Book jacket photo by Steven Rothfeld, http://www.stevenrothfeld.com/ / photo of Frances Mayes and two others, taken at Bramasole, by Peggy Harrison, http://www.peggyharrison.com/. 

"Food!  The obsesssion of every Tuscan."  -- Frances Mayes

My most recent interview with Frances Mayes ("Catching Up with Frances Mayes") appears in the current issue of Dream of Italy!  (If you are already a subscriber you've likely read it by now, and if you're not a subscriber, you should be!  Seriously, when you subscribe to DOI you become part of a passionate community of Italy enthusiasts, and in addition to the monthly newsletter you have access to the archive, receive some special discounts, etc., etc., plus Kathy maintains a blog which she updates daily.)  

Dream of Italy Founder, Editor, and Publisher, Kathy McCabe, still receives lots of queries about Frances from her readers, so the publication of a new book by Frances and her husband, Edward Mayes -- The Tuscan Sun Cookbook: Recipes From our Italian Kitchen (Clarkson Potter) -- seemed like an opportune moment for another interview (I interviewed Mayes in 2005 for Dream of Italy and I had the very great pleasure of meeting her at Bramasole when I was working on my Tuscany and Umbria book -- my interview with her appears on pages 160-169).   

Frances and Ed collected their favorite recipes for this book, and as Frances writes in the 'La Cucina' chapter, "If you came to visit me in Tuscany, we would cook the food described in this book."  What I didn't have space for in Dream of Italy is to mention some of the recipes I've had the chance to make over the last few months.  Here I can report to you that I had great success with the following:

*Chicken with Olives and Tomatoes (I didn't use the recipe for roasted tomato that appears on page 42, but rather I used one I'd cut out of some publication or another that simply calls for cherry tomatoes, olive oil, salt, pepper, and rosemary)

*Farro Salad (double delicious if you love farro as much as I do)

*Fiorella's Red Pepper Tart (though Fiorella apparently purchases ready-made piecrusts, I don't, ever, after buying one once and it was horrible -- perhaps in Italy there are good quality crusts available; so I made the pate brisee crust in the first edition of Martha Stewart's Pies and Tarts, which has long been my go-to, never-fail, recipe though probably more authentic would be a pasta frolla (recipe on page 192) minus the sugar)

*Onion Soup in the Arezzo Style (as the recipe states, you eat this with a fork -- it gets baked in the oven and still comes out a little bit soupy)    

*Pici with Fresh Fava Beans (A friend had given me some pici pasta, unique to Tuscany, that she'd bought at O & Co. and this recipe was calling as I love, love, love fava beans)

*Green Beans with Black Olives (the recipe also calls for orange peel, which my husband absolutely detests, so I used lemon instead)

*Ed's Crostini Neri (I've made a fair number of recipes for this classic Tuscan starter of chicken liver on toast but I'm making this one exclusively from now on)

In truth, a number of recipes in the book are quite similar to those in other Tuscan or Italian cookbooks, so home cooks should not expect to find 150 unique recipes; but many feature a unique twist on a well-known favorite, and still others are from local places in and around Cortona and elsewhere in Tuscany that Ed and Frances particularly like, as well as from places like The Catering Company in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, run by Franca Dotti who is originally from Milan. 

I have bookmarked lots more pages with recipes, and I'll make them over the next few months.  But for me, this book is more about inspiration: I love reading about the seasonal rhythm at Bramasole; about local traditions; and about all the friends Frances and Ed have made in and around Cortona, notably Sylvia Regi at the lovely and trendsetting Relais Il Falconiere (Sylvia is pictured in my book on page 499) and Ann Cornelisen, author of a treasured book, Torregreca: Life, Death, and Miracles in a Southern Italian Village, originally published in 1969 and reissued by Steerforth Italia in 1998; Frances loves it also as she wrote the Foreword to the Steerforth edition.  I also love looking at the photographs of the tables set alfreso, and as I note in my Dream of Italy piece, I love that the label for Bramasole's olive oil features a detail from 'The Birth of the Baptist' fresco in the Cappella Tornabuoni in Santa Maria Novella by Ghirlandaio. I'm sorry to say I haven't yet tried Bramasole oil, but I'm now hugely anticipating it.  The oil is only available by mail order -- essentially you become a member of the Bramasole convivium and commit to purchase the oil in advance of the harvest.  Ed and Frances only import the amount of oil that has been pre-purchased, and it's not available in retail stores (I suppose it might be at some point in the future, but not now).  For all the details about the oil and for ordering, browse http://www.thetuscansun.com/.  

