Ornamental cabbages flanked by pansies, another winter staple. Here and on the front, iStock photos.
TAKING MY OWN advice, which as we know sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t, the Prince and I went bargain-shopping at Home Depot’s garden center on Sunday.
Rummaging around in the dregs of the tree section we spied a handsome Japanese Holly at half price, just $12 and change. That looks good, I said, knowing nothing about it and not bothering to read the label past the name.
Still, it was a couple of feet wide and a couple of feet high and looked just the thing to plant in
LittleBird Stephanie actually grew a potato, under the earth of the window box, from her lovely cascading sweet-potato vines, her first! “I’m a little afraid to eat it,” she says. “There’s something abnormal to me about growing food.” / Photo by Stephanie Cavanaugh.
place of the white bird of paradise that needed to come in for the winter, which would leave a critical spot in the front garden to fill, this being the route the postal person would take from our house to the next, should we to be so foolish as to leave the space open.
Gone would be the various groundcovers, downtrodden would be the gerbera daisies and plants asleep for the winter, as Cruella dePost (it is always a woman) would march through, clucking into her ever-present phone as she makes her appointed rounds, “ . . . and you know what he did then. Really.” And so forth.
Immediately upon returning home I read the tag that said the Japanese Holly will grow 6 to 8 feet tall and 6 feet wide, in other words, several times the size we need for the three-foot-wide patch. It also grows quickly, or so reported the plant website I consulted at random said, though they don’t say exactly how quickly. This might be an issue sooner than later.
On the other hand, its leaves are glossy, it’s evergreen, it appreciates part sun, takes well to pruning, and it likes acid soil. Not that I have ever tested the soil, though we do have a test kit gathering dust in what I euphemistically call my potting shed. I just assume the soil is acid, given the romp of ivy out front.
The Prince dug a nice hole for it while I lay on the sofa listening to Sinatra and doing the New York Times crossword puzzle as my nail polish dried—a necessary renovation as those digits had actually worked earlier in the day.
That morning, with freezing temperatures predicted for the end of this week, I had realized it was time to refurbish the window boxes, yanking summer’s tender annuals and the sweet-potato vines that cascade so exuberantly down the front of the house, and replacing them with purple pansies and ornamental cabbages, our preferred winter guise.
Happily, our Home Depot haul included pansies at bargain prices and 10 baby cabbages in—I almost hyperventilated—4-inch pots. Starting them small is key: Try stuffing the roots of a fully grown cabbage into a window box already overstuffed with stuff and you’ll see what I mean. Yet, for some reason, this size is a rare find.
Being too lazy to find the trowel, I rooted about with my fingers, creating luscious little nests for my winter crops.
And that is why I needed a manicure. You should know: A couple of coats of Opi’s, shall we say mud-colored, You Don’t Know Jacques works wonders after an afternoon grubbing in the soil.
—Stephanie Cavanaugh
LittleBird “Stephanie Gardens” sometimes follows her own gardening advice, sometimes not. To read earlier columns, type “Green Acre” into the Search box at the top of the page.
I HAVE A THING for potatoes. My husband says it’s my Eastern European ancestry, but whatever the reason I can make a meal out of a simple plain baked potato. Better yet, I can make a simple meal special with one of my favorites, the double-stuffed potato. When I was growing up, that meant a roughly mashed potato mixed with butter, cheese and milk and stuffed back into the potato shell. I still see versions of this at deli counters. Not special enough—too big and just kinda plopped in there, sort of like the cousin you didn’t want to invite to dinner: ugly and inelegant. It is just as easy to do a nice job, and yes, with what you already have in the fridge, because here it’s the presentation that upgrades the dish.
To start, roast whole baking potatoes until they are cooked through. Let them cool for about 10 minutes, then scoop out the potato and discard or save the skins for something else. Mash the potatoes with a hand masher; there’s no need to get a smooth mash, leaving the potatoes slightly chunky. Mix with butter, milk, salt, pepper and the cheese and extras of your choice, whatever you have on hand. Now’s the good part: Pull out the ramekins—square ones, custard cups, small Pyrex bowls, whatever you have. Place the potato mixture in a large plastic bag, preferably a freezer one so it’s a little stronger, snip off the corner and now you have a piping bag. Pipe the mixture into the ramekins, top with a little grated cheese. Now for the really good part, you can bake them right away or you can refrigerate for dinner later or the next day. Wait until the potato mixture is cool, top with plastic wrap and stow in the fridge. When you’re ready to bake, preheat the oven to 375 degrees, remove and discard the plastic wrap, place the ramekins on a foil-lined, rimmed sheet pan and place in the oven. Depending on the size of the ramekins, it will take somewhere between 15 and 30 minutes for them to heat up. Easy, right? And you’ve already cleaned up the mess hours before. By the way, I can make a meal out of one of these too.
My favorite combos are below, but make what you’d like. Spinach and feta with dill would be great. Roasted red peppers, onions and Pepper Jack; broccoli and cheddar—you get the idea. Only two rules to follow. One, don’t forget the salt. Two, any vegetables or meats you add to the potato need to be cooked.
From “ThriftStyle”: Above, Yolander starts her blazer shopping with a one-piece Vince pants suit, $8; and Me Too shoes, $6 (both Salvation Army). 1) Mesmerize, $7.99 (Salvation Army); 2) Bazar Christian Lacroix, $6.99 (Salvation Army); 3) Evan Picone, $7.99 (Salvation Army); 4) J. Crew, $5.99 (Goodwill); 5) Unlabeled, $1 (Goodwill Outlet); 6) Don Loper Beverly Hills, $4.99 (Salvation Army). / Photo by Roger Snider. / ON THE FRONT: Stacey’s silk Milly dress looks like the 1960s, $7.99 (Goodwill); Anne Klein spectator pumps, $22 (Clothes Mentor); Rodo Italy handbag, $7.99 (Salvation Army). / Photo by Roger Snider.
Photo by Roger Snider.
Photo by Roger Snider.
LET ME START with a confession: I’m a diehard thrifter whose first great score four decades ago was a 1930s peach silk robe that cost two bucks and made me feel like a Hollywood vamp.
That gateway garment from a long-gone Adams Morgan charity shop hooked me for life on fabulous vintage fashions and costume jewelry. Much of what has filled my closets and drawers since has come from thrift and consignment shops, flea markets, estate and yard sales. Hundreds of other objects of sartorial desire have been passed along to my nearest and dearest, including a $1 Hermès scarf and a $10 Hermès jacket, Cartier gold-and-diamond cufflinks for 85 cents, countless cashmere sweaters and scarves costing under $5 and several alligator purses, none topping $20.
So when I saw ThriftStyle: The Ultimate Bargain Shopper’s Guide to Smart Fashion, I didn’t
Authors Allison Engel, Reise Moore and Margaret (Peggy) Engel.
think I’d read much that I didn’t already know, having thrift-shopped on six of the seven continents (I’m not sure there is any resale merch on Antarctica).
But I was delightedly wrong about not needing ThriftStyle. It is both heavily researched and wittily written by Margaret Engel of Bethesda, her twin sister, Allison Engel, and Reise Moore, who both live in California. All three women are seasoned writers with extensive video production experience. More to the point, they are passionate thrifters eager to teach women and men how, where and why to acquire other people’s used clothing and fashion accessories.
