Bistro find! Alert! Alert!

When you've lived in Paris long enough, you know how to recognize a life-changing bistro. You don't necessarily need to be told about it beforehand, or rely on word-of-mouth before trying it out. And you certainly don't need to have read about it first. Sometimes, you go for a walk in any old particular direction, as one tends to do in Paris, and there it is, just waiting for you. Your perfect bistro, sitting off in a corner in the most improbable place.

My perfect bistro is Le Petit Sud-Ouest on the humdrum Rue Duban. I just spotted it today. Sometimes you can tell by the build-up of stickers from serious guides and defunct magazines. Sometimes you can tell from the wear and tear of the tiled floors, or the patina of the tables. Other times, it's the menu that pulls you in, that tempts you toward a table. In this case, it was all of the above, although I have to admit that any place serving a terrine de creme caramel has got to be quite serious. This restaurant is Basque, so that means lots of duck, terrines, foie gras, outrageously unhealthy salads and lots of serious meat cooked with sheer reverence. Although main dishes range from 19 euros to 35 euros, they advertise a prix fixe menu for 26 euros (including a digestif!), which certainly sounds like a steal. I will check back and report once I find out if it is.

Mamma Mil'a

It's amazing how Christmas really gets you in the spirit of wanting. The brightly lit windows, the sparkling trees, the hustle and bustle and strangers in their finery- you walk around the city to the rythym of "I want, I want, I want!" This place is going on my to-do list. Apparently, it opened this summer and specializes in southwestern French cooking, which could or could not mean "Basque". They organize degustations on Wednesday nights of lesser-known vintages from Languedoc, Bourgogne and Gascogne, accompanied with tapas. I usually hate tapas, I find the concept sort of annyoing- but this place looks darling enough to make me reconsider.

Heimstone sweet home

I had never heard nor seen of this label before I had to kill some time while my husband was waiting in a very (very!) long line at Poilane to buy a pain au chocolat. Wow- I was impressed. It's rare to see clothing with an edge in Paris that you can actually pull off without looking like you've had an unsuccessful career in the theater. I'm not sure if I can personally pull off Hemstone's brass designs, but I want to try. I feel like their pieces are the exact type of thing you yearn for when you want to do something out of the box, but you're not ready to try a new haircut. I love (love, love!) the Tina and Nico dresses. And you can't help but fall for their video lookbooks. So irreverent! So fun!

Photo by StyleServer

I want to cuddle with Fausto Santini

Futuristic, colorful, flexible, tactile- that's how I'd describe the pumps and bags at Fausto Santini. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I have the distinct impression that my life would be remarkably different if I owned the "Maggiolinaprugna" in orange, or the "Reflexcedro" in green. I also think my husband's life would be vastly improved if I had discovered the "14Caffé" wallet many, many days ago, instead of on Christmas Eve. Oh well! Vivre les soldes, right?

Photo by Camille Hudson Shoes.

The best pasta in Paris

Yes, their prices have gone up (like everyone else's), yes, the waiters are all unnervingly handsome, and yes, it's always (always) crowded- but with pasta cooked so perfectly and such an attractive clientele, who the hell cares?

Little Italy Caffé has been one of my favorite addresses in Paris for five years now, and I haven't had a bad dish, yet. In order for me to forgive the fact that they're selling a 4 euro bottle of Lambrusco for 22 euros, the food better be pretty damn good- and trust me, it is. Don't attempt to get in with more than four people and be prepared to wait in front of the bathroom- the only place in the rectangular-shaped restaurant where you won't be in the way. Order anything tomato based with speck in it- to die for. The tiramisu is delish as well. I've never ordered anything besides pasta, and none of my friends have, either. The pasta is hearty enough to be a main meal, and most of the dishes cost between 10 and 14 euros. Dress cute and come hungry. Ciao.

Basque in good food

You know that wondrous feeling when you try a new restaurant, and after a few well-proportioned plates go whizzing by on the upturned palms of a charming waitstaff, you know you're in for a treat? Well that happened for us today at La Cantine du Troquet. Affordable, intimate, and well worth the occasional wait- the exquisitely prepared dishes were a well-deserved vacation from the humdrum gray of Paris that sometimes translates into uninventive food. Reliable, comforting- but uninteresting nonetheless- such is the case at La Coupole, a former gastronomic institution that has been sitting on its laurels for over a decade serving food that tastes like it was purchased frozen from Picard.

