Happy weekend, friends!

I hope your weekend is shaping up well so far. I'm firmly ensconced on the couch with some chocolate babka from our new Breads bakery, and perhaps there's a movie in my near future. (Correction: it's 1am and that movie is finished - we watched The Heat - not the greatest use of $5.99 ever, I have to say) I have plans for the apartment this weekend, plans that include paint and IKEA. I also have a date with Central Park. I've been dying to shoot the autumn foliage and it seems to be particularly glorious this year.

interior design

Bri Emery did some research on Airbnb and found us some cool places to stay in California. Now she has me dreaming of a trip there.

Who wants some Anthropologie bedding? Camile Styles has an Anthropologie bedding giveaway that you just have to enter. Or don't enter -- so I can have a better chance.

Sarah Yates of A House in the Hills has some serious decorating talent. Just check out her living room. I'm dying over that round mirror. It would be right at home on the wall over my kitchen table.

food

Kelsey of Happyolks never fails to get me thinking with her essays on life, love, and the power of womanhood. And there's a recipe for a butternut squash and brie galette. Seriously? Delicious food AND food for thought.

If you weren't lucky enough to be in that sold-out room at NYU last week to see Luisa Weiss, Smitten Kitchen's Deb Perleman and Food 52's Amanda Hesser speak about food and blogging and Luisa's book, My Berlin Kitchen (now out in paperback!), then you can watch it here.

I fear my husband is going to ask me for marshmallow topped sweet potatoes again this year, and I just can't bear the sweetness (are all you Americans frowning and unsubscribing from my site now?). BUT, I may have found an alternative in  this coconut-pecan slow cooker sweet potato dish from Aimee at Simple Bites.

hard to define - but all about NYC

This is clearly a sponsored post, but I love seeing New York  through photographer Jamie Beck's eyes.

Did you know Banksy was hanging out in NYC for the month of October scattering incredible artwork all over the city? Here are his top 10 pieces that had fans scrambling across the five boroughs to track him down.

Jenna of Sweet Fine Day has prepared her annual NYC calendar, and it's available for sale now on her website, check it out here. Plus she has some interesting musings on our soon to be former mayor.


Happy weekend, friends!

Emily

Emily Dickinson has to be read in the winter, when the sky grows dark before 5pm and the wind reaches little tendrils down your neck. She has to be read from inside the window, while the light creates shadows on the glass and your forgotten tea steams quietly beside your trembling hand.


"Hope" is the thing with feathers

"Hope" is the thing with feathers-
That perches in the soul- 
And sings the tune without the words- 
And never stops-at all- 

And sweetest-in the Gale-is heard- 
And sore must be the storm-
That could abash the little Bird 
That kept so many warm- 

I've heard it in the chillest land- 
And on the strangest Sea- 
Yet, never, in Extremity- 
It asked a crumb-of me. 

-Emily Dickinson

Source: The Poems of Emily Dickinson, edited by R.W. Franklin (Harvard University Press, 1999)

A glorious run

We've had a glorious run of days the past few weeks. The kind that make you wish you could stop time. The air is clearer, I can see further from our windows and everything has a crisp, cool edge to it. I've gone from the soft padding of flats on the sidewalk to the ring of Autumn boots. From salads for lunch to hearty soups and breads.

In other news, we had wafels and dinges a while ago and now they are all I can think about. Seriously. Is it bad that I'm trying to find an excuse to walk past the Wafels and Dinges truck at the tip of the Great Lawn so I can snag a wafle with spekuloos and whipped cream, and then nutella drizzled all over?

food

I'm so happy for the lovely Kate of Cookie and Kate who has taken a great leap and made her site a full time job. To celebrate, she created this red pepper martini for us all to enjoy.

Diane Cu and Todd Porter of White on Rice Couple launched their beautiful book, Bountiful and developed this lemon bundt cake to thank their readers. Should I do this one for my next work bakeoff competition?

