A Treasury Of… Minneapolis Fashion and Interior Design Blog

St. Nick must’ve sent a team of his elves to Mumbai this past year to set-up a satellite workshop in order to stuff my 2011 stocking. Cause he ended up leaving me a stash of beautiful Indian treasures this Christmas, like this nano-sized pill box and citrus-scented soap.

And this sparkling vintage cricket ball!

My household Santa rejected this box of Elephant brand noodles as an “official” Christmas present, so I was handed it, unwrapped/unceremoniously, early on the 24th as a reject gift. But its packaging was so cheery and charming, it’s earned “official” status in my heart.

I don’t drink soda pops all that much anymore, but I still have a super strong sweet tooth for unique, extinct, or international soft drink (bottles). We’ll see what this CocaCola branded, coconut water-colored Limca goes down like.

After departing India, Santa’s sleigh must’ve stopped in England somewhere along his journey to my house to pick up this vintage postcard book featuring the small town in England in which I was born. Although it was a gift for me, it was my Mom and Dad who most enjoyed flipping through the photographic reminders of the first place they called home as husband and wife.

Santa didn’t forget to Buy American this year though, and these Thurmoc Slippers from Hickorees are not only puppy belly-soft, inside and out, but they’re packaged in the greatest, grandfather-ish box.

Kris, Kelly, and Sabrina showed up on Christmas too…

With a 34-year old piece of gum and a sticker of Kris on one of her earliest cases.

Petrified, deadstock chewing gum is quickly becoming the hipster sweet of the year, if no other blog’s told you so just yet.

Our first full day in New York began at the Doughnut Plant. It wasn’t situated near any of the shops we’d assigned ourselves to visit, but when there’s playful Pistachio, Creme Brulée, and Peanut Butter Frosted/Jelly Filled doughnuts baked fresh in the city I’m waking up in, I’m gonna do whatever needs to be done to try them out.

The bulk of the day was spent in Soho. There were very few shops I cared to return to from my 2005 visit to New York, but Opening Ceremony was definitely one of them.

Although last time the shop was just a floor and a half worth of inventory, and now its spread out over two adjacent buildings with staircase after staircase leading to endless levels of sequin bow ties for him and lucite pumps for her.

The two-headed or pinata-topped mannequins throughout were every bit as kooky-cool as the merchandise. I’d thought about picking up a Carhartt blazer for myself there, but like every blazer manufactured anywhere in the Milky Way since the early 1920′s, even the Small was way too Not-Small for me.

To keep up our strength we stopped into the Mariebelle Chocolate shop where I ordered a hellishly hot Banana/Milk Chocolate drink.

I don’t know if you’ve ever experienced Hot Chocolate so thick it needs to literally be chewed, but now you at least know someone who has. I almost needed a damn fork to finish my “drink”.

Near the end of the day, my shopping dry-spell was broken at last when a mix-matched set of vintage Italian dishes were snatched up at Aero, and a sparkly slab of pyrite was unearthed at Evolution. On the subway ride back to the hotel, I started to realize I was going to need to base the success of my New York trip on something other than how many shopping-bags worth of sweaters and bookends I slammed into my suitcase once it was over. I vowed to enjoy my visit, and my hunt for new treasures, regardless of how much I ended up buying/not buying.

While still in Minneapolis, I’d made dinner reservations for Friday night at the Oyster Bar under Grand Central Station.

It seemed just the sort of place Holden Caufield would’ve weaseled his way into and then out of, filled with all sorts of over-drawn characters.

In fact we sat at a table next to two college prep pricks who, now that I think about it, I know Holden would’ve royally hated.

But watching the almost fictional-feeling Taiwanese tourists, and lackadaisical latin waiters, and jock-itchy jerks around you is exactly what makes dining at The Oyster Bar so Salinger-esque, and so New York.

When I first came across a pair of open Mountain Valley Spring Water bottles they were so Pre-War lovely that I assumed they were vintage props disguised as cocktail-hour carafes.

But I was wrong, which makes our world a little more right! Bottled at the source in Garland County, Arkansas in gorgeous green glass, Mountain Valley is available in sparkling or still varieties at the swankier of the Twin Cities supermarket chains.

