TG: Hello readers and hello Christine, we’re back!
CC: Taylore, hello! Readers, hello! Nice to see everyone. It feels like the first day of school, I’m excited to be here and feel like I should offer everyone a bouquet of freshly-sharpened pencils.
TG: Oof, I love that smell. Though I’d say our summer break was a little more European, hence our October reemergence. But, alas, that’s our style: giving you all what you signed up for just a little later than you anticipated.
CC: Shit, is it October? (editor’s note: it is a full week into October) I have no idea what day it is until and unless I check my phone. Otherwise, it’s all just a slightly stressful expanse. But maybe it’s partially the freelance thing? Do you often know what day it is, Taylore?
TG: I do, but only because I have scheduled beauty events to keep me in line. If left with too much free time (which essentially never happens) it becomes more of a Jeremy Bearimy situation. But speaking of free time, I’ve got some coming up, and you’ll all have to scroll to find out why. Or just check my Instagram.
CC: Hell yeah, scroll away. I wish I lived closer so I could buy you a celebratory drink. I’m torn between a bottle of champagne or like tequila shots. Could we handle both?
TG: I’m sure there’s a Mary Oliver quote that would urge us to try.
CC: Listen, the soft animal of my body equally loves champagne and tequila. Unfortunately, the soft animal of my body is also a lightweight.
TG: A handsome life, if you will. On that note, we should probably get the content, because we’ve kept our lovely subscribers waiting long enough. And now that we’re back in business, we’ll be showing up in all of your inboxes every other week, as promised.
Part II: A Gateway Plant for Neglectful Depressives
CC: I know humility is a virtue, but I am extremely proud of us for getting our shit back together during a mercury retrograde. Please clap!
My time away from Creamline was nice, mostly comprised of work, food, and languishing. I started the new Scenes from a Marriage and think it is EXCELLENT, even if The New Yorker doesn’t. I’ve fine-tuned my carbonara. I’ve bought approximately five new houseplants, which have brought a surprising amount of enjoyment to my everyday life.
For the longest time, I was not a houseplant person. I assumed that most house plants require consistent executive function and a squadron of humidifiers, neither of which I have.
Then I met Zuzu, my little ZZ plant. I was passing by the outdoor tent of our local plant store, saw her, and was instantly smitten. The plant store lady, seeing that I was an easy sell, explained that ZZs could not be easier. “They have little rhizomes that store water, so they need water like every three weeks. Plus, they can handle very low light. I have a basement apartment and mine is totally fine.”
“They basically thrive on neglect.”
So, Zuzu came home with me. It’s been a year. She’s green, she’s perky, she’s nearly doubled in size. Not only has she brought some cheer to my apartment, but she’s also given me a false sense of confidence in my plant care abilities. I haven’t graduated to anything extremely demanding, but I do have a few prayer plants and a couple rubber plants (maybe soon to be just one rubber plant, whoops). And, you know what? It takes very little time and adds a lot to my life.
Truly the only downside I can think of is that they produce calcium oxalate crystals, meaning they are poisonous to things that eat them. In repotting a larger ZZ that I bought a few months ago, the leaves swiped my neck and left a rash for a couple days. So, you know, don’t eat it or like press up against your ZZ, but hopefully those weren’t your plans for your houseplants to begin with?
I deeply admire people who can take care of fussy things, but as a rather fussy thing myself, I find that overwhelming. If you too have felt intimidated by Plantstagram and worry about your ability to take care of yourself, let alone another live thing during the impending winter, I highly recommend a ZZ.
It’s nice to know that something in your apartment will be thriving this winter, even if it’s not you.
Part II: Scent of a Woman
TG: Unlike Christine, I’ve managed to kill every plant in my apartment but one, and that’s my cross to bear. Not a botanist and never will be, but that said, I do have career news: after exactly five years, it’s my last day at Marie Claire. I’ll save you the sap, but this magazine changed my entire life, and I can’t believe this is the timeline the Time Variance Authority lets me exist inside. (Yes, I did thoroughly enjoy Loki.) I will be taking a much-appreciated week off between today and my new gig—more on that next time—during which you can find me doing absolutely fucking nothing. Imagine me caffeinating, hydrating, and imbibing at a constant clip, all in my own leopard-print robe (as pictured below.) So before I completely power my brain down, I’m going to talk about nuts.
