Surprises At the End of the Lake.

 

My husband always tells people that the reason he loves me the most is because he says, “I find the beauty in everything.” Isn’t that sweet! But it’s only partially true, because I can find the ugliness too. He says that he is envious of me because the smallest things make me happy (this does not happen to him because he is… French.) This is true that the smallest things make me happy because yesterday I had a mini explosion of happiness over a chestnut tree. But then, he says that I over exaggerate. This is not true. It is merely that I am enthusiastic. Then, I tell him that his complements are backhanded. I am very familiar with the backhanded compliment because my aunt is the master of this. She says things to me like, “It’s so cute that you’ve gained so much weight.” She has passed this trait down to her daughter, my cousin, who gave my husband for his birthday a beautifully wrapped self-help book.

This week, as we are still at the lake (Lac du Annecy, France), we have had a very exciting time, according to me. It was a week of “scoring.” Or as Charlie Sheen would say, “Winning!” However, there is always the ying and the yang in life. While all of these good things were happening to me, I also noticed that my voice is getting weaker. The ALS is kicking in. I chose to ignore it but, of course, my husband freaked out and told me that I had to pace myself with speaking. Buzz kill. The boss of me, my husband, said I can only do a few blog postings a week. So there you have it. That’s the bad news. But the good news outweighs the bad. Here’s the good news…

Should I save the best for last? No, I’m impulsive, so I’ll tell you now. Now remember how my husband says that I over exaggerate, but this time my “enthusiasm” is completely founded. I don’t think that there is a human being on earth who would not have been excited by what happened. And if you would not be excited then you are dead inside and you should seek therapy or kill yourself. Let me start by saying that when this incident was occurring, I totally kept my cool because I’m a lady for fuck’s sake. So…on Saturday we decided to take a long drive around the lake to the end of the lake.  It could not be more remote. It just so happens that at the end of the lake there is a beautiful, serene, exclusive hotel called L’Auberge de Pere Bise. We decided to have an afternoon drink on the terrace. Considering it is the end of the season, there were only three tables occupied. Ours included. We had the perfect table right at the edge of the lake. I did not want to be facing the sun directly so I had my husband turn my wheelchair horizontal to the lake which caused me to be staring directly at the table next to me. As I was looking at the menu, my husband kept saying, “Ellie, what would you like? Ellie, what would you like?” I was not answering him. Why? Because I was absolutely speechless. There was a woman sitting at the table next to us staring right at me. It only took me about half a second (because I’m a professional) that it was none other than Her Royal Highness Princess Caroline of Monaco. Princess Grace’s daughter!

 

 

Let me state for the record that I do not get starstruck. I do not, as Erin Foster says, “change around celebrities” like she says she does. :-) Never ever do I do this. Until this day. I honestly think I felt a tear come to my eye. Remember, my daughter’s name is Grace and I unabashedly and absolutely will admit that I named her after Princess Grace. And here, on this odd Sunday in September at the end of the lake, here I was sitting next to Princess Caroline and all of her history and all that it entails. Here are the details. She was having lunch with two of her children, the boys. She was wearing a white linen button-down shirt, cropped jeans, and low Converse sneakers. The epitome of chic. She was wearing sunglasses at a point and exchanged them for her reading glasses. She was tapping away at her iPhone, no doubt on Instagram. She had a beautifully groomed dog with her as well. And here’s the best part… Her Royal Highness Princess Caroline of Monaco was smoking a cigarette. I was actually relieved when she left because I could start breathing again. My husband refused to take a picture on the grounds that he has some class. So, all I have to show for this glorious occasion is a picture of her table…after she left. It will have to suffice. Use your imagination. Look look look…
 

 So I’m not sure if anything I say from here on out will be as exciting as that but everything else we did this week was at least half as exciting, but exciting nonetheless.

 So…if I do say so myself, I have an uncanny ability, I think, in my opinion, to be able to find things that have great style without breaking the bank. I have to be very careful about not breaking the bank because I have to pay my stupid caregivers. Apparently, they don’t work for free. And by the way, I’m pretty sure I’m allowed to use the word “stupid” considering one of my caregivers started to wash my face today with a bathmat. So, I get very excited when I find something that is “chic and cheap.” This happened to happen all week this week. First of all, we stopped by the local Zara shop to find a scarf for my husband’s ailing mother, and my selfishness took over because all I could concentrate on was a leopard jacket that I saw out of the corner of my eye. Price check €70. Ellie “winning.”

 Secondly, in a little teeny tiny poor excuse for an antique shop, more like a junk shop, I spied with my little eye my Creuil Montreau Monet cerise china pattern! The little old French lady had two pieces. A cake plate and a fruit plate. Price check €50 for both! Ellie “winning.”

