CC: I don’t remember exactly when Taylore and I started following each other on Instagram, but it was mid-2019. She posted such an interesting mix of beauty, literature, travel, and food, so I started replying to her stories because I am a creep who likes to make friends on the internet . The first DM was a reply to a cheese story she posted. I said, “Oh hell yeah St. Albans.” (which I still stand by! a lovely cheese!)
We started DMing a bit about all the things we love--skincare, movies, cheese, restaurants, wine, and more. I’d ask her questions about her favorite skincare, and she’d get cheese recommendations from me. We decided that we should get dinner next time I was in NYC (I live in Vermont, but spent 7 years in NYC and pre-pandemic was there for work once a month or so).
TG: We finally got together at Lilia in March, which ended up being the only time we’ve ever seen each other in person and the last occasion either of us dined out before COVID hit New York City full-tilt. We smoothed out the details of the newsletter we’d been dreaming up over sheep’s milk agnolotti, a bottle of Verdicchio, and hazelnut gelato, and here we are, in your inbox.
Here’s how this is going to work going forward: Twice a month, you’ll receive a letter with one entry from Taylore, one from Christine, and a third item which will be based purely on whose brain is having a better week. There will be photos! Recommendations! Recipes! Complaints! But for our first letter, we’re keeping it casual, like the first day of fourth grade when no one has the right supplies so everyone just sits in a circle and gets to know each other. It turns out we both really love a questionnaire.
And make sure to follow us on Instagram for the occasional live, mood boards, and updates on upcoming letters.
Best thing you cooked this week?
TG: My best friend is a saint and dropped off a few of my favorite things to use while I’m isolated at home in Jersey for the holidays: the best cold brew concentrate in the tri-state area, a bottle of Montepulciano, 00 flour, homemade fig syrup I’ll be shaking into a bourbon cocktail in a matter of minutes, and nduja, which is oddly difficult to find despite it being the ingredient of the moment at our favorite haunts. So last night, I decided to wing it and make whipped goat cheese, sundried tomato, and nduja ravioli in browned butter with fried sage. The dough gave me PROBLEMS and I still don’t know why (maybe I under-kneaded initially) but hey, we pulled it off.
CC: In the process of writing this, I made David Lebovitz’s Whole Wheat Croissants recipe. For years, I was intimidated by croissants, but the secret is that they’re not hard, just time consuming. If you build them into your weekend (start Friday night, have croissants by Sunday for brunch), the hardest part is rolling out the dough. I’m smelling them bake as I type this and cannot recommend this process enough! It’s magical when they come out of the oven AND YOU JUST MADE YOURSELF CROISSANTS.
What do you pour yourself at the end of a long day?
TG: I live a block from Discovery Wines (hi Julius!) so I usually have a couple bottles of something red and earthy at the ready. If it was a DAY, I’ll mix gin (usually The Botanist) with some soda or tonic and a generous squeeze of lemon.
CC: A good long day is usually Champagne or a Piemontese red. A bad long day is Suntory or a margarita (preferably with mezcal).
Indispensable beauty product:
TG: Not luxurious, but I’m decidedly uglier without Lumify’s whitening eye drops. I’ve waxed poetic about them before, and for good reason: they make your makeup pop and your entire face look more awake.
CC: These days, it’s my NuFace, a microcurrent device that has kinda changed my life. It pops my cheekbones and mimics the eyebrow lift I got the one time I tried Botox. I bought it in an anxious fit about a month before my 30th birthday and am so pleased my vanity and anxiety led me here. I’ve taken approximately one million more selfies since I started using it, which may not be the best thing, but does reflect the increased confidence I get from the relatively quick process.
Where’s the first place you’ll go post-COVID?