Perhaps the best reason for reading and cooking from this book is expressed by Frances: "Most recipes are simple and the few that are not are fun.  This is real Tuscan food from a small hill town we have grown to love as home.  Because of our  many years here, we've had the great luck to learn about Tuscan food from the inside, not as visitors...what I hope becomes real for you is the astonishing range of Tuscan food, and the sense of joy that permeates the Tuscan kitchen."   

   



Photos above the book are of the Villa Aurelia and the Mercedes and Sid R. Bass Gardens, American Academy in Rome, taken from the AAR website, http://www.aarome.org/.

At the end of March, I was invited to a swell party to launch a terrific little book, Zuppe: Soups From the Kitchen of the American Academy in Rome by Mona Talbott with photographs by Annie Schlechter. This volume is actually the second in a series which is devoted to the Rome Sustainable Food Project, published by The Little Bookroom – you may remember that I kvelled about the first book, Biscotti, when it was published in the fall of 2010.

Though the festa for the book was almost three months ago, I have waited to post anything about it because I wanted to make enough of the recipes so I could accurately talk about it (though for the record, my aim is not to post about stuff I don’t like, which seems wasteful and mean spirited, so if it’s on my blog it’s something I want to enthuse about). Oddly perhaps, since everyone loves soup and soup recipes are very forgiving, I love the Biscotti book a little more than Zuppe, but that’s because I’m a baker and I am crazy for biscotti. However, Zuppe is a keeper and has earned a deserved spot on my (crowded) kitchen bookshelves.

At the American Academy (more about this below), soup is served every day. As Talbott writes in her Introduction, “we fill a large glazed terracotta zuppiera at the very last possible minute and carry it out to the lunch table…The vast Italian vocabulary for soup – aquacotta, brodo, crema, minestra, minestrina, minestrone, pappa, passata, ribollita, vellutata, zuppa – has become part of daily life here on the Janiculum Hill.” Some of these recipes are also found in other Italian cookbooks (though they are not identical) but most are original to the Academy’s cucina. Here are the soups I have made:

Spicy Carrot Soup (simple but quite delicious)

Lentil, Rice, and Chicory Soup (really good; I substituted Grana Padana for Pecorino Romano)

Potato and Fennel Soup (great combination of ingredients)

Chicken and Farro Soup (my husband and I love farro, and this one is a winner)

Chickpea, Pumpkin, and Farro Soup (another no-brainer; I used butternut squash)

Tomato and Rice Soup (I’ve always liked this minestra but this is a better version than the recipe I’d been making)

Chickpea and Pasta Soup (again, this version is far better than my former go-to one)

Soups I’m trying over the next few weeks: Fava Bean, English Pea, and Chicken Meatball Soup, Asparagus and Small Pasta Soup, Very Green Spring Vegetable Soup, Pureed Pea Soup with Mint, Pea and New Potato Soup.

In my house, my husband, daughter, and I have a lot of meals that are soup and salad, year-round. If some recipes are time consuming to make and eat on the same weeknight, it’s completely doable to make a soup for the next night’s dinner, or to make soup on Sunday night and eat it one night over the next few days. With Zuppe in hand you will not lack choices, and a bonus I didn’t expect is that the majority of these recipes feature inexpensive ingredients, and when you consider that soups typically provide more than one meal they are quite economical indeed. I also really like that the recipes are arranged by season, and honestly, I believe I will work my way through every single recipe in this book. (And by the way, what appear to be food stains on the book jacket really aren’t – they’re supposed to be there, I like to think because it’s an indication that this book will be a well-used volume in anyone’s kitchen.)

