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.

I may not be Inès de la Fressange but I can have her shirt

I realized in mid-July, when word spread that Inès' designs would be "affordable" -whatever that means these days - and at Uniqlo, that if I could get myself 6 inches taller I would not need to lose weight. Visions of a taller, stretched-out Me strode through cobblestone streets like editorial photos... Actually the last time I strode, well, hurried, on cobblestones was in London a few years ago and I was hurrying through Covent Garden on the way to the theatre and the stones were glistening beautifully in the light rain, and because the damn stones were wet and slippery I stumbled and landed heavily on one knee...

Inès is often photographed with fluffy hair and lightweight immaculate but well-worn-in Burberry pushed back by a gentle breeze, or more likely by a well-directed fan in the hand of a hopeful intern.

(pause here while I decide not to complain about how there are all these unworthy people in the heartless and cruel world whose hair behaves and then there is Me)

The lightweight trench might just be possible. At one time I thought that the buttoned-on epaulets of a real trenchcoat were dashing, then I learned that everything on a trenchcoat is there for a purpose and the epaulets are where you put your gloves when you remove them to take aim at some desperate Colonial, having first adjusted your gun flap...

So, anyway, light-weight with the potential to move gently - well, to flap - in breezes, and long enough to be recognized as a coat not a jacket, and did anyone ever wonder whether Inès really is that slender or is the motion of the coat and hair creating an optical illusion? And would that work for me?

Worth trying, although not at Burberry level.

I found this one:

note absence of epaulets
note presence of "wind guard"

skirt is fully cut but does not "balloon"
 hence good flapping potential

It was said to be back-ordered until mid-August. It was also on promo, and we pause for a moment to wonder what kind of merchant puts something on promotion when he doesn't even know if he'll be able to deliver it?

I ordered the thing, knowing full well that it was not going to be useful as a raincoat, or be warm, or maybe even be wearable. It did look like it would be good at flapping in breezes, and therefore potentially evocative of long and lean.

Ten minutes later, I became concerned about flapping potential and ordered it again, a size larger.

The rest of the summer passed without incident, except that the back-order date became more and more prolonged. I decided that if it (or they) arrived after the flapping season, I'd return both and reconsider diet and Pilates for the long and lean business. Fortunately both coats arrived this week.

Result: the larger size is definitely over-flappy. I liked the length. The sleeves were absurdly too long, no sensible way to fix them. The smaller size fits! The "military green" color is not quite the green of the US military, and not any green related to Paris or cobblestones... dyes were no doubt mixed by an inept foreign intelligence agency, which thought inspired me to check the buttons for tiny transmitters. They seem OK, plastic, not overly heavy for their size and thickness.

So both coats are hanging in the "probation area" of the closet. I need to try them on in a few different lights to be sure about the color and the way the back hangs.

Meanwhile, I also ordered a few of the Inès items from the Uniqlo site. I can't go to their Fifth Avenue store, because I become dazed and helpless what with the dramatic multi-levels, creatively deployed escalators, shiny surfaces....

Wool & something jacket, MEH, returned

White cotton lawn shirt, BEST WHITE SHIRT EVAH!
yes I am KEEPING this
IT HAS DARTS!

Flannel stand collar dress, this might
work as an updated housecoat
but not for me. Returned

Oh, yes, that white shirt really is made of cotton lawn. Thinking of buying a spare. Or not.