What's In Store for Galliano?

In headlines today, John Galliano's trial was held in Paris courthouse. Prosecutors had asked to fine him at least 10,000 euros ($14,000) for his actions. He was being prosecuted for the anti-Semitic comments he made at a Paris bar.

A friend of his took her cellphone and caught this all on video. Once it surfaced, he lost his position as Creative Director for Christian Dior - even after working there for fifteen years.

During his testimony, he said that he had no recollection of what had happened, and blamed his "triple addiction" of alcohol, sleeping pills and barbiturates. The designer is charged with public insults based on origin, religious affiliation, race or ethnicity" and could face up to six months in prison and $32,175 in fines. The verdict is expected at a later date.

Oh Galliano, why oh why would you do this to yourself? He is actually such a creative genius and had brought Dior to new heights - obviously without him, Dior wouldn't be what it is today, am I right? 

Fall/Winter'11/12

Even though he no longer is with Dior, he's still has his John Galliano line. I feel like his line isn't as flamboyant as his Dior collections, but it's still unique. It feels more ready to wear as oppose to the extravagant pieces that are strutted down the runways. Maybe that will all change now.

With his whole trial and court situation, I think people would still continue to support his designs. Don't get me wrong, his words were completely inappropriate and disrespectful, but at the same time, art is art right? When you see something that you like, and it's beautiful, it's hard to unlike it. Like the famous painter Picasso who was a complete womanizing and has been called a woman destroyer, but, I still appreciate his art very much (despite his reputation). 

"After every creative high, I would crash and the alcohol helped me," he said, adding that his creativity "helped make Dior a billion-dollar business."

That makes sense - I mean look at artists throughout the ages, so many create their best work when they're intoxicated. I guess it takes you to a whole new level and you observe things differently. 

Is this going to hurt his career? Probably a little bit. But I'm sure he'll be able to bounce back in no time. 

Remember when Kate Moss had that whole debacle with her cocaine scandal? Look at her now. She designed several collections for Topshop, continued to do spreads and be in campaigns, and recently announced, she's to team up with Rimmel for her own range of makeup.

What should he learn from this? If he's going to be drunk or high or involves himself in some sort of non-sober activity, he should stay somewhere where he isn't able to talk to strangers. 

Well, controlling his addictions will help too I suppose. 

Très Français, Non?

Ok, so what's very french? Me? I wish. But, I'll be faux French just for a bit. How am I possibly going to achieve that? By attempting to make the very delicious Parisian Macarons.

As promised, I'm providing a step-by-step with pictures that I did to make my very first ever batch of macarons. I've always heard that they're hard and has a high failure rate, but I did it, and boy, are they ever yummy!

Macarons

- 4 egg whites
- 200 grams cup icing sugar
- 110 grams ground almond
- 2 tbs granulated sugar (aka regular sugar)

Before you do anything, take your egg whites and 'age' them overnight. Then, go to sleep.

Next day, begin by preheating your oven to 300F. Take your egg whites and whisk them on low speed with your electric mixer until foamy. Then add your 2 tbs of sugar slowly. 

Until your mixture looks like that. Kind of meringue-like and whipped cream-like. Can you believe that's from egg whites and sugar?

Take your ground almond out, and measure 110 grams on a scale. Put it in a bowl. Then measure 200 grams of icing sugar and put it in the bowl with the ground almonds. 

Get a spoon and mix it together, and make sure it's nicely powdery and loose. No chunks of ground almond sticking together. Done? 

Then, you add it to your whipped cream-like egg whites and fold with a spatula. It should look evenly mixed and kind of grainy and sandy-ish (because of the ground almonds)

Take out a cookie sheet and parchment paper, and measure your parchment paper to fit perfectly to your sheet. Get a pastry bag and tip and squeeze small circles on your sheet. (I didn't have the right tip, so mine were a little big)

Set your oven to 300F and bake for 20 minutes. Let it cool for a white. Then, you put filling in the middle on one shell and place another on top... like a sandwich! 

And voilà! Your macarons are ready! I used blackberry jam, strawberry jam and nutella as filling. My macarons came out a bit nutty, so I personally prefer the nutella filling, but the jams make it more dessert-like. 

Success to me! I was actually very scared that it wouldn't work, but considering this was my first time, I quite like the results. I didn't get to make my own filling because I was running out of eggs (I made meringues the night before). But throughout the summer, I will be experimenting with these tasty treats and tweaking them a little bit, and trying different flavours.. exciting right? 

Try them yourself. It's really fun. 

And super yummy! 

Enjoy and bonne chance!