Holiday production mode moving into higher gear for everyone.
We’ve been trimming trees, hanging small white lights, and decorating with natural material and things we have on hand. You know we like the glow of small white votives, and pine cones and greenery can spruce up anything.
Started some baking detail today, and this huge spool of red and white twine is just the thing to wrap small loaves in parchment for gifting.
Day by day, we’re all getting there.
Special heartfelt prayers for families and friends that really need love, strength, and a warm glow.
Monday night, 6:15 pm, and wickedly procrastinating about putting together some dinner. Long weekend was a food and drink fest, always serving in the double digits. Second daughter turned twenty-four Sunday, and as usual we celebrated with a dinner at home.
Food is looking robust, night before we were doing cocktails and champagne, thank you Gabby and Danny.
Love the balloons.
Stuffed some chicken breasts with local herbed chèvre and basil leaves, stove top roasted tomatoes, peas, and quinoa.
Cake was homemade, four sticks of butter with the cream cheese frosting, butter is love. Found we were out of candles and couldn’t bear another grocery visit so simply stuck a red rose on top and surrounded the platter with tea lights.
We did pick up some new dishes, grey, and grey linen napkins. Dishes are french, and like the ones we’ve loved and used for years, simply a new color.
It’s always double Monday after a long holiday.
Happy Birthday Booie. xoxo
(couldn’t get the post up yesterday, way too exhausted).
Okay, Tuesday night, 7:24 pm, and waiting for the teens to get home to have pan sauteed scallops and sugar snap peas and they are now looking pretty sorry.
When you’re the one that makes the house hum you’ve just gotta go with it- coconut cake still sitting around yet those scallops can’t wait.
Every day dress and coconut cake with tea lights. xoxo
We like some makeup, not a lot of makeup. In fact, it’s kind of our ethos here: put on some makeup.
As we’re living with two teens and a make-up loving young adult, our kit is usually MIA, really can never even find mascara. Went out and picked up these things here, all Bobbi Brown. We like her mojo, ‘The secret to beauty is simple: be who you are.” And, she wears lots of denim. Natural looking makeup and a lipstick that looks like lips, count us in. Bobbi, thank you.
It’s eve of Thanksgiving eve and if you’re wondering this is what our kitchen really looks like. xoxo
Saturday afternoon husband and I snuck away for a quick little Canadian overnight: wine tasting, spa time, an early dinner, theatre, and a nightcap. Breakfast the next morning, a brisk fall walk, and out of there. All in twenty-four hours, we were back stateside before game time on Sunday.
We stopped at Two Sisters Vineyards, one of our favorites, love the idea of sisters being proprietors of a Niagara winery. Spa, room, and dinner all at Oban Inn. Theatre at Shaw Festival Theatre, we try to get there at least once a season.
Most recent comment on the blog gave me great pause: ‘while I enjoy the fashion posts, I love the food, celebrations, family and just your style and attitude posts the most. They are the ones that inspire me to light the candles, stop at the farmer’s market and enjoy it all! Thank you!’
two tenderloins, prepped for oven roasting
serving up 4 scratch blueberry pies with whipped cream, all out at the country house
My reply was that fashion is a true professional and personal passion, feeding those I love supersedes all. It’s like this thing that I have to do to make the day whole, and right.
Last night I was on deck to lend support to colleague, partner and friend at a gig she was in charge of, a fundraising fashion show with 375+ women in attendance. To get there without guilt needed to have dinner ready to go for the crew at home, even while I wasn’t there. It was sautéed chicken breasts, with fresh herbs, and roasted brussels sprouts and sweet potatoes. Nothing crazy; simple, honest food. No photos, it was a weeknight work night. We know men and women all over are cooking for those they love, we LOVE that. We LOVE coming together at day break or days end to break bread. We’re really all about feeding others.
gotta love hosting in an apron, this time is ski town for fall festival, when it’s all ready to serve, off it goes
arranging the porterhouse and the rib eye, always by hand
we like to serve on huge platters
steak and greens, always a hit
ketchup and A1 on the table, yikes, fresh flowers on wrapped gifts, yay
So, our true roots here of this little blog are every day dress and that encompasses the clothes we wear, the way we move, the food we eat. It’s even as simple as making the bed, even though no one else is looking. It’s like a lifestyle kind of thing, taking what needs to happen each day and putting forth some effort and making it a little special.
bacon, eggs, pancakes and bagels, next morning | we had a houseful, 14 of us in all
Sharing here some iPhone photos of recent food happenings, the digital camera just really doesn’t happen when we’re in the thick of it.
we’re kind of liking pumpkins that aren’t orange this year
casual weeknight table setting, real linen, not necessarily matched
fast food = salad, ciabatta rolls, burgers, lettuce, tomato, and lobster ravioli
oops, we’ve got two knives here 🙂
we hang at home in our mens’ shirts, sleeves rolled, and make single colored simple flower groupings
If you’ve been reading and have arrived here, thanks for being part of our community. xoxo
Sometimes you’ve just gotta add something new to the nightly | weekly rotation.
