There was once a time, years ago, when it seemed like all my friends were boys. There’s nothing wrong with that, of course, but there is also nothing like hanging out with a girl friend or a small group of ladies that you feel totally comfortable with. I remember desperately missing that in my life and wondering if I would ever have those “best friend” relationships that meant the whole world when I was a kid. Hearing Mia list all her best friends reinforces that feeling that we really do crave and need those kinds of companionship, even at an early age – but it isn’t always easy to find now, is it?

When Mia was a baby, I found a group of new mom friends in the neighborhood who I’d meet with every week. It was rather easy to meet other new parents here even if you weren’t particularly outgoing or good at reaching out to strangers. I don’t know if you ever forget your first mom friends. The first year or so of having your first baby is a big bonding experience. Even if you don’t have anything else in common, you have this, and being new parents is a big enough commonality that it can trump anything else. I don’t want to say that I had a friend “type” in my pre-baby years, but I did, only because common interests bring people together to the same places, whether it’s at school, a job, or a community of like-minded people. So when I started meeting people outside of the artist/designer/musician/chef/computer geek types – people who were lawyers and bankers and who had other corporate type jobs – it was sort of a novel thing as far as friendships go.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately as I’ve been marveling at how rich my friendships have become in the last 2 or so years. For many years it was all about being friends with other neighborhood parents. It was just easier to socialize this way and in many cases, the only way to socialize. It was great and fun and one of my fondest memories of being a new parent. These friendships shaped the way that I approached parenthood and they meant the world to me. But I’ve recently realized that many of those friendships have naturally drifted. I’m a totally sappy person and I would never want to admit this, but I guess sometimes friendships just run their course. Maybe we’ve moved on.

These days I have made most of my friendships online. It is both totally strange if you think about it, but totally amazing. I feel lucky enough to live in a city where many people will breeze through on various business and visits, so that these online friendships become real life friendships too. I’ve also gravitated towards people with the same interests again. Now that I’m a parent of school age kids, I don’t feel like my conversations need to center around my children and in fact when I am out with friends, I don’t necessarily want to talk about my kids. Many of my newer friends aren’t even parents!
 
I’m in love with all the friendships I have made over the past 2 years, many of which I’ve written about on this blog. To go out at night with ladies like Anna, Jen and Tamera, to plan these get togethers even though Jen and Tamera don’t even live in NY, to wander around the East Village on a Saturday night from one place to the next, and to sit around and talk about lady things. To feel a bit like my own person, not someone’s mom, for a long evening.
 
But when I get back home, I get back home to this. The girls never fail to leave me a good night note to place on top of my computer. Love. I finally feel like I’ve achieved some kind of balance in my life.

Friends, I know it sounds crazy, but it’s true. This is only the 3rd time in the history of this blog (that is nearly 4 years!) that we’ve gone out to dinner without the girls. The last time was on my 40th birthday nearly 2 years ago. Let’s not get into the why, but rather revel in the fact that we did it (and to think that I got totally chewed out by a blog reader last year who said that I treated the girls like burdens to our lifestyle when we handed the kids off to Mark’s mom as soon as we got to Seattle so that we could walk around Pike Place by ourselves, bwahahaha).

We’re so out of the whole restaurant scene at this point that it was hard for us to choose where to go, but after some deliberation, Mark chose The Modern for his 40th birthday meal, the fancy formal restaurant inside The Museum of Modern Art. Somewhere along the way over the past few years, fine dining with 3 or 4 course tasting menus has turned into dining experiences with many little extra dishes in between the courses that you do choose (we are not talking about the 8 course tasting menus which, sad to say, I’m unsure I can do anymore. Can’t eat like I used to in my old age). So even before your first appetizer comes out, you may have already been given a few amuse bouche dishes and a few extra sweets at the end of your meal. In our case, we had some kind of foamy carrot soup in a test tube-like glass vessel, a bit of raw fish and some kind of goat cheese tart served on spoons, and our personal favorite, a ceviche like dish with skate in a sauce that I could have licked straight from the bowl, with a single squid ink marshmallow cube. And after our dessert course? Your waiter comes around with this insane sweets cart filled with rows and piles of macarons, petite cookies, brittle, marshmallows, chocolates and truffles and you get to choose whatever you want. And while you are stuffing your face with all this sugar (after already having dessert), some other waiter comes and hands you mini cones filled with perfect domes of ice cream, and then as you are handed the check, you are presented with this fancy, shiny box of petite cakes filled with caramel to take home.

I gave it to the girls. Okay, there were 3 mini cakes inside. I ate one.

 
We don’t have any more big birthdays coming up in quite a while (oh thank god, because I didn’t have a problem with 40, but the next one is almost too much to bear), and that has been the only time that we’ve indulged in such fanciness because let’s face it, the bill at the end of the meal can be shocking, but we decided that we should go out to fancy dinners once a year, perhaps on our anniversary. We also decided that when Mia turns 10, we’d like to take her out to a lunch at one of these fancy restaurants. If there is any kid who has a sophisticated adventurous palette, it’s this kid. While looking over the menu trying to decide what to order, we couldn’t resist saying how much Mia would have enjoyed this meal.
 
PS. thank you all so much for the birthday wishes to Mark. So sweet.

I do believe that Film Biz Recycling might be one of Brooklyn’s best hidden secrets for treasure hunting. And that’s exactly what we did when I went on a field trip with Claudine’s kindergarten class last week to visit the business of one of her classmate’s parents. We walked over to the 11,000 square foot giant warehouse from school and we split into groups of 4 with a list in hand for a scavenger hunt!

