Also on offer will be a box containing Claridge+King’s His is Hers Linen Original Shirt in both midnight blue and sterling gray. In the summer my mother still looks like a teenager in her uniform of skinny pants, thong sandals, and cotton or linen tunics. After wearing the Claridge + King tops, there’s no going back: the linen is breathable and totally luxurious, the length is long, and the cut is roomy (but nipped in all the right places).  And they arrive in beautiful packaging—a pewter and white striped cotton boudoir-sized pillow sham.

Finally, I am usually the designated shopper on my father’s behalf. So this year, he’ll give her a porcelain and tole version of her favorite flower, lily of the valley, from Vieuxtemps Porcelain. It comes in a lovely clay pot and will be just the thing to mark her place at the Mother’s Day table.   
Happy Mother’s Day!

Julia Reed  eats, drinks, and shops her way through Los Angeles.

Pictured above, top row, from left:

There is no better place to stay in Los Angeles than one of the guest rooms in Suzanne and Fred Rheinstein’s house in leafy Hancock Park. The one above, featured in Suzanne’s gorgeous book At Home, has the most decadent bed cover ever—a tufted duvet done up in one of the fabrics she designs for Lee Jofa, Glazed Silk in Spinach. The curtains are in the same silk, while the chair and ottoman in the corner are covered in Suzanne’s Garden Roses in Lime Leaf.

Elle Décor is photographing my house in New Orleans next month and  I knew I’d find some much-needed props is Suzanne’s West Hollywood shop, Hollyhock. These fabulous aubergine glass orchid pots will look great in my mostly green living room and they’re so easy. Ditch the cheap plastic pots from the grocery store or florist, shove the orchids in these (you’ve got to get at least one in each size!), and presto, you have instant tablescape glamour.

Suzanne’s book At Home features both her Los Angeles house and her terrific apartment in Manhattan on the Upper East Side, which graces the cover.

Bottom row, from left:

Suzanne’s husband Fred has invested in some of L.A.’s best restaurants (including Joachim Splichal’s amazing Patina). The latest is Thomas Keller’s Bouchon in Beverly Hills. Keller might be a Yankee, but his fried chicken, perfected at Ad Hoc, his casual spot in Yountville, is among the best I’ve ever tasted. Bouchon is beautiful and fun, but one of the best things about it is the fact that you can take the fried chicken home—by the very tasteful bucket full.

My favorite new restaurant in L.A. is Red Medicine, the brainchild of Jordan Kahn, a brilliant young chef from Savannah, Georgia who was he youngest cook ever to work in Thomas Keller’s famous French Laundry kitchen. The menu is reinvented Vietnamese and among the items not to be missed are: the chicken dumplings (insanely delicious chicken meatballs); brussels sprouts with caramelized shallots and fish sauce (so addictive, they should be illegal), and pork belly glazed with malt vinegar and served with lettuce leaves and fresh herbs so you can make your own Vietnamese style wraps. The drinks are as creative as the cooking. In addition to the Pimm’s Cup above, an excellent old fashioned made with cognac, Rittenhouse Bonded Rye, and my favorite Fee Brothers Old Fashioned bitters.

The culinary marriage of Nancy Silverton and Mario Batali at Pizzeria Mozza has resulted in some of the finest pizzas on the planet. Pair one with the tricolore salad and a glass of partner Joe Bastianich’s and you have a perfect lunch.  (If L.A. and Pizzeria Mozza aren’t in your immediate future, there’s no reason to wait on the yummy Italian rosé from Bastianich’s vineyard—it’s available, just in time for the warm weather, from A Wine for All.)

Meryl Streep

I loved that her flattering Lanvin gown matched Oscar himself (who else, really, is more deserving of the color?), and I really loved her antique earrings (they looked like something from Kentshire Gallery’s Madison Avenue window, a space I frequently ogle). Best of all though was her wit and graciousness, two qualities in increasingly short supply in today’s Hollywood. The opening line of her speech was perfect: “When they called my name, I had this feeling that I could feel half of America going, ‘Oh no, not her again.’ But you know, whatever.”