It turns out that U.S. thrift shops are a $12 billion industry, and that one in six American adults now buys previously owned stuff. In fact, much of today’s clothing is so cheap and disposable that global textile waste is measured in millions of tons. By contrast, thrifting is eco-friendly, keeping old clothes, shoes, jewelry, purses, hats, gloves, scarves and coats out of landfills.
Some people frequent thrift stores because funds are very tight, of course. But even the well-heeled sometimes want to dress like a Bergdorf regular on a Goodwill budget.
Thrifting is the great equalizer. It’s also the perfect way to scratch the creative itch. Why not have a man’s high-quality, low-cost tux expertly transformed into a woman’s bespoke evening suit? Why not craft a quilt out of last century’s rock-star T-shirts, or channel your inner jeweler by combining multiple bracelets, necklaces, brooches and earbobs into eye-popping statement pieces?
The book is a valuable tool for old pros and newbies alike. You might already know to bring along a magnifying glass or jeweler’s loupe, a cloth tape measure, your own vital stats and images of hot fashion trends when you’re thrifting. But make sure you’ve also got a very good dry cleaner, tailor, shoemaker and maybe even a textile dye wizard to rescue or revive your new-old acquisitions.
ThriftStyle contains lots of useful websites, the names of second-hand shops that now offer personal shoppers, and fact-packed interviews with store owners, costumers, fashion designers, collectors and estate liquidators. There are also tips for selling or consigning things you’re done with, to make room for that must-have ballgown, riding habit or Halloween get-up.
The 214-page book is larded with photos, ranging from dozens of great all-thrift ensembles, multi-shaped handbags and the construction details of men’s jackets to shots of fabric and trim stores for tarting up otherwise plain duds. My favorite chart gives the length of laces needed for shoes and boots based on the number of eyelet pairs (36 inches per four or five sets of holes up to 72 inches for nine or 10 pairs).
At $15.99, the book costs as much as a couple of cashmere sweaters and a knock-out silk scarf or two at any Salvation Army (especially on a half-price Wacky Wednesday). But knowledge is power, so I gladly paid full retail for ThriftStyle. So should you.
—Annie Groer
Washington journalist Annie Groer writes widely about design, culture and politics.
MyLittleBird often includes links to products we write about. Our editorial choices are made independently; nonetheless, a purchase made through such a link can sometimes result in MyLittleBird receiving a commission on the sale, whether through a retailer, an online store or Amazon.com.
You notice that LittleBird Stephanie is not in this picture? It’s no accident. / iStock photo.
THE OTHER DAY the Prince was teaching me how to take a shower. Not the washing part, which I gather he approves of, as he hasn’t said anything yet, but the drying off.
I use the bath mats—not instead of towels, just underfoot. I suppose he supposes they are purely decorative. I get them wet, he says. Worse, I sometimes miss them entirely, and splash water on the tile floor.
I should stand in the shower, he told me, demonstrating: dry one leg then the other and so forth, and only then step out onto the mat. This should be done without holding onto any of the pipes or the curtain. I may grip the edge of the claw-foot tub if I wish but cannot hang from the curtain rod.
When I protested that I thought I knew what I was doing he said, “Trust me. I was around in the world learning things three years before you were born.” There’s no arguing with that.
The older I get the more he has to teach me.
There’s storing things in the kitchen, which I do wrong.
There’s recycling, which I do wrong.
Then there’s usurpation of items such as His razor and His socks, which I consider community property but he doesn’t (did that need to be stated?).
Five minutes ago I discovered that I do not know how to make the bed.
The list of my flaws and faults is exhausting. And I am very difficult to train.
Digging holes in the garden is the only thing I’m delighted to do wrong.
There is nothing I like less about gardening. I’m happy to prune, very slowly, preferably while drinking wine. I don’t even mind fertilizing, since I’ve found several products you don’t apply but a few times a year.
I certainly like deciding what goes where. I just don’t like putting it there. Digging holes is boring and sweaty Work. He’s excellent at it. Admirable even.
Then one needs to improve the soil, which involves dragging around bags of this and that and amending. I love that word amending, don’t you?
Right now is a fine time to plant, should you come across some things to shove in the ground. They’re frequently on sale, and might look a little bedraggled and perhaps near death, but are often just headed into winter dormancy. If you get various perennials and shrubs and groundcovers and trees off to a good start before the ground freezes, come March little pips of green and flowers might explode.
It’s all in the hole.
The Earthman, Henry Mitchell*, who I return to time and again for his wise humor, offers the following instructions for preparing them:
“I have rarely lost a plant that I really wanted sufficiently to prepare a reasonable spot for it to grow in.”
(I love the idea that there are plants that you don’t care sufficiently about, so you toss them higgledy-piggledy into the garden. That’s an aside).
“A place the size of a bushel basket, dug twenty inches deep and filled with good garden soil, will do.”
And what is good garden soil?
“ . . . whatever soil you have, to which two heaping shovels full of peat moss, one shovel full of sand and one or two shovels full of leaf mold have been added . . . dig in the things I have mentioned until the mixture is quite uniform for a depth of 18 inches or so.”
If your garden patch has been performing rottenly or you intend to start a new one come spring, you might do all of this labor now. Your dirt will be even better, richer, tastier once it has a chance to settle.
All of which is why, if I didn’t have a Prince, I’d move to a condo with a single potted palm, which would necessarily arrive pre-potted in an attractive container.
I’m not very good with potting things either, I’m told. That’s also fine by me. Making sure there are drainage holes in whatever inappropriate container I’ve chosen for the gardenia or what-nots is tedious. But that’s another story.
Additional seasonal note: With the weather uncertain, meaning a hint of an early frost or freeze, you might want to uproot your tenderest plants and get them into pots. Even if you don’t intend to coddle them over the winter, you can get weeks more of pleasure from them by trundling them in and out the door, or getting someone else to do it for you.
“Stephanie Gardens” writes about gardening in the city but seems to do as little as possible to maintain the DC plot she shares with The Prince. To see earlier columns, type Green Acre into the Search box at the top.
AND THE ‘GIRLS’ keep coming. As MLB contributor Emily Harburg pointed out in August 2016, publishers have given us a great number of books with “girl” or “girls” in the title, probably inspired by the tremendous success of Stieg Larsson’s The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo back in 2008.
Little has changed. We know the airlines are a “me too” industry (rushing to match fares) as are TV (they’ve got a homicide series? we’ll up the ante with a serial-killer series!) and Hollywood (with its franchises that never die—Terminator XXII, anyone?). Well, that’s what publishing looks like these days, at least popular (meaning not literary) fiction.
Even so I was startled when I took a second glance at a stack of books piled on a colleague’s desk. There are more out there now, and there are more coming! These are just some of the fiction titles. Take a look.
