5 things: let's catch up
a recap of the past few weeks. plus: delish dill + cheddar scones, a novel that tackles fatness + GLP-1s, my new bikini top, and more.
happy saturday, friends.
it feels like i blinked and summer started evaporating before my eyes. i imagine i’m not alone in asking: how is mid-july already?! i write this newsletter using a template of sorts—that is to say, when i sit down to write on saturday mornings, i click into the previous week’s newsletter, click “duplicate” and then clear out all the goodies to start fresh, preserving my dividing squiggles, my header styles, etc. imagine my surprise when this morning, i went to duplicate, and realize we hadn’t spoken since july 3rd! 15 days ago! i know, of course, rationally speaking, that i missed last week’s saturday send—but still. 15 whole days!? in so many ways, i feel like i’ve lived a lifetime in the past two weeks. between my weekend at home (which i wrote about earlier this week), my usual level of summer socializing, and the (blessed) business of work, my calendar has felt full.
thankfully, this weekend, i get a bit of a breather. my only real plan is seeing noah kahan (!) at citi field tonight—though those of us trekking to queens to see him will be forced to reckon with “tornado-force winds” and “dirty rain.” pray that the rainstorms wrap up by 6ish and reveal beautiful, non-smoky skies for my evening, will you? i’ve got a poncho prepared, but…i’d rather NOT be sweaty and sticky (nor cover up the fabulous nothern attitude shirt i ordered for the occasion!). i am LONG overdue for a good cry, and i’m hopeful a night with noah will deliver it to me—rain or shine. tomorrow, i’ve got nada on the agenda, and if the weather gods bless us with the sunshine accuweather is currently forecasting, i may drive out to rockaway for my very first beach day of the season. just me, the new ann patchett, the sand and the sea. BLISS, i tell you!
ANYWHO.
if you can’t tell, my brain feels a little mushy as of late. i am holding it together, but it’s taking energy to do so. rather than force myself to tap out an overwrought explanation of what the hell is going on in my brain at the moment, i figured we’d do the next best thing: walk through a photo diary of the last 15 days. i love a simple recap post (almost more than i love an emotional essay?!), and i’m hoping maybe you do, too. at the very least, i hope you won’t throw me out of your inbox for sharing one.
let’s catch up, shall we?
in no particular order, here’s a smattering of my last two weeks.
{left to right, top row}
smoke from the canadian wildfires has made our air quality terrible over the past few days, so much so that i skipped my run yesterday morning. wednesday morning was bright and sunshine-y, but by evening, the smoke had rolled in. thursday was our worst day—so smoky that it smelled like a campfire outside. i had a pre-scheduled appointment in chinatown, and masked up to walk there. it felt a bit like the end of times, and yet, the youth were out drinking in dimes square.
the shiny tomato red birks i bought on poshmark earlier this summer bring me so much joy every time i wear them. i swear they’re the perfect pop to an everyday outfit. find the joy, friends!
yesterday, little green paint & paper co invited me to an event for influencers in nyc (honored!). we learned all about their new collection of paint colors, as well as the history behind their historic collection (so much of their paint and paper is made from historic/landmark spaces in the UK—so COOL, and worth reading up on if you’ve got a paint project in the works). best of all, we got to make hand-tied bouquets based on the collection. what a dream! it was a beautiful event, and my favorite i’ve been to in a minute.
{middle row, left to right}
like i said, the sky on thursday night was positively eerie. mother nature is screaming, and we continue to ignore her.
while i was home, i added my sister to my verizon plan so that we could a) cut costs a bit and b) get the whole family back on iphones. since then, she’s been populating the family text chain with photos of my mama doing what she loves best—gardening and feeding her birds. it seems like a small, silly thing, but every time i get a photo of her looking like herself, my nervous system calms a bit.
on wednesday morning, in a brief pocket of slightly normal air quality, i decided to reroute my morning run. instead of my usual route along the east river, i traversed the streets of alphabet city, then ran up to stuy town, then headed west on 20th street before cutting back down to enter the famous and fantastic union square greenmarket on 17th. i had tucked a big feelings tote into one pocket of my leggings and a wad of cash in the other, and spent the next 20 minutes or so stocking up on fresh produce & flowers—berries, peaches, lisianthus, cherry tomatoes, zucchini—before biking back home to the lower east side. it was such a lovely way to start my morning that i think i should do it more often!
