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May 28

GH_MemorialDay1

Attached at the Hip | Memorial Day 2012

Thank everything holy for 3-days away from the desk and everything ordinary. Time to be spent with friends, family and the BBQ. My bff Ash even made balsamic butter to slather our burgers with… which is sort of like a culinary orgasm. I actually left the computer behind for the entire weekend but I could not step away from Instagram. Such a problem.

Our top fav things about this weekend…

M’s…
1. Visiting the biggest Pottery Barn ever seen at Evergreen Walk
2. Enjoying a soft boiled egg at Le Pain Quotidien along with a cappuccino the size of my face
3. Taking a toasty walk at the beach (this white girl needs to build a base so she doesn’t end up like her sister… see below)
4. Spending quality patio time with close friends

A’s…
1. Seeing her boyfriend for an entire weekend
2. Kayaking and attempting to become one with nature
3. Home cooked dishes like rhubarb pie and white hot dogs on grilled buns
4. Getting her first sunburn of the season

but the balsamic butter definitely topped my list… thanks Ash!

May 25

Celebrate this weekend… with some sailors…

It’s a 3-day weekend! That we can raise a glass to!! We hope you all enjoy some good weather (NYC we’ll see what happens with that…), get to relax and maybe even partake in some Fleet Week activities. This is a once a year treat for any of us that like men in uniform… xo

May 23

The trusty tunic

I need clothes and outfits that give my haphazard nature some structure. That usually rules out anything funky or mildly complex and layered. But when I needed a touch of the gentrified bohemian to loosen me up during the summer, I turn to my good old friend the tunic. It does double duty all around: gives a touch of the wanderer and of adopted prep and does wardrobe double duty. Is it a dress? Is it a shirt? It’s what you want it to be. The more multifunctional the better.

Just like the 70s made floor-length caftans preppy for Palm Beach housewives, so too have their shortened cousins, tunics, become a wardrobe calling card for coastal-loving folk. My tunic love story had Cinderella beginnings at the Hell’s Kitchen Housing Works. I found a beautiful navy linen one with cream piping from Calypso St. Barth that still had the tags on. I walked out the door with it for a whopping $30 and felt like a lioness.  I have to say, I have really good shopping mojo. At first (after multiple washes), I wore it with pants. Then I thought, screw it, it’s long enough, let’s make it a dress. So I chopped out the slip from a Club Monaco silk shirtdress and now wear the tunic full-time as a summer dress.

Tunics are the best, in my humble opinion, in linen. It has more weight, serves better in the dress form, but is still light. Even with sleeves and 90-degree heat, you still feel cool. In both senses of the word.

1. My favorite: Calypso St. Barth Coraline beaded tunic $229, 2. Guru NYC Cape Cod Linen Tunic $193, 3. Sulu Collection Clea $305, 4.  Emerson Fry Ikat tunic, 5. Tory Burch Tory tunic $325. Not pictured, but still really good, are tunics from Boden. 

May 22

Reading and taking it in

Everyone has their favorite magazine subject matter. Some prefer fashion and clothes. Some love decorating and household ideas. I love food. I love to look at images of spacious kitchens with fresh ingredients and think about all sorts of things I would serve to my friends if I had the time and the space.

It isn’t often that a magazine makes me stop, but seeing Kinfolk on the counter of Williams-Sonoma the other week left me curious. Not curious enough to cough up almost ten dollars but enough to look at their website, become intrigued and emotional by the manifesto video.

 

So many things that I read are focused on eating occasions that are formal or meant to happen once a year for a holiday. What about all the gatherings we host or attend that are meaningful for their simplicity and because they were organized on the fly? Clearly the artists that created this pub had a very unique vision that involves having special moments over food with people that you don’t necessarily know very well. I find that a little odd because in my mind sharing a meal with anyone is a rather intimate activity, particularly if I have taken the time to prepare the meal myself. But what I can appreciate in the overall message is the desire to make things less complicated.

The images in Kinfolk were like a mental massage reminding you of all the little details that make meal preparation an almost therapeautic activity and that, while the details of table settings are important, what matters most is a meal that leaves one satisfied and conversation that leaves one happy.

photo source: Kinfolk magazine

May 21

Rainy days make me want…

May 18

Girly movies for the weekend

Girly does not have to mean silly. It can, however, mean fashion, romance and history. The foreign movie section is an excellent spot to find all sorts of historic dramas that tell stories of long-lost love, crazy lifestyles and times when smoking was socially acceptable. Since it’s going to be a nice quiet weekend and I’m patiently waiting for my sister to come home from her vacation (damn her!), I plan on pouring myself a glass of wine and pretending I’m in Paris for an evening.

L’Amour Fou tells the story of Yves Saint Laurent as an extravagant public figure and a fashion prodigy. Fashion, images of beautiful cities, and crazy eccentric people. Awesome. Sold. Meanwhile Mozart’s Sister tells the story of the composer’s older sister who apparently was also a musical genius in her own right. How did I not know that? Way to go on stealing her spotlight, Wolfgang. Does she have an awesome middle name like Amadeus? French royalty, splendid gowns, beautiful music, maybe some images of Versailles… this selection is definitely a contender. I may have to open a bar of chocolate and watch both.

