NEW YORK CITY - October

Sunday – Tompkins Square Park Farmers Market. Tompkins Square Park is located on the Lower East Side, in Alphabet City on land that used to be marshland. The park is named for Daniel D. Tompkins (1774-1825), Vice President of the United States under President James Monroe and Governor of New York. The park was landscaped in 1850 and has been a public park ever since. On Sundays, about one dozen farmers come into New York to sell their products on the sidewalk of the park.

Seen at Tompkins Square Park Farmers Market - Toigo Orchards. As Tompkins Square Farmers Market is not as big as Union Square Greenmarket it provides the means of exchange between farmers and residents. The farmers sell many varieties of fruits, vegetables and farm products. New Yorkers, thus supporting the farmers help them to preserve the farmlands. Shown above the stall of Toigo Orchards from Pennsylvania, they cultivate, organically, over twenty-one thousand apple trees, they also grow plums, apricots, cherries, Asian and European pears.

Detail. A detail of the stall of one of the farmers who grows only potatoes.

NEW YORK CITY - October

Saturday – Flea market. I always try, at least once over the weekends that I am in town to go to the flea market housed in the Garage on West 26^th Street, between 6th and 7th. It’s such a pity that it is reduced to just this space, it used to be so much bigger, before all the new building went up in the adjacent parking lots. See construction work below! I always start with coffee over the road and then with my coffee cup in my hand, I hunt the lower level before the Upper one. I enjoy the search for what ever strikes my eye and will fit into my suitcase. All the other dealers have moved to the street market in Hell’s Kitchen, West 39^th Street, between 9^th and 10^th. Although I have been only twice, this flea market doesn’t intrigue me.

Detail. The showcase of a vintage jewelry dealer.

NEW YORK CITY - October

Photograph by Manfredi Bellati

Friday – New York moments # 1 – The dog walkers of the Upper East Side. You see the dog walkers collecting and dropping off dogs from the chic apartment blocs of the Upper East Side. They often walk more than three or four dogs at a time; I have seen some even with eight dogs! Do the dogs get any exercise?

Seen on the subway. Mischa is a very good Yorkshire Terrier. She goes up and down town on the subway in her stylish Petote carrier on wheels. She is very happy to go to work, as long as, she is with her mummy, Tracey who is a creative and marketing director at Gaiam, the eco-conscious lifestyle company. Her navy T-shirts by Juicy Couture says” My dog is cuter than your dog.”

NEW YORK CITY - October

photograph by Manfredi Bellati

Friday – New York moments # 2 – Kindergarten children. Seen around the city young children being taken out for a “walk” and an airing on these multiple pushchairs.

NEW YORK CITY - October

Friday – New York moments #3- construction work. Construction work is going on all over the city. Here are some statistics from The New York Post. Gotham will accumulate sixty-five million additional square feet in office space, in the next twenty-five years. Harlem: two to three million; Midtown: ten million; Hudson Yard/Penn Station area: thirty to thirty-five million; Lower Manhattan twelve to fourteen million etc…I counted nine cement mixers working at the same time on a street in Chelsea.

Safety instructions are very important.

A lot of streets are closed to traffic due to construction work.

NEW YORK CITY - October

photograph courtesy Roubini Rugs

Thursday. The Fornasetti Rug Collection by Roubini Rugs. A Cocktail party was held at the New York Design Center to launch The Fornasetti Rug Collection by Roubini Rugs. Piero Fornasetti was a Milan painter, a sculptor, an interior decorator, an engraver of art books, a creator of more than eleven thousand items. The lesson deriving from his oeuvre is the rigor with a strong imagination and an elegant and mystical sense of humor. Piero applied his decorative vocabulary to an astonishing array of commonly found objects to which Roubini has added a line of magnificent rugs. The rugs are hand knotted in wool and silk and available in standard as well as custom sizes. Shown above the Serpente (snake) rug.

