And look, I tried to try more of the collagen powder but Nathan finished it all (and his hair has been looking pretty good lately now that I think about it) and I’m waiting to get more. I promise to finally take this regularly next month.
One of the regulars in my snack rotation has been these zucchini pizza bites that are surprisingly delightful, especially if you’re adding sopressata and/or jalapeños as part of the toppings.
I saw Jason Mantzoukas walking in Soho and he was so handsome I was afraid to say anything. Like alarmingly handsome. I knew he was good looking, but in real life? Whoa.
I am in love with this font. Someone tell me if it has a name.
I attempted to start season two of Barry, but it’s been so long since I saw the first season that I forgot most of what has happened. Could I have just rewatched the finale of season one and then moved on to number two? Sure. Will I? Now that’s another question.
I just bought a pair of these heavenly, high-waisted, button-fly Gap jeans and I think everyone should go buy them ($42 right now with the sale), they fit like a dream. I might go back and get another pair in a different colour. Actually, yeah. I’m definitely doing that.
Ate at La Contenta and it was absolutely nothing special. Everything was too salty, overpriced and crowded.
I’ve already made three batches of these banana walnut muffins, they’re so perfect for the morning or for a snack. Ignore that they’re paleo, I promise you they’re good. Definitely not a party muffin, but a good-for-you muffin.
So excited that people will finally stop talking about Game of Thrones. Usually I don’t mind when other people love something that I don’t care about, but with this show it’s just been overkill. We get it. It was a show. Let’s move on?
Nobody told me about how smokey it gets when you attempt to make burgers in your kitchen at home? Or was everyone aware of this already but me?
I just bought pink sunglasses (at Nathan’s encouragement) and I just became cool. May 2019. That’s when it happened. (I’d post of photo of them but I’ll be wearing them until I’m cold and dead in the ground, so believe me, you’ll see them on me soon.)
I can’t believe how good this looks. I love it when fall movies just say fuck it and come out in late summer.
I tried the mozzarella sticks at Big Mozz in Chelsea Market and whoa. They’re pretty serious. The tomato sauce that comes with them is insanity, too.
My niece Tianna came to visit New York for the first time! Some highlights: I finally ate a cronut and they’re waaaaay too sweet, and coming from me that should mean something because I love all things dessert. Maybe it’s because we ate it so early in the morning? I don’t know. I really don’t understand the big deal about them, though. We also walked through Chinatown and down to the financial district to get lunch at Manhatta, which was lovely. I forced her to eat my favourite pad thai at Lovely Day in Soho. We shared a cheese plate at The Cellar at Beecher’s, walked around the west village to see the Friends building and the stoop from The Cosby Show, we had dinner at L’Artusi where she had her first steak tartare. We walked through Grand Central Terminal to get to the dog museum (which is cute as hell), we saw and went backstage at the musical Waitress, had dinner at Shake Shack, saw the 9/11 memorial, shopped at Century 21, walked the Brooklyn Bridge, got pizza at Juliana’s (which wasn’t as good as I remembered?), walked with Baby Dog in Central Park to see the Balto statue, perused Chelsea Market and walked along The High Line, went to the galleries on Thursday night where we met Luis Guzman (!), and ate gelato at Grom. This was all within four days. No idea how we did that much stuff, but I slept for 13 straight hours the day after she left, so maybe I’m not as young as I once was.
Tianna, backstage at Waitress!
Tianna, The Brooklyn Bridge
Tianna & Baby Dog, Central Park
I started watching the new version of The Twilight Zone with the assumption that I’d dislike it since the original is so great, however I’ve only seen one episode so far (the blue scorpion one) and I think I really like it. Obviously the classic series is untouchable, but this one is done really well.
I learned about the existence of Book Off in midtown, it’s a store “for the people who don’t want to waste.” They buy your old CDs, DVDs, books, action figures, electronics. It’s amazing.
Season three of Riverdale is over! This is the only show that I watch every week, so it was a big deal for me. And honestly, it was a fun season, despite everyone on earth’s opinions of it. Favourite tweet from the finale?
Honestly I’m not worried about them writing jughead off the show ... They still haven’t written off the actual corpse of Jason blossom #Riverdalepic.twitter.com/RgQTsIrSKX
Strawberries are about to be in season, so I got a huge carton of them from a farmer’s market and made these strawberry oatmeal bars. Pretty good! They also work well crumbled up in greek yogurt.
I have made this chicken marsala so many times that I’m taking a break from them. But for the first few times I made it, it was so, so satisfying.