Of course there was Amy Schumer’s hilarious take on the Larsson phenom, The Girl With the Lower Back Tattoo, January 2016
Then: Songs About a Girl, by Chris Russell, May 2017 The Gallery of Unfinished Girls, by Lauren Karcz, July 2017 TheBurningGirl, by Claire Messud, August 2017 The Other Girl, by Erica Spindler, August 2017 Bad Girl Gone, by Temple Mathews, August 2017 A Short History of the Girl Next Door, by Jared Reck, September 2017 Mean Girls, by Micol Ostow, September 2017 The Names of Dead Girls, by Eric Rickstad, September 2017 Girls Made of Snow and Glass, by Melissa Bashardoust, September 2017 The It Girls, by Karen Harper, October 2017 The Hanging Girl, by Eileen Cook, October 2017
And 2018 will bring more: The French Girl, by Lexie Elliott, February 2018 The Liar’s Girl, by Catherine Ryan Howard, February 2018 The Atomic City Girls, by Janet Beard, February 2018 Girl Unknown (reprint), by Karen Perry, February 2018 A Girl in Exile, by Ismail Kadare, September 2018 The Broken Girls, by Simone St. James, March 2018 Girls Burn Brighter, by Shobha Rao, March 2018
But there’s hope on the horizon: Some girls grow up to become women (although many of those women don’t live all that long):
Dead Woman Walking, by Sharon Bolton, September 2017 The Woman Who Couldn’t Scream, by Christina Dodd, September 2017 The Woman in the Water, by Charles Finch, February 2018
And on a much lighter, brighter note, from the author of Under the Tuscan Sun: Women in Sunlight, by Frances Mayes, April 2018
Mmm, that pulled-pork sandwich! / Photo by Stephanie Witt Sedgwick.
AND THE NAME is no joke. . . . One of my favorite pieces of meat is the pork butt, also known as a Boston butt or a pork shoulder. Whatever you call them, the roasts come packaged conveniently sealed in plastic so they can sit in the fridge for a week or two. They are also very affordably priced, making them perfect for feeding a crowd.
I haven’t gotten to the best part: This cut is so easy to cook. You can cut the meat into cubes and make a terrific stew, but that’s for another night. Tonight, it’s a roast. Unwrap and dry the butt, rub with oil, spice mixes, pastes made from herbs or ginger and garlic, place in a deep roasting pan in a 275-degree oven. Now walk away for 7 or 8 hours. You’ll know it’s done when the meat is coming away from the bone. When it’s ready, pull the browned beauty out and you have the makings of pulled pork or a tender pork pot roast with whatever flair you gave it.
You can fancy this up any way you want: marinades, rubs, spice mixes. You can make this Asian- style or Italian-style or Cuban. It’s all up to you. Even if you buy a small bone-in one, at around 8 pounds, you’ll have so much meat that unless you are feeding a Little League team, you’ll likely
Pork falling right off the bone. / Photo here and on the front from iStock.
have at least enough for another meal, or maybe two meals. You can repurpose the leftovers as the filling for quesadillas, tacos or to enhance a spaghetti sauce. Better still, freeze whatever’s left over of the cooked pork, sauced or unsauced, for a rainy day, which may come soon.
In any case, everyone needs a start, so here are two specific ideas. For both of these, I am assuming you have an 8-pound, bone-in butt. Roast at 275 degrees for 7 to 8 hours until the meat is pulling away from the bone.
Barbecue-spiced pulled pork: Rub the butt with oil and then liberally coat it with your favorite spice blend or a mix of salt, pepper, chili powder, garlic powder and cumin. You can add the rub the night before and refrigerate the pork until ready to cook or you can stick it right into a deep roasting pan and into the preheated oven. When the roast is done, carefully lift it out from the accumulated fat in the pan and let rest for 30 minutes. You can then pull the meat apart by hand. Serve with your favorite barbecue sauce and rolls.
Orange-Rosemary Roast Pork: Make a paste of orange zest, chopped fresh rosemary, garlic, salt and olive oil. Rub this all over the roast; you can also make slits in the meat and push the paste into them to further flavor the roast. Lightly grease the bottom of a deep roasting pan, place a layer of onion, a layer of thinly sliced oranges and some rosemary springs. Place the seasoned roast on top of the sliced oranges and place in the preheated oven. When the roast is done, let it sit 30 minutes. Defat the drippings in the pan—there will be a lot of fat to remove—and use the remaining liquid as the basis for a jus. To make the jus, heat the cooking liquid with equal parts chicken broth and white wine. Cut chunks or slices of pork and serve moistened with the jus.
—Stephanie Witt Sedgwick
LittleBird “Stephanie Cooks” is former recipe editor of the Washington Post Food section and originator of the weekly My Dinner With . . .column for MyLittleBird.com.
Green Acre #76: Expanding the Definition of Gardening
Ack! How did this happen? asked the gardener. / Photo by Stephanie Cavanaugh.
Um, how did WHAT happen? asked the gardener, post-paint. / Photo by Stephanie Cavanaugh.
Voilà: the overall composition of the two window boxes, with green standards in each one, only one of them cosmetically enhanced. / Photo by Stephanie Cavanaugh.
I HAVE JUST ordered moss green spray paint from Amazon (where else?). It was pricy at $10.99, nearly the cost of a replacement for the plant that for unknown reasons went frizzle last month in my lower-right window box, thereby leaving an unpleasant imbalance.
The box on the left is alive and very well, thank you. The one that decided to die, did so, though it still stands military straight and appears to want to remain so.
Since the notion I had last week of replacing them both and doing something clever with the live one seemed exhaustingly effortful, I decided to spray-paint the dead one and call it a winter.
Several hours were then spent taking a tiny sprig of green pinched from the healthy plant and holding it up to the computer screen in an attempt to match the color to online chips of paint.
This was a fraught activity. There are so many shades of green spray paint to choose from, but I didn’t need an assortment of colors, I just needed one that’s a reasonable match. In completely accidental fashion I found a shade called Basil from Design Master’s Colortool collection of sprays—costly stuff, but it will probably be used again. And again.
Plants do inexplicably die, and sometimes do so explicably as well. I’m thinking here of a Princely pre-dinner-party incident with herbicide, him thinking he’d get rid of the weeds when all we had were weeds.
Spray paint is a brilliant gardening tool—if one wishes to stretch the definition of gardening. Those weeds may have crunched under our guests’ flip-flops but they sure looked healthy.
I have also painted astilbe flowers, which look feathery and pretty for a few weeks in spring and then brown and dreary for the rest of the year.
Around the holidays I spray pine cones and bits of garden dreck in gold or silver, depending on my mood of the year. These are then heaped on the mantel, the stair rails, the table, the tree. A grand Hanukkah bush if you ask me, a Christmas tree if you question the Prince. He always quibbles about the glittery jester that I stick on top. An angel, he thinks, is more suitable. He loses.
Baby picked up some extra shekels a few years ago gilding acorns she picked up in the woods while walking our grand-dog Lula and selling them on Etsy.
I am not at all crafty, by the way. I am just lazy and cheap, which leads me to solutions like this one. Sometimes they work out well, other times the result is less than brilliant.
So here we go with the plant and we’ll just see.
If I were being smart I’d remove it from the window box (maybe it’s just playing possum under the dirt—I mean what could I have done to kill it?) and lay it on layers of the newspaper—the sports section is one I can live without. And then I’d shake the can as directed and neatly spray the foliage, reinserting the plant into the window box after it dries.
Not being so smart, I won’t even bother to scotch-tape the paper to the window, but just lean it against the back of the box and have at it with the spray.
Since this paint is supposed to be non-toxic—the can says it’s even usable on fresh flowers—I can spritz a bit on the live plant if they don’t exactly match. Which turns out to be unnecessary. The color is perfect, stunningly realistic (if you ask me).
And there was no overspray on my fingers, my good black pants, which I neglected to change out of, or anything besides the paper.
Pretty cool, eh?
—Stephanie Cavanaugh
LittleBird Stephanie, a/k/a Stephanie Gardens, could probably use a little more adult supervision out in the garden, no? To read her earlier columns, some of which actually discuss real gardening, type Green Acre in the Search box at the top of the screen.
