The stage is slowly moving in a circle and I can’t help but think how my life is moving too. The opening song? “Blossom there is a song inside me..take these chains away” – James Taylor

Carol King wrote many of his songs and how could he not want to sing, “From a garden of wisdom, from a long ago dream” -Carole King

Music has always been a huge part of my life. A life without music for me would be a dull place. It helps me think…always has. This year, upon advice from a good friend, I turned my formal library that I never went in (but it looked good) into a music room. Less like a “music room” with instruments but more like the old 80’s poster of the guy sitting in a chair in front of a speaker with his hair blowing backward.

I recovered my grandmother’s comfortable barrel chairs in a rich deep purple velvet and I love that room now. A place to contemplate and to hear words of an old song that I have been listening to for years and years but only now do I understand.

“In between what might have been and what has come to past are just bits of broken glass” – James Taylor

Get James Taylor and Carole Kings new CD The Troubadour. It is good. Life is good. Happy summer.

”I wanted to create a collection that had the flavor of a great house outside Nairobi in the 1930s, filled with wonderful antiques, textiles and native carvings,” said Cohler.

Cohler sought out rustic lodges from the Western United States to Kenya, Tanzania and the Kreuger National Park in South Africa, creating a definitive sense of destination with every design. ”All of these diverse places have one thing in common, a rich heritage of the great outdoors and a celebration of nature in all of her texture and depth,” Cohler continued.

The ten patterns range from bold stripes and plaids to kitschy antlers, delicate blossoms and muted tweeds, drawing not only from nature but from Lee Jofa’s storied archives.

Lamb with Easy Tzatziki from The Barefoot Contessa

Chef Daniel Boulud’s Rack of Lamb