Pink of Perfection

Today is the reason people hate winter. The world has turned depressing shade of gray-brown and the finest tree branches are entirely encased in ice. Christmas trees splay abandoned, curbside, and the precipitation falling from a sky of doom and gloom is what weather forecasters benignly call a “wintery mix”: it’s too wet to be snow, too icy to be rain. Approaching a corner, one plots how to circumnavigate an icy puddle of indeterminate depth the way one strategized during a game of Oregon Trail how to cross a river. Should we ford it? Float? I helped a woman with a heavy stroller cross one such body of water and saved her from what looked like a near nervous breakdown. “You are a Good Samaritan,” she said. Nonsense––you see a lady juggling two kids, an umbrella, pending expletives, and there’s no choice but to help. In weather like this, the choices are stick together or turn against each other.

And so: I dedicate this weather-beaten Tuesday following a heavenly holiday weekend to our resistance of the bleak midwinter. First up, the bath product that is easy on the pocket and with which I am newly obsessed. I took two baths yesterday, not because I was unprecedentedly begrimed, but because this “bath elixir” is so divinely calming. Too often, inexpensive bath products smell like a gagingly artificial bouquets of cloyingly sweet fruits and flowers. Not so here. Something somewhat romantically called Iceland Moss soothes skin and relaxes tired muscles, and a restrained pour of the molasses-thick gel creates rich bubbles with better-than-average staying power. I especially like the amber glass bottle reminiscent of an old school apothecary. All this delight for $9.99 (or less) is a happy find, indeed, slush and snow or no. We need all the help we can get.

I’m not saying they’re pretty. In fact, they look more like a play-doh experiment gone wrong than a delightful tea time snack. But I will proudly assert that these taste shockingly like the genuine article.

I made my own because I fear I will never be able to afford a house, snowshoes, or that amazing pair of ass-kicking boots I’ve been coveting if I continue to buy these babies. That’s the trouble with trying to do right by your health: sometimes it costs more.

Unless––huzzah!––you endeavor to make your own. If you can dress yourself, you can make these. Your food processor grinds the nuts into magic, heart-healthy fairy dust and turns crisp banana chips and dates into a sticky dough. Knead the two together, roll out flat (or between your palms into balls), and you’ve got a terrific on-the-go snack, on the cheap. Ingenuity: 1. Store-bought snacks: 0.

Continue reading “Homemade Banana Bread Larabars” »

The first thing I do every morning these days, before I brush my teeth or even put the coffee on, is to plug in the lights on our Christmas tree. I just think it is the cheeriest sight to set our fir twinkling straight away. Between my Elvis Christmas album and my Ella Fitzgerald holiday station on Pandora, I just hope I’m not driving the neighbors batty with my tireless holiday spirit.

Today I engaged in my absolute favorite Christmas tradition: my annual viewing of Anne of Green Gables coupled with some craft time. I like easy, cheap crafts that won’t end up in the junk pile in three months. So I fell hard for all the simple felt projects that have been cropping up in magazines for the holidays. The easiest looking of all was a felt garland that required nothing more than felt, twine and glue. I could put down the scissors and watch with rapt attention when Anne walks into the barn to thank Matthew for her first puff sleeve dress. She has tears in her eyes. “Don’t you like it?” he asks, unsure. “Like it? It’s more exquisite than any dress I could ever imagine.” Then they hug in the hay-filled warmth of the barn, and I bawl. It’s a great tradition. Watch with me:

And this is just the most charming garland, is it not? Just find a circle around the house––I used the bottom of a teacup––and trace it on to the felt. Fold the piece of felt in half so you can cut out two circle at a time. Sandwich twine between two circles and glue. Leave an inch of twine between circles and repeat.

It turns out it’s not as easy as it looks to cut round circles. But don’t let that deter you. What happens is what I like to think of as the Destiny’s Child effect––no one will be zeroing in on each circle when the effect of the ensemble is so smashing.

Here’s what always trips me up in my effort to make bouillabaisse: you gotta buy, like, forty million kinds of fish (which brings your grocery bill to a billion dollars), and not to make Julia roll over in her grave, but that’s just not my bag. What if, though, we kept the basic flavors of the classic Provençal stew but subbed in cheap chicken legs? You feel me?

This stew still takes a long ass time, but it’s a hands-off kind of endeavor. As I was chopping the fennel and potatoes, tucking in the thyme, and drowning the whole thing in fruity olive oil and dry white wine, I realized my real motive: I just wanted to eat the rouille.

Bouillabaisse without rouille, they say, is like Marseille without sunshine. It’s a kicked up kind of mayonnaise that you can stir directly into your stew or spread on slices of grilled bread that you float in your bowl. And while there are many variations on this recipe out there, I find myself most drawn to the version I first saw Jacques and Julia make: roasted red pepper, bread crumbs, garlic, and cayenne.

I do wish that this stew were more a stunner in the looks department, because when it comes to flavor, it’s a real knock-out.

Continue reading “French Friday: Chicken Bouillabaisse” »

Many moons ago, I drew up a list of New Year’s resolutions which included things that have been accomplished (get haircut), fallen by the wayside (run 10k), and no longer seem as pressing (buy new cowboy boots––not really part of my fall look). But one item that has been accomplished with flying colors––perhaps my most successful New Year’s Resolution of all time, in fact––was the intimidatingly vague yet delightfully-phrased task to “Make apartment dreamy terrific.”