Author Mona Talbott was at the Zuppe book party, and though I didn’t have the opportunity to meet her, I enjoyed her remarks to the gathered guests. She’s certainly had some of the best jobs I can think of: working at Chez Panisse in Berkeley and at Eli’s Vinegar Factory and E.A.T. in New York; consulting for Hillary Clinton at her home in Chappaqua, New York; chef for photographer Annie Leibovitz; and designing a children’s gardening and cooking program for Bette Midler’s Restoration Project in New York. Since 2007, Talbott has been Executive Chef at the Rome Sustainable Food Project (her best job yet in my opinion!), a fabulous idea that was envisioned by Alice Waters in 2006. According to Talbott, the food served at the American Academy had traditionally been fairly mediocre; but according to the Academy’s website, now the RSFP “has transformed the community of the American Academy in Rome…Our food inspired by la cucina romana, Chez Panisse, and the collective experience of those working in the AAR kitchen, has created an edible narrative in our communal meals.” RSFP is a member of Rome’s Slow Food Community, and its menus reflect inspiration from the history of food in the Lazio region as well as from the culture of the AAR.

I am dying to visit the AAR (via Angelo Masina 5), and yes, I’m also dreaming about applying for the Visiting Artist and Scholars program so I may live there while working on a book about Rome. (There are tours of the Academy, by appointment, Monday through Friday; and there are lots of events that are open to the public – check the site, and note there are also events in its New York office, 7 East 60th Street / (212) 751.7200 / info@aarome.org.) Founded in 1894, the AAR is my kind of paradiso: officially, the mission of the Academy is to “foster the pursuit of advanced research and independent study in the fine arts and humanities” and it was chartered as a private institution by an act of Congress in 1905. But more appealingly the AAR offers a chance for American artists and scholars “to spend significant time interacting and working in one of the oldest, most cosmopolitan cities in the world. The richness of Rome’s artistic and cultural legacy and its power to stimulate creative thinking served as the initial impetus for the Academy’s founding.” In addition to the beautiful Villa Aurelia and its surrounding gardens pictured above, there is the Arthur and Janet C. Ross Library and the Photo Archive, plus there are more gardens – about eight additional acres – on the property.

Additionally, the opportunity to share RSFP meals from the Academy’s kitchen is enormously appealing. Brad Kessler, an AAR Fellow in 2009, wrote on the AAR site that “today in Rome, one never feels far removed from Latium’s agricultural roots. Shepherds still graze their sheep along the airport road in Ostia. Wild arugula and fennel thrive in the city parks. Capers spill and bloom from the Aurelian walls. The kitchen at the academy knits together the seemingly disparate worlds of scholarship and eating. Culture and agriculture. Art on the page (canvas or mosaics) and art on the table. In Rome these arts have never been far removed.” Kessler concludes by noting that every meal at the Academy was a kind of Cook’s Tour of the Roman Campagna, and “we learned to live there, as we did back home, inside a landscape.” Positively the next best thing to being at the Academy (or anyplace you’re dreaming about) is to eat like you’re there, and Zuppe, like Biscotti, will transport you to the top of the second-highest hill in Rome. (Stay tuned for the next book in the series: Pasta!)

Flowers in the Nolan Greenhouses, New York Botanical Garden / taken from the New York Botanical Garden website, http://www.nybg.org/.

Last weekend I saw the new 'Monet's Garden' exhibit at the New York Botanical Garden and it is a terrific show!  Just wonderful.  I forgot my camera (again), but the photos above feature some of the flowers that are in the garden beds inside the Conservatory.   I won't spoil it by telling you everything about the show but I will say that if you have visited Giverny, Monet's home outside of Paris in Normandy, you will really be impressed by what the NYBG staff has done.  If you've not yet been to Giverny, you'll really want to go!