Whoops- I digress. Let me tell you what I had. I started with a terrine of boudin with a delicate dollop of homemade pesto. Boudin is a blood sausage, and although a terrine of blood sausage might sound overwhelming, it was delicate and refined and served with massive chunks of fresh country bread. Cornichons and spicy green peppers were served a volonté, as was the soup- a scrumptious velouté of root vegetables served with chunks of chorizo. Next up, I had sardines a la plancha, accompanied with an unforgettable homemade ragout. This is a place that really knows how to use tomatoes- no watery wastes of well-intentioned sauces at La Cantine.

I went for lunch, and walked out delighted for less than 20 euros. Friends say it's packed from nine o'clock on, so I say have a big lunch, drink a lot of wine, and pretend that it's night. It's so gray here, you won't notice the difference.

The chef, by the way, is Christian Etchebest- and La Cantine is a more affordable offshoot of his restaurant Le Troquet- referred to by French foodies as a temple of "bistronomique" cooking.

Jardin du Palais Royal- MAISON FABRE

If you, like me, are tired of the endless array of shops selling mediocre tunics and faux-organic T-shirts for a good third of your salary, follow me, dear readers, to La Maison Fabre. I have fallen hard for this artisan glove maker who has been treating the hands of well-heeled Parisians since 1924. Gloves, you say? Really? And yes, really- forget handbags and the blanket-like scarves all the girls are wearing- let them wear gloves!

Certainly, they'll cost a good third of your month's pay, but unlike cheap T-shirts and 2008 tunics, these little bunnies will last you your whole life. At present, I am particularly desirous of Fabre's modern, bright colection of driving gloves. (To drive for, my darling, to drive for!) Although I didn't have the courage to enter the boutique, (I'm on financial lockdown, being unemployed) the glass facade allowed me to hone in on several paris that might fit into a stocking if Santa brings my ship in.

....They also have men's gloves. Too, too stylish. I have a new crush!

Jardin du Palais Royal- SERGE LUTENS

I don't know how it is that I lived in Paris for 5 years without visiting the boutiques of the Jardin du Palais Royal. With brands like Dries Van Noten and Stella McCartney, it's probably a good thing. Last night, I set off a la recherche of a brilliant designer named Serge Lutens. He doesn't make clothing- he makes women mysterious. His breathtaking shop in the Jardin de P.R is dark and romantic, a perfect place to end a melancholic Parisian day. Never girly or ostentatious, his perfumes remind the wearer of the power of her femininity. I've been searching for a new scent since I stopped wearing L'eau d'issey in college, but I just couldn't find something that defined me. (Mind you, I've been looking for 8 years!) Too sugary, too bold, too much patchouli, so many of the parfumes on the market today are overly-sensual or the opposite: capricious. Finally, I have zeroed in on a perfume called "Un Bois Sépia", described in the delightful Serge Lutens catalogue as "Un tweed, un chypre".

Each unique scent is packaged in a stately 75ml glass bottle- the bottles can be engraved or customized in a timeless "Nicolas Cochin" font for a little extra. I've become a little tired with the wastefulness of being trendy, and I'd like to purchase something for myself for the approaching New Year that means something- that serves a deeper purpose. Rereading my own words makes me think I should do something charitable, but we all deserve a little something for making it through 2008. And how can a lass resist the siren's call of seduction?

Une composition olfactive n'est pas une recette: tels les personages d'un roman, les essences sont vivantes. Influencées plutot que placées, en accord, elles reforment en trame une matiere expreimée ou se déclare le parfum. -Serge Lutens

Le Plaisir de....y aller

One of the best things about Paris is its many, many cinemas. Seeing a movie in the States still requires a little forward-thinking and planning- especially if one wants to see a film that requires the use of one's brain. In Paris, seeing a movie is as simple as popping into a café for an espresso. With few exceptions, every arrondissement has a handful of cinemas showing fabulous international films at any given time. One of my greatest pleasures in life is seeing a film "sur la pouce" and stopping into a little bar afterwards for a bubbly glass of something to mill things over in my head.

