimpy with anything other than a tank, and the tank has to be cotton, because the skirt is a thin cotton. OK, I'm babbling here. Fortunately I have a few ribbed knit tanks in rusty copper-y colors with names that sound like Smoky the Bear officiated at the naming. Since I don't usually introduce my clothes by name, I could care less what they're called. So Flora's a success. Note: based on the position of the label, Flora should open at the left side. But the skirt hangs better if the opening is center front. Flora had quite a few outings last summer, and this summer I'm wondering if Flora might like to be a strapless dress.

Finally, I have fallen in love with still another Hermès scarf. It's not new, I guess I just wasn't paying attention when it first came out. Or I was broke. Or both. The design is called Les Toits de Paris. It just says Paris to me, the girl at the window, the rooftops, the cat... and the colors could be Paris at different times of the year, different times of day. I bought several, one in Paris at 24 Faubourg, the others at different times in different places, on what I call the "secondary market." If I see another color, I may just implode.

*Many probably know this, but just in case: the real Bayeux tapestry is not a tapestry. It is a long and narrow piece of embroidery in yarn on linen that tells the story of William the Conqueror's invasion of England, in great historical and social detail. It was made to be hung around the walls of the cathedral of - Caen? I forget. Name an important cathedral in Normandy. If you drool over the embroidered samplers made by talented little girls in (US) colonial times, you will absolutely have to go lie down when you see this one. Take your time, the delight is in the details.

great shopping mistakes of history (including a quote from Thoreau)

The title and thematic structure of this post were inspired, if that's not too strong a word, by the Olympic-class droning of Mr. Boring, who taught history at Conformity High (gimme a C!)  Mr. Boring was lazy and hated grading, so the History assignments went something like "Three Major Battles of (American/European/Ancient) History. Discuss each in one paragraph, being sure to mention (a) the combatants and (b) the outcome. Neatness and punctuation count." So we produced "Three Important Presidents, including the years of each one's term and one major event that took place in that term," "Two European Dictators of the 20th Century and why they were a danger to America..." You get the picture. He graded by weight (light preferred) and by sight (no visible footnotes). This was the Advanced class! It left me with a burning antipathy to the tenure system, only marginally mitigated by following year's class with Mrs. SmartA**, who actually enjoyed it when a student had an original thought. OK, now on to A Short History of Shopping Mistakes in the Late 20th-Early 21st Centuries.

Introduction: Earliest memorable shopping mistake: shopping for the 8th Grade Winter Dance, dresses required of the young ladies. Looking back, in the abstract this was a great dress. It was black-and-white mattress-stripe silk taffeta with a black silk ribbon belt, scoop-y neck, tiny cap sleeves and slightly belled skirt. The mistake was in not verifying how many more of them were lurking in the stockroom. I was horrified to enter the gym and see the three creepiest nerds in the class all wearing my dress. Apparently they had planned to dress alike in the hope of attracting attention. They did. So did I. Any sympathy I might have had for them vanished in an instant and I spent the rest of the evening in a phone booth begging my mother to come get me. Now.Please.

We continue:  The It Sweater. Everyone but me had a particular cardigan from a particular store, and it was selling fast. So fast, in fact, that by the time I got there, the only ones left were a pale mint green one size too small or one in a truly awful sienna brown two sizes too large. I went for the pretty pale green. Not only did it not fit when buttoned, it hung funny when left open, and the pretty pale mint green went with nothing that I had. I looked like I was trying too hard. Bad mistake.

The bright red Calvin Klein coat. Nothing wrong with this, it looked great, it fit great, expensive even at 75% off at Saks clearance consolidation sale, but the coat was begging to come home with me, and so it did. I just didn't have any place to wear it, and so I didn't. This is not exactly the coat in question, but it's close. You can see that red's a lot of coat. I love the look of a red raincoat on a gray day, so I thought I'd love a red wool winter coat. Dunno, it just didn't work.

Time passes. I learn that clothes suitable for out-of-town assignments depend more on where I'm going than who I am: I can be whoever I need to be to get the job done. I am not my clothes. My clothes are one of my tools. Thoreau said it best: Beware of any enterprise that requires new clothes.

The overscale plaid satin New Year's eve blouse and peplum jacket with velvet skirt, plaid sash. Suffice it to say that when something seasonal is marked down mid-season, there's a reason. There are a few things that are only worn once: wedding dress, prom dress... How often could this get-up leave the house? Wasted money.

Speaking of wedding dressess... Mine was meant to be a round-necked ivory hammered satin tea-length creation with long lace sleeves. It arrived, almost too late, without the sleeves. Instead, in the box there was an ivory mantilla that came below my knees. Did I mention there was a judge presiding? The mistake: I should have paid more attention to the paperwork. To this day I'm not sure what happened. "I'm not marrying your sleeves," said a croak-y voice and I kissed him and he turned into a handsome prince. That part was no mistake.

Buying unreliable cashmere more than once. My own fault.





Buying one component of an outfit that's meant to have a matching or toning other component, before making sure that the other piece of the outfit is available. In my size. This leads to early disposal of an unworn item, or, just as bad, looking like Little Orphan Annie was your stylist.


Buying stuff while travelling (usually after a long and viniferous lunch). Navy leather jacket that had to have the sleeves expensively shortened from the shoulders (his). Antique brass headboard. And footboard. It's so antique it jingles when we get into bed, or even if one of us just sits on it. We tighten it up regularly, and it loosens up regularly.


