Happy New Year 2008

Happy New Year 2008
Originally uploaded by graciecavnar

Christmas Dawns over Houston

Christmas Dawns over Houston
Originally uploaded by graciecavnar

My November 2007 Tribeza Column

I'll Have Another

"Living Smart" features Recipe for Success on PBS

Just Getting Ink all Over the Place

According to Shelby Hodge's column in today's Chronicle . . .

50 and fab
Gracie and Bob Cavnar threw a candlelight dinner party Monday night to celebrate victory over the cumulative decades for Houston Grand Opera impresario Anthony Freud, celebrating his 50th.
With Halloween as a theme, the couple dressed their high-rise loft in sophisticated spookiness. The 17 costumed and not-so-costumed diners sat down to one immense round table, but not before everyone had oohed and aahed over Lynn Wyatt's glamour witch attire and Franci Crane's high-fashion witch ensemble. Freud and his partner, Colin Ure, arrived in capes and hats but soon shed the costuming as they noted few of the men were playing.

HGO music director Patrick Summers and his partner, David Chambers, carried masks of Freud's face while Frank Hevrdejs, Jim Daniels, Anthony Petrello and Bob Devlin declined the fashion merriment. Those guests as well as Maureen Hackett, Cynthia Petrello and Margaret Williams applauded caterer Jim Manning for his inspired menu. Read for yourself.

Woops forgot to throw this in July

My May Day Hat Party was featured in Gloss.

Bob in Gloss Magazine today

See the pic and read the story.

Wonderful Feature About Recipe for Success

Read all about it here. And check out the photos.

A few of my Tribeza Columns

April/May 07: The Smell of Life.
June/June 07: Into Thin Air
August 07: The Summer Rental.
September 07: Birds of a Feather

Recipe for Success was featured in Wednesday, Oct 31 Houston Chronicle Food Section

Great article, good pictures and a video below. Gracie is happy happy. .

Hanging out on the Piazza Navona

The Piazza is surrounded by sidewalk cafes where locals and tourists sit to take in the view and have a pizza, which is what I did.

Wandering around Rome

Of course, my first stop in Rome was our old stomping ground: Piazza Navona. Unfortunately the big central fountain was under wraps being refurbished.

Solo Italy

Bob and I have been planning this trip to Italy for months. He cleared the wait list for the Ferrari driving school, and I built an itinerary that bookended the course. Rome on the front, Venice on the back. Then we discovered that the Morgans would be in Rome during the same time before they took off on a cruise and we organized a dinner together. THEN one of the couples joining the Morgans delayed their arrival and we slid into their cabin assignment for a weekend of Amalfi coast.

THEN business got in the way and our trip changed overnight the day before our planned departure. First the driving school went by the way, then the whole thing threatened to ditch. Sara and Bill convinced me to go ahead and join them for a few days in Rome and the weekend of cruising in hopes that Bob would follow-on, once things cleared up at the office. I decided to give it a go and left for Rome on Tuesday Oct 2nd. Bottom line--Rome without my partner. I was forced to adapt and hope I could convince him.

Celebrating with George O.

It's been a long time coming. Who knew what would eventually happen when in 1989 I took a career detour to create the Essence Foundation and to help George O. Jackson, Jr. in his quest to photograph the festivals of Mexico's indegenous tribes? I had a ball traveling with George O to places that had never seen a blue-eyed redhead--and a few who had but tended to stone them! I got hundreds of my own photographs and plenty of stories, but of course George O fearlessly penetrated the heart of every festivity to capture the soul of the people on film. I produced two exhibits of his work that opened at Houston Museum of Science and travelled the world, but we always knew we had a tiger by the tail and dreamed of bigger things.

I finally had to go back to work, but GOJJR stuck with it, continuing to photograph, work to bring order to his millions of images and keep his project alive. Many folks on both sides of the border agreed to the project's importance, and committed to funding George O's activity. George O had a singular goal in mind--The Smithsonian -- and he worked his goal every minute of every day for years. Which just goes to show you what determination can accomplish.


