by napacalypse
We’ve been trying to get a table at minibar by Jose Andres, not really hard, just jumping on the website when we thought about it and then having our hopes dashed three months at a time. I think my husband must have stumbled upon a cancellation because he snagged a table just a few weeks out from our reservation. We chose the bespoke wine … Read More minibar and me
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Here’s the story of how I stumbled onto one of the greatest country concerts and a bittersweet trip down memory lane. While listening to the radio in the car, I heard a Spectrum deejay mention something about a tribute concert to Willie Nelson in Nashville over the coming weekend. My dad loved Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Merle Haggard, Charlie Pride, and Freddie Fender. The country … Read More Nashville in 36 hours; not including canceled flights and delays
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Even though I’m streamlining the holiday decorating, our family room still gets a lot of attention. It’s where our now solo tree stands and where we’ll hang out to watch movies or hockey. I fell in love with bottle brush trees a couple of years ago and when I updated the mantle from a traditional motif with topiary stocking hangars draped in greenery, ribbon, … Read More It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Less Christmas, part 4
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To be honest, it’s not just during the holidays that I hear the siren call of “more, more, more!” for the counter above my kitchen sink. It doesn’t function as usable counter space and it’s always tempting to start piling stuff on the ledge–decorations because it’s the first thing you see and then the odds and ends that seem to accumulate in a kitchen. … Read More It’s beginning to look a lot like less Christmas, part 3
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As part of baby-stepping our way into a Christmas inspired more by minimalism than the holiday aisles at Costco, I decided the kitchen needed room to function as a work space more than a display space. We retired the kitchen Christmas tree with the popcorn garland, cooking-themed ornaments, and homemade gingerbread men, but I wanted the kitchen, where I spend a lot of time, … Read More It’s beginning to look a lot like less Christmas, part two
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The Ghost of Christmas Past Growing up, my family would load the RV and head to Florida over Christmas to escape the Pennsylvania winter and dash my dreams of a Norman Rockwell holiday. Ever-practical, my parents decided it was pointless to put up a big tree since no one was going to be home. They stuck a 2-foot tree on a side table and … Read More It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Less Christmas
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Not to give my mother-in-law a complex, or anything, but we often head out of town as soon as she arrives for a babysitting job, I mean family visit. Our birthdays and wedding anniversary are perfectly spaced throughout the year, so practically anytime she comes to visit, we have an excuse for a getaway celebration. Last weekend my mother-in-law flew in and we decided … Read More No Sleep till Brooklyn
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Have you heard of the hedonism treadmill? We’ve got a grocery store hedonism treadmill going on in my neighborhood. First, we only had the basic Giant food–to be fair it was clean and bright and had more variety than any grocery store our parents and grandparents had ever shopped in–but we heard tell of this amazing grocery store out of New York called Wegmans. … Read More Scoring at TJs
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You know the feeling when you fall in love with something and discover there is a whole genre of movies and documentaries just waiting for you? That’s how my husband and I felt when a friend mentioned that we would like Somm on Netflix. We watched it and became totally invested in who would pass their Master Sommelier test. It’s like watching the Olympics of … Read More How I Learned Somm-thing about wine
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Our nearly-annual trip to the beach will soon be upon us, and I can’t wait! Our visits and the cast of characters have morphed through the years, and we have started to come pretty close to what we consider the perfect beach vacation. For us, we have distilled the 7 days into sand, wine, and food. I’ve learned a lot of lessons along the … Read More To the Beach, Beach
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A is for Apothic wine that you should never, ever drink, unless you like your Swiss Miss spiked with rubbing alcohol. B is for bottles of wine that you should save to help commemorate good times. C is for corked, which you don’t want your wine to be-unless your into wet cardboard aromas D is for Del DottoWinery that I want to make fun of for their pretentious, imported … Read More The A to Z guide to the Napacalypse
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The last month has been one of those mile markers in life that kind of sneak up on you. Obviously, I had known my daughter’s college graduation was coming this past May for the last 4 years (Thank you, child, for gettin’ ‘er done in four!) and the kids’ birthday always come one after another in a dizzying six weeks’ time, but I was … Read More Life
