Life has been a bit of a blur the last few months. New job, new dog, and new experiences. My husband and I also took maternity photos for two friends of ours. We attended our first normal wedding during COVID. We’re also in the middle of building our pottery studio. I’m so excited our pottery wheels have recently arrived!

Cooking

I’ve been continually looking for recipes and keeping our meals varied. Here are a few cookbooks I’ve been following lately.

• Six Seasons: A New Way with Vegetables
  This has been a great cookbook to pair with our vegetable garden as we grow with the seasons. In particular, we love the salad recipes.

• Ottolenghi Flavor
  We are always a fan of Ottolenghi and like his other cookbooks, this one doesn’t disappoint.

• OTK Shelf Love
  This is a newer book. My husband and I are a fan of the cinnamon rice recipe. Since my husband is vegetarian, I substitute the meat for him with seitan.

Makeup

While working from home, I’ve barely touched makeup for over a year. The little I do put on, is one of my favorite concealers.

• NARS Radiant Concealer
  I use praline for summer, custard for winter months. A little goes a long way and it feels quite light on my skin.

• Artis Elite Oval 7 Brush
  After trying different brushes and sponges over the years, I finally made the leap to try the Artis brushes. I bought a single brush, Oval 7, which I’ve enjoyed using for about a year now. It applies product smoothly, but doesn’t pick up much material onto the brush itself.

enjoying the seasons

• Gowans
  If you like an alcoholic apple cider, Gowan’s has a good selection. We randomly came across their orchard while driving back from a wedding.

• Cold Hollow Cider Mill
  I love their apple cider donuts and cider. I ordered a batch last year and this year. Love having the donuts toasted for breakfast.

A LITTLE LOVE IN OUR LIVES

• NY Times Modern Love Column
  So much of the news we read today is rather depressing at times. I recently discovered this column from the NY Times (I’m a hopeless romantic) and have enjoyed supplementing my news reads with this.

FOR THE cozy home

• I’ve been looking to add rugs into our home recently. I’ve really loved these beautiful, but also economic options from Chris Love Julia x Loloi. You can also find them on Amazon, Wayfair, and beyond.

in the vegetable garden

• We harvested the last of the squash blossoms, San Marzano tomatoes, and Dolce Fresca basil. I started direct sowing seeds for fava beans, haricot french beans, soybeans, bok choy, and giant winter spinach.

• I highly recommend these seed sources for bok choy and spinach.

it’s a pet’s life

• As the weather has turned colder, I splurged a bit on two outfits for our dog, Yoshi: Rororiri Cardigan Paul and Fabdog’s Reindeer Fairisle Sweater. I thought Fabdog had good value. Rororiri was good quality, but it’s really difficult to exhange or make returns if you’re not able to visit the store locally. The cardigan is really adorable though.