Fall, Emerson Style

The air has that familiar bite this week.  Heat wanes, humidity evaporates, and a breath of fresh, sweet, crisp fall breeze flows through the city.  My magical iced coffee supplies are about to be shelved in favor of hot lattes and steaming cups of green tea.  And even though no one in this house is going back to any sort of school at the moment, I have an unrequited need to sharpen pencils, buy a Trapper Keeper, and go back-to-school shopping.  Truth be told, I will probably be rocking the same ole jeans and sweaters as I did last fall, but while the boys are doing their fantasy football picks, I may as well join in the fun and share my fantasy fall shopping choices, and my number one draft pick for Fall '11 is EmersonMade.

No one does fall quite like Emerson!  She embodies the chic, classic yet edgy, modern New England style I adore, and I want one of each thing in her fall collection + some of her business acumen on the side.  Here are my favorites from her just-released autumn line...

I love this Olive Wool Day Coat!  Not only would it go with all things brown or black, but the fur collar adds that little bit of funk I so enjoy and which keeps me from purchasing the responsible, classic, black trench I probably ought to purchase at some point.  But I need this first...

Long have I resisted the pull of the skinny jean.  Recently many fashion-minded friends have been prodding me in their direction, and that encouragement plus seeing the cuteness of them on similarly proportioned girls has me almost ready to take the plunge.  Were I to boldly steer myself in a skinny jeans direction, Emerson's Gunmetal Skinnys would be my top pick for the job.  Love the fit, love the wash, and why not throw in a pair of those hot red heels as well?

I must have these Indigo Bluebells.  I just must.

And while I am at it, I shall also take a Bag O' Turtlenecks.  Perfect beat poet flair in soft cotton jersey and two to a bag for $48.  Don't mind if I do.

Finally, also from the Emerson's Basics collection, I love this dress, which is sold as a Bag O' Three in red, black and navy.  With tights and tall boots or leggings and ballet flats and a cozy cardi, you could sport these little frocks well into the fall.  To me, this shrieks hip urban mom uniform, which I aspire to acquire and rock!

What's on your fall shopping list (fantasy or otherwise)?

Sending Love to Vermont

Vermont is the closest place I have ever had to a home state.  We moved a lot when I was growing up, and the longest I was ever anywhere at one stretch was about five years.  Between my time at university in hippie-haven Burlington, a year spent living in the husband's gorgeous hometown nearby, our time in Central Vermont for law school and after, I've spent a collective eight years in the Green Mountain State, making it my adopted homeland.  I got married there, had my son there, and will always have a soft spot for the beauty of the mountains, the rivers and our beloved Lake Champlain.  So, my heart is absolutely breaking this morning for all of our dear friends there who have endured epic flooding and so much devastation and loss.  The more news I see, the more dire the situation seems.

These videos really moved me.  The first shows one of my favorite yoga studios getting hit and the second shows a covered bridge in Quechee which we've crossed so many times succumbing to the river.  Many favorite local businesses have been hard hit, and I'm alarmed that we still haven't heard from anyone at the law school.  Friends, I hope you are safe.

There's really no place else on earth like Vermont.  Please keep the Green Mountain State and all the people there struggling to clean up from this mess in your thoughts today.  

A Beautiful Morning

Today has been one of those unexpectedly perfect days.  The little man slept until an unheard of 7am, allowing me 8+ full hours of rare, peaceful slumber.  I woke up feeling so refreshed and had a few moments to myself (also rare) before he started calling from his room.  Then I brought him into bed with me and we had the BEST and most precious hour-long snuggle and chat. Someday when he is a stinky teenage boy who wants nothing to do with me, I will cherish these moments even more than I do right now.  And let me tell you that I never stay in bed until 8am; it just doesn't happen in my current reality.  So the morning felt delicious already by the time my feet hit the floor.  The little guy then happily played with trucks by himself, giving me time to put a bit of effort into my breakfast rather than inhaling my usual bowl of Kashi (btw - have you tried the new Kashi Golden Goodness? A fast fave for moi.).

I sauteed some baby portobello mushrooms with a drop of olive oil and some fresh thyme.

And made a beautiful mushroom, Cabot Sharp Cheddar and egg white scramble, served alongside delicious whole grain toast spread with Earth Balance.  YUM.

Then the little guy and I headed out on a glorious, two-hour ramble.  We went to the library, a phenomenal resource that I have sadly underutilized in the year we have lived in this neighborhood.

Me gusta la biblioteca.

But no more!  I am now the proud holder of a shiny, red Boston Public Library card, and I came away with a pile of fun new books for the little man to enjoy, as well as Kris Carr's new book, which I've been dying to get my hands on.

