November 2, 2022

The Best of October

by Liz Heather in Best of NYC, Family, Food, Halloween, Ideas, Links, Movies, Music, Personal, Recipes, Television, Travel

ontario canada autumn leaves trees fall weather changing Liz Heather October 2022 — Ontario, Canada - October 2022

This might be the hardest week of the year because it’s officially the longest period of time until next Halloween. I tend to take a few days to decompress a bit, so by this coming weekend I’ll be fully ready for holiday-mode. That being said, October was such a great month that felt like almost a year long - in a good way. Here’s what went down.

You can find my favourite tweets of the month over here and here.
I think it’s clear that I watched every good 90s Halloween sitcom episode that I could find links for.
For Halloween, I dressed up as Tony Montana (Al Pacino) from Scarface and Baby Dog was, umm, my main accessory.
In love with this article, “The Secret To Marriage Is Never Getting Married.”
I’ve always wanted to make the Nestle Toll House chocolate chip oatmeal cookies recipe (on the back of the Toll House package) and they were really, really good. Might become a staple in my cookie repertoire.
I made these soft pumpkin cookies with salted maple icing again this year and they continue to be incredible - and that’s coming from someone who truly hates soft cookies.
I also made these garlic butter chicken meatballs with creamy orzo (in a slow cooker) and the meatballs were great, I’ll definitely make those again. But the orzo cooked in a crockpot? Hard pass. Pasta always tastes terrible from a crockpot, I knew this and still went ahead, so it’s my fault really.
I was in Canada for awhile, so I…
- Went to the new(ish) Keg near Square One and it kind of sucked? What the hell? The meat was nowhere worth the price, which is weird because I remember that it used to be better. I’m trying to find my new Canyon Creek (since it closed) and it’s a hard task to undertake but I won’t give up.
- I had the burger from Ozzy’s Burgers and the lamb was terrible, but the regular burgers were fantastic.
- My niece Layla turned 17 (!) so thankfully we were able to get the Milk Bar birthday cake from the Toronto location. It’s such a shame that location is closing at the end of the year.
- I also planted some bulbs in the garden with my mom, which makes me even more excited for spring to come next year to see if anything blooms.
- I tried the new Lays flavour Fries & Gravy and good god I love this country.
- I made the apple fritter cake (again) for (Canadian) (real) Thanksgiving and I. love. this. cake.
- My dad put up his seasonal bird feeder and I think I’ve said this before, but the answer to life is getting a bird feeder and then sitting down to watch it. Nothing better.

bird feeder cardinal bird watching Canada — Heaven on earth?

baby dog Liz Heather Canada — My dad & Baby Dog, October 2022

Mississauga Ontario Canada Liz Heather October 2022 autumn leaves fall trees — Mississauga, Ontario - October 2022

lays limited edition potato chips fries and gravy flavour Liz Heather October 2022 — Fries & Gravy Lays

autumn leaves Canada Liz Heather — Oakville, Ontario - October 2022

I made my way to the Harvest Moon Farm & Orchard in North Salem, NY (with my friend Diana) where we had the best warm apple cider donuts and cider mimosas. Afterward we went for brunch at The Arch restaurant, which was beautiful & old, but nothing really spectacular food-wise.

harvest moon orchard and farm north salem new york Liz Heather cider mimosa October 2022 — Cider mimosa at Harvest Moon Farm & Orchard, North Salem, New York

harvest moon farm and orchard north salem new york Liz Heather October 2022 — Cider donuts at Harvest Moon Farm & Orchard, North Salem, New York

On Halloween, I took Baby Dog on our annual autumn visit to Central Park and it was bursting with beauty.

central park New York City autumn fall October 2022 Liz Heather leaves — Central Park, October 2022

When it comes to all purpose cleaners, I’m in love with Mrs. Meyers. The snowdrop scent is my favourite one (which should be coming out again soon), but I just got the apple cider one and yikes. It’s perfect. Is it sad to have favourite seasonal all purpose cleaners? Absolutely. But here we are. Welcome to your late 30s.

mrs. meyer's all purpose cleaner apple cider Liz Heather autumn cleaner — Mrs. Meyer’s Apple Cider Limited Edition Scent