Angelina Jolie

Ok, so her arms are too skinny and she looked a tiny bit ridiculous holding that leg-thrusting pose for so long onstage (hilariously mocked by writing crew of “The Descendants”). I don’t care—she has undeniable old-style movie star glamour and the best looking arm candy in town. Speaking of the latter, Brad Pitt is the Robert Redford of his day, so damn pretty and so naturally and understatedly talented that he is far too often overlooked.

Michelle Williams and Tina Fey

They wore the two best dresses of the night. Tina has never in her life looked as good as she did in that midnight blue Carolina Herrera strapless gown. And while Michelle is always adorable, she’s now crossed into high glam territory in that stunning Louis Vuitton red chiffon gown. The accessories (Fred Leighton diamond necklace, fuchsia Bottega clutch) were perfect too, as was her typically self-effacing red carpent comment: “I still feel like a misfit at things like this, but a better-dressed misfit.” Indeed.

Tom Cruise

My mother and I fight about Tom all the time. She thinks he’s a great actor and I say it’s been a long, long time since Rain Man or Born on the Fourth of July. Either way, the Scientologist thing is way too creepy to get past and so is his captive wife. There’s also that obsession with his height (he wears both heels and inserts) and when he took the stage on Sunday I could’ve sworn he’s had a nose job and a few other facial tweaks.

George Clooney

Do not get me wrong. I think George should have won Best Actor two years ago for his understated—and flawless—performance in “Up in the Air” and I think “The Descendants” was this year’s best movie. On top of that, he always adds Cary Grant man glamour to the proceedings. But, seriously, this year’s model is a wrestler? All George’s girls look alike: the cocktail waitress, the swimsuit model, the Italian actress, and on and on. Like past “girlfriends,” Stacy Keibler’s primary job seems to be tweeting so that George doesn’t have to. A post from Sunday night’s proceedings is predictably vapid: “We are off!!!! I feel like I’m going to the prom.” And then there was the one agreeing with Billy Crystal that George is an exellent kisser. Funny from Billy; Silly TMI from Keibler.

I went to Walmart and bought a tennis visor (which is also an excellent template for crafting a major tiara) and positioned it so that rather than shielding my face, it stood straight up and provided a base strong enough to glue-gun the various elements of my “treetop.” In the handicrafts department I bought artificial stems of ivy and flowers and remarkably life-like butterflies and songbirds. To these I added real branches and a bird’s nest and I pinned more butterflies to the “branches” on my coat. I bought a feathered mask for my husband and made him little owl ears from tiny pinecones I sprinkled with glitter and affixed to an invisible headband. I hasten to add that he wore a tuxedo and not an owl suit, but it was just as effective and the photo of us at that party sits on my office mantel as a reminder of just how much fun make-believe can be.

The party itself was loads of fun too, as always, but I have to say I had even more fun conceiving of and making our costumes. Of course, you need a lot of leisure time for that, the kind that the people featured in Assouline’s Bals: Legendary Costume Balls of the Twentieth Century had plenty of (see the article on the book in this week’s Fetch). Bals features Baron de Rede’s over-the-top Oriental Ball at which “Nubians” lined the stairs and Truman Capote’s Black and White Ball to which Mrs. Alfred Vanderbilt arrived dressed as a sexy black-and-white tiger.

The breed of well-off male socialites (De Rede, Carlos de Beistegui) who gave most of the memorable balls doesn’t really exist anymore, but I’m glad I live in New Orleans where for a week or two or three every year, people still make the time to indulge in artifice and fantasy, in the crafting of creative costumes and creative fun. It doesn’t have to be on a grand scale. Bronson van Wyck, who we talk to in this week’s Fetch, says the Oriental Ball “looked so beautiful it drives me crazy,” but he offers up some slightly more attainable tips to create a party “with heart.” As chef Mitch Rosenthal, who is also featured in the current Fetch, says of his Mardi Gras inspired party: you can opt for excess and offer a bounty of New Orleans food, festoon every surface with purple, gold, and green, make masking de riguer and carefully curate a playlist of New Orleans classics. As long as you have the “spirit,” there is no wrong way to celebrate.

