Author: City Living (Boston)

I am a writer and cook. I write about city living, travel, food, the arts and family. I raise my family in Cambridge & Boston and share tips for throwing cocktail parties, packing lunches, having fun on the weekend without going broke or losing your sanity.

You Light up My Life: From Lamps to Fixtures

I am of the philosophy that a light fixture can make or break a room.  Think about television, movies, theatre and dance.  The lighting can change the entire feel of a scene right?  The same is true of the lighting in a room.  With light fixtures for a room though, they need to do more…

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A Few Things to Do This Rainy Weekend

1) Visit the Vocal Vibrations exhibit at Le Laboratoire, Cambridge.  Spend time inside a cozy space listening to the sounds of the exhibit.  Feel the vibrations of your voice in your hand or key in on the sound of d/ré with a pair of headphones. 2) Head to the WCRB Cartoon Festival at Symphony Hall…

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Boston Ballet’s Swan Lake: From Studio to Stage

Drama, grace, deceit and of course love are all common themes on the stage whether it is Shakespeare, a musical on Broadway or the ballet.  Swan Lake will take your breath away over and over again  not only from the grace and power of the movement on stage but also from the twists and turns, the…

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5 (five, cinq, fünf) random facts about moi

I am on a train and my lovely friend Phyllis from Napkin Hoarder has tagged me in a game of ‘5 random facts’. “Is that cool thing in your hair a spaghetti headz?” you ask. ‘Why, yes. Yes it is.” So here we go: 1) I have a younger brother and, to go with the…

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Dine out with Chef Renee Erickson at Row 34

This came through my inbox just now and if I were here tomorrow night I would go in a heartbeat. I love Row 34 and would to get to know more about Chef Erickson. Tomorrow, Chef Renee Erickson of Seattle’s The Walrus and the Carpenter. Head over to Row 34 Thursday, October 23rd. Guests are…

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The Return of the Bow Tie: Alton Brown at hook+ALBERT

If you live in Cambridge, anywhere near Harvard University it may seem that the bow tie never went away.  The bow tie is always present at black tie affairs, but until recently it was a rare sighting outside formal affairs. The bow tie is a signature accessory for many Harvard University folks but as we…

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Make Puffed Rice at Home (Recipe * how to)

Isabelle and I were recently invited to the kickoff of Uncle Ben’s Ben’s Beginners cooking contest and we were inspired to try something a little different. I wondered if we could puff out own rice. There were a few resources online but not a ton. Here is how we did it. Isabelle then created a…

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Fallen for Funghi: A Taste of Fall at Lineage

I fell for fungi a long time ago. As a child, I remember sitting by the counter in my mother’s kitchen carefully wiping down mushrooms with a damp paper towel until the were spotless and ready to be stuffed. When I was a bit older, we lived in France and I remember collecting mushrooms in…

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Slow Down to Speed Up

Sometimes, I need to remind myself to slow down to get things done. It takes some effort because it’s counter intuitive. It reminds me a bit of Driver’s Ed and learning to drive in the mud. Our teacher would have us speed up as much as we could and then when we hit he mud,…

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Small Changes: Family Life Ever Evolving

Small changes is a theme of parenthood.  From the newborn days when you spend days trying to parent perfectly only to find out that once you have found your stride something changes to the constant changes of routines and schedules of school-aged sports playing children. Last year, I wrote about a change in routine of…

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