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RIP: Zaha Hadid 

Zaha Hadid was a legendary architect-turned-starchitect. Her aesthetic is unmistakable: with curvy lines, smooth, swift, airy structures that deliver a very powerful presence and unexpected silhouettes that provokes the logic of gravity while exacting their mathematics. 

She is one of the very few female architects who became one of the most outstanding and formidable in the field of architecture. See for yourself and have a watch at her documentary below. Rest in Peace Zaha Hadid, without you, there is now a gaping hole in the world of architecture, design, and the world. 

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If you’re as tired of hearing and or seeing coverage of the distasteful, unpalatable, loathsome Republican debates, then be sure to clear your media palette with this intellectually riveting documentary, Best of Enemies. 

It decants the long-time infamous political and moral rivalry between the National Review founder and intellect, William F Buckley Jr. and the famous novelist and intellect, Gore Vidal in the sharply thrilling documentary, Best of Enemies. 

These legendary debates are some of the most eloquent and clever political discourse you’ll ever witness, a small consolation and break from the recent crude debates with Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, and Marco Rubio. Have a watch at the trailer featured above. You can watch the film on Netflix or iTunes. 

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Our picks from the Missoni Pre-Fall 2016 Collection: New York Fashion Week. 

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Katie Holmes and Luke Kirby star in a new indie film, Touched With Fire. It’s about two young individuals on the verge of finding out that they have bipolar disorder. The two meet at a mental institution and fall in love: high drama ensues. Katie Holmes gives an exceptional performance. Have a watch at the trailer featured above. Touched With Fire is playing in selected theaters now and will be released everywhere on February 12. 

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Enlightening interview with Chief Investment Officer of Goldman Sachs, Sharmin Mossavar-Rahmani by Charlie Rose. She explains brilliantly the global, and particularly the US’s economic climate at the turn of 2016, and how China’s economy is going through a down turn. 

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Empanadas are great as appetizers, sides, tapas or even as an entrée served with some salad. And now we’ve come up with a way to make them sans meat, while preserving its authentic flavors—and dare we say it, perhaps our vegetarian version may taste even better than the original: as they’re quite scrumptiously addictive, but so much healthier and better for the environment and of course kinder to animals.

To keep the taste true to its original form, we’ve used the same authentic ingredients from the original recipe, but we’ve used veggie meat instead of beef, pork or even chicken. And instead of frying them, we’ve baked them. Try this recipe and you and everyone else will be so impressed with how delicious they come out, not to mention how much healthier. 

Yields about 24-26 empanadas

RECIPE FOR THE DOUGH

2 cups of whole wheat flour

1 tablespoon of granulated sugar

1 teaspoon of salt

1 stick of unsalted butter cold and cut into very small cubes 

2 eggs 

1 table spoon of cold water

1 table spoon of white vinegar

LIST OF INGREDIENTS

STUFFING 

2 tablespoon of Olive Oil

1 medium yellow onion, finely chopped

4 medium cloves of garlic, finely chopped

1/3 cup of golden raisins, coarsely chopped

1/3 of green pitted olives, coarsely chopped

12 ounce (1 packet) of Morning Star Griller Recipe Crumbles 

1 tablespoon of ground cumin

3/4  cup of cilantro, finely chopped

1 cup of shredded jack cheese

1 teaspoon of ground chili powder

Salt & pepper to taste

1 egg

2 egg yokes

1 tablespoon of milk (low fat or not)

METHOD

Cook onion in the olive oil until translucent adding the garlic mid-way. Then add the Morning Star Crumbles, the raisins, and the olives. Mix well. Sprinkle in the tablespoon of ground cumin,  adding a little more olive oil if it starts to get dry when stirring. Then sprinkle some salt and black pepper to taste. Add the chili powder. Lastly add the cilantro. Once well incorporated, let cool for about 15 minutes. (You can roll and cut out the dough during this cooling period. See below.) Once completely cooled, add the egg, mix well to bind the stuffing. And then you’re ready to assemble! 

Take your empanada dough and roll it out to about 1/8 of an inch, pretty thin. Use a round 4 inch dough cutter or 4 inch bowl to cut them out in rounds for the  empanada pastry.

Then mix the 2 egg yokes and the table spoon of milk in a small bowl for sealing and brushing the pastry.

Sprinkle a little of the jack cheese before adding a healthy portion of the stuffing in the middle of the circle dough, then top it with some more jack cheese, brush the edges of the circle with your egg wash. Then fold it in half to seal the pastry before crimping both sides of the edges with a fork. Repeat until finished.

Bake at 350 degrees on a cookie sheet for about 20-25 minutes. Let cool for 10 minutes before ready to enjoy. 

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Florence Welch, of Florence and The Machine shows us her first apartment and her coveted collections. 

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Another great post and spin-off idea by Jessica Walsh on her new project with Tim Goodman: For the Step 07 installment of 12 Steps of Kindness she calls Kill them with Kindness, she divulges about cyber trolls--most of them being women--who’ve trashed-talked her online, with insulting rumors of how a young woman like her got ahead so far and so fast in the design industry, (never-mind that she’s incredibly talented and was somewhat of a prodigy as a young student). This is like posing a question like, Hey David Karp or Mark Zuckerberg, how the hell did you get so successful so young? You must have slept with someone to get where you are right? Wrong. There are some sick, sad haters out there, (the operative word being, sad). So what does Jessica Walsh do? She kills them with kindness, of course. 