{bottom row, left to right}
the tables at the little greene event were painted in their new colors; we chose our seats based on the color that spoke to us. i was torn between blue and pink, so i seated myself at the blue, with the pink to my right. each table had a paint can full of matching flowers, which i found so charming and cute. if i ever had a barn wedding, i would steal this trick!
remember the little yellow lampshades i got at the flea market in paris a few months ago?! i carefully transported them home in my suitcase from the marche, then delivered them to their intended recipient: my friends’ son, LL, who has his very first room in their new apartment. it’s hard to see in this photo, but they’ve got little star cutouts—so they’ll cast stars around the room at night when the lights go out. this photo = katie showing me the sconce she bought for them. when i tell you i squealed at the sight of this! they’re just SO DANG CUTE. i love when my flea market finds settle into their new home.
while home in massachusetts last week, i did what i like to call the run to pool pipeline. that is to say: i ran 3ish miles on the hilly country roads where i grew up, then immediately stripped off all my colors and dunked my naked body in the pool upon arriving home. it’s the quickest way to cool off, and there’s something about it that feels almost naughty?!
{top row, left to right}
my moms’ friends karen and sayword have a beautiful garden in which they grow black raspberries, also known as my favorite ice cream flavor. one morning last week, after my momma and i went to her radiation appointment, we drove out to hatfield to visit the garden. karen let me fill a bucket with black raspberries and gifted me a jar of black raspberry jelly they’d made, which i brought home and used to make ice cream earlier this week. i ate half a pint last night sitting on the couch, and when i tell you it is the MOST delish thing i have ever tasted, i do not tell a lie.
have you ordered your big feelings tote yet?! photos have started rolling in from all around the country as folks receive their bags (and their free stickers!). i’ve been toting mine (pun not intended) all over town, and am thrilled to report all the various sizes and colors are holding up remarkably well.
{middle row, left to right}
my momma’s birds are a sight to behold in the backyard. here she is feeding them yesterday morning. she loves them, and they love her.
i snagged this (likely 80s) lamp at my favorite antique mall on sunday (i like to stop there midway through my drive from MA <> NYC as both a mental break and a pee break!). it’s going to go on the dresser i thrifted from facebook marketplace in my room at my sister’s house—aka, it’s a lamp that will sit in a room i stay in a few times a year. i love a project, okay?!
you know what else is a sight to behold? my momma’s gardens. even with her health issues the past few years, she’s managed to keep up the veggie garden. it’s smaller this year than usual, but her basil is POPPIN’. here i am having clipped a few branches for the watermelon/tomato/basil/feta salad i made us on saturday night before i drove home last sunday. i brought the remaining leaves back to NYC and put them into a tomato/basil pasta dish. fresh is just better, you know?!
{bottom row, left to right}
this was obviously taken pre-smoke, but…i am so enjoying getting back into running. it’s wild to me that i’ve grown to like it as much as i do. i’m learning (as i am always learning) that i have a tendency to push my distance and pace too hard, too fast, so i’m attempting to slow it back down a bit over the next few weeks, but man—there’s really nothing like running by the river. my little neighborhood (especially my pocket of it) may not be “hip” or all that close to the subway, but to me, nothing beats being able to walk to the water in under ten minutes. it’s easy to forget that manhattan is an island, but when you live where i do, you remember!
since i returned from my time away, luna has been extra cuddly. she always sleeps with me at night, extending a paw so that she can touch me, but lately, she’s been curling up next to me (or literally on top of me) on the couch, too. i’ve never had a lap cat before and i’ll be damned if it doesn’t make my heart explode every time she does it. my sweet, sweet baby!
my farmer’s market strawberries are positively poppin’—can you believe that color?! zero filter, zero added sugar, 100% delicious. i washed these extra carefully when i got home, because you know, explosive diarrhea. so far, so good!
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and now for our recs!
i really loved this interview with caroline chambers on this is taste. caroline is the cook and writer behind what to cook when you don’t feel like cooking—one of my favorite newsletters here on substack. while prior interviews on this is taste focused on how she built what to cook, this one focused more on her new cookbook, which is entirely comprised of “make it fast” meals (ie, 30 mins or less!). i loved hearing about how make it fast was essentially community-sourced (it was written with the help of reader feedback!), and the way caroline treats substack as a business. she’s the number one food and drink newsletter on the platform, recently launched a full-on cooking show, and continues to churn out incredible, easy-to-cook recipes week after week. she is a total powerhouse, and still manages to somehow not just raise multiple kids, but seemingly achieve real work-life balance while doing it?! her success is both incredible and astounding, and yet, she comes off as down to earth and decidedly chill—a person you’d adore if you knew her in real life. if you’re into food at all, this one is for you!
