Oh, the Places You’ll Go at Burning Man! from NORMAJEAN | Brand Culturing™ on Vimeo.

I’m sure you’ve heard of the High Line, especially if you’re a New Yorker, but have you heard of the Lowline? It’s not a reality yet, but hopefully it will be. You can help get this project one step closer by contributing to the Lowline Kickstarter project.

Learn more by watching the video below.

ᔥ GOOD

Here in South Florida, art is a pretty big deal. There’s a neighborhood in Miami, known as Wynwood-Edgewater, which has transformed into MIA’s major art district. (It’s actually two neighborhoods, sometimes collectively termed as Midtown.) It’s proof positive that art and business can exist harmoniously and that art, especially public art, can change a community.

HERE COMES THE NEIGHBORHOOD, a docuseries exploring the power of public art and innovation in communities, is basing it’s pilot season around the Arts District of Wynwood. Watch the video above for a great look into how one of Wynwood’s public art spaces came to be.

To learn more about the walls, visit the Wynwood Walls website.

*Reading this in e-mail and can’t see the video? Click here.

For most, the best part of Valentine’s day is the romance. The flowers. The gift. But for me it’s the chocolate. In honor of this special day I am sharing a decadent and as always easy recipe for Chocolate Fondue. This recipe serves two and enough leftover for the other “dessert” you might be having. You will need:

• 10 ounces of dark semi-sweet, good quality chocolate
• 1 cup of heavy cream
• Your favorite things to dip, such as strawberries, bananas, pound cake, or your date (more about that later)
• Fondue skewers or small wooden kabob skewers (forks work just as well)
• Small crock pot, fondue pot, or deep bowl
• A soft paintbrush (optional)

Before heating chocolate, cut all dipping items to bite size pieces.

1. Chop chocolate into 1/2 inch pieces.
2. In a microwave safe bowl add chopped chocolate and 1/2 cup of heavy cream.
3. Place in microwave and cook for 20 second intervals stirring in between each interval adding small amounts of remaining heavy cream until chocolate is melted and smooth.
4. Transfer chocolate to a fondue pot or a small crock pot set to Warm. If you don’t own one it can be served in a deep bowl. Remember, chocolate cools quickly, so have everything set up to serve immediately. If chocolate cools just microwave for 10 seconds and stir.

Some of my favorites for dipping:

• Plain or graham cracker encrusted marshmallows (Just moisten the marshmallows and roll in graham cracker crumbs.)
• Cheesecake cut into bite size pieces (refrigerate until ready to serve)
• Mini brownies or brownie bites
• Pound cake
  * You can get crafty and use a small heart shaped cookie cutter on any of the cakes.

After you’ve had your fill of delicious treats and the chocolate has cooled slightly, grab your date and remaining chocolate for some painting. I am sure you can figure out what to use as a canvas…

Note: I used a mixture of dark semisweet chocolate and Valrhona bittersweet chocolate. Though Valrhona bittersweet is my favorite, its robust flavor easily overpowers the fruits and cakes, so I prefer a mixture.

Happy Valentines Day!

photo ᔥ dalboz via flickr edited by ms. jenn

Valentine’s Day is a day known for romance and indulgence. On one of my first Valentine’s dates we went to a little Italian restaurant in Manhattan. So romantic. The food wonderful. So sweet! I fell in love…with the Chicken Marsala. I have been trying to capture the magic of my first time and have searched for a delicious, traditional, yet easy recipe. One that would showcase the true, unadultered taste of my sweet love: Marsala wine.

Imported Marsala wine is created from 3 grape varietals Cataratto, Grillo, and the highly aromatic Inzolia grape which are indigenous to Italy’s sunny southern region. It comes in a few different style designations, however two are used for cooking this dish: Dolce (sweet) and Semi-secco (semi-sweet). I used Dolce. You also want to look for Fine or Superiore on the label this refers to aging time. Fine is aged about one year; Superiore has spent up to three years in oak.

Imported Marsala wine (like Columbo) has a deeper richer flavor and for the taste of a TRUE chicken Marsala it is a must.

Simple Chicken Marsala

• 4 chicken cutlets or 2 boneless breast split and pounded out
• 12 oz white button mushrooms
• 2 shallots finely chopped
• 1/4 cup of flour
• 1 1/2 cups of imported Marsala wine
• 3 tablespoons of olive oil, divided
• 3 1/2 tablespoons of butter
• 1/4 teaspoon of sea salt
• 1/4 teaspoon of garlic sea salt
• 1/4 teaspoon of black pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon of ground sage
• 1 tablespoon of finely chopped fresh italian parsley

1. Add flour to a shallow pan. Dredge chicken in flour and shake off excess.
2. Heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a pan on medium-high until oil is shimmering.
3.  Add chicken to pan and cook until golden brown on both sides, turning once approximately 4 minutes on each side. Transfer to plate. Keep warm.
4.  In the same pan, add remaining olive oil, 1 tablespoon of butter, and mushrooms. Sauté about 2 to 3 minutes. Lower to medium heat.
5. Add shallots combined salts, pepper and sage. Cook until shallots are translucent and mushrooms are browned.
6. Add Marsala wine and simmer until liquid is reduced by half.
7. Return chicken to pan. Reduce heat to low.
8. Stir in remaining butter, spooning sauce over chicken to coat. Add parsley and simmer for 3 to 4 minutes, turning once.

