Blogcritics Author: Claire Carroll

Announcement: Short-content feeds

Phillip Winn — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT

Sunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. Two other factors are involved: full-content feeds have resulted in an unprecedented level of content theft, with BC content appearing on many websites, usually spam sites, without attribution or permission. This duplicate content causes a cascading set of problems, not the least of which is that search engines generally aren't favorable to duplicate content, and don't always guess correctly. Finally, our RSS advertising partner is strongly in favor of short-content feeds. We hope that you'll continue to subscribe to BC via RSS, and when an article grabs your eye, it's only a click away, still free on the BC website. Thank you for your understanding.

Book Review: Insatiable - Tales From a Life of Delicious Excess by Gael Greene

Claire Carroll — Wed, 7 Mar 2007 22:13:42 EST

"For me, the two greatest discoveries of the twentieth century were the Cuisinart and the clitoris."So says Gael Greene, insatiable food critic extraordinaire, who has indulged her appetites for fun, frolic, and food in a delicious excess of foreplay and fork play. Described as the tastiest, most uninhibited memoir in years, her latest offering, Insatiable: Tales From a Life of Delicious Excess, is a feast for the senses and an aphrodisiac for the soul.Over the past four decades Greene has reviewed and reveled in New York's finest restaurants, her spicy commentary introducing readers to each new and delicious culinary trend. Delivering a delectable recipe of haute cuisine, signature fashion, and unfurling world events, Greene's decadent memoir is all the more tasty for its delicious descriptions of sexual trysts with a tasty selection of famous men. With a prodigious appetite for all things sensual, her affairs are as bountiful and indulgent as her meals. With chapter titles like "Splendour in the Foie Gras", "Slow Death By Mayonnaise", and "Bonfire of the Foodies", and flavoured with such marvelous male ingredients as Elvis Presley, Burt Reynolds, and Clint Eastwood, the book is a mouth-watering memoir of life's juiciest pleasures.Emerging from her humble midwest Velveeta beginnings, Greene takes her readers on a saucy, all-expenses paid romp through New York, France, and beyond, as she pursues her sybaritic lifestyle among the famous and the fabulous. After a groundbreaking charge into territory not usually reserved for women and with no training as a restaurant critic when she signed on with a fledgling New York Magazine in 1968, she successfully negotiated the same terms as her idol at the New York Times, Craig Claiborne. These included eating at every reviewed restaurant three times, with friends, with the magazine paying the cheque! "I wanted to feel every nerve ending - to taste it all."Greene has done just that and describes each delicious morsel with glorious and gluttonous gusto. With a ferocious wit and even fiercer appetite, the lid is lifted on her delicious life and insatiable petite aventures with gratuitous lashings of delectably described meals. The menus of such institutions as Le Pavillon, Lutece, Troisgros, and Tour d'Argent are almost orgasmic in their recounting while her recollections are peppered with intimate portrayals of such culinary icons as Jean Troisgros, Gilbert LeCoze, and Julia Child. Despite admitting that, "I almost never recognize a trend until it starts annoying me", Gael Greene's insatiable hunger for experience and her enormous life force were an inspirational dynamic behind the Foodie Revolution and transformed the way a nation viewed their food. Four decades at the top of the food chain have seen her introduce readers to every culinary trend from nouvelle cuisine to Asian fusion.Not content with living a purely hedonistic lifestyle, Greene also recognized the spectre of hunger on her own streets, starting Citymeals-on-Wheels with James Beard in 1981, a program that delivers meals to 2.2 million homebound and elderly people.Like a good meal, her luscious memoir should be savoured and enjoyed. A feast for the senses, it is, like Greene's meal at The Palace, "Too much. Too much. Just enough." As Greene concludes: "I fully expect to go on eating and critiquing and that on my deathbed my last words will echo those of Brillat-Savarin's sister, who cried, "Bring on dessert. I'm about to die." Insatiable reading, Greene's life of delicious excess is wholly satisfying.I'll have what she's having...

Claire Carroll is The Domestic Minx. Decadent, delicious and entirely capable of whipping up a domestic disaster in seconds.

Dita Von Teese: Return of the Bombshell!