There's no natural segue way for this after talking about alcohol and dessert, but can we move on to baked sweet potato fries next? Well Linda of the Brooklyn-based The Tart Tart has just made me crave them. And then she posted a recipe for quince ginger sorbet! How much temptation can I take?!

interior design

Marisa Rosenbaum, Refinery29's shopping market director, has a small apartment, a teeny tiny apartment. And it's quite possibly the prettiest small apartment I've ever seen. Check out her design tips and secrets.

Ok this is totally inspiring, and I will probably never do it (just being honest here, guys!) but this DIY modern sunburst mirror from Jenny Komenda would look amazing in my apartment.

This bedroom designed by Emily Henderson haunts my dreams. I think I want to use that Sherwin Williams crushed ice color in my entryway.

Ever since the creative cooperative, Makeshift Society opened up in San Francisco, I've been waiting for them to come to the east coast. And now Anna of Door Sixteen tells me they're coming to Brooklyn! They're scheduled to open their doors in 2014 and I can't wait to check out the space.

fashion

The last thing I need is another bag (did I really just say that?), I just got this one from Madewell and it's THE perfect fall bag. But should you be in the market for one, enter to win a handbag from the Fleabag shop with DesignLoveFest. If you don't win, she's offering a 15% discount on their site with the code. LOVEFEST15.

Let's talk about Kate Midleton for a second, shall we? Perfection - that's all we really need to say. Design Darling shows us how to duplicate her look. It's nothing earth-shatteringly different, really, but just very tailored and neat.



Happy Halloween!

October apple picking

So, I'm sure you've seen fall apple picking shots similar to these a hundred times by now, and I'm sorry you have to see them again. Actually, I'm not really sorry. It's one of those mandatory Autumn activities in our family and we look forward to it all year long. This year we found a no-frills farm an hour outside of the city that satisfied our various requirements: Ted's requirement was that it had no carnival atmosphere, mine was that they had apple cider doughnuts. We both left happy.

There's always one magical tree in every orchard I go to, one that stands out from all the rest. I was in love with this one. Her extra long branch was laden with the most delicious apples in the whole orchard. 

I'm dead set on figuring out how to duplicate these apple cider doughnuts in a baked form. We may or may not have polished off a dozen while we were there.

After exiting the apple orchards, you're met with this little bakery crammed with about fifty varieties of pies and lines of people waiting for the next batch of baked goods.

All this to say, hold on to those traditions. They're the memories we cherish year after year. Even if sometimes it doesn't feel worth it, cause one or both children are having a meltdown in the middle of an orchard because you're not picking from the tree they chose, and you're pretty sure a wasp flew down the back of your jumper.

Autumn snuck up on me this year, and now it's securely here. I didn't realize it until I walked outside after a work event last night and the wind sliced across the back of my neck. That wind is going to make me take out my wooly coat soon enough.

I don't mean to shorten your enjoyment of Autumn, but it's going to be Winter in the blink of an eye.

I'll link you up

I hope you're all joining me here after a restful weekend. It was a weekend where I barely left my neighborhood, but luckily Central Park is within my radius. And it was one glorious weekend for the park, indeed. 

Another note: I had to force myself to stop playing candy crush just to hit publish on this post. And I'm not even on a six figure level (I have heard of people in the 300 levels). Is anyone else addicted?

Anyway, despite candy crack crush, I still managed to find some fun stuff. Here is what I'm loving this week.

interior design

Has everyone seen the new Domino format where the site operates as a shopping portal? What do you think about it? I feel like it might be dangerous for my already endangered wallet. On the other hand, I'm not so ambivalent about the wonderful Little Green Notebook's Jenny Komenda becoming an online editor for Domino! I couldn't love that choice more.

I love seeing a tastefully decorated small space, it's such a challenge compared to a larger space, I think. This pretty apartment belonging to Danielle Armstrong was featured on This is Glamorous recently, and is totally inspiring.

Displaying antlers and horns in one's home is a controversial topic, but you can't argue with the powerful presence they bring to a room. Check out Slim Paley's incredible stag roundup.

food

If I wanted to preserve summer in a bottle, I'd do it this way, with basil flower vinegar from The Yellow House.