Perhaps after my sister's wedding I will embark upon her "21-Day Adventure Cleanse", but not a moment before, I tell you, not a moment before... mama does not do wedding toasts without a rather strong drink in hand.

After the library we communed with nature for a bit...

Jamaica Pond is my own slice of city bliss.

A young Beckham in the making.

We are a family of tree-huggers.  Literally.

And then headed to City Feed for a treat.  Iced Americano for me, avocado muffin for my buddy.  Grateful Dead's American Beauty playing overhead.  Ahhh... does life get any better?

I love this store.  Call me bohemian bourgeois, I can live with it.

Don't you love it when pure happiness sneaks up on you?  I have an overwhelming feeling of joy today.  The weather is perfect, and spending the whole morning wandering outdoors was a gift.  I am grateful for rest, good food, warm sunshine, and my boys.  Happy Tuesday.

Grilled Summer Salad

Most weeks, I hit the grocery store with a meal plan in mind and solid list of items to procure.  Sometimes, though, I'm not so organized, and my trip to the store is much more like an episode of Supermarket Sweep, with me grabbing things from the shelves and getting out of there as quickly as possible.  When one of these rush trips occurs, I try to focus my random shopping on the produce section, figuring that whatever I come home with, I'm bound to create something healthy from a good haul of veggies. Last Friday, the week drew to an end, and I still had quite a bit of random produce in my crisper from one of these crazy grocery runs.  Inventory included:
6 ears of corn
2 Japanese eggplants
1 pint of heirloom cherry tomatoes
1 orange bell pepper
2 leeks
and 1 bunch of fresh basil

I also had a beautiful loaf of rosemary-olive oil fougasse bead from a trip to a favorite bakery.  I stared down these ingredients for quite awhile, trying to make sense of how to use them.  Roasted vegetables with a grain of some sort?  Tomato and basil pasta with a ratatouille-inspired side dish?  Soup?  Nothing seemed quite right.  Also, it was a summer Friday, and unless there is an outright hurricane happening (and sometimes even in the middle of one), the husband prefers to be standing by the grill with a PBR to celebrate the start of the weekend.  What to do?

I took a gamble.  I halved and cleaned the leeks and the pepper, brushed everything with olive oil, sprinkled it with salt and pepper, and sent it out to the grill.  The husband grilled everything in the photo above except for the tomatoes and basil, which I chopped and put in a large salad bowl.  He came back in with meltingly sweet leeks, perfectly charred eggplant, salty-caramelized ears of corn, slightly crisped bread, and a beautifully heat-blistered pepper.  I chopped all of these ingredients, removed the nibs from the corn, and tossed them all together with a solid dousing of white balsamic vinegar, a splash of olive oil, and a drizzle of honey.  

The result was a little slice of summer dinner heaven.  All the flavors married together beautifully, with the char-grilled flavor being the common denominator.  This salad was light, complex, and utterly delicious.  I served it on a bed of mixed greens, but it was perfection on its own, and we topped it with grated parmesan to take it right over the top.  This dish just goes to show what kind of kitchen kismet can occur when you let yourself run wild in an in-season produce section (or at the farmers' market!).  I never would have planned this meal in advance, but it is now something we'll make again and again, and it would make an elegant dinner to serve to vegetarian friends with a crisp glass of white wine.

Friday night already seems like a million years ago, but this dish stuck with me, and had to be shared.  Sometimes the best recipes are happy accidents!

Summer Bucket List

These days, I live and die by my MobileMe calendar.  We're a little Apple-obsessed, and their web-based calendar tool allows us to manage our whole family schedule simultaneously and remotely.  The calendar refreshes itself on our iPhones every fifteen minutes, so if the husband adds an offsite meeting to it and I'm across town trying to schedule a doctor's appointment, I always have the most up-to-date family schedule at my fingertips.  This is absolutely crucial for a one car family!  Needless to say, I look at this calendar many times a day, and I like to think it keeps me somewhat grounded in time.  So imagine my shock when I discovered the following:
1) September is now apparently two weeks away.
2) Football season, the true harbinger of fall in this household, commences in just four short Mondays.
3) My sister's wedding "this fall" is three weeks from Saturday.

Shocking.  Where did the summer go?

I've always loved the autumn season, and am excited for cashmere sweaters, butternut squash soup, apple cider, crisp mornings, and cuddling under blankets again.  Still, the end of summer is always bittersweet, and I'm not quite ready to let go. August is still kicking, and so I'm determined to seize the day and suck as much summer out of the next few weeks as I can.   Which is why, without further ado, I bring you:

SMJ's End of Summer Bucket List
1) How have I gone the whole summer without eating a single sweet, succulent Maine lobster? Luckily the end of the summer is when they are sweetest and best, so this is the perfect item to kick off my bucket list.  Shellfish bliss, come to mama...