Another phenomenal voice snuffed out far too soon was that of Amy Winehouse. iTunes now offers a posthumous collection of “Hidden Treasures,” and here Winehouse shows off her soulful pipes in a duet with Tony Bennett (who knew?) on “Body and Soul.”

Last year was also a time for new beginnings, especially for Sir Paul McCartney, who married Nancy Shevell, a smart, good-looking businesswoman and seemingly sane heiress, in October. For more than 30 years Paul had one of the great love stories with Linda, followed by a disastrous turn with the out-there Heather Mills. If his brand new album of old standards is any indication, true love has struck again. Here, some of his affecting new recordings are included, along with one of the hands-down best love songs ever, “Maybe I’m Amazed,” from his first solo album.

Also in the mix are songs about old loves (former Drive-By Truckers’ singer and guitarist Jason Isbell’s “Stopping By”), having it bad (Isbell’s “Heart on a String” and “One More Night” by veteran singer-songwriter J.D. Souther), and having some serious fun (Grace Potter’s “Stop the Bus”). There are unabashed love songs ranging from Nat King Cole’s “The Very Thought of You” to Ryan Adam’s “Winding Wheel.” And finally, there is my dear friend, Eden Brent’s infectious “Someone to Love.” It’s what we all want, right?

Something’s Got a Hold on Me, Etta James, Her Best, The Chess 50^th Anniversary Collection

Body and Soul, Amy Winehouse, Lioness: Hidden Treasures

More I Cannot Wish You, Paul McCartney, Kisses on the Bottom

My One and Only Love, Paul McCartney, Kisses on the Bottom

My Valentine, Paul McCartney, Kisses on the Bottom

Maybe I’m Amazed, Paul McCartney, Paul McCartney

Stopping By, Jason Isbell, Here We Rest

Heart on a String, Jason Isbell, Here We Rest

One More Night, J. D. Souther, If the World Was You

Come on Up, J. D. Souther, If the World Was You

Stop the Bus, Grace Potter & The Nocturnals, This is Somewhere

Love Sneaking up on You, Bonnie, Raitt, Bonnie Raitt and Friends

Love Letter, Bonnie Raitt, The Best of Bonnie Raitt

The Very Thought of You, Nat King Cole, The Very Thought of You

A Song for You, Leon Russell, The Best of Leon Russell

We’ve Still Got Time, Greg Trooper, Upside-Down Town

Winding Wheel, Ryan Adams, Heartbreaker

Someone to Love, Eden Brent, Ain’t Got No Troubles

It’s not the first time I wished I lived in a grand English Country House, or at least a few rooms that looked like one. The Colefax & Fowler book came out in the 1980s, just before I bought my first ever apartment in New York, and I was obsessed with Nancy Lancaster’s famous “buttah yellow” room (Lancaster, although a Virginian, worked with John Fowler to create the firm’s signature English style). My own living room had much the same dimensions (but unlike Nancy’s pad, it was pretty much the whole apartment) and I was determined to replicate those glazed yellow walls. I held lemons and butter up to the walls in search of the perfect shade; I bought Jocasta Innes’s “Paint Magic” and learned to mix burnt umber and sienna and the all-important black into a glaze. I have to say, my moonlighting Irish painter and I came pretty close. I was even lucky enough to inherit some Downtonesque furniture after we’d finished: a pair of Adam consoles, a Chinese Chippendale sofa, an enormous portrait of a cricket player. But as lovely as those items were, and as grateful as I was for them, the thing I could never exactly replicate was the Lancaster room’s great charm and seemingly incongruous livability.

Part of it, like the interiors at Downton, is the mix. Slipcovered armchairs and skirted tables share space with far finer pieces. Renaissance portraits are in the same room as rush baskets for logs. It remains one of the finest rooms I’ve ever seen, but it was clearly meant for hanging about in. Those upholstered chairs are slapped right next to each other (in an almost awkward way we would never dream of doing) near the fire. There’s a desk that’s obviously something good, but you can tell that someone actually uses it. Lancaster must have had some kind of strong British DNA, because the rest of us Americans are not nearly as natural when it comes to creating environments of such effortless and down-to-earth grandeur.

