Julia Child was born on this day in 1912. We're celebrating with a few simple questions.
1. Do you like to cook? And how did you learn to cook? (And if you have a favorite Julia Child recipe, do tell us what it is).
2. Do you have a favorite gourmand perfume, or a perfume that reminds you of a favorite food even if it isn't really a gourmand?
3. What's the absolutely most amazing, fantastic thing you've eaten lately?
Bon appétit!
Note: image of Julia Child taken by Paul Child, via the Julia Child collection at Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.
Wow, can’t believe I am here first. It truly is August.
I love to cook. My mother was an indifferent cook; she didn’t care about eating. The family story was that my father’s mother was an amazing cook (She was first in our family to get a degree from Simmons College, and ran the Women’s Industrial and Educational Union teahouse in Boston for years). I’m supposed to be very like her, so I was designated cook. First taught myself to bake, then moved on to meals. Have all of Julia’s cookbooks, one she autographed when I attended a dinner/cooking class in her honor. She is my hero. Favorite Julia recipe: Whole Salmon Braised in Wine, from ‘The Way to Cook’. Quite spectacular for parities.
I associate Cashmere Mist with food because of the vanilla. Know that doesn’t get much love here, but it’s all I’ve got.
Most amazing thing I’ve eaten recently: fried baby artichokes with spicy remoulade.
No perfume yet. Cleaning day.
Sorry about the long post – have a great day all!
Thank you for sharing this beautiful story!
I love this post! I would be much too afraid to attempt to cook a whole fish, not to mention, making it for a party. Bravo!
Wow! What an honor to meet Julia. Great story!
1. I love cooking! I never really learned to cook, but I got started by watching my father. I’m more adventurous with food than he is, though, so the rest was just winging it and finding good recipes and inspiration.
2. I actually love gourmands. My current summer favorite is Fils de Dieu, but picking an all-time favorite might be impossible.
3. I had a salad with grilled peaches a few weeks ago that was amazing.
Aveda Chakra 2 for a company picnic later. Lots of company events this weekend so I could probably use some inner balance.
I am contemplating Aveda Chakra 2. Would you mind describing what it smells like to you?
I do love to cook! I am pretty open to new things-but I am vegetarian
Love by Killan is not gourmet but it reminds me of cotton candy or another type of sweet dessert.
In Holland I had a Bossche Bollen-YUM YUM YUM
My brain wants to translate this as German Ball, but what was it in actuality?
It is a pastry ball with cream filling and chocolate on top. Think of an eclair but shaped like a ball- and 100 times better
It’s made in Den Bosch
Leaving Stockhol shortly!
1. I have no cooking skills whatsoever. Couscous is all I know how to make.
2. Indult Tihota is a gourmand favorite.
3. I had Dover Sole 2 nights ago. It was prepared just right and deboned well!
I’ll check in again either from Berlin or Copenhagen in 2-3 day’s time.
Have a great weekend everyone.
P.S. Those interested in my step counts – please head on back to Friday’s Community Project post.
That would be Stockholm! Where’s spell check when you need it???
Hi! Happy to see you having a great time. Dover sole can be wonderful…
Couscous, lol!
Great minds and all…but I had Dover Sole two nights ago in Montreal. It was also deboned perfectly and quite delicious. Happy travels!
Good thing we have Daisy to cook for us, Hajusuuri! 😀
Just noticed your new gravatar and blog – congratulations, Ari! Looks like a great mix of brands for this region and the Mosaic District. I’m looking forward to visiting and sniffing more of the CBIHPs and Smell Bents.
Dover Sole, accompanied by a hefty dry Martini, brings happy memories of lunches in San Francisco. ????
Ah Couscous. Love it. I was an exchange student in Tunisia and lived on it. My favorite is with fish and hot peppers. When my husband was my fiancé and a poor graduate student we ate a lot of Couscous. Planning our wedding, we registered for gifts at Macy’s….seems sort of silly now, but we really needed basic household items. Anyway, the SA picked up on our love of cooking and kept trying to get us to register for very fancy pots….too embarrassingly expensive to ask our family or friends to pay for! One pan in particular was on her mind to sell us– a high tech galvanized something something Couscous pan. After a particularly long mind-numbing sales pitch, my oh so practical spouse to be asked, “So this is a $275 pan for cooking 50 cents of ingredients?” Needless to say, we didn’t add the pan to our registry.
Great reply 🙂 !
1. I love to cook and have worked as a cook in restaurants and schools for many years. I started as a three year old mixing together all the spices in the spice cabinet and Worcester sauce, vinegar, soy sauce, whatever I thought smelled good. My mother gave me full access! My parents owned a business and were always busy; by the time I was twelve I had taken over cooking dinner every night. I loved it, I would read recipes and make grocery lists. Julia’s recipes would have been out of my range!
2. Not really.
3. Fresh summer fruit! The Michigan peaches have been wonderful this year.
My answer to #3 this year is definitely our home grown fresh tomatoes (although it really helps if you put some nice olive oil, burrata and basil on top, ha).
I cook all the time and love it most of the time. One of my earliest memories is of watching my aunt pull apple pies out of the oven of the big wood burning cookstove at lambing camp. Cinnamon and pastry and smoke from the sagebrush they burned in that stove, with leather and a little wet dog as well when the herders and their canine companions came in to warm up. I’ve never been able to make pie crust like that aunt.
But this explains why I like some of the smoky spicy scents, I think. LADDM and Timbuktu…
I had some calm chowder for lunch yesterday that was fabulous, big clams and chunks of potato that seemed to have been roasted with thyme and garlic and then tossed in the soup at the last minute.
Clam chowder. Stupid sPell check made it calm…lol
What a sense memory!
What a wonderful, scents all (scentual) memory. I could read that paragraph over and over, reveling in the scene, the scents and textures, and the sounds. Thank you, meredifay.
That chowder sounds heavenly!
Drool.
I love reading everyone’s cooking stories!
I like, but don’t love, to cook. I learned from cooking with my mom and also watching cooking shows on TV–Julia Child for sure, and also the Frugal Gourmet, Yan Can Cook, etc.
Don’t have too many favorite gourmands. Maybe Bond 9 New Haarlem for that gorgeous coffee?