On September 25, we all gathered for huge festivities for George O's opening at The Smithsonian.

A Day in the Life at Bread Loaf

6:30 Up, brush my teeth and pull on yoga gear
6:45 sneak into the dining hall to fill my insulated cup with coffee
7:00 Yoga
8:10 Go for the blueberries and oatmeal, skip the pancakes, eggs, hashbrowns sausage, etc.
8:40 Grab a shower
9:00 Lecture in the Little Theatre
10:10 Workshop with my Fiction group in the Barn. Stacy D'erasmo is workshop leader; Bret Anthony Johnston the fellow.
12:10 Lunch
1:00 get my mail, paper and check email (and sometimes this is when I end up taking a shower)
2:30 Craft Class -- not basket weaving but things like weaving a plot
4:15 Readings in the Little Theatre by two or three of the Fellows
5:30 Changes each day. Sometimes a special talk or panel or a Blue Parlor reading, where any student can sign up to read for 5 minutes from their work. Every day The Blue Parlor has a different theme--today food, although that was interpreted pretty loosely
6:30 Dinner
8:15 Reading by two-three of our resident luminaries--the ones with multiple best sellers under their belts
9:30 Some sort of presentation in The Barn, or readings of the scholars or the waiters & social staff who are all on working scholarships
10:30 Return emails and fall into bed
and again

See who I'm talking about

http://www.ncteamericancollection.org/litmap/kittredge_william_mt.htm;
http://www.ncteamericancollection.org/litmap/smith_annick_mt.htm
http://www.scottrussellsanders.com/

Breakfast of champions

Saturday, August 18
As is so typical of the flat society here, this morning I had breakfast at a table for 6 with Bill (William) Kittredge, Annick Smith, Scott Sanders and a university professor from Tucson named Buzz. Wonderful conversation about Nature Conservancy, global warming and the stock market. I did not want to leave, everyone lingered until the bell rang signalling time for the 9:00 talk.

Bread Loaf Arrival

The morning chill had just burned off the mountain when I pulled into the sprawling ochre colored Bread Loaf campus yesterday. The drive took exactly 1 hour and 23 minutes from Woodstock, climbing northwest on Rt.12 through Barnard and Bethel then a short jog north on 100 and 10 miles west on Scenic 125. 12:43. Just enough time to check-in, grab my conference materials and discover where my room was before meeting the Food Editor of Houston Chronicle, Peggy Grodinsky for an interview about Recipe for Success.

While my blackberry does not work here--rendering me impotent in real time electronic communication, I was delighted to discover that I am "living" in the one building with wireless. The schedule is packed with Sessions, workshops, classes and readings, but at least I can sneak up to my room occasionally and check mail, send notes and . . . do this blog.

Interesting combination of folks here. Lots of very impressive resumes among the faculty and fellows, dozens of post-docs performing the operational duties of wait staff, maid and office support in return for their attendance and then a hundred or so "contributors" or folks like me who may make their living with words--journalists, teachers and professors, or may dream of doing so, working on manuscripts after putting the kids to bed late at night. They come in all shapes sizes and age from 25 to 75. Last night at supper I met 4 folks who have been coming here for years and remembered my friend Diedra from Woodstock who came here for a few years while she polished her memoir of travelling and working her way across Italy then coming home to open a restaurant. At the door to the dining hall was a young woman I immediately recognized but could not place. Turns out she graduated last year from the UH Creative Writing program and has presented many times to our Inprint board. Tiphanie Yanique. We were so excited to discover each other that she trailed me around the hall to meet other UH alumni and current students all here on the scholarship program waiting tables. Very energizing.

The first reading last night were by Eavan Boland who read her poetry of Ireland and Joanna Scott who read excepts form one of her short stories and a snipe from her new novel in progress. A great start to the conference.

