A Refreshing Summer Delight
There is nothing better then having some chilled juice or a refreshing milkshake on a hot spring day. Last weekend I discovered an even better and healthier alternative; Mango Lassi. An Indian drink that combines fruit (often mango) with yogurt and milk. Easy to make and delicious!
Lassi is a popular and traditional yogurt-based drink of the Indian subcontinent. It is made by blending yogurt with water and Indian spices. Traditional lassi (salted lassi) is a savory drink sometimes flavored with ground roasted cumin while sweet lassi on the other hand is blended with sugar or fruits instead of spices.
Ingredients:
9 fluid ounces plain yogurt
4 1/2 fluid ounces milk
4 1/2 fluid ounces canned mango pulp or 7 ounces from 3 fresh mango, stoned and sliced
4 teaspoons sugar, for taste, or cardamom seeds
Put all the ingredients into a blender and blend for 2 minutes, then pour into individual glasses, and serve. Adding salt and sprinkling some cardamom seeds adds great flavor. The lassi can be kept refrigerated for up to 24 hours.
Alternatives to this Mango Lassi recipe are Ginger Mango Lassi or Mango, Chile and Lime Lassi. Enjoy!
-RVDB
Whistler’s Summer
The White Symphony: Three Girls, 1867
James MacNeill Whistler, a 19th-century American painter who lived and worked in England, was known for his progressive style and unique color compositions. In the late 1860s, while working on his great unfinished masterpiece The White Symphony: Three Girls, Whistler fixated on variations of group scenes of women outdoors. The imprecise riots of form and color that define these studies are fascinating insights into Whistler’s creative process, and the fusion that was taking place in his infatuation with two types of clothing: white muslin dresses and Japanese kimonos.
The formerly distinct garments merge into a tousled assemblage of fabrics, from pure white to colorfully patterned, swirling around bodies. The flexible, curving figures recline, sit, stand, and imply movement, but without faces or much definition of body. They are essentially clothes personified, who behave as humans would but in no particular location. With their exotic accessories and voluminous vibrant textiles the location might be an exotic one; but just as quickly the scenes seem to be English women spending leisure time outside in boats and by the sea, with parasols.
Or, they might come from my dreams of the summer, ones I will make a reality by mixing breezy whites with colorful prints.
Symphony in Red and White, 1868
Variation in Blue and Green, 1868
Symphony in Blue and Pink, 1870
P.S. Happy Mother’s Day!
Arrangement in Grey and Black: Portrait of the Painter’s Mother, 1871
also known as “Whistler’s Mother”
-EM
The Endless Summer
April showers indeed. Another gloomy, gray, 40-something degree day in New York. Sigh. With no chance of the weather taking a miraculous turn for the better anytime soon, what choice is there but to take a cinematic vacation? The Endless Summer, one of the favorite 60′s films, is no cheesy Beach Party . Part surf documentary, part travelogue, Bruce Brown circumnavigates the globe filming two surfers chasing the perfect wave.
Brown, along with Mike Hynson and Robert August, travel from their native California to West Africa, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Tahiti and Hawaii. The boys take the waves in places no one had ever surfed before, meeting local people who had never seen a surfboard. It is charming to watch the two California surfers interact, strap their surfboards to whatever vehicle they could find, and catch any wave that came along.
I love when the Brown lingers on the gorgeous beaches, which vary widely around the world. In Tahiti waves run into black sandy coves, while in New Zealand, huge cliffs hang over the shore. More than just a surf film, the movie inspires travel and wanderlust.
However lost you get in the beautiful landscapes and fascinating cultures, there is still plenty of exciting surfing. I’m living vicariously through the surfers, imagining diving in warm oceans…
…and wiping out. After a winter of doughy hibernation, I would welcome a good ocean thrashing!
As the sun sets after each day of surfing around the world, I hope this summer is as endless as the winter has been.
The Endless Summer. Bruce Brown. 1966.
-EM
