Tag Archives: things i like

Snacks on Snacks on Snacks: Picking a Perfect Cheese Plate

It's intimidating, I know.

It’s intimidating, I know.

When I was in college, there was this fancy cheese counter at the fancy grocery, and the boy who worked there was SO. CUTE. I spent way too much of my college student budget at that place, but it was totally worth it because that guy became my boyfriend!

JUST KIDDING. He had no idea what my name was, but he did teach me some cool stuff about cheese and now I am pro status at picking out the perfect cheese plate for any soiree. No matter where you live, your grocery store probably has a nice selection of cheeses, so take this advice with you when you go to reach maximum satisfaction level with your selections. Many of the nicer shops have a little remainder bin in the case, so you can try really small portions of new stuff for a pittance. This is my recommendation to you, unless you’re throwing quite the party. My suggestions are after the jump.

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Fantasy Life Update: The Classic Muscle Car

This is the car I learned to drive in.

This is the car I learned to drive in!

It is my life’s dream to drive a muscle car. I made that dream a reality this weekend when I picked up my grandmother’s golden ’67 Camaro from storage a few hours away. This may or may not have resulted in my spending the night in a Motel 6 in Dale, Indiana, but I think it was worth it. I think I look right foxy behind the wheel of this sucker. One day. One. Day.

Tea Party Tuesday: Bluegrass Mountain

My boss has returned from China, and with him comes a ton of weird, wonderful, rare teas that I am SO EXCITED to share with you. Behold, bluegrass mountain:

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Isn’t it mossy-looking?

Remember how I told you about oolongs? This is one of those, too! It’s got the weird variable caffeine/questionable health benefits, but this one is much greener, and oh.my.god. it is so good. Very delicate, vegetal, and a little clovery, it doesn’t smell like anything when you hold your face over it. It’s so fragile we have to keep it in a freezer case at all times, so it isn’t even available for sale. If you want to come try some, come by my office and I’ll pour you one.

Have you tried any weird teas since last we spoke?

The Land of Milk* and Honey

Have you read Steven Marche’s excellent article about Manna in this month’s Esquire? I won’t give anything away, but mind that asterisk and PLEASE take a few minutes to enjoy this.

Book Club: Russian Journal

Hey, I’m really sorry, but we’re not going to do The Black Swan this week like I promised. I hadn’t quite finished it when our things were stolen, so I’ve ordered a new copy and now we wait. I hope that’s okay. I promise to come back to it. We’re going to skip ahead to the next week’s book, Andrea Lee’s excellent Russian Journal.

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Out of print, so get it used!

I fell in love with Andrea Lee‘s work via the New Yorker fiction podcast— she’s very funny, very smart, and has a lot of interesting life experiences. Russian Journal is a collection of journal entries from the year she spent behind the Iron Curtain in 1978 with her former husband, a scholar of Russian politics.

I’m a little too young to remember the Cold War much at all, but I feel like I don’t know much about what life was like in the Soviet Union during those years, and there are precious few accounts of it available to Americans. I was surprised to learn that things were at once much better and much worse than I thought there, but that’s not really the reason you should read this book.

Lee captures her day-to-day experiences as they happen, without an agenda or to prove something specific about what the USSR was like. She made friends in Moscow and Saint Petersburg, she got a lot of weird looks from peasants unaccustomed to seeing Americans (much less black Americans), and she ate and drank and slept and lived among unremarkable people. That’s really…rare. Memoirs during times of strife sometimes fall victim to editing- when remembering these times later, everything seems more urgent and more personal, like your own experience must surely have been touched by the hands that shaped the history unfolding around you.

But really, they didn’t. You didn’t know what was going on or when it was going to end, and you probably weren’t palling around with the president or anything. It’s refreshing to see a memoir that’s about eating terrible cafeteria food and sitting in your friends’ living rooms drinking brandy rather than about the time your grandmother hung out with Jenny Lind.

If this sounds like I’m saying this book is boring, I’m not. It’s anything but. I don’t know anything about Georgian peasants or the “party stores” or American-style Communist rock music. It was great to get a peak into that world. As foreigners, the Lees got preferential treatment, to be clear, but they were a lot closer than you and I will ever be to “getting it.”

So pick it up! Let me know what you think. Do I have any Russian readers? Do you have interesting stories from behind the Iron Curtain?

Next week, in honor of National Poetry Month, I’m going to be reading this. Want to join me?

Everything I Like

And all in one place. Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola did this sexy, cute, fun, compelling commercial for Prada in three parts.

I.

II.

III.

Tres…something, non?

Jon Michael and Kirstan’s Engagement

Before I say anything else, I feel I should tell you I am not engaged, but my friend is! His new fiancee and I share the same name, and he enlisted me to help him plan and execute the proposal he’d been dreaming of. He probably picked me to help him because we have the same name. They’re a little shy, so I’m not including photos of them, but after the jump, check out some of the photos!

Pretty pretty, Jon Michael!

Pretty pretty, Jon Michael! Ring was custom-made for Kirstan by an Etsy artist.

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