The other day, on the corner of Prince and Broadway, I caught a whiff of honey-roasted almonds and burst into tears. It was a Nuts4Nuts cart, parked reliably on the curb between the Sephora and the Banana Republic. While yes, it’s been an emotional week/month/year/life, I like to save the occasional sob for my own apartment or the crowded solitude of the J train, like a normal New Yorker. But those little toasty confections were first thing my nose has detected all on its own since I lost my smell and taste to COVID in August.
For months, I’d been stuffing my face into pickle jars, tumblers of whiskey, and fishy cans of smoked trout trying to trigger something, anything, to signal that my senses would return. If I inhaled the perfumes in my collection deeply enough, I would catch a shadow of an ingredient, a pale spectre of a fragrance I could typically identify with my eyes closed. Unable to season my own cooking or detect my own boyfriend’s sweat when he walked through the door, I found myself longing for an acrid whiff of hot garbage or flattened rat remains, because that meant my brain and my nose were still gossiping. My next door neighbor’s house plant caught fire after she stepped out for the day, and as pungent smoke filled my hallway, I sat on my couch none the wiser, without my senses to protect me. Even my recent press trip to Zurich—as stunning and unforgettable as it was—was numbed by the absence of what makes a new city romantic. The snow-chilled air from the Alps, the aquatic brine of sturgeon caviar, and the funk of melted raclette: all consumable, but none accessible.
But with that one whiff of three dollar almonds, I was both overcome with relief and jolted back to a specific, vivid memory: holding my grandfather’s hand on the seemingly-towering escalators in Penn Station, rising to meet the crisp 7th Avenue air before a Broadway show. For me, that unmistakable nutty swirl always signaled an arrival somewhere vast, the beginning of something thrilling. I caught the same warm scent drifting over from Columbus Circle to the Hearst Tower the day I started as an assistant at Marie Claire, and I took it as a sign that I was in exactly the right place at the right time. I’ve realized that most of my anxiety about fully regaining my smell isn’t just about the fear of a living a life without texture or romance, but the terrifying possibility of being unable to shape and recall memories in a way that, for me, only scent can make whole. My senses have been slowly improving every day since my quick cry in the street—just in time for a new start.
Part III: The Art of the Autumnal Basket, ft. Daniel Emilio Soares, Owner of Alimentari Flaneur
TG: The first time I sampled the produce from Alimentari Flaneur was when it showed up on my door step in a gloriously-arranged basket. The gift—an inspired collaboration with skincare brand Fortuna— was dropped off by the owner himself, Daniel Emilio Soares, though I didn’t know it at the time. Despite living just a few blocks away from Essex Market, where the European-style grocery currently holds a residency, I’d never managed to stop in. Once I finally made my way over for the soft opening of the Alimentari’s Bacone, a counter that serves artful midday snacks, I was charmed. I descended the food hall’s steps to find woven baskets of black garlic, Jimmy Nardello peppers, and sticky maraschino cherries scattered between Roman-style statues and weighty jars of olive oil. There were oddities and silk scarves and in the center of the shop, Daniel pouring an aperitif for a fellow customer. Now, I stop in about twice a week and shop his selection of whatever’s fresh and beautiful.
Since we wanted to make our return to your inboxes as lush as possible, I asked my neighbor Daniel to help curate Creamline’s dream gift basket for this fall. No, you can’t exactly buy it, but you can sure as hell copy it. And we recommend you do, since it seems that Daniel’s got his Autumn 2021 vibe expertly curated. He divulged his definitive comfort meal (“A giant pot of Sunday sauce by my mom, with a crusty baguette for dipping”), his playlist (Sunday Makes Me Feel Preposterous), and autumnal style muse (“Gianni Agnelli, always L’avvocato. He’s the epitome of elegance, whimsy, and joie de vivre.”) But most importantly, he shared his picks for the ultimate autumnal bounty below. Here, the Alimentari x Creamline Basket.
