Cake in the Time of Pandemic ‘I’m known in Melbourne for this elegant, sophisticated pastry – the croissant – and the cruller is the exact opposite. It’s a super naughty New York street treat … there is nothing refined or elegant about it.’ Kate Reid, proprietor of Lune Croissanterie In 2020 … [Read more…]
Publish and be damned Well some people try to pick up girls And get called assholes This never happened to Pablo Picasso He could walk down your street And girls could not resist his stare and So Pablo Picasso was never called an asshole … Pablo Picasso lyrics by The Modern Lovers The … [Read more…]
Naked in Leopard Skin Born into Italian aristocracy in 1881 and heiress to a fortune made in cotton, Luisa Casati managed to run up personal debts of $25 million. She and her sister had been orphaned when both parents died and Luisa was only fifteen years old. The Marchesa Casati was a devotee of the … [Read more…]
Cleopatra’s Erotic Vagrancy Cleopatra V11 – born around 69 BC – was an object of fascination and gossip even in her own time. She was a child goddess who was married off to her brother and became Egypt’s queen at eighteen. After many poisonings, killings, plot twists and turns, Cleopatra went on to … [Read more…]
Romancing the Mushroom pine mushrooms live a thousand years in one autumn Den Sutejo 1633-1698 (translated by Makoto Ueda) Autumn in Melbourne is a fine time to take a trip to the Prahran Market and visit the wild mushroom man, Damien Pike. For many years he’s been sourcing and selling mushrooms. Much … [Read more…]
The Insanity of Love ‘Marriage is the tomb of love.’ Giacomo Casanova Some time ago I went to hear Alain de Botton – philosopher and author speaking about modern relationships and love in Melbourne’s gloomy town hall. I’m not sure our drafty town hall is conducive to love. The couple in … [Read more…]
My Favourite Horror Child Eloise and I go way back. At about seven I discovered six-year-old Eloise. She was parent-free, running amuck in the Plaza New York with her nanny, a pug and a turtle. I didn’t find it strange that Eloise exercised with champagne bottles, as my sister and I had hidden … [Read more…]
Venus in Steel He has the slimy assurance, the gross patter about transcendence through art, of a blow-dried Baptist selling swamp acres in Florida. And the result is that you can’t imagine America’s singularly depraved culture without him. Robert Hughes on Jeff Koons. Jeff Koons has always been a divisive … [Read more…]
Phoenix Rising ‘Hope. It’s like a drop of honey, a field of tulips blooming in the springtime. It’s a fresh rain, a whispered promise, a cloudless sky, the perfect punctuation mark at the end of a sentence. And it’s the only thing in the world keeping me afloat.’ Tahereh Mafi Moira Finucane … [Read more…]
‘He who loves not women, wine and song remains a fool his whole life long’. Martin Luther – Professor of theology, author, composer, Augustinian monk. Trees of Paradise Historians believe our Christmas trees might be a close relative of the Medieval Trees of Paradise that appeared in Western Europe around late December in … [Read more…]
My Life as a Nightclub Cocktail Girl When I was a child, my mother used to play vintage movie songs and the lyrics to Gigi were: The night they invented champagne It’s plain as it can be They thought of you and me The night they invented champagne They absolutely knew That all … [Read more…]