So slap on some striped suspenders and mix yourself something super stiff with Mountain Valley on my behalf. I’m probably gonna just take mine straight.

An editor by nature, and by trade, I’m a real sucker for any “Best Of” list since they efficiently illuminate what was or still is relevant and radiant, while whittling away the extraneous.

Unless we count my nearly two years of Treasuring as one giant list itself, I’ve never posted a proper list. I thought I’d look back through the digi-pics of 2010 to tally up the top 10 treasures I’d measure as “The Best of The Year”.

1. Favorite Accessory
My new, U.S. issued Aviator Kit Bag. After one machine wash, and one mini-trip to New Orleans, it’s proven itself to be the perfect carry-on suitcase in terms of size and studly style.

2. Favorite Flashback
A TV junkie, just about everything’s been re-runs since early December. But Universal’s HD cable channel, roster-ed with random re-runs of hits from all eras, has been providing me with a dozen Charlie’s Angels episodes a week. It was my first favorite show as child, and it’s finally aged enough now to no longer seem dated and dull (which it did to me a few years back). Now every single tunic, discotheque, and Tom Selleck cameo highlights how chic and swanky the late 70s and early 80s were.

3. Favorite Finger-Painting
The J. Crew shorts I cropped myself then coated in 5 different colors earned me internet high-fives as well as veiled death threats, but I wore them rogue-ly and regularly all summer, to that magic point on the far side of self-consciousness. These shorts and the sideways glances they brought on taught me that if I’m not making someone’s eyes roll over what I’m wearing, I’m just not doing my job.

4. Favorite Follow Up
After two whole albums and a boat-shoe-box’s worth of B-sides, I’ve never heard a Vampire Weekend song I didn’t like. The CONTRA album was more Californian and yet noticeably colder than the New York band’s debut disc, but the sound of shivers in the sunshine made me happy and happily sad, over and over and over this year.

5. Favorite Mistake
I’ve ordered a lot of treasures over the internet these past years, but these vintage black boots were the only package that never arrived. (NOOOO!) I’m still too torn up inside to tell why I loved them so much, or type up all the outfits I would’ve worked up around them. Rest in peace, black boots. I know, without you, that I won’t.

6. Favorite Flavor
The black licorice macaron I chewed in slow motion on the windy steps of a church somewhere in Paris.

7. Favorite Escape
No one saw this coming, not even me, but somehow I became a fan of prison break books. Papillon is the ultimate, the tall-tale-sized autobiography of a Parisian criminal’s repeated escapes from prisons in French Guiana, including the Devil’s Island colony. The protagonist’s will is so strong and sturdy that even when he must endure years/chapters trapped to sunless, solitary confinement, his tone remains brave and bright. The Steve McQueen movie version of the story isn’t criminal, but it lacks the disarming charm of Papillon and his incredible adventure.

8. Favorite Fad
Reddish-orange pants, or orangey-red jeans. But we all already knew that.

9. Favorite Forty-Four Minutes
The best “hour” of TV I saw all year was Mad Men’s season four episode “The Suitcase”. There’s always been a “Will they or won’t they?” tension to Draper and Peggy’s relationship. Not “Will they or won’t they?” fall into bed, but “Will they or won’t they?” fling aside the stressed charades of their 1960s social roles for forty five seconds, and just look at one another for who they actually are. In “The Suitcase”, they finally did just that, puked-on dress shirts and all. It was a long time coming, and it was a sweet and needed relief.

10. Favorite Fantasy
Lying on the beaches of Mexico on an extra large, linen deck-towel- shaped island. I got the towel in August, the plane ticket in November, and soon enough my fantasy will turn reality!

2011 has a lot to live up to.

Come December I like to read boyish old adventure stories. Two years ago it was Call of The Wild, and this year I decided to give the Hardy Boys a try for the first time ever since the back cover of Case #8: The Mystery of Cabin Island mentioned the action took place on a snow-covered island over Christmas vacation.

