biscuit tins

*

this time, i’m going to talk about nothing to do with weather or floras. well, it’ true that the most enjoyable part of my life is associated with seasonal changes of nature. but, my artsy side seems never to be influenced by seasons or even bad weathers. (oh, it’s another fine summer’s day; ideal for an italian white wine here in osaka.) matter of fact, i’m pretty design-conscious. i can be fussy or crazy about colours, patterns and shapes of end products that some talented persons have created. for this reason, i have a tendency to fall for things that can be my collectibles.

*

*

meanwhile, i tell my mother, who can’t throw anything away without feeling guilty, to stop accumulating rubbish. in her drawers and cupboard, i’ve been seeing a host of strings, rubber bands and shopping bags sit still over these years. i do understand that any woman of my mother’s generation experienced the times when anyone simply could not afford to waste anything because of the war. i, however, say to her mercilessly: “mother, do you really need a dozen of empty plastic yogurt tubs?” it’s no joke.

on the other hand, when it comes to pretty things like ribbons, boxes and biscuit (or tea, coffee, cocoa power?) tins, i am not in a position to tell my mother to get rid of that stuff. actually, i used to have way too many tins. i still keep some in spite of frequent relocations of my base crossing the seas, back and forth, in the past. my old biscuit tins all look ravishingly beautiful. in fact, years back, when i jumped off a double-decker i’d taken from piccadilly after shopping at fortnum & mason, i left my handbag. i was totally carried away with a gorgeous lazzaroni biscuit tin i’d just bought there. i know i’m sometimes such a comic. * **

pic 1
maker-unidentified french bonbons tin: i don’t really remember this … probably i bought this in london since the tin charmed me, while i clearly remember the bonbons were not so tasty. this tin now contains my sawing kit.

pic 2, 3
lazzaroni amaretti cookies tin: this is quite ubiqitous. i used to have all three sizes. the tall one is a perfect size for spaghetti. this spicy macaroon’s tissue wrapper is beautiful, too. design-wise, i prefer retro to modern, by the way.

pic 4
another lazzaroni biscuits tin: i eventually bought this after several visits to fortnum mason. this is the tin that cost me my handbag. several months later i received a letter from the london transport lost property office, telling me to collect my handbag. a good world? but, i had to pay for restoring charge.

pic 5
ladyfingers (french sponge type biscuits) tin: i think i bought this when i lived in 横浜 yokohama. i was going to make a charlotte with these biscuits, but i ate them all before making one. threads, buttons and beads are crammed in there now.

pic 6
末富 suetomi japanese biscuits tins: my new numbers. in my opinion, these minimalistic tins are the best designed confectionery tins in japan. 末富 suetomi, an well-established confectionery in 京都 kyoto, does have its own aesthetics not only for confectioneries but for packaging as well.

pic 7
(additionally) whiteman’s sampler box: i bought this in new york last year. it is not a tin as you see. and it is a bit girly, you might think. still, this nostalgic feel makes me so hard to throw away when empty.

have a beautiful sunday, everyone!
*

on a green day in manhattan

saint patrick’s day falls on tuesday this year. i experienced the irish celebration for the first time a year ago in manhattan. i loved it and as well as fun-loving people in new york. masaco and i visited jason and ivo last march. jason placed a vase of cheerful egg-york yellow daffodils welcoming us in his guest room. the night we arrived at their upper east apartment, jason brought us 4 champagne flutes and a bottle of veuve-clicquot from his fridge and offered a reunion toast before going out to a restaurant for our first dinner. how i loved the night. and how i’ve treasured the memory for a year. that was one of absolutely fabulous evenings i’ve ever had in my life.


on saint patrick’s day, tomona, masaco’s new yorker girlfriend, invited us to her ex-boss’s party at the peninsula hotel on 5th avenue. he is rich and of perky irish descent and i heard he’d throw a saint patrick’s day party every year. neither of masaco and i prepared anything for the green party, but at least we both fortunately had our own green scarves to wear for the party. to my surprise, the majority of his guests were from the fbi. that was what tomona told masaco and me. they were in plain clothes so i couldn’t figure out who were the fbi staff and who were not, though. they all looked more than light-headed, anyway, enjoying the live performance of irish music.


after the party, we walked up 5th avenue to meet my darling friend, gary, who had invited masaco and me to a broadway musical the previous night. in front of the barney’s, where we were supposed to meet, i spotted movie stars: robin williams and michael j. fox. although i am no big fan of them, it was fun to see hollywood stars. gary was leaving new york for his los angels home later that day. the sad thing now is, he’s lost contact with me since i last wrote him expressing my concerns over his financial commitment with a new man last summer. i could've have written what gary didn’t want to hear from me? well, it hurts. on the other hand, i was so happy to hear when jason and ivo was getting married in san francisco last autumn.


meanwhile, that new york trip was my first time i’d seen quinoa – what was it? what would its taste like be? i had no idea. ivo cooked it. i learned quinoa had a unique texture. it was so tasty as well. mostly owing to ivo's talent: he is an excellent cook. i can never find it back home. i should've bought a small bag of quinoa then. as i am so keen on food shopping even on a holiday, i enjoyed cooking in their kitchen, too. i shopped food at their nearby rather “posh” supermarket almost everyday. i was a greedy piggy to taste america, while the flavour of argula (rocket or rucola), which is my favourite green, less nutty than ones in britain or japan disappointed me a bit.


