southern – Ann Street Studio

A Southern Holiday Party

December 3, 2015December 4, 2015Posted in LifestyleTagged biscuits, brussel sprouts, catfish, cheese, dinner, Ecco Domani, eccodomani, food and wine, foodandwine, friends, holiday, home, merlot, pinot grigio, pinotgrigio, recipe, recipes, ribs, southern, southern cooking, southern food, southerncooking, southernfood, wine6 Comments

It feels like only a moment ago we were hosting last year’s holiday party for friends. My how fast a year comes and goes with so many new memories to stowaway in the vault. For this year’s get together in our new Upper West Side home I wanted to bring to life a piece of my past to make the meal even more personal and intimate by taking our friends on a culinary trip down south, to taste my southern roots and warm comfort food.

When I think about southern food I always think about BBQ and biscuits. A saucy slow cooked meat rolled in spices and balanced by the buttery softness of a warm biscuit. It’s sinful and wonderful and went beautifully with Ecco Domani’s full bodied Merlot. For the non-meat eating guests we offered southern catfish baked and served in my cast iron skillet my grandmother passed down to me which is seasoned with love, as I like to say, and a great compliment to Ecco Domani’s Pinot Grigio.

Of course, any time I host friends or family I like to start with a cheese plate for people to graze on while we finish preparing the meal. Following my simple rule I outlined in this post, I chose a wonderful soft goat cheese, aged gouda, manchego cheese to be accompanied by roasted almonds, apples and artisanal crackers. Wanting to start with a crisp and light wine, we opened Ecco Domani’s Pinot Grigio for the cheese course though it goes perfectly well with the Merlot too if you prefer.

In the end, no matter what you serve or what you wear, it’s about making memories with friends and loved ones, sharing stories, being at peace and above all, loving one another this holiday season. Cheers….

See below for entertaining tips and southern recipes created for this night by my friend Jared who is, as we call him, the cookie monster. Everything was served on handmade pottery (a wedding gift from my parents!) by Clayworks in the East Village and another very personal, homey touch to this intimate gathering.

For last year’s holiday party we set individual photographs I had taken of each guest at their place setting to not only arrange the seating in a beautiful visual way but for each of the guests to take home a gift from the evening. This year I decided to create individual bouquets for each place setting that the guests could take home and enjoy for the days to come. Living in New York City this is a wonderfully easy way to play with your creativity. On 28th and 7th is the most fabulous flower market where you can find anything your heart desires. I love more than anything exploring in and out of these shops and creating my own story though flowers.

Above, setting the table in Maud Heline’s Arlanik white button up shirt dress made in Brooklyn (ps- it’ has pockets!!)

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HUSK

May 16, 2014January 5, 2015Posted in TravelTagged charleston, charleston sc, comfort food, drink, food, food & drink, food and drink, food&drink, husk, interior, interiors, restaurant, south, south carolina, southcarolina, southern, southern food, theamericansouth, tibi6 Comments

Talk about COMFORT FOOD. Husk is Charleston’s perfect combination of modern day sophistication and down-home goodness. The second you walk onto the double-front porch and feel the coziness of being home, it’s like the whole experience has you wrapped in a cashmere blanket. The board on the foyer wall lists all the local farms, fishermen, growers who supply your food. It feels like one big Southern family here with roots that extend for generations. On the drink menu they serve things like cider made from the same recipe as its creation 100 years ago or house-made soda concoctions and old classics like Cheerwine Soda from Salisbury, NC, the old soft drink company still run by the same family. With a menu that changes twice daily, it’s so hard to decide what to order! As far as the classics on the menu go, I’m always a sucker for southern catfish, which is outstanding here, but word has it they are the best burger in town. So add it to your must-eats list and feel free to take me with you when you go….

PS- the pig ear lettuce wraps are DELICIOUS, the selection of Madeira wine is fantastic, and their pimento cheese crostini haunt my dreams…

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Hampden Clothing

May 15, 2014May 19, 2014Posted in Fashion ReportageTagged charleston, charleston sc, clothes, Clothing, fashion, fashion reportage, hampden clothing, hampdenclothing, reportage, shop, shopping, south, south carolina, southcarolina, southern, store, storefront3 Comments

Being in New York City, especially now that the studio is so close to SoHo, we are very aware of all the amazing boutiques the city has to offer…almost to the point of being overwhelmed!