Last amazing thing I ate was a la-ma dish from a food court in a mall in Flushing, Queens. It was a pick-your-own ingredients experience. They , were then cooked in a a spicy-numbing spicy sauce (la-ma). I had a mostly seafood variation on this with little clams, prawns, squid, tofu, cabbage, bean sprouts and other deliciousness. A couple of days later I got a watermelon ice drink that reminded me of the ones I used to get when I lived in China. Good eating recently!
New Haarlem is so great. I really should get a bottle before the price inevitably hits $200.
Not much interested in gourmand perfumes, but I love Julia Child. And I love to cook. My mom was not much interested in cooking – we had every ‘convenience’ food imaginable – things like Hamburger Helper and Ragu spaghetti when growing up. I hated almost everything and was the skinniest child around. When I grew up I learned to cook and discovered how delicious food can be. Unfortunately, my waist is evidence of that! I learned with cookbooks – the New Basics was an early favorite, and I also learned from Julia. Some of my favorite recipes from her include her simple Leek and Potato soup, her vegetable pistou soup, and her ham and potato casserole. Still need to try her deconstructed roast turkey.
Last night I had a great salad, with arugula, wild rice, dried cranberries (in place of dried cherries), feta, basil, toasted sliced almonds, and a lemon garlic dressing. It was amazing. Recipe can be found at Cookie and Kate blog.
I loved the New Basics cookbook!
My mom was a single parent of 3. I still remember the taste of tuna helper especially, because it was such a strange, not-found-in-nature taste.
I started cooking at around age 5 using Minute Rice and water in a pot over the radiator. I then made my little brother eat it. The next year I graduated to a spice cake from a mix in the real oven, topped with frosting from a can. Over the years I have improved 😉
One of my favorite Julia recipes is leg of lamb studded with garlic cloves and covered with mustard sauce.
I am just returning from Montreal, where I ate very well. Puréed gazpacho with a pesto crouton, Dover Sole, and Creme Caramel were among the highlights.
I remember Minute Rice! Wonder if they still make it. They must.
As the youngest of four sibs, I hated being the one who was made to eat stuff! 😉
Oh Julia! What a gal! I love her humor as much as her cooking. Here she is in the David Letterman show wielding a blow torch. No one else like her!
http://youtu.be/SHX0pv8_JOE
I am wear CSP Amour de Cacao today.
That was hilarious, thank you!
My favorite Julia memory is when I first ‘met’ her. Neither my mom nor I had heard of her when we were flipping channels one day and caught the end of one of her shows back in the ’60’s. She was making a Yule log, and we tuned in just at the time she was flinging the cooked sugar water over a broom to make the decorative moss (and no one can pronounce the word ‘moss’ like Julia!). My mom and I had never seen anything like it and we literally laughed ourselves silly – what a pleasure to savor this sweet (pun intended) memory today! Anyone interested in learning how to make ‘moss’ the Julia Child way can link to her Yule log video. The moss- making begins near the end, around 23:50 or so: http://youtu.be/DiOIdX2zmCI
Deva, thank you for sharing that link! That was hilarious! Think I’m going to share that with my kids, who’ve never heard of Julia. What a great combo, Julia and Letterman.
1. I don’t mind cooking, but it’s definitely not a love. I learned a lot of basic tips from watching the Barefoot Contessa. What attracts me the most to that show is the keep it simple theme.
2. This poll inspired me to wear Hermessence Vetiver Tonka. It makes my mouth water a little every time.
3. The most amazing thing I’ve eaten lately were oysters, 3 times during the August long weekend! Fri. – Oysters Rockefeller, Sat.- raw with raspberry vinaigrette, then Tues. deep fried oysters n’ chips. Still working on losing the weight I gained…
Oysters are delish!
1) Yes, I love to cook but rarely for just myself. Learned from always being in the kitchen as a child as I watched my parents cook. Both ‘rents were amazing.
2) Not really a gourmand fragrance fan; I’d much rather eat food than smell like it. Having said that, I must confess an irrational fondness for Ave Luxe’s [discontinued] Nude Musk – has a lovely, soft vanilla angle but somehow avoids smelling like a cupcake. Magic. Sad to see it go.
3)A recipe I found online for Naomi Pomeroy’s Wedding Chicken. Easy and incredibly delicious. My favorite chicken recipe, hands down.
I looked up this chicken recipe online and might give it a try. Love the combine all ingredients, marinate, then bake!
Oh, it’s amazing…and it doesn’t get much easier than this!
1) I’m a disaster in the kitchen…but great at mixing cereal and milk. No favorite recipes – surprise!
2) Since I didn’t get round to participating yesterday I’ll put both themes together 🙂
Recently I found Ange Ou Demon Jasmin Sambac 2008. I’v been looking out for these Harvest editions for a while as I remember liking them ages and ages ago. The only problem…no tester. In any case I took the dive and it is quite a lovely flori-mand. Very float-ey in feeling, and quite ethereal in a slightly cliche’d renaissance sense – think of dark blue skies, cherubs and twirling ribbons. No demons around, but if there were they would also be Raphael-inspired and not particularly startling.
So – it doesn’t fill me with wonder, and the sense of something rarified (like Orchidee Vanille does). On the other hand I think its very easy to wear and appealing. For some reason it reminds me of a meringue…
Oh! I like this question a lot. Prepare for tl;dr!
1) I find cooking extremely challenging. At age 19, I was hospitalized for an eating disorder, but I was a ridiculously picky eater long before that. Until 19, I ate maybe 5 kinds of fruits, 3 kinds of vegetables, and a whole lot of S’mores pop tarts.
You’re obviously not allowed to be quite so picky about which foods you eat in eating disorder treatment, so I discovered probably a hundred new foods in my month there. Somehow I had never tried an avocado in 19 years!
I decided that I wanted to continue discovering new foods after leaving the hospital, but I really had no idea how to cook. I only knew how to avoid food, not make it! My savior was Nigella Lawson, who takes such obvious pleasure in food. I own 5 of her cookbooks- “How To Be A Domestic Goddess” is my very favorite.
2) Major perfume sweet tooth, so I have too many favorite gourmand fragrances. Serge Lutens Un Bois Vanille, Bond No. 9 New Haarlem, Ginestet Botrytis, L’Artisan Jour de Fete, to name just a few!
3) Fresh churros in Barcelona. Anyone have a recipe??
I know its not the point of your post but I still wanted to commend you on managing or overcoming an eating disorder. From the little I know, that is NO easy task. And what is even more amazing is that you progressed to such a real appreciation of food, and even associated scents. Wow!
