Pink of Perfection

I took a break from blogging, and funny enough, that made me realize the error of my ways. When life gets tough, what I need, maybe more than ever, is to appreciate the little things.

Like getting up in the morning. I’m naturally a sleepyhead, but I do love the romanticism of the early day. Thoreau called it the heroic hour; the idea that I might accomplish great feats in the understated early hours coupled with the soft, slanty light is almost enough to make me want to jump up out of the warm sheets.

Almost. These brightly-hued jam and honey pots might give the extra incentive. Wouldn’t they be lovely on a white kitchen table? Maybe right next to this book.

This book is a conversation in pictures between two friends. The photographs linger on the beautifully quotidian details of getting up and carrying on. I can think of few things as encouraging as that.

And with that, I’m back. But you know, I’m not sure I would have been eager to get back in this space had it not been for all your sweet emails and comments (and mail!). There really is something to this online community, isn’t there? Again, thank you so much.
 

Before I say anything, let me admit that aside from a brief stint in 3rd grade when my favorite t-shirt said, “Love the Planet — It’s the Only One We’ve Got” and had a recycling party for my 10th birthday, and then again in high school when I went through a real granola phase that involved a lot of tie-die, I’ve never been very environmentally-minded. This is shameful, of course, especially because my reason for thinking that I didn’t care was probably because it wasn’t “glamorous.”

But as it is wont to do, the media machine has been working on me these last six months as everyone from Domino to Readymade has rolled out their green issue. Suddenly people who have never thought about green concerns find global awareness really hip. Of course, if you have long been a champion of sustainable resources, local produce, composting and the like, this is probably annoying to you. And I can totally understand that.

Continue reading “How to Be Greener” »

I have two parents who don’t care much about food. My mother could live on tea and toast smeared thick with butter and be perfectly content, while my father earned the nickname The Red Tornado early in life for tearing through a meal as fast as those funneling winds can sweep across West Texas. How then, did these two produce such a produce-swooner, cookbook-reader, and eager-to-serve hostess?

It could have been those melancholic, rainy fall months in Italy where I tasted my first wild boar sausage and clutched big bowls of cafe lattes with both hands. Or perhaps it was the vacation I took with my sister, both of us heartbroken and in France for the first time, drunk on foie gras and champagne. Or was it working at the best job I’ve known for a chef with a deep appreciation for sunny lunches, Algerian wine, and beautiful women? It was all those things, of course. But most instructive of all was the vibrant orange book spine that caught my eye at the local library three summers ago. Will you be patient with me as I take you back there?

Continue reading “Strange and Romantic Dinner Alone, a Love Letter to M. F. K. Fisher” »

Do you, as much as I, mourn the death of the cocktail hour? That pre-dinner drink sipped at sexy bars by ladies in rustling, jewel-toned cocktail dresses and their dates, or the libations stirred in a tall glass carafe at home and taken on the davenport while the phonograph plays? It is somewhat of a mystery to me how I could be so nostalgic for something I’ve never really had, but there it is. I have something of the old-timey in my blood.

So when my sister loaned me The Best of Everything, my morning commute was taken over by an appealing retro world replete with supper clubs and checker cabs. In this juicy novel about New York career girls in the 50′s, recent college coeds are filing up from the steamy hot summer subways, eating lunch at the Automat, having affairs with the boss, living in hovels with Murphy beds, getting illegal abortions, and really just hoping that they’ll find the right guy in the end. While their escapades of the heart might not strike a chord with all contemporary readers, their struggle to pay the bills and negotiate the ugly corporate world and find meaning there will. Who can’t identify with being dead broke four days after cashing your paycheck, window shopping on your lunch break, and figuring out how to cook dinner for one?

One evening on my commute home, an older woman leaned over to me while I was reading. “Isn’t that a fun book?” she whispered, as if we both shared a secret knowledge of a dark, hidden world. It is a fun book, and it’s also a boozy book. When these girls are out with horrendous blind dates, dreamy older guys, or the boss, they drink martinis. And not dirty vodka martinis, like this girl likes, but dry gin martinis. A classic martini.

The best part about nostalgia is you can bring what you like from the past into the day at hand but leave the bunk behind. I move to bring back the cocktail hour, its long-stemmed glassware and all the twinkling glamour of a well-shaken creation. But rampant sexual harrassment in the workplace, smoking on airplanes, and beef chip aspics? Let’s leave those far, far behind. Pass the vermouth, please.

Continue reading “A Classic Martini and The Best of Everything” »

I was very flattered when Inner Ocean Publishing wrote to ask if I was interested in receiving Kimberly Wilson’s book, Hip Tranquil Chick. I said yes in a jiffy, of course, and then promptly forgot all about it.

Fast forward to the dark days of December. I am frazzled from endless to-do lists and taking poor care of myself. One evening, I find Hip Tranquil Chick in my mailbox. It is as welcome as an early visit from Santa.

If you are like me, you are seduced by the promise of self-improvement and the notion that we are always able to become better versions of ourselves. With her little hot pink book, Kimberly Wilson puts thousand-year-old yoga principles into your hands and shows you to how to apply those tenets to every aspect of your modern girl life.

Continue reading “Hip Tranquil Chick” »

When I read Elsa Maxwell’s informative romp How To Do It or The Lively Art of Entertaining earlier this summer, I doggeared approximately 47 pages for future reference. One of these pages contains advice on invitations for “the city woman who entertains often, at home, and with some degree of formality.” Let us say that this city woman is me. According to Miss Maxwell, it would serve me well to have 4×5 inch cards engraved as fill-in-the-blank invitations: Miss Sarah McColl requests the pleasure of [so-and-so's] company [for cocktails, luncheon, etc] on [such-and-such a day and time.]
Continue reading “Not Just Cardstock and Letterpress” »