ps: other podcasts i enjoyed this week included: this episode of second life with lauren wang, the founder and CEO of the flex company (which makes period products!), gracie abrams on popcast, the ladies of diabolical lies on botox and beauty standards, and jennifer garner on books, beach & beyond (!!). i’ve also been slowly working my way through this WWII history podcast with tom hanks, which is rather intense, but also quite good (fellow history nerds will like it!).
i haven’t read rainbow rowell in a few years. but one of you recommended i read this book after sharing my GLP-1 journey, and i put it on hold via the libby app that day. it came in a few weeks ago, and i devoured it in a span of days, climbing into bed early each night to read (the sign of a great book, in my opinion!). after finishing it, i couldn’t decide how i felt about it. on the one hand, i really liked it. on the other, i felt that perhaps it had missed the mark in its discussion of fatness and body image overall. a quick scroll through goodreads showed that i wasn’t alone—people either felt really seen by this book (i’m in this category, for the most part), or really misled by it.
everyone knows that cherry’s husband, tom, is in LA making a movie. almost nobody beyond cherry and her family know: he doesn’t intend to come home.
tom is the creator of thursday, a semi-autobiographical webcomic that’s become such an international sensation that it’s being adapted into a film—one that stars a wide-hipped, heavy-chested, double-chinned character known only as baby.
baby is cherry. but cherry is not baby. or at least, she doesn’t want to be. what fat woman wants to see herself as a caricature on the page, let alone a caricature blown up on the big screen? once upon a time, cherry loved her husband, and celebrated his success. but now that he’s headed to hollywood, and baby is too, cherry can’t escape it. people stop her on the street, approach her at the grocery store. her soon-to-be ex husband is in LA getting rich and famous, and cherry is stuck at home in omaha, taking care of the dog he always wanted, the house they were meant to raise a family in, and wondering: who the hell is she supposed to be without him?
so when she reconnects with a college crush at a concert—a college crush who coincidentally has never heard of thursday, nor baby; who remembers cherry as the voluptuous art student who dazzled in pinup dresses—she falls both hard and fast.
what follows is a second-chance romance of sorts, but not the one you were expecting. throughout the novel, cherry is forced to reckon not just with how others view her, but the way she views herself. as someone who has felt at war with her body for much of her life, so much of this book resonated with me. the internal monologue. the de-robing; the slow and honest exposure of your body with someone new. and yet, the ending left me wanting. this book came SO close to being a full 5 star read for me, but resolution fell a bit flat. if you’ve read it (or if you do after reading this!), please report back and tell me: what did YOU think of it?
get it on amazon | get it on bookshop.org
ps: if you’re a big reader, check out the library—a full archive of all the books i’ve recommended here on big feelings, sorted by genre and mood!
we’ve all watched the five star weekend by now, yes? peacock’s adaptation of elin hilderbrand’s novel debuted right after the july 4th holiday, and man, is it excellent! the casting is chef’s kiss perfect, the writing real and relatable, and the nantucket setting is (of course) gorgeous. admittedly, the five star weekend wasn’t/isn’t one of my favorite elin books. but after finishing the show last night, i think it may be moving up to the number one spot on the list? it’s rare that i find a small screen adaptation shifts my perception of the source material (i also felt this way about margo’s got money troubles!), but when it does, it really does. i loved this show, and i bet you will, too. from the friendship dynamics to the individual character journeys to the conversations about class, it hits the mark again and again. i found myself slowly savoring it, watching just an episode a night so that i could make the 8 episodes last. and while i know there’s only one novel, i’m hopeful peacock may look at the ratings and pull a the last thing he told me and give us a season two! i adored these characters and could easily spend another season mired in their heartbreak, laughter and brains.
ps: i also finished maximum pleasure guaranteed last night, and WOW WHAT A RIDE. the show is very clearly setting us up for a season two (if apple renews it), so let’s all cross our fingers for more tatiana maslany on our screens, yes?!