anything green reminds me of saint patrick’s day i adored during my last new york trip. simply, i miss manhattan. like crazy.

big apples

i just received great news from jason who works for the united nations in new york at the moment. he’s getting married with his long time boyfriend, ivo! not in new york but in san francisco where same sex marriage has been legalised, though. i’m absolutely happy for them. i always respect the liberal, open and wholesome side of the united states.
*
as i got older, my palate changed, so did my interests. american culture such as disneyland turned me off; my eyes were fixed more firmly on the european continent. but when it comes to new york, it’s a different story. a long time before carrie bradshaw came to life, natalie of ‘me, natalie’ written by a. martin zweiback, holly from ‘breakfast at tiffany’s written by truman capote and eleanor of ‘slaves of new york’ written by tama janowitz were my kind of heroines: independent women who live in manhattan. my first solo american trip had to be to new york. it was eventually realised in the august of 1990. i flew across the atlantic for the first time.
*

the first place i visited in new york was a local super market as i was a bit peckish after the long flight. the first thing surprised me was the size of apples. it was actually big! many things like apples and bagels in new york were much bigger than tokyo or london. i also realised things tended to shift a bit like tokyo in terms of tempo, not like london where i lived at the time. and, unexpectedly, it was muggy and humid just like tokyo, which made me less eager about exploration on foot. so i went by bus since the subway had an ill reputation for safety at the time. i love bussing it, anyway, anywhere, anytime.

*

while i walked between art museums, i bussed up and down to move around the haricot vert-shaped island, manhattan. no matter how and no matter where i went, police sirens followed me. that’s a new york thing, isn’t it? on one afternoon, i headed south as i planned to view the statue of liberty from a ferry. when i got on a bus, i asked the driver whether or not it was the right one for taking the staten island ferry. ‘what? where? oh, steitn island? oh yeah’ he answered, correcting my pronunciation of ‘staten’ in the strong ‘t’ sound, which was sort of my adopted british accent. like him, new yorkers sounded pretty candid. i began to cotton on to their ‘naked’ kindness.

*

on another afternoon, i headed north to visit harlem by bus. as soon as i got off the bus i got nervous about becoming presumably the only yellow woman entering harlem. in the late 90’s, harlem was not a place for a girl on holiday to experience gospel music yet. i asked a young man in smart outfit where i could take a bus bound for midtown. ‘are you alone, miss? that’s no good’ he said, ‘this is kinda rough neighbourhood, you know.’ escorting me to the right bus stop. ‘here we are… wait a second, i guess…better be with you till you’re off’, he continued, ‘that’d be the right thing to do for an uptown boy like me’ – it was one of conversations i had with strangers, but never escapes from my mind even after 18 years. if you asked me, ‘but what’s great about travelling solo?’ i’d answer you, ‘chance encounters like that.’ i do cherish them.

*

“global financial crisis” is the headline for almost all the newspapers around the world this week, as one of the big american money towers has collapsed and another been pillared. in this global-scale financial turmoil, who can read the future now? meanwhile, there is one more headline that has caught my eye this week. it’s been seen in european and american newspapers, which presents such a contrast to the darkest news of the world finacial markets.

*

new york has become a safer and cleaner city than london and harlem is a tourists’ destination now. i revisited manhattan in march this year. it was early spring and i had a holiday companion, my closest girlfriend masaco, so my impression of the big apple was quite different. besides, we had jason, whom masaco and i used to hang around together with in tokyo. he put us up in his upper east side apartment so that we could enjoy being instant new yorkers. what’s more, my old pal gary flew to see me all the way from laguna beach during my stay. i truly loved the reunions and togetherness with friends in new york.

*

on the other hand, while sipping coffee in the city bakery or being wide awake in jason’s guest room in the middle of the night, every time i heard the sound of police sirens echoing round the town, it brought back those innocent conversations with those strangers in the scorching heat of manhattan’s august. i'd be briefly reliving my previous solo trip when i was much younger. then i wondered what had changed and what had stayed the same since then…

*

there was one thing i knew for sure: the police sirens would remain unchanged in the big apple.
*

vincent & edgar

*
i’ve been thinking about my blog. and, i have to amend two things (my bad english too? i know, i know, i know that i still keep making errors in english after having lived in london for almost a decade in my life). as a matter of fact, the peculiar but intriguing shoe shop, vincent & edgar, is not on madison avenue. it’s on livingston avenue. and also, i had forgotten one thing: there was a difference between the sartorialist's photos and mine. actually, all the men’s shoes disappeared from the shop window some time between 2006 and 2008, which means the shop is still open and run by vincent or edgar or the both. indeed, manhattan is full of misteries!
*

shoe fetish

gosh, it's been more than a month since i flew back from my new york holiday. time also flies, indeed. still, i am still glowing with the fabulous memory of things in manhattan. so i browsed the sartolialist yesterday. and, some of his images caught my eye.
*
"wait a minute, i know these..."
*
they are the photos of the shoe shop show window on madison avenue that completely hooked me when i was strolling down. the sartolialist's photos were taken in 2006, which means the shop window did hook him two years ago, but nothing has changed since then. nothing changed at all in there. the high heels could've been around there for more than half a century, quite spookily. where are vincent and edgar now? it sounds like a manhattan shoe mystery.
*