Last night we saw a great film, followed up by a great glass of Tariquet at the wine bar, Au Pere Louis. I would highly recommend both, especially the film, Le Plaisir de Chanter. Notice how much closer the French film their actors' faces and movements. Sensual and vivid, this is also a very funny film, unlike many contemporary French dramatic comedies that make you want to kill yourself.

Centre de Yoga du Marais

Next up, I tried out the Centre de Yoga du Marais. From the bios on the website, it seemed that most of the teachers were American-trained and many in the Kripalu tradition. On Tuesday, I meandered through the hipper-than-thou streets of the third arrondissement with their nameless boutiques and restaurants to a small (really small!) studio on the street level. Despite the mammoth pole dividing the room in two, the studio was warm and welcoming, with candles and little shelves built into the walls, filled with inspirational photos and trinkets. There were soft blankets and quality mats available, along with blocks, belts and bolsters. The regular teacher and owner wasn't there, and her class was led by a lovely girl named Chantal. If the class itself had been a little harder, I would have been in heaven. Chantal was fantastic, hands on, non-judgemental, and better yet, funny. Now I know that yoga is what you make it, but I like to sweat. The class was 90 minutes long with some difficult asanas, but it was sloooooow- and not slow in a good way, slow in that we paused after every single asana.

I talked to Chantal for a while after class and she expressed some frustration with the level of the class. She said that although she was certain her students could go further physically, mentally, they showed no interest in doing so. The French are inherently lazy. I'm sorry, but it's true. They like to do just a little bit, never too much- if you push them too far, they start to complain. They are a very sensitive people! Just look at all the fuss they've kicked up over working on Sundays! As if Sundays weren't the most depressing day of the week. I'd be happy to work a Sunday for them. Call me, I need a job!

No yoga in Paris- Studio Géraud Arnaud

Who would have thought an inspirational yoga class would be so hard to find? I've been trying hard to dig up something equal to the transformational 90 minute classes I took with Mark Gerow at Great Barrington Yoga- to no avail. (So far!) Most of the yoga classes I have tried out are sterile and strict, and follow in the Iyengar tradition. Nothing wrong with Iyengar- but sometimes a girl wants to have a little fun on the mat, non?

I'll be posting reviews of the different centers and teachers I try out to help the yoga-hungry find some soul food in Paris.

First up, the Géraud Arnaud Studio, also referred to as La Féderation Francaise de Yoga. So far, I've tried out classes with Ivana and Masako. Ivana's class was intimate and amiable. The students were open-minded and friendly. The class itself was listed as a level two, but it was more of a beginner's class with little-to-no focus on breathing. The class began right away with chanting, which might be shocking to some people. In most of the classes I've taken in the States, the teacher usually tells the class what will happen next, especially if you are about to move into chanting or meditation. Both teachers at Géraud's studio simply took a without-further-ado attitude and hopped right into it. I find this off-putting, but maybe that's just me.

On the recommendation of one of Ivana's students, I took a class with Masako, who, according to this student, had a class that was very "tonique". (I.e, hard). Again, there was little focus on breathing, which really surprised me. Many of the students moved into the poses before the teacher announced them, which led me to imagine that her class must consist of the same asanas all the time. There was a nasty, competitive vibe in the class- not necessarily generated by Masako, but more by the women d'une certaine age in the class. It seemed that everyone was there to move their body parts and nothing else. The class itself was intermediate. But it wasn't very fun!

Pretty Sustainable

2008 might go down in history as the year that green fashion proved to be a sustainable trend. From the runways of fashion week to the aisles of popular chain stores like Target, eco-fashion is no longer a niche trend, but a necessary element of progressive design.

The ancient arts of yoga and meditation inspire and demand profound patience, respect towards others, and respect for oneself. Sustainable energy is fostered within the body and propelled outward, into the environment, creating a contagious state of heightened awareness. As environmentalism enters into the collective conscious, designers and retailers alike are looking to the healing arts for inspiration and guidelines as they embrace a greener lifestyle. In September of 2008, the runways of New York Fashion week were atwitter with contagious efforts to make the 10-day long event more eco-friendly. Aveda continued its quest to green New York Fashion week by launching several eco-friendly initiatives included the replacement of bottled water with New York City tap water in reusable, non-toxic Swiss water bottles, the elimination of fur, organic, locally-sourced catering and the use of post-consumer recycled paper for invitations and programs. 3.1 Phillip Lim, Rodarte and Alexander Wang were among the high-profile names to “green” their New York presence by adopting these conditions.