My sister and I used to have an un-secret stash of Nancy Drew books lying around as kids, and honestly, my favorite moments of any of these teen detective books is whenever it describes what the young sleuths are eating. It’s always cozy comfort food like chicken and biscuits, or flapjacks with syrup, or stews served alongside cold pitchers of milk. To me it’s essentially literary snacking, the plot-lines pretty much filler ’til the next mention of cobbler, or creamed corn, or fresh caught catfish.

In The Mystery of Cabin Island, Frank and Joe Hardy’s wealthy old client Elroy Jefferson receives a holiday gift he believes to be from his missing grandson. It’s a can of plum pudding adorned with fresh pinecones!

Upon reading that, before flipping another page, I searched online for canned plum pudding, hoping someone still sold a tin of the classic Christmas dessert in packaging appropriately retro.

The closet I came upon were various “Christmas Puddings” which definitely are old-century and cinematic enough for me. Since the cupcake and the French macaron have already enjoyed their return from nostalgic novelty to the sweet-tooth center stage, I’m thinking the proper pudding deserves a royal resurgence.

Served warm under brandy butter or custard, it’s a rich reflection of (seemingly) sweeter, simpler days.

Since Minneapolis is sorta sub-arctic for almost six months a year, it would seem unlikely that the revival of the old-fashioned food truck would wheel its way this far North.

At the risk of sounding great-grandfatherly, “I do remember a time…” when there were at least three flavors of LifeSavers stocked for sale next to half the cash registers around town.

I guess that was before we all felt the need to ultra-whiten our teeth while sucking anything sweet.

These days, an airport newsstand is about the only place I’d trust to offer a full roster of rolls, but the swankiest chain of Minnesotan food markets, Lunds/Byerly’s is now stocking period-packaged LifeSavers in Wint O Green and Fruity Five flavors.

I didn’t see Butter Rum ones anywhere though. That’s how I always rolled.

The great, big, huge Minnesota State Fair rendered in Miniature Mode via the much-loved, in-camera effect found on my Canon SD1400.

Originally a movie theater, then a beloved cafeteria, The Forum in Minneapolis languished as a series of clubs and restaurants since the early 1970s before being restored to its pre-war wonder under its original name as a chophouse earlier this year. (Don’t you love the retro riche of the word “chophouse”? I always do.)

With its mirrored murals and towering tiles, local historians now cite the refurbished Forum Restaurant and Bar as the best example of art-deco design in the Twin Cities.

As well, it glistens like an Epcot-style tribute to everything über-Minnesotan, with Vikings and Indians and pinecones as the main themes of the glasswork, and sparkling cocktails splashed with rhubarb syrup.

Aside from the woodwork and upholstery everything appears to be perfectly period, right down to the diamond doodads laid into the jadeite walls.

I think I was maybe wearing shorts when I first went, but next time I best break out a fedora, or at least some flannel.

The entire establishment is so Northwoods natty, I wanna look like I belong.

For many, Sunday night will ooze with indulgence and idiotic indiscretions as slick-sters across America over-toast Draper’s return with three or four cocktails too many at parties both public and dangerously private.

Your doting Treasurer therefore recommends mending your Monday morning hangover with a stacked plate of dry, hard toast and a frosted, full glass of Coffee Time-laced milk. By the time you arrive at the office no one will be able to guess the shameful ways you celebrated Sunday night.

Really, if there’s anything Don’s taught us its the importance of concealing completely one’s unattractive truths.

Overnight your Coffee Time Syrup: Here or Here.

Besides their gum droppy delicious-ness and their near-perfect packaging these are the two best things about Chuckles candies:

1. You don’t find them very often.
2. But you can always find them in little Mom ‘N Pop hardware stores, without fail.

I wonder why…

– A chunky clunk of metal from Porte de Vanves. An old dye embosser is our best guess.

– Happy cans of canned goods from a small sidestreet market.

– Fancy, Franc-ish coin dish from the Musee d’Orsay gift shop.

– Flea market, vintage beaded flowers for my sister.

–The gilded glam at Versailles inspired me to luxe it up more in my own life, so I picked up handfuls of golden flatware at Zara Home.

– Strawberry tinged tater chips we ate for lunch in our hotel room after we were stranded by the volcano. They were actually nice and quite light and unbelievably un-odd tasting.

– And lastly, an alien pod vase from my favorite of the big department stores, Printemps.