Serve over buttered noodles or rice pilaf with mushrooms and sauce over chicken. Enjoy!

It’s 3 pm on Super Bowl Sunday, and some of us have done nothing to prepare. It happens to everyone; at some point in your life, you will have unexpected guests for some sporting event. My sister, Ms. Ines whipped up some last-minute chicken wings, for those inevitable times where you end up screaming “You invited WHO over for the game?!”

Ms. Ines’s Last-Minute “You Invited Who Over?” Wings

• 8 wings
• 2 (12 oz) bottles of dark beer
• 1 cup Honey Barbecue Sauce (Sweet Baby Ray’s Honey BBQ Sauce)
• 1/8 cup Hot Wing Sauce (Frank’s Red Hot Wing Sauce)

1. Place wings in large pot in one layer so that wings are just touching. Pour in beer and enough water to cover the wings.
2. Bring to a boil.
3. Reduce heat to Medium-High. Let cook so that there is no visible pink, turning frequently, about 20 minutes.
4. Transfer wings to plate, cover, and set aside.
5. Pre-heat broiler on High.
6. In a container with lid, combine BBQ and wing sauce.
7. Lightly brush wings with 1/4 cup of sauce.
8. Broil on High for 8 minutes, turning half way through.
9. Place wings in lidded container and shake to coat thoroughly. Serve hot with your choice of garnish. Ms Ines recommends pineapple slices (grilled is best) and plantain chips.

Tips: For hotter wings, add a 1/8 cup more of wing sauce. Also, you can boil the wings ahead of time and keep refrigerated or frozen and begin at Step 5 with thawed wings for spur of the moment entertaining.

My wardrobe changed dramatically after I stopped working in an office and started working from home. As a freelancer, I spend most of my day in loungewear, a maxi dress, or jeans. Sometimes, I don’t even get out of my pajamas the whole day, but that makes me feel rather unglamorous. So, I’m always on the lookout for elegant yet comfortable clothes. {They are very hard to find!} As you can imagine, I was thrilled when I stumbled upon Piamita on Apartment34. This is actually LOUNGEWEAR!!! Can you believe how gorgeous it is?

1. Piamita Kathryn Pants, 2. Piamita Erin Scoop Neck Tank, 3. Piamita Sophia Long Sleeve Dress, 4. Piamita Clemence Shorts

Nina Ricci’s latest ad for the parfum, l’air, is an adorable way to brush up on your french. Seriously interested in learning french? Click here for free language advice from my best friend, Ms. Hyperfluent.

Your second thought was,

“OMG what the hell did my friends post on my wall from when we were all in school?”

No need to worry, though.

First of all, if you’ve been mindful of your privacy settings in the past, then you won’t have too much to worry about. All those past privacy settings apply to your old data. You also have the option of going to Privacy Settings and setting all your old items to “Friends” only. If you have custom privacy settings, for example, “Friends excluding coworkers and John Smith” then you might not want to take that step, as it will overwrite all your previous (stricter) settings.

Second, there is a way to see, hide, restrict, or delete every item that could appear on your timeline.

Third, the timeline is pretty easy to navigate. It’s visual (and beautiful, I might add.) It shouldn’t take you long to get used to it.

I’ve highlighted the major features to get you started.

The Basics

This is probably the biggest overhaul of the profile page since Facebook started. There’s a major focus on activity here. If you’ve hooked up Spotify or Netflix to share activity with Facebook, it’ll report what you’re watching or listening to in real time. You can actually pause a song on Spotify from Facebook. There’s much more of this sort of thing to come, as app developers now have the option to add actions and items to the Open Graph. WTF does that mean? Well, it means that if I build an app for you to read my blog on Facebook, it’ll post “So&So is reading Bits of Beauty.” This part could get really awesome or really creepy in the future, depending on the apps you use and the permissions you grant them. Ok, enough of the mind-blowing/creepy app talk and back to the profile changes.

Your basic info, Friends, Likes, and Photos are all neatly displayed in a row below your name and a square profile photo (and your Cover photo if you’ve selected one. More on this later in the post.) Each can be further explored by clicking on them. All your extended profile info, like your quotes and about, are now found on another page.

Here’s what the top portion of your Timeline/Profile looks like to someone else. (I’m using a screenshot of the lovely @sashahalima‘s profile.) The rest, the timeline itself, looks the same all around.

The Publisher bar is now located on your timeline, as the first node. Keep scrolling down and you’ll see random nodes down the timeline, some will be expanded and others you’ll have to hover over to see. Browsing down your timeline, you’ll see some items lumped together under years. So, the majority of your Likes, Friends you made, Music, posts on your Timeline (formerly and still sometimes known as the Wall), and Events from 2009 will appear together. This will also happen if a bunch of people wish you well on your birthday. You can, of course, further explore by clicking and scrolling within each of these boxes. Along the timeline, you’ll also see the option “Show All Stories” pop up when you hover over certain items.