Just as the yoga mat offers us a sacred place to work through our internal frustrations, the runway provides a testing-ground for new trends in organic fashion. One of the rising stars of the conscious-beauty movement, New York City based-designer Behnaz Sarafpour has been on a mission to create luxurious clothing with a conscious since her debut show at the age of thirty-one. Now, seven years later, she has transformed that mission into a reality, providing eco-urbanites with feminine, wearable pieces that don’t sacrifice elegance for the environment.

Branded a “freedom fashion fighter” by her fans, designer Abi Ferrin is also creating fashion with a purpose. Through her work with the non-profit Guardian Village Handicrafts, Ferrin rescues women and children from abusive environments in Nepal and Cambodia, encouraging them to make constructive changes in their lives by providing them with a skill set and the tools to learn a new trade. Ferrin then purchases their wares for use in her bright, audacious collections that celebrate, empower and beautify the women behind her looks, and the women in them.

Even the brand names are jumping on the bandwagon of sustainability. In honor of earth day, Banana Republic unfolded an eco-fashion line of 50 summer staples in April of last year. For the duration of Earth Week, the retailer pledged 1% of all its in-store sales to the not-for-profit Trust for Public Lands. This eco-friendly initiative is part of the company’s quest to reduce their environmental impact in the coming years.

Inspired by the enthusiasm of its customers for the practice of Yoga and the parallel ease and simplicity of this ancient art, J.Crew launched a line of yoga wear for its 2008 fall collection. In an article from Women’s Wear Daily, J.Crew CEO Millard Drexler explains, "We kept hearing from our associates about yoga, hearing from our customers about yoga, and hearing from people who do yoga. We always want to be where our customers are, and where they are going. That's our mission. Today, any retailer's job is always looking to the road that has to be traveled."

The road towards sustainable fashion is becoming a crowded one to travel, and only time will tell if green is truly glamorous.

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

The title of the second book in Beaver's line-up of sizzling summer reading is curiously apropos to Domo's latest photographs. Reading the book jacket will make any struggling writer sigh- the author, Carson McCullers, published it at the tender age of 23, decades before young female writers became as common as mosquitoes after a rainstorm. 

A brilliant portrayal of a kaleidoscope of lives and loves in a Georgia mill town, it's a timeless, color-blind and very readable classic exploring the communal needs of individual souls.  The title alone is a firefly-filled night in August. Flawless and thirst-quenching. A great book for a seaside vacation. 

Death becomes us

There is life throughout the Southern Berkshires- peonies, unstoppable grass, tomato plants and storm-happy slugs, crawling towards their prey. And there is Mylo- an eager adolescent just learning how to caw. Domo has been tracking his movements through the killing fields of summer. And on and on it goes.

How does your garden grow?

My garden grows very well....so far. Et le vôtre?

It's a long road

If rising gas prices, declining supply of clean drinking water, global warming and terrestrial temper-tantrums cause you to wonder if the apocalypse is near, Cormac McCarthy's "The Road" will convince you that it is.

A boy and his father wander through the wastelands of the American West, searching for canned food and water, hiding from an unnamed human enemy who feasts on human flesh. Wheels are rolled and carts are pushed- the future has become a hopeless version of a darker past.

This is a poem, a catastrophic treatise whose message is such a bleak one, it becomes difficult to remember that a single person can change: change himself, change herself, change something extraneous, but hope and imagination march hand in hand. Look forward. Look forward to change.

Reject me not

For the 2nd year in a row, little Beaver has been declined a scholarship to the elevated wonderland of the Breadloaf Writer's Conference at Middlebury College. She went once as a matted teenager, with jean shorts and high hopes, but it would seem that the value of her fiction has decreased since the glory days of that long-ago August. Ever since she pulled herself out of the gloppy slops of mopey land and traded in self-absorbed, depressing words for the dark and comic, it's been no-thanks and few wins with each application.

