Monthly Archives: March 2013

So these were los hoofers all Bionda Castana-ed en route to meeting Mary at David Jones last week. When the hell will La learn to invest in regular pedicures, I ask you?

And don’t be nasty about the crazily long second toe — we all have our embarrassments of heredity.

Here’s the hugely stylish Ms GOS, who kindly blagged me into the Mary meet-and-greet on her invite. She’s a more valued customer of David Jones than La; mostly all I do is complain here beneath the virtual dusty rafters about how shop-soiled their goods are these days.

GOS wore “Georgie” by Piamento, the label of my lovely friend, Ms Jo Wondermaker. Do yourself a favour and click over there and away from here pronto. A couple of days after this photo was taken, Georgie Gardiner had a srsly self-referential clothing moment on the Today show, and also wore “Georgie”.

Aren’t GOS and I a veritable riot of print? Los coppers should have been after us with truncheons and tear gas.

So, off we set to bring about a reunion between my Dorchester blouse and its maker.

And here she is!

Los frocks were amazing, but GOS and La concurred that the models were too skinny, poor chickens. La must be getting old; used to feel envious of girls that slim, now I just want to force-feed them roast lamb and a generous helping of la special sticky date pud.

During a Q&A with Vogue ed Edwina McCann, Mary was charming, bright, unaffected, smart and generous with her time and answers. When Ms McCann called for questions from the assembled disciples members of the audience, La pounced, and asked Mary for the story of my Dorchester blouse.

She was visibly thrilled to see me wearing it (or, I guess, to see someone wearing it). She may even have been heard to squeal.

She said when she designed that collection she thought about her ideal windows, ideal doors, ideal chandeliers, ideal tables, ideal vistas, ideal flowers — you name it in terms of the elements we see in rooms. She loved doing it, and enjoyed being an interior designer as well as a fashion designer for a season.  So amazing to have the chance to hear from someone what they were thinking when they designed an item of clothing you love.

After that, Mary and I were besties.  Here we are.  She is compact in terms of height, and improbably young.

See?  “With all my love”. We are truly one.

As La’ve long said, there is indeed something about Mary.

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So, today was awesome.

I met Mary.

I had my photo taken with Mary.

Mary was visibly moved by the fact I was wearing her Dorchester blouse.

Suffice to say, Mary and La are pretty much besties.

But – sadly – that’s where we leave it for now, as the Glamour of motherhood has once again intruded upon the fabulousness of fashion, and La’m at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital with a crook female Junior Cost Centre.

Right now, Mary’s probably having her toes kissed by textile design students and her hair fondled by Vogue editors. And I’m surrounded by red-faced, steaming, squealing, poorly infants. But hey ho. Nothing can break our bond.

More tomorrow, plus PICS.

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A little while ago, this dodgy, fine-textured powder that has a srs effect on one’s nasal passages found its way into the Palazzo Trivialista postbox, evidently passing beneath la radar of the NSW Drug Squad.

It was from La Mamma Trivialista in the Bane of Bris. It’s her world-famous curry powder, which she learned how to make at her “Entertaining for Moderns” course in approximately 1983.

Here’s a much annotated and splodged copy of the recipe.

La thought it might be a good way to induct the loin fuits into the Hall of Spice. So I set about cooking.

It’s très retro in its sensibilities, the accompanying recipe. Contains apples and sultanas. Some people despise the thought of meatflesh and fruitstuffs cottaging and frottaging up to one another, but I do not count myself among their number.

OK, so this photo won’t cause Petrina Tinslay to break into a sweat about competition from La anytime soon, but you can’t deny this piccie gets your salivas going.

As would this one:

See, apparently these are key to getting Junior Cost Centres to eat curries. And at our Palazzo we don’t dum our pappas the healthy way like Mamma Trivialista used to, in the microwave — no sirree bob. We deep fry ’em. Only downside is the stench of smelly, expired cooking oil that lingers beneath the dusty rafters long after it’s welcome.

Everything seemed to meet with the female JCC’s approval. Favour curried, job well done. Thanks Mamma Triv.

Something’s going on with the Consumer gods right now. Not sure what it is but damn sure I don’t like it.

Hot on the heels of Macleans discontinuing la beloved Mildmint Protect fangpaste, Net-A-Porter seems to have erased — either through error or design — La’s entire Wishlist (what you want) and Closet (what you got) from their site. How the hell is Seriousimo supposed to be guided on birthday and Christmas purchases I ask you?

La’ve invested vast quantities of precious, valuable work time into building that Wishlist. Every bag, top, frock, pant and pump was judiciously selected with an eye on me lunching in St Tropez (with impeccably behaved Junior Cost Centres who would of course be reading Nicholas in French), sipping ouzo-based cocktails at sunset on Skopelos and strolling nonchalantly through St Germain-des-Pres, being asked for directions because I bore such a startling resemblance to a local. All that effort, all those dreams…for nowt.