Produce
Late season figs: “Devilishly sweet; very, very jammy. A must for dessert every night of the week.”
Bambou apples: “They’re gorgeous pink-fleshed apples that are actually called peek-a-boo apples, but I absolutely despise that name. So I have rebranded to call them Bambou, which was the stage name of Caroline Paulus, Serge Gainsbourg’s lover after his breakup with Jane Birkin.”
Broccoli: “Broccoli is my favorite vegetable. It is criminally underrated. If I were on death row and I had to choose my last meal, it would include a side of exquisitely burnt broccoli. Anyway, I roast mine with cinnamon, pepper, cardamom and olive oil.”
Honeynut Squash: “Stunning and fragrant squash that tastes absolutely divine with a dollop of creamy goat cheese or fromage blanc.”
Grocery
Terre D’Oria Olive Oil: “My cousins make it on their olive grove in Puglia. When it’s first pressed, you get a striking green oil with peppery and earthy notes. There’s an expression in Barese dialect called affer en gann, which means a literal pinch of the throat, which describes the sensation of taking a shot of this liquid gold.”
Pith Romesco: “A smoky pepper dip made by my friends Jonah and Sarah. You can literally put this shit on anything. I like it with my eggs in the morning or as a dressing for a fall chicory salad with crumbled feta, lentils, shallots, magic molly potatoes, and romanesco.”
Josephine’s Feast Rosehip Masala Chai Jam: “Amazing with cheese or as a spread for a panini.”
Brezzo Italian Alpine Honey: “I drizzle it on cottage cheese and crushed walnuts almost every morning. I also dip whole walnuts in the jar late at night when I’m feeling particularly mischievous.”
Wardrobe
Muji Black Flannel Shirt: “it’s the perfect shirt for fall. I can get it dirty, layer it, dress it up, etc. Good, inexpensive, warm, versatile. Perfetto.”
And now, our picks!
Cheese, via Christine
The first cheese that came to mind was Nettle Meadow Kunik. Hailing from the Adirondacks, Kunik is a tiny brie-style goat milk cheese with a dash of cow cream. It’s unctuous, crowd pleasing, and easy to smash into your face mindlessly. That said, if you sit with it, you’ll notice almost forest-y undertones that round the experience out quite beautifully. To me, it tastes like what would happen if Timothee Chalamet quit acting and decided to make cheese in the woods with his goat best friends. My friend and American cheese icon Anne Saxelby calls it “gelato with a rind.”
In other words, just eat it. It’s lovely with everything, but I’m fantasizing about it with figs or that honey.
When Daniel mentioned apples, my brain immediately went to clothbound cheddar, specifically Cabot Clothbound. Cheddar can mean approximately infinity different types of cheese, but clothbound is special. Once the wheels are formed, they’re slicked up in animal fat (usually lard or butter) and wrapped in surgical grade muslin to form a type of rind, allowing the cheese’s flavor and texture to continue to evolve. It gets brothier, nuttier, and more complex after a few more months of ripening in the caves. I always get a kind of mashed potato vibe from it, but another monger friend describes it as like Chicken in a Biscuit crackers in cheese form. It’s an elegant cheese, don’t get me wrong, it just happens to have incredibly comforting flavors.
both photos courtesy of Saxelby Cheesemongers.
Just Some Beautiful On-Theme Treats, via Taylore:
Assouline Capri Dolce Vita coffee table book: My copy came with a gorgeous, aggressively Italian mailer from Acqua di Parma, and I’ve never gotten so many compliments on my home decor. It’s bold and graphic, and reminds me of more glamorous, early Autumn days on the Amalfi coast after the crowds have thinned.
Soma Ayurvedic Jasmine Body Oil: I unboxed this silky oil yesterday and I am already fanatical about it. Its potent jasmine comes from Madurai, oft called India’s Jasmine City, and its floral musk is utterly sensual. Massaging just a few drops into my damp skin post-shower felt like an indulgence, and its minimalist packaging is equally as refined.