Now if we’re talking seasonal coffee drinks? The Starbucks pumpkin cream cold brew (only 1/2 shot of syrup, extra foam) makes me a little sick by the end of the drink, but I still love it. And the vanilla cream cold brew at Tim Hortons is also really good. Oooo and the Tim Hortons hazelnut cold brew with espresso foam? Get out of here, so good. I think I just like foam.
Loving the new Charlie Brown stamps from the USPS. Wait, who is in charge of deciding the new stamps? Oh god, have I discovered the greatest job on earth? I THINK I HAVE??
So I got a new Apple charger from The Apple Store, the one that apparently charges faster. Aaaaaand my battery dies even quicker now! Sweet!

I was scrambling to find a dress for a wedding this month and Bloomingdale’s saved me. How do I always forget about that place? I love an old, good department store. Yes they can be overwhelming, but they’re practically deserted. I have to remember this for the future. Oh! And Macy’s too! Such great dresses for special occasions.
So Nathan and I went to Los Angeles for a wedding (the dress code was “outdo us”) and we stayed at Citizen M hotel in downtown LA. Let me just say that this is not the type of hotel for two people to share a room, that’s the nicest way I can put it. It’s definitely clean and relatively nice, but the rooms are laughably small. The wedding was fun and I loved walking around downtown LA mostly because of the incredibly well preserved buildings. Sure, the area is pretty dicey but it’s beautifully ancient. We walked to Santee Alley (where I got my new favourite feather clutch) and three days was the perfect amount of time to stay in that area. And the baja tacos from Tocaya were insanely good. Also the Wolfgang Puck Express stand at LAX had really good food to take on the plane.

citizenm hotel citizen m hotel la downtown LA Liz Heather Baby Dog small hotel — Citizen M hotel room, this bed is literally the width of the room

tocaya modern mexican downtown la mexican food Liz Heather baja tacos fish taco — Baja taco from Tocaya, Downtown LA

Nathan Macintosh Liz Heather Los Angeles sunglasses in car — Ummm, is Nathan somehow cooler in LA??

Nathan Macintosh Liz Heather citizenm hotel downtown LA elevator — Okay hold up, are we BOTH COOLER IN LA??

Nathan Macintosh Liz Heather Los Angeles downtown LA wedding — WE BAD

Nathan Macintosh Liz Heather Los Angeles wedding October 2022 — California blonde dreams coming true

Los Angeles downtown LA Liz Heather October 2022 — The Los Angeles Theatre opened in 1931 - Downtown LA

Speaking of airports, the restaurant The Hearth by Lynn Crawford at Pearson in Terminal 1 in Toronto is great! Get the meatballs. Love it when airport food is above average.

Of course I listened to the new Taylor Swift album Midnights and the best songs are Question…?, Sweet Nothing, Anti-Hero, Bejeweled, Maroon and You’re On Your Own, Kid.
Some things I watched this month:
- Smile: such a fun time. Love a fun horror movie.
- I rewatched the first two Friday The 13th movies with Layla (her first time seeing them) and I’d forgotten how good they were. They really hold up well over time.
- Recent SNLs: Nothing super noteworthy in any of the episodes, I like the new guys. I was introduced to that great Megan Thee Stallion song Anxiety, which I can’t stop playing. The worst sketch I’ve seen in years was that Jack Harlow one with the joker. Just awful. Oh, and Colin Farrell looks alarmingly good.
- Celebrity Jeopardy: I solely watched because I love Ike Barinholtz (and he was great). But look, I know that Celebrity Jeopardy is, like, the easiest Jeopardy to exist. I understand that. But I had no idea how incredibly dumb most celebrities are. I mean, I know they’re not exactly known for their IQ levels but this was actually just wild to watch. Every single person on each episode I saw was a complete moron (with the exception of Ike and Simu Liu).
- Barbarian: so great, loved every bit of it. Bill Skarsgård remains as hot as always. (Sidenote: I was gushing about Skarsgård later to Nathan before bed and he scoffed and dismissed it so I asked him, “You probably don’t even have an answer, but who would you consider an attractive celebrity man?” and without even a second of hesitation he goes, “Pierce Brosnan in ‘97.” Hahahahahah, god I died. He’s not wrong.)

