Sweet Mother

The following is the text of my column, Deeply Superficial, which ran this week in the (sydney) magazine and the (melbourne) magazine:

When I was a small girl, off to church in my lace gloves and hat, I remember Mothering Sunday, which was celebrated on the fourth Sunday after Lent, in honour of Mary, Mother of Christ. It wasn’t nearly as much fun as Ash Wednesday (when we could run about with faces stained with the black from burnt palm fronds) but it was a prettily festive occasion, the religious version of Mother’s Day – invented by the Americans, of course - which demanded greeting cards with kittens on them and cross-stitched tea towels, made in art class, as gifts.

Whenever the commercial Mother’s Day comes around on the second Sunday in May I rather like the idea of keeping it simple and old-fashioned. After all, the lavender and lace idea of motherhood has gone right out the window with Britney Spears, Vicki Pollard and those Yummy Mummies who wander around my local shopping mall with three-wheeled strollers in some kind of Pilates-induced trance. Bring back antimacassars, sponge cakes, knitting and housecoats, I say!

My eyes lit up when Debbie Wild, who is a Director of the British fragrance purveyor Jo Malone, responded to my question about what to do for Mother’s Day this year with a barrage of ideas that are perfectly gorgeous for mums of any inclination but especially those who love pretty, old-fashioned things. Jo Malone has patented the name Scent Surround™, but anyone can get the hang of the concept, which is not merely to scent yourself, but the room, your sheets, table linens, and so forth, so that your whole environment is one fabulous fug of heady fragrance. This requires different concentrations of scent, so there is Linen Spray for the napkins (heavenly on your clothing too, especially the Aqua di Limone which smells like freshly-laundered sheets), Living Cologne for the room, candles for the table and boudoir and, of course, personal cologne for the skin (French Lime Blossom is the number one seller for mums.) The trick is not to scent the whole place with one fragrance, but to combine different nuances so that your senses are constantly surprised.

These days, it’s very fashionable for events, such as weddings, parties and book launches, to be scented, so that the memory of the event can be brought back strongly through sense of smell. So why not scent Mother’s Day this year? Send mother out on a diversionary manoeuvre and pop into her home, spray the house, light candles, and bring in some complementary flowers, so that when she returns she’s uplifted by beautiful smells. Alternately, don’t just bring out the roast lamb, scent the Mother’s Day table with candles and Linen Sprays in something spicy or fruity, say Lime, Basil & Mandarin, Wild Fig & Cassis or Grapefruit (which is great in the kitchen to banish cooking smells.)

But my absolute favourite idea is to hold an old-fashioned afternoon tea, with platters of fairy cakes, macaroons, lamingtons and the like, and scent the table with a trio of travel candles in Parma Violets, Eau de Cologne and Sweet Almond Macaroon, with Parma Violets Tea Linen Spray on the napkins.

Combining all these fragrances may seem like a bit of a high-wire act for the uninitiated but help is at hand at Jo Malone counters where staff will happily take you through a “tasting menu” to develop your fragrance palette, “like wine,” as Debbie Wild says. In fact, a rather wonderful gift idea is to take Mum along for a session at one of these counters, so that she can select her own favourites and garner some very useful tips. (My favourite is to spray your front with one fragrance and your back with another, so that you leave a room smelling as intriguing as when you entered.)

What's up cupcake?

Another day, another delivery of cupcakes. It seems every product launch comes with its own pink/blue/balloon-attached cupcake these days. We've even had dual cupcakes shaped like breasts sent by the flaks for a cosmetic surgeon. What's so mandatory about cupcakes? Are the PR gals trying to perpetuate the illusion that all is sweet with the world? Frankly, the sugar rush at 4 in the afternoon is not welcome. And it's not effective - the minute our brains register "cupcake" we're not in the slightest interested in what product is being promoted. So, gals, enough already - the sordid little truth of all this is that we cannot resist a good cupcake and these regular afternoon deliveries are threatening the very existence of the Size O Beauty Editor, of which there are many in this universe. And we can't have that. Not at all.

