List 42

Love: I am a very big fan of roasted vegetables, warm, wood interiors, and Edison bulbs. So naturally I love Gjelina, on Abbot Kinney in Venice. I wish it was MY neighborhood restaurant. Just looking at the part of their menu below makes me want to jump on southwest.com. Oysters, charcuterie and a bunch of different warm vegetable dishes? Does anything sound better?

Like: Sofia Coppola's Somewhere, which, despite A.O. Scott's over-the-moon review, seems to have pretty much disappeared. Coppola is a master at establishing a mood and letting it wash over you. I've found myself thinking about the movie a lot since I've seen it.

http://movies.nytimes.com/2010/12/22/movies/22somewhere.html

Discovery: For going on 12 years now we've had friends over for an Oscar party. Aside from the wagering over ballots (and a side contest to come up with the best porn title for any nominated film) the thing everyone looks forward to the most are these tuna and olive croquettes I make. The recipe was found in a Tapas cookbook a friend loaned me.

Obsession: L.A. Confidential. I completely love this movie and, sue me, completely prefer it to Chinatown. The Castro Theater is showing both films as a Los Angeles-themed double feature this Thursday.

Complaint: One of my favorite spots in L.A. is Silverlake's LAMILL Coffee Boutique. I've never seen such a swanky spot for coffee and tea before (they're now serving wine and dinner too, since the space seemed to demand it.) In addition to artful tableside chemex and drip service, they offer amazing drinks like a mocha with Vallhala chocolate. So what's wrong? We need one in San Francisco too.

List 41

Love: Barbara Stanwyck, a great actress who always came across as whip smart, tough and sexy. I adore her con artist in The Lady Eve. And her scheming, unhappily married L.A. housewife in Double Indemnity is the ultimate film noir femme fatale in my book.

Like: Wide wood blinds. They always feel a bit retro to me (exhibit A: see the blinds in the Double Indemnity shots above) We recently put them in our den and Stella's room and they've transformed the look of the house, inside and out.

Discovery: Chanel's Rouge Allure No. 58 Audace, the perfect red lipstick.

Obsession: I am a major house voyeur. One of the nice things about the interweb is that it's chock full of sites and blogs that take you on tours of people's homes. A recent one I loved was The Selby's peak into the Spades' classic Upper East Side apartment, with all its vintage details and collections. It's eclectic with a hint of The Official Preppy Handbook.

http://theselby.com/11_4_10_AndyKateSpade/

Complaint: Like the Spades, apparently, I love getting matchbooks at restaurants, but too few restaurants offer matches these days. I know there are smoking bans, but still. It's way better than a business card.

List 40

Love: Giant, a sprawling, epic movie about ranching, oil, and clashing cultures in Texas, with great performances from James Dean, Rock Hudson, Elizabeth Taylor and a young Dennis Hopper.

Like: A steak house dinner. When in Rome...

Discovery: Years ago, when working on a new business pitch, I had the chance to go on a Porsche road rally drive across Texas, from Houston to Marathon. The Gage Hotel in Marathon was very cool, and a good base for exploring the beautiful Big Bend National Park which sprawls along the Rio Grande.

Obsession: Timothy Olyphant, the current crush. Not that Justified is set in Texas, but honestly, I challenge any man from the Lone Star State to wear a cowboy hat better than Olyphant's Raylan Givens. I liked Olyphant in Deadwood and love him in Justified, which happily is back for Season 2 starting tonight.

Complaint: That I haven't spent time in Austin, which I expect I'd really dig.

List 39

Love: The Packers. How can you not root for a community-owned team from a small town like Green Bay?

Like: Wisconsin may be known more for big brands like Miller and Pabst, but New Glarus' Spotted Cow is my home state beer of choice for the big game, assuming I can track some down.

Discovery: I had no idea that a "Little Wisconsin" hotbed of cool restaurants has sprung up in New York's West Village, thanks to Gabriel Shulman (a fellow UW Madison alumni.) Next visit I definitely want to check out Joseph Leonard, Fedora, and Jeffrey's Grocery, which the New York Times described as "it's as if Mr. Hooper joined Slow Food, took a charcuterie class, and developed a taste for Willamette Valley pinot noir."

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/27/fashion/27close.html?_r=1&src=twrhp

Obsession: Wisconsin is known as the Dairy State, and Packer fans as Cheeseheads. Generally one thinks of basic chedder, quantity over quality, but Wisconsin has been enjoying an artisan cheese explosion. In Milwaukee over Christmas, we were massively impressed by a high-end Wisconsin cheese plate at La Merenda restaurant which included such varieties as Foengreek Gouda.