Thank you for your wonderful words, Merlin. Eating disorder treatment was very difficult- eating 4,000 calories a day was sometimes excruciating- but I am also so lucky to have received that treatment. Especially in the U.S., where insurance companies work every day to limit who can receive coverage and how much they receive. Eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any mental illness, and when I think about those without access to the resources I was privileged enough to have, I just shiver.
I suspect your optimism and sense of humor had a lot to do with your progress, Ari. Love to read your comments.
Appropriate resources + inner strength. I agree that there should be much wider access to medical resources – and not just in the USA. Actually there should be greater access to resources period.
Good models for how to take pleasure in things are the best, aren’t they?? Shoutout to Nigella for that, and also everyone here who so generously share their perfume joys 🙂
I adore Nigella too. Watching her cook is such a treat!
Perfume sweet tooth – very cute!
I love to cook. My mother was a good cook but didn’t enjoy it all that much. I learned to cook when I was first married and living in Iran. There were no grocery stores then, so I learned to make lots of things from scratch, like mayonnaise. Joining women’s international clubs often involved learning local food like classic Persian dishes plus food from everyone’s home countries. We moved a lot; my neighbor in Greece taught me how to make phyllo dough so thin it would pass the ” read through a newspaper test” and hang the sheets to dry over the backs of chairs.
Been to cooking schools all over, from CIA in Northern California at Greystone to Tante Marie’s to Chiang Mai to Sicily.
The next life chapter involved much less cooking and a move to fragrance. Bois d’ armanie has nothing to do with anything except I wore it when I had a great deep fried 5 spice lobster at a French Vietnamese restaurant in Manhattan Beach on my birthday last year that left my tongue numb for the evening.
Happy birthday Julia! What a woman!
Ahhhh, Persian food. Now I want some tahdig! Must find Persian restaurant!
Or invite ourselves to apsara’s house!!
(In the absence of risking trepassing charges 😉 I’m also excited for this cookbook that Najmieh Batmanglij has coming out in September. http://www.magepublishers.com/joon-persian-cooking-made-simple/ Everything I’ve ever eaten of hers qualifies as “the absolutely most amazing, fantastic thing” and “75 Persian recipes…many requiring only one pot and less than an hour to cook” is just about my speed 🙂 )
Alas, C.H. The only thing I have in the house is Cheerios! Came in from road warrior trip last night and of course the smoke alarm decided to start chirping so I am trapped waiting for electricians????
Joon is a sweet site, thanks for sharing the link.
1. I like to cook, but I don’t cook as many complicated dishes as in the past. I have developed food sensitivities over the past 10 years, so I avoid processed foods and eat simply.
I learned to cook because my mother was a parenting genius. She rarely bought cookies from the store, and when I asked for them she always said, “Let’s bake some.” I quickly realized I could eat what I wanted if I made it myself, and Mom was supportive while allowing me free rein in the kitchen to learn on my own. I was 8 years old the first time I baked chocolate chip cookies start to finish (including clean up!) without help, pancakes at 9 years, homemade bread at 10, cream puffs at 12. Yay, Mom!
As an adult, Julia’s bûche au chocolat was the inspiration that made the Yule log a favorite holiday dessert in my home.
2. I love vanilla in perfume (Guerlain, I’m looking at you), but I don’t really have a favorite gourmand fragrance. I don’t want to smell like food. I like fragrances that are “mmmmmhhh, delicious” but don’t smell like cake. AA Ylang & Vanille is one example that works for me. Vanille Insensée is another.
3. The absolutely most amazing, fantastic thing I’ve eaten lately? A perfectly ripe, cold plum.
Re: 2, totally same, it was a revelation that vanilla in perfume didn’t have to smell like cupcakes. Now it feels like I owe every boozy vanilla on the market 🙂
I love that your mom did that! That truly is parenting genius. My kids are out of the house now, but when that first grandbaby comes, I’m going to borrow that tool. Thanks for sharing it!
I love to cook when I’m in the mood but find the every day stuff an inconvenience which is why soup, casserole, or salad is almost always the main course at my place. I actually don’t remember not being able to cook. Guess I learned from my parents? My dad was an amazing cook and I know that helping him throw together a meal was always fun and he did teach me the southern staples such as hamburger gravy, pinto beans, creamed corn, and hash. I never had any trouble reading recipes and was always allowed to cook when I wanted to as a kid with little interference. I’m sure I was supervised from around the corner but I was an incredibly cautious and careful child and I don’t remember any failures or disasters.
I don’t think I’m really a gourmand fan and can’t think right now of a particularly foody perfume. I have a few that make me think, “yum”. In fact, Musc Tonkin, which I’m wearing today, is one of them.
Thank you all for your nice comments last week about my missing cat. He’s still not home and I’ve spent most of my usual rest time out searching and bothering the neighbors with flyers. Nobody has seen him which concerns me. I hope somebody has just stolen him and he’s safe. Someone keeps taking down my posters (others are un-touched) so I am beginning to wonder.
Thank you for the update on your missing kitty, I’ve been thinking about you since then and wondering. I, too, hope someone has taken him in and he will return to you safely. Sending comforting hugs your way til then.
Thank you so much!
Oh no, poor Mr B isnt home yet! I’ve been thinking of you and Mr B and sending prayers for his safety. How upsetting. i really do hope he is just having a sulk about the kittens and makes his way back home.
MikasMinion, I’ve been thinking of you too, hoping that Mr B finds his way home to you, or you to him. I’m adding more “down under” good wishes to Perthgirl’s.
Argh. So stressful. I complain about our cats all the time, but when one is out just a little late everything feels off kilter. Your wee one is in my thoughts, very much hoping you will be reunited soon.
I too have been thinking about you and Mr. B.; I’m sorry to know he isn’t home yet, but am praying he’ll turn up with a swish of the tail and a “what have you been worrying about” air…
Thank you all so very much. It means a lot to me. I’m hoping to open the door and find him giving me the annoyed “what took you so long” look and I am getting to know some of my neighbors this way. You can’t really just go door to door telling people you moved in down the street, and it is a bit odd asking to search their yards, but it is a way to meet people and now I know ALL about their cats 😉
Sorry to hear about your kitty. Like everyone else I hope he turns up soon.
