Chic Camping, Cabanas, Outdoors-y Living Styles (Cont'd.) and grilled pineapple with brown sugar rum sauce bonus recipe

Article Continued From Original Post, Click Here To Return And Grilled Pineapple With Brown Sugar Rum Sauce Bonus Recipe

---

Darling, Please Put Up The Tibetan Tent

The Tibetan Tent And Mount Everest - Sandy Hill has been climbing since she was a teenager, and with her Everest ascent she became only the second American woman to have climbed the Seven Summits.


In Chris Casson Madden's book,  "A Room Of Her Own," Sandy Hill is profiled for her tent private sanctuary and her accomplishments.

Sandy Hill is a former cable television executive, contributing editor at Vogue, and uses her Tibetan tent located on her Connecticut home property to unwind and work. For more info on her climbing accomplishments, click here.

---

Darling, I'll Be Out In The Bungalow Doing Yoga

These tent/houses from Sweet Water Bungalow rock!

• They're hugely attractive
• You can put one just about anywhere
• In comfortable weather it can serve as a guest house, or get-away
• Otherwise it can be used as a yoga retreat, studio or whatever your space needs require. 

Can you get over these?

They run about $25 per square foot (not including the platform), the Sonoma Bungalow runs about $4,700.

Their lack of insulation makes this a poor choice for someone looking for a year-round home.

To see more photos of these sweet bungalows, click here.

---

Shall We Sleep In The Tree house Tonight Okay, Meet You Up There.

Chic Luxury Tree House 100' Up In Banyan Tree, $240/Night

Check out this hideaway fort almost 100 feet up in a banyan tree, among the chattering monkeys.

• The tree house is more chic than shabby
• Has comfy double beds and a full bathroom
• At breakfast time, guests call down like a cuckoo, and omelettes and baked bananas are hoisted up by a pulley system

Doubles from $240 per night, including all meals, at Green Magic Nature Resort.

---

Anthropologie And Chic Cabanas For Glamping

Glamping How To's: Think cocktail tumbler instead of canteen, mood light instead of flashlight,

sleeping oasis instead of sleeping bed.

The  80" H  72" W  38" D Sumatra Cabana is a fun example of Anthropology's outdoor entertaining and chic camping style. See both styles Sumatra Cabana colors here

---

Camp Stool (For Your Tent Or Home) In Vibrant Peony-Print Seat And Brightly Colored Frame - So Camp Chic!

A camp stool that is so-o-o-o-o---- cute for your home or for camping, $23.50 from Pearl River.

Check this out - "The Glamping Book" with MaryJane.  This book is the gotta have it book of the year.  It's full of glorious glamping photos, great tips for how to camp, travel and be a road warrior in style. From the original "Glamper" Mary Jane Butters, an outdoors woman, an entrepreneur, a lover of the land and an all around woman that we love. This book is a classic. You will love it and it makes the perfect present, too.

---

---

Grilled Pineapple With Brown

Sugar Rum Sauce Bonus Recipe

This dessert comes together in minutes. The buttery, sweet sauce is brightened by a squeeze of fresh lemon juice and made more "adult" with a splash of dark rum. Make a virgin sauce by leaving out the rum or get down to business by adding another splash or two. Either way, the warm sauce turns the edges of the vanilla ice cream into rivulets that spill over the stacked grilled fruit.

Yield:  4 Servings
Serving Size:  2 pineapple rings plus 1/4 cup sauce (plus any leftover sauce)

Ingredients:

The Sauce:

• 1/4 cup (4 tablespoons) unsalted butter
• 2/3 cup brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons all purpose flour
• 1 cup half and half
• 3 tablespoons dark rum
• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

The Pineapple:

• Canola oil, for brushing the grill
• 1 4 pound pineapple, skin removed, cut into 8 (3/4 inch) rounds, core removed

Vanilla Ice Cream

Instructions:

1. The sauce:  in a large skillet or medium sauce set over medium heat, melt the butter. Whisk in the brown sugar and flour. Cook, whisking constantly, for about 2 minutes to eliminate the taste of the raw flour.
2. Pour in the half and half and whisk in rum, fresh lemon juice and vanilla extract. Keep the sauce warm over the low heat until ready to use, whisking occasionally.
3. The pineapple:  preheat grill to medium-high heat. Brush grill with canola oil. Lay the pineapple on the grill and cook, about 5 minutes, turning halfway through cooking.
4. Remove the pineapple from the heat and serve with ice cream and the brown sugar rum sauce.

Recipe From "Cookin' Canuck"

---

For more chic camping, click here to view my 'Cabanas and Outdoor Entertaining' Pinterest Board 

Robert Doisneau, Famous "The Kiss" Photo & His Frank & Humorous Depictions of 1950's French Life

In Robert Doisneau's (Doisneau is pronounced dwano) famous photograph, “Le Baiser de l’Hotel de Ville, Paris, 1950,” a couple is passionately lost in kiss, one that transcends time or place (although they are in front of the infamous Paris Hotel de Ville) and they are oblivious to the pedestrians streaming around them.
Something Beautiful editor always loved Doisneau photography, especially the "French Kiss."
As a French photographer he became noted for his frank and often humorous depictions of Parisian street life. Robert Doisneau was one of France's most popular and prolific reportage photographers. He was known for his modest, playful, and ironic images of amusing juxtapositions, mingling social classes, and eccentrics in contemporary Paris streets and cafes. Doisneau has written:

"The marvels of daily life are exciting;
no movie director can arrange
the unexpected that you find in the street."

