The scope of my new blog isn't exactly the same as this one... though it may end up being just as random.

"My strongest former blogs have been on the topics of city life and faith and social justice, so I envision this space as continuing that theme."

Let’s see where this goes. I’m pretty excited. It's called "Urban Glimpses."

http://blythewhite.wordpress.com

I'll be keeping my Xanga account, but pretty much never updating it... comment me over yonder.

Xanga, you've been good to me. It's time to break up, though.

*I admit to looking more at Wordpress and simply getting hooked. It's quite elegant. While the themes are pretty monotonous, I knew I could spice it up with some of my photography. I don't foresee hosting it, but who knows...

Thanks for reading here.

Montreal is one of the fashion capitals of North America. New York and LA are important, but Montreal is growing rapidly as a center of innovation. A few months back, my friend Raina, who studied fashion at a local design school, launched her own fashion line, and as her final exam for the design school, staged a fashion show in the lobby of a downtown office building. She and her peers showed five to six looks from their transition spring-summer lines. I jumped at the opportunity to go (and proceeds went to the FARHA foundation)--because when else would I get to go to a fashion show? I reveled in the fashion in Milan when I lived there, but never went to a catwalk.

So, when Raina said that she was going to take a group through the Museum of Fine Art's special exhibit on Yves Saint Laurent, I knew it would be an awesome opportunity. She'd have personal insight, having had an internship with a pretty big Quebecois designer, designing herself, and having toured the exhibit days prior. YSL was a name I'd heard a lot, especially since working at Nordstrom, but didn't know much about the guy.

1. He was born in Algeria. As a homosexual, he was abused during his mandatory military conscription. He was sent to a mental hospital and was given shock therapy to try and "cure" him of his homosexuality. This caused him tons of emotional turmoil (duh), and he abused drugs and alcohol the rest of his life, which sometimes debilitated him from coming onstage at the end of fashion shows. At the end of his life, he became sober.

2. He was the first designer to incorporate looks from other cultures into the fashion world.

3. He was the first designer to design pants for women, and to show them on the runway (wow, I'm thankful he did!).

4. He was the first designer to have african models up on the runway.

5. He changed fashion dramatically by having it reflect what happened on the street, rather than the masses following elitist fashionistas. He was one of the first to be inspired by sailors and soldiers and painters, incorporating the nautical look into fashion, for instance.

6. He came up with the peacoat for women. (Thanks again, Yves!)

There's tons of other firsts that he did. The exhibit, which is only traveling to a few cities, has hundreds of fashions that he designed. It was separated by themes, and every room was better than the last. I loved looking at all the detail of his designs, and was impressed by how ridiculously timeless many of his designs were. They even set up a catwalk. I didn't try my hand at it, since it was a ramp and all. My favorite room was the tongue-in-cheek art room. Everyone questions whether fashion is art or not. YSL took famous works of art and made clothing pieces as living replicas of them. His Mondrian-style mod dresses were so simple, with the contrast of black and white and right angles, plus a square of a primary color here or there. His Van Gogh iris jacket--completely covered in beads--was worth $100,000 on its own. He loved Matisse and Picasso and Brecht as well and had many pieces (even some with beaded doves holding them together) based on their works.

Right after the exhibit, we went to the Montreal Festival of Fashion and Design, where they were having a tribute fashion show to YSL. That was the plan even a year ago, and ironically enough, he had passed away the same week as the festival. Quebec designers came up with designs inspired by YSL's vision. Since we had seen YSL stuff just minutes before, it was especially striking how well the designers did.

So basically, I knew next to nothing about Yves Saint Laurent when I started the evening. Then I learned a ton and got to understand how revolutionary his work was. And yes, I do think it is art.

I love this city.

I love berries.  But when I buy them, I seem to like them for a couple days, then I go on berry overload.  So I need a way to use them if I choose not to freeze them for smoothies.

Last year, I made a delicious blueberry-rosemary-red-wine sauce to accompany pork, with my mom's advice.  I grew up on ridiculously good sauces she made--bright citrusy-sage for chicken and white-wine-apple-onion for pork.

When I saw the last 1/4 of the pint of blueberries lookin' almost too sad to eat, I knew I had to take action. 

So I came up with the blueberry-apple-leek sauce for center-cut boneless pork chops.

Makes 2-3 chops

1 mcintosh apple (or a similar small, tart one), chopped into thin, bite-sized pieces
1/4 pint rinsed blueberries (take those stems out)--basically a handful and a little more.
1/3 cup white wine vinegar
Three-1/4 inch slices (cross-sections) of a leek.  Leeks last better than onions and don't smell up the fridge as much.  Plus their flavor is a little more delicate
Pepper
1 Tablespoon sugar
1/3-1/2 cup pomegranate-blueberry juice

Start with apples, blueberries, leek slices and white wine vinegar.  Put in saucepan over medium heat.  It smells gross, but never fear. :)  Once the vinegar burns off a bit, put in sugar, pepper and juice.  Stir often, and bring up to a boil.  Boil for several minutes.

In the meantime, heat up 1-2 Tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil in a skillet.  Put two peeled whole cloves of garlic (crushed with the whack of a knife--the way Rachael Ray does it) in to season the oil, and heat on medium-medium high.  Take cloves out as soon as they turn golden (before they burn).  Put 2-3 pork chops in the oil and brown each side (about 1-2 minutes per side.)  After this, remove pork chops from pan and let them rest for a couple minutes.  Keep the garlic-oil in the skillet.

Pour the fruit mixture into the garlic oil pan and stir.  Allow to boil again (it needs to in order to thicken), then put pork chops in with the fruit and cook for 3-4 minutes each side (though check it from time to time so as not to overcook or undercook the meat) on medium heat. 

The color of the sauce is an unbelievable shade of aubergine purple.  The flavor is savory and sweet and a little tangy. It keeps well (mmmmm leftovers!).

I served it with steamed broccoli and oven-roasted baby red potatoes and snap peas.  (Coat the potatoes with extra virgin olive oil, pepper and thyme, and put them in a 450 degree oven for about 20 minutes.)

I really love these random recipes that work out.