Your Activity Log and Editing the Timeline

Upon switching to the new timeline, the first, most important thing you’ll need to know is where to find the Activity Log. I say this, assuming you want to edit what appears on your Timeline. If you don’t care what shows up on it, then this isn’t important.

While on your profile, look for the View Activity tab. Clicking on this will bring you to your private Activity Log. This is an archive of your life on Facebook, year by year, month by month. You can also further filter this page by clicking on the dropdown tab up in the right corner (which by default is set to “All”) and selecting whatever type of activity you want to look for. Only you can see your entire Activity Log. If you’re having flashbacks to spring break ’06, here is the place you’ll want to browse (and hide) them from. On each activity, there’s a dropdown  on the right where you’ll have the option to Feature, Allow, Hide, Delete, or Report as Spam.

When you Feature an item, it is given similar weight to a Life Event (more on these later), so the activity will span the entire width of your timeline instead of being oriented on the left or right side of it.

If you’re around my age, you likely joined Facebook in 2004. That’s 7 years of activity to sift through! Of course, everything here was already available on your wall, if someone really wanted to get to it. Nothing you previously hid or deleted will appear here, but things you might have forgotten about in the past are MUCH easier to jump to now.

You can hide and delete posts directly from the Timeline page (your profile page), but I find it easier to do from the Activity Log since everything is laid out in list style and there’s so many filter features.

The Big Picture: the Cover & Other Images

What my fellow bloggers will probably love the most is how visual the new timeline is. While Facebook hasn’t caught up to Google+ on the quality and display of photos, it’s leaps and bounds beyond what it was a few months ago. Many have compared it to a personal scrapbook or website. The most noticeable, of course, is the new Cover photo.

Those with awesome photos will love showing it off here. Note that Life Events on the Timeline all have the option of featuring a landscape oriented photo. Yes, you could use portrait (vertically) oriented photo for this, but facebook’s notoriously bad handling of photo resizing will leave you with a pixelated mess. (Unless your photo happened to have been uploaded as high-res. Then you’re safe.) Go ahead and start sifting through your pics now.

Life Events

The timeline begins the year you were born, so what’s between then and whenever you joined Facebook? Well you can fill that in, by adding life events.

On your profile page, where you update your status, you’ll see some new icons: Work and Education; Family and Relationships; Living; Health and Wellness; and, my favorite, Milestones and Experiences. Click on any of these and you’ll be given options like adding when you got a pet, had a child, learned a language, etc.

As you can see in the image above, when you select Learned a Language, it asks you for details including your favorite word and the method you used to learn the language. If there was something special that happened which doesn’t fit into one of these categories, you can select Other Life Event under any of these tabs to add a custom event. You’ll be asked to fill in info about the Event, Location, Who with, When, Story, and to upload/select an image to represent your custom life event.

Here’s an example of a Life Event published in the Timeline.

Odds and Ends

You’ll notice that Facebook chooses certain activities to feature under each year for your timeline. For me, these activities were really odd ones and mostly wall posts by others on my wall, especially in earlier years. Activity is the focus, so the more activity others have with your activities the more weight they carry and more visibility they get. As time goes on and Facebook refines all its new features, I’m sure it will get better. I’ve had some problems with editing privacy for photo albums since the new photo layout has been introduced; a bug that I’m sure will be fixed in a few days. As pointed out by Mashable, there’s an issue with adding an engagement or marriage as a life event and it not automatically changing your relationship status; that you’ll have to do separately, by editing your info. I noticed that even though my status updates were defaulted to be shared with Friends, when I added a Life Event it defaulted to Public. It was simple to change, but I could see where this might annoy some people.

If you don’t want to wait until October 1st to get the new profile, you can follow these instructions to get it early. Browsing through your timeline makes for good times. I found all sorts of gems in my timeline. It’s best with a glass of wine in hand, and perhaps a good friend to laugh with.

It’s been awhile, since I posted. {Hey, I warned you I’d be posting sporadically.} I thought I’d share some goodies from the web with you on this Monday. Feel free to share with me on the {bits of beauty} facebook page. Also, if you’re one of the few who have joined Google+ you can find me there, too. Enjoy!

Loving this:

“If you decide how you’re supposed to feel and you allow yourself to decide what things will make you feel that way, then the whole entire world can be yours.” from How to Have Everything You Want

The most delicious and useful website on the planet: Gojee

Gorgeous boho bride style, of which I will be stealing the hairstyle for the everyday.

Some delicious gluten-free recipes.

A lesson from the Dalai-Lama via Sarah Wilson.

Alaia thinks the pace of fashion is “inhuman”, and I happen to agree with him.

This popsicle maker can have a fresh treat ready in 7 minutes!

I’ve just discovered sophistimom and am loving the well-fed section!

This would be great to see in the classroom. Parents, suggest it to your teachers!

{Image ᔥ SuperSwoon}