I’d been putting off buying a garden wedding dress for months. I didn’t want to spend a day going from store to store, but I also wanted to have more of an experience buying such a special piece than sitting all alone in my PJ’s on a Saturday morning and ordering online. I think there is a time to buy something quickly online and then there is a time to make it an experience.

When I was down in Charleston with Tibi for their pre-fall runway show, we stopped in to the boutique Hampden Clothing where creator and owner Stacy Smallwood has turned an historic King Street storefront into a little curated slice of SoHo heaven. I walked in, I said I was looking for a garden party wedding dress, and in 15mins it was done. It felt like I was finding something insanely special without having to do all the work. They carried everything from Alexander Wang to Rag & Bone, Tibi to KENZO and more. It was fabulous.

So what’s the point of covering a store? The point is, Stacy brought New York fashion -avant garde silhouettes, crazy patterns and pieces so chic they look like something a princess would wear – into Charleston South Carolina, a town of 400,000 people, and never looked back. She doesn’t sell beach flip flops or mass-produced product that’s here today, gone tomorrow; she respects her customer’s intelligence, sophistication and style. She created a space where you can love fashion but not have to know anything about it and still be taken care of. She has wound back the clock to an era of shopping where the store was specially curated for you, where shopkeepers knew your name and what you liked, pulled for you from designers when she is on buying trips to New York or Paris, and makes sure you feel as good as you look. In a time where the Internet makes us all so anonymous, it’s a modern day luxury to have someone like Stacy who KNOWS you.

I sat down with Stacy in her store to hear how she created her own fashion universe in the middle of the South.

How did you get into fashion?

I was recruited by Neiman Marcus at Vanderbilt to go straight into their buying program, and it was the best decision I ever made. I moved to Dallas and I was with Neiman Marcus for five years as an assistant buyer and designer in sportswear, and department manager in ladies shoes at the flagship store.

Why do you say it’s the best thing that ever happened to you?

It taught me a work ethic and gave me a bigger picture of the fashion industry that I wouldn’t have gotten. My buyer taught me to – she worked equally as hard if not harder, and she taught me to never ask anybody to do anything you wouldn’t do.

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Cumberland Island

April 17, 2014January 5, 2015Posted in TravelTagged baptist church, boats, clawfoot bathtub, cocktails, cumberland, cumberland island, cumberlandisland, design, destination, eggs, first african baptist church, GA, georiga, getwaway, gogo, historic, horses, interior, interior design, interiors, island, jewelry, jfk jr, jfk jr wedding, jfk jr wedding chuch, JFK Jr's wedding reception, leisure, national seashore, nature, pamento cheese, picnic, romantic, southern, southern homes, southern hospitality, theamericansouth, travel, white house, wild horses7 Comments

I remember that photograph. It was instantly synonymous with American style, American royalty, and that fairytale wedding to Prince Charming. I never forgot that image, the beauty of the moment, the elegance and intimacy of the chosen venue. Such an interesting choice to make for such a famous last name. Fast forward nearly 18 years later, and I’m standing on the steps of the First African Baptist Church on Cumberland Island thinking about all the dreams that one photograph gave me as a child. I remember reading about how the guests stayed at the Greyfield Inn where the reception was held but as time passed these little details faded away, now those faded details are a part of my very personal memories. Cumberland became more than a dream, but a cherished experience.

The day is full of delight with the kind of youthful energy and discovery you find in a F. Scott Fitzgerald book. We went on hour long hikes, took bike rides to old cemeteries and rode around horses grazing beneath the ruins of the Dungeness mansion. We rode for hours down the seashore without ever seeing another person, finding seashells and chasing horses. One of the most charming rituals of the Inn is how they make their guests picnic baskets for lunch everyday you can take with you on your private adventures. On our second morning we rode with the house naturalist on a tour of the island where we visited that famous church, saw the house where President Jimmy Carter ate at multiple times, and discovered Plum Plantation which took my breath away. The history and nature, preservation and privateness is so far beyond anything I have ever experienced that I can only describe this stretch of land, twice the size of Manhattan, as magical.

If you ever need to find that corner of the world where things just are… where you can sit in the natural silence of the world alone and breathe in the sunlight, taste the salt of the sea and feel that life is just simply beautiful… then come to Cumberland Island. My heart will be there waiting for you.

