My tips and tricks for instantly elevating your cooking.
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I’ve got a new wickedly fun weeknight activity for you: "Chopped" with friends. (For those who aren't familiar, check out this). We had been tossing this idea around for months with our friends Matt and Julie, and we finally hashed out the details and went for it! What ensued was a super fun night of cooking and experimenting that felt much more exciting than simply cooking dinner for ourselves.
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When wandering around the mall or browsing stores online just doesn't seem to be cutting it, this my go-to gift arsenal. Many focus on experiences rather than things, and a large part relies on tailoring your thoughtfulness to the specific person in mind to give a fitting gift, and one the person will surely, surely love.
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December is here! December is far and away the best (read here as the only acceptable) month of the winter. There is a crispness about the freezing cold air, an extra bit of warmth to every light that brightens the dark night sky, a certain magic in the stillness. The smells, sights, and sounds of Christmastime are nostalgic and exciting, whether you're five years old or fifty, and I love that.
I have been looking forward to this month since the beginning of The Pastiche because of all the holiday-oriented content I couldn't wait to talk about.
One of my very favorite things about the first days of December is slowly reintroducing Christmas music into my daily listening when cooking, cleaning, or having people over.
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The one thing about holidays that can be slightly more stressful than enjoyable: the splitting of family time. It’s a wonderful thing to have enough family members for this to even be an issue, but it can feel like an issue nonetheless. Christmas, although seemingly a more important holiday to many, is actually the less difficult one, I think, compared to Thanksgiving—given that it’s really a two-full-day celebration at minimum. Therefore, most people I know don’t have too much trouble splitting it someway between Christmas Eve day and night, as well as Christmas morning and night. However, Thanksgiving can feel like the trickier one due to its meal-centric nature. It’s hard to have an early meal at one location and then move to the next place to endure your food coma and not partake in that meal. It’s ok, of course, because company is still enjoyed, but there’s something about not being able to partake in the meal that just doesn’t feel right.
A good friend of mine (Hi Julia!) has a tradition in her family that I think is an absolutely brilliant alternative to splitting time...
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Thanksgiving is about family, gratitude, and abundance, and the vehicle for that message is the meal. That is what inspired me to make this fresh, rustic, and simple tablescape. I wanted it to be subtle and beautiful, without an enormous flower centerpiece or other distractions. I think a Thanksgiving table should feel earthy, comforting, and really be about the people sitting at the table.
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I love finding the products and things of life that are just dependable, satisfying, and perfect; items that I want to stock up on, Y2K style, for fear they will stop being produced at some point. I often think I could so easily be a spokesperson for these products because I genuinely love them and practically want to shout it from the rooftops...
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I’ve had an obsession with office and paper supplies my entire life. Getting my list of required school supplies was a little piece of Christmas in August (July sometimes, if the gods were listening) throughout all of elementary school. Milky pens, stickers, Sharpies, post-it notes, paper clips, to-do list pads, you’ve all held a weirdly special place in my heart at some point or another. This may remain, today, one of the best parts of having a desk job. But in my adulthood, my favorite piece of the office supply world has been stationery—note cards, thank you cards, personalized letterhead, etc., and I cannot get enough of this stuff.
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There are a few man-made sights in this world that are hard to beat. One of those is a crafted charcuterie board. It doesn’t matter whether it’s neat and simple, rustic and hodgepodge, or messy and thrown together, it’s a beautiful sight. It’s probably because a charcuterie board signifies my favorite way to eat food—slowly, in a group, sharing bites (and usually with wine). I know I’m not the first to profess what is important in a charcuterie plate, but these are a few simple things I like to consider when I’m making one.
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I had some best friends over for one of my very favorite things: a boozy brunch on a Saturday afternoon. I wanted to dress up the table to be a little bit special, but nothing too fancy or serious. This look seemed to come together on its own and had a French rustic farm-table feel.
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