prosecco and OJ? yes, please

let’s add an extra hot bloody too 🙂

prepping the beef, lots of rosemary, kosher salt, and pepper

jewel cookies by me, baklava by EJ

Cooking, dining, celebrating and serving have been the theme the last few days. We’ve covered the table with newspaper for king crab legs and mac and cheese. Ham and eggs, with a bloody on the side. Tenderloin and mashed too. Flowers, totally simple: a big bouquet of red roses bought at the grocery Christmas Eve day and then cut down into 3 small on the rocks glasses. Of course white votives, and branches of greenery laid down too. Do it yourself.

As for gifts? This man of mine never knew thirty or so years ago that he’d become a collector of fine handbags, yikes. One of our first trips together took us to a Caribbean island and of course I had to get a new bag to go with my swimsuit, which at the time was a little one-shouldered number. I took that bag on small little boats and held it overhead when we walked to shore.

Now at Christmas he gifts the five women in his life a brand new bag, Santa Baby indeed. Thank god he’s a really excellent lawyer. 🙂 We use them all year-long, and years after that, and they’re often traded around. The afterglow continues.

a feathered ornament, with cash!

cloth lobster bibs from sister in CA, how cool!

my phone on the table, how rude!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year week to all. With these holidays on a Sunday this year it feels like three straight weeks of hustle.

mini and me in off the shoulder

yes, there really is a Santa

Every day dress, and wishing you all a continuous glow.

xoxo

 

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

 

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