When I was a child, I had one of those super sturdy metal hand held pencil sharpeners that you held over the trash can to sharpen a pencil with. My friends all had these cool colorful pencil sharpeners that had a built in pencil shaving catcher attached to it. My classrooms had the gun metal…
Category: Lifestyle – Shopping
A little shopping is always necessary.
Isabelle Takes on Pantry’s Turkey Roulade
As I mentioned, I recently popped into Pantry in Brookline to see what it was all about. For this review, they sent me home with their Turkey Roulade recipe for 2. My 11 year old daughter, who loves to cook, took on the recipe and made us dinner last week. The recipe is made for…
New Mother Hubbard: A Full Pantry in Brookline
Old Mother Hubbard Went to the cupboard, To give the poor dog a bone; When she came there, The cupboard was bare, And so the poor dog had none. -Nursery Rhyme Keeping a well stocked kitchen and pantry can be difficult. Whether you are a single college student with no time…
Fantasy Thanksgiving Menu: Boston Area Thanksgiving To Go
I love to cook, so our Thanksgiving is prepared by me and my entire family with a few exceptions. We always have a selection of Fastachi nuts, seeds, and mixes for guests to nibble on while the turkey is cooking. I also love the ooey gooey deliciousness of Petsi Pies pecan pie so I…
Union Square Love: Somerville
Union Square is a place I drove through every week when I used to tutor a child. It was somewhere I passed through but never had time to stop. As the tutoring days ended and my family life began, I started to explore the area a little more. Honk brought me to Union Square and…
A Few New Additions to Your Wine List for Summer: Wines of Tejo Portugal
I have been a fan of Portugal’s most well known fortified wine for a very long time. Port was really my first introduction to “spirits” and I didn’t venture beyond it for a long time because I was perfectly content. When I was in university, I lived in Montreal’s “little Portugal” and became a…
Spring Lamb Roast (Recipe)
I have recently been reconnected with Australian Lamb. For those of you who know me, you know I like to shop and eat local more often than not. In fact, the other day I saw that some grass fed beef was on sale, but then I saw that it was from Australia and I didn’t…
Spring Eggs: Passover or Easter The Chicken Doesn’t Care
Eggs are a symbolic part of both Passover and Easter. As a lover of anything crafty and fun, of course I had to adopt the practice of decorating eggs. I can do without the bunny (that’s just totally confusing- I mean where does a bunny even get eggs?) I can skip all the sugar too…
10 Reasons to Join a Private Club: The Hermitage Club
Belonging comes in many different forms. We belong to families. We belong to communities. We belong to churches or temples or mosques. We belong to schools, or health clubs. We belong to Meetup groups and Facebook groups. We belong to work groups and workout groups. Belonging is something that we all seek out as human beings….
5 Local Hostess Gifts: Drink Local
When I refer to “hostess” I use the broad definition. What I mean by that is if you are attending a party you bring a hostess gift, and if you are hosting a party you deserve to treat yourself. We’ve all joined our summer and fall CSAs and some brave souls have also signed up…
Fashion Tip: The Beauty of a Scarf
Men have ties and bow ties. They have cravats and ascots, and pocket square. The amount of style that men can achieve with a little scrap of fabric without much effort is quite impressive. I suppose more and more women have chosen to take advantage of all these traditionally masculine wardrobe accents too -because “Why not?”. From…
Gift Guide: Shopping Local
If you’re sitting by your computer shopping online, there may be someone bringing you a cocktail, and good cheer, but I bet it’s much easier to find by bundling up and skipping out your door to head to some of the local craft fairs, holiday strolls and some of my favorite little boutiques. We use Amazon.com…
Leah's Life: Pearls and Oysters 