I was sad to learn of the passing of Joe Ades, the motor-mouthed British pitchman extraordinaire who sold his "Swiss-made" vegetable peelers all over New York and could generally be found at the Union Square Greenmarket. He was a famous character, and a wonderful profile in Vanity Fair a few years ago revealed that he lived a champagne lifestyle of bespoke suits and visits to Kathleen Landis at the Carlyle; he lived in his 4th wife(!)'s Upper East Side apartment.

I posted a small item about this on the site and was touched by the response it got from New York readers. When I was at the Greenmarket yesterday, I saw an impromptu memorial had gone up in his usual spot...I wonder who started it?

By the by, our landlords keep the heat at 65 degrees (55 at night) to reduce our carbon footprint. 65 sounds warm, but doesn't seem to be, in actuality. Which is all very well, except that they're at work and I work from home. Currently, in a hat, long underwear (under clothes, that is) and two pair of socks! In principle I support it, and in fact prefer a cool house (having grown up wearing several sweaters in winter...and, at my grandparents' house, routinely sporting a down jacket around the house until the fog lifted) but it really is a little uncomfortable during this frigid snap we're having in New York. At least the snow is beautiful, the apartment coming together (with hiccups and an entire room of boxed books) and the kitchen sunny...I'm working right now from the estimable Bread Stuy in Stuy Heights, where they're baking a cake of some kind...