Carmel Valley Ranch

Puppy love: Roxy, The Carmel Valley Ranch's two-year-old English Bulldog, is always eager for a dash across the lobby, a good-luck rub, a quick treat, or a friendly welcome.

The Ranch is on our short list for a visit.   For more info, check out carmelvalleyranch.com

Sherpa is Going to Westminster

Sherpa, CH Deep Acres Autumn Splendor

What We're Baking Next - Buckwheat Cinnamon Rolls?

But we think, we're not sure, we are going to make this healthy version.

Recipe for Buckwheat Cinnamon Rolls

Yield: about 10 cinnamon rolls

Prep Time: 10 minutes (plus overnight for resting the dough)

Cook Time: 25 minutes

Total Time: 35 minutes (plus overnight for resting the dough)

Ingredients:

For the rolls:
*2 cups buckwheat flour (I used Acadian light buckwheat flour from Bouchard Family Farm)
*3 tablespoons cold butter, preferably organic/pastured
*3/4 cup full-fat Greek yogurt
*2 eggs, preferably organic/pastured
*2 tablespoons pure maple syrup
For the filling:
*1/2 cup organic brown sugar
*2 tablespoons cold butter, preferably organic/pastured
*1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
*1/2 teaspoon ground cardamon (optional)
For the icing:
*4 tablespoons organic powdered sugar
*2 tablespoons heavy cream, preferably organic/raw

Directions:

1. In a medium bowl, cut butter into flour using a pastry blender or your fingers, then mix in the yogurt, eggs, and the maple syrup with a wooden spoon. Use your hands to form the dough into a ball. Wrap dough in plastic, and store in the refrigerator overnight.
2. Remove dough from the refrigerator and heat oven to 350 degrees F. In a small bowl, make the filling by mixing the brown sugar with the butter, cinnamon and cardamom until crumbly.
3. Lightly flour your surface (use additional buckwheat flour or brown rice flour) and roll the dough out into a rectangle measuring approximately 1/4 inch thick. Sprinkle the filling all over the dough. Roll up starting at the long end closest to you, then slice the dough into 10-12 equal pieces.
4. Place cinnamon rolls on a parchment- or silpat-lined baking sheet (or use a large, well-seasoned cast iron skillet to bake them, like I did).
5. Bake for 20-25 minutes, until golden. Remove to a wire rack and allow to cool slightly before using a spoon to drizzle on the icing.

A Dog at Pizza Bianco

This dog hangs on the wall of the bar next to Pizza Bianco in Phoenix.   Bianco is consistently rated the #1 pizza in the USA so we had to try it.   Pizza Bianco is located in a small historic house in the heart of downtown Phoenix. The bar sits across the garden in another very cute house.  And in the bar hangs this dog.

There's also this painting that we like of a woman.  The pizza was great - Margarita and Biancoverde (Mozarella, Parmesan, Ricotta, Arugula - we added tomato sauce).   Very, very good.  We still think Pizza Mozza in LA is THE BEST.   www.pizzeriabianco.com

Little Lola and Lucca - Des Moines

She's a wiz a soccer too!

Little Lola, Deep Acres Loco Por Lola, turned 6-months last week and this past weekend she participated in the Central Iowa Kennel Club shows.   She did such a fine job strutting her stuff in the ring and took Best of Winners both days.

After the show on Saturday, Lola and dad took a nice stroll around West Village in Des Moines and did a little shopping.   Then dad had dinner at Lucca on Locust Street (luccarestaurant.net ).   Goat cheese with beets.  Gnocchi with sage.  Risotto with butternut squash.  Rigatoni with black olive pesto.   Owner and three-time-James-Beard-Award-nominee Steve Logsdon took special care and served it up right.   If you should ever find yourself in Des Moines, this is the place to go.

Lucca's Steve Logsdon, host with the most.

Candace Bushnell and Her Poodles

Candace Bushnell, who has produced six novels since “Sex and the City,” at her home in Connecticut.

The first time I met Candace Bushnell was at a party she hosted in the Time Warner Center for her husband, the dancer Charles Askegard, who was retiring from the New York City Ballet. Bushnell looked beautiful in a sleeveless Versace cocktail dress that showed off her collarbones, toned arms and radiant, faintly tan skin. She was drinking rosé through a straw.