Claire Carroll — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 08:27:34 EST

Does the bombshell still exist? In this fashionable wasteland of skin and bone is there still a place for the femme fatale with her dangerous curves, flashing eyes, and pouting bosom?I pondered this societal question while conducting work of a domestic nature this morning. I had caught sight of myself in the mirror and wished I were a bit more like Jessica Rabbit - the ultimate pin-up girl with endless legs, pert bottom, cascading red hair, pouty red lips, and devilish bosom. Oh, to be the type of woman who can stop traffic, start a war, or break a heart! Two minutes into my reverie I suddenly felt very politically and fashionably incorrect for wanting to look like an outrageous bit of fluff. Is it so wrong, I wondered? Is there still a place for cheesecake in 2007?There is, and her name is Dita Von Teese.A voluptuous, old-school beauty with provocatively playful naughtiness, Von Teese is the embodiment of the pin up girl. A fully fledged burlesque model with a glamour evocative of the 40's and 50's, Von Teese transcends even cheesecake to become crème brûlée. From her impeccably coiffed raven hair to her stockinged toes, Dita Von Teese is a glorious goddess of glamour, seducing the world of fashion from Milan to Manhattan. Her recent best seller Burlesque and the Art of the Teese/Fetish and the Art of the Teese is being re-released super size while she has recently become one of M.A.C Cosmetic’s ambassadors in the Viva Glam VI fundraising campaign. Taking her talents to the catwalk saw her open the Moschino diffusion label, Moschino Cheap & Chic, at the 2006 Milan Fashion Week while recently she became the face of Australian clothing company Wheels and Dollbaby for their 2006/2007 Spring/Summer advertising campaign. She is a total media darling and has appeared in magazines like Vanity Fair, Vogue and Elle. With her innate style and retro glamour she is the new pin-up girl for 2007, announcing herself as torch bearer for the new wave of burlesque while setting new benchmarks in the glamorous art of striptease.From her humble beginnings as an opera-glove-wearing go-go dancer at strip clubs and discos to fetish vixen Varga girl and Playboy model, Von Teese now finds the world at her delicate feet as she performs her spectacular strip tease show at the famous Crazy Horse cabaret, attracting all of fashionable Paris to gasp at this undeniably glamorous icon of the burlesque revival. Her dance performances are memorable, including such elaborate props as a carousel horse, a giant powder compact, a filigree heart, a claw-toe bathtub with a working showerhead, as well as a giant martini glass with a large sponge in the shape of an olive with which she bathes her trademark breasts. The latter is now the most famous prop of her signature show. Being spectacular is taken seriously. There are no track pants for this vamp and never a chipped red nail. She is famous for having sacked someone for suggesting she wear jeans. Von Teese still wears a corset, her tiny waist cinched to 16 inches, and her high heels are dangerously elevated. She has sparked a glorious return to 1940's glamour, a revival of the hourglass figure, and the embrace of beautiful, sexy dressing. Von Teese is big news. She is a beautiful bombshell and a total minx. She is definitely cheesecake pin-up gorgeous, and so 2007! With a red mane she really could be Jessica Rabbit.Perhaps it's not politically or fashionably incorrect then to expect and want to see a return of the cheesecake. It's decadent, it’s delicious, and I for one am partial to it. Certainly some of those underfed little things out there in the glossies could do with a good serve of it.

Claire Carroll is The Domestic Minx. Decadent, delicious and entirely capable of whipping up a domestic disaster in seconds.

Sex and Candy for Valentine's Day

Claire Carroll — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 05:35:55 EST

