All You Need Is...

For Valentine's Day, which, amazingly, is just around the bend: a bottle of love potion, made in Brooklyn with brandy and wild roses,

a well-curated collection of New York confections, 

and this sweet sentiment, with which I wholeheartedly agree.

Also, for a list of date recommendations by city (including mine for NYC), check out this post on Designlovefest - thank you for having me, Bri!

Enjoy the weekend, everyone - and fellow East Coasters, stay safe in the storm tonight!

Poetry, Prose, Pork Posole.

In many ways, Paper and Salt is the blog of my dreams. Written by a young avid bookworm and foodie, the blog "attempts to recreate and reinterpret the dishes that iconic authors discuss in their letters, diaries, essays, and fiction." Examples include Walt Whitman's cranberry coffee cake, Agatha Christie's  scones and Devonshire cream, and John Steinbeck's pork posole.

See more at Paper and Salt, here. 

And speaking of the written word, what have you been reading lately? It's been a slow year for me thus far on the book front. On my list for when time permits: Zadie Smith's "NW," "Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk" by Ben Fountain, and Eddie Huang's "Fresh Off the Boat." What's on yours?

Tiny Earthquakes.

This week on the Equals Record: anticipating traumatic experiences before they happen - and going for it anyway. (Case in point: my trip to Cambodia. That's me pictured below, on a visit to Kampot with my roommate.)

As always, an excerpt from the post: "There were earthquakes in Tokyo the night before I left for Cambodia. It was the summer after I’d graduated college and I planned to spend a month overseas, teaching English to a small group of children at an orphanage in Phnom Penh. My family accompanied me half of the way there, vacationing at my grandparents’ house in Tokyo for a few days before my departure. We shopped, ate at our favorite noodle shops, strolled the city streets. At night, I slept in my uncle’s childhood bedroom, on a soft mat laden with blankets. I slept soundly there, in a house I knew well from many visits to Japan. It was quiet—very still, even in the middle of the city. But on that night, after everyone else had gone to bed, I lay awake, palms pressed to the ground. It was shaking. Always a bit superstitious, I spent the better part of that night, eyes closed but unable to sleep, counting tiny, nearly imperceptible earthquakes. I was afraid. The next morning, I boarded the plane."

See the post in full, here. You can find the archive for my weekly column, Looking Forward (about the ups and downs of "growing up" in my twenties), here. Thank you so much for reading!

Bottom image via Cubicle Refugee. (If you know the original source, please share!)

Tree Tracery.

For those of you who have ever wondered about the handwriting of trees, artist Tim Knowles has your answer. By attaching pens to the trees' branches, Knowles was able to record the unique artistry and expressiveness of each. See more at his website, here...

...and have a wonderful Tuesday - I'm off to a coffee-and-work meeting with the lovely Emily Johnston Anderson,  and then will spend the rest of the afternoon with my niece. It's snowing here today - I see stomping in my future!

Via Tin House.

Best Dress.

This dress, dreamt up by multi-talented artist Erin Pearce - she's a voice for Yo Gabba Gabba, among many other things - has officially made my morning. Brilliant. (Or, as Erin calls it, "pretty pretty pretty good.")

Erin's also made a dress featuring the iconic George Costanza (she wore that one on New Year's Eve), and another using images of Natalie Portman in tears. And, lucky for us all, she takes custom orders - click here for more information.

Also, a big thank you to everyone who commented on Friday's post. Your suggestions and well-wishes are so very much appreciated. Wishing you all a happy start to the week!