Oh well. Beaver has a garden and a duck and her beloved Domo, snuggled inside a drafty, magic cabin. Her words drift up the chimney into the thick night where they mingle with mosquitos and fly, faraway, far.

BIFFMA Day 4- Don't drink the water

A sit-in that lasted two years and resulted in the triumphant relocation of a Coca Cola plant in India. Chemical waste dressed up as fertilizer given to a population displaced for the construction of a dam. Thirty-thousand deaths per day, 21 deaths per minute; the hearts of children stopping from a water-borne disease.

In FLOW: For Love of Water, Director Irena Salina investigates the state of water management across the world, with a focus on the aftermath of privatization in Bolivia, India and Africa. This film is currently awaiting a distribution deal, but it is a documentary to look out for. The statistics it reveals are horrifying and timely, and should not be ignored. Today our brows fret as we travel past the gas station, reading the numbers, evergoing upwards. But today is a time to worry about water. Listen for a moment. It is running out.

Concerned? Visit http://www.flowthefilm.com/ or http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/ for ways that you can help.

BIFFMA Day 2- An Ordinary Life

Garrison Keillor: The Man on the Radio in the Red Tennis Shoes. In this labyrinth of a documentary, director Peter Rosen follows Garrison Keillor through the hobbit holes of his many-faceted life. One walks away with the impression that Keillor achieves things without ever really working, that he walks, talks and breathes the act of writing through his very existence. Beside a brief appearance by his daughter and an off-camera comment by the director about Keillor's third wife, there is no evidence to contest the impression that Keillor is an alien, shuttled to Earth from a planet of geniuses who function and invent in a time system of their own.

Towards the end of the film, Keillor admits that he once feared living an ordinary life. And then he realized that "that's what we all get; an ordinary life. And it's good enough. It's good enough." This sentiment echoed with our matted Beaver, whose new life in the country has turned out to be extraordinary in its simplicity. A cabin on a small plot, a voice on the radio, a companion in the darkness, stirring us on.

BIFFMA Day 1- Man on Wire

James Marsh's Man on Wire depicts the early days of the high-rope walker, Philippe Petit. Dubbed as the "artistic crime of the century", Petit rigged a tightrope between the two towers of the World Trade Center in 1974, and walked back and forth between them 8 times while police looked on, unable to seize him. This feat took years of planning, cross-Atlantic trips, and the sacrifice of friendships. More interesting, maybe, than the stunning images of Petit and his delirious passions, is the portrayal of the men and women he used to get to the towers. His estranged best friend who still bursts into tears when asked, 30 years later, "what happened after", the girlfriend who stood beneath him as he scaled the heights of his heart. Petit was in attendance, and spoke to the audience after. Having exchanged the high rope for the high life of motivational speaking, it would appear that Petit has finally tumbled down from above. By all appearances, the fall was long and lonely.

BIFFMA Day 1- Valerie

Valerie, directed by Birgit Möller, portrays two weeks in the life of a Polish model unraveling into financial despair in Berlin. It is Christmas, and Valerie has come to Berlin to search for an apartment and spend the holiday with her furry, sequined friends. With no money in the bank, she attends casting calls with confidence- things have always worked out before- but when too many days pass, ripples of worry trouble her face; she is passed up for younger, fresher models. Habituated to a world where paychecks are picked up by invisible hands and taxis don't run meters, it gradually dawns on Valerie that she doesn't have a penny saved nor any future prospect. Unwilling to alter the illusion of the easy life that she and her friends entertain by asking for a loan, she finds herself unable to pay her parking ticket in the subterranean garage underneath her hotel. Cast out from the Grand Hyatt after her credit card proves faulty, she begins to live in her car, changing behind doorways to emerge each night a cashmere-covered butterfly, looking for solutions in the beautiful rooms of the city. This is a film about the ramifications of people losing interest and the volatile currency of beauty.

BIFFMA comes to town

The third annual Berkshire International Film Festival has landed upon Great Barrington, bringing with it hairdos, beemers, little and not-so-little black dresses, passed hors d'oeuvres, short films, long films, good films and sketchless attempts at artistry. The opening night party, hosted by Pearls www.pearlsrestaurant.com, was a fancy pants event complete with unagi and Viggo Mortensen's doppelganger slamming out the drinks. Run, little beavies, run- the man makes a naughty margarita.

