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?

Gavroche: a First in Classics, our last night in London

A stately silver pelican greeted us as we sat down and looked around. Gavroche is a "forever" restaurant. In "good" times, you can play " tell the arms dealers from the investment bankers," but in "not so good" times, the atmosphere seems a lot more festive, because people who want to treat themselves for a special occasion are doing so with enthusiasm, while the others are out somewhere else scheming and hustling. The menu moves with the times, but not ahead of them. Beloved classics are gently updated, still familiar.








This, for example, is the Artichoke Lucullus (my starter). I took a picture of it after I'd cut into it. Yes, there's an artichoke there, but mainly there's foie gras, lighter-than-air chicken mousse, black truffles, and sauce périgourdine. I had this dish when I first came here, as a kid (was that you muttering "as a spoiled brat?" I'll remember that!), and at that time the dish looked different, because the artichoke leaves formed a wreath around the masterpiece in the middle, and you had to pick up each leaf for a nibble before getting to the really good stuff. The artichoke bottom is still, as it should be, at the bottom. The streamlining is an improvement.






Next, the rabbit. It's a roast saddle of rabbit, the delicate white meat cut into chunks and stacked, with shallots and some other rabbit bits, between crisp fried potato cakes, the whole topped with a parmesan wafer.

I didn't have dessert, but Himself

 loves the Omelette Rothschild, 

essentially a floppy soufflé with candied fruit.

As we left, we passed a silver frog on a neighboring table. Each table has a different silver animal, most made with at least one piece of restaurant silver. The frog's tongue, fittingly for a table where you want to lap up the gravy, was made from a spoon. I could have sworn he winked at us.