1. I learned how NOT to cook from my mom. She made typically 60’s food–Jello salad with mini-marshmallows and Miracle Whip dressing, Chun King chop suey from a can with Minute Rice, and things with Velveeta cheese in and on them. When I learned to cook, I used The Joy of Cooking to teach myself to cook and bake from scratch. I tried a couple of Julia’s recipes but I was working days and going to school nights and found I was eating at 1 am.
2. My favorite gourmand perfume is PG Un Crime Exotique. I think it smells like a cinnamon bun. Sadly discontinued, I keep buying bottles if I find them.
3. The most amazing thing I’ve eaten lately? A homemade Caprese salad with heirloom tomatoes and buffalo mozzarella. It was delicious. 1st runner-up would be a Dutch-oven-made hot chocolate lava cake that I ate in Alaska. It tasted so good after hiking all day.
Today I’m wearing Atelier Flou Shamsin, a pretty floriental and the first I have tried from this house.
Had never heard of Atelier Flou. Shamsin does sound nice.
Heirloom tomatoes and buffalo mozzarella I’ve lived on this summer.. So good and so summer!
Despite the fact that I don’t have much of a sweet tooth, prefer baking to cooking. Wed night I made brownies for the hvac guys, which lent good karma to the successful inauguration of the new system on Thurs. Yay, a/c finally, on Aug 13 (it was 90 deg yesterday)!
Not a big gourmand frag fan.
Been on a spinach salad kick lately: baby spinach, heirloom or plum tomatoes, a few ripe strawberries, walnuts and feta or sweet amish swiss cheese, tossed with balsamic–delish!
Congrats on your a/c!!
Good morning, all. The whole of Aotearoa-New Zealand is in a good mood today, ‘cos we won the rugby. Yay!
I cook meals, adequately I suppose, but what I love to do is bake. I have my mother’s recipes for the classic sponges, dark chocolate cake, fruit cakes, and many others. Her recipe book is falling apart– I remember it all my life, so it must be at least 60 years old. It’s handwritten in fountain pen, ballpoint, pencil; pictures and snippings and once, a birthday card from me, fall out from between its pages and all her favourite recipes are spattered and stained. I learned to bake as a child by following the recipes and seeing what people ate most quickly! No wonder I love gourmands! I haven’t met one yet that I’ve actively disliked, even the notorious Angel, and some I could roll about in like a puppy with a dead fish — Traversee, my new love Rahat Loukoum, Kiss Me.
My favourite food is fruit, and the new season’s gold kiwifruit are delicious right now. There is no note in perfume that captures or even suggests that taste.
There is a Bois 1920 scent called Sushi 😀
As your contemporary (albeit several continents away) I very much enjoyed the story of your mom’s treaured recipe book. My dad was a gourmet cook (long before it was trendy and extremely unusual in our workingclass ethnic neighborhood) and my mom was an excellent baker, oftentimes baking cakes ‘out of her head,’ as she used to say. I lost both of them at a young age, so I treasure the few recipes I have from each of them in their own handwriting. Every year on my birthday I bake myself my mother’s special poppyseed cake from her hand-written recipe with love and gratitude for the woman who gave me life.
Now, that’s a lovely memorial, and one I could institute in my life very easily. Thank you for the thought. Mum had a fruit cake recipe affectionately known in the family as “crater cake”. It was exactly her style: not glamorous at all but elegantly practical, and generously filled with delicious ingredients. I’m going to bake it with love next weekend and invite my mad family over for afternoon tea. In fact, I’d better bake two so they can take some home with them as well, which is exactly what mum would have done.
I’m pretty much a functional cook, having learned while helping my single working mother. We didn’t have a lot of money, so we ate a lot of spaghetti, tuna casserole, hamburger stroganoff – things that would stick to the ribs and stretch over several days with minimal cash outlay. When I was 12, Mom married my stepdad and our family doubled in size, going from Mom, me and my younger brother to Mom and me surrounded by four guys (my stepdad’s two sons moved in with us). LOTS of spaghetti – to this day I still can’t make spaghetti sauce for fewer than a platoon. :). Now that I’m married to a fella who has worked as a professional chef, I don’t do much cooking. I do make a mean vinaigrette though.
Hermes L’Ambre des Merveilles reminds me of caramel popcorn balls. And I love Naomi Goodsir’s Or du Serail, which is a near-gourmand.
Happy weekend everyone!
Ha ha…it took me literally decades to cut back my quantities after spending my teens cooking for a family of 8. Sooo can relate to this.
There is no point in making spaghetti sauce for fewer than a platoon, it never turns out right 🙂 plus, it freezes well and you can dump it on anything. I’ve been known to throw left over spaghetti sauce and cottage cheese on a pile of fresh spinach and call it a meal.
I love to cook and bake. My dad is Italian and my mum an Aussie country girl. When they first married they lived with my dads non-English speaking parents for several months, so my mum went from CWA Cookbook type cooking to discovering foods she never knew existed! Mum always cooked, baked, made preserves etc, and my parents owned a chocolate factory for most of my childhood too, so there were some techniques learnt that I probably wouldnt have bothered with otherwise.
It wasnt until my parents split in my late teens that we discovered dad could not only cook, he was rather skilled at it! Lol.
I mostly cook Mediterranean/Middle Eastern styles, but living alone I tend to go for simple more often than not.
Love by Kilian and Tihota have both been mentioned, and I second!
Today I caught up with mum and my sister. Mum bought along a tray of fresh baked g/f chocolate cardamom brownies made with coconut sugar. Yum!
A chocolate factory. Even if I hadn’t been a Roald Dahl fan as a child I think I might have envied you. Also I want this gf brownie recipe. Heh.
Not a big fan of gourmand frags, though I do like coffee as a note (but not as a beverage, go figure).
But I am a big fan of Julia. My favorite recipe of hers is croissants. After visiting Paris I went on a local hunt for good croissants and couldn’t find any. Took a class at a local cooking school and their version was hideous, dense and chewy, ugh. So I dug out my Julia and followed her instructions to the letter and voila, lovely proper croissants. Lotta work but worth it!
Haven’t eaten anything truly fabulous recently. Must remedy.