Beaver and Domo met some nice people and some lassy sailors, several of whose sea-worthy legs proved less so in stilettos. Here's a tip for sunny summer fashion: if you've gone to the effort of having your hair done, remaining coherent is almost as flattering as a square neckline.

Nevertheless, despite the crowds, the traffic, and the invasion of handbags, Domo and Beaver are looking forward to the films. After tag sales and cabbage rolls with pork belly and raw oysters, there's nothing Beaver loves more than three days of flics. Except her little Domo!

Killing me softly

So much for optimism. Several weeks ago, in the bout of junior year abroad weather that hit Sandisfield for 22 blissful days, little Beaver happily went about planting a bunch of different vegetables and herbs with hope in her heart and spring in her step. But spring has sprung...quite literally. It's hopped away like a Jack Rabbit with a precious gift tied atop his pom-pom tail. It snowed today, dear readers, and snow isn't good for infant seedlings. As the wind hushes and gushes through the rafters, the clouds collide and whisper hurtful things. You planted things too soon, little Beaver, old man frost is on its way! A silent call goes out to the small things: gerbils and bunnies and chipmunks and moles, please come and sit down on my seedlings! Warm them with your pinto-bean sized hearts and hope that they are brave enough to make it through the night!

Summer reading list

Beaver has set herself a little summer reading challenge: to read the 100 Best Novels compiled by the Modern Library. The problem is, her local library doesn't have a cornucopia of "classics". They do, however, have a nice-as-pie librarian willing to take and place special orders. While Beaver waits for her first four titles to come in, she is kicking off the season with a page turner:
Let the summer games begin!
Update: This book was so important and timely, La Beav finished it in five hours. For anyone who is worried about gas, about rents, about the provenance of their next paycheck or simply wondering how the heck everyone else is making it-- they just might not be. Although this book has been out for a while, there might be no better time to read it than now.

Grow, seedling, grow

Siberian Kale, Japanese pickling eggplants, the hottest red chilies, fingerling potatoes and heirloom black Russian tomatoes....just to name a few. From her second-story perch in the little red house, Beaver looks out at the first rain of Spring, as roots stretch and yawn, and shake out the kinks. Will the little planted seeds grown into something wonderful? Or will her lack of a little green claw dash out all hopes of a harvest? She chews on sweet birch and watches the rain. Pour que ça marche, pour que ça pousse!

Going out the window

When you are a freelancer, like Beaver and her Domo, money tends to visit you like a pair of parents. It rushes in one weekend and makes itself busy, cleaning things up, cleaning things out, bringing great hope and small presents. And just as soon as it came, it is gone come Monday morning, the house is quiet and creaky, the roof continues to leak.

Checks come in late from numerous sources and are quickly dispersed with tailored marching orders. Off they go to the plumber, to the electrician, to the overzealous snow plower with his great big rumbling truck. Off march our proud, silver dollars to the lender of our mortgage, to the GMAC dealership, to the softspoken man who suggested new tires. Our cash will pay a visit to the horror of all sights, the dreaded fuel truck reaping havoc upon Sandisfield with his hose and his dark liquid the color of squashed dreams. Gallons and gallons are poured into our house, and the oil in pipes has its marching orders, too. Out through the cracks, out through the crannies, out through the acres of weathered insulation goes our heat and cash.

Next year, next year, we whisper under covers. We'll fix the roof, we'll protect all the walls. We'll cover the red house with a gigantic bell jar, and safe will we be from those horrid, harried trucks and the fuelmongers who drive them. They, too, are frightened at night when the temperature dips and the moon starts to shine and their very large canons sit outside waiting and gasping as everything fails.

Listen up

Out of love, in love again, he's sitting on your bed and you're thinking wouldn't it be easier if you knew the junk about my father and the way that pumpkin muffin tasted that long July in Lincoln? What if I didn't have to explain the stuff about my brother and you knew right off the bat that I laid down that crumpled carpet all by my long lost self? Surrender yourself to "Lady With a Braid" by Dory Previn. Listen, and go back.