The Forest Feast blog just turned 2 years old and I feel so lucky that I get to work on Erin's stunning cookbook with her. You guys are going to go crazy for this book.

As the weather turns colder, I turn to stews and soups and my fingers are itching to try out this moroccan-style vegetable chickpea stew from the talented Laura at The First Mess.

hard to define

I love when a site deviates from usual topics to address interesting issues. This one on Design Sponge about the place of a book cover in this world of anonymous e-readers was really fascinating.

Leandra at Man Repeller never fails to make me laugh. Her recent exploration of bra vs. no bra was no exception.

Cabo love

We landed in Cabo on a cloudy but sunny day. As we walked down the long airport hallway (skipping the moving walkways - am I the only one slightly freaked out by them?), I looked out the window and noticed that the tips of the blue mountains were disappearing into the clouds. It's not the type of airport view I was used to.

As we drove from the airport to the resort, I was too bleary eyed to take photographs. We were barely 8 hours away from the children, and I wasn't feeling the amazing effects of a full night's sleep just yet. But, when we walked into our Cabo house and saw the view from the balcony? Well, suddenly four years of fragmented sleep fell away and I wanted to stay awake forever and look at this:

Even better than the cloudless sunny days, were the spectacular sunsets. Sunsets that lit the entire sky and ocean on fire and left me gaping at the beauty.

We did leave the house periodically to get food or exercise. But for the most part we insulated ourselves in a little haven of sleep and swimming, pausing now and again to exclaim at the two turkey vultures who spent their days soaring past our balcony, buffeted by the wind between the mountains.  It was a life without alarm clocks and schedules, and it suited us perfectly. We'll be back there again some day, I hope. I'm going to have to come back to this post in the dead of winter to remember what the sun felt like.

Oh, Cabo, I miss you already.

Mexico is better than botox

So, I have this semi-permanent line between my eyebrows. It used to just appear at the very end of a long and frustrating day, in fact I could feel it forming between my eyes as the frustrations mounted - then I'd rub it away at the end of the day and start afresh. But these days, the wrinkle is firmly in place when I wake up in the morning, and no amount of forehead massaging and lavender oil makes it go away at the end of the day. Do you want to know the best thing about going to Mexico for a week?? My wrinkle has disappeared! It went away on day 3 (after an exceptional hot stone massage) and hasn't come back yet. Mexico is better than botox! (Not that I've tried botox or have any intention of doing so -- for now anyway.)

I'll have photos of Mexico for you later on this week, but for now here's a link list - cause I haven't done one in ages and that is, after all, why we're all here.

food

Adrianna says she jumps the gun on autumn every year, but who can blame her with this ginger pear clafoutis to make? And there's a splash of bourbon in it, too. It will warm you up on these slightly cold evenings (although I'd have it in the morning, too).

If you are one of those people who isn't quite excited about Autumn, then all you need to do is read Beth's post on this new season and get a recipe for creme fraiche pumpkin coffee cake too.

Umm, have you ever heard of coconut bacon? Me either. But you need to check out this blt salad with coconut bacon from Cookie + Kate. You won't be sorry.

interior design

Ok, I don't have a front porch to rest this amazing pumpkin on, but I'm thinking about crafting this chalkboard painted pumpkin that I found over at Thistlewood Farm to put in my entryway. I mean, come on! You can do word puzzles on it! I'd probably use number stickers and do sudoku on mine instead of words though.

I love when my favorite interiors bloggers buy a house, and I'm excited that Emily Henderson just did! It's going to be so much fun to follow her on her journey as she redoes this 1964 home.

I'm so proud that I get to work with the incredibly talented Bunny Williams on her books, and tonight she was honored with a lifetime achievement award at a black tie gala for her more than 25 years in the interior design business. Congrats to Bunny!

fashion/style

Can we give a collective "yay" for the debut of JCrew's baby line? Now I just have to think of some pregnant friends to give gifts to.

Jen Pinkston at The Effortless Chic found me the perfect pointed pump from Coach.


I hope you had a great weekend. I'm so happy to be back here (but i do still miss there).