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Archive for February, 2012

How-To: Add Warmth To A Cool Space

Q. Hey Jordan!

My husband & I just bought our first home and I am in the process of decorating…my concern now is curtains. I’m thinking I want to go with something sheer, but I’m not sure what color. I’d love some ideas for what I can do to warm up the place and make it feel more homey!

Thanks!

- Steph

A. Congrats on your new home!

First, I ran your photo through a color palette generator to clearly lay out what we’re working with here – your room is full of shades of grey and blue-grey with a touch of burgundy and black, which is a very cool color scheme, so you’re absolutely right to have the goal of adding a little warmth – and curtains are a great place to start.

You can choose curtains that are red, dusty rose, silver, gold, or cream, but what I would do to add a homey feel is focus on texture, layering in rich, cozy fabrics.

Start with some cream curtains and sparkling tie-backs…

Add a super-soft area rug (it looks like you have a carpet – but maybe there are hardwood floors underneath? Just an idea) and throw blanket…

And some pillows…

And then sprinkle in some inexpensive, fun accessories and natural elements that bring the outdoors in.

Click here for lots more inexpensive decorating ideas, and remember – you can always check out my Pinterest for tons more home decor inspiration.

Product info after the jump.

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February 29th, 2012 | Home | No Comments »

In The Mama Head

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I really do try hard not to be too All Baby, All The Time around here. Despite the arrival of the Baby tab several months ago (and the arrival of an Actual Baby a few months later), I’ve tried to keep RG more or less true to its roots and not chatter on too much about Indy for various reasons, including (but not restricted to) the following: 1) I don’t want to bore you guys, and while I find my son’s newfound ability to hang onto his feet both adorable and fascinating, I’m not sure that anyone without a biological imperative to find such things adorable and fascinating would, and 2) I am very, very afraid of ending up on STFU Parents. Nearly every time that I’ve sat down to recount a hilarious! wacky! tale about Adventures With Baby, I’ve thought to myself, “Self, might this blog post end up on STFU Parents?” And if the answer is yes – which it nearly always is, because hilarious and wacky stories about babies routinely involve bodily functions, and bodily function stories are just asking for it – I put an immediate halt to the proceedings.

But my desire to not fall into the Mommy Blogger hole has created a bit of a conundrum…because at the moment 99.9% of my brain is taken up by my son (four and a half months old now!), and every second – literally every second – that I’m not working, I am feeding/changing/entertaining a very small person. Not that I deserve a medal for this – of course not – just that…it doesn’t leave a whole lot of time to do stuff that I can write about. The non-Baby stuff. (This, by the way, is why I love Reader Questions – they keep me thinking about things like what I might wear to all those places I don’t go these days…so please, keep sending away!)

Anyway, this was an extremely long and rambly way of getting to my point, which is that this post is sort of tangentially Baby-Related, in that it’s about how my head is a total disaster zone at the moment.

Want to hear what I did yesterday?

Hunted around for half an hour looking for the Snap ‘n’ Go stroller thingy, until finally remembering that I had brought it downstairs to leave in the lobby before Kendrick left for the day. This, mind you, had transpired just a few minutes earlier…and I had no recollection of the entire four-flights-down-four-flights-up trip. Zero. I apparently floated downstairs, tucked my stroller into its little nook, and floated all the way back upstairs without a single moment of recognition as to what I was doing.

And then later on, when I got back from the grocery store, I hunted around for another half hour (can you tell how productive yesterday was?) in search of the grocery bags that I was absolutely certain had gone missing. I even went out into the hallway and down a flight of stairs, wondering whether I had, I don’t know, dripped grocery bags on my way up or something. And you know what I eventually realized?

I had already put my groceries away.

And I could not remember doing it.

I’m sorry, but that is weird. 

And apparently that’s also what they refer to as “Mommy Brain.” Which makes the text conversations I’ve been having with Kendrick lately make a lot more sense.

“Want me to bring anything home for you?”

“Obi it.”

“What?”

“Hohoho.”

Seriously, I had that conversation with him. I’m often typing with one hand, and so when autocorrect makes pancake batter of my words, I usually just hit “Send” and have faith that he’ll be able to figure it out.

But I like making up words generally, so the only problem here is that some recipients of my text messages might think that I’m tippling into the schnapps at 10AM rather than suffering from a raging case of Mommyitis.

And to them?!

To them, I say…

Hohoho.



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February 29th, 2012 | Baby | 8 Comments »

No, But Seriously?

I found an enormous display of Cadbury Mini Eggs in the drugstore yesterday (hurray, Spring!), and now I can’t stop eating them.

Also, I don’t want to.

Also, how many blog posts do you think I’ve titled some variation on “No, But Seriously?” 60? 300? My bet is that every single one has had to do with food. But seriously.



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February 28th, 2012 | Lifestyle | 4 Comments »

Penne With Artichokes And Smoked Mozzarella

Artichokes are about to come back in season!

I love artichokes.

Mostly I love them steamed and served with lemon butter (click here for a whole bunch of artichoke-makin’ tips)…but sometimes you need to pile those suckers into things like pasta and chicken dishes, and the more the better. And you don’t have time to wrangle a zillion fresh artichoke hearts out of their fuzzy little cocoons. Or maybe you’re just feeling lazy, and believe (like I do) that if you’re going to go through that ridiculous amount of effort, you’d rather just eat the things straight rather than mucking around with sauces.