This morning's lecture "Honoring the Ordinary" was from a man far from ordinary in my opinion--Scott Russell Sanders. His latest book "Private History of Awe" and his disucession of personal memoir and spiritual journies was inspiring.

Now to lunch and my afternoon workshop. Not sure I will lose the weight I wanted to, but I will try to remain vigilant in my morning walks.

The Gerald Watelet show at George V was filled with the aristocracy of France, and us.

We sat behind Madame Valéry Giscard d'Estaing and a princess.

Splendid Elie Saab Collection-Winter 2007/08

Rain or Shine, we love Paris

Celebrating July 4 en France

No fireworks for us, just lots of runway flash. The Elie Saab show was all silver and platinum and spectacular. We watched torrents of mercurical rain flash in and out of the brilliant sun in the Marais while we waited for the show to start across the street and dined on the quintessential French dejeuner-quiche, salad and a glass of wine.

Gracie & Cathy finally call it a day on July 3.

Paris, where the party never stops

500 of Lacroix's closest friends . . . and us

To the top of Pompidou for Lacroix's 20th Anniversary Party

First, dinner at Le Troquet

3 courses was all we could manage. Q'est que ce?

Whew!

Home to Fouquet's Barriere (our new home) to rest up for later.

The Christian Lacroix finale

THIS was a show! Incroyable!

Here comes the bride

Forget tiaras. Mexican tin that tops it all.

Our patron at Lacroix has his hands full

Franck Duquenne is trying to coral the peanut gallery packed with paparazzi.

Look who's here, too!

Lenny and Tamara -- Houston's finest fashion show producers, also at Lacroix for the spectacle.

Come ON

Quit following us!

We were lucky

There were even invitation to Lacroix for the Space Available Standing Room only and not everyone made it in.

Between Shows

Of course I had to show Cathy my favorite--Scarlett! Ok, don't think of what we spent, but what we SAVED!!!

The Grand Finale at Chanel

45 models sloshed through the rain

The clothes were lovely, even when wet. Does this mean they don't have to be dry cleaned?

In Our Box

A big time pop star from China, so the paparazzi flocked to her, of course they caught us, too. We will bein every newspaper in Asia.

Just think of all those hems dragging in this

OMG, she is following us!

I think someone is following us

The traffic wasnt as bad as we thought it might be, even though the Chanel show was in Parc Saint-Clooud, so we ducked into Jean Baptiste for a quick bite and a coffee. Who follows us in but Anna Wintour herself. Her assistant was particularly haughty and apparently did not appreciate Roger blocking her way as he was protecting us with his umbrella. We smiled in our most benign fashion.

Then back into the melee for L'Orangerie.

Get up!

After all we have Chanel AND Christian Lacroix today!

So popular!

Menu Degustation

les saveurs de Flora . . . a study in pink. We started with rose of course and actually thought we could make it through seven courses despite potential jet lagging. Sure enough we had to skip one -- who cut the cheese? Stuffed like the guinea fowl that was our 5th course, we rollled out at 11 p.m. A short 3 hour meal. Dont miss this incredible retaurant at 36, Avenue George V!

If it's Monday . . .

For a while, I thought I would never even GET to Paris, sincemy flight out of Newark was delayed for over 6 hours with a mechanical but finally at 2:00 in the afternoon on Monday I walked into Lavoisier (not the sort of hotel a haute couture client would stay in) to find Cathy there and waiting. We hit the streets immediately to get a bite.

Place du La Madeleine our destination and a sidewalk table at Le Colibri. Chin Chin!

Dont Rain on Our Parade!

The view from my back windows on a Vermont summer day

Vermont time

Only in Woodstock do we open a newly re-built bridge with a marching jazz band! The Rec Center Bridge, which happens to be on Route 4 (the primary east/west route across Vermont,) has been closed for exactly one month while being re-built. Frankly despite the all-night work crews early in the process, we have enjoyed the lack of traffic on our end of town. But, at exactly 3 o'clock today, the blockades were removed and the townsfolk turned out to be the first to walk across our new bridge. Progress.