Here’s the Christopher Kane gown that got so much comment but no action. It’s from Kane’s Fall 2017 ready-to-wear collection. / Photo by Ann Geracimos.
The Armarium trunk show at the Jefferson hotel in Washington DC also offered jewelry, this dramatic piece from a Buddhist temple. / Photo by Ann Geracimos.
Here was the scene at the Armarium trunk show at the Jefferson hotel in Washington DC earlier this week. / Photo by Ann Geracimos.
Trisha Gregory, left, and Alexandra Lind Rose founded Armarium in order to offer loans (meaning rentals) of the clothes that make news on the runway. / Photo courtesy Armarium.
Sachin & Babi, a design couple who are New York-based and of Indian origin, revel in rich detail and even richer colors. / Photo courtesy Armarium.
Designer Naeem Khan, a Michelle Obama favorite, is well represented at Armarium. / Photo courtesy Armarium.
Designer Luisa Beccaria is known for her special-occasion gowns. / Photo courtesy Armarium.
MODEL-SLIM Georgetown Woman, full-time professional, moved from Chevy Chase into DC and found her closets weren’t big enough to hold the ballgowns she needed maybe four times a year. What to do? Why rent, of course, the latest thing in upscale shopping for special (i.e., older, higher-income) people supporting special causes and events.
But she wasn’t able to find what she wanted at a local rental venue. Enter Armarium—cue the French word armoire, where one stores precious things—a New York-based “premier luxury fashion rental service,” that recently came to Washington for a two-day showcase of current fashion offerings at the Jefferson Hotel.
(Also take note: The word armarium, a word as fancy as some of the finery, also once meant a place to store arms.)
The special event the Georgetown Woman had in mind was November’s Knock Out Abuse Gala, a premier event that raises funds for four homeless shelters aiding female victims of domestic abuse. Timely, yes?
Consider this scene that has taken place at that event for 24 years now: hundreds of women dressing up mainly for other women until joined later by men (also supporters) wearing very boring tuxedos.
In DC, at the Jefferson, several hundred gowns from a dozen or more designers (known as brands) were displayed on racks. A discreet dressing room was constructed on site. One of the first sales (or, actually, rental) was a long-sleeved shapely gold-and-silver-sequin Pucci that must have gone for a high figure. Michelle Obama favorite designers Naeem Khan and Jason Wu were well represented.
The Jefferson’s general manager dropped by to cast a vote for a sparkly gray long-sleeved slit-up-the-front Missoni he liked but wasn’t about to commit his wife to. Just looking, he said. Cheryl Masri, co-founder with friend Jill Sorensen of Knock Out Abuse, came by with her equally trim daughter.
Armarium flourishes in New York City on East 52nd Street. The founders, Alexandra Lind Rose and Trisha Gregory, admired what the other big wardrobe-rental outfit, Rent the Runway, had built. But they wanted to create a niche for truly “editorial” pieces, the catwalk stunners that capture everyone’s attention but rarely get put into production.
In fact, a trendy architectural number by Brit designer Christopher Kane caught everybody’s eye but few takers: at retail, maybe $6,000; here, to rent for four days, “only” $650.
That’s basically the equation. Find a knockout gown you never would imagine owning and rent it for way less. Stylists in house help adapt it to your form. Photos fly back and forth on the web between client and stylist. Speedy delivery. Personal service. Jewelry and evening bags an option for rental as well. Twice a year, clients are informed of an inventory sale. Fashions change fast so don’t expect to find something hanging around six months from now. Sizes from zero to 14. You will never show up in a gown that another client has rented: Armarium employees keep notes.
Georgetown Woman demurred. She wanted a $700 rental but thought it was too much to put out for a single night. (The average rental—Armarium prefers to refer to it as a “loan”—is around $450.) Her fallback, she said, would be sales at Saks. But she didn’t leave. She lingered, drinking the champagne on offer and talking to other women present, having a second look at the tantalizing gowns that turn Cinderella into a princess.
Like candy lovers in a sweet shoppe. Who can resist having a bite?
WHEN I STARTED planning my own dinner parties, I was still in college and full of a determination to do everything in some new way. That included jettisoning the vegetables my family had favored—green beans, carrots and lots of salad—and embracing those that hadn’t been featured at home.
My first big step out was with butternut squash. I had read a recipe where you cut the squash in half lengthwise and roast, cut side down, until tender. You scrape the squash out of the shells and sauté with lots of butter, salt, pepper and nutmeg. I felt very sophisticated making this dish, even though I had basically made really good baby food.
Some people like purées, but me, not so much. What I did like was the taste of the roasted squash. Now I peel and seed the squash, and then cut into cubes. You can buy the pre-cut squash if you prefer; it sure cuts down on the prep time. The cubes go onto an aluminum-foil-lined sheet pan or on a nonstick pan and are tossed with olive oil, salt and pepper. The pan goes into a 375-degree oven and you roast until lightly browned; the time will depend on the size of your cubes—35 to 45 minutes should do it.
From this point, there are so many ways to go. Add whatever seasonings you like, serve with a roast chicken, pork loin or pasta and you’ve got dinner. Here are a few specific ideas that I like.
Brown Sugar and Butter Squash: If you like it sweet, this one’s for you. Add a few tablespoons of butter in with the oil when you toss the roasted squash cubes, along with some nutmeg and cinnamon. After the squash has cooked for 15 minutes, sprinkle some brown sugar over the cubes and continue baking until tender.
Pancetta-Studded Squash: Roast the squash cubes for 15 minutes, then add a generous amount of diced pancetta (you could also crumble fresh chorizo or andouille sausage over the cubes), return to the oven and roast until the squash is tender and the pancetta is lightly browned. This is a fine side dish, but toss it with pasta and you’ve got a meal.
Turkey, Wild Rice and Squash Salad: Here’s one to save for the day after Thanksgiving. Roast the squash cubes and then let cool. While the squash cools, make a quick dressing by whisking together one part apple cider vinegar, two parts olive oil, a spoonful of maple syrup, salt and pepper. Combine the roasted squash cubes with some cooked wild rice, chunks of cooked turkey and coarsely chopped dried cranberries and toss with the dressing.
—Stephanie Witt Sedgwick
LittleBird Stephanie Sedgwick, a/k/a “Stephanie Cooks,” start baking and cooking more than 20 years ago and hasn’t stopped yet, as her grateful family will attest.
Frances Glessner Lee, “Attic,” about 1946-48. Collection of the Harvard Medical School, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, courtesy of the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, Baltimore, Maryland.
Frances Glessner Lee, “Kitchen” (detail), about 1944-46. Collection of the Harvard Medical School, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, courtesy of the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, Baltimore, Maryland.
Frances Glessner Lee, “Kitchen” (detail), about 1944-46. Collection of the Harvard Medical School, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, courtesy of the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, Baltimore, Maryland.
Frances Glessner Lee, “Barn” (also known as “The Case of the Hanging Farmer,” about 1943-44. Collection of the Harvard Medical School, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, courtesy of the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, Baltimore, Maryland.
Frances Glessner Lee, “Striped Bedroom” (detail), about 1943-48. Collection of the Harvard Medical School, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, courtesy of the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, Baltimore, Maryland.