Monet's house museum in Giverny, 75 kilometers west of Paris, welcomes approximately 500,000 visitors a year -- during the seven months it's open -- and is the second most visited site in Normandy.  "My garden is my most beautiful masterpiece" Monet famously said, and he wasn't just superficially interested in what was growing on his property.  "My garden is a slow work," he noted, "pursued with love and I do not deny that I am proud of it.  Forty years ago, when I established myself here, there was nothing but a farmhouse and a poor orchard...I bought the house and little by little I enlarged and organized it...I dug, planted, weeded, myself; in the evenings the children watered."

The NYBG's show includes an exhibit of two rarely seen Monet paintings and his palette in the Rondina Gallery; the Monet to Mallarme Poetry Walk in the Perennial Garden; photographs of Giverny by professional gardener and acclaimed photographer Elizabeth Murray, who helped to restore the Giverny gardens in the 1980s and who is the author of the 20th anniversary edition of Monet's Passion: Ideas, Inspiration and Insights from the Painter's Gardens, Pomegranate, 2010) in Ross Hall; and lots of special events (films, concerts, poetry readings, and hands-on art for kids).

The exhibit is curated by Dr. Paul Hayes Tucker, considered one of America's foremost authorities on Monet and Impressionism, and his Claude Monet: Life and Art (Yale University Press, 1998) has been a favorite book of mine.  Additionally, I highly recommend Monet or the Triumph of Impressionism by Daniel Wildenstein (Taschen, 2010); and Claude & Camille: A Novel of Monet by Stephanie  Cowell (Broadway, 2011) for companion reading.

'Monet's Garden' runs through the 21st of October -- don't miss it!

(Inner courtyard of the Four Seasons Hotel George V, Paris / photos by Arlene Lasagna, 2009)

Many cities in the world have what are known as 'palace hotels,' very grand, luxe, expensive, famous hotels that are often also historic (and in some cases were really palaces at one time).  Palace hotels have typically been host to the world's most noteworthy and wealthy guests; some have restaurants that have earned Michelin stars; and some have played major roles in the history of a place, which is why I seek them out.  While some seasoned travelers value the service and amenities of palace hotels -- which are perfectly legitimate requests and which are sometimes not as good as they should be -- my first approach to a palace hotel has far more to do with its history, how closely it's integrated into the destination, and if it exudes a true sense of place.

Paris has a handful of palace hotels, including the Four Seasons Hotel George V pictured above (31 avenue George-V, 8th arrondissement / www.fourseasons.com/paris).  As I note in my Paris book, the original George V hotel opened in 1928 and served as General Eisenhower's headquarters during the liberation of Paris in 1944.  Aside from the Four Seasons legendary customer service, its spa, Rolls-Royce Phantom for airport transfers and guests' use, Michelin-starred Le Cinq, kids' programs, and famous concierge Adrian Moore (referred to by Women's Wear Daily as "Paris's hottest food blogger" and whose blog, http://www.adrianmoore.blogspot.com/ is a great resource), I tell visitors to Paris to stop by and see the George V even if they have no intention of ever staying there because of its Art Deco facade and the flower creations by Jeff Leatham -- he and his staff created the holiday theme in the marble courtyard in the photos above, which were taken in December of 2009 (see terrific photos of the George V lobby on Jeff's site, http://www.jeffleatham.com/).    

According to the French Minister of Tourism, in 2010, there are only four other hotels in Paris that qualify for the Distinction Palace recognition:  Le Plaza Athenee, Le Bristol, Le Park Hyatt Paris Vendome, and Le Meurice (it's hard to beat the Meurice for history: it's the oldest palace hotel in Paris, opening in 1835, and, though it's not often noted, it was Nazi headquarters during the Second World War).  These five have "exceptional qualities that embody French standards of excellence and contribute to enhancing the image of France throughout the world."  With all due respect to this new ranking, it would be hard to deny similar standards of excellence at the Ritz, the Crillon, Fouquet's Barriere, Royal Monceau, the Mandarin Oriental, and the Shangri-La. 

