A Southern Manhattan: PWP

The Farmhouse serves a pretty well perfect Southern Manhattan made from peach whiskey and red wine, then topped with confit grapes. The acclaimed restaurant is located at the Inn at Serenbe near Palmetto Georgia, a get-away destination for Atlantans.

Owner and Chef Nick Melvin makes daily trips to his 25-acre organic Serenbe Farms to hand-pick local produce for that night's table while determining upcoming menus, showcasing the country's growing farm-to-table movement.

PWP

(Photo credit: Erik S Lesser)

YSL Proceeds will fund AIDS research foundation: PWP

The library of YSL's Parisian apartment - Photo: Christie's

YSL Auction - Grand Palais - February 23, 2009 Photo: Jacques Brinon

Billed as the sale of the century, the 733-piece Yves Saint Laurent auction netted $484 million, which will be used to create a new foundation for AIDS research and to fund the Berge/Saint Laurent foundation which honours the late designer's work.

Yves Saint Laurent, who is widely credited with modernizing women's wardrobes by popularizing ladies' pants, and his partner Pierre Berge started collecting works of art to fill the bare walls of their apartment on Rue de Babylone in Paris four decades ago.

PWP

Two Rare Bronze Fountainheads: $36 million

Final Day of the Saint Laurent auction in Paris:

Two rare bronze fountainheads - one of a rat shown above and one of a rabbit - which disappeared from China nearly 150 years ago and demanded back by Beijing, sold for $18 million each on the third and final day of the Christie's auction of the Yves Saint Laurent private collection.

The bronze fountainheads were part of a celebrated water fountain at the Imperial Summer Palace outside Beijing and disappeared from the Imperial compound near the end of the Second Opium War in 1860. They were looted along with the ten others, each fountainhead representing an animal of the Chinese zodiac, after the palace was burned down by French and British forces, and China insisted they belonged in a museum.

However Pierre Berge refused to return the two fountainheads to China, insisting he acquired them legally. At the weekend Mr. Berge stated he would agree to give them back if Beijing gave Tibet its freedom and improved its record on human rights.

PWP

Eileen Gray's "Dragons" Armchair circa 1917 - PWP

Eileen Gray's "Dragons" armchair, circa 1917, sold for $28 million on Day 2 of Christie's Yves Saint Laurent private collection auction at the Grand Palais, Paris.

This photo of the chair and its description are from Christie's website:

In the form of unfurling petals, upholtsered in brown leather, the frame in sculpted wood, lacquered brownish orange and silver and modelled as the serpentine, intertwined bodies of two dragons, their eyes in black lacquer on a white cloud, their bodies decorated in low relief with stylised clouds.

A pretty well perfect description for a $28 million armchair.

Yves Saint Laurent's Matisse: PWP

The first of six auctions of the private collection of Yves Saint Laurent and his partner Pierre Berge has begun. Yesterday's sale of their art collection brought in $264 million, led by this Matisse, a colorful painting from 1911 of a vase of cowslips on a carpet, which sold for $40.9 million, double its estimate. (Christie's pulled a Picasso when bids stopped at $26 million.)

Thousands of visitors lined up for hours over the weekend to view the collection at the Grand Palais in Paris.

French designer Yves Saint Laurent passed away last June at 71.

(Photo credit: Francois Lenoir)

Leonard Cohen @ the Beacon: PWP

Leonard Cohen performed his first U.S. concert in fifteen years at the Beacon Theatre last night. He closed the first half of the concert, which lasted almost three hours and featured over two dozen songs, with "Anthem". Its pretty well perfect chorus:

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.

(photo credit: Nicholas Roberts)

THE IT FLOP - THE FITFLOP - PWP

Saskatoon's Marcia Kilgore, founder of the spa chain Bliss, has another hit: The Fitflop. Originally designed to reduce cellulite, the "it" flop, the Fitflop, has also been found by wearers to correct posture, alleviate back pain and increase mobility.

I've grown attached to my brown suede pair: Pretty well perfect.

(Photo courtesy of fitflop.multipy.com)

The Beacon is Back - PWP

Manhattan's Beacon Theatre reopens after seven months of restoration with a celebratory concert by Paul Simon.