What’s your favourite coffee note? I have Belle en Rykiel, which is supposed to have a coffee note but is to me more caramelized lavender…
Yohji Homme is lovely in an understated way; of course, discontinued, hard to find, and expensive. Angel A-Men Coffee is a really good coffee/lavender; I haven’t seen it at discounters but it’s available on Mugler’s website. Plain A-Men is coffee + Bvlgari Black, a rougher version of By Kilian Intoxicated. If you like vanilla, there’s Providence Perfume Co Samarinda. Bond No 9 New Haarlem is Kahlua, to my nose. Lots to choose from!
Yohji was re-issued in 2013. Never had a chance to sample the original so I can’t say how much it has changed but it’s safe to assume that it has. Available at various e-tailers on-line.
I know, but… nobody seems to actually have it in stock… discontinued again??
Thought I’d post a good and simple summer recipe, which I’m going to make with tonight’s dinner.
Toss a piece of naan on a baking sheet. Scatter arugula, chopped figs, and chopped prosciutto over the naan; top with grated fontina. Bake at 350F til the cheese is melted (could also be grilled). Drizzle with balsamic glaze. Mmmm.
Julia! For decades, I poured over the two volumes of Mastering the Art of French Cooking and occasionally cooked from them. My favorite recipes – because they are both delicious and easy – are these two:
Bouillabaise de Poulet (chicken poached in white wine with Provençal vegetables, herbs and flavorings) with either Rouille or Pistou
Clafouti à la Liqueur (cherry flan with cognac). This works fine with frozen dark cherries.
Julia’s recipes for roast chicken and chicken sautéed with tomato and mushroom sauce are also excellent and easy.
In addition to Julia, I learned to cook from Roy Andries de Groot (Feasts for All Seasons), Madhur Jaffrey’s Indian Cooking, and many others – I’m still learning!
Best food I’ve had this year was at Zaytinya during DC Restaurant Week last spring. If you’re in the DC area, Summer Restaurant Week is August 17–23. (No affiliations.)
My fav gourmand would be Frapin 1697 Absolu de Parfum, which smells like a fabulous crème brûlée with cognac by the fireplace on a cold winter night.
Oh, I love Zaytinya, and haven’t been in a while. Should see if I can get a reservation for next week.
Zaytinya’s so good! If you haven’t already been to the other Jose Andres restaurants, I also recommend those. (Also no affiliation.)
We eat very simply now, curried lentils, arugula under and in everything. Lots of vegetable dinners with fresh corn, tomatoes, basil, cucumbers, peppers and more greens augmented with great sour dough bread. Not much meat and limited dairy, add fabulous beer and good wine and anything is a feast! My daughter is a great baker and often makes a vegan lemon and olive oil cake that is too die for. I have quite a few gourmands in my collection. Kerosene Black Vines, Angel Sucree, Womanity, most of the Lolita’s, Bvlgari Omnia, and I find Yatagan quite savory and often visualize a wood and stone kitchen with herbs hanging from the rafters when I first apply it. The peaches have been incredible this year and I have really been enjoying them.
I love to cook, and have since I was a kid. Both of my parents are good cooks, which helps, but also they allowed me a crazy amount of autonomy to cook as a child–which seems to be a running theme amongst the cooks here.
I love Le Labo Patchouli, which isn’t exactly a gourmand, but I do like to describe the old formula as “sexy barbecue.”
Living in Vancouver, there is no shortage of superlative and cosmopolitain food. The last amazing thing I had was probably local oysters, before it got temporarily too hot to eat them raw.
Try the fried oysters at C Lovers on Denman Street!
Just chiming in with a mention of a crazy meal we had several months ago at Atelier Crenn in SF. The palate cleanser was of frozen fruit an tea concentrations molded into a tide pool scape…. Cannot picture it? http://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/06/92/e9/ee/atelier-crenn.jpg
The meal was delicious, but it was also very fun…with another couple, lots of laughter and good wine.
Wow, so creative…..so outside anything in my life. 🙂
Generally it is outside mine as well! It was more like a performance-dinner-mini-vacation than a meal. The menu was a long poem written by the chef in which one, two, or three lines were a homage to each dish (yes, it was as stupid and remarkable as that sounds! But gosh we had fun…the chef gets points for creative indulgence if not for metrical composition.)
1. I like to cook, but I’m lazy so I don’t always do it. Since I live by myself, I keep it fairly simple and quick unless I’m feeling particularly inspired. I learned some stuff from my mom and grandma, but I also picked up some stuff from Food Network and cookbooks. I’ve always been much more adventurous about food than the rest of my family, always being the one that wants to try everything.
2. There are a few gourmands that I like. Eau des Missions, Angel, Fils de Dieu, Lolita Lempicka, Aquolina Gold Sugar when I’m in the mood for it
3. Really great things I’ve had recently: a friend of mine made a really awesome peach barbecue sauce for chicken. I hold him he should bottle it. I also discovered the wonderfulness that is muhammara (a walnut and pepper-based dip/spread). I got some from Trader Joe’s a while back, and when I couldn’t find it again, I tried making my own. Mine isn’t quite as good as what I got at Trader Joe’s, but it’s not bad.
No scent yet today.. Might go on a little sniffing expedition. Haven’t done that in a little while.
Just a spritz of au the vert today.
1. Love to cook. One day when I was 11 my mother called me into the kitchen and announced “You’re making dinner tonight.” I have 5 siblings, she was headed to work, Dad was MIA. Pork chops were started, instructions for finishing them, a frozen veg & instant mashed potatoes were given. I progressed through my teen years and got out at 17.
I seem to have stumbled on a recipe for roast chicken of Julia’s that resembled a favorite of mine – stuffed with lemon wedges and herbs.
2. I’m embarrassed to admit I never smell food in perfume (even vanilla is a stretch), but I’m content.
3. My life is sadly lacking in fabulous food, though I guess I’m jaded. Papadoux’s restaurant (New Orleans/Gulf style seafood) in Houston Hobby airport is a blessing, fantastic all 3 times I’ve been there.
I use to live in Houston, and all the Papa’s restaurants were fabulous. I grew up in Texas, so I’m partial to their Mexican restaurant, Papasito’s. Such good food memories!
1. I learned to cook when I was a child from my mother. Being one of those “latch key kids”, it was more a necessity that grew into a passion as I got older.
2. Angel, for sure, though CSP Vanille Peche and Pacifica Tunisian Jasmine are favorites. Also, pretty much any almond/vanilla/musk scent.