The son. Fornasetti’s son Barnaba, is perpetuating the workshop tradition, continuing the production and reviving the most popular pieces, creating new ones, renewing hand crafted production. Barnaba Fornasetti is standing in front of the Mano (hand) rug and is wearing a Fornasetti waistcoat.

Seen at the Fornasetti Rug Collection party. Native New Yorker, Andrew Alpern is an architectural historian, an architect and an attorney. He has been a Fornasetti fan for at least thirty years. His latest book The New York Apartment Houses of Rosario Candela and James Carpenter was published by Acanthus Press. He is wearing a Fornasetti tie and a waistcoat called Architetto (architect) which he will be donating together with his collection of architectural drawing instruments, assembled over the past forty years, to the Avery Architectural library at Columbia University. Note that no other architectural library in the world has any architectural clothing in its collection. They will be producing a catalogue and there will be a permanent exhibition of the three hundred pieces that date from 1698 to 1950/60s. Alpern is photographed in front of the Viso (face with open eyes) rug.

NEW YORK CITY - October

Wednesday. A new restaurant - BLT Market. This is a great location for midtown restaurant, it so close to my favorite department store in the world, Bergdorf Goodman, it looks onto Central Park South and is part of the very chic Ritz Carlton Hotel. I am talking about the new BLT Market restaurant. The letters do not stand for Bacon, Lettuce and Tomato but for Bistro Laurent Tourondel, the acclaimed French chef. He brings the seasonal market to the table with monthly menus and blackboard specials, updated to feature fruits and vegetables that are at the peak of their freshness, flavor and natural abundance. I had the Acacia Marinated Alaskan Black Cod/Butternut Squash Puree/ Wilted spinach, which just melted in my mouth.

Detail. The cheeses sit under glass cloches. Glass cloches also inspired the lampshades.

A section of the dinning room. The banquette area is very cozy. Above each table there are gigantic colorful paintings of fruits or vegetables. The tables are sparingly set with plain glasses and paper mats printed with lists of seasonal fruits and vegetables on the side. The water is brought to the table in milk bottles and the pesto bread comes to the table in a paper bag. The waiters wear stripped kitchen aprons and the light and airy Martha Stewart-ish decor works well with the concept of seasonal products.

Desert. Yummy seasonal McIntosh Apple Cake/Calvados Caramel/Vermont Creme Fraiche.

Detail. As part of the decor real apples in barrels are strategically placed.

NEW YORK CITY - October

Wednesday – Jane Rotrosen Agency. I popped in for coffee at the Jane Rotrosen literary agency to see my friend Meg Ruley who is a senior agent there. The offices are situated in the partially converted town house where Jane used to live. The double parlor has very high ceilings; it looks more like a bookstore or a boudoir than a meeting room and is a fabulous showcase for their impressive list of authors. The town house also has a garden where parties are held for authors to celebrate their best sellers or contracts.

Detail. On the marble fireplace, that really works is a row of their national and international bestselling authors. Among those, is the first novel by Sarah Addison Allen, Garden Spells, which is a New York Times bestseller and debuted at number seven on the list. The agency deals with, commercial and non commercial fiction, suspense and romance novelists. Meg Ruley told me “We work for the authors, we are their business partners.”

Contessanally tip: submit your manuscripts.

Detail. There is a bar hidden behind a door, just off the double parlor. The bar was installed when Jane Rotrosen lived in the town house with her husband and employed a butler.

NEW YORK CITY - October

Tuesday - Lifestyle: A dinner party in a New York Loft. Laurie Mallet and artist and designer, Peter Rittmaster have a beautiful loft in Chelsea. The loft is full of Peter’s fun works of art and one could spend all day and more looking at them, but that is another story. This story is about their dinner parties where less is more and very elegant. Elegance is often an understatement and as you can see by this table the setting is very simple but, so chic. The menu was French inspired, simply cooked with the best quality products:

Tagliata of Sautéed Rib-eye Steak

Oven Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Maple Syrup

Bio-dynamic Steamed Broccoli

Classic Cheese Platter

Clementine’s D’Anjou Pears Cooked in Bordeaux with Crème Fraiche

Chocolate Tangerine Cookies

Wine: Chateau Greysac, 1998

Note: The Cartier silver candlesticks and the crystal goblets. The table was designed in the 1960s by John Masheroni the surface is in English burlwood which is like the one used on the Rolls Royce dashboard. The Chairs are cane-work, French Louis XVI.