Photo via getmainelobster.com

2) One of my favorite days this summer was when the three of us packed up early on a Saturday morning and spent the day together at Crane Beach in Ipswich.  We built sandcastles, played in the water, made friends with fellow parents chasing toddlers, and worked on our tans.  It was glorious.  We need at least one more beach day before New England beaches require ten layers of wool for a visit.

Little man digging it up at Crane Beach.

3) Another favorite day this summer involved driving out to western Mass to go blueberry picking with another mama friend and her two little ones.  Everything about the day was lovely: how into berry-picking the little guy was (at one point he turned to me with a huge grin on his face and said, "Mom!  Berries is FUN!", the phenomenal blueberry smoothie I sucked down for lunch (seriously heaven in a cup), the ridiculous blueberry cider donuts I brought back for the hubs, spending time out of the city in the peacefulness of the farm, and enjoying the company of good friends on a fun excursion.  I must go back for one more fix before berry season is sadly over.

So proud of his haul.

4) Speaking of freshly picked fruit... after that trip to the berry farm, I was headed directly out of town for the weekend, and so the fruit was gradually eaten over cereal or in handfuls by the little guy until it was gone.  What I'd really like to do is go pick another bounty, and then bake something like this...

Drool.  Photo via From Me to You.

Soon it will be all apple goodies all the time.  I need some more summer fruit pies/cobblers/muffins in my life before then.

5) One of the best ways to enjoy Boston is by people watching from a tiny table at an al fresco cafe.  Restaurants only offer outdoor dining for about half the year here, and that half is quickly winding down.  I'm not talking about going out for a four course dinner, I'm talking about slowly sipping a strong cocktail and watching the beautiful people go by (and giggling over the over-the-top fashion). 

6) We haven't been out to the Cape since moving back to Boston.  One of my favorite memories from the early days when we were still dating and living here was a camping trip we took out on the Cape at the end of the summer.

 

We ate at clam shacks, attempted surfing in Wellfleet, and snapped this photo of a perfect sunset in Truro.  We've haven't taken the little guy camping yet, and an end-of-summer Cape camping reprise could be just the thing to cap off this summer correctly. 

There's more where this came from, but these are things at the top of my list.

What do you want to do between now and first frost?

The Mean Reds

Do you remember the scene from Breakfast at Tiffany's where Audrey Hepburn describes having a case of the "mean reds"? Yes, the mean reds.  When you're feeling anxious but you don't know why... this is how I find myself feeling today.  I signed in to blog and could hardly believe it had been a week since my last post.  It has been a busy one.  We've had family visiting, endless excursions (everything from hot yoga, to the Children's Museum, to mornings at the park, to a quickie trip up north), copious kitchen projects, and a boy with a persistent case of diaper rash who is having trouble sleeping as a result.  We've had to say some sad good-byes, had some minor worries to contend with, and work I thought I had I don't have anymore.  The hubs and I helped a friend cater a two-hundred person wedding late into Saturday night, and I still somehow still feel a bit bleary from that.  I feel all at once as if there is so much to do I can't possibly do it all, and like I absolutely must take on more in order to make any progress forward. I guess I kind of feel like this...

I am definitely having a Breakfast at Tiffany's kind of day, but without the will or energy to put on a black cocktail dress and go moon around outside jewelry stores downtown. Instead, I'm looking forward to an evening curled up on the couch with my husband and some comfort food. I may or may not pour a large glass of Sancerre come 5pm. I'm going to get some sleep and focus on gratitude. I'm going to drink a kombucha and clean my house (it is therapeutic, don't ask). I'm going to take some Advil, buck up, put on some Jerry Garcia Band and have a snuggle with my little boy and my furry boy. I'm going to let the reds in for today, and banish them tomorrow. Wish me luck.

What do you do to ditch the mean reds?

Obsessed

Hi.  My name is SMJ and I am obsessed...

...with Trader Joe's Dark Chocolate Covered Pomegranate Seeds. Antioxidant-rich and budget-friendly, just a lil' teaspoon full actually satisfies my sweet tooth.  Praise be.

...with EmersonMade's pantry.  This is what the pantry in my dream kitchen looks like.  In fact, I am obsessed with the whole house.

Photos via Design*Sponge

...with Kris Carr's Crazy Sexy Manifesto, a wellness primer and self-care mission statement that inspires and belongs on each and every one of our fridges.

...with the dark blue pedi and perfect latte I got this weekend.  Bliss.

That is all.