TG: I’m leaving CityMD with a sore arm and a bandaid post-vaccine and jogging to the closest movie theater. I’m not talking about the Metrograph or the Angelika—I want a massive AMC that smells like rancid butter with sticky floors and cardboard cutouts of departed Marvel heroes. I’ll buy a ticket to literally whatever is playing, a large popcorn, and a box of Buncha Crunch (the superior movie theater candy) and then go sit in the center seat in the middle of the theater. I’ll take swigs of whiskey from the flask I’ll have stashed in my coat pocket and probably cry through the trailers.
CC: New Orleans. Immediately.
I have complicated feelings about this, because NOLA has been a COVID hotspot and I’m sure the city will be a little broken in the way that most of my favorite places have been a little broken by the pandemic. I’ll have to stay long enough to reflect, to mourn, and to ring in a new chapter where hugging each other isn’t a public health concern. Maybe I’ll even move there? TBD!
What’s your comfort movie?
TG: Something’s Gotta Give has everything I need to self-soothe: a Nancy Meyers kitchen, Keanu Reeves, and (spoiler alert) a romantic ending in Paris.
CC: Ooo Taylore, one of mine is It’s Complicated, also directed by Nancy Meyers. I have a bit of a crush on current-day Alec Baldwin (which I really should discuss with a therapist) and Meryl Streep’s character is who I dream of becoming. And, oh God, THAT KITCHEN.
Solo cheese, high and low:
TG: Four Fat Fowl St. Stephen is *chef’s kiss* on a Whole Foods baguette, and I can rarely stop by Murray’s and leave without at least a little Bucheron. And my night cheese is a block of Cabot extra-sharp yellow cheddar that I hack away at with a butter knife and inhale with walnuts and my favorite elitist crackers.
CC: I have a cheese for every mood, so this is hard! But, I basically always have Comté around. In fact, I feel out of sorts when it’s not in my fridge. It’s so fucking elegant and pairs with everything so beautifully. My favorite working breakfast is a big slice of it and some coffee.
I don’t know if this counts as low, but gimme any fresh goat cheese you’ve got, especially the batshit-flavored kinds. Everything bagel? Yes please! Pepper jelly? Why not! I don’t love the sweetened ones, but would probably buy literally any savory flavored goat cheese out there and could/would eat the whole log in one glorious evening.
Last book you read:
TG: I finally got around to My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh. It was, in the words of a zillion other people, timely.
CC: Pure: Inside the Evangelical Movement that Shamed a Generation of Young Women and How I Broke Free by Linda Kay Klein. I grew up Mormon and related to a lot of the stories in the book. As such, I needed a whole tumbler of whiskey afterwards.
Last poem that knocked you out:
TG: “Boy in a Stolen Evening Gown” by Saeed Jones. Oof.
CC: “I Needed to Talk To My Sister” by Grace Paley. I wasn’t expecting that kind of gut punch. Honorable mention goes to “After Language” by Chaia Heller, which took my breath away in a very different way. You will notice that both of these are linked through Poetry is Not a Luxury, which is my favorite instagram account at the moment and where I’m discovering a lot of excellent poetry.
What you bring to the function:
TG: Deviled eggs, every fucking time.
CC: A cheese board, duh. You get an immense amount of credit for doing basically no work. It’s the perfect situation!
If I really love you and/or want to impress you, I will also be arriving with a Champagne magnum. I just don’t think there’s a cooler move! (which is a little braggy I guess, since I do this, but oh well.)
Latest addition to your skincare routine:
TG: In the Before Time last year, on a press trip in Marrakech with YSL, I went to a hammam and got the living shit beat out of me in the best way possible. Alternating between a cold shower and a stone table, a woman scrubbed my entire body raw—e v e r y w h e r e—with exfoliating mitts and traditional black soap, or beldi, to buff away dead skin and leave me orca-smooth. It was rough in the moment, but afterward, my skin looked tighter, smoother, and more glowy than I’d seen it in years.