She then narrates a the bit by bit annotation on confronting one of her biggest haters on Twitter yet: Drama and earnestness ensues. But then what follows is something incredible: a benevolent spin-off idea for mentoring young female designers, by Walsh herself. It’s called, Ladies, Wine & a bit of Design. Check out the post in its entirety, HERE.

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Today is the 20th anniversary of David Foster Wallace’s, Infinite Jest. Au lieu de this anniversary, for Motivate Monday: Here’s David Foster Wallace’s Commencement Speech for Kenyon College from 2005. This is Water. Have a listen: It’ll give you chills. 

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Oh yes, then this happened: Sia, Natalie Portman with Jimmy Fallon & The Roots! 

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VALENTINO HAUTE COUTURE 2016: ETHEREALLY POWERFUL

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CHANEL HAUTE COUTURE 2016: THE GENIUS OF KARL LAGERFELD EMBOLDENED, REGAL & ECO-FRIENDLY? 

By Dawn ELARDO

It’s always a pleasure to have a peak of what’s inside creative genius, Karl Lagerfeld’s head. And yesterday’s Haute Couture 2016 Chanel show in Paris, was no exception. The stage setting was a modern designed mansion surrounded by water and grass. Or as Karl would describe it, “We’re in the middle of nowhere in a dream house.” 

The bamboo house is meant to compliment Chanel’s first eco-friendly couture collection, which according to Lagerfeld, “Chanel had to produce” first hand as none of these materials were ready-made. 

The collection was filled with puffed short-sleeve suits served in the classic luxe Chanel woven wool, often paired with ankle-length skirts with middle slits in the back. There was also a myriad variety of designed fanny-packs, belted criss-crossed across the garments made of metallics, ropes, and pearls embroidered into the outfits. Some of the suits and fanny-packs were also sharply festooned with sparkly bug brooches. 

Lagerfeld kept the color-palette subdued, tasteful: with dusty pinks, creams, greys, navy blues, and some scattered reds. 

And lastly the styling was super elegant and regal, the models all wore emboldened 180 curved buns, (reminiscent of Maria Callas), paired with animated cat eyes. Each outfit walked out with a pair of cork platforms with the wedge carved in, as to keep the platform thin like stilettos, chic, sexy. 

The best part of the collections for me were these refined haute couture capes as well as these fanned out sleeves on dresses. These pieces put a smile on my face when they walked down the runway. They’re sui-generis, but quite cleverly done. 

Bravo, yet again, Mr. Lagerfeld. This Chanel show was as per most of the previous times, like watching the fashion giant regurgitate his endless well of creativity all over his new and shiny eco-friendly canvas. 

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Looking for some interesting films to see while snowed in? Check out the annual MyFrenchFilmFestival.com. You can rent them straight from their website, and the films are actually much cheaper than movies on iTunes and or Amazon, thanks to some French government funding. Socialism, what’s it good for? Oh yeah, funding everything for everyone! Why not, right? You can see the entire collection for just $6.50 or you can rent each one for just $2.20.

Check out some trailers and peruse through some of the selection below. The online French Film Festival is on going until February 18th.

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Parter and Creative Director of Sagmeister & Walsh, Jessica Walsh has recently launched another project with former project-in-crime, Tim Goodman, 12 Kinds of Kindness. Previously they’ve endeavored in a controversial, yet very compelling experiment called, 40 Days of Dating. If you haven’t heard of it, check it out. Warning: it's a bit addictive. It’s quite well done—incorporating a heightened sense of multi-media effect—served as the back-drop to their short but painfully eventful dating story; a story presented to us, in a reality-dating-exhibitionism-form Online, raw and very much out there. The "project" has done quite well: It got picked up by mass media, as well as having been bought for movie rights by a big movie house. Hence, why the two have piggy-backed on their previous success and created, 12 Kinds of Kindness. Another multi-media project, focusing on 12 steps of being kind to others, as well yourself. At least that's their motif, this time around.

Step Four, of 12 Kinds of Kindness called, Don't Beat Yourself Up was released yesterday, in which Jessica Walsh's version is quite candid, brave, and honest—revealing her struggles with mental illness, sexual assault and the stigma we all feel talking about any psychological issues we all face in one way or form in our lifetime. See her gripping story in the video below. And check out its entirety, HERE.

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WOMEN: NEW PORTRAITS ANNIE LEIBOVITS 

Photographer Annie Leibovitz’s, Women: New Portraits exhibition continues, with its 15 years ongoing. It will launch this weekend, in London, from January 16th to February 7th, before the exhibit tours the globe. 

The show is about women and their changing roles throughout history and finally into today’s modern times. It’ll feature women who’ve reached high positions: CEO’s, politicians, writers and philanthropists. So if you’re in London and are looking for a cool exhibition to check out, check it: HERE. 

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Rest in peace to this beautiful and talented man. Below is a recent interview with PBS, Blank on Blank and a BBC documentary on Bowie. 

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This is too funny! We love Caroline De Maigret!