Good Press

Vogue Australia Features Editor Clare Press launched her first fashion collection, Mrs. Press, yesterday, in sweet celebratory style with home-made passionfruit Melting Moments and cups of tea, while her pretty, refigured vintage dresses wafted in the breezes of posh Sydney suburb Darling Point, with the "coathanger" of Sydney Harbour Bridge appropriately poised in the background. The newly-wed Mrs. Press has been collecting vintage clothing for years but, like most of us who stumble on a beautiful fabric or style in the flea market or thrift store, has often been disappointed with the fit or cut of what she's found. She bought it all anyway. Now she has rescued the best of it and modernised the fit and style while retaining most of the yesteryear charm. I swear I have owned all these dresses at different points in my life - the blue velvet coat, the black lace tea-gown, the organza party dress. In fact, in a trunk, I still have the twin sister of "Juicy Pintuck" (modelled by the lovely Mrs. Press, at left) a confection of sunset-coloured organza. Will she ever be worn again? Sadly, not until I get refigured as well. The clothes are available at Marnie Skillings, 123 Edgecliff Road, Woollahra, Sydney. Phone 61 2 9699929.

The Keating Rap

Never thought I'd be in a position to say thankyou to Red Symons...but bless him for this. Warning: only Aussies will understand it.

PIn Up of The Month

You know how I adore him... the meticulously uncloseted Mr Tim Gunn of Project Runway. And now, for your enjoyment, this from the New York Times Style pages.

Syrian Chicken

In honour of Nancy Pelosi's visit to Syria, we're having Syrian Chicken for dinner tonight. Here's the recipe, courtesy of Karen Martini and Sunday Life:

PLACE 2 tsp sea salt, 2 tsp ground cinnamon, 2 tsp ground cumin, 1 tsp freshly cracked black pepper, 1 tsp ground tumeric in a plastic bag. CHOP a large chicken into eight pieces and toss into the bag, coating well with the spices. HEAT 100 ml of oil in a heavy saucepan and fry the chicken until brown. Set aside. ADD the following to the hot oil and fry for 3 minutes: 2 brown onions, thickly chopped, 100g fresh ginger, peeled and cut into matchsticks, 5 cloves garlic, bruised with the back of a knife, 2 small red chillies, split. ADD 2 small chopped tomatoes, 2 pinches of saffron threads, 1/2 tsp cumin seeds, 5 sprigs of thyme and let cook another 2 minutes. RETURN the chicken to the pan and add the juice and zest of one lemon, 2 Tabs honey, 100g of currants, 2 Tabs vegetable stock powder and enough water to barely cover the chicken. COVER with a lid and simmer for 10 minutes. UNCOVER and simmer for 10-15 minutes until cooked through and the sauce is slightly reduced. STIR in 1/2 bunch coriander leaves. SERVE with rice or couscous.

Un-boring Goring

His hotel might be ultra-posh and situated virtually in the back yard of Buckingham Palace, but Jeremy Goring, a Richard Gere lookalike whose family has owned London's The Goring hotel for 95 years, is a breath of very unstuffy air. At a lunch for him at Sydney's Quay restaurant yesterday, the resplendent-in-pink Mr. Goring kept a table of jaded travel writers in stitches with his tales of high life and low life in the hotel trade. Highest of all is his story about having to alert the security guards at Buckingham Palace each time a repairman needs to get on the roof of the hotel - the job needs to be done in five minutes, or the guards open fire. Low life? Well that would be the time Russell "Mate" Crowe attended a wake at the hotel and staggered into the bathrooms with a mob of lesser mates. George Goring, Jeremy's feisty father, was also in the bathroom and needed to wipe his hands. The aforementioned mates, high on their own testosterone, allegedly wouldn't let the older man near the towels. So the marvelous George simply fronted Russ, pulled out the ends of Russ's clean white dress shirt and wiped his hands on it. Impressed when he found out George was the owner of the hotel, Crowe started babbling about how he was going to make The Goring his London home-away-from-home. George listened to this calmly and apparently said, in the most elegant Queen's English, "Why don't you just fuck off?" And Russ has never been seen there since. Effective, no? The Goring has won my vote as the place to stay in London.