All right, look. I fully expected to love Wine Country on Netflix, but maaaaaan. It is not good. It isn’t funny or sweet or anything. I think I also hate it when Tina Fey tries to be a character actor, it’s always just the worst. Do not watch.
Here’s your semi-annual reminder that Bath & Body Works is having their huge twice-a-year sale starting on June 1st, I think. It’s never advertised in advance, but I’m almost positive that it’s the first week of June. Apologies that this sounds like an ad, I just really like their foaming hand soaps and I’m cheap as hell.
Made the roasted cauliflower, feta, orzo salad from Chrissy Teigen’s cookbook and yes it was really, really good. The only issue is that the portion size is way too big. We had leftovers for days and got pretty sick of eating it, so if you’re doing this for two people, definitely size it down. Also, I had no idea there were different types of feta. French feta is creamier than traditional Greek and maaaan is it good.
What am I looking forward to next month? I’m planning on seeing Mindy’s new movie Late Night, watching some more of the new Twilight Zone episodes, polishing off my spring list, preparing my summer list, thinking about if I’ll ignore or celebrate National Best Friend Day on June 8th, figuring out a Father’s Day gift for the 16th, I do want to see Toy Story 4 but it feels weird to not see it with a niece/nephew, and I’ll definitely take photos of the new apartment and my favourite items that I bought for the apartment post I promised last month.
The leaves are fucking changing. DO YOU REALIZE THIS?! The fact that it feels like fall and actually IS fall is incredible. I’ve already unpacked my colder season attire and bed sheets and pumpkin table runners and you can’t fucking stop this train, BABY. Here’s all that went down in September.
I ate the (insanely good) heirloom tomato panzanella salad with anchovies at Cherry Point in Greenpoint in Brooklyn and it was my first panzanella salad and I was right to assume that I’d be in love with such a dish. Definitely will always order this in the future if I see it on any menu ever.
I bought the Sun Of A Beach Ombré Spray from OUAI a few months ago (it’s supposed to add highlights to your hair through exposure to the sun), and even though I only used it once… this is a hard pass. It does state that you should use it more than once to see results, but I just expected to be more wowed after one time. Any time I use Sun-In, even after one try, you can see a difference. So for $24, I’d expect something upon first use. Definite disappointment.
This is the second time I’ve bought this NARS concealer so I guess I’m now a forever consumer of it. It lasts a lot longer than the one I used to get from MAC and it goes on a lot smoother, too.
I was pretty excited to see that Charlotte Tilbury is now available at Sephora since that means that I was finally able to try out their Bar Of Gold Highlighting Palette, which turned out to be a huge disappointment. It’s such beautiful packaging, don’t be deceived. It’s just as sparkly and low quality as pretty much every other highlighter on the planet with the exception of maaaaybe Benefit’s Watt’s Up Soft Focus Highlighter, which is the only one I tend to gravitate towards.
I didn’t even know there was an Ulta store in NYC until recently, so I finally went the other day and whoa. Their Colourpop section was bigger than I anticipated - and it also has their brow pencils that I use exclusively, so that’s amazing. I did try their “coveted” highlighters as well and yeah they’re not even close to great. But that’s fine since their liquid lipsticks and brow pencils are amazing. You can’t have it all, deal with it.
I know it’s been years since The Office ended, but I tend to live in the past so obviously I’ve been watching a lot of bloopers from the show that I hadn’t seen before.
I saw The Corpse Bride for the first time and… meh? Maybe I just missed the time frame when I could’ve enjoyed this one, I think.
Loving this Cat Power version of the Rihanna song Stay.
I finally watched and finished all of Disenchantment and… I wish it were funnier. I don’t even say that with an attitude - I really, really wish it were funnier. Of the whole first season, only the final two episodes were actually interesting, which sucks and I wish it weren’t this way, but that’s just the reality of it.
So earlier this year I accidentally got on the Herbalife program and then realized what was going on, so I got out. It’s such an awful company and I can’t believe it took me this long to even hear about it. Definitely watch the documentary that I just saw Betting on Zero if you’d never heard about it or if you know anyone who’s ever tried Herbalife.
I’m not trying to say that I have a problem or anything, but sometimes when I can’t sleep I’ll take NyQuilonly because I really need to sleep that night, no interruptions. So when I saw ZzzQuil at the store, obviously I thought I should try that since its main purpose is to put you to sleep. What’s insane is that it didn’t work AT ALL. Makes zero sense. Don’t be fooled, stick to NyQuil.
Ate at Prince Tea House in Astoria and it’s a really sweet little place. The crepe cake actually wasn’t that far off from how good the Lady M crepe cakes taste.
