Food and Perfume: Are They Both About Chemistry?

Food is again the focus of my thoughts.  According to my theory, one should experiment with food like one experiments with perfume until the right chemistry match is found.

Getting sick messed with my mind, and I've been analyzing all of the reasons why it happened.  Stress?  Recycled airplane virus?  Diet?  Take your pick - I'm sure they all contributed. Last weekend, when I started eating regular food again, and immediately got a headache after a whole wheat muffin, I decided to get serious about exactly what's going into my body.

B-man and I have been eating like the French for almost two years now.  This means enjoying real food (no processed foods) with full fat goodness that is lingered over in slightly smaller quantities.  And wine, of course.  If I'm honest, though, I have gradually strayed away from fruit and veggies and become much more bread/cracker carb heavy.  Yes, the French eat carbs, but my diet has been out of balance for longer than I care to admit.  Plus, I'm just OVER eating meat.

And salmon is not meat, in case you wondered.

Here's the new plan (still very Mediterranean):

Fruit smoothie every morning (includes a big glob of natural peanut butter)
Carbs in the form of beans, oatmeal, fruit, veggies, quinoa
Lots of good fat, like avocados, olives, nuts and olive oil
Cheese stays
Wine stays
Wheat goes
Fish stays
All other meat goes

Best of all, the food I'm eating is delicious, resonating with my taste buds and my own 'eating intuition.'  Weight loss was not my motivation to make this change, but I lost four pounds last week even though my calorie intake jumped up to between 2000 and 2500 a day.  This tells me that  I have hit on something that works for my particular chemistry.  Like a perfume that sings on my skin and hits all the right notes. 

We'll see how this plan 'dries down' over time.

image from expresstree.com

Happy Mother's Day



My mother as a young woman


Happy Mother's Day, Mom - you are loved and missed.

image courtesy of mermaidmusing

Perfumes for a Rainy Day



Rainbow last night after a brief downpour



For the last few days, we've been enjoying short bursts of rain, which leave that smell of wet earth that I just love.  What perfumes go with rain?  Here's a few that work for me: 

Donna Karan DKNY - this perfume smells just like a rainy day.  Wet concrete, wet plants, wet soil and vodka...what's not to like?

L'Artisan Dzongkha - captures the melancholy of rain and vibrates with dirty iris, which grows best in damp earth.

Chanel Sycomore - better outdoors than indoors, with vetiver that promises rain, or fire, just around the corner.

Etro Messe de Minuit - musty and dark, like old, wet headstones.

Serge Lutens Gris Clair - Wuthering Heights in a bottle.

What are your rainy day perfumes?

Photo my own

Lazy Cinco de Mayo Sunday

B-man and Paige lounging on the deck this morning

Feeling better today - just good enough to park my butt on the deck and spend the afternoon reading, eating snacks and playing with perfume.  Later on, I'll shower and hook up with B-man for Champagne Sunday.  Maybe we'll cook tonight.

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

Photo my own

My Instinct Perfume: Hermes Un Jardin en Mediterranee

For the past week, Daphne, my nose, has largely been in hiding. She comes out occasionally, but prefers not to be associated with my pedestrian cough.  What will her friends think?  And I generally avoid wearing perfume when I'm sick anyway, because I don't want to then link the perfume with my illness or have it burn my nose and turn me against the perfume altogether. 

Over the last few days, however, Daphne has decided to grace me again with her presence.  Getting ready for the day, I reach for Un Jardin en Mediterranee without even thinking.  My usual pondering and opening one box after another to sniff until I find the perfect match has fallen by the wayside. Instinct kicks in and I select this perfume before anything in me can object.

Un Jardin en Mediterrannee is perfume perfection because it is always a right choice for any setting, any season and all circumstances.  Herbal and decidedly unisex, it radiates with fig, tomato leaf and fresh mint.  Floral notes of orange blossom and white oleander are subdued, however, juniper berries are fairly pronounced, which reminds me of a nice, dry martini, my favorite. Cedar shows up in the heart notes and follows through to the base, adding both depth and coolness to a beautiful finish.  Sillage and lasting power are better than average, and the high quality is unmistakable.

Some reviews have said Un Jardin en Mediterranee smells like a tossed salad, and the top notes do have that same feeling of natural freshness.  But it's so much more, and I have yet to experience a perfume that rivals the universal rightness and balance of Un Jardin en Mediterranee.  I'll never be without it.

What is your instinct perfume?

Image from olfactoriatravels.com

When You're Sick, There's No Place Like Home

I'm still sick - still coughing and sounding awful and not getting a good night's sleep and feeling sluggish and tired.  Okay, if I'm honest, I'm very slowly improving, but HELLO, IT'S BEEN A WEEK. 

Today, I had a meeting with a hospital leader in which I coughed and carried on all the way through...god, how embarrassing.  This respiratory gomboo - whatever it is, exactly - seems to flare up when I talk. Or eat. Or try to be charming.  Personally, I hate it when people who appear to be a walking plague invade my personal space.  Take your snotty self and go home.

I am officially a snotty self.

At around noon today, I ask myself why I don't just go home and take the rest of the week off to relax and get well.  So that's exactly what I do.  I come home, put on my sweats and drink lukewarm water with grapefruit and orange juice (my Mom used to swear this would cure anything).  Then I sit outside in the sun, moving to the shade and back and forth until I come into the house and watch an episode of 'Army Wives' that my television automatically records each season.  This series used to be good, but now the core plot is the same in every show, and some false sense of drama (another suicide bomber in Iraq!) takes the full commercial-laced hour until they all realize their loved ones are safe and hug it out at the end.  I cry every time.

My uncle died today.  He was 90 years old.  Dad tried to call my silenced-and-in-my-purse phone last night to tell me he was doing badly, then shared that news during exchanged texts as I was getting ready for work this morning.  I found out when I got home that my uncle had, in fact, died.  Dad and I haven't talked since then, but I'm sure he has the news and I wonder how he's taking it, as he and my uncle considered themselves friends.  We'll talk in the morning, as we always do, when we're both in the mood to process and ponder.  Neither of us are night people, and should I call him now, one of us would cut the call short before any meaningful conversation could occur.  Probably me, due to a coughing attack.

And I have to think B-man is sick of me being sick.  He has his own routine that efficiently handles every aspect of our life, and I can imagine feeling that my space was being invaded if I was in his shoes.  But he insists that's not the case and I have agreed - finally - to let him take care of me in every way that he can.  It's so good to be home. 

Image from guardian.co.uk

Jour d'Hermes: Home On The Range

I sniffed Jour d'Hermes at the duty free shop in DFW airport.  There's no delicate way to put this - it smells like a barnyard.  And not in a nostalgic, 'I was raised on a farm and it reminds me of where I grew up' sort of way. 

More like, 'wow, this smells just like hay and cow manure.'

Jean Claude, you're killing me.

Image from parfumo.com