Frances Glessner Lee, “Striped Bedroom” (detail), about 1943-48. Collection of the Harvard Medical School, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, courtesy of the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, Baltimore, Maryland.
Frances Glessner Lee, “Three-Room Dwelling” (detail), about 1944-46. Collection of the Harvard Medical School, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, courtesy of the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, Baltimore, Marylalnd.
Frances Glessner Lee, “Three-Room Dwelling” (detail), about 1944-46. Collection of the Harvard Medical School, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, courtesy of the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, Baltimore, Maryland. / Photograph by Susan Marks, courtesy of “Murder in a Nutshell” documentary.
Frances Glessner Lee, “Three-Room Dwelling” (detail), about 1944-46. Collection of the Harvard Medical School, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, courtesy of the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, Baltimore, Maryland.
Frances Glessner Lee, “Red Bedroom,” about 1944-48. Collection of the Harvard Medical School, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, courtesy of the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, Baltimore, Maryland.
Frances Glessner Lee, “Red Bedroom,” (detail) about 1944-48. Collection of the Harvard Medical School, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, courtesy of the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, Baltimore, Maryland.
Frances Glessner Lee, “Log Cabin” (detail), about 1944-46. Collection of the Harvard Medical School, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, courtesy of the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, Baltimore, Maryland.
Frances Glessner Lee, “Log Cabin” (detail), about 1944-46. Collection of the Harvard Medical School, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, courtesy of the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, Baltimore, Maryland.
Frances Glessner Lee, “Living Room” (detail), about 1943-48. Collection of the Harvard Medical School, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, courtesy of the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, Baltimore, Maryland.
Frances Glessner Lee, “Living Room” (detail), about 1943-48. Collection of the Harvard Medical School, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, courtesy of the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, Baltimore, Maryland.
Frances Glessner Lee, “Living Room” (detail), about 1943-48. Collection of the Harvard Medical School, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, courtesy of the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, Baltimore, Maryland.
Frances Glessner Lee, “Burned Cabin” (detail), about 1944-48. Collection of the Harvard Medical School, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, courtesy of the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, Baltimore, Maryland.
Frances Glessner Lee at work on the Nutshells in the early 1940s. Courtesy Glessner House Museum, Chicago, Illinois.
AS A LITTLE GIRL I loved dollhouses, which usually came into my life as shoeboxes. I drew decorations on paper to cover walls and rugs, found ways to craft the odd table or chair. As a summer sideline, I drew paper dolls and created dresses for them, also on paper. Sometimes my two amateurish endeavors came together—but never with any realism: The dolls were always too big for the shoebox dioramas I made. I still loved them both.
Never in my wildest nightmares, though, would I have imagined making a dollhouse murder scene! Frances Glessner Lee, on the other hand, was no little girl whiling away rainy days. She was the first female police captain in the US (albeit an honorary one) and is considered to be the mother of forensic science. And she did make little dioramas of murder scenes.
Using real crimes and crime scenes as inspiration, Lee crafted dioramas of mayhem that she would present to (male) investigators in training at Harvard Medical School’s Department of Legal Medicine to teach them how to properly canvass a crime scene. That was back in the 1940s, and some of these “Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death” are still used as teaching aids.
Aside from their ghastly subject matter, they are quite charming, though decidedly downscale, working-class environments, depicting hardscrabble lives (and deaths) that are a far cry from the elegant dollhouses that usually make their way into museum collections.
Also a far cry from the privileged life Lee lived, heir to the International Harvester fortune accumulated by her industrialist father. But privilege had its limits: It wasn’t until her parents and her brother were dead that she, divorced and age 52, began the career in crime and forensic science she had long wanted.
One could say she bought her way in, by endowing various courses at Harvard, which allowed her to exhibit her Nutshells and challenge her students to figure out the crime; but along the way she inspired cities across the country to replace coroners with medical professionals. (One could also say she inspired any number of television shows, such as “Quincy, ME” in the 1970s and, more recently, “Bones” and “Criminal Minds” and any of the versions of “Law & Order.”)
Now Lee’s Nutshells are on view at the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington DC, through January 28, 2018, the first time all 19 known Nutshells have been gathered for exhibition.
—Nancy McKeon
Murder Is Her Hobby: Frances Glessner Lee and The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death, through January 28, 2018 at the Renwick Gallery, Pennsylvania Avenue at 17th Street NW. Open daily from 10 am to 5:30 pm (closed December 25). Admission is free.
Condo owner Sandy Grabowski. / Photo by CM Glover.
WHERE THERE is little light, let there be mirrors. Where there is no room for a home office, let there be an office area. In short, where there are lemons, make lots and lots of lemonade.
Condos, especially those new micro ones, can feel lemonish—and these lemon trees require regular pruning (of stuff). Photographer/writer/designer CM Glover found a young couple who infused life and light into their 628-square-foot condo in bustling Arlington, Virginia, and shared the homeowners’ thoughts about their space and his own photographs.
We share it here.
Note: The young couple have now married and moved on . . . to Nebraska! Still, their lessons remain, immortalized in these photos.
Pansies at Frager’s Hardware Garden Center on Capitol Hill in DC. / Photo by Stephanie Cavanaugh.
IT’S PANSY PLANTING time again. This is unfortunate.
The cooler, wetter weather has just breathed new life into the window-box geraniums and sent the sweet-potato vine into a Galliano spasm of ruffles, the lower boxes spill onto the front porch floor, the upper boxes drape down past the tops of the first-floor windows.
This is not a sight I wish to disrupt—but . . . it’s already past time to buy and plant pansies and seek out smaller ornamental cabbages, the ones whose roots are still small enough to squish into the boxes without disrupting the ivy and other perennial mainstays that will surround them.
Mother Nature is being particularly vindictive this fall: With last week’s rain and lovely chill, the plants in the boxes and the garden are as perky as they were mid-spring—right when I need to start yanking them for a wintry guise.
Invariably, I buy pansies early in flats, fully intending to keep them watered until I’m ready to
Rows and rows of pansies at Frager’s Hardware Garden Center on Capitol Hill in DC. / Photo by Stephanie Cavanaugh.
plant and invariably fail to do so, ending up with $14 or so of limp frizzle and finding myself racing around for replacements when the garden centers have moved on to poinsettias.
I didn’t bother this year, so am left with a chase.
In tragic news of the gardening variety, one of my lollipop plants, which form the centerpieces of my lower boxes, some sort of yew, I think I recall (see various tales of not keeping tags or making notes) went belly up.
I will not go into the discussion I had with My Prince about this unexpected demise; it was tiresome in the extreme. Lots of whys from him and sighs from me. It’s like dealing with a 3-year-old (although, to be truthful, my sighs often mean I’m simply clueless).
The one on the left is just fine, lovely and fluffy and green. The one on the right is a depressing dried mop. I’ve been exploring Amazon for the appropriate color green spray paint: A spritz of the approximate shade would carry us over the winter months, until it is safe to plant something else. Again.
On second thought, I could yank them both, stick the healthy one in some (possibly clever) arrangement and substitute two new somethings now.
Perhaps rosemary. The rosemary I planted in the upper boxes several years ago is performing heroically; growing (for once) just as I wished, tall and green and fragrant. The plants are now at a fine size for my holiday display, which I’ll have to attend to shortly. I do like things to be jolly from Thanksgiving on.
Oh my, the window for planting anything grows shorter by the minute. I am talking to myself.
