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Eat

Farro Salad With Peas, Pine Nuts And Goat Cheese

farro salad pine nut

When Indy and I were in California together, we stopped into a little cafe in a very expensive town (the town that it turned out would permit us to buy a one-room cabin with a ladder instead of a staircase). The sandwich that I got in that cafe - which was seventeen dollars and consisted of exactly what you traditionally find in sandwiches and not, as one might imagine, diamonds - should have perhaps indicated to me that we were in FancyLand, but I was less dismayed by the price tag of that sandwich than you might have expected, because oh the side salad that it came with.

Now, I recognize that food that you get in restaurants is generally good because it's full of secret things like All Of The Butter, and is often quite tough to replicate at home. But this little side salad seemed to me to be just a whole bunch of pretty simple stuff mixed together, and so I took out my handy little notepad, jotted down the ingredients that I could see, and when I got home:

made it.

Lifestyle

How To Win A Bidding War (And Whether You Should Write A Letter To The Sellers)

OK, so I think we can all agree: bidding wars ARE THE WORST. You get all crazy emotional, and start laying awake at night picturing your new life between your new walls, and come up with your highest and best offer, and then someone swoops in all WHEE I HAVE SO MUCH MONEYYYY and you can't even compete but you try to, and start offering more and more and more, and then don't get it anyway, and:

-> tears.

Anyway, I've been through a few bidding wars over the course of my life as a homeowner (six, to be precise, with another one on the horizon this week). I have also been on the other side, as a seller. And what I have learned is that there is nothing you can do to control the outcome (short of having unlimited reserves of cash, in which case that's wonderful and also you are probably reading the wrong website), but there is a whole lot you can do to tip the scales in your favor.

Are any of these things going to for-sure win you the house? No. But they will make it more likely, and "more likely" is better than "less likely," am I right?

Eat

Homemade Fruit Sorbet Cups

I make these all the time.

I know that they look slightly too fussy for like, a Tuesday night, but I promise: they're so easy, and they're so pretty-looking if you have guests over, and even if you don't, kids love them.

Grownups love them.

Lifestyle

Let’s Talk House-Buying Logistics

Don't you love it when the word "logistics" is in a post title?

Doesn't that make you DESPERATE to read it??

But seriously: Enough people said that they want to know about how we're handling things like the great Rent vs. Buy debate, school choice, and home selection that I'm convinced that at least some of you will be able to keep your eyes from glazing over. (I mean, I certainly don't find this stuff boring - I think real estate is totally Grand Drama, and kind of the most fascinating topic ever, but I also get that I definitely didn't want to talk about, like, taxes and variances and school districts in my former life as a non-parent-y rental apartment-dweller.)

Lifestyle

The Summer Of Us

family travel journal

Remember when I wrote about how I kept a kind of free-form travel diary when I lived in London during college? And how my #AlamoDriveHappy resolution was to start a travel diary for each of my kids, so that they could learn how to travel consciously, and have their own reminders of where in the world they’ve been?

I improved on it a little.

Before we left for California I bought a journal to start for my son, but then when we sat down together to paste in things we’d gathered over the first couple of days, I realized that this moment in our lives isn’t exactly about “what I’m experiencing” or “what Indy is experiencing.” It’s about what we’re experiencing all together, as a family, and that’s what I want to use this journal to commemorate: our spring and summer of us, when we leave the life we had for a whole new one, and everything that happens in between.

My Looks

The Who-Knew Essential

Outside our super-cute Air BnB in DKNY Sweatpants; Zara Blazer (similar); Loeffler Randall Clutch; Steve Madden Heels

When I was hosting the DKNY event a couple of weeks ago, I saw someone buying these cashmere sweatpants. And I stared at them for a minute, thinking "Ooh those are so cute," and then went straight to "No. They are CASHMERE SWEATPANTS. You are not allowed to own cashmere sweatpants."

Step away from the cashmere sweatpants.

Makeup & Beauty

The New Neutrals

new neutral makeup

Over the winter, I rediscovered my love for black kohl eyeliner.

And while there is still SNOW on the ground (which seriously, weather: stop it), spring is officially here. And spring means lightening up everything from your home decor to your makeup…and this year the latter lightening process is proving to be especially exciting, because have you seen the new makeup out there?!

It's gorrrrgeous.


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