Complaint: Most of the time I love our mild Bay Area climate (sunny and 60s lately.) But I confess to longing for a blizzard and the accompanying snow days after seeing these pictures my mother took of the front and back of their house this week.

List38

Love: I have always been a sucker for "La Vie En Rose." Yesterday on 4th Street in Berkeley, when the rain took a break, the talented and adorable Laura Weinberg of Foxtails Brigade performed a beautiful, delicate rendition that made my day. You can listen to it here:

http://foxtailsbrigade.bandcamp.com/album/la-nuit

Like: Chicken Under a Brick. Last night we made this version which appeared in Bon Appetit a year ago. What's not to like?

http://www.bonappetit.com/recipes/2009/09/chicken_al_mattone

Discovery: We have a pretty extensive collection of old LPs - and a broken turntable. I saw this portable Crosley USB Record Player at Urban Outfitters and placed an order. It will be nice to use by the fireplace in the rainy months to come, or out on the patio come summer.

Obsession: The current geek out is Star Wars: The Clone Wars (now in its third season on Cartoon Network.) We're in the midst of season two on DVD. And by we I mean me and my Padawan Stella. It's really fun, but the show is also making what goes down in Episode 3 of the film series all that more tragic.

Complaint: I had a delicious pre-holiday lunch at Cotogna and hoped to take my parents there when they come to town in late February. Alas, a non-5:45, non-9:30 weekend reservation has become all but impossible, even when planning a month in advance. Merde.

List 37

Love: Geography in general, and maps and globes in particular. Perhaps this originated with the many long family car trips we took, driving from Wisconsin to Florida or Colorado or Washington D.C., with my father challenging us to name all 50 states and their capitols, and letting us track our route, inked in red pen, on a AAA map. Or maybe the globe bank I had was the spark. But however it started, by high school I confess to being overjoyed in social studies whenever the teacher would place an un-labled map in front of us and see if we could identify each country in Europe or Asia. Two of my favorite things now are this old globe lamp we bought years ago at the bi-annual San Francisco Art Deco show, and a vintage globe I bought for Stella for Christmas. I love how they look and I love to look at the way the world used to be - countries of different shapes, with names like Siam, French Indo China, and Belgian Congo.

Like: This wood map puzzle magnet from Etsy.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/PipeDreams2010?ref=seller_info

Discovery: My friend Lisa came across pica pica's etsy store (which is currently shuttered while they move) and I quickly snapped up one of their map bowls.

Obsession: I am deeply envious of the "map rooms" that two friends of mine scored in their 1920something homes.

(You can see more of Jackie's place here: http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/la/inspiration/inspiration-avocado-papayas-map-room-083793)

Complaint: More a concern than a complaint at this stage, but it would be sad if between Google maps and GPS, everyone loses that physical connection to geography and if having a dogeared, marked-up map or road atlas in your glovebox becomes as outdated as a globe with the U.S.S.R.

List 36

Love: Soup - in general, but especially in the winter when I'm under the weather, as I have been for weeks now. This recipe from Epicurious, with cheese tortellini, kielbasa, kale and cannellini beans, is one we make often, and the bit of heat from the red pepper flakes helps clear out the sinuses. When we first made it years ago we forgot to buy a fennel bulb and liked how the recipe turned out anyway, so I've always omitted that bit.

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Cheese-Tortellini-Soup-with-Cannellini-Kielbasa-and-Kale-106143

Like: Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games trilogy. This is not great literature by any means, but these books made for a fun roller coaster ride-type read and helped pass the time home sick from work. I seem to have a thing for bleak, futuristic fiction with strong women characters. (See The Passage in List 1).

Discovery: Modern 50 in Virginia is, according to them, "a multi-disciplinary art and design collective which strives to create an ever-evolving nonlinear consumer lifestyles collection." What it is in more straight-forward language is a huge warehouse of really cool vintage and industrial stuff - hundreds of tables, lamps, storage units, chairs and assorted oddities. Perusing the site is the kind of time suck that works well when you're lounging in bed sick.

Obsession: It's a couple years old, but Amy Winehouse's slowed down version of "Valerie," from her B-Sides album, has been just what the doctor ordered lately. Warning, this is one of those homemade videos with pictures cut to the album track.

Complaint: Like Woody Allen's Mickey in Hannah & Her Sisters, I have a really bad habit of diagnosing any symptoms I have as cancer. I need Web MD and the Mayo Clinic's website to be blocked on my computer.