Strange furry jacket with cute collar (mine - no place to wear it, because it's the wrong length for a pencil skirt, but with pants it looks like exotic skiwear from an indoor airconditioned ski slope in Bahrain).

$10 dress from the bargain store that I bought to wear to a firm dinner when I was sick of wasting money on formal dresses that I'd wear once. Spent the entire evening worrying that the dress would "malfunction" when I should have been working the room.


What are your shopping mistakes? Does an expensive or embarrassing blunder live in your memory? Have you overcome a bad shopping habit?

Fred pours a libation - the story of a stalker

travel posts interrupted, to bring you a bulletin from our shopping consultant and menu advisor.

Living on Manhattan's Upper East Side, I am forced - forced! - to pass one store after another even before I cross the street of a morning. No matter how virtuous my destination, be it exercise, volunteer commitment, drudgery-amid-the-self-importantly-unappreciative (formerly known as laboring in the vineyards, but I suspect that will be the next term to be politically incorrect and I'm nothing if not ahead of the times) -- where was I? Oh, yes, lost between shop windows and a failing grade in creative punctuation. So, OK, why would someone who passes over a hundred stores every day, uses department stores as a dry shortcut when it rains, and daily sorts through a paper avalanche of sample sale, close-out sale, F&F sale, holiday sale notices and invitations, why would I, in fact, bother to rise before dawn to check computers to see if a particular item has become available?
Short answer: Beats me.
Discussion: Store fitting rooms are the last place to be cleaned, these days are often not cleaned at all. More and more stores are ordering fewer and fewer of each item ("There was a size 6 a coupla days ago, somebody must'a bought it" sound familiar?). I would like to say that my work life has taught me that if I am to expect others to place a high value on my time, first I must value it myself, but all too often what this comes down to is that life is full of unavoidable time-wasters, and therefore I am very selective about the time-wasters I can choose to avoid. First on that list: standing on line to hand over my money. Or maybe it's tied with adding verbs to the sentence fragments produced by expensively educated geniuses whose proud parents have had to defer planned retirement because they guaranteed eight years' worth of student loans?

One day I had to have A Shirt.


Being unable to throw out clothes is a tragic family trait, so not only have I bought and held on to many shirts that fit, but if shoulder pads ever return, I'll be ready with many, soooo many shirts that my revered elders bought. Still, This Shirt spoke to me. "You want me," it said, in the persuasive tones of one whose next statement will include something about continuing respectful feelings. "Come on," it crooned from the shelf.

On my way home later, I decided a little visit wouldn't hurt. My Shirt was gone, and none of the store personnel knew what I was talking about. One salesperson was particularly insistent that I had hallucinated, which I was almost ready to believe, until she led me to a computer, where My Shirt came up on a search. There was one size OO. Fortunately there was also a SKU, which I modestly copied down. This particular store claims to be able to track down items in many ways, and I tried all of them. Repeatedly.
I searched the store's website, on rising, before sleep, on the bus, while rolling calls, on another screen while checking someone's preposterous conclusions. I avoided lunch in favor of hunting. I mapped the US and called stores by location. once I found it on my iphone and it vanished before the order was processed. The SKU became a keyboard shortcut (SH for SHIRT. Or SHAMELESS.) Some of the more promising/helpful stores became a speed dial category (SH).
Eventually, persistence paid off. Sort of. After two brief, fluttery appearances on the website that didn't last long enough to place an order, I was able to order My Shirt. The order went through, but only long enough to generate an email bearing the Dreaded Otiose Apology. No other merchant tries to turn lack of operational skills and inability to understand customer demand into a positive personality trait with such cheerful energy, as if you didn't really want what you ordered and the same people who couldn't produce what you really wanted would now be able to satisfy you with something you would have ordered in the first place if you wanted it.




Persistence turned into a series of dull, repetitive, indeed Pavlovian responses: see computer, check for My Shirt. See iPhone, check for My Shirt. Sit down at desk, check for My Shirt. Leave for meeting, but first check for My Shirt.
Then, in a deserved confluence of events, My Shirt appeared only seconds before a site-wide promotion. Truly. The code promo appeared on the iphone as I was placing the order on computer. I entered the code, and it worked. I got a confirmation email. In minutes, not only had My Shirt disappeared, but the SKU drew a blank, all references to My Shirt on Google led to a filler page on the website, and My Shirt had been well and truly hidden. Was it ever there at all? My account showed it as "Releasable," which translates to "Her credit card still works so we can ship it if we ever find it." A few days later, my account showed My Shirt as waitlisted, expected to ship some 90 days later. Huh. We know what that means. The Pavlovian activity continued, just in case. I admit, with blushes, that I ultimately placed more than 7 orders - each time I caught a glimpse, however brief, of My Shirt. These orders drew a variety of insincere responses. However, three actually made it to the waitlist.


As  the waitlist's last day approached, I resigned myself to never having My Shirt. Not just to never having it while fresh and new and seasonal, to never having it at all. I thought about pouring libations to Artemis, Goddess of the Hunt. Or a libation, since Himself is rather protective of the good stuff, and a libation in a lesser liquid would be inappropriate.
More emails - all of the orders shipped! When (if?) they arrive, I will promptly return all but one, because I'm sure others are out there wondering if their shirt will come.
And once My Shirt is safely in my closet, I'll start work on not looking for it on the website/in the stores. Really I will.