May 17

Car repair vs Kate Spade

I love cars. I always have. It’s a love that I can blame on my grandfather because of all the magazines he had laying around. I was probably the only 4-year-old girl you could ever find that could identify Audi logos and Alfa Romeos. So as an adult, I invested my pennies in a Mini Cooper that I absolutely adore.

My little man however is starting to age and almost 7 years later he had his first age-related repair. The classic routine: I dropped him off for a routine oil change and found out that he needed to have a hose replaced, etc (it’s always the etc that’s scary). Cha-Ching, Cha-Ching. FML.

Now my other major love is Kate Spade. The preppiness. The stripes. The bright colors. Love. I feel like it helps me look like one of those women that can actually create great little outfits.

But life won’t let my loves live in unison. One cancels out the other. While a coolant hose seems really critical, I can’t wear it. I doubt it’s made of pink leather, nude patent, or yellow sparkles. So here are a couple of the things I would have loved to enjoy that can now be found in the engine of my ridiculously loved car. Damn it.

May 16

Climbing the family tree

I’m really digging the genealogy TV show trend happening right now. It started with NBC’s Who Do You Think You Are?, now on its third season, and most recently, PBS just introduced Finding Your Roots. Basically, celebrities discover more about their heritage and you feel a lot differently about them after seeing their reactions to what they learn… usually I like them more. Only Helen Hunt came off badly to me so far. She’s a frosty one. As you’d expect from prime time, WDYTYA has the celebrities trotting around the globe, discovering the clues (with help) to their families’ history with lots of tearjerking potential. PBS, on the other hand, does all the research for the celebrities and interviews them in a studio with all the findings. You kind of feel like you’re in school learning about social and political upheaval, but that’s what we like from PBS (aside from anything Masterpiece).

A few weeks ago on WDYTYA, Rita Wilson had an emotional reunion with an uncle she didn’t know was still alive in Greece and learned more about her father’s past in Bulgaria that he never told her about. It seriously was an incredible story and I cried like a baby. It was very fulfilling. Then during the PBS School of Family Trees, I learned that not only is Martha Stewart of Polish descent (rock on!), but she comes from a long line of people in the domestic arts — butchers, basket weavers and other craftspeople.

It’s just totally fascinating. No wonder people want to know more about family members they knew and those in the distant past. How much of me is already there because of those people than I realize? Ah, the nature vs. nurture question. Anyway, from what M and I have heard about our family there are some very interesting stories and places involved. I once found a daguerrotype at my grandparents’ house of a great-grandmother that looked eerily like me. I would be fascinated to find out more. NBC, can you please make a WDYTYA for non-celebs? I would be the first to apply. And I want a crazy, long beautiful family tree with a big fat crest on it built out too. Thanks.

Blank family tree template courtesy of Classic Family Trees (top) The Tree Maker (bottom)

May 15

Musings | Ambition

I really that hope that in real life Bethenny Frankel is as wonderful as she seems on TV. If not, we would be so disappointed. She seems like such a wonderfully OCD and demanding character who always speaks her mind, yet owns up to her faults and to the fact that she can be a bit of a train wreck. We like all of that, it rings true. I think all of us ladies can admire the hustle that it must have taken for her to turn an idea into a multi-million dollar brand empire. She reminds me that you really can do pretty much anything if you just try and set your mind to it. That and be able to channel some uber-mega bitch who doesn’t take no for an answer…. But more of the former than the latter.

As I listened to Bethenny say the quote below to her shrink on an episode of Bethenny Ever After, it struck me as something that we all worry about. It made me think of the fear that lingers in the minds of so many of us girlies since we graduated college: follow both the steps accepted as normally successful and the millennial Zuckerberg delusions. Become something. Become something quick and buy a house. Become something quick, buy a house, and have a baby. Become something quick, buy a house, have a baby, but don’t stop doing anything you were doing before. Become something quick, buy a house, have a baby, don’t stop doing anything you were doing before and do even more. When do we all stop? Is the idea of stopping even the right way of approaching it? How do we all define our own version of success?

May 13

Attached at the Hip | Weekend Yummies

As the weather changes, there is the need to come back to the kitchen, enjoy cooking again, and remember how much fun it is to enjoy people’s company around your own dining table. Agatha enjoyed pierogi made from scratch over in the Motherland… I’m sure while enjoying a substantial amount of wine and laughs that we only get to share with our cousins once a year during pilgrimages home.

Meanwhile stateside experimentation with making a filet of salmon commenced. In the past, the concept of cooking fish has scared the crap out of me. It seems so delicate and complicated. I found that it’s actually super easy and merely requires diligent observation of a timer, not to mention a super simple way to feed a group of people without reducing the menu to burgers.

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