Each Valentine’s Day, I am reminded of jellybeans in a jar: “Before you get married, put a jellybean in a jar each time you do it. After you’re married, take one out each time. You’ll never empty that jar.”My husband and I had one hell of a candy shop before we got married! There were jars and jars of jellybeans. Sweet, sweet, carefree jellybeans. Naughty, naughty nipple pink, green as grass, grabbing my ass jellybeans, soft porn, sexed-up, '60s sunset orange and rude, racy rush of blood, red boudoir curtain jellybeans. There were jellybeans in the car, in the wardrobe, behind the sofa, and on the beach. Jellybeans were abundant. The jars were overflowing. There was an imminent threat of diabetes. Then we got married. A good number of jellybeans made their way out of the jar in the first year and even the second. In fact, the retrieval rate was really rather good. Then I fell pregnant. Surprisingly, there were substantial sugar cravings at this time and the jar continued to empty, albeit at a more leisurely pace, until we found ourselves with two children, a mortgage, and a pair of full time jobs.Then something happened to our candy shop.Quietly, imperceptibly, business slowed down. It didn’t stop all at once. We were so busy and so tired that it was hardly noticeable at first. There was always an excuse, and each was genuine. “My back aches,” “I’m so tired,” “Just wait till later,” “There’s all this work to mark,” and “I’ve got a headache” - and I really did!Amidst the burgeoning duties of parenthood and home management, work demands and mortgages, the delicious treats we had once stolen together at any opportunity become my hard bargaining chips. I was tired and so I handed each out carefully, meted them out as rewards, favours, even trading them as currency. “No, not before dinner,” “You’ve had enough already,” “I’ve already given you two” and “All right then, but this is the last time.”Five years of distraction and my husband sounded the alarm bell. He’d had enough! What the hell was going on with the jellybeans? Where were they and why wasn’t he getting any? It was scary. It was sad. I had to admit there was a recession and the candy was on hold.It’s hard to admit to sexual bankruptcy, especially when there had been such a riot of rampant and unbridled fornication beforehand. It was almost a betrayal and really quite ridiculous. I was youthful, attractive, and in love with a sexy man. So where was all the rumpy-pumpy? To the legions of candy store owners before us, it was obvious. We were very young before we got married. We had no mortgage, no commitments, and no worries. We had the luxury of filling that jellybean jar whenever we felt like it. Sometimes we thought of nothing else. Mad, bad, delicious and dangerous, anywhere, anytime. It was sweet and selfish and overflowing. It was the opposite of what we now had and I missed it. I mourned the loss. Things change, as they must. We move, we grow, and our lives alter. Nothing stays the same forever. Our ideas change, as our lifestyle and careers do, too. We add to our lives with children and commitments. We make decisions that mark the course of our destinies and we are forced to change in accordance and acceptance of these. This subsequent adjustment of our expectations is what determines our happiness. In a marriage we can’t always have carnality and familiarity wrapped up together in a glossy gift bag. Accepting this and loving what we have is what makes us happy. Sharing more than half my life with a gentle, kind, and infinitely patient husband has taught me that. I’ve also learned that hiding the jellybeans is not an option.It’s been twenty-two years now since we first got married. The candy store is always open for business, but there are still plenty of jellybeans in the jars. We’re in no rush to empty them all at once, simply to enjoy and savor each special jellybean as it is surrendered.I’m glad my husband has a sweet tooth. I want to surprise him this Valentine’s Day. I have something sweet in mind.

Claire Carroll is The Domestic Minx. Decadent, delicious and entirely capable of whipping up a domestic disaster in seconds.

Book Review: To Hell With All That - Loving and Loathing Our Inner Housewife by Caitlin Flanagan

Claire Carroll — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 05:41:36 EST

Did our mothers have more sex than we do? Is it a worthy aspiration to put a hot meal on the table at the end of the day? Why do most women hate housework but want to be good at it anyway? I’ve asked those questions myself and out of desperation finally turned to self-proclaimed anti-feminist Caitlin Flanagan for the answers as she pokes a toilet plunger at the Mommy Wars debate in To Hell With All That: Loving and Loathing Our Inner Housewife.To be sure, Flanagan has a comfortable vantage point from which to pass judgment on the choices mothers make regarding the state of their households. By her own admission, Flanagan is a wealthy and very comfortably married woman. There is an abundance of hired help, including nanny, gardener and personal organizer, to see her and her two children through the day and a cushy home job with The New Yorker to fulfill any career aspirations. The whole fuzzy nostalgic dream of a return to 1950s-style domestic bliss looks pretty sweet from where she sits. And why shouldn’t it? Domestic bliss it is, without the domesticity. Presumably due to having a nanny on hand, Flanagan guiltily admits to having never changed a sheet, let alone demonstrate any skill in whipping up a three-course dinner for hubby at the end of his tiring day. For someone who is not a cook, she does a damn good job of stirring the pot with comments suggesting that "women have a deeply felt emotional connection to housekeeping."In my house the connection is still called guilt. The Catholic kind. A side-serve of it came with every meal when I was growing up. There were hospital corners, too.While it is seductive to conjure visions of a Domestic Renaissance and a return to all things baked and beautiful, it is hollow advice from the mistress of the house when one is not doing those things oneself. We could all be domestic goddesses, happy to present our husbands with elegant meals, wafting about with perfectly prepared children if the hard slog has been done for us. A peek into Flanagan's home confirms the fact that she has strenuously avoided the unpleasant side of having small children. ''Paloma, Patrick is throwing up!'' Flanagan would call her son's nanny. ''She would literally run to his room, clean the sheets, change his pajamas, spread a clean towel on his pillow,'' Flanagan recalls. ''I would stand in the doorway, concerned, making funny faces at Patrick to cheer him up.'' How easy it is to be a the Good Mother, The Good Wife, poised on the verge of a Domestic Renaissance and ready for lots and lots of happy marital sex, when there is a maid to deal with all the yuck of being a domestic darling. So much easier it is too, to enjoy the domestic arts when one can afford to have a maid to deal with this drudge behind the scenes.While I happily laughed along with Flanagan’s witty, entertaining and deliciously nostalgic views on domesticity and how to embrace it, I couldn’t help but sympathize with the many women for whom this return to the home will always be a pipe dream. Says Flanagan, "the unpleasant truth [is] that life presents a series of choices, each of which precludes a host of other attractive possibilities - that whichever decision a woman makes, she will lose something of incalculable value." But it’s tempting for Flanagan, ever the anti-feminist, to make the assumption that many women choose a career over wanting to be at home. While some do, and are fully entitled to their decision, there are others for whom the luxury of choice does not exist.Domestic bliss costs money. There’s little bliss when there’s nothing to buy bread with. Keeping the home fires burning in our mortgage-driven societies often means that the woman of the house can ill afford to be a housewife and must instead work outside the home. The domestic bliss that Flanagan touts comes at a price that people such as her nanny have had to pay. Flanagan is intelligent, witty and coercive but while she smugly talks up the virtues of being a Domestic Goddess to her presumably affluent audience and urges us to embrace our inner housewife, I can’t help but think “nice work if you can get it.”

