High brow / Low brow

I'm slightly embarrassed to admit this, but chocolate + pop rocks = a rockin' oral experience.

A friend of mine recently shared with me some her chocolate stash that she brought back from Israel, and though I'd never had thought to put the two together, this duo provides quite a sensation.

Image courtesy Rachel Tepper: source

 Though tasty, the chocolate is hardly first rate-- but the novelty of it is worth getting a hold of a bar or two. (Mine went particularly well with black coffee to wash it all down.)

Image courtesy Rachel Tepper: source

If the above is the devilish imp of the chocolate world, this next treat would be a heavenly host of rosy-cheeked cherubim.

Tartufo nero from Tartuflanghe, a small, truffle-centric company from the Piedmont region in northern Italy.

A random person offered one of these to my husband, who then shared it with me, and we immediately scoured the store trying to locate them. No luck. It seems these babies aren't available in the U.S. (If you know otherwise, please drop me a line, I beg you.)

Image courtesy Tartuflanghe

They carry several variations (I have my eye on the Sicilian amaretto-truffle version) but if you like quality dark chocolate, these are addictively good. Like carry the wrinkled wrapper in your purse so you can ask every specialty store and organic grocery manager to carry them good.

And I promise you won't be afraid to recommend them to even the most discerning of cacao connoisseurs (even if that's you).

The Art of Madi: Summer on the Lebanese Riviera

For me, nothing exudes "summer" like the work of Lebanese artist and sculptor Hussein Madi.

His colorful, sun-drenched paintings bear the clear imprint of Matisse and Picasso, but his landscapes and the rounded sensuality of his figures, be they village folk, women, or musicians, speak to me and offer a  perspective on earthy, joyful Oriental / Levantine culture that I find lacking in the other masters' work.

Like the Spaniard and the Frenchman, the Italian-trained Madi devoted many of his works to purity of form and abstraction, fusing the genre with the traditions of harmony and abstraction in Islamic calligraphy.

A wonderful and substantial book (seriously, it weighs nearly five pounds) covering his life's work, along with interviews and art critics' essays, The Art of Madi, is available if you can find it online or in a specialty bookstore.

I came across it in a little Arab bookstore in Los Angeles, and regret not having snatched it up then. If you can find this tome, get it, as I believe it's no longer in print and is a fabulous publication. 

A series of his exhibitions have been taking place, mostly across the Gulf states and Beirut, (Nabad, Aida Cherfan, and Art Space galleries) as well as across Europe for many years. Check out his series on birds, if you have the opportunity.

All images courtesy the publisher Saqi Books.