L’Etoile to American Girl Cafe???

Julia Moskin checks out the new American Girl Place in Manhattan:

The American Girl Cafe is unmistakably kid-friendly – the chocolate mousse is sprinkled with crushed Oreo cookies, and the napkin rings can be used as hair scrunchies – but it is more reminiscent of Chanterelle than Chuck E. Cheese’s. Embraced by banquettes, plied with smoked salmon and shortbread, and served tea from china pots, American girls here learn the ways of the ladies who lunch.
“American Girl is for kids, but nothing we do is dumbed down,” said Kamille Adamany, the cafe’s manager, who was hired away from the prestigious L’Etoile restaurant in Madison, Wis.
The other night, Maddie Leonard of Pelham Manor, N.Y., observed her eighth birthday in one corner of the cafe with 11 friends and 12 dolls, some sporting crowns of braids fresh from the hair salon on the second floor (the salon specializes in returning frazzled dolls to factory condition).

Mosquito Season

A “must have” product for the backyard bbq set:

The Mosquito Magnet? mimics a human by emitting a plume of carbon dioxide (CO2), heat and moisture, and a short-range attractant, octenol. This precise combination is irresistible to female mosquitoes (the ones that bite), no-see-ums, biting midges, black flies, and sandflies. As the mosquito approaches the trap hoping for a human, it is quietly vacuumed into a net where it dehydrates and dies.
Silent, odorless, no mess.