As a home cook we put out plenty of chicken dinners, usually with a green vegetable and a potato or grain. Tonight we’re throwing in a tomato, cucumber and red onion salad, while that said chicken is roasting along with some butternut squash. All plentiful at the market, and not earth moving at all, simply fresh, quick and easy.
As a stylist we put out and wear plenty of little black dresses. Last night put on the new one and cycled in last year’s shoes, and a bag from three year’s ago.
We probably can’t, and shouldn’t, have new things all the time. Keeping it fresh means embracing what works, and rotating in a few new things that engage and delight.
All photos iPhone, we’re slightly unorganized, it’s Tuesday, and the camera battery(s) aren’t charged.
Thinking about the blog here a little. We don’t really want to push new things to buy all the time, there’s plenty of those out there, we really want to inspire daily lifestyle choices, incorporating of course good clothes, good food and wine, a nice house and garden, and spending time with those we love.
Celebrated 29 years of marriage last night; in that new, little black dress. xoxo
Bought these out there pants months ago, never worked them into the rotation (kind of didn’t hem them), so here they are, mid-September. We’re all about keeping it real:
we say ‘yes’, way more than no, even when we’re not qualified
we simply roll the waistband when we don’t do the tailor job ourselves for the perfect hem
instead of over thinking the hair mid-week we simply knot it up
black is always good
movement every day is key, lifting heavy things twice is a very good week, thanks Jordan and Booie
we don’t shop at the mall, instead add to the wardrobe over time at seasonal trunk shows
we’re all about good food, and good (or any) wine
we kind of don’t care that it shows that we’re all about good food and wine, skinny and ageless we will never be
we like getting things done, figuring things out, and (sometimes) being downright scrappy, hey Michelle!
To get these outfit shots sixteen year old daughter and I hop in the car and drive two minutes to remote industrial lot. She clicks away, I feel a bit awkward, it all goes down in less than five. Not perfect and not 100%, simply saying yes and getting it done.
Every day dress, we’re all about keeping it real, and fun.
Last week Sunday we were all about making a mess: casual dinner for 6 morphed into impromptu party for 40, plus assorted dogs.
Cooked off 4 scratch blueberry pies, chocolate cookies, and banana bread, always start with dessert. 4 beef Tenderloin, 4 whole chickens quartered by knife and hand in the sink, gotta love the prep work and really should have gone for 6 birds, 3 dozen corn, green beans, yellow beans, miles of greens, roasted new red and white potatoes, and lobster mac and cheese. Bake, cook, grill, cook. All out effort. Dance party pics didn’t make the blog.
Love feeding those we love.
If it’s a mess, so be it.
Dishes for days…
It’s Monday, a long way from last week Sunday, and we’ve been in suite 101 having a ball working fall winter 16 fashion. If that gig doesn’t work out perhaps we’ll take up cooking for zillions.
Late summer and this time of year, dinner, so easy. Grab what’s fresh, slice and sauté, and grill up some protein. A little yogurt blue cheese dressing to balance it off. No recipes, no cookbooks, simply get it on.
Blog has been on the back burner, we’ve been focused on family, work, and getting two teenaged daughters back to school.
Quick post, we’ve been working trunk, and we’re back on the road first thing tomorrow morning.
Oldest daughter in town from NYC and she comments, ‘more photos of minced garlic for the blog?’, and my answer, ‘yes, it’s real food’.
We’re all about real food, and wine, pretty much every day of the week. Yeah, there’s a little take out here and there, and dinner out, but as much as we can it’s real food, and wine. Best part of the day, in my book. Really can’t get our head or arms around packaged pancakes and stuff.
Last night we were all about organic pork tenderloin with minced garlic and rosemary, and linguine with garden tomatoes, brie, and basil.
Every day dress, real food, and wine, always. xoxo