Detail: This is Laurie and Peter’s everyday table. The table settings are heirlooms from Peter’s family. Note: the sterling silver, the old English Spode, Florence pattern plates, the pink linen napkins with grey embroidery. The water-glass is classic Murano. In the background, you can just see the sweet potatoes with maple syrup and also note the funky bread basket in the foreground.

The bread. Our hostess, Ozone Design Inc. CEO and founder, Laurie Mallet cuts a baguette of organic artesian French bread from Le Pain Quotidien bakery. French born Laurie has always been involved in avant–garde fashion, moving to America she founded Willi Wear. Now she devotes her time, talent and sense of fun, design and fashion to Ozone Socks because when she founded the company “Socks were the only item of clothing untouched by fashion.”

A Classic Cheese Platter. A good cross selection of American cheeses from Murray’s Cheese Shop on Bleeker Street. On a fifties ceramic painters palette:

Perrin Vermot, Petit Sapin

is made from Alpine cow’s milk.

Uplands Cheese Company Pleasant Ridge Reserve Extra Aged

the Extra Aged cheese is matured for eighteen months, intensifying its flavor, especially the sweetness. This cheese is only made in Wisconsin.

Jasper Hill Farm, Bayley Hazen Blue

the three months old cheese is made from cows’ milk, it tastes of sweet cream and nuts and has a distinct licorice flavor

Vermont Butter and Cheese Company, Coupole

this goat’s cheese is aged for three to four weeks, it takes its name from its dome shape, it’s texture is very dense and creamy and the rind is sweet.

Murray’s Cheese Shop stocks the best cheeses in New York City. They have a vast selection of cheeses and the young and energetic staff is very knowledgeable. Also, on site they have subterranean cheese aging caves, designed by Herve Mons, the leading affineur, or “Meilleur Ouvrier” of France.

Contessanally tip: always start with the freshest cheese first and end with the most mature ones.

The dessert – Recipe: Clementine’s Poached Pears in Wine. Bring one bottle of Bordeaux to the boil with one cup of sugar, one clove, one vanilla bean and the zest and juice of an orange and a lemon. When it starts to boil, put in eight pealed organic D’Anjou pears, cover and boil for twenty minutes. Serve with crème fraiche from the Vermont Butter and Cheese Company and chocolate tangerine cookies from Wholefoods. Laurie’s daughter, Clementine Mallet is taking a masters degree in food culture and communication of quality products at the Universita di Scienze Gastronomiche in Parma, Italy “I would like to be involved in an organization that educates the consumer to make informed food choices.” She told me.

Detail: The engraving on this silver commemorative Tiffany & Co. bowl reads Mr and Mrs Wonderful – February 23 1957. It was a gift from Sammy Davis Jr. the star of the Broadway show, Mr. Wonderful, to Peter Rittmaster’s parents; Peter’s father was one of the backers of the show.

NEW YORK CITY - October

Tuesday – Personalities # 6 & # 7 – Annie Kelly and Tim Street Porter. Tea–time at the Royalton hotel with totally bi-coastal, author and interior decorator, Annie Kelly and renowned photographer Tim Street-Porter. The busy couple live between L.A. and Connecticut. Besides her interior decorating, Annie writes, not only books, but also has a design book review column on 1^st Dibs.com called Required Reading. 1^st Dibs.com started in Paris at the Marche Aux Puce and is visited by 800,000 people each month, it also sells furniture. Annie is the editor-in-chief of the New York Observer Home magazine which comes out twice a year. Look out for the spring issue next April. Annie’s latest book is already in its third printing, it’s called Rooms to Inspire. Tim Street-Porter needs no introduction, he is famous for his beautiful photographs of interiors and architecture. His next book, with Annie, called Casa San Miguel will be out in spring 2008. The decorating book is about the town in Mexico which is particularly chic. He is currently working on a big glamorous book, with the working title of, Los Angeles Modernism, which is about all the great twentieth century residential modernist architects who worked there, it will be published by Rizzoli and will be out for Christmas 2008.