3. I had to cook for my thirteen year old daughter since she was having a male friend over and she said he liked chocolate. So I did a home made Oreo crust topped with chocolate mousse with a hint of khalua, then put it in the freezer. It came out really well for an improvised dessert aimed at the thirteen and under crowd. 🙂
As an aside, I am panicking over Lush discontinuing Flying Fox. Does anyone know of anything similar to try instead? I was going to use the rest of my tiny bottle in my bath tonight and thought,”This stuff’s great. I should go buy more.” and then died when I found out it was gone… Except for a couple bottles going for $50 on Amazon. :/
Have you tried their Godiva shampoo bar (which I just use as a body wash–or I guess the other term would be “soap” 😉 –because it dried out my hair a bit.) I’ve heard it compared to Flying Fox. Personally I think the Godiva scent is a little more like Lust (i.e. a brasher jasmine!) but could be worth a shot!
Crap, they’re discontinuing Flying Fox? I always liked that. Lust is a good jasmine but awfully in your face. I always felt like Flying Fox anyone could get away with. (My brother even loves it.)
Last week I saw they still have some at the Lush in my mall. I can check tomorrow to see if they can ship to you if they are still in stock. If you want.
@Lillyjo, that would be wonderful! There isn’t a Lush I can get to and I did try to call their national number but of course, most of the discontinued items were already sold out. Amandapando is going, too, which is too bad because it reminds me so much of Rose Jam but with more lemon.
@Unseencenser, my 9-year-old son loves it, too, and always runs into the bathroom to inhale the steam from my showers when I use it. The kids always know when it’s been a Flying Fox shower since it fills up the upstairs with that lovely honey and jasmine scent.
@C.H., I have and love the Godiva massage bar, but don’t often use shampoo/soap bars in the shower because we have really hard water. But it’s certainly worth a try. If it works out, I might try the same with Jason and the Argan Oil since I think that one smells like Rose Jam as well.
SOTD was Romantina, but now I am a lovely cloud of Sex Bomb, Godiva and A la Nuit! I hope the neighbors like jasmine. 😉
Ok, I will check today and report back in this thread after I get out of work.
Well, unfortunately the Lush at my mall is sold out now too. I’m sorry.
That’s okay, Lillyjo. Thanks for looking. Hopefully I can find a similar replacement shower product.
Ooh I am intrigued by the Godiva massage bar–did I just miss it? Or are you talking about the one called Yes Yes Yes?
(Meanwhile, you smell great in Romantina! Might be my favorite from that line.)
Lush is discontinuing Flying Fox??? Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! That was my favorite of their body washes. Grass is still around, right?
I asked in store here and was told that some countries phase out, others just delete their stock immediately. I plan on buying more Grass every payday until they have no more!!! 🙁
Have already bought a couple backups of both Grass and Flying Fox. Am still so unimpressed with Lush for this 🙁
Yes, my gast is still flabbered over this since FF seemed to be so popular. If my jasmine henna treatment gets pulled, Lush and I are done professionally. Unless they bring me back by making Rose Jam available in everything all year. Then I might reconsider. 🙁
Hate to be the bearer of more bad news, but Grass is on the chopping block as well. At least that’s what the lady I spoke with said today. So yeah, stock up while you can. I told her I wasn’t happy at all with what’s getting the boot and that I guess I’ll have to prowl Evilbay to find more. She said she was unhappy to hear that and I said I’m unhappy about their latest discontinuations.
Oh, and the jasmine massage bar is Yes Yes Yes, not Godiva. It has a cocoa butter scent just under the jasmine and is heavenly.
Oh that hurts mah heart… I haven’t been shopping at Lush lately because it makes my bank account hurt too much, but it makes me sad that my two favorites are going away. I hope they replace them with good things. I would be a happy camper if Rose Jam were available year round, though. That might almost make me forgive them for axing Flying Fox and Grass.. maybe.
Oh you’d already answered my Q about the massage bar. Cool, thank you!
1. I love to cook and do it every day, unless I’m traveling. I learned by helping my mom and grandmother cook as a kid, and helping my mom meal-plan as a teenager. Now I mostly cook without recipes, which I find relaxing as a kind of creative outlet. I don’t think I’ve ever made a Julia Child recipe, but my mom does occasionally; she used to make coq au vin on for my dad on his birthday.
2. I love and own many gourmands! Probably the last one I bought was Kiss Me Tender.
3. I made huevos rancheros for brunch which were pretty fantastic! And last weekend, a kimchi relish which was completely addictive.
I love to cook. My mother almost never cooked (and when she did it was legendarily bad). When I was in college I discovered a book among my grandmother’s cookbooks, “The Joy of Cooking”, and read it like a novel. After college I learned to cook to keep our tiny new household food budget low; the Fanny Farmer cookbook (JoC sometimes lies!), a Chinese cookbook I bought, the Silver Palate cookbook (oh, the 80s!), and two Turkish cookbooks (in English) I inherited from my grandmother were my staples.
I learned to stir fry and bake all kinds of bread, and that kept us fed for a very long time.
Eventually I branched out to other cookbooks and other methods. Michael Field’s “All Manner of Food”, with a chapter per ingredient, was incredibly educational, and Jeff Smith’s “The Frugal Gourmet” contained so many cheap meal ideas; eventually I also got Julia’s “The Way to Cook”, and the “Sundays at Moosewood” cookbook gave me so many interesting ideas for vegetables. Those and “Curries without Worries” (I love Indian food) are the cookbooks I never want to be without, and I learned to cook from years of experience and their help. I like to think I’ve gotten to be a pretty good cook, of the type where if I need to make food for anyone, I can make things out of the ingredients I can get, or have, or that they need to eat. Not fancy, but very functional.
(I still pick up a good idea from Alton Brown every once in a while!)
I don’t think of perfume as “edible.” But I do love gourmands – pretty much all of them. Favorites are Tihota, Angel taste of leather, Shalimar Ode a la Vanille (the original), even Donna Karan Gold. It’s hard for me to say there’s a gourmand that I’ve met that I didn’t like.
Most awesome thing I’ve eaten recently: a mint/melon chilled soup, poured over a small mound of tuna tartare, garnished with tiny paper thin slices of jalepeno and radish, studded with mounds of perfectly pureed avocado. I was in a hotel in Vegas and loved that soup so much I went back to get it a second time. Glorious.
I love to cook and learned from my mother, who was quite adventurous considering it was the ’60s and my father was a picky eater.