Have sent the NAPsters a suitably stroppy email. Let’s hope I can wish la Wishlist — and la more glamorous life — back into existence STAT.

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One thing you might not know about La is what a fiercely loyal creature she is. See this much-squeezed, much-loved tube?

Well you’re unlikely to see it for much longer, as it’s been discontinued.  Thank you GlaxoSmithKline and your silly run-together-with-the-odd-capital-letter name! Don’t you know La’ve used this Macleans Freshmint fangpaste and its sibling, Mildmint, since La literally sprouted fangs? Shame on you and your discontinuation.

La distress has led to panic buying from various chemist direct sites… only to result in (soon to be smelly) sighs of disappointment when the paste that arrives turns out to be the allegedly new and improved Macleans — with red, white and blue stripes. Blecchhh.

Thank los gods La Triv has access to this, her virtual organ of latrivialista.com — ’cause pretty soon you might not want to commune with me face-to-face.

Poor old Signor Seriousimo, who’s such a good sport when it comes to doing as he’s told. He’s now using the vile tri-stripe so that what’s left of the old fave can be conserved for La’s fangalistas. In response to the most recent bout of weeping, wailing and tearing of vestments, he was possibly heard to mutter, “You know, you might just have to let it go,” or possibly not. To speak such blasphemy would be the act of a braver man than him.

So — because in the near future la breath could be smelly and los fangalistas furry, figure it will be best to blind people with a cracking digi-print.

With the help of the srsly stylish Ms GOS (she owned the requisite DJs Amex card, me having chopped mine up declined to continue my membership), I bought this with a whopping 50 per cent off. I know, that’s a reduction of almost northern hemispheric proportions.

Yup, Mary. Mary with an orange sale dot = even better. And guess what? This Friday GOS and La will be meeting her in the ladyflesh.

Time for los pointy elbows to come out so I secure a pic. So what to wear when La meets the lady herself  — Cake-A-Flake frock or Dorchester blouse?

Vote now!

This past Saturday La Trivialista ticked over another number closer to the grave. Well, that’s los pessimistalistas’ view of birthdays. Not mine but!

Day started with an omelette cooked by the female Junior Cost Centre. Have to say, it’s fab when those JCCs start returning on one’s investment. It was topped with herbs grown beneath los dusty rafters of Palazzo Trivialista, as well as some general green foliage that I’m not sure passes as foodstuff. But that girl has a top eye for presentation.

Seriousimo outdid himself with this little morsel.

Yup, srsly. Love it sick.

Boated to dinner with some ladyfriends, as you do when you live in the Harbour City.

Only slightly alarming part was that there was no jetty. WE HAD TO CLIMB OVER THE LIP OF THIS WHARF in our big shoes and fine frocks. Yup, all of our little noggins literally popped over the edge. If fellow Finger Wharf diners were amused by the sudden materialisation of five ladies from beneath the boards so regularly trod by Rusty Crowe and John Laws, they hid it well.

Hopefully los ladies will all still be my friends after the tube’s empty.

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Today, La did something very un-Trivish. It involved a long trip up la Parramatta Road. It involved discount shopping. And it involved jostling between large trolleys and small, aggressive, pointy-elbowed, multi-generational families.

La went to *deep breath* Costco.

Am soooo late to la party (as usual). But that place is more fracking amazing than a slew of coal seam gas profits. I walked around with la mouth agog, touching stock, fondling price tags, looking sideways for another newbie with whom to share my wonderment and awe. (Gods bless Jan from Terrey Hills, who stepped into the breach in the cold cuts aisle.)

Need a massive flat screen with your 15 loaves of bread and 12 litres of milk?

Or perhaps some Swarovski figurines with your…

Or what about a…

…with your chafing dish?

Sounds painful, non? But if the chafing exacts too high a toll, you could recline on your chaise “lounge”…

…while you nibble away at your whole San Daniele prosciutto at only – wait for it, smallgoods fans – $28 dollares a kilo! At that price you’d have enough spare coin to hire Javier Bardem to feed it to you.

Loo roll, kitchen towel, razors for los Seriousimo face bristles, giant yoghurts, body moisturiser, wheat fields of pasta, udders of sliced cheese, hand wash, a lasagne for the Junior Cost Centres (Seriousimo was on the receiving end of a sky-high, disapproving Trivialista eyebrow when he made an off-colour joke about horse mince), a done-and-dusted antipasto platter for tomorrow evening’s guests (you know who you are, WonderWandies!), and a few of these bargain basement beauties…

Who doesn’t love a Danish pat?

However, all this cheapness came at a cost.

Yee-ouch. That’s almost a Mary Katrantzou dress there. Suspect overspending during one’s first trip to Costco is a trap for young players.

Next time I’ll take a list — and a smaller trolley.

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