When my sister started working at shelter magazines she shared a piece of sage advice with me: it’s often the final 10% that brings a room together. At my house, we had been skating by with 70% decor completion. We painted, we put up curtains, we bought a headboard. But it was going to take more than throw pillows to make this house “dreamy terrific.” (But really, what a difference throw pillows make! A white waffle print has perked up a corner of our sagging, uncomfortable flea market sofa.)

And while I’ve never been one much for tchotchkes, I’ve come to learn the value of home vignettes. My first rule: not any old knickknack will do. It has to be an item you positively love. Take the matroyshka dolls my mom and sister brought back from St. Petersburg in the spring (still in search of the perfect vignette companion), or the 1930s wooden toy lion found at a Paris flea market. These things don’t have to be expensive, but they do have to be, in your eyes, utterly irresistible.

Rule number two isn’t so much a rule as a personal preference (which, let’s just admit, is all rules really are; somebody had to make them up!): bring in green things. Let natural forms be a wild foil to your favorite objects.

And the final guiding principle is something I’ve read in magazines but hadn’t demonstrated its weight as a truism to me until recently. I had three different little pictures, each beloved, languishing around the house in separate spots. There is the Texas print given as a wedding present; a page of an astronomy textbook index printed with fine-lined, pen-and-ink blooms; and a silhouette print of a boy and girl, falling apart, but to me, immeasurably charming. Something compelled me to hang the trio above the bed in a little asymmetrical grouping. Together, they bring me infinitely more delight than each on its own.

But what I also love about bringing disparate items together is how deeply personal and unique each little assembly is. No one else has a turquoise typewriter set next to a ’50s ceramic coffeepot that has lost its lid and is now stuffed with the tissue paper flowers my sister made for our day of wedding dress searching. And while I hope every woman who wants one has a print of a red swim-suited woman afloat in an inner tube, I feel certain it brings no one else the exact brand of peace and equanimity it does me.

You know you’re old when cocktail conversation is a discussion of interest rates, inflation, and index funds, followed by talk about the many ways a marriage can work. (We used to talk about sex and music. What happened?) So, it’s official: I’m old.

Exhibit A: I sat over iced coffee several weeks ago with a friend as she recounted her extremely complicated and basically nonsensical way of saving. It involved an arbitrary and ever-fluctuating amount tucked away in a savings account, and a cash-only system organized by labeled envelopes. My friend admitted it made no logical sense, but it works for her. She’s managed to tuck away thousands on pizza shop salaries.

And then there was last night’s discussion of getting your financial goals in order. After you have an emergency fund and no debt, what’s the order of operations? Should you focus on padding your retirement fund (a very unappealing, though wise prospect for someone in her twenties)? Or set aside accessible cash for your first home? And with the market so scary, should we keep our money safe in savings accounts? Or should we ignore those troubling daily fluctuations and invest? There are enough questions to make Socrates wince!

So how do you save? Do you have automatic withdraws set up so you save without really feeling it? Stuff money in envelopes or under the couch? Have you ever seen a financial planner to talk about this stuff or do worship at the feet of Suze Orman’s books? Have I asked you enough questions yet?

vintage piggy on Etsy

On the heels of yesterday’s post about the difficult transition from summer to fall, an idea: Yesterday I continued to complain about the end of summer fun (and all fun, ever!) to my friend Kim. She sat in our cozy, candlelit neighborhood meeting spot wearing an aubergine cowl neck sweater. The Velvet Underground was playing on the jukebox, and Kim was sipping whiskey at the dark wood bar. The seductive elements of fall were all present, which, for the first time since September rolled in, made me susceptible rather than resistant to Kim’s brilliantly simple idea. We will make a list of fall fun, she said, just as we do on the first hot, sunny day of the summer, sitting outside at a restaurant, dreaming about all the picnics coming our way. Enough of this mourning what’s lost, I thought looking at her. Time to get on board with the new season.

(I must admit at this point that this change of heart was somewhat precipitated by a trip to IKEA which resulted in many charming additions to my home, including a tray of proud plants on the radiator and a triad of newly framed prints above the bed. If we are about to close the windows and come inside, might as well make inside as nice as possible, right?)

So, even though I don’t totally feel ready for it, and even though this day is so dark and dreary I turned on the living room lamps at noon, I am making a list of fall fun. Once you’ve got the moping out of your system, maybe you, too, will want to chime in?

1. Pick apples. (“Picking” them from the farmer’s market counts.)
2. Sew cape.
3. Try a new cocktail made with whiskey.
4. Bake something in little ramekins.
5. Roast a Sunday evening chicken.
6. Wear oxfords.
7. Eat a cider donut. (But since I never do this, sipping plain cider is acceptable.)
8. Walk through Central Park on the way to the Met. Pray a saxophonist will be under the elms.
9. If no such saxophonist materializes, go listen to jazz.
10. Host a soup swap.
11. Make something with pumpkin.
12. Dahlias. Dahlias, dahlias.
13. Work at the long tables in the hushed library.

Autumn oak card available on Etsy

How often is it that you read about an idea in a magazine and then immediately get to execute it? For me, the woman of grand ideas but little execution, the answer is rarely. But no sooner had I read about forgoing expensive-for-what-it-is gift wrap for pretty dish towels that the opportunity presented itself. And then I was reminded of one of life’s truisms: nothing I do ever looks as good as it does in a magazine. A related truism is: Life isn’t like the movies. I’m still working to accept both of these as facts. It’s slow-going thus far.

The important thing, though, is that my friend got to unwrap her bridal shower gift and delight at the measuring cups inside. Then we drank more mint juleps and ate some of the finest pulled pork I’ve had in my life and sweet potato rounds topped with bacon. It’s the thought––not the execution––that counts, right?