All the guests have left and Gertrude has retired. What a glorious evening!<\/em><\/p>\n And so a new year begins with the most wonderful of news which I will share at the end of today\u2019s entry, saving the best for last.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/em><\/p>\n Paris, 1910<\/p><\/div>\n I was asked by Gertrude and Leo to assist in preparing the holiday’s food which I did with pleasure. There are so many recipes that I have collected from my grandmother and mother and many of our cooks that someday I may have to do a cook book. <\/em><\/p>\n Assisting with soir\u00e9es here has become such a pleasurable task as\u00a0I have become quite familiar with the household as I come daily to transcribe Gertrude\u2019s notebooks on the Smith-Premier typewriter\u2014a marvelous apparatus.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/em><\/p>\n The guests were on their best behavior. \u00a0Picasso was a gentleman ushering other guests past his paintings in the salon, drink in hand, not saying a word, but nodding toward each of his paintings with a twinkle in his eye. \u00a0Matisse glared at him from across the room sipping champagne and enjoying my stuffed mushroom canap\u00e9s.<\/em><\/p>\n Michael and Sarah (Stein) mingled with the guests including our San Francisco friend Lawrence Strauss who was in Paris on holiday from his music studies in Berlin.<\/em><\/p>\n And then there was Gertrude. It has been 27 months since we met (the magic of that number!) and I still marvel at her ability to “hold court.” \u00a0People flock to be around her and when she speaks, everyone listens. She is also genuinely interested in what others have to say, but does not hesitate to speak her mind. And our friendship is one that even after more than two years is difficult for me to express in words, though Lovey has done so so many times, sometimes cryptically in the genius of her writing.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/em><\/p>\n "Gertrude and Alice," by John Keating (2000)<\/p><\/div>\n My reflections on the New Year?<\/em><\/p>\n As for Gertrude’s writing, let us wish for many more published books to follow her first, THREE LIVES, which was published just five months ago. Sales so far have been slow, but hopefully many a holiday purchase was made to place beneath Christmas trees on both sides of the Atlantic.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/em><\/p>\n As for the World, there will, I fear, continue to be wars and rumors of wars in our new century, but let us hope that the advances brought by the Industrial Revolution will benefit and not cause great harm to mankind.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/em><\/p>\n As for Women\u2019s Fashion, I can see that much continues to change with the yards and yards of fabric that graced our gowns in the last 25 years has given way to styles more in tune with some of the new freedoms afforded the gentler sex.\u00a0 And thank God, that large brimmed hats with lots and lots of \u00a0feathers and ribbons are still in vogue!<\/em><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/gertrudeandalice.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/12\/Inondation_au_pont_de_la_Tournelle_Paris_1910.jpg\" "\\"Inondation_au_pont_de_la_Tournelle_(Paris),_1910\\"")
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