 
Next up, the little brocante. A brocante is our American version of grandma’s attic sale on the street. I don’t typically go to these brocantes because I’m not a big fan of bric-a-brac, tchotchke or crap but I love accessories. There’s a difference. While this brocante was complete shit, mostly Romanians reselling things that they had stolen, I did, with my discerning eye, manage to find three charming accessories. In a dirty old little box something blue caught my eye. It was a little tin container I think from the 70s that used to hold coffee from the company Ricoré. It looked perfect  for a bouquet of little garden roses. I asked the little old French lady wearing a house dress and no teeth the price…Price check one euro. Ellie “winning.”

 

A few dumpy booths later, I found a little tin Quimper box exactly the same as my grandmother had used for her sewing tools. I thought it would be perfect to put my French anti-anxiety “crazy pills” in. I may be crazy, but at least I’m classy crazy.
 

 
At the last booth, sitting inside a neon green plastic box, I found this gorgeous polychrome water pitcher that I thought would be perfect as a vase with autumnal flowers on my paisley tablecloth. Price check eight euros. Ellie definitely “winning.”

 

Unfortunately, we do not think that the little lake house will work out because of the treacherous driveway, the steep interior staircase and the fact that the owner only wants to rent the house until March. Begrudgingly, I was forced to “look at other options.” As I am the master of this, I of course, found an interesting option. There is an old house that has been on the market for over a year. It is for sale. My idea is to convince the owner to rent the house to us until it sells, which it never will. I have watched every single episode of Million Dollar Listing Los Angeles and New York so I am legally, not legally, a real estate agent. I even pulled together the “comps” of the neighborhood to prove my case. Yes to your question that my husband thinks I’m a pushy American. But guess what? This girl gets shit done.
 

I have also included a few pictures that we took from just driving around the lake. Look look look...

 

So that’s the week in review. Definitely, a winning week. I think we have to leave our beloved Lake Annecy at the end of this week and go back to that dump called Paris. :-) Stay tuned… And we will continue our Art Of Entertaining series.

“Mom! Which side does the fork go on?”

I have probably said that sentence 4 billion times. I have been setting the table since I could walk. We always had a “sit down” dinner at our house and my sister and I would always have to set the table. The same with my daughter, Grace. It is a running joke in my family that everyone knows I cannot remember which side the fork goes on. It’s just a mental block that I have. I also cannot remember the difference between cantaloupe and melon or fiction and nonfiction. No matter how many times somebody tells me the difference, I cannot remember it. I also cannot subtract, nor do I care to. Even though I can’t remember which side the fork goes on, I love setting the table. But do you know what I despise? I despise the word “tablescape.” It just makes me cringe with suburban terror. I despise it almost as much as I despise the words “water feature” and “white noise.” I do, however, love the word “despise.” :-)

To conclude our series on dishes, I’ve put together a little compilation of some of my favorite table settings and some more of my favorite dishes. How could I leave out Juliska, Royal Copenhagen, Blue Willow, Anna Weatherly, Oscar de la Renta etc.! Jadeite, earthenware, transferware, Fiesta, McCoy, stoneware, enamelware! OMG, it’s endless. You can also check out my Pinterest board for more HERE and HERE

 

 

Whew! That was a lot! Setting the table is definitely an art. Color, scale, placement, layering…dinnerware, flatware, stemware, flowers, napkins, tablecloths, candelabras etc. There is a lot to learn from the basic table setting to the extraordinary. Good news, there are a few good books out there for guidance and inspiration…here are a few of my favorites…

 Table Settings by Alberto Pinto

Purchase HERE

 Flair by Joe Nye

Purchase HERE

 Tablescapes by Kimberly Schlegel Whitman

Hate the title. Love the book.

Purchase HERE

I have just realized that I have opened up another can of worms… The Art of Entertaining. I realize there is a lot going on in the world right now in Syria, Israel, Palestine, Iraq and good old St. Louis and I understand that it could be a bit shallow to talk about entertaining. However, one of my doctors gave me some really good advice. He is a very gentle Indian neurologist named Dr. Siddique, specializing in ALS, so he is faced with the tragedy of his patients illness every day…. As all of us are aware of the sufferings of others by watching the news around the world unfold every evening. He told me the best way to survive is to take five minutes every day and focus on my illness. Cry, scream, meditate, pray, worry and throw in a panic attack for good measure. Then, he told me, to “put it away.” Put it away and spend the rest of the day with positive thoughts and positive actions. I think this is good advice for everyone. So, let’s say our prayers to whomever you answer to for all of the despair that the world is faced with and then let’s lift our spirits and be thankful that there is some joy and beauty in life. Like dinner parties. :-)

I think we should start with the basics tomorrow. Hint: “Good Manners: The noise you don’t make when eating your soup.”- Bennett Cerf

The O’Connell’s Are Stupid.

