WINNER: A Call to Write: Golden Paris

I'm so excited to send out these warm golden Eiffel Tower cards to this month's winner. Your responses opened my mind to what a fantasy life could look like - islands, farms, places close to home and near the ocean.  Maybe we will all find ourselves in our dream worlds for a time - and may they be as wonderful as we imagine! 

The comment I chose as winner comes from Linda Kindlon (I wrote about her baked goods two winters ago, read it here). I returned from my vacation on Cape Cod last month and one of my favorite things about being there is finding amazing little bakeries serving warm pies, stellar breakfast pastries or to-go chowers and bisques. I never imagined the lives of the people baking up these treats, so I was happy Linda got me thinking about them in a new way... 

             I would love to be baking somewhere in cape cod in a quaint bakery or cafe :)


Linda, please send me the address you would like your stationary and stamps to be mailed to theculinarylibrarian[at]gmail[dot]com! 

A Call To Write: Golden Paris

This month’s giveaway is a bit tardy. I spent a week on Cape Cod this month and allowed myself to push back August’s giveaway until now. Hopefully you’ll think it has worked out well for both of us…

While on vacation I made sure to pack a few books for beach reading. The weather was a bit windy and I didn’t really have one good beach day of pure reading this year (I’m used to having at lease two). One day it rained. We’ve gone to Cape Cod most summers since I was very little, and whenever it rains- we shop. This year we changed it up and went shopping in Harwich and Orleans later in the day. As you may guess, I love to hit up all the bookstores I can find when on vacation. There are always fun local authors and regional cookbooks. This year I found myself picking up Paris, My Sweet at Main Street Books in Orleans. I’d had my eye on it and after flipping through it, I felt like it might be the vacation read I was meant to discover. I ended up whipping through it in just a few days. Amy Thomas is passionate about sweets, Paris, New York and thinking about her love life – I could instantly relate to her.

After being back in New York for a few days and having started seeking out some of her NYC recommendations (mainly Vosges chocolates which is right by where I work – I’m not obsessed with their Verde Caramels) I was feeling wistful for Paris. Hopped into Paper Source for my monthly stamp searching ritual and found an excellent Eiffel Tower stamp. Et, voila! This month’s giveaway was born:

The embossing powder I used on these is called "Queen's Gold" and I'm a little obsessed with it! I love the clean metallic gold it creates. As for stamps, this month's winner will get a smattering of Forever Stamps from my collection. 

Now the question. Amy loves Paris, studied there in college, dreams about visiting it, fantasizes about living there... I do the same. So I want to know:

Where is your fantasy home? 

If you could live anywhere new - even just for a year - where would you choose? 

As usual if I have more than 10 entries I will randomly choose a winner, otherwise with 10 or fewer I will choose my favorite response. After only one week (September 4th) I will choose and announce the winner on The Culinary Librarian. The winner will need to email me the address they would like me to send the stationary and stamps within 48 hours. If the winner doesn't respond I will choose a new recipient and announce the new winner on blog. If you are having trouble commenting in the comments section, email your response with the subject line “Golden Paris” to theculinarylibrarian[at]gmail.com by 11:59pm EST on September 3rd.

WINNER: A Call to Write: Sirens and Lighthouses

This month's giveaway may be my favorite stationary/stamp combo to date - I LOVE the glittery mermaids and the lighthouse stamps remind me of my mom and aunts who love lighthouses. As we didn't get ten comments, it is up to me to choose the winner. 

The comment that spoke to me did so due to personal vanity. One of my favorite physical qualities is my hair. Thanks to its natural thickness and wave and the fact I've never, ever dyed it - I have locks to brag about. Mermaids are known for their amazing hair and Willy D hit upon how they get it:

           Mermaids are the children of the sea, and would never eat their siblings. Mermaids 

          eat kelp and wakame which accounts for their lustrous hair and shiny scales!

Willy, please email me the address you would like me to send your stationary and stamps: theculinarylibrarian[at]gmail.com.

Bastille Day 2013!

Doesn’t it feel like summer is whizzing past on super speed? August is just around the corner and I feel like the season is just getting going. Regardless of time, one of the highlights of my summer is always the FIAF Bastille Day celebration on East 60th Street! I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to attend the festivities every summer I’ve lived in New York.

Unlike other street fairs (of which there are many in this city) FIAF’s Bastille Day celebration is strictly French. My regular company (my friends Kyle and Patrique from my study abroad in Paris) were absent from the festival this year, but my mom finally made it down from Albany to join in the fun! 

This year I was able to see the festivities from a new perspective. I can easily see and enjoy that all the food, treats, books and other goodies being sold at the booths lining the streets have a French influence in a genuine capacity. A few of my friends walked the event and didn’t necessarily see how French it was. When I see Le Souk restaurant I know that Moroccan food is French food because it is a francophone country, that the long lines for crepes are justified, in a way, because no – you can’t get a walk-up crepe in New York like you can in Paris. The essence of the entire event screams France to me and it is what I love the most about it. Even though I don’t leave the streets of New York, or even the Upper East Side to get to it, I am transported by scents, the sight of tons of macarons and canelés, and by the in-and-out sounds of French conversations in my ears. To have all of this at once is rare and special to me.

A Call to Write: Sirens and Lighthouses

Summer is in sweaty, full swing in the city and I have my thoughts on crystal clear swimming pools, waves breaking on the beach and cooling off with cocktails. Luckily I will experience all of these things in the next two months. As August approaches I have vacation on my mind. When I was little my family went to Cape Cod every summer for a week or two. The rough, cold Atlantic ocean is a comforting place for me and filled with happy memories. When I think about the ocean my mind wanders to those mythical creatures I learned about when I was only 2 or 3 years old at the movies: mermaids. With mermaids and their siren calls to sailors I thought how perfectly paired green glitter mermaid stationary and the newest USPS Lighthouse stamps would be.

So here they are!:

It may be hard to tell in the photo, but those mermaids are indeed embossed in shimmering green glitter. 10 cards and 10 stamps just waiting to swim out to a whimsical friend, a seaside relative, or maybe an in-land dreamer.