---

You can order this fine art photo, often called the "French Kiss," from Art.com by clicking here.
Art.com carries over seventy other fine art pieces by Doisneau, click here to peruse more (one includes Pablo Picasso as his subject). interior designers for the Something Beautiful Journal use Doisneau artwork.

French Bistro - Romantic Custom Of Enjoying Moments

The French have just about perfected the art of 'eating to live.' Indulging in lingering at the table after a fine dinner or over a simple glass of wine in a bistro at noon. Something Beautiful idea is creating a French Bistro after visiting Paris Deep in good conversation, perhaps they are combining eating while celebrating the meal's fine ingredients, the gifted cooks who prepared it and moreover - luxuriating in the cozy, informal ambiance.

The traditional French bistro is an informal restaurant, but one bursting with the character of its individual neighborhood. It often become an ideal place for a glass of wine or spirits, a dessert - and a quiet corner in which to read the paper as the world parades by.

Recreate This Custom In Your Home Or Garden:

This romantic custom of a bistro type eating arrangement for the small but delightful meal can be brought into your own home. Gather together a small table and a couple chairs in a quaint, quiet small area. Be sure to provide character to your bistro setting by the addition of some items such as a small vase of lavendar or other things that are special to you -that provide charm. Consider a market umbrella to provide shade, wine, a plate of cheeses and crackers or even a lovely container of lemonade with sugar cookies.Something Beautiful encourages enjoying your own French Bistro.
These are ways you can encourage the tradition of stealing away moments of the day or hours of tkhe evening for talk and laughter with family members and or friends, or a place to idle away with a book or a newspaper. If you are lucky enough to be able to set it up outside or with a view of your garden, it becomes a venue for consuming the sights, scents and sounds of both your garden and home.

Paris Ritz - Something Beautiful Journal Visits The Ritzy Paris Hotel

Paris, France has been referred to as a museum without walls and I love to think how the City's beauty was even more enhanced when Cesar Ritz in 1898 built the Paris Ritz Hotel. Bearing the name of its founder, the bright jewel that is the Paris Ritz was built within walking distance of the Louvre. At 15 Place Vendôme, the Hotel has become perhaps Paris's most iconic address, Coco Chanel called it home for 37 years.
Something Beautiful Journal visited iconic Paris Ritz hotel.
This building is full of history. In the pre-World War II years a struggling, unknown Ernest Hemingway would save up enough money to have one drink a week in the bar of the Ritz - that same bar is now named after him.

As a designer, I love this: Cesar Ritz's wish was to:

"make the visitor feel
as if he were in
an elegant private home,"

be it Coco Chanel, princes and other royalty or us more-everyday, world travelers. How Mr. Ritz's efforts worked! People flocked to the Paris Ritz and despite wars and passages of time, the Paris Ritz carries on. The likes of Coco Chanel, Marcel Proust, the gifted French writer, and of course the now-accomplished, famous Ernest Hemingway are among the many, many prestigious, who called the Paris Ritz home.

The Ritz overlooks the gardens and rooftops of Paris or the rue Cambon. From the book, " The Paris Ritz" by Mark Boxer, it is clear that Cesar Ritz's wishes have been fulfilled. "Nothing has been overlooked in an effort to provide the maximum in practical comfort. The bathrooms attached to suites or even to single bedrooms afford a pleasure difficult to define. "

The Ritz is proud of its ability to provide prompt service, night and day; every client's bedside table is furnished not only with a row of buttons to summon a waiter or valet or chambermaid, but also a sophisticated telephone system adapted to the needs of the international businessman or government official.

Today, the hotel that Cesar Ritz built continues to offer the level of service and intimacy between clients and staff that is really what gives the Ritz "cachet." A stay at the Ritz may be old hat for princes, as well as for kings of commerce and art, but for the commoners among us the Paris Ritz provides a taste of life as we had always imagined it could be.

---

To make reservations: http://www.ritzparis.com/home_ritz/home.asp?show_all=1

The book, The Paris Ritz, is a wonderful read on this remarkable building.Something Beautiful Journal found Paris Ritz its favorite luxurious hotel.

How To Do French Style: Homes, Gardens, Living, Beautifully (Cont'd.)

Article continued from main post, click here to return.



The French have a way of doing things that is just about perfect and is seldom pretentious.



France is a tradition, a romance,  a style. Some more formal and others less so, but style is always present. Let me dish on how France celebrates this abundance.

As shown at left, even today on the streets of Paris, one still observes the prototypical Frenchmen wearing their berets, bicycling along and carrying baguettes under their arms.

And even today the Frenchwomen go about their business - wearing their everyday scarves - tied ever-so chic.  (Serious style tip.)

These small things are part of the art of daily living, in France.