Ode to Food Service

When you write for a living, things can get cloudy. Sometime around two-thirty, your head starts to spin, your eyes become flushed with spidery red rivers of fatigue. You speak so often in your head, your own voice becomes a stranger: a hermit, an oddity, a clumsy tool, a scar.

But when you have A Stupid Job you are forced to shake things up inside you. Forced to come back down to the planet, with four feet on the ground. Beaver's Stupid Job involves slinging people coffee and tree bark baguettes. Despite the long stretch between three and six PM when the only creatures to come by are lost soldiers seeking nips, Beaver looks forward to the making of these sandwiches, to the grinding of the coffee, to the smell of the wet bark shaved into fine and lengthwise pieces.

You have to get out of the cabin to appreciate coming back to it. This applies to snack-snacks, to love bugs, to habits, to work. Staying on the straight and narrow is too safe a place to be.

Got guilt?

In this world,
We walk on the roof of hell
Gazing at flowers.
-Issa

In a time where mediocrity is championed and ignorance is, quite literally, bliss, it is comforting to discover the existence of an underground movement to take back our minds and our taste buds. For those of you who purchase food without thinking, whether for lack of time, lack of cash flow, or simple lack of interest, Beaver heartily recommends that you chomp your way through Michael Pollen's "The Omnivore's Dilema". If you can't make it through the first, admittedly protracted chapter on corn, take thirty minutes to execute a simple Internet search on the current polemic over raw milk.

You might be interested to learn that grass fed milk, a.k.a unpasteurized, contains natural antibiotic properties that can help prevent tooth decay, encourage calcium absorption, prevent joint stiffness, flu, pneumonia, and other common illnesses, as well as protect its proponents from asthma and from skin allergies commonly seen in drinkers of pasteurized milk. Alas, the place of healing food in the United States is a portentous place indeed. Healing, nutritious raw milk is the Jason Bourne of American food. Why should we heal ourselves with the food we eat when we can shell out millions for sub-average health insurance, and keep getting sick?

Before knocking raw milk into the cedar-scented sauna of trustafarian fads and "green" trends, do a little research. You might start to wonder just what, exactly, is lurking in your latte.

Warning to the wiser

The little red house is under attack. It's a modest attack, for the moment, composed of several strangers knocking at the door, but an attempt to invade the cabin has nonetheless been staged. Dear readers, chers amis, if you see a comment marked "look here" below any of these entries, walk the other way. Sticks and stones break bones and words, alas, can hurt you.

Get a gander on that dander

Is it the time of year? The relentless snow? Or caged-up paranoia? She moves throughout the house, and the house is filled with cat hair. Cat hair in her noodle soup, cat hair on her trousers, in the shower drain, in the far right corner of every step in the house. The cat hair is black, the cat hair is white, the cat hair is not the color of her actual cat. Mylo never shed before. Is he getting ready for spring? Or is he getting ready for flight?

Une bonne nouvelle

Domo's new film, Return to Labradoria, just got accepted to the Aspen Film Festival. This is exciting on numerous levels: the festival is très, très prestigious, Domo has never been to Colorado, and with Beaver Creek nearby, little B. is sure to find a lot of furry-minded friends building kick-ass dams.

We will most certainly be holding a ginormous bakesale in order to get ourselves to Aspen. Either baked goods or beef jerky, whichever we master by April.

Organic panic

Why does Beaver subscribe to Domino Magazine? This publication irks her, it is a consumer's wet dream, and yet, she intakes a little sip of air when she sees it in her post box. Oh, yippee! It's arrived! The worst part is the section where they document the day in the life of some fussy green princess. Rarely is the person profiled a regular Old Joey, he or she is a designer, the owner of a (green! very green!) cosmetic company, a fair trade coffee bean shop, or some long limbed activist who makes recycled sneakers on the side.

Where are the waiters, the waitresses, the unemployed cartoonists and the struggling freelancers who are trying their best to live a responsible life, with what they can afford? Don't these people ever get caught without their eco-friendly tote bag? This month's issue features a "former model" whose daily conundrums include waking up from a nap at 12:44 "in a panic" to realize that she "neglected to offset (her) carbon emissions for the flight!" Oh, yuck. Help me pay my mortgage.

