Dribs and Drabs (Patty)

What did I promise last week in the drawing? Oh, yeah, all those samples except the Watermelon Gazpacho, which I slurped down. Then I just abandoned all pretense of civility and started eating watermelon straight. Just watermelon/melon for three days. I’m foundering on it. We have now entered the melon feast/fast stage of summer where I live on melons and peaches.  To be followed by a fall of pumpkin everything – pumpkin gnocchi, pumpkin soup, pumpkin bread, pumpkin seeds, pumpkin pie – hmmm, can I do a raw pumpkin pie?  Must think about this

So the winners from last week are:  Matt and Brooke.  Just hit the Contact Us over on the left, remind me what you’ve won, get me your address. I’ll give you a quick “got it” return e-mail so you know you escaped my junk filter, and then I’ll get them sent out. If you don’t get a return e-mail, contact me again.  No Watermelon Gazpacho in the sample pack. Can you do a peach gazpacho?  I think I found a recipe for a pineapple gazpacho.

Now, the raw pizza crust recipe and marinara sauce:

 Crust

3 Large Yellow Onions

2/3 Cup Flax Seeds, ground (I used Brown, but Golden will also work)

1/2 Cup Sunflower Seeds, ground

1/4 Cup Almond Flour, (dehydrated almond pulp)

1/3 Cup Nama Shoyu?1/4 Cup Olive Oil (cold pressed or non-pressed)

2 Tbs Nutritional Yeast

1 Tbs Oregano

1 Clove Garlic, minced

1 Tsp Himalayan Crystal Salt (more or less to taste)

Start by grinding all of the seeds into a fine powder. Place the dry ground flax, sunflower, and almond flour into a large bowl and stir around to mix well.   Add the remaining dry ingredients, the nutritional yeast, oregano and Himalayan salt, to the bowl and again mix well.

Clean and peel the three large onions and cut into quarters.  In a food processor slice all of the onions into slivers using the slicing disc. Break up any large pieces so you are left with mostly onion slivers.  Place the onion slivers a large clump at a time into the large bowl with the dry ingredients and toss until all of the onions are well coated.   Mix together the nama shoyu, olive oil, and minced garlic, then incorporate into the dry ingredients .   Set this bowl aside for five minutes or so to allow the dry mixture to soak up the wet ingredients.  Press this mixture into a tart pan or pizza pan. Something with sides works pretty well.

Sauce

3 cup baby grape tomatoes

1 cup raisins

1 lemon, juiced

3 garlic clove

1/2 cup basil

sea salt to taste

Blend in a blender until smooth. Adjust for enough sweet flavor with a hint of tang from the lemon juice.    Top your pizza with whatever veggies you have around.

That’s your delicious raw food recipe for the week.  Wow, that’s like a whole post, none of it about perfume, except I DO have a perfume to talk about.

I like Cartier Baiser Vole.  It shocked me kind of, but not really.  Mathilde Laurent I think is so good, but I know with this and the Lune thing they did, they were aiming at a more commercial audience. I liked Lune and happily wear it from time to time. It’s easy to wear.  Baiser Vole is the same – very commercial, but really easy to wear. So commercial enough that it will sell easily, but not so much that it smells like everything else out there, just close enough that consumers won’t think it’s too weird for them.

The marketing materials say it’s all about the lily, the flower men pick as most liking to smell.  I would have argued that point, thinking men aren’t crazy about lily, but so far every male that’s smelled this perfume thinks it’s great and have commented no fewer than 5-6 times about how good it smells. It skews youthful, floral, little green, little sweetish, not entirely nice, but  mom won’t notice she’s a a bit of a tart.  It’s pretty strong out of the bottle, so go easy on it if you’re wearing it to the office or on a date, a little will waft happily across a football field.  Must be that cool bottle which looks like a lighter – shoots it like a scented flame thrower.

Source of this sample is Cartier.  They sent me plenty, so I’m going to give away like 10 generous samples of it to commenters.  So just drop a comment to be entered.

Now, y’all may shoot me for this, but it’s the end of July, and the end of summer is in sight, and it makes me sad. When peaches show up (next week), I know we are in the wrap-up phase.

Everything ends.  This is something that is stuck in my head for the last week.  I feel less sad about things that may end before I’m ready because I know the end is there for everything.  This winds up floating through my head during meditation. Oh,  yeah, I’m doing my 30-day yoga/meditation challenge. 30 days of both every day. I’m almost done with Day 3.  Much as I’d like to tell you I’m thinking about the big things in life that end – and I do! – what also crosses my mind is my dwindling supply of Apres L’Ondee vintage parfum and other finite scents that I’ll probably never see again once it’s gone.

What are you going to be sad to see end that you have in your perfume library?  Or in some other nonscented thing that you know will eventually end?