---

French Jardins (Gardens) Formal And Informal.

France is a country of plentiful gardens.

The Formal Gardens Of France - A Pride Of The Country

The Jardin de Bagatelle Paris's Bois de Boulogne is an excellant example of a French regal, formal garden. Click here to see more about these creations.  They are rigorously designed and meant to be promenaded - they're a pride of the country and open to the public.

The Village At Versailles also contains a 'French Jardin'.  

Marie Antoinette had a need to get away from the etiquette ruled, ceremonial life of Versailles.

In a corner of the Versailles's vast acreage, Antoinette ordered the construction of Le Hameau  (The Hamlet), a fairy-tale version of a country village.

It is said she was bored and looking for amusement, wanting a retreat from the rigors of court life. But Antoinette was also responding to the changing tastes in landscape design as well and the desire to also enjoy more informal gardens was a driving force behind the Village at Versailles.

Marie Antoinette is the only queen to have

" . . . imposed her personal taste on Versailles.

Sweeping away the old court and its traditions,
she insisted on living as she wished."

Read more about this Queen and the Le Hameau, The Hamlet, by Clicking here.  (France obviously had a love hate relationship with this still popular cultural icon, but her Hamlet stands today as absolutely one of the most beautiful places in the world.)

Informal Greenery, Glimpses In The French Villages, The Everyday People

In the villages, the people's gardens are simply, modestly perfect. Over time a very caring gardener or two (or more) have tended these vines and espaliers (the word espalier itself is French).

Tending to gardens is a celebration of life in France.

Flower Shops

No village is without one, nor any Paris street - the flower shop on the corner where a bouquet is as easy to find as a loaf of bread. France is a land of flowers. They are inexpensive enough to be given to almost anyone for almost anything or to buy for yourself by the armful without it being any special occasion at all. 

Les fleurs are a piece of the fiber of French life.

---

France, A' La Maison (French Transl., In The Home)

A stately, French grand chateau is exactly decorated - not overly so - and filled with light and serenity. Below left, the two matching topiaries demand attention, but they matter much to this French homeowner. This is one of the ways of the French, attention to small detail, details that are exceptional to this homeowner.

Chateau or cottage, French homes are personal expressions of style. The editors of Victoria Magazine published a book a few years back entitled, The Heart of France and it beautifully shares much about this gracious country, including how the French people view their homes. From that book, "A home for the French is as personal an expression as a signature - and just as refined. These are not houses to which there is easy access. An invitation to someone's home is a true mark of intimacy; even entertaining friends often takes place in a restaurant. Such houses, grand or ordinary, large or small, are treasuries, holding fast family memories, illuminating family life, and done up in individual style."

I acknowledge it takes effort to develop the taste and exquisite style. As we develop beautiful interiors we're developing beauty that appeals to us, to our senses, it should speak to those who live in the home. A final tip, in France, personal taste and expression are paramount.

Don't be afraid to show off your style and taste; and as the French do, make this part of your daily art of living. 

---

Chicken Fricassee With Tarragon Bonus Recipe (Cooking

French)

Fricassee is a classic French stew of chicken and vegetables, cooked in white wine and finished with a touch of cream. The light tarragon-infused sauce begs to be sopped up with crusty bread.

Serves:  4
Total Time:  50 Minutes

Ingredients:

• 2-1/2 lbs. bone-in chicken pieces, skin removed
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• Freshly ground pepper, to taste
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
• 5 large shallots, finely chopped (about 1 cup)
• 1 cup dry white wine
• 1-1/2 cup reduced-sodium chicken broth
• 1 medium carrot, peeled and thinly sliced
• 1 lb. button mushrooms, wiped clean, halved or quartered
• 4 sprigs fresh tarragon, plus 4 teaspoons chopped (see Substitution Note)
• 1 tablespoon cornstarch mixed with 1 tablespoon water
• 1/4 cup reduced fat sour cream
• 2 teaspoons Dijon mustard

Directions:

1. Season chicken with salt and pepper. Dredge in flour, shaking off excess. Heat oil in a large deep skillet or Dutch oven.  Add chicken, cook until browned, about 4 minutes per side. Transfer to a plate, atop a napkin.
2. Add shallots to the pan; cook, stirring, until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add wine and scrape up any browned bits. Simmer until reduced slightly, about 3 minutes.
3. Add broth; bring to a simmer. Return the chicken to the pan; add carrot, mushrooms and tarragon sprigs. Reduce heat to low, cover and simmer gently until the chicken is tender and no longer pink in the center, about 20 minutes.
4. Transfer the chicken to a plate; cover with foil to keep warm. Discard tarragon sprigs. Increase heat to medium-high. Simmer the cooking liquid for 2 to 3 minutes to intensify flavor. Add cornstarch mixture and cook, stirring, until slightly thickened, about 2 minutes. Whisk in sour cream, mustard and chopped tarragon. Serve immediately.

Tips & Techniques

Substitution Note:  You can use 1-1/2 teaspoons dried tarragon instead of fresh. Add it all at once in Step 3.

Recipe from EatingWell.com

---

 

SIGN UP FOR MONTHLY NEWSLETTER

Online Form Builder