A Treasury Of… Minneapolis Fashion and Interior Design Blog

Not red, not blue. I had to photograph the yellow.

Deadstock trinkets at the St. Ouen flea market.

Digging through dessert at the fanciest looking restaurant I’ve ever seen, Le Train Bleu at the Gare de Lyon station. Named for the luxury locomotive that carried the fancypants of Paris down to the golden coast up until the 1930s. (Thank the fashion gods that at least one of my sleeves is rolled, this time.)

Dusk down in Nice, (almost) under the cherry moon.

My first of three personal boxes of macarons. The pitch black licorice was my favorite of all, and of all time. Just lightly licorice-d, minus the usual briney, bitter bite.

A stampede of skeletons at the natural history museum.

And lastly, a tiled threshold to somewhere I never even went.

After five hours of traveling we capped off our 95 minute sprint through Mt. St. Michel with a cone of crispy Chu-Chis, deep fried twigs of dough that are then doused in a dramatic downpour of sugar. Like a funnel cake, but tough and crunchier.

We were held up by Mean Mickey at the Porte de Vanves flea market. It’s a drastic makeover, but he wears armed & insane surprisingly well.

Flower-buddy spices at the Galleries Lafayette über-market.

I assumed the golden nose on this $1400 McClown lamp was its on switch, but, sadly, the joke was on me.

France is the land of 10,000 carousels. We saw many, rode one, and photographed most of them.

Down in Nice there was a strong Italian influence and so we strolled around the city with gelatto cones twice a day. At our favorite shop, if you ordered two flavors, they didn’t just plop one down on the other, snow-man style, but created radial little blossoms of creamy coolness.

Whenever I’m in a foreign land, I like to hunt down grocery market finds by brands we have back at home of specific products which we do not. I even sacrificed precious room in my suitcase to pack in a big box of Kellogg’s Tresor cereal.

The daffy door leading to the unisex restrooms at Colette.

As you can see, France isn’t all fussy refinement. It can flash a little crass and whole lot of sass.

Forced to kill some time yesterday I came upon a basket of these 60 cent mini-bars.

The Honeycomb & Vanilla ones are made with Bourbon Vanilla, no less, and they’re gritty to the tooth – crispy little crystals crinkling inside the creamy, classic chocolate.

I was imagining hunky chunks of honeycomb inside and, well…I guess I still am.

I’ve been treasuring away for over a year now and I can’t believe I never posted about this book before. My sister gave it to me as a gift a few years back, and really I can’t think of anyone who wouldn’t enjoy receiving a copy.

“First published in 1924 this delicious book is a peek at life in England between the wars, and is a useful mini-encyclopedia, filled with games, recipes, bird-spotting information, first-aid instructions, and random, often wacky trivia. Learn the proper way to kiss in the ocean, eat mice, play ‘Human Sacrifice’ and more.”

Flipping through my copy, I imagine getting holed up at some countryside cottage for months on end, my only source of amusement and information, my Week-End Book. Stocked with miscellaneous sonnets, tips on etiquette, maps of the stars, and retro tips for preparing tinned British foods, the days and weeks would ripple rapidly away.

It’s a true Swiss Army Knife of a book – there’s even a checkers ‘n chess board and a ruler printed on its inside cover.

My copy states that the publisher intended to update the book with all new content for 2006. Looking online, it doesn’t appear that that ever happened. But I did find its re-printed sister book, The Week-End Problems Book, which is set to arrive in the post tomorrow!

Not all grocery markets are created equal, but even the better ones never seem to have everything I am in need/want of. So I cycle through them all, at irregular intervals, to suitably stock my pantry properly.

Even at the drabbest and saddest of the markets in Minneapolis you might come across something surprisingly fine ‘n fun, just as I did last Friday with this box of Finnska black licorice.

It was offered in red too, but where’s the thrill in that?

Before it’s totally untimely: the final remnants of my much-adored Christmas Stocking.

1. Chinese New Year Kit. The gold bars say Hell Bank on them. Anyone know what that’s all about?

2. Flowery, fragile sesame cookies. Crunchy, crumbly, crave-worthy.

3. A rainbow’s worth of macaroon-like soaps.

4. And a bin of macaroon-colored Taro wafers.

(Everything on Earth reminds me of macaroons these days.)