Let me explain… My family has been collecting Quimper dishes for three generations, maybe four. And for those four generations, every dinner plate, platter, soup tureen, salad plate, cake plate, oyster plate, mustard jar, salt cellar, tea set…every single solitary piece has crossed our path. This is definitely the Smith family collection. Smith is my mother’s maiden name as well as my aunt and my grandmother’s married name… The Quimper Collectors. So, imagine this, you collect a certain pattern with gusto for your whole life, so you must’ve had conversations about this pattern to hundreds of people including salespeople (“I would like to order a 5 Piece place setting for 12 of Quimper, please.”), antique dealers (“What is the price of this antique Quimper butter dish?”), your family (“Can I borrow the Quimper fish platter?”), housekeepers (“Please only hand wash the Quimper.”), and to your children (“You can have my Quimper after I die, so take care of it.”) You must’ve said the word “Quimper” thousands and thousands and thousands of times over the generations. But in my family, we found out last year, yes, just last year that we had been pronouncing the word “Quimper” incorrectly the entire time! The entire time! For at least 100 years! You would think someone would have checked the pronunciation. But, no. So yes, we are stupid. The correct pronunciation is similar to “cam pair.” It does not, as the O’Connell’s say it, rhyme with “wimper.”

 

Things like this happen to our family all the time. This is why my family has such a good sense of humor. However, I have to admit, the source of our laughter usually stems from my mother. I could start an entire blog titled, “Stuff my mother says.” It has been an endless source of entertainment for my sister and me. Do not be mistaken, we are not laughing with my mother, it is definitely at my mother. However, after we explain to my mother just exactly what she had said or done, she laughs hysterically and then eats a candy bar or chocolate croissant. Please remind me later to tell you about the time my mother got stuck in the train doors at Versailles. But for today, I thought I would tell you what my mother said yesterday according to my sister. My sister told me that she and my mother were having a conversation about canning vegetables. My sister said she did not like to can vegetables from her garden because the canning sterilization process is so difficult. My mother said very seriously and emphatically, “Yes, do you know that green beans have killed more people than any other vegetable?” Obviously, she was referring to botulism… But in her own special way. My family spent the remainder of the day teasing my mother about dangerous violent green beans.

 

 

We like to refer to my mother as our family idiot savant. However, this lady, my crazy mother, has the best taste and the best style and most talent of anyone I’ve ever met. She can’t spell, pronounce words in French (or English for that matter) or budget, but she can cook, sew, decorate, dress, hunt for antiques with a keen eye, decorate a Christmas tree to the hilt, paint (I mean, like, a house), bake award-winning peach cobbler, make a croquembouche, and keep a home better than anyone on this earth. She doesn’t just do any of the aforementioned talents lightly. When I say she can sew, I mean like nearly professionally. She hand sewed all of Gracie’s little dresses out of vintage tablecloths and she hand knitted all of Gracie’s sweaters and crocheted her stuffed animals. She sews and embroiders curtains, napkins, and bedspreads in a blink of the eye. When I say she can decorate, it would put the best interior designers to shame. She can cook a Beef Wellington with her eyes closed and then teach the neighborhood how to do it. When I say that she can keep a home, I mean that she can take care of three bratty children while painting the dining room Yves Klein blue, throw a dinner party for 30 cooking everything on her own, while building an outdoor lattice trellis with the gardener, while tending to her 300 David Austin rosebushes, while ironing every napkin we own, while putting on her annoying capri pants, while running 5 miles a day, while eating a Nestlé’s crunch bar.

 

 

 

So, when I say my mother has a collection of Quimper, I mean she has a c-o-l-l-e-c-t-i-o-n. My family loves Quimper. My grandmother used to blow out Easter eggs and then delicately and perfectly hand paint the Quimper pattern onto the eggs. She also painted the Quimper pattern onto flour containers, sugar containers and bread boxes. I included a photo. My mother baked sugar cookies and then made royal icing and painted the Quimper pattern (in icing!) on the cookies and made them into Christmas tree ornaments. The entire tree (no other ornaments that year) was covered with my mother’s Quimper cookies hung with navy blue ribbon.

 

The dishes originate from the town of Quimper in Brittany, France. By train, the scenic town is about four and half hours outside of Paris. The town is known for its faience pottery originating in the 1700s. The man attributed to the founding of Quimper faience is named Jean-Baptiste Bousquet. My mother’s pattern dates back to the 1860s. Faience is referred to as the puff pastry of pottery because it is very difficult to master. The Quimper pottery is known for its hand painted designs depicting the culture of Brittany, especially the peasant dress of the townspeople.

Collectors can get rather particular about their Quimper and its history and markings. If you’re into that kind of stuff, you might like this article HERE.

 

My mother’s pattern comes in either a yellow (Soleil) background or an ivory background with octagonal dinner plates. It also comes with a yellow and blue border in a round shape. It is great as everyday china for breakfast lunch or dinner. If you’re having a big fat fancy dinner…I would use something else. You can purchase these dishes as new HERE. If you want to buy antique Quimper, I would check eBay.

 

 

So that’s it for the dishes obsession blogs. Tomorrow I thought we could end the series by looking at my favorite table settings to bring this full circle. Thank you for all of your nice comments. Or, as my mother would say thank you in French, “Mercy.”

http://www.quimperfrenchpottery.com/

A toute!