Just restaurant facades and nothing else. Enjoy all the bright colors and random medley of Paris foodie spots!

Design is such a priority overseas, especially when it pertains to food. I wanted to share the cutest little cafe/deli that has several outposts in Finland. I can’t understand anything on the actual Website for the Sis Deli + Cafe, but Remodelista did a little write-up to share the details of their interior design and sweet black/white checked pattern. I am going to explode from the cuteness. Sis focuses on ecological and organic delights in quite a peaceful and hip setting. Anyone seen any great flights to Finland? Yes, I’ve been known to board a plan just to hit a cafe or restaurant with local friends. Now I just need to make some friends in Finland!

It’s Fall, finally and unfortunately. My trip to California extended Summer, but only by 10 days. The moment my flight landed in Boston, I could smell Fall. At my farm, the bins overflowed with squash, fennel and lettuce greens. While there, I got over stimulated by, totally shoved in my face and kicked in the head by Fall. And now I’m more than ready for some delicious Fall-inspired cuisine.

Before that, I wanted to share a pretty table that got me too excited for my favorite season. This is my antique dining room table surrounded by bright white plastic chairs, chairs that we purchased in mass for huge parties but always seem to linger around the house because they just work. The wicker place mats are topped with bright white Williams & Sonoma plates and shiny forks and knives. My Simon Pearce candle holders do in fact hold white candles and a small pile of white, cream and sand-colored stones from a trip to a Long Island beach five years ago. The ghourds and pumpkins are from that day’s farm trip, a trip loaded with mighty specimens washed in beautiful whites, greens, golds, butter yellows and oranges.

In the background, a very good friend is putting bits and pieces of smoked bacon on his early Fall salad of local lettuce and celery root. I had to snap a picture because the evening and the table reflected good, brisk times to come, with roaring fires, dishes filled with late harvest vegetables and plenty of wine to keep us warm. (In fact, I’m considering doing something like this for Thanksgiving. That table will have more than 20 people around it, so I’ll need piles and piles of ghords, pumpkins and squash to make it all work, which will make for a rather fun farm trip, I think.)

It really doesn’t take much to make a table special and modern. The ghourds were cheap, the stones free and everything else, including the big paper napkins (because all our cloth napkins were in the wash), was stocked in my antique sideboard. We were dressed in jeans and garden shoes fresh from our farm visit, but the special touches on the table made us feel special, like we had treated ourselves to some old-fashioned hospitality, without going overboard, spending a fortune or exerting too much effort. My rule of thumb is to keep it simple and the good times will follow. And in this case, the good Fall times have just begun.