That the tulip bulbs are still waiting for me to move or remove the still-thriving summer plants from the main beds is not such an issue. Due to one or another of my Near Death Experiences, I’ve several times had to delay planting them until December and they’ve been fine. They can just wait in the closet until I get around to them.
Of course, then the problem is when you want to plant pansies on top of the bulbs so the bareness is covered in some colorful fashion over the winter. It means the bulbs need to go in first so the pansy roots are not disturbed.
If done right, the tulips will emerge from nests of blue and yellow and aborigine, or whatever mood overtakes me at the garden center, a potentially lovely sight.
I’m so often wrong about color selection as well. It’s like going out to dinner and angsting over my menu choice only to realize that I envy whatever it is The Prince was served. The grass is always greener, and so is the lasagne. Or whatnot.
—Stephanie Cavanaugh
LittleBird Stephanie, a/k/a/ “Stephanie Gardens,” maintains over her Capitol Hill garden . . . sometimes. To read earlier columns, type Green Acre into the Search box at the top of the page.
Pansies at Frager’s Hardware Garden Center on Capitol Hill in DC. / Photo by Stephanie Cavanaugh.
LAST SUNDAY NIGHT we went to see Blade Runner 2049. We loved everything about the movie but the time frame. The movie started too early to eat beforehand (6:15pm) and ended too late for Sunday-night dinner out (9:25 pm). As we walked by one restaurant after another, each closing down for the night, our choices were narrowing. Following my philosophy that it’s always possible to make something if you have stocked the pantry, we headed for home. By the time we drove into the driveway, I knew exactly what I was going to make, or at least some variation: Spaghetti Aglio e Olio, a/k/a spaghetti with garlic and olive oil.
We walked in the door and I immediately put a big pot of water on the stove to boil, chopped up cloves of garlic and started heating a generous amount of olive oil, enough to bathe the garlic, on a medium-low setting. I even had parsley and dried red pepper flakes, not absolutely necessary but great to add. Too bad when I went to the pantry I didn’t have enough spaghetti for the three of us, or enough fettuccine, or enough angel hair, and I certainly wasn’t going to mix the three into some desperation compilation of pastas. What I did have was a full box of rotini, the corkscrew pasta, more than enough for us, so Rotini Aglio e Olio was born.
Spaghetti or not, garlic and olive oil mixed with pasta makes a pretty good emergency meal. While your pasta of choice, or necessity, cooks, start the sauce. Cook a generous amount of chopped garlic in a bath of olive oil over slow heat until the garlic in soft and fragrant and just about to brown. If you have some, add a pinch of red pepper flakes to give it a kick. When the garlic is soft, carefully ladle some of the pasta cooking water into the oil and garlic mixture. I find about a cup does it. If you have chopped parsley, add it here. Raise the heat to medium and add salt and pepper to taste. Let the mixture come to a simmer for a few minutes to reduce it a little. When the pasta is done, drain it and mix with the garlic-and-oil sauce. If the mixture seems dry, add additional olive oil. Serve with grated Parmesan, Romano or even aged Asiago cheese.
The rotini worked out unexpectedly well, with the corkscrew shape catching the bits of garlic and parsley. Also, it was what I had, so I made do. If you don’t have parsley, don’t worry, it comes out fine anyway. No red pepper flakes, use lemon zest instead. If you have some broccoli or asparagus, steam until tender, cut into bite-size pieces and toss the pieces right in with the cooked pasta. You’ll be proud that you came made a dinner this good. You might even want to plan to make this on purpose, not just as a last-minute save.
—Stephanie Witt Sedgwick
LittleBird “Stephanie Cooks,” a/k/a Stephanie Sedgwick, devises dinner ideas every Monday for MyLittleBird.com. You can do a search for earlier My Dinner With . . . stories.
MacKenzie-Childs in full flourish: The Botanica Chair is $5,895. At MacKenzie-Childs, more is definitely more, maybe not even enough. The handmade ceramic Tassel Table, left foreground, is $1,995. The new Georgetown store has everything from major furniture statements . . . / Photo by Stephanie Cavanaugh.
. . . to seasonal ornaments (we won’t mention which occasion these are for since we’re two holidays away). / Photo by Stephanie Cavanaugh.
The opening of the Georgetown store, in the Cady’s Alley design district, was a lively event. / Photo by Stephanie Cavanaugh.
Dizzy yet? Minimalists, stay away! MacKenzie-Childs is in town! / Photo by Stephanie Cavanaugh.
Gourds a-plenty as Halloween morphs into Thanksgiving. Never a moment too soon. / Photo by Stephanie Cavanaugh.
The Courtly Check Enamel Teapot from MacKenzie-Childs, banished from the stovetop by Prince Pete, is $150 at MC shops and at mackenzie-childs.com.(Don’t worry: It’s back in it proper place.)
Yes, of course you can have a Courtly Check computer mouse! It’s $48 at mackenzie-childs.com.
FEW HOME FURNISHINGS companies can provide instant pizzazz the way MacKenzie-Childs can. “We leave no surface untouched, ever,” Rebecca Proctor, the company’s creative director, once told me. So true.
While bits and pieces of the line have been available in the Washington area for many years, and of course there’s a mail-order catalogue, we finally have a shop devoted to it: a jewel-box townhouse just outside of Georgetown’s Cady’s Alley design center.
Every square inch of the space is lined and heaped and festooned with a dizzying array of cake stands and candlesticks, vases and stools and over-stuffed poufs. Even umbrellas and eyeglasses don’t escape the painter’s brush—the pieces are hand-painted in the company’s workshop in upstate New York.
Most incorporate the line’s black-and-white checkerboard leitmotif mixed with polka dots, paisleys, plaids and stripes. The upholstered furniture sports swooping curves, painted legs and, frequently, fabulous tassels.
If you wonder what being Alice in Wonderland really feels like, wander on in.
It’s difficult not to smile, hugely. It’s also hard to stop buying the stuff—but you really must. Drop a piece or two into a plain vanilla room and BOOM! Beyond that, you might pass out from the overstimulation—you can go nuts just looking at the pictures in the 103-page catalogue.
I personally find this stuff perfect for host/ess giving. A spatula with checkerboard handle is $30, a set of jolly canapé knives is $48. That’s the price of a bottle of something nice—but a gift that brings more permanent delight.
MacKenzie-Childs is at 1037 33rd Street NW, Washington DC 20007; phone 202-866-6565.
—Stephanie Cavanaugh
Little Bird “Stephanie Gardens” left her backyard this week to visit the new Mackenzie-Childs shop in Georgetown.
Green Acre #74: Fairy Tales Do Come True But . . .
Nice for fairies to sit out in their garden! / Photo by Stephanie Cavanaugh.
AS FAR AS I’m concerned, fairy gardens can’t disappear fast enough.
Like doll houses for gardeners, they feature tiny plants and hobbity houses and furnishings, gnomes, sprites and bunnies. They can occupy a spot in a garden—or, if you’ve abandoned smoking, grow in your old ashtrays.
There was one for several years on a corner near us, settled into a small wedge of a corner plot where it developed over time into a miniature estate.
I took photos.
Winding through the scene was a gravel path lined with neatly tended miniature succulents, tiny stone mushrooms, fallen pillars and a little fountain planted with bits of green stuff. The eye followed along, finally arriving at a frilly white metal arch, beside which sat a teeny-tiny outhouse.