Kahina Giving Beauty just launched a beldi soap infused with neroli, which inspired me to run a bath and grab a washcloth to try and recreate the exfoliation of a lifetime. The ritual clearly wasn’t the same in suburbia, but the fragrant formula brought me as close as I’m going to get to a Moroccan spa any time soon.
CC: I’m a little suspicious of all the claims around CBD, because not even sex truly has as many benefits as they claim CBD does. BUT, I bought the Lord Jones Acid Mantle Repair Cream at the last Sephora sale and my skin hasn’t been this happy and glowy in years. I dunno if it’s the CBD or just a great bunch of other ingredients and I really don’t care!
Never-fail comfort food recipes?
TG: Frank Prisinzano’s spaghetti limone, Gabrielle Hamilton’s fennel baked in cream, and my family’s Irish soda bread, which I’m sure I’ll write about at length in a future letter.
CC: Peter Reinhart’s Poolish Focaccia (I feel like linking to a site called VeganYumYum.com makes me lose some credibility here, but trust me, it’s incomparable. Just hard to find on the internet I guess?) and Dorie Greenspan’s French Chocolate Brownies. And, my mom’s chocolate chip cookie recipe.
Go-to breakfast?
TG: On most days, I scramble myself some eggs with Kerrygold butter and chopped kimchi, then plate it with half an avocado, a fistful of cilantro, and a metric fuck ton of this hot sauce that Christine is not into but I endorse. It doesn’t actually taste like truffle, and I don’t want it to—I just love it for its thicker consistency and sweet heat. I understand Bourdain would be ashamed of me for this, considering he once likened all truffle-infused condiments to Astroglide, but I talk about it so often that the brand sent me a magnum. May Tony forgive me.
CC: I would like to note that I trust Taylore’s taste implicitly, but I do really hate that hot sauce. I find the truffle gimmicky and the sweetness off-putting. If they ever send me more of it, I will forward it straight to Taylore.
Anyway, my favorite breakfast is a stodgy bowl of steel-cut oats, preferably cooked in homemade chicken stock, but water is fine too. Then, I grate in loads of ginger, drizzle a little sesame oil in, add a liberal spoonful of Lao Gan Ma chili crisp, and cut up some scallions. Usually, I’ll top it with a fried egg. It’s savory and filling and layered and just wonderful.
TG: God, I love chili crisp. And I won’t die on this hill, but I’ll hang out here for awhile. (Yes, please forward.)
Day-drinking go-to?
TG: While I love a sour—my brother just introduced me to this fun gose-style ale brewed in New Jersey that tastes like farmstand jam—I can now admit I’ve been indoctrinated into the cult of spiked seltzer. They serve their purpose, so if I need to stay lucid for an aggressive game day or park hang, I’m reaching for the Bon & Vivs.
CC: Amaro and soda, preferably something dark and baking spice-y like Averna or Forthave’s Marseilles. It’s well-balanced, low ABV, and feels like a grownup Diet Coke.
Last impulse purchase:
TG: While dreaming about all the impractical outfits I’ll wear once dance floors aren’t deadly anymore, I realized that I’ve let my jewelry game fall by the wayside. Mejuri makes some of my favorite simple-but-sophisticated stuff, so I sprung for this silver chain and the yellow-gold version of my go-to hoops.
CC: This question made me realize that I make too many impulse purchases. But, the one I’m most excited about is this Palma Cigar Ring from Pamela Love. I don’t wear a lot of jewelry, but I love a good ring. That color blue is my power color, and I’m excited to figure out how to casually incorporate the ring into every selfie I take.
That’s all for now! We have quite a range of folks following us and we’d love to hear from you what you want to read about. In fact, we’d love it if you introduced yourself, either by replying to this email or over on Instagram via DM! Let us know who you are and what you want to hear from us. And, not just now—anytime you have a question or want to learn about anything in particular, let us know. We’d love to get to know you and also hopefully tailor this a bit more towards you. We’re so excited you’re here, and welcome to Creamline.