On another note, we have come across the best short story of the year and it's in this month's New Yorker. Check out "Free Radicals" by Alice Munro. If you like her, you'll love Antonya Nelson, another favorite writer.

The second time around

Beaver is working on a new novel about living in the country. It will document the trials and tribulations of a cosmopolitan faced with wooded acreage, evangelical neighbors and an influx of Subarus. She can't think of a title. Can you?

Grapes and Gripes

Why is it impossible to buy a bottle of wine under $12 that doesn’t taste like reinforced Manishevitz? Is anyone else sick to death of the headache inducing combo of Petit Syrah and Grenache? Is there any economical red that doesn’t taste “jammy”?!

Case in point. Last night, we tried the Cycles Gladiator 2005 Central Coast Merlot because it won a number of awards, including one in France, a country we considered relatively immune to the Cheapo Shiraz virus. Et beh, non! Welcome to the wino-cherry of the elephant millennium. Even diluted, it was undrinkable. Even an hour after receiving a letter that we owe massive back taxes for 2006, it was still undrinkable. Now that’s a bad wine.

Got good vino recs for a limited cash flow? Please write in.

Last gripe of the morning- unwatchable Netflix DVDs. Every movie we’ve been getting recently has been a stuttering disaster. Step it up a notch, Netshitz. Beaver knows she’s not the only one to rent “This Film is Not Yet Rated”, but a lot of people have crumbs in their machines. It’s time to replace your achy-breaky copies!

The Academy would like to thank:

Bizalions of Great Barrington for its country pâté, its authentic French bread and its palatable selection of imported olive oils. www.bizalions.com

The Berkshire South Regional Community Center for giving La Beav and her Domo a 70% discount to get their hides into shape. Thank you, Mimi, for your voluptuous sense of humor. It’s fun to yoga with Domo! www.berkshiresouth.org

Thank you, Tuckers Pub, for serving the cheapest, coldest beer in the Berkshires, for always seating us next to the fire and for frying up bad French fries with nothing but good cheer. Sandisfield, 413.258.4945

Hooray for The Other Brother Darryl’s Fish Market with their wholesale prices, take-out fish & chips and for not making fun of Beaver and Domo when they ordered 5 pounds of mussels for two and ate them all up. 276 North Main Road, Otis 413.269.7611

You’re pretentious and you make us wait in line for miniature eternities, but damnit, Janet, Rubi’s makes the best lattés in town. 264 Main Street, Great Barrington, 413.528.0488

A new discovery is the Log House Restaurant in Barkhamsted. The waitresses have perms, the coffee is terrible, the omelettes are supersized and the hash browns do you right. 110 New Hartford Rd., Barkhamsted, CT 860.379.8937

Thank you, Eaglewood Farms-- Keep up with the kielbasa. This small farm is doing wonderfully humane things with meat, though the USDA is trying their hardest to get them to stop. 325 New Hartford Rd, Barkhamsted, CT 860.379.5978

Thank you, Thursday bartender at The Old Inn on the Green. You made little Beaver a real deal whiskey sour. www.oldinn.com

And lastly, thank you fellow members of Little Bully Media for making the exodus from Brooklyn. If we build it, they will come. www.littlebullymedia.com

Making it through winter

Hair long enough for pigtails, Michel Polnareff's high warble on the long stretch between Great Barrington and home, extreme sledding, Mexican hot chocolate, Mexico, tout court, novels and books about meat.

Plumbers charging less than they said they would, the boiler almost breaking, but not quite, less wine, better bottles, rediscovering tequila, Bikram yoga, the swimming pool, the sauna.

The smell of lavender, leafy greens forever, karaoke, mid-week sleepovers, felt-covered hot water bottles, dinner by the fire, pâté, dark chocolate. Unexpected letters arriving in the mail.

And, we're back

A New Year, a new vibe.
The Little Red House is going vrai, vraisemblable, more realistic, if you like.
We'll be exploring some true-to-life things in this, the one-year anniversary of the purchase of our home.

We'll talk renovations, wine, salumi, good restaurants, bad restaurants, explore capricious fitness attempts and explain how, and if, we are managing to stay alive in the great green wilderness of the Berkshires on a monthly income that's too low to print.

Stay tuned, stay with us. The Little Red House is coming out of hibernation in a rambunctious new way.