There are two terrific articles in the current issue of wonderful France Magazine (one of my most favorite publications) that I recommend anyone interested in Paris hotels to read: "Palace Revolution" and "The P-Listers," both by Tina Isaac.  In her first piece Isaac writes that the top hotel managers she spoke with agree that "the palace touch is more an art than a science."  Francisco Garcia, marketing director of the Four Seasons George V, notes that "few cities in the world have the historical heritage that Paris does; it still has to shine like it did 100 years ago, it still has to have magic...Anyone with means can buy expensive stuff.  The culture of going above and beyond is what is priceless, and that can't be taught.  You either have it or you don't."  Isaac concludes by saying that "now more than ever, palaces are in the business of dream fulfillment, whether through gastronomy, art or fashion.  Indeed, so much is happening within the new palace walls these days that making it out the door into the city beyond is practically a footnote to a Paris vacation."

By any measure, staying at one of Paris's Palace hotels is very expensive, but the hotels' bars, cafes, and restaurants welcome everyone, not just guests staying there, and even a short visit is a memorable Paris experience.    

There aren't many people of whose lives I am envious, but Rosamond Bernier's is one of them. If you've read my Paris book, you already know that I had the supreme pleasure of meeting Bernier, on several occasions, during the summer of 1980, which was the summer between my junior and senior year of college (I won't recount it here as the story is a little long, but you can read it in full in my book -- it serves as the introduction to a piece by Bernier, which was her introduction to the excellent book Paris by her husband, John Russell).

Some of you may know Bernier from the lectures she gave for many years at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, or you may know the magazine she co-founded in Paris in 1955, L'Oeil, one of the most distinguished and noteworthy monthly art publications of the 20th century. Still others may know that Bernier was made an officer of the French Order of Arts and Letters in 1980, and that she wrote for Vogue and the former HG magazine.

All of these are reasons to be impressed but not necessarily envious. The reasons for envy are revealed in her book published late last year: Some of My Lives: A Scrapbook Memoir (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux). The truly extraordinary life she has lived -- filled as it's been with fabulous experiences and people -- was surely partially shaped at a young age as her father, Samuel Rosenbaum, then head of the Board of Directors of the Philadelphia orchestra, routinely invited visiting conductors and soloists over for dinner many Sunday evenings. "I was brought up in a bath of music," Bernier writes, and she also notes that "The Philadelphia Orchestra was my extended family." Among the many people she met in the music world were Leopold Stokowski, Otto Klemperer, Nathan Milstein, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Aaron Copland, Leonard Bernstein, and Eugene Ormandy (did you know his real name was Jeno Blau and that he took his stage name from the ship on which he'd traveled to America, the Normandy?)

Once you've met people in the music world it's not a great leap to then meet people in the art world, and Bernier has known many, many (which is to say practically all) of the greatest artists of the twentieth century. And she didn't just know them in a superficial way. Take note:

*once she'd become friends with Matisse, he told her he was going to design a chapel, and Bernier wrote the first story to appear anywhere about the Sainte Marie du Rosaire chapel in Vence.
*she was the first person from the outside world to see what works Picasso was creating at the Chateau Grimaldi in Antibes, and after the inaugural issue of L'Oeil was published, Picasso gave her a gift: he sent her to Barcelona to see his sister, Dona Lola de Vilato, who had a large body of his work that was completely unknown; none of it had ever been published. Bernier was the first person Picasso had ever sent to his family, and she was able to publish a number of early sketches, paintings of family members and friends, and a group of paintings dating from 1917 in the fourth issue of L'Oeil (most of these works are now in the collection of the Picasso Museum in Barcelona). The issue was met with international acclaim.
*When she told Miro that she was working on an article about Barcelona and asked for his suggestions of what to feature, he offered to be her personal tour guide. So Bernier and the photographer Brassai were led "up and down and all around the town" for a week with Miro.

But much of Bernier's life was spent in Paris, and I think it is not a stretch to say that the name Rosamond Bernier is actually synonymous with Paris. If you love Paris as much as I do, you will rejoice in reading Bernier's memoir.  'Scrapbook' is an accurate word in the title as Bernier writes in rather short chapters and  simply tells story after story, sharing experience after experience as well as photos (all of these are to die for, by the way). Bernier was often in the right place at the right time, but she had (and still does) loads of elegance, grace, curiosity, and intelligence, plus she's kind and humble, all of which endeared her to others. All the artists she came to know had a great deal of respect for her, and they treasured her friendship.