Located on Broadway at West 74th Street since 1929, the 2829-seat Beacon Theatre is familiar to generations of New Yorkers as a film and vaudeville venue and in recent decades as the Carnegie Hall of city rock rooms.
(Photo credit: Fred R Conrad)

A Lone Gondolier on Venice's Grand Canal

On the busiest days of the Carnevale, the annual 10-day pre-Lent celebration, the city's narrow streets are clogged with tourists. Strict water traffic regulations keep the canals peaceful - Pretty well perfect.

(Photo credit: Chris Bickford)

PWP Coconut Hot Chocolate

Melissa Clark's recipe for Coconut Hot Chocolate:
2 TB unsweetened cocoa powder, 1 15oz can coconut milk, 1/4 cup dark brown sugar, a pinch of kosher salt, 1 oz bittersweet chocolate chopped (about 1/4 cup), 1 ts vanilla extract, meringue topping optional.

Whisk cocoa in 1/3 cup boiling water. In a saucepan combine coconut milk, brown sugar and salt. Simmer, stirring until sugar is dissolved, about 2 minutes. Whisk in hot cocoa and chocolate until smooth. Stir in vanilla. Serve with topping if you like. Makes two servings.

Melissa Clark's recipe for Meringue Topping:
1 lg egg white, 3 TB superfine sugar

In a bowl of an electric mixer beat egg white on medium speed until it begins to foam, about 1 minute. Add sugar tablespoon by tablespoon as mixer is running. Continue to beat until egg white stiffens to soft peaks and is shiny, 5 minutes. Dollop onto hot chocolate.

Pretty well perfect.

(Photo credit: Andrew Scrivani)

Vernacular Architecture, Kauai Style: PWP

This two-room driftwood structure was recently created on one of Kauai's spectacular westside beaches, locally known as Second Ditch Beach. A December storm supplied the building materials. Pretty well perfect.

(Photo credit: Lori Decker)

PWP: Portland's Hub for Artists, Designers

Portland's Northeast Alberta Street is now lined with colorful galleries and boutiques where visitors can browse for street art, shop for a handmade felt hat, overhaul a bicycle with used parts and get acupunture treatments at a tea shop.

Much of the district's commercial revival can be traced to Roslyn Hill, a civic-minded landlord who began purchasing the street's vacant buildings and aging auto shops in the early 1990s and renting them to gallery operators and designers. Ms. Hill had a couple rules: No metal bars on windows and no locked doors during business hours.

By 1997 galleries were sponsoring monthly art walks and the momentum hasn't stopped. One of the best times to stroll Northeast Alberta Street is on a Sunday when 20-somethings walk their dogs, cyclists meet in cafes and a woman sells tamales from a cooler.

Sunday is also a good day to visit the street's indie fashion boutiques and graphic design studios. Shop owners are usually around and happy to chat, giving Northeast Alberta Street the air of a working artists' colony.
(Photo credit: Basil Childers)

PWP: Cheap-and-Chic Airport Hotels

In Amsterdam, the six-month old 230-room citizenM Hotel at Schipol International Airport is emblematic of the cheap-and-chic airport hotels opening worldwide. citizenM offers rooms with king-sized beds, good showers and free wi-fi internet starting at 69 Euros a night. The hotel provides the 24-hour canteenM, an art-filled library, a self check-in service and is directly linked to the airport's arrival and departure terminals. Pretty well perfect.

(Photo courtesy of www.citizenmamsterdamairport.com)

The Breath of Fire: Pretty Well Perfect

Most of us don't know how to breathe properly. We take shallow breaths as if we are afraid of what breath does.

I was first taught Long Deep Breathing by breathing in to the count of four, feeling the breath expand my ribcage. At the end of the fourth count, taking a sip more and holding for four counts. Then exhaling over another count of four and when you think you have all the air out, huffing more out.

Long Deep Breathing is a great way to relax and is also pwp for any lung-related problems.

The Breath of Fire is a cleansing and energizing breath, powered by abdominal contractions. The Breath of Fire will entirely charge the nervous system, causing the glands to secrete and purify the blood.

Alyssa teaches The Breath of Fire in the attached 3-minute PWP video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcO27kWmZP8&NR=1