Every (fairy) garden needs a tiny arbor, n’est-ce pas? / Photo by Stephanie Cavanaugh.
Tucked back a bit, a dwarf fir tree formed the backdrop for a doll-house-size cafe table and chairs. Maybe that’s why the fairy needed a latrine.
I had never seen anything like it, and hoped not to again. But they’re everywhere.
There’s a whole section of miniature gardens on display each year at the Philadelphia Flower show; pots and platters and planters set upon with miniature mixes of plants and teensy furnishings. They’ve also invaded the perennially august Chelsea Flower Show in London. People win prizes for their tableaux. People pay money to see them.
They also pay money for the materials to create them. A lot of money.
Homestead Gardens in Davidsonville, Maryland, offers several courses each year, mostly in the spring (by the fall you have to spend your time getting ready for Santa Claus). “Build an oasis for your garden fairies with miniature plants and accessories that are just their size!” reads the copy for one such. The $49.95 tab includes your choice of wine, beer or water, though I can’t imagine a beer-swigging fairy.
That’s just for the course, mind you. All of the bits and baubles that comprise your little scene are extra—and Homestead, like many of our garden centers, devotes a large section to these twee accessories.
The word “fun” is sprinkled like glitter through copy. “Fun Fairy Gardens Go Anywhere,” is one blog entry. “ . . . add some fun fairy furniture,” they order. “We’re told that fairies prefer furniture made from natural materials, like bark and twigs, but a tired fairy will sit down anywhere. Naturally, they appreciate having their own fairy cottage, too. . . . More fun items that add to the charm include pebbles, smooth glass, and fairies. Miniature fencing can be constructed out of twigs or popsicle sticks.”
Oh, man.
The Internet is, of course, an endless resource of how-tos and where-to-buys.
Etsy has a everything from $2.95 Adirondack chair to a $100,000 fairy tree house, I kid you not. On Amazon you can pick up a three-piece tea set made of acorns for $9.94 (how did they arrive at that price?) and the “world’s smallest aloe plant” for $40 (plus $2.99 shipping). $40 seems to be the going rate for itty-bitty plants.
Myfairygardens.com features an endless assortment of impish crap, including Freya the Fairy and her purple plastic hobbit house. I’d have “fun” drowning her in her little plastic well. Most items are in the $10 range, but you need so many of them. They do offer free shipping with your $50 purchase.
You can see how this hobby gets expensive really fast, and yet remains entirely tasteless.
I am about to attempt to demonstrate some sensitivity here, perhaps because I’ve been employing odds and ends of this and that along with fake flowers and plants in my garden and window boxes since I began gardening. There are days, sometimes weeks, when I just don’t care to tend to things and then these things turn brown and shrivel and die, see. In such instances, spray paint can be your friend.
So where do I come off making fun of these atrocious fairylands? Plots that I imagine being tended by lovely women in lovely Laura Ashley dresses and large straw bonnets with ribbons, frosted pink toenails peeping out of pastel Kate Spade sandals, cooing to the (miniature) ants, as they prune their little plantings with nail clippers.
My younger sister (not by much) thinks they’re adorable. She also likes kittens. If you like them, I’m sure you’re a very sweet person too.
See? Sensitive.
That said, what is it about these innocent little gardens that make me feel like I’m chewing on tin foil?
—Stephanie Cavanaugh
LittleBird “Stephanie Gardens,” a/k/a/ Stephanie Cavanaugh, writes about the peculiar habits of urban gardeners, including herself. To read earlier columns, such as those that outright advocate the use of fake flowers in your window boxes, type Green Acre in the Search box at the top of the page.
ONE THING I LOVE about cooking is you don’t have to reinvent the wheel, just tweak it. There are classic combinations that you know work, and all you need to do is adapt the concept to what you have around. A favorite dish of mine is Veal Marsala, but veal scallopine is sometimes hard to come by and pricey. It’s not something I have hanging around in the fridge. Regulars on my shopping list trend more to chicken cutlets, pork tenderloin, stew meat and steaks. I keep a bottle of sweet Marsala on hand and I almost always have mushrooms. With the mushrooms and Marsala, I can make ordinary meats special in no time. If I’m in a rush, I make a quick sauté of sliced mushrooms and diced onion and finish with a splash of Marsala and some butter for a quick sauce for sautéed chicken or roasted pork tenderloin. When I want to add a steakhouse-style side to my strip-loin supper, I leave the small mushrooms whole and cut large ones into quarters. I quickly sauté until they are golden brown and finish with the Marsala just to glaze the mushrooms. When I have more time, I make a stew with cubes of pork shoulder, lots of onions, mushrooms, Marsala and chicken broth.
As for the mushrooms, you can mix and match varieties at will. I am currently obsessed with beech mushrooms for both their fantastic earthy flavor and their Willy Wonka-whimsical shape. King Oyster mushrooms are a great addition as well, with a firm texture and mild flavor, but I always make the bulk of the mushrooms cremini or white because they are so widely available. Mix and match at your pleasure.
Sautéed Chicken Cutlets or Roasted Pork Tenderloin With Mushrooms Marsala: Roast or grill the pork tenderloin, or, if using chicken cutlets, sauté until cooked through. Sauté diced onions in oil, then add the mushrooms and sauté until tender. (If you’re making the dish with chicken cutlets, you can use the same pan for the onion-mushroom mix; if you’re roasting the pork tenderloin, you can add the pan juices to the onions and mushrooms.) Add equal parts sweet Marsala and chicken broth to moisten, not drown, the mushrooms. Let reduce. Throw in some diced butter, salt and pepper. Mix together and serve over the cutlets or sliced tenderloin. If you have parsley, go and garnish as you’d like.
Steakhouse-Style Mushrooms: Keep small and medium-size mushrooms whole. Halve or quarter large ones. Sauté over high heat with diced sweet onion or shallots in a mixture of hot butter and oil until nicely browned. Add a splash of sweet Marsala, salt and pepper and cook just long enough to reduce the Marsala to a glaze.
Mushroom and Marsala Pork Stew: Brown cubes of pork. In a braising pot, sauté diced onions; when soft, add a few tablespoons flour. Cook until flour is dissolved. Add the browned cubes of meat, sweet Marsala and chicken broth in equal amounts to barely cover the meat; salt and pepper. If you have fresh thyme sprigs, throw those in as well. Bring to a slow boil. Cover and place in a 325-degree oven. Cook for 1 ½ hours until the pork is tender.
—Stephanie Witt Sedgwick LittleBird “Stephanie Cooks,” a/k/a Stephanie Sedgwick, addresses dinner ideas every Monday. You can see earlier suggestions by searching for My Dinner With in the Search box at the top of the page.
SOMETIMES THE OBVIOUS doesn’t hit you until afterward. The one thing most of the designers at the 10th annual DC Design House had to contend with was . . . wait for it . . . enormous rooms. As in wide open spaces.
Such a problem, I intone, huddled in my 15-by-30 living AND dining room. And yet I have to admit that the situation was a challenge requiring just as many solutions as small rooms do.
(This is in addition to the challenge of coming up with realistic names for some two dozen rooms. A decorator show house cannot have five living rooms, which is where we get the Study in Blue and the Study Royale and the Lady’s Retreat and the Collector’s Cabinet and the Upstairs Family Room and the Idealized Family Room and the Little Jewel Box Sitting Room and the Travelers’ Retreat. You get the idea: too much of a good thing.)