[And the photograph on the book jacket? Of course, there's a story about it: Bernier and a photographer, Erwin Blumenfeld, were working on a story about Proust and they were in Normandy on August 15th, the national holiday of Ascension when there is not a hotel room to be found unless you have made a prior reservation. Bernier and Blumfeld had not, but when they were discussing what to do in the restaurant of the auberge Guillaume le Conquerant (a favorite of Proust), the manager overheard them and offered that Rosamond could sleep upstairs in the Madame de Sevigne museum -- her bed was on display -- and as long as Blumfeld slept in the car and Rosamond promised to be out by 6 a.m. the manager would be happy to help. When Blumfeld woke Bernier up promptly at six, he snapped the photo and gave a print of it to her as a souvenir.]

Bernier's beautiful book Matisse Picasso Miro As I Knew Them (Knopf, 1991), with 350 illustrations, photographs, and reproductions, is terrific to read together with her memoir. A few of the anecdotes that originally appeared in this book are repeated in her memoir, but it is a wholly different experience to look at the artworks mentioned while reading Bernier's stories about them.

In every chapter of Some of My Lives there is some interesting fact or detail that leaves you saying "wow" or "what must that have been like?" or, in my case, "I so want to be Rosamond Bernier." She has a gift for putting the people she's writing about in the spotlight, but when you're finished reading about them you realize that she is equally as interesting as her subjects.  The Paris Bernier experienced in her younger years really doesn't exist anymore, and she is keenly aware of that. She's also aware that she was very fortunate to be in Paris at a time when the city attracted such a hit parade of talented people in the arts.  Perhaps someone else within this artistic circle could have written a similar memoir of these years, but I think Bernier is the perfect chronicler as she was an "insider" who was also an "outsider."

I love this book and I didn't want it to end, and I will keep pulling it off my shelf to reread certain chapters. I would also be a bit disingenuous if I didn't admit to being more than a little pleased that Rosamond's Foreword to John Russell's Paris appears not only in my book but here in her memoir, on page 271.  I believe that the essays and articles I select for my books in The Collected Traveler series are worthwhile, and it is gratifying when this is confirmed.  Bernier's Foreword deserves to be read and recounted many times over, as does her splendid memoir.

'The Triumph of Fame' desco da parto (commemorative birth tray) by Giovanni di Ser Giovanni Guidi [called Scheggia], 1406-1486 / in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, purchased in memory of Sir John Pope-Hennessy.

Do you know about Slow Art Day?  Founded in 2009, it's one of the coolest ideas ever: one day every year (in 2012 it's this Sunday the 28th!), people all over the world go to museums and galleries to look at a (very) small number of pre-selected works for five to ten minutes each, then they meet over lunch and talk about what they saw and experienced.  I am in love with this idea, which you might have guessed if you've read the Introduction to my Tuscany and Umbria book, in which I mention the Stendhal Syndrome.  The Syndrome is the name given for French novelist Stendhal, who felt physically sick after he visited Santa Croce, and refers to being completely overwhelmed by your surroundings (my translation: seeing and doing way too much).  Visitors to Florence who arrive with too long a list of must-sees are prime candidates for the syndrome, and author and Italian expert Fred Plotkin counsels against falling into this trap in his foreword to Claudio Gatti's Florence in Detail by advising, "Like it or not, one must adopt a policy of 'Poco, ma buono' (loosely translated as 'Do less, but do it really well') to experience what Florence has to offer.  A mad dash through a gallery will leave you with only fleeting impressions.  Spend ten minutes in front of one painting and you will see remarkable things that a two-minute look could not reveal; spend an hour in front of that same painting and your life will be changed.  To really pause and reflect, whether in front of a sculpture or a dish of gelato, is to find the presence of art and genius in all things."