This was a lesson brought home to me when my English friend Sarah Giles bought the apartment two floors above me just after I moved in. Her living room had the same dimensions as mine and she covered its walls with a creamy Colefax stripe; her curtains were trimmed in a longish fringe (I was so terrified of screwing up such a pricey investment, I lived with simple silk shades for years before I bit the bullet). She pulled off seemingly daring mixes of fabrics like Colefax’s Bowood glazed chintz in blue and red with no less than two Bennison linen prints. Oriental paintings and English prints covered the walls, a fire surround was covered in an old Kilim. On coffee tables and ottomans and garden seats, there were stacks and stacks of books and all manner of artifacts from her trips to India and Vietnam and Thailand. She’d artfully arrange decorative postcards and invitations on her mantel, and when I did the same, it came out looking like a mess. Even her bathroom was to die for – it had faux-bois paneling and Czech & Speake period fittings long before Waterworks copied them.

I had never heard of faux bois. I had barely heard of Bennison. I did know about about Colefax, mainly because I’d spent more money than ever before in my life on curtains and a dressing table skirt in their Roses and Pansies chintz in a previous apartment. As great as they were on their own, they never looked right in the setting I’d tried to create. Sarah’s setting, on the other hand, was perfect. It was riotous and interesting and somehow extremely tasteful all at the same time, and most important it was comfortable. I loved my own apartment and miss it to this day, but truth be told, I spent a lot more time at Sarah’s, sprawling on her deep George Smith sofa, drinking wine, gossiping, ordering in sushi and Chinese, than I did at home.

This is the English gift. Of course, Van Dykes (like the one in the Downton dining room) and piles and piles of things like my very favorite Chinese export porcelain don’t hurt. They’ve also had a few hundred more years of practice in regard to living well and messing around with all that good stuff.  But we’re catching up. Decorators like Bunny Williams and Suzanne Rheinstein, Miles Redd and Jeffrey Bilhuber are genius at translating and updating the philosophy behind the look on this side of the pond. And then of course, there’s everyone’s favorite show that serves as our current touchstone for the way we’d all secretly like to live.

But the subject today is men and gin, preferably in the form of a martini. Few things make a man more elegant than having one in hand. A case in point: the Slim Aarons photograph of Clark Gable, Van Heflin, Gary Cooper, and Jimmy Stewart at Romanoff’s on New Year’s Eve 1957. They are all in white tie, they are all cracking up, they all exude a masculinity and a coolness that is utterly breathtaking. Gary Cooper is holding what looks like a straight-up martini. It may well have been champagne, but I’m sticking with gin. Anyway, all four of those guys spent a lot of time in Chase’s, the much lamented Hollywood landmark that closed in 1995.

Chase’s was famous for its chili (Liz Taylor had several quarts flown to the set of “Cleopatra”) and a martini called “Pepe’s Flame of Love.” Created by Chasen’s bartender Pepe Ruiz, it was made with Stolichnaya vodka, sherry instead of vermouth, and orange peel rather than lemon. It was allegedly made for Dean Martin, another extra cool fellow, after he complained that he was bored with regular martinis. I can attest that it is excellent.

In today’s Fetch Bar column, our intrepid correspondent Brooks Reitz writes of the perfection that is on offer from the Connaught Hotel’s martini cart. I agree with Brooks that some of the finest martinis in the world are made in London hotel bars, usually by Italian bartenders. I am partial to the bar at Duke’s, where bar manager Alessandro Palazzi starts with a frozen glass and garnishes the finished product with either the peel of an Amalfi lemon or olives from Puglia. James Bond creator Ian Fleming drank at Duke’s, he is said to have written part of “Casino Royale” there. But you should ignore the awful Fleming 89, made with vodka infused with Tonka beans and chocolate bitters, in favor of Bond’s own favorite, a martini he named the Vesper after the novel’s gorgeous female lead, Vesper Lynd.

The Vesper is served, according to Bond’s instructions to the bar man in Casino Royale, in a deep champagne goblet,(which means that my boy Gary Cooper could indeed have been drinking one), and is made with “three measures of Gordon’s, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet. It is then shaken very well until it’s ice-cold and garnished with a large thin slice of lemon peel.”