The next time I met Bushnell was at her airy boho-chic Greenwich Village apartment, where she sat on a thronelike chair, and we talked over tea about her literary legacy. But it wasn’t until the next time that I met Bushnell, at her Roxbury, Conn., home — a short drive from where she trains in dressage — that I realized that spending time with Bushnell is like following a grown woman through a series of disconnected but equally manicured dollhouse rooms into each of which she fits perfectly. Or more simply, a Candace Bushnell fantasy world in which Candace Bushnell is both author and star. 

Bushnell, 54, has produced six novels since “Sex and the City,” few of which have deviated from the formula of “beautiful women navigating love, status and money in New York City,” or the sort of life Bushnell lived in her 20s and 30s. The CW Network recently began airing “The Carrie Diaries,” which is adapted from Bushnell’s novel about a young Carrie Bradshaw, her famous protagonist, growing up in Connecticut and defecting to New York, which Bushnell also happened to do. 

Meanwhile, Bushnell is currently at work on a more serious novel starring a new character — or maybe just an older version of the same character. “It’s about a middle-aged woman,” she said in a vaguely British accent, in a tone that sounded as if she were doing the voice-over for a trailer. “No, it’s about a woman who leaves New York and, I guess, her adventures in the country.” 

A couple of weeks ago, Bushnell greeted me in her Roxbury vacation home with her poodles Pepper and Prancer in a crisp white-and-navy Nordic-style ski sweater. After saying hello, she showed me a spread in Equestrian Quarterly in which she recently appeared, leaning against the white wooden gate to her pool house, so I could get an idea of how the place looked in summer. Her close friend and P.R. manager, Jeanine Pepler, offered me a glass of wine, and the three of us sat by the fire with chardonnay on ice, petting the dogs and cracking unshelled almonds and walnuts. 

If the scene weren’t so genuinely comfortable, it would have been unsettling how perfectly it embodied a certain kind of adolescent girl’s literary fantasies — “Baby-Sitters Club” meets “Sweet Valley High” meets “Sex and the City” meets all those young-adult books about horseback riding and pluck. We talked a little bit about the level of dressage she has advanced to (at one point she acted out a move she’s trying to get her horse to do, and pranced in place in circles). Mainly, though, we talked about her writing. For better or worse, Bushnell and her alter ego, Carrie Bradshaw, are figures that young female writers of a certain stripe must in some way confront when considering their literary — and commercial — ambitions. At the very least, there must be some sort of secret to selling millions of books. 

“I know I’m not a wordsmith,” Bushnell said, the afternoon sun shining on her face through a wall of glass doors. “And I don’t write poetry. Sometimes I think I should, because it’s really helpful. But I always wanted to write novels. I think when I was 12, I started reading Evelyn Waugh, and I loved Evelyn Waugh so much, and I thought: This is how the world really is. If I could be Evelyn Waugh, then I would be happy.’ ” 

Bushnell writes at the computer for six hours every day, and she jots notes or bits of dialogue on scrap paper too. “I have these pieces of paper all over the place,” she said, picking up a loose scrap on the coffee table and reading from it. “ ‘I’ve come to extract my revenge, sir,’ ” she said in the vaguely English accent. “ ‘Your revenge? Why, you’re — um — surely a lad — what revenge?’ ‘Silence!’ ‘Speak, boy. Speak of what you speak!’ ” She laughed. “And then — I don’t know. Just notes.” 

In the year or so that passed between our meetings, and in something of a bad “Sex and the City” plot twist, Bushnell and her husband divorced. (He had an affair with a younger ballerina, court papers contend.) The depth to which it bothered her was hard to tell, but what was obvious, amid the continually ringing landline, the dogs sleeping on the bed and the two friends eating a lunch of smoked salmon and chardonnay and telling funny stories about mistakes they’d made, was that she wasn’t going to let it. “There’s so many things that mattered so much in my 20s and 30s that don’t matter now,” Bushnell said. “You don’t have to do everything by the time you’re 30. Or 40. All you need is a work ethic.” Then she paused. “It’s what allows you to push through moments of disappointment and self-doubt and fear.”

Dog Names - The Ultimate (Star) Guide

Francesca Beswick of pet365, an online retailer with a pet blog, asked if we would share some of their cool graphics on our blog. We can't help wondering if George Washington had all those dogs at the same time. I can imagine them running around Mount Vernon. Can't you? We heard that Ethel Kennedy had 18 or so dogs at one time. And horses that ran around in the front yard. And a seal! I'm not kidding. It's true. The Kennedy children remember it quite fondly. Anywho....I think I might like to be called Lady Rover. Who wouldn't?
Dog names graphic produced by Matt Beswick for Pet365. Click here to view the full post.