So here are a few examples of the design challenges that faced the designers. The Design House is open through October 29 (except Mondays), and tickets cost $35, the proceeds benefiting Children’s National Health System.
—Nancy McKeon
The Living Room, by Margery Wedderburn and Melanie Hansen of Margery Wedderburn Interiors of Great Falls, Virginia. / Photo by Angie Seckinger.
The Collector’s Cabinet, by Josh Hildreth of Josh Hildreth Interiors of Reston, Virginia. / Photo by Angie Seckinger.
The Living Room and the Collector’s Cabinet are both big, honking rooms, the Cabinet being the larger of the two. Both have tall ceilings, making the rooms seem that much bigger, and lots of natural light, which helps.
Both Josh Hildreth of the Cabinet and Margery Wedderburn and Melanie Hansen of the Living Room essentially divided their spaces in half. Anchoring the halves is a center table; Hildreth’s custom table was hand-hammered in the French forge of Ironware International.
Both designers visually brought the ceiling down to human scale with a central hanging light fixture; Hildreth also had the ceiling hand-painted to resemble planks of pecky cypress. After that, it was “simply” a matter of creating two seating areas in each room. The results are quite different (after all, one of the rooms does not have a giant pink lollipop sculpture in the corner), but the guiding principles are quite similar.
The Lady’s Retreat, by Marika Meyer Interiors of Bethesda, Maryland. / Photo by Angie Seckinger.
The famous Hermès scarf is three feet square, so imagine a wall that can accommodate three of them framed and stacked, with room to spare. That’s what anchors the Lady’s Retreat, that and several oversize windows and a ceiling brought lower visually by means of hand-printed fabric. With the perimeter thus defined, the seating area could be allowed to float; sofa and chairs are ample but not overly so. Now take a deep breath.
The Upstairs Family Room, by Erica Burns Interiors of Bethesda, Maryland. / Photo by Angie Seckinger.
Giant botanical specimens were another way to use oversize art to wrestle a large room to the ground. The framed tropical plants in the Upstairs Family Room came from Sweetgrass Botanicals of Winston Salem, North Carolina, which also custom-presses wedding bouquets or just the moonflowers from your backyard trellis.
A Study in Blue, by Kelley Proxmire of Bethesda, Maryland. / Photo by Angie Seckinger.
The Study Royale, by Lorna Gross Interior Design of Bethesda, Maryland. / Photo by Angie Seckinger.
You can get a glimpse of the Study Royale by Lorna Gross through the double doors of Kelley Proxmire’s Study in Blue. So the theme color of the rooms was known to both designers, helping the home flow the way an ideal one would.
Proxmire’s library was “contained” by the existing wood paneling and bookshelves and the dramatic ceiling above. So she was able to establish a central seating area, then add additional chairs and tables around the periphery of the room. An assistant actually hand-painted the spines of all the books in several shades of blue. But the bookcase between the window and the doorway was a flat, paneled shape, there for symmetry. Proxmire’s solution: She had the “bookcase” decked out with books and bibelots, all painted on a canvas and fitted into the space.
The Lush Laundry Room, by Paula Grace Designs of Ashburn, Virginia. / Photo by Angie Seckinger.
Designer Paula Grace Halewski of Paula Grace Designs of Ashburn, Virginia, stands in her Lush Laundry Room. / MyLittleBird photo.
Can a laundry room be sexy? Apparently so! Witness the Lush Laundry Room. I swear I’d be better groomed, and fluffed and folded, if I had even half the space—and orderliness—of Paula Grace Halewski’s behind-the-scenes room. Like many laundry areas, this one has no natural light, so Halewski gave it a sky-blue ceiling. (Actually, like all the paints in the house, it is from Sherwin-Williams—Sleepy Hollow, SW9145.) Shimmery wallpaper above the cabinets helps bounce around the light furnished by a sparkly ceiling fixture, not shown.
Ginger! But not the edible kind. / Photo by Stephanie Cavanaugh.
IT’S ONCE AGAIN time to contemplate bringing your tender plants indoors. Or letting them die in peace, or place: With Halloween coming, the sometimes grotesquely charming withering of the fruits of your summer labor is an option to consider.
But first a note about tags.
Some months ago I rhapsodized about the surprising return of the ginger plants, which I couldn’t recall planting in the first place as they emerged in a rather odd location in the front garden.
Baby, adopting a superior attitude that one would not expect from one’s only child—for whom I forfeited my 21-inch waistline, not to mention the labor pains—wrote in the web comments on that piece that they weren’t gingers, but cannas that we had purchased last summer, on a trip to visit her and her Personal Prince Pete in Raleigh, North Carolina, Land of the Fried HoHos. She took three, I took three, and that’s how they came to be (that rhymes).
At the time, I also assumed that the stalks arising from another large pot were bananas, and I spent the rest of the summer fretting over their mingy growth.
How I can write a garden column and be such a lousy gardener escapes me. If I had put a tag somewhere in the vicinity of either I would have remembered that I was wrong about both.
So, Baby was in town this past weekend for the Women’s March—which she attended with My Prince while I was busily atoning for the family sins, being as it was Yom Kippur (an obnoxious and insensitive date to elect for any march relating to inclusivity, I might add). Baby excused herself, saying this was the way she chose to honor the day (or some such). Okay then. Trot your Irish half on down and take a knee for me in front of the Trump Hotel.
I’m getting to the point here, hold your horseradish.
As we were stepping out on Saturday night to break the holiday fast with friends, she said something like, “Whoa, Mama! Your ginger is blooming.”
And I said, “What ginger?” Since I assumed the ginger had expired. (See Paragraph 3).
But there, nestled in the pot that I thought was filled with recalcitrant bananas were three brilliant pink flowers nestled among the stiff green stalks.
This was very exciting and I pointed with my cane (which I claim is in use because of a trapeze accident) and said, “Move the ginger to the front corner, and the pot of bird of paradise to the back”—I’m positive that they are bird of paradise even though they have no tags and have done precisely nothing all summer but sit in their pot and ask for water.
And she said, “Stop pointing with your cane, it’s obnoxious,” as she waddled across the yard with one pot and waddled back with the other.
The ginger certainly looks perky next to the front walk, a cunning complement to the pink geraniums in the window boxes.
Getting back to the subject of this piece, it is time to contemplate moving your tender plants indoors for the winter. May I suggest a nice merlot and a perch on the back porch steps while you do so. That always works well for me.
With a little luck, someone will show up and do it for you.
—Stephanie Cavanaugh
LittleBird Stephanie “Gardens” writes every week about gardening in the city.
I HAVE A THING for potatoes. My husband says it’s my Eastern European ancestry, but whatever the reason I can make a meal out of a simple plain baked potato. Better yet, I can make a simple meal special with one of my favorites, the double-stuffed potato. When I was growing up, that meant a roughly mashed potato mixed with butter, cheese and milk and stuffed back into the potato shell. I still see versions of this at deli counters. Not special enough—too big and just kinda plopped in there, sort of like the cousin you didn’t want to invite to dinner: ugly and inelegant. It is just as easy to do a nice job, and yes, with what you already have in the fridge, because here it’s the presentation that upgrades the dish.
AND THE ‘GIRLS’ keep coming. As MLB contributor Emily Harburg pointed out in August 2016, publishers have given us a great number of books with “girl” or “girls” in the title, probably inspired by the tremendous success of Stieg Larsson’s The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo back in 2008.