Calamari, rabbit, artichokes, broccoli rabe, everything Italian – but I like to eat MORE than I love to cook. LOL
Guerlain Spiritueuse Double Vanille smells very good!
Had escargot with garlic butter and crusty Italian bread to absorb said garlic butter. Fantastic!!
Thanks to all well-wishers! I had a great birthday, and wish good health, wealth and wisdom to all! May all YOUR birthdays be happy!
Bear 🙂
Glad you had a great birthday. I haven’t made broccoli rabe in ages. Must do something about that. I used to love sautéing it with lots of garlic and making a sandwich of it with a nice roll and some provolone cheese. Maybe I should try feeding some to my hubby again. He was picky when we got married but he’s come a long way.
That’s my favourite sandwich! I often throw some crisped soppressata on there, too.
That is how I like it too, Poodle – the sharper the provolone the better! Crisped soppressata, I will have to try that sometime, Erin. 🙂
Celebrate Julia Child’s birthday??! Let’s not! She was a raging homophobe!
http://jezebel.com/5332516/julia-child-beloved-icon-role-modelhomophobe
Perhaps she would have been more tolerant if she had lived in a later time? One can only hope.
It’s a balanced article and addresses that question thoughtfully.
Yes, I was glad to see that.
Yikes! Thanks for the article though.
Sadie Stein provides food for thought on JC and the times. She manages to give us a glimpse behind the emerald curtain without tearing down the pedestal altogether.
On the lighter side, it is fun to consider what fragrances she might have worn. My theory is a progression of French classics: Jicky in her younger years, Chamade for her busy successful career, and Nahema for resting on her laurels…..
I agree and also like to imagine sneaking a spritz of YSL Paris. 🙂
1. Do you like to cook? And how did you learn to cook? (And if you have a favorite Julia Child recipe, do tell us what it is).
I used to love to cook, now for just myself, meals tend to be either salads or steamed vegetables. I’m the oldest of six so “learning” was a matter of having to help mom. Early on it was only simple things like cake (from a box) or brownies. But I wasn’t too very old when my father offered me the unheard of sum of $2.00 (I think my allowance at the time was 50 cents/week) to make him a batch of penuche.
Favorite Child recipe is her mayo – delicious and easy!
2. Do you have a favorite gourmand perfume, or a perfume that reminds you of a favorite food even if it isn’t really a gourmand?
Spiritueuse Double Vanille
3. What’s the absolutely most amazing, fantastic thing you’ve eaten lately?
I’m going to brag and say my desperate and almost accidental combining of a Southern Living summer spaghetti “sauce” recipe (raw, using fresh tomatoes, etc.) and most of the ingredients of my gazpacho recipe. I had bought two very large heirloom tomatoes for the spaghetti sauce recipe, not noticing the price. I was appalled when I got home to find I had $8.84 worth of tomatoes!!! To add insult to injury they were about tasteless in the sauce recipe which is what led to my turning it all into gazpacho. It turned out great.
My mom was a great cook, but I was not one of those kids who made jello with mom or had any reason to be in the kitchen except to grab a snack. When I was 15, my mom was in the hospital for a week or so (breast cancer, which she survived), and everyone looked to me to take over the kitchen. That’s when I learned to cook. Love all of Julia’s recipes, but especially the hearty stews and soups.
Don’t like gourmand fragrances at all, but I do like citrus and herb colognes, especially in this hot weather.
Nothing beats a Jersey tomato, baby!!! Break out the basil and balsamic and I am in heaven!!!
I’m an okay cook. I’m actually more of an assembler. My husband became quite the cook from watching Mario Batali and Sara Moulton on Food Network, in the days when that network taught some skills rather than just entertain.
I haven’t eaten anything that blew my socks off of late, but I do love the big chicken curry bowl at a small restaurant downtown NYC (Aux Epices) and their summer watermelon salad… Oh, and a kind friend sent some of the chocolate wafer cookies from Miette in SF. They are unbelievable….flakey and a truly dense chocolate flavor.
I love Gourmand Coquin, discovered in a sniffing adventure at Bergdorfs… I have my name on a split, so will hopefully have a decant once that is filled….
Perhaps my favorite vanilla EVER was Guerlain’s Oriental Brulant which I think is now discontinued. Would not ever pay that $$$$$$ though 😮
I am half and half, sometimes I love to cook and sometimes I don’t, I love to try new recipes but don’t like to cook the same things again and again.
My favorite gourmand is Shalimar Initial body lotion.
Most awesome thing I ate recently was a dish I ate in Armenia, vine leaves stuffed with minced meat and tomato sauce. I ate the same dish over and over again during my trip, it was so good.
I have always loved to cook and have been cooking since I was 11 years old. I come from an family a really good cooks, starting from my paternal grandmother (Nonna) and my maternal grandfather (Nonno) and my Mom. However, the last 13 years since my divorce, I have cooked only sporadically. It is not as much fun when one is the only diner. I rarely use cook books and usually just winged it or already knew had to make it. I can still tell others how to make something even if I haven’t made it in a long time. The last spectacular thing I ate was a delicious crab cake at a local restaurant.
1. Like many perfumistas, I love to cook. Learned with my awesome mom since I was 10, and I actually prepare a healthy dinner for my family everyday, in spite of my busy work schedule – because my husband gives me a hand and washes the dishes. Nothing perfumes a house like a bread being baked.
2. Shalimar and l’Heure Bleue, the mother and father of them all. 🙂 A mention goes to Lolita Lempicka and Marron Chic, too. Gourmands make me happy, so I wear them all the time!
3. A tartare done right with a good draft beer. The seasoning was perfect, which is somehow rare, the portion big and they served it with a quail egg yolk, which was super cute.
I’m a pretty decent weekend cook, but as an urban working mother, I’m not wild about the day-to-day druggery of weekday cooking. I love food, I love eating out and my mother, who is an excellent cook, always tries to encourage me, since she feels I have the makings of a scratch cook, like her. (We always had people over when I was younger and they’d say: “This sauce is fabulous! I must have the recipe.” And Mom could never remember all of it, because she’s just used up a bunch of stuff left in the fridge and pantry: the last of the peach preserves, some leftover… um, Gewürztraminer, caraway, and walnut oil, maybe? ) What I really need is a sous-chef, because I don’t love prep – should recruit one of the kids. My husband is a pretty good cook, and he possibly enjoys the process more than me, but he doesn’t have the time at all, and if he decides to make a big meal, we eat at 11:30 pm.