psst! if you like this post, it would mean the world to me if you’d hit the little heart icon, as well as consider sharing it on IG stories or substack notes—so that big feelings can be seen by more people ❤️
after buying a whole lot of dill for my 4th of july recipes (i contributed a dilly potato salad + homemade coleslaw!), i found myself with an excess of the herb + a few strands of garlic scapes in need of a home. usually, i’d blend all my remaining herbs into a green goddess style yogurt dip, but for whatever reason, on sunday morning, i woke up and found myself craving a savory scone. dill, i figured, went nicely with cheddar, and who was i to tell the scone gods that they couldn’t also chop up some garlic scapes and throw them into the batter for good measure? i used this recipe as my baseline, but adapted it slightly to include the (chopped up) scapes. friendly reminder that if you don’t have buttermilk on hand (honestly, who does?!), you can make your own with regular milk + a bit of lemon juice (let sit for 5ish mins, et voila!). also: do not ignore the ‘grating frozen butter’ directive. this method is what results in deliciously fluffy, bakery style scones. while you can absolutely do this with a simple hand grater (i used one to make blueberry scones for my parents’ neighbors while i was home last weekend!), it’s MUCH MUCH MUCH easier to grate your butter on one of these guys.
a rather unfortunate side of effect of having a large chest is that many bathing suit tops straight up DO NOT WORK FOR ME. and by that i mean: i haven’t worn a true bikini style top like the one pictured above since i was…i don’t know, 16?! i’ve always been top-heavy, and while this might seem like a blessing to those who have a smaller chest, it’s long been a struggle to dress “the girls”—especially when it comes to summer. i can’t go bra-less, i can rarely even go backless (though i did just order these for a backless dress i hope to wear next month as a wedding guest!), and bathing suits are…problematic, to say the least. i’m always on the lookout for swim tops that will contain my chest and also, hopefully, look just the tiniest bit sexy? i’m a longtime fan of left on friday, whose swimwear is ultra flattering and made for activity—but until recently, i was restricted to their more full coverage styles. imagine my delight when they launched this top in D+ sizes! i ordered it immediately, cautiously optimistic that i might finally have found a sexy swim top that would fit me.
friends, i’m thrilled to say: THIS IS THE ONE! would i wear it in huge waves? probs not. but for a pool day or a beach day in calm waters? hell yes. i wore it to the pool a few weekends ago and got so many compliments that i just ordered it in black, too. note: left on friday swim is a splurge, but if you take care of them (i wash on delicate in mesh bags, then air dry—no dryer!), they LAST. and they’re truly some of the most flattering swimsuits you can find! i like these bottoms, and often mix and match my sets (as i’ve done above!).
speaking of shopping:
oak essentials, one of my favorite skincare brands, is having a 20% siteside sale at the moment. now is a great time to stock up on my favorite eye balm (i swear this has single-handedly contributed to my having very few crow’s feet!), the best body lotion, delectable bath oil, and my go-to fragrance.
before you go, here are a few things i enjoyed on the internet this week:
speaking of the five star weekend and nantucket—i loved getting a peek into elin hilderbrand’s nantucket home!
really loved this piece on the workout habits of ridiculously fit people. such good takes on balance, not obsessing, listening to your body, etc.
npr’s book of the day on cherry baby (the book i featured above!).
well, this cornish holiday cottage is an absolute DREAM, isn’t it?
european women don’t hate their bodies. i am always amazed at the variety of shapes and sizes i see on european beaches when i travel—string bikinis, topless sunbathers, thong bottoms. people are just OUT THERE LIVING IN THEIR BODIES LIKE IT AIN’T NO THANG.
very impressed (and inspired by) this DIY stamp wallpaper. filed away for my someday country home!
daisy edgar jones in british vogue. the photos here are SOMETHING ELSE. true art!
more women in the trades, please!
really loved this issue of Leslie Stephens’ morning person newsletter, an interview with her doctor on why we should all be paying more attention to our hormones.
brb, adding bruges to my ‘must visit’ list!
❤️ and that, friends, is where i leave you. if you like this post, it would mean the world to me if you’d hit the little heart icon, as well as consider sharing it on stories—so that big feelings can be seen by more people ❤️
ICYMI, here a few newsletter issues you might like.
OMG it was me who recommended Cherry Baby! I feel so special that you actually followed through with the recommendation (I LOVE recommending books and when people actually read them, it makes me so happy!) I’m glad it sounds you like you enjoyed(?) it for the most part, although I do understand why your thoughts around it are somewhat scattered. I feel like the interpretation of the book’s portrayal around weight/weight loss/etc is deeply personal to each reader. Either way, I’m so happy you read it! :)
This is weird because I don’t “know” you, but another book I think you would enjoy is Like Family by Erin O’White. I may have even recommended it in your comments section before, I can’t remember. It’s about three families in upstate New York—my favorite family, Ruth and her wife Wyn, live on a farm that sounded absolutely magical.
Been washing my berries extra well too lol