So, naturally, Slow Art Day is hugely appealing to me!  Though there are venues that are officially participating in this celebration as I've described above, this doesn't mean you can't go to any venue you prefer and look at a work of art for as long as you want.  I have decided that I'm going to The Metropolitan Museum of Art to look at the beautiful desco da parto above.  I haven't been to see it in a few years, and if you have a copy of my first Tuscany and Umbria book (this was actually entitled Central Italy: Tuscany and Umbria) you may recall that I wrote about this in the introduction to the article 'Lorenzo the Magnificent' by Derek Wilson (originally appearing in ItalyItaly magazine, February/March 1998).

Giovanni di Ser Giovanni was the younger brother of Masaccio (whose frescoes adorn the Carmine chapel in the Oltrarno neighborhood of Florence) and the tradition of birth trays is derived from the custom of presenting sweetmeats to new mothers.  The image on the front of the tray (above) is, according to the Met's website, taken from Boccaccio's L'Amorosa visione (book six, 1342)  but this narrative was repeated by Francesco Petrarch in his Trionfi, and the motif is more commonly associated with Petrarch's name.  Again according to the Met, this subject was unusual for a birth tray as the most common themes were birth scenes or the marriage of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba.  "The birth of Lorenzo was viewed as an event of signal importance and the birth tray was plainly conceived as an augury of his future accomplishments," states the Met, and this stunning tray is an object of unique historical importance: Lorenzo kept it in his private quarters in the Medici palace in Florence, and it is believed to be the largest and most opulent birth tray known to survive with its original engaged molding.

The reverse side of the tray features the coats of arms of the Medici and Tornabuoni families (Piero de' Medici married Lucrezia Tornabuoni in 1444, and Lorenzo was their first son, born in 1449).

When I first saw this tray, I was truly in awe, for its beauty, but also because the imagery suggests such a promising life for a little boy who would indeed fulfill such enormous expectations. 

According to one study, published in the Empirical Studies of the Arts, museumgoers spend an average of 17 seconds looking at an individual painting.  I hope you'll use Slow Art Day as an excuse to spend longer than that in front of any work of art you choose, whether it's this Sunday or any other day. Remember, to borrow a phrase from this movement, "Slow down, you look too fast" and another from Henry David Thoreau, "It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see."               

If you live in the New York Metropolitan Area and you are a Francophile, I hope you had a chance to see the Orchid Show at the New York Botanical Garden -- the exhibit closed yesterday and I (finally) saw it on Saturday.  Frenchman Patrick Blanc was the guest of honor at the Orchid Show this year, and if you don't already know he is internationally renowned for the invention of something called the vertical garden, which is one of the most amazing creations I've ever seen. 

Blanc devised a way to grow particular plants horizontally, without soil, indoors or outdoors, on surfaces of varying sizes.  The concept is hard to visualize unless you're looking at it (the photo above, from a revised and updated edition of Blanc's book, really doesn't do the creation justice), and I apologize that I'm not including any photographs of the exhibit's vertical walls in this post but I (stupidly) didn't bring my camera to the NYBG on Saturday and the photos on Blanc's website -- http://www.verticalgardenpatrickblanc.com/ -- are protected (there are lots of other photos on the Web but I feel it's right to use them unless I can credit the photographer).  But check out Blanc's site and be prepared to be amazed!  See also a fascinating article about Blanc and his work in the Spring 2012 issue of France Magazine.  As writer Amy Serafin notes in her article, "A single wall can boast hundreds of species in infinite shades of green, with different shapes and patterns.  Each plant is selected to suit that particular environment."

In Paris alone there are more than 25 vertical gardens, including at the Musee du Quai Branley, BHV Homme, the Cartier Foundation, Six Senses Spa, and the Club Med offices.  I would say that going to see one is most definitely vaut le detour!  But if you can't get to Paris for a while, the new book mentioned above might suffice until you can: The Vertical Garden: From Nature to the City (Patrick Blanc, Norton, April 2012).  Or, check out the Patrick Blanc projects in Miami, Charlotte, Racine, Tacoma, New York City, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.  Fabulous!