Some things I’m looking forward to this month: I’ve already put my order in for this year’s bayberry candles, I’m finally going to read Dave Grohl’s book, of course I’ll get the Thanksgiving croissant from Milk Bar, I’m definitely gonna go to the NY postcard show, and I’ve already got my ticket to see the Thierry Mugler exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum which opens on the 18th. Oh! And a gentle reminder if you’ve started Christmas shopping: get the damn gift receipt.

If you have any interest in reading what went on in September, come on over here and you can see more posts like this on my latest newsletter.

Baby Dog Mississauga Ontario Canada autumn leaves trees changing Liz Heather October 2022 ray of sunshine — Ray of sunshine on my ray of sunshine

September 22, 2021

Autumn List

by Liz Heather in Personal

“How beautiful the leaves grow old. How full of light and color are their last days.”

— John Burroughs

The absolute best time of the year has officially begun, the start of the three equally best seasons. Here are a few of the things I’d love to do this fall.

Go to Downey’s for our annual visit.
Make turkey poutine with Thanksgiving leftovers.
Make apple fritters or an apple fritter cake.
Learn the Phantasm theme on piano.
Eat the steak at L’Artusi (I only ever get pasta here but look at that beast, below).

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A post shared by L'Artusi (@lartusi)

I didn’t want to go overboard with my list this year because I don’t want to feel overwhelmed, I just want to enjoy the season as much as possible without having a laundry list of things that must be done. Of course there are some other things that I’m planning, but those are surprises for later on. Some other small things that I do each autumn? I’ll break out the warmer comforter for the bed soon. Costume planning is well underway. I’ll unpack and display all of our autumn/Halloween stuff this week. I’m definitely going to make these leftover stuffing muffins. Of course I’ll get Milk Bar’s Thanksgiving croissant when it’s available in November. Oh, and I definitely want to make this leftover sandwich again.

As always, I encourage you to come up with an autumn list of your own, you’re not that busy.

You can see more posts like this on my latest newsletter.

September 30, 2018

The Best of September

by Liz Heather in Best of NYC, Movies, Music, Personal, Television

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 NyQuil only 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.

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

Excited to see what’s in store for October!

*It was nine times. I rewound it nine times.

(If you have any interest in past monthly roundups, they can be found here: August 2018, July 2018, June 2018 & May 2018.)

And you can see more posts like this on my latest newsletter.

September 30, 2015

Autumn Leaves

by Liz Heather in Advice, Beauty

I hope you're not thinking it's corny to do a leaves post, 'cause baby - that's happening.

I can debate a child for maybe twenty minutes on which season is the best. And the great thing about that argument is that I don't even really have an answer to that question (all I'm certain of is that summer is the worst). Can't I just say that winter, spring and autumn tie for the best? The snow of winter, the smell of spring and the leaves of autumn are equally the greatest parts of each of those times of year. That's just a damn fact.

I really hope you're noticing these leaves around you, 'cause they're gonna leave us rather quickly.

All of these are photos are just some of the ones I've taken this year, so I think you can get a feel for how much I admire them. You don't have to necessarily photograph them to enjoy them, but I beg you to go hang out somewhere outside and f-ing bask for a little while.

September 28, 2015

Pigs in Leaves

by Liz Heather in Links

This doesn't make you smile? Get yourself checked.

September 24, 2015

Autumn List 2015

by Liz Heather in Personal

Of course I'm going to make a list of autumn things to do and of course I'm going to tell you about it. Off we go!

Go apple picking.
Make tiramisu! (What's that? This isn't a typical fall thing to do? I can't hear you?)
Take photos of Baby Dog in the leaves.
Go to Goodwill to figure out my Halloween costume.
Watch Hocus Pocus.
Decorate the front porch of my parent's house.
Scent the house like autumn.
Try the new soups at Sweet Janes.
Visit the oldest cheese shop in NYC - Alleva Dairy.
Check out Washington Mews in Greenwich Village.

And I'll probably peruse this list a little, since, you know, OCTOBER IS COMING.

You can see more posts like this on my latest newsletter.