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Greyfield Inn

April 16, 2014June 2, 2016Posted in TravelTagged clawfoot bathtub, cocktails, cumberland, cumberland island, cumberlandisland, design, destination, eggs, GA, georgia, georiga, getwaway, gogo, greyfield inn, greyfieldinn, historic, historic hotel, hotel, interior, interior design, interiors, island, jewelry, jfk jr, JFK Jr's wedding reception, john f kennedy jr, leisure, pamento cheese, personal-favorite-hotel, picnic, romantic, savannah, southern, southern homes, southern hospitality, theamericansouth, travel, vacation, white house17 Comments

While we were in California last year, spending the day photographing Lake Tahoe with our friends, Adam Katseff and his wife Amy, they told us about the Greyfield Inn…the magical place they stayed on their honeymoon, one that they knew I would LOVE (turned out to be a major understatement). I knew the name sounded familiar, and once they mentioned it was on Cumberland Island, it all came back to me…an enchanting wedding, an all-American couple…but more on that tomorrow…

After hearing about it, I knew I had to see Greyfield Inn for myself and with the trip down to visit SCAD, it was the perfect opportunity. I’m an extremely visual person and I’m sure it comes to no surprise to you that I quite often dream about the way life looked “back then”. I think walking through the doors of Greyfield will be as close as I will ever get to knowing the way it might have actually looked…

You leave your car on Amelia Island and Mitti, one of the four owners and inheritors of Greyfield and the Carnegie property, takes you by boat to Cumberland Island. Walking up from the dock the giant, old live oaks seem to wave at you with their long fingers of Spanish moss, diffusing the afternoon sun into a sparkling haze underneath their centuries-old canopy. Then, from behind the trees you catch the first glimpse of the four story white mansion they call Greyfield. Built in 1900 as a wedding gift to the Carnegie’s daughter, Margaret, this home is still furnished with many of the original pieces of that era but with exceptional modern day comforts (ummm…air-conditioning). As you walk up the grand staircase to the second floor porch lined with rocking chairs and swinging daybeds, you regret how short your stay is. Now, up in the canopy of live oaks, you overlook the property of white picketed fences and fields of grazing wild horses and as they offer you organic rosemary lemonade, if you’re like me, you think you’ve died and gone to heaven.

The house, grand as it is, still holds a very sweet intimacy. At night, sitting out by the waterway looking back on her, she stands a soft pearly white in the light of the moon, framed by Spanish moss draped trees with a golden light glowing out of every window, so warm and welcoming you would swear the evening was meant just for you. The charm extends to the inside with its historic clawfoot bathtubs, immaculate upkeep, full service bar, organic meals, classic high quality southern linens and L’Occitane toiletries. Every evening, men in dinner jackets and ladies in our sweet southern dresses snack on hors d’oeuvres and classic Southern cocktails (recipe for my favorite below!), awaiting a dinner bell around 7:30 where we all move into the formal dining room for that night’s seasonal meal which at times can harvest ingredients from Greyfield’s own impressive garden.

I know on busy New York days or times when I’m caught in a blizzard, I will think back on this memory and my soul will fill with the warmth of these sunny afternoons, lost on Cumberland Island in a dream called Greyfield…

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Magnolia Hall

April 15, 2014April 17, 2014Posted in LifestyleTagged georgia, magnolia hall, magnolia house, magnoliahall, magnoliahouse, savannah, savannah college of art and design, Savannah Georgia, scad, south, southern7 Comments

My history and love for Savannah runs really deep. Now you know SCAD as intimately as I do, and you’ve walked the streets of Savannah and fallen in love with student and alumni works. My first introduction to this great place was not through the first visit with my father but through the book and film Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. I love this book. I love the characters. I love how Kevin Spacey plays Jim Williams who also did so much for the preservation of Savannah. My FAVORITE home in the world is the Mercer Williams house – I’ve toured it multiple times, and as rumor has it, Jackie Kennedy once offered to buy it. You can imagine my excitement when SCAD, in traditional southern hospitality style, invited Kevin and I to stay at Magnolia Hall, the home where John Berendt wrote the book I adore so much! We drank champagne on the grand porch overlooking Forsyth Park each evening, watching the day come to a close. We snuck into any room that was open out of sheer curiosity, admiring the interior design done by SCAD’s own president and co-founder Paula Wallace. SCAD maintains this historic 3-story 2nd empire residence built in 1878, as a place to offer their special guests… which is exactly what you feel like at Magnolia Hall.

ps- notable guests such as Oliver Stone, Mark Jacobs, DVF, Marina Abramovic, and Andre Leon Talley have stayed here!