I watched the second season of The Good Place, mostly because there wasn’t much else on, but still. Best parts? Easily a tie between the appearances of Jason Mantzoukas and Maya Rudolph. I love that man more than any other actor on TV these days. Every time he’s on screen, he’s perfect. Man is amazing and constantly the funniest person in every scene. Other than that, the show’s still just okay. Also, Manny Jacinto is such a fox it’s maddening. Also also, Ted Danson being so great in this scene.
I attempted to read Judd Apatow’s Sick in the Head, but snoooooooooze. I really did try to read as much as I could, but it was a lot. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, that man does not know how to condense. I’ve always hated his interview style and find that he takes hours upon hours to get to a main point. I mean, in a book about interviewing comedians, in what world is asking the question “So were you a class clown in high school?” in any way groundbreaking? I really don’t know why I’m so hard on this man (especially because of how much I loved Freaks and Geeks as well as Undeclared), but it’s just one of those things I can’t budge on. The ONLY thing I took away from the book was the fact that I learned that Martin Short went to university to become a social worker. Neat. THAT’S IT.
In other book news, Chrissy Teigen’s second cookbook came out! Already picked out two things from it that I’m gonna make for Thanksgiving in a few weeks. ALSO! Lindy West just announced that her next book (The Witches Are Coming) will come out next spring!
Finally went to the Met rooftop to see this year’s installation and look, I don’t really think I’m a hard person to impress. I’m not. But look at this.
…that’s all there was. On an entire rooftop. Why is it so hard to get installation art that makes good use of its space? I’ll never shut up about this, but years ago there were numerous, gorgeous, playful structures created by Jeff Koons on that roof and you felt like you were in another world. I don’t need art to be pretty, but I do need it to make sense in its space. Not asking a lot here.
Candle season is upon us: Nathan’s pick? Leaves. My pick? Hot cocoa & cream. Two for $16 at Bath & Body Works at the moment, it you’re in the market. Also, the vanilla pumpkin one from Trader Joe’s was a lot cheaper and smells pretty nuts.
My dear friend Paul was visiting and invited me to go to the Color Factory in NYC with him. It’s pretty much just an Instagram museum meaning that people mainly go to take photos of themselves, so we did! Duh. I don’t know that I’d ever go to one again since it felt a little… hollow? I’m not trying to be negative about the experience, it just seemed very calculated and void of any real meaning with an added air of superficiality. Yeah, that definitely sounds negative. It really just felt like something that would and should be fun for a child, not an adult. I came across a really great piece talking about these types of places that really sums up how I feel about the whole experience.
Can’t even believe I’ve never eaten anything at Grom before, but I now regret every time I’ve walked by and not went in. I mean, look at this beauty.
Flavour: Tiramisu
All right. So I started Riverdale. And listen, shut up, I know it maybe seems like a bad show. You have to get over that thought though because it’s so, so good that I can barely deal with it. Who knew that I had such a yearning inside to see a half naked Jughead Jones in a human, real-life scenario about to have sex for the first time? Not me, apparently, because I REWOUND IT THREE TIMES*. The only way that I can describe why this show is so good? I think it’s mainly because I loved and collected these comics as a kid and I never got to see these characters develop beyond their prudishly chaste lives. And maybe it’s kind of amazing to finally see some shit happen. Major pros: Dylan McKay! Skeet Ulrich (whom, I’m sorry, will forever be the sexiest killer in any movie, of all time). Any and all Bughead scenes (ie. Betty & Jughead scenes). Major cons: pleeease no more musical episodes, they’re awful and if I wanted any musical interlude in a television show I’d watch fucking Glee. Also the fact that the actor who plays Archie has to dye his hair red for the role. If that isn’t sacrilegious then I don’t know what is. It’s insanity. So many hot men with red hair could’ve played that part and I promise you I’m not biased in that opinion, shut your mouth. Also, this is the greatest description of the show I’ve ever heard.
Nathan and I watched Hellraiser on Netflix because I’d never seen it and we wanted to choose “something light” since it’s not October yet. ‘Light’ my bag! WAY too gory and not FUN-gory, just gory-gory. Only thing I liked about it was hearing that when trying to decide on a title, the writers opened it up for discussion to the production team to offer up their own suggestions, prompting a 60-year-old female crew member to offer up "What a Woman Will do for a Good Fuck."
I tried to give Van Leeuwan another shot and man, it just blows. How can you fuck up ICE CREAM? Even the fucking sprinkles hurt my teeth. Never, never again. Grom for life.
I haven’t watched the new SNL that premiered last night, but I did watch the cold open and man, it’s really really good
