Today we celebrated our very first California Christmas. Normally we head to D.C. and New York for the holidays, but, between work demands and travel fatigue, we were content to nest on the West Coast. Feeling nostalgic for her family’s Caribbean traditions, C made a brunch...
The 1948 movie The Red Shoes, restored by Scorsese and offered by Criterion Collection, is a marvel in more ways than we can name. Directed by the Archers, it’s a feat of Technicolor, a loose retelling of a Hans Christian Andersen story in which a dancer comes...
This year, don’t just give the gardener in your life the same pair of gloves covered in the same frowzy florals. No doubt he or she already has them. And in, um, spades. For your dear design-minded cultivator, it’s time to think outside the box. For...
This year marks our tenth (!!!!!) Christmas season together. All the more reason to go over-the-top with our yuletide decor. Before we were even finished eating RB’s pancetta-sage stuffing or C’s pomegranate couscous left over from Thanksgiving, we set out to deck the halls of our...
Every weekend last summer, as we walked to and from the beach, we'd pass a south-facing succulent tour de force. But this hedge of Aloe arborescens (street name: torch aloe) didn't really get interesting until November. Welcome mats, schmelcome mats — by now you know that it's the welcome plants that...