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Guide to Savannah

April 10, 2014March 23, 2016Posted in TravelTagged city, georgia, guide, home, paris of the south, savannah, Savannah Georgia, south, southern, theamericansouth, tour, travel27 Comments

My love for Savannah started on a father / daughter trip about five years ago – obviously I got to pick the destination – and something very strange happened to me…I felt at home there and that took me by surprise. I enjoy Texas, where I was born, and I love New York, the place where my work and dreams are, but every time I get down to this small southern town I get that feeling of peace, that I am where I belong. Savannah has so much of what I love about New York to it: it’s walkable, has great restaurants, beautiful parks, great coffee, art, interesting people, antiques and historic dreaminess. I’ve gone back every year since over and over again, tweaking my list of must-dos, and must-eats. Here is my guide to Savannah if you’re just visiting like me or thinking about going to SCAD one day.

COFFEE JOINTS

LUNCH SPOTS

Gryphon Tea Room
Blowin Smoke
Zunzi’s (Fisherman’s Deck, both sauces. OMG)
Green Truck Pub
Mrs. Wilkes (best fried chicken in the world)
Public
Soho South Cafe

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Meet Christina Graci

January 23, 2014January 27, 2014Posted in LifestyleTagged art, christina graci, christina graci art, christinagraci, decor, graci, graci interiors, graciinteriors, home, inspiring woman, inspiring women, inspiringwomen, interior design, interiors, new orleans, pandora, pandora essence collection, pandora jewelry, pandoraessencecollection, southern, southern hospitality7 Comments

Today is the last installment of our inspiring women series with Pandora Jewelry. From San Francisco with Courtney Klein to Charleston with Helen Rice, this has been an incredible experience for me, being personally inspired by these amazing women all over the country. I feel so lucky that our roles as women have become so open to any of our hearts’ desires and I have truly loved seeing what these women have chosen to do with their lives. What has been truly meaningful as well is to see the choices each of these women make within the Pandora Essence Collection, selecting charms that are chic and stylish, but also representative of their core tenets. Speaking to them about what beliefs they hold dear has told me so much about each woman, and I have treasured the friendships made through this lovely collection. And so here we are now with the beautiful Christina Graci…

Christina is a native of New Orleans, Louisiana. She studied in Baton Rouge and abroad in Denmark, worked for two major interior design firms in New York City, and then came back to New Orleans to live and work. What makes this the city to be in?

“New Orleans has a special place in my heart. The city is so rich in history and culture that you don’t find everywhere. It’s such a diverse city that is so full of life. The people here are also truly unique. Never a dull moment in this city to say the least!”

With her brother Chad, Christina runs Graci Interiors, an interior design firm known for having exquisite and classic tastes, mixing vintage and modern styles with ease. Christina said her passion for interior design showed before she even knew it could be a job: “Growing up my mother and I would re-decorate my bedroom yearly. We would get new draperies, bedding, change the wall color, etc. It was so much fun doing that with her that I guess it just grew on me. It wasn’t until I went off to college that I had the epiphany that I could do that for a living!”

Christina describes her personal style as “classic traditional but fresh and modern. Keeping with traditional interiors is important to me but bringing it into our era and how we live today makes is so interesting and fun.”

When I first heard this, I knew Christina and Pandora Jewelry made the perfect pair…classic jewelry with a fresh and modern perspective on the inspiring woman who wears it!

Christina on what her Pandora Essence Charms mean to her ~

“Hope and Confidence – I chose these because they primarily have a lot of meaning to me in reference to my career. I’ve had to have a lot of hope in my career along the way in order to keep moving forward. Also, in my career you’ve got to have confidence in yourself and in your work to be successful.
Health – A healthy lifestyle is so important to me. Being healthy is living life to the fullest for me – mind, body, and soul.
Loyalty, Stability, and Love – These all relate to me personally in my relationships with friends and family. I feel as though all three are interwoven. You can’t have one without the other and vice versa.“

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Seeing Raleigh in a 35mm frame

July 29, 2010Posted in UncategorizedTagged B7B, Durham, film, fuji, fujifilm, garden, gardens, north carolina, Oakwood, pentax, Raleigh, Sarah P Duke gardens, south, southernLeave a comment

An urban Art Space, a historic downtown, barber shops as they were, a farmer’s market, sweet southern gardenias wet with rain, my favorite camera store in the world, and on a stormy night a warm B&B to end the day in a claw foot bubble bath….

All images shot with my Honeywell Pentax Spotmatic and Fujicolor NPZ 800 film