And on those days, you know what comes in handy? Frozen artichoke hearts. I keep them stockpiled in the freezer at all times and add them to everything, I love them so.

And the frozen ones totally work here (my advice would be to skip the canned ones; they can get mushy). But within a couple of weeks we should start seeing the markets fill up with gorgeous, fresh specimens, and so if you’re feeling it, I say go ahead: wrangle away. And then invite me over for dinner, please.

(Note: while parsley is usually optional, I’m going to insist you add it to this one – it gives this dish a light, fresh touch that’s really lovely and makes it feel much spring-ier.)

PENNE WITH ARTICHOKES AND SMOKED MOZZARELLA (serves 4; inspired by Chicho’s Kitchen)

What you need:

1 package dried penne (or pasta of choice)

4 slices good-quality bacon, cut into matchsticks

1 medium yellow onion, diced

3 garlic cloves, minced

1 large (15 oz) can diced tomatoes

1 package frozen artichokes

1/2 cup diced smoked mozzarella

1 large handful parsley, chopped

Olive oil

Salt & pepper

What you do: 

1. Cook penne in a large pot of salted boiling water according to package directions until al dente.

2. Meanwhile, in a heavy-bottomed skillet, fry your bacon matchsticks until the fat has rendered slightly.

3. Add a little more olive oil to the skillet if necessary, and throw in your onion and garlic. Cook until the onions are translucent, then add the artichoke hearts and cook, stirring constantly, another couple of minutes.

4. Add the tomatoes and let simmer about 10 minutes, or until the sauce and artichokes are heated through. Add salt and pepper to taste.

5. Add the penne to the skillet along with the smoked mozzarella cubes and parsley and toss to combine.

Serve with freshly grated parmigiana.



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February 28th, 2012 | Eat | No Comments »

Lifebooker: $3 Manicures For Ramshackle Glam Readers

Want your nails to look as pretty as this?

Oh, they’ll look much prettier, I’m sure. Because while I’m fairly puffed-up about my DIY manicure skills…sometimes there’s just nothing like handing your digits over to a professional.

My lovely friend and partner in Wasabi Lobby-ing, Anna, just started working as the Executive Editor at beauty, health & fitness deal site Lifebooker, and offered to give a special deal to my readers.

THREE DOLLAR MANICURES.

I mean, that’s a cheap freaking manicure.

To take advantage of the deal, available at YUVA Salon (which has locations in both the Financial District and Herald Square; apologies to non-NYCers – I’ll see what we can do about making some similar deals available for other citydwellers), just click this link (it’s easy and quick). The treatment includes cuticle care, nail shaping and cleaning, hand massage, and polish application using one of 100 shades.

And! Once you buy the manicure (only 200 are available, so chop chop), you’re automatically entered to win $100 to use on Lifebooker any way you want. And this offer is only available to RG readers, so your chances of winning are quite excellent.

Have fun! Go get a manicure for me.

And thank you, Anna!

x

J



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February 28th, 2012 | Lifestyle | 3 Comments »

Snakes & Stripes & Suspicions Of Spring

I can totally feel Spring coming.

Or…at least for most of last week I could feel it coming (it hit the high ’50s in NYC).

Which is why I made the executive decision to run all over town on Saturday wearing…

this.

I was a little chilly.

But hey, I stayed pretty positive about it. (Mostly because my chivalrous husband handed over his sweater to layer under my jacket.)

We were doing a little shooting down in Chinatown (you’ll see the fruits of our spoils…or labors of our…whatever…in just a few weeks), but in the course of our travels we came across a park that I used to go to all the time when I was a little girl. Back in those days the vibe was much more Possible Criminal Activity than Pop Art (Hell’s Kitchen was a scary place in the early ’80s), but it was great to see how much the Neighborhood Commission has fixed the place up. It made me happy.

See?

Product info after the jump.

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February 27th, 2012 | Style | 2 Comments »

Weekend Snapshots

The weekend started with a good, long Friday evening visit with Francesca, who (very sadly for me) lives in L.A. now (you can check out her music here).

On Saturday, we had to spend a couple of hours taking care of some things downtown, so the first stop was at my parents’, where an impromptu First Piano Lesson took place.

On the way over, Kendrick and I passed by the very first apartment that we lived in together and did a little reminiscing.

Now, I’m all for spiritual messaging, to each their own, et cetera…but you have to admit: this is a kind of intense thing to stare at first thing in the morning, every morning, for two years.

FYI, there are gorgeous mix-and-match bowls and plates to be found down on Mulberry south of Canal St for about $3-$5 apiece. This store, Tokyo Mart, is where we picked up our first set of dishes, and I highly recommend the place if you’re in the market for inexpensive, gorgeous (and sturdy!) tableware.

Shanghai Cuisine, on Bayard at Mulberry, is famous for soup dumplings, so we made a quick detour to escape the cold.

I’ve never actually sampled the Polynesian Drink List that the restaurant is also famous for on any of our visits (those look like headaches in a basket to me), but I’m always tempted to. Pineapple Paradise, please!

This was our Saturday night, in a nutshell.

And then on Sunday I took a whole bunch of photographs while we did various things…

But this pretty much says it all:

(How forlorn does Lucy look?! She’s not, I promise. That’s just her standard expression.)



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February 27th, 2012 | Love | 2 Comments »

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