Due to the particulars of my personal life, “Santa” stuffs my stocking three times each Christmas. The stocking I traditionally dig through last each year is always the best one. Void of flat filler like Dilbert desk calendars or uninspired drugstore deodorant, my final stocking of the season always overflows with treasures vintage, exotic, or branded beautifully. Some of this year’s top-performing stuffers:

1. Indian Salted Pumpkin Seeds.

2. Mexican Bingo Boards & Cards.

3. New Mr. Goodbar bars in old-fashioned wrappers.

4. A zoo’s worth of Cracker Jack creatures in red and wintery blue.

Because of a big-ticket item that was given to me back in November as my early, main Christmas present, most of my December 25th gifts were all tiny and thrifty stocking stuffers, actually. But I didn’t mind at all, and my materialistic core didn’t even really notice the absence of splurgy goods, believe it or not. All the small-ticket treasures in my sparkly stocking brought me huge heaps of giant-sized joy.

…I’m gonna keep that in mind at Christmas next year.

I don’t live near Paris or within a storybook or in the year 1913.

So I thought I never could and never would live in the same world as magenta or mauve or minty blue macaroons but, alas, I do!

Braving the first midwestern blizzard of the year, I drove out to the newly opened Sweets Bakeshop in St. Paul to cram a cardboard box full of technicolor treats. Just look at the rainbow of brave flavors their website promised!

Anything sweet but salted totally wags my tail, and Chile Pepper and Lavender flavored desserts introduce intrigue and adventure to a world bogged down in the vanilla-ness of boring chocolate.

The Sweets Bakeshop site was part Dessert Depot, part Baked Good Gallery with delicious displays of its custom cupcakery-as-art ordered for weddings, wingdings, and whatnot.

The daily goods counter was not as endless as I’d envisioned. Only three varieties of macaroons were available that day but I ordered two of each, plus one each of the Caramel Corn, Peanut Butter, and Red Velvet Cupcakes. And a brownie.

The supremely sweet shopkeeper said they hoped to replace their display case soon with a larger one so as to expand their daily offerings, and that a schedule of which flavors will be baked when will post to their website soon.

Either way, I’m going back again and again to try and nab a Mint Basil macaroon. And a Feisty Goat (cheese cream-frosted) Cupcake. And…well everything they make.

How else will I be able to state with any authority what my favorite frosted find really is?

Jax Cafe is an institution here in Minneapolis. The closest thing my modern world has to a supper club and a wood-paneled portal into a time of stiff drinks, cigarettes, and 16 oz. sirloins.

Although I don’t drink, have never smoked, and don’t even know how to eat (…deadpan), the atmosphere at Jax is rich and Roger Sterling enough to convince you that luxe and unhealthy habits are being indulged even when they’re not.

And the very fanciest blast of a visit to Jax is one you take with you. If you phone ahead to make a reservation, waiting at your table upon arrival is a black matchbook glittering your name in golden letters.

Popping it into your pocket at the end of a meal, you walk back out into your everyday life feeling like you’re really something special.

This place is right out of my dreams.

The Soda Pop Stop, a former grocery store in Los Angeles run by John Nese that now stocks over 500 varieties of bottled pops. For a while I could find orange Nesbitt’s and Faygo red pop at specialty shops near me, but not anymore.

Yum ‘n num! Just look at all the flavors, look at all the fonts!

Guess who walks down the aisle of the fanciest grocery market in town and choses their weekly cereal not based on how much they enjoy the contents inside the box, but whether or not said box has been branded in vintage edition packaging?

Me, that’s who. (This week at least.)

There were Grape Nuts a la retro too, but I’ll save them for next time.

Being a total tee-totaler, soft drinks are as hard as my beverages get. I like wondering what makes up White Russians and Pink Squirrels, what they’d taste like if they didn’t actually taste like Windex to me, and imagining how fancy I would feel if I ordered one someday. But limited edition, imported, or ultra-rare soda pops are as exotic and intoxicating as my liquid life ever gets.

This bottle of Fentiman’s Dandelion drink has been frosting in my fridge all summer, waiting for its Treasury time in the spotlight. Its bizarre, black licorice and sparkling tea taste doesn’t warrant much of a write up however. (And I even like black licorice.)

Hopes remain higher for this safer-seeming citrus soda with a water-skiing siren as its marketing mascot. Bottled in Tennessee without High Fructose Corn Syrup, there’s a pillow of lemon lime pulp resting on the bottle’s floor. Haven’t sampled it yet, so we’ll just have to see about Ski