My father is partial to Gordon’s, but in a plain old fairly wet martini garnished with an onion, which technically makes it a Gibson. He is also partial to other martini drinkers. So it was that when he spied Bill Blass in the bar at the Jockey Club in Washington, D.C. with a straight-up martini happily in hand, he introduced himself and they became fast friends. On the face of it, they were an unlikely pair: a world-famous dress designer and a businessman and politico from the Mississippi Delta. But Blass was at least as cool as Gary Cooper and Clarke Reed could easily have held his own with that bunch at Romanoff’s. Because they both knew/know how to hold their gin, in every sense of the word.

Rogers, born in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, came to Manhattan in the 1950s and started his own ad agency in 1974.  In the next three decades he created some of the most memorable slogans of the century: “If you don’t look good, we don’t look good” (for Vidal Sassoon); “Danskins are not just for dancing”; “Demanded by and created by perfectionists” (for Baccarat). He did ads for Arnold Scaasi (“Me and my Scaasi”) and for his friend and Connecticut neighbor Bill Blass. But his most famous campaign remains “What becomes a legend most?”

That tagline was for ads that included pretty much every female legend on the planet swathed in nothing but Blackglama mink. Among the women delighted to pose were Elizabeth Taylor, Joan Crawford (a good friend Peter always referred to as simply “Crawford”), Claudette Colbert (another close friend) Rita Hayworth, Marlene Dietrich, Lauren Bacall, Eartha Kitt, Lillian Hellman, Diana Ross. The list goes on and on.

These days I am thrilled to report that Peter has moved back South, to a divine house in the French Quarter of New Orleans, which means that I am spoiled by his proximity. He is the most generous guest in the world, toting over a case of some wonderful wine every time he’s asked for dinner and reciprocating with relaxed suppers featuring his justifiably famous chili or a Brazilian feast cooked up by his right-hand woman Rosa. He is also a fabulous portrait painter, a great patron of good causes (I’m happy to say his latest is the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, where I’m board chair), and the world’s most loyal friend.

I love going to Peter’s house because it is so beautiful and light-filled, but also because I can ogle all the Blackglama portraits for the fiftieth time. The originals are in the Smithsonian and they deserve to be – they transport the viewer to a lost age of genuine glamour. Those legendary women might have been happy to wrap themselves up in a luxurious fur (part of the deal was they got to keep it), but the last thing they needed was a stamp of approval in the form of anyone else’s initials.

I don’t think I’m alone in this. Recently my family had some bad news, and I got some really thoughtful emails (which I will print out and keep), but also dozens of beautifully handwritten notes on a range of stationery that said a lot about each sender.

It’s not directly related, I know, but during this past holiday season, book sales in actual bookstores increased by substantial margins over the year before. Readers are realizing it’s important to support independent bookstores (like Taigan’s beloved Books & Books in Coral Gables, for example, or Heirloom Books in Charleston). There was a huge backlash when Amazon encouraged shoppers to use its dastardly price-check app (which allows shoppers in physical stores to see, by scanning a bar code, if they can get a better price online) to earn a 5 percent credit on Amazon purchases. Writer Andre Dubus said he saw the move as blatant attempt to monopolize the market, the effect of which would ultimately be to “further devalue, as a cultural and human necessity, the book itself.”

I think it’s good news that we suddenly seem to be craving the personal and tangible, whether it’s a book or a letter or even an anchorman. Last year, for the first time since 2002, the ratings of the Big Three nightly newscasts went up. Apparently, we want getting our information to be personal again too, not to mention reliable. Uncle Walter may be dead, but we’ll happily take Brian, Diane, or Scott over a collection of blogs or twitter feeds disseminated by God knows who, or a stable of incessant cable chatterers with no real portfolio.

If we are finally getting tired of the fragmented and the ephemeral, there is no place better to start than by writing a letter (and in this week’s Fetch, there are some swell accoutrements to help you do it). Can you imagine The Box Tops singing, “My baby, she wrote me an email?” Or worse, a tweet? No. Every once in a while at least, we want our babies, and our friends, to write us a letter. So get to it.