Claire Carroll is The Domestic Minx. Decadent, delicious and entirely capable of whipping up a domestic disaster in seconds.

What Makes a French Woman So Sexy?

Claire Carroll — Wed, 7 Feb 2007 11:39:07 EST

What is it about a French woman that makes her so sexy?As a decadent domestic minx, with no small interest in being adored, I was curious to see if the answer could be found in two lipsticks and a lover? According to Helena Frith-Powell in her sharp and witty book, Two Lipsticks and a Lover, there is much more to indefinable French chic and alluring Gallic sexiness than the title suggests. Being smart, sexy and impossibly French requires effort and more than a little 'je ne sais quois.' As Coco Chanel once said, “Elegance is refusal.” Elegance requires pencil-thin, smartly dressed restraint. It means saying no to the extra cheese, no to the croissant and a definite non, merci to that third glass of wine. (ouch!) Au revoir to the muffin top. Au revoir to the lush!French woman see chic and vogue as paramount. Making an effort at all times and not skimping on the details is rule number one. Leaving the house, even to take out the rubbish, will always require lip-gloss. Exquisite and expensive matching underwear is 'de rigeur' and a bad hair day is simply out of the question.As Frith-Powell points out, “If someone is badly dressed or looks shabby, the French will not take them seriously. Letting yourself go physically is seen as a sign that you cannot hold things together intellectually. The big thing is the souci de soi, or care for oneself, in every way. This means brains and looks; you can’t let yourself go and be intellectually rigorous. In other words, the French would rather forgive an extra-marital affair than a bad hair cut.”If you want to be indefinably French and gorgeous it is vital to make time for yourself; visit the hairdresser, walk instead of drive, pamper your body potions, eat smaller portions, buy yourself a lipstick or two and entertain a lover on the side.But style and sexiness come at a price. With so many elegant temptresses on the ground there is little time for friendship among the girls. According to Frith-Powell, French women are a typically jealous and suspicious lot. One reason they spend most of their time trying to look so good is to stop their girlfriends seducing their husbands. The term 'femme fatale' is a French one. Resisting their instincts and passions is not in the genetic makeup. As Vicomte de Valmont says in the book Dangerous Liaisons, “It is beyond my control.”Clandestine 'affaires' are commonplace. Illicit romance or 'les petites aventures', are an accepted part of French culture, a culture that has given women independence and freedom. As Frith-Powell observes, “If you cut a French woman in half, you will see the words 'liberte, egalite, fraternite' written throughout like a stick of rock. And of these the most important is liberte.”The whole notion of freedom is deeply inscribed in the French psyche. Marrying and then misbehaving is seen as being free. For French women, sex and seduction are part of a repertoire that ensures her success and social standing. It is important that men adore them. Infidelity can be justified. If a woman is in love, anything is excusable. No one will condemn her; in fact, they are more likely to condemn unfulfilled love. Love and lust excuse any conduct.Sacre bleu! Coco Chanel would no doubt agree. Elegance may be refusal but passion is an overwhelming “OUI, OUI, OUI.” The domestic minx says 'Oui' to French chic, 'Oui' to liberte, and 'Oui' to two lipsticks and a lover, although I must say two seems hardly enough…

Claire Carroll is The Domestic Minx. Decadent, delicious and entirely capable of whipping up a domestic disaster in seconds.