The Holy Days of Summer

Licks and loves

Some quick housekeeping:

This week, an interview I wrote went live - if you enjoy interviews and learning about food and private cheffing, you can read about it here. Also, I’m starting a new column called Things I’ve Consumed that will end every newsletter. There’s probably a better name for it somewhere, but the gist is it will be an amalgamation of things I’ve bought, things I’ve sent to friends to buy, things I wish I wrote, things I enjoyed eating, and so forth. Drink up!

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We are a mere week away from Memorial Day. (Didn’t May just start?) In honor of the season of fresh air and months speeding by in a blink that is soon to be bestowed upon us, I’m revisiting a piece that I wrote four years ago almost to the day, amid COVID, May 21st, 2021, at 6 pm, as I was walking through Washington Square Park, to be exact, right around the first time we all felt ok leaving our dwellings without masks. It’s one of my favorite things I’ve ever written, because it’s one of the few times that I took the exact rush of emotion and thought entering my system and managed to translate it, word for word, into a permanent piece. Even reading it now, I’m reminded of this feeling of it’s so good to be alive. It’s one I want to savor for a second (before the tourists and the ninety-degree subways and AC bills and such.)

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I Can’t

Stop looking at people’s mouths. The cracks in their teeth, dry lips, spinach on their gums, laughs, smiles, beards goatees. The whole lower half of emotion we’ve missed over the past year- I used to think eyes were expressive, but then I remembered what a frown line looked like. A smirk, a raise of a lip. An entire continent across an upper lip. Everyone has access to so many more emotions with their lips.

Does anybody else want to kiss every stranger they see? I was always obsessed with mouths because I was fascinated by their power. They held the key to so many secret boxes I never had access to. Words unspoken, or too many words spoken. Boundaries about to be crossed, the start of an ending. What a conclusion looks like. What a beginning looks like. But now, the obsession feels almost.. biological? No, that’s not right. Important? Vital? Needed for survival? A year behind paper and cloth showed how much I love watching someone bite into a hamburger. How annoyed I am at slurping. Visions of pea soup running down someone’s chin. Sloppy tongues down someone’s throat. Mouthing song lyrics? Breathing frustrated breaths. Sucking wind on the West Side Highway. What a scream looks like? Phone calls. Lip reading (voyeurism at its finest). Tequila shots? Bitter lime. Sour lemon. Tongue licking lips, licking teeth. Kisses for your grandma, powder on your lips from her 70-year-old face cream. Sunscreen wiped from your forearm onto your upper lip.

Lips represent the year lost. Mouths became a weapon that we had to fear, had to protect against. One of the only parts of the human body that is truly capable of showing love, anger, or sadness. We had to remove it from the equation. And I realize that there’s so little that we have control over in this life - expressing emotion is one of the few things we get to keep. And make personal, and distribute how we want to, and bestow on those deserving, and rip away from those not.

The holy days have returned of watching pepperoni grease fall from an open mouth. The sanctity of whispers, hot breath on your ear. Breathing in, breathing out. Lipstick smeared across front teeth. Wet kisses (from dogs and humans alike). Screaming matches with spit flying. Licks and loves.

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1. Jamie’s Farm Granola. Now, I don’t know who Jamie is, or what or how they make their granola. What I do know is that the Chai Streusel flavor has had a chokehold on me for three weeks now. Clean ingredients, everything baked in ghee, and you would never know it’s gluten-free. The Chai flavor is specifically made with Dona Chai, my favorite tea company from Brooklyn (and would have earned its spot on the list if not featured here. Seriously, their premade chai is… insane.)

2. The Things All New Yorkers Should Know (But Most Don’t). Curbed, a subsidiary of New York Magazine, has just released its newest “Best of New York” issue, featuring tips and tricks on how to navigate the system of New York. It’s a worthwhile read, even for those who don’t live in New York (did you know you could beat the lines at The Met and enter through a parking garage? Because I sure didn’t!) This article made me weirdly nostalgic and touched on the soft spot I have for this city I live in.

3. Primally Pure Body Butter. Beef Tallow. I know, you don’t want to hear about it. And you don’t really care. I didn’t either, for the record. Over the past year, I’ve slowly been transitioning all of my products (really, all of my life) from harsh chemicals to more natural solutions. I only really started to care when I learned what companies are actually putting into body oils and lotions (synthetic fragrances, phthalates, chemicals that do bad stuff that’s above my education level to explain here, etc). Primally Pure is one of my favorite non-toxic body care brands. Their face products, deodorants, body washes; you name it, I’ve tried it all. But by far, my favorite product of theirs is the Body Butter, specifically in the eucalyptus + lavender flavor. Put it on right after you get out of the shower, before you towel off, and thank me later for how good you smell and how soft your skin is. (Men should / can be using this too, just FYI.)

4. Two very good articles on the Dear Media empire. This week, WSJ and NYT both released pieces on Dear Media and Lauryn Bosstick (co-founder of Dear Media and Skinny Confidential, the wellness brand currently selling “non-toxic” toilet paper for $33 a roll). Dear Media operates the largest network of podcasts for women; most of the podcasts in their repertoire are based around health and life advice for women. Both articles are a fascinating take on the rise of Dear Media and their success in targeting a specific audience of women (especially as I normally would be their specific audience, interested in the latest health trends and advances, but even I can’t support the $33 toilet paper).

5. Roz Hair Leave-in Conditioner. The same comment above to the body butter applies here - this is for all hair types and genders. This bottle is magical. Another really fabulous clean beauty brand that actually works and smells really good. All their products are great, but the leave-in conditioner is my personal favorite, and lasts forever. I love a product that does a bunch of stuff for you in one go (remember those bottles of three-in-one shampoo, conditioner, and body wash we used to use in middle school?) During this week of constant humidity, it’s been a lifesaver.