I’ve not done too many of Child’s recipes, too much of a production, but her version of beef beef bourguignon (except with the pearl onions flamed with brandy) is one of my signatures, that the family demands once or twice a year. I generally like the American Test Kitchen cookbooks and the LCBO (liquor store) magazines, with some celebrity or pioneer chef (Elizabeth David – thanks, Angie!) recipes mixed in here and there.
Last week, the two most interesting things I had were tempura watermelon with bitter herbs and pork floss on Friday and the following night, short rib with fried garlic (almost caesared) broccoli – the kids were at the cottage and we ate out twice! 🙂
Double beefy bourguignon, I notice. Sorry!
Tempura watermelon? sounds so intriguing…
Dang, I’m moving where you live! I never see food like that. Maybe NC will be better.
I go through periods when I really enjoy cooking; at other times, when just for myself, I find it onerous and boring and… well, I just don’t do it! I didn’t start learning to cook until I moved to Japan in my mid-20s. Proper entertaining was so important there, and my previous experience with grad school keggers just wouldn’t cut it! I learned from cooking mags and sometimes embarrassing trial-and-error. I love the sour cherry note in Lolita Lempicka Le Premier Parfum, so I’ll call that my favorite gourmand. I haven’t eaten anything lately that has really knocked my socks off. I need to do another round of DC restaurant exploration.
1. I learned to cook and bake both from my mom and self-taught from cookbooks. As a new bride, my husband was drafted into the Army and we lived on an Army base near a small town where jobs were scarce. So I stayed home during that period and cooked up a storm. I’ve cooked and baked many years now and, although I still enjoy it, I’ve decided in my next life someone else will do that for me! I grew up without Julia Child, but I still have and use my parents’ (both of them cooked) vintage cookbooks, The Gold Cookbook, and The New Antoinette Pope School Cookbook, from the 50’s/60’s.
2. I love gourmand scents, too many to mention. Givenchy Organza Indecence is like warm cinnamon pudding to me, and Laura Mercier’s Creme Brulee Souffle is TDF.
3. Just yesterday, fantastic breaded steak sandwich at Ricobene’s on 26th Street in Chicago in my old neighborhood. I couldn’t say it better: http://ftw.usatoday.com/2015/03/ricobenes-chicago-best-sandwich-in-the-world-breaded-steak
Cinnamon pudding? Yeeeees! Gorgeous! I’ve got to get my hands on Indecence! It’s not available here–another one on the To Try list for our visit to TOH.
Robin, thank you for this post! It was such fun reading everyone’s responses. Definitely brought back loads of memories!
So glad!
Yesterday I sampled Laura Tonatto Amir and thought it smelled like Etro Messe de Minuit. I’m wearing MdM today to compare, and, yes, it does. MdM is a bit sweeter and definitely smoother and more refined; Amir has an undercurrent of notes with a hard edge that make it seem more masculine to me, and it’s a strong fragrance. Personally, I prefer MdM but can see why Kevin liked Amir.
https://nstperfume.com/2010/09/22/laura-tonatto-amir-fragrance-review/
Now I’m curious to try the other LT that Kevin reviewed, Eleonora Duse:
https://nstperfume.com/2010/06/10/laura-tonatto-eleonora-duse-fragrance-review/
Has anyone tried Eleonora Duse?
It’s Monday morning for me, and I’m back to working at work, bruised face and all. Your wonderful discussions of food made me determined to wear a gourmand perfume today, something I don’t usually do when I’m teaching. Today, however, my 10 o’clock lecture will rock with wafts of Rahat Loukoum, and if it causes my students consternation, they’ll just have to cope. I earnestly wanted to select Angel, just ‘cos, but I think that might possibly perhaps may be a bit much for the meeting afterwards.
Hope you heal quickly!
What do you teach? Imagining Rahat Loukoum plus lecture! Perhaps you should wear the same fragrance when you hand out exams… the scent might trigger memories of your lesson?
Actually, my scent today is utterly wrong for the topic, though I’d be hard pressed to choose a perfume that matches. The lecture I’m giving today is about the commodification and consumption of suffering. It’s not quite as dreary as I’ve managed to make it sound. I hope.
Art historian or social scientist? Or something else? Sounds interesting.
Serge Lutens may provide perfumes to match, either Fille en Aiguilles or La Vierge de Fer!
Or economist? I’m curious too!
1. I Love to cook.
I learned some tricks while at university. I worked many evenings and nights as a chef at a student driven restaurant.
2. I love Hypnotic poison – and I love almond ice cream, Amaretto, marzipan etc.
3. My husband recently made a great dish with salmon sous vide and grilled asparagus. Was perfection.
I like to cool most when I’m with others – usually my husband or with a group of friends. I never learned to cook growing up but starting waiting tables when I was in my 20s and learned a lot from reading the ingredients in the entrees. That’s where I learned about using garlic and other spices and lots of olive oil. I often cook favorite meals for my kids – usually alone which isn’t much fun but I love watching them enjoy what I make.
I don’t have many gourmands. Does Bond No.9 West Side count with the vanilla?
Summer is always so much busier than I think it will be!! I just returned from my annual summer camp nursing gig. So much fun, lots of work, and a gorgeous setting. Camp food gets old quickly! I’ve been having wonderful, savory meals the past few nights to make up for all those camp meals. Last night my husband and I made a bed of sautéed spinach for plump seared scallops and served with a baked potato with all the fixings including truffle salt. It was quick and easy to make and the flavors were incredible!
I’m not a very good cook, but I enjoy it! My specialties are ham and cheese omelets and Bailey’s French toast.
Gourmands are my absolute favorite type of perfume, no doubt because of my notorious sweet tooth. I don’t know if I have an absolute favorite, but I do like Angel an awful lot and, to be honest, Britney Spears Fantasy! I loved Viktor & Rolf’s BonBon when I sniffed it, but it is WAY too expensive right now for me to justify buying a bottle, especially when 2 whole shelves of my linen closet are devoted to my perfume collection.
The best thing I’ve eaten recently is the meal I recently had at California Pizza Kitchen: chicken picatta with spaghettini (which is the star of the show in my opinion; the chicken was great, but I’d happily eat just a huge plate of the spaghettini!) followed by warm butter cake for dessert. So good!