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Browsing by tag: mandy aftel

He played it for me

Posted by Robin on 2 May 2022 Leave a Comment

Painfully shy, Aftel would only interact with Cohen via correspondence. For two decades, she dodged his many invitations to meet. Only when he lay dying of leukemia did she relent. "He was just so kind and generous about me and my work," she remembered of their meeting. "I was so scared, I wanted to leave right away, but he said, 'I have a new song. Would you like to hear it?' I kept thinking, 'Don't start crying!' So, he played it for me, and it was unbelievable, and he just went on until he had played the whole album. And, I just don't have words for what a transcendent experience love is."

— Perfumer Mandy Aftel talks about her friendship with Leonard Cohen, and many other perfume matters including her fragrance Memento Mori, in A perfumer's obsessive quest to recreate the fragrance of lost love at Salon.

Aftelier Joie de Vert ~ fragrance review

Posted by Jessica on 30 December 2021 8 Comments

We recently marked the winter solstice in my part of the world, and I’m so relieved that we’re now slowly edging towards the “longer” days and milder temperatures of spring. I’m already extracting as much sensory value as possible from every brief outdoor errand, despite the grayness, the wind, and the ongoing threat of Covid-19: sniffing the air in local parks when I’m alone and can remove my mask, turning my face to catch a ray of winter sun, taking close visual note of evergreen trees and any lingering greenery in my neighborhood.

I’ve reread a few favorite works of children’s literature over the past year, including two that employ secluded, leafy spaces as symbols of renewal and transformation. One is Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden (1911), in which a pair of lonely children observe the arrival of springtime in a long-forgotten garden…

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Suddenly seeing the world in vivid color

Posted by Robin on 7 February 2019 Leave a Comment

Skeptical? Smell for yourself. In one corner of the museum, Aftel has set out synthetic versions of jasmine, rose and vanilla alongside their natural counterparts. To my nose, the synthetic scents all feel familiar — the vanilla recalls Bath & Body Works lotion, or a Yankee Candle, while the rose wafts a harsh, chemical-laced note that suggests a cleaning product. Smelling the natural versions is like the olfactory version of removing a cataract from your eyes and suddenly seeing the world in vivid color...

— The San Francisco Chronicle goes to Mandy Aftel's Archive of Curious Scents in Berkeley, California. Read more at Mandy Aftel’s perfume museum seduces with whale vomit and other curious scents.

The Art of Flavor: Practices and Principles for Creating Delicious Food ~ book review

Posted by Angela on 4 December 2017 6 Comments

The Art of Flavor: Practices and Principles for Creating Delicious Food

The Art of Flavor: Practices and Principles for Creating Delicious Food might be as easily shelved with the biography of Winston Churchill in your living room as it is in the kitchen with the cookbooks. The Art of Flavor’s style is more that of a friendly textbook than a compilation of recipes. Don’t come to it for glossy photos of what you hope will be the main course of your next dinner party. Read it for an understanding of how to create the main course yourself.

Mandy Aftel and Daniel Patterson wrote The Art of Flavor. Perfume aficionados already know Aftel as a natural perfumer, author, and founder of Aftelier. A quick glance at the Aftelier website shows Aftel’s interest in food…

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Taste solutions

Posted by Robin on 4 September 2017 Leave a Comment

“Mandy brought language to things I didn’t even know how to describe,” Patterson says. “The language of food and verbal language are so different. I always knew these things, but now I think about them in a more structured way. It made me find better taste solutions quicker.”

— Chef Daniel Patterson talks about perfumer Mandy Aftel; their second book together was just published. You can read an excerpt at Eater.

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