NEW YORK CITY - October

Monday – A Kitchen Launch. Canova’s president, Bartolomeo Bellati, launched two kitchens in the BSH Home Appliances Corporation showroom in Dumbo. The high end Italian designed kitchens are installed with Bosch appliances. Seen above, the U shaped wenge finish kitchen with white lacquer upper cabinets. The doors, which are one inch thick, are all self closing and the fridge and warming drawer are fully integrated and concealed behind custom panels. The counter top is made out of Caesar stone.

Detail. You can also order an accessory drawer with nineteen kitchen utensils.

A Book Launch. At the BSH showroom in Dumbo, Thermador sponsored the launch of the book, The Best of America’s Test Kitchen 2008. Cook’s Illustrated magazine, home of America’s Test Kitchen’s president, Christopher Pennington Kimball talked about the book and signed copies to a wide audience. Mr. Pennington Kimball also hosts the TV show, which is watched by 2.9 million viewers per episode. The foolproof recipes are retested until they are perfect. “We tested the chocolate cake recipe one hundred and thirty times.” He said.

The party’s over. BSH Home Appliances Corporation's Trade Marketing Manager for the North East, Jonni Clause relaxes after a long day in the showroom and a successful book launch party for The Best of America’s Test Kitchen 2008, sponsored by Thermador. BSH Bosch and Siemens Hausgerate is one of the world’s three leading companies in the household appliance sector. Jonni is chatting to Kaufman Bros. Vice president of Equity research Raimundo Archibold Jr.

NEW YORK CITY - October

Sunday – New York Personality # 5 - The Sartorialist. Seen outside the Chelsea Market, The Sartorialist sans his third eye. Scott Schuman was on a family outing with his beautiful wife Christa who is Design Director for The Limited, and his little bambine, Isabel and Claudia. Schuman is leaving for China to photograph for the big prestigious Chinese department store, Lane Crawford. He will be stalking with his lens the trendy ladies of Beijing and Hong Kong.

NEW YORK CITY - October

photograph by Manfredi bellati

Saturday. New London - Anna’s and Andrea’s wedding. It was such a gorgeous and sunny day to ride out to Connecticut for Anna’s and Andrea’s wedding. The ceremony was held in New London at Saint Sophia Hellenic Orthodox Church. New London is the waterfront city known best as the home of the U.S. Coast Guard Academy; it was also know historically as a whaling port. Anna and Andrea pose for photos after the wedding. They left for the reception in Andrea’s Toyota Tacoma pick-up truck.

The grandfather and the granddaughter. The bridegroom’s father, Alex is so smitten with his first grandchild that he willingly likes to look after Beatrice.

photograph by Manfredi Bellati

The Reception. Anna and Andrea’s wedding reception was held at the bridegroom’s family country estate in Stonington. The beautiful southeastern Connecticut town is classic New England and is well know for its picturesque harbor.

Detail. The shingled country house was built in 1695 by Captain Thomas Noyes. Because of it’s proximity to the coast, Stonington has centuries-old links with the sea.

photograph by Manfredi Bellati

The Ladies of the family. All The ladies of the family looked beautiful. Nora, Ilaria and the beautiful and radiant bride, Anna.

The Wedding cake. The heart shaped wedding cake was appropriately decorated with black and green grapes, as there are vineyards on the estate. The beautiful flower arrangements were done by a friend of the family, Carla Alvera.

