Reading Material - San Francisco

Pacific Heights, San Francisco, California | Image: Laura Messersmith

It’s been a busy two weeks of travel first out to San Francisco where we hiked up this super steep hill to Pacific Heights and spotted this incredible house on the way – I could move right in! Then it was on to South Carolina with a great crew of friends (and kiddos!) for lots of football, cooking, and beach time. This is what I made in case you were curious:

All those flights have left this space a little radio-silent, but it’s fall again and I’m feeling reinvigorated to dive into new recipes featuring some of my favorite ingredients – prepare yourself for #smallkitchenfriendly recipes with lots of apples, squash, and warming spices. This weekend marks the first hurricane of the season shifting toward New York and it’s the perfect time to hunker down with some excellent reading material read by candlelight if necessary.

Reading Material:

Rainy weekends call for a stack of movies and The Kitchn has a perfectly curated list of their favorite movie kitchens. I’d willingly cook in every single one!

While we’re on the subject of silver screen perfection, this round table discussion of Nancy Meyers from The Toast is a spot-on summation of her seamless style.

If you haven’t read The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins yet (soon to star the wonderful Emily Blunt) please do! It made a 6 hour flight back from SF fly by, pun 100% intended.

This list of media brands as cocktails from Food52 is a little inside baseball, but it still made me smile. I think I’m either a Cherry Bombe girl or on a good day Food + Wine….

More humor, this time burgers as chefs from The New Yorker. Of course, our girl Ina got a shout out.

Gone Scouting + Bonus Reading Material

We’re just hours away from the weekend – hooray! – and I’m looking forward to a little trip out to eastern Long Island. That’s right, L.I. the Land of Ina (eeeeee!)

While I’m not sure that the weather is going to cooperate and make a stroll on the beach very enjoyable; I’m sure we’ll have a great time exploring some of the quaint towns and doing some comfort food cooking.

Since I’m haven’t written you a fun new post to read, I’ll direct you to some of the items that caught my attention this week. (Does it ruin it if I point out how I avoided a pun about “food for thought” or “something to chew on”?) Hope you have a great weekend!

Reading Material:

This piece on The Toast about living like a Nancy Meyers film cracked me up. Mallory Ortberg is a treasure.

Lord I love waffles, Huff Po does too.

And while we’re at it, I love Chef Emily Luchetti’s approach to making our daily meals #dessertworthy via the James Beard Foundation

I’m back on a book reading kick and finished The Vacationers about a year after everyone else did – a solid beach read even if you’re nowhere near the beach.

Now I’m starting on The Emperor’s Children. Sounds like a movie version is afoot…

Intrigued by this Buzzfeed list of old-school NYC businesses. Field trip anyone?

A Nancy Meyers Life

Somethings Gotta Give Living Room | Image: Architectural Digest

I came across this article from Lonny Magazine last week and the title made me laugh. A fait accompli, assumed to be true because who wouldn’t want to live in one of the homes created for a Nancy Meyers film? Most of them seem to be spacious, beautifully decorated, and located in picture-perfect locations.

Lonny and I are in good company when it comes to admiring them; Architectural Digest, Elle DÉCOR, and Traditional Home along with countless bloggers have done posts on Meyers’s design taste. Honestly, it seems like there’s more excitement about the set decoration than the plot of her upcoming movies, The Intern and Chelsea Hotel.

The seed must have been planted because this weekend I felt compelled to watch Something’s Gotta Give. Since then I’ve been thinking about why Nancy Meyers’s movies and their story-specific interiors are so appealing to me? Why are some of the earliest images I ever pinned stills of the interiors from It’s Complicated? What is it that makes so many people swoon for her decorating style?

Somethings Gotta Give Dining Room | Image: Architectural Digest

My theory has a few elements but the crux of the argument is that her ‘homes’ are the perfect balance of the ideal with the real. They seem attainable, earthy, and real. It’s easy to imagine re-creating that welcoming, casual vibe in our own homes with just some simple white paint, pale blue slipcovers, and sisal rugs.

At the same time, her movies and their gorgeous sets give us, the humble viewer, a mental vacation. She takes us to the aforementioned picture-perfect locations where linen pants never get wrinkled, pancakes are the go-to late night snack, and Keanu Reeves is an ER doctor who makes house calls. I think that’s what makes her movies and her sets so appealing – the simplicity of the good life distilled into two hours with just enough reality to keep us dreaming. 

Somethings Gotta Give Kitchen | Image: Architectural Digest