Best of YouTube: Blumenthal Part II: Bacon and Egg and Liquid Nitrogen

Heston Blumenthal - Bacon & Egg Ice Cream
Uploaded by lesterfontayne onto YouTube, January 11, 2011
From "How To Cook Like Heston," Channel Four

Background reading on the restaurant whence it was served: "Mix snail porridge, sardine sorbet and you have a Fat Duck" [Guardian], by Richard Jinman (April 19, 2005)

GOOP: The Hunt for the Perfect Academy Award Attire

In her serving of GOOP from the week of March 22nd, Gwyneth Paltrow generously offers an insight into the grand and complicated process of selecting a dress and of embarking on her final preparations for the Academy Awards back on February 26th.

THIS year she chose a white dress with cape by the designer Tom Ford, and it was surprisingly flattering and unusual and to my recollection well-received by armchair and proper critics. (It also appeared, in near-identical form, in the designer's Fall-Winter 2012 collection.)

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Illustration: Irises, by Vincent van Gogh (Rijksmuseum)
via Wikimedia Commons
[BEFORE she decided on her final ensemble on the day of the Oscars, Paltrow tried out a cuff by Anna Hu "inspired by Van Gogh's painting, Irises, and [. . .] made up of garnets, emeralds, sapphires and diamonds in the same colors as those of the painting." This could in fact refer to any of several still-lives of irises by van Gogh. (Another, 'orchid' cuff "was inspired by Monet's color palette and designed while listening to Chopin.")]

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Best of YouTube: "The Dreaded, Infamous, Famous, Call It What You Want, Delicious Porridge"

A propos of nothing in particular, here is a video depicting the cooking of a 'signature dish' by the notably adventurous British chef Heston Blumenthal:

Heston Blumenthal's snail porridge
Uploaded by monkeynews000 onto YouTube, February 24, 2009
From "Full on Food," UKTV Food

Background reading on Blumenthal and 'molecular gastronomy': "'Molecular gastronomy is dead.' Heston speaks out" [The Observer]

Across the Pond: A UK/US State Dinner

Prime Minister David Cameron and President Barack Obama
in the Oval office
 via yfrog, Number10gov, ca. March 14, 2012 [App'tly public domain]

YESTERDAY evening Barack and Michelle Obama hosted a dinner for the UK's Prime Minister David Cameron and his wife Samantha and 370 guests under an enormous tent on the South Lawn of the White House.

Among the cultural luminaries who were invited were Idris Elba of the HBO series The Wire and George Clooney; Carey Mulligan came along with the eponymous Mumford of the Mumford & Sons who were performing music (folk rock according to the White House); John Legend (the other performer) came with his girlfriend Christine Teigen. Miramax studios executive Harvey Weinstein was present with his London-native wife Georgina Chapman, who is also the codesigner with Keren Craig at Marchesa, which created the dark blue dress that the First Lady wore. Hugh Bonneville and Elizabeth McGovern of the historical television drama Downton Abbey arrived with their partners, and US Vogue editor Anna Wintour attended with the investor Shelby Bryan.

"Expected Attendees at Tonight's State Dinner" [White House] (March 14, 2012)

Hugh Bonneville raised the satirical possibility of more interesting attire when he tweeted, "Dressing for dinner. I'm thinking Union Jack: red eye shadow, white moob tube, blue culottes #StyleIcon #AtTheWH." Yet in the end the sartorial choices of all attendees — as they figuratively waltzed across a checkerboard-floored room through the flashes of the press cameras on their way to their tables — were, if not thrillingly patriotic, suited.

Samantha Cameron does British fashion proud at White House dinner - in pictures [Guardian], Commentary by Imogen Fox (March 15, 2012)

These (along with the political guests including the customary throng of campaign contributors and financial titans like Warren Buffett and born Briton Andrew Sullivan of the Daily Beast, as well as veteran press figures like Gwen Ifill of PBS and Katty Kay of the BBC) then dined on a menu of fried halibut, salad, bison, boiled lemon pudding and American wines — off amethyst-and-gold, candlelit table settings with planters to 'evoke the American backyard' which was a theme and with roses as a nod to an emblem of both countries.