NEW YORK CITY - October

Friday – Happy Birthday to the Strand Bookstore. Tomorrow the Strand Bookstore celebrates its 80^th birthday with a Literary and Arts festival. Among the many writers participating in the festival’s all day book signing are David Kamp author of The United States of Arugula: How We Became a Gourmet Nation, novelist Sigrid Nunez author of The Last of Her Kind and Edmund White author of Hotel Du Dream. The event takes place from 11- 6 pm.

Inside: Eighteen miles of new, used, rare and out of print books line the bookshelves. It is my favorite bookstore because I love a bargain and nearly every book is reduced. I also love to browse and pick up reviewers copies at half price in the basement, look at the art and design books, as well as, look through the secondhand section.

Detail: New York’s independent landmark bookstore sells one Dollar bargain books outside.

NEW YORK CITY - October

Friday – New York Personality # 4 – Susan Simon. Cook book author and caterer, Susan Simon is a volunteer for Spoons Across American, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to educating children and families on the benefits of good nutrition, healthful eating and passing along the important traditions of supporting local farmers and sharing meals around the family table. Above, Susan is taking a group of fourth and fifth graders from New York City public schools around Union Square greenmarket.

Union Square Farmers Market. One of the many fruit and vegetable stalls in Union Square. Spoons Across America together with the New York City Greenmarket Network, work together to influence the eating habits of children.

The School Children. A Child shows off her one Dollar purchase at the end of the educational tour of the green market.

NEW YORK CITY - October

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Thursday – Rare Vintage. Since Juliana Cairone was ten years old she has always been interested in clothes. Her grandparents used to take her to The Costume Institute to see the shows. She has always worn vintage and when her wardrobe was overflowing her husband, Formula One enthusiast, Andrea Cairone suggested she sell some of them. She took a stand at the Manhattan Vintage Show and sparked by this success, decided to go into business. Her store, Rare Vintage, opened in February, it is located on the fifth floor of 24 West 57^th Street – 212 581 RARE. This little jewel box has some of the most beautiful vintage clothes I have seen, all in one spot. Juliana mostly buys in Europe as she prefers European designers. Her collection boasts many haute couture and ready to wear unique pieces, as well as, clothes owned by renowned socialites, such as, Nan kempner. I had so much fun going through the racks, appreciating the details and designs of each dress and reminiscing about the periods. Juliana is wearing a red Chanel wool coat “I should have done this years ago, I love searching for the clothes and meeting interesting people.” She told me. With such a fine eye for rare vintage, I’m sure she’ll be out of stock very soon.

Valentino. This 1973 Valentino pleated Greek goddess style evening dress in turquoise and two shades of grey was the first piece of couture Juliana had even seen. “It was so beautiful, just like a piece of art. It could be the perfect dress for a Red Carpet event." she said.

Moschino. This rare Moschino safety-pin punk inspired dress was designed 1988 by Franco Moschino himself. Since his death the Moschino Company has been directed by Rosella Jardini. This dress is featured in this month’s Harper’s Bazaar, they tucked it into a pair of leather pants and it’s worn like a shirt in a story called Cutting Edge Cool. Which is just like Juliana likes to dress “I never wear all vintage, it looks too much like costume; I like to mix pieces making them modern and fresh.” She explained. She is currently putting together a look book for fashion editors.

NEW YORK CITY - October

Thursday - New York Personalities # 2 & 3 – Martha Stewart and John Derian. John Derian, who has two of the most beautiful house-ware stores in New York, was on The Martha Stewart Show today. John was presenting the collection of hand-made French children’s Halloween costumes he sells in his store on the Lower East Side. The child, in the photo, is wearing a Peter Pan costume, also available; Carmen, pirate, Zorro, Sir Lancelot and more…

A close-up. Here is a gorgeous close-up of John Derian on the Martha Stewart Show today. John is wearing a very fine pin stripe jacket from Paul Smith, a pale pink stripped Rogan shirt and Levi's.

The donkey suit. This donkey Halloween costume was Martha Stewart’s favorite, she bought one to put on her real donkey.