Film Biz Recycling’s mission is simple: to create socially responsible and sustainable solutions from media industry waste. So what does this mean, exactly? Eva Radke, who used to work in the film industry, founded her non-profit business to divert the tons of materials from being discarded into dumpsters by the film and television industry. This includes furniture, props, books, clothes, glassware, signage, lighting – pretty much anything and everything you can think of that has been used on a set or a shoot. A good portion, about 60%, gets donated to charities. All the items remaining in the warehouse can be rented out as props for a shoot, or even for something like a party if you need extra dinnerware for a night. And everything that you see here? FOR SALE (and I just saw that everything is 50% off this weekend).

But as fun as the Film Biz Recycling and Prop Shop looks – and it is, as you can see from the photos of our recent field trip – Eva is doing something extraordinary to give back to the community while saving all this treasure from going to waste. The space is also used for workshops, performances and as an art gallery. It’s mind-boggling when you look around to think of all this stuff in a landfill when it can be reused and recycled. Plus where else can you find a 4 foot diameter disco ball, sidewalk newspaper dispensers, vintage Hello Kitty Pez dispensers, and tiaras all in the same space?

Mark turns 40 today! And it also marks the year where he’s officially known me more than half his life. Holy hell! How did we both become so old!? But I’m sort of glad that I’m not the only 40 year old in the house anymore. We can’t be in different decades, psssshaw.
 
For what it’s worth, the girls totally think we’re not old. We’re just “mom and dad”.

 
Happy birthday to a most hardworking guy, a lifelong companion, and a great dad. Look how the girls adore him. Hope they remember those fuzzy thoughts when they become moody teenagers!
 

Did you guys see this yet? I don’t get too excited over press (no, don’t take this the wrong way. It’s always a thrill to see your name in print, but when it comes to translating to direct sales, press isn’t what it used to be), but I have to admit I was really excited when I saw how our Valentine collaboration with West Elm turned out! It’s SO fun. And they did such a terrific job styling the 3 recipes we gave them: a cardamom spiced hot chocolate with orange whipped cream, star anise panna cotta with ginger poached pears, and a meyer lemon cake with blueberry lavender sauce. I LOVE it, so be sure to check it out.

Also in biz news, we have more new retailers who will be carrying our products. This Wednesday we’ll be delivering to Foragers Market in Dumbo and The Plaza Food Hall by Todd English, inside the Concourse level of The Plaza Hotel (yes, *the* Plaza Hotel).

Our marshmallows are also on the shelves at the just opened Haven’s Kitchen, a specialty food shop and cooking school, on 17th Street in Manhattan. Don’t forget we’re also at Gourmet Guild over at 110 Broadway in Williamsburg – all locally sourced products.
 
I think that about covers it, whew!

Ah, I guess it won’t be a snowless winter after all. A few inches, not a big deal, but we were out in the burbs at my mom’s where snow plows come when they come so we all used that as an excuse to stay home. The girls played in the snow while my dad used his electric snow blower to shovel the driveway, Mark rested as he was dealing with a rare 24 hour flu of some sort, and I squirreled myself away for the whole day to work on a challenging, but stressful work project.

It was a fine weekend.

I’ve been getting this weird nagging feeling lately that I’m not thinking big enough. It takes enough as it is to get through each day, one day at a time, but it’s true – I’m not really sure where we are “going”. Future dreams that once made sense seem to have lost their sparkle. I feel like we can keep going like we currently have been for however long as it will sustain us, but for me, that is not enough. The next steps are not clear. I don’t have a plan and I’m not sure what I want to do. I just know that I don’t want to wake up in 5 years feeling like I haven’t gotten anywhere.

There are a few benchmarks in your life that are like markers of adulthood. I remember when we first bought that round dining room table 7 years ago. We were still living on the top floor of the brownstone apartment we lived in when we first moved to this neighborhood. We lived without a table for years. We couldn’t fit one in the studio apartment we lived in on 12th Street in the East Village and even when we moved to that Brooklyn apartment with a dining room 12 years ago, we always opted to eat on the couch.

We bought this table when Mia was a few months old and immediately felt like grown ups. A baby AND a dining room table? The table wasn’t cheap for us at the time (and I’m sort of shocked to see just how much it did go up in price over the years at Design Within Reach), but we saved for it and it looked great in that space.

When we bought and moved to the apartment that we currently live in now, the table came along with us. It was great with a little toddler around. No sharp edges or corners. The table was solid. It worked for the 3 of us. Then we added another baby to our family and the girls started growing. One day, the round table felt too small. There wasn’t much room when we’d have friends or family over. The table started to become filled with homework, papers, drawings and markers. It wasn’t big enough when I needed to trim paper or do a project. We needed a bigger table. Luckily we had the space for one.

I think I started looking for a new table 2 years ago. It’s one of those big purchases that you need to be sure of. Depending on how much cash flow we had, the table search would intensify or die down in spurts over the years, but it was in full force in the Fall. I eventually put it off again after so many of my work projects got postponed and cash flow felt tight. Besides, I couldn’t find the right table and I was undecided on the chairs. In December, however, we decided that we were going to do it. Holiday sales were good so the search was on again. After having looked at SO MANY tables and even considering getting one custom made, I settled on this one that I kept going back to. I also bought 6 new chairs after much deliberation. These are Tolix reproductions, but they are pretty damn good reproductions and they were on sale. A few days later, the chairs shipped (you can see them stacked in that first photo), but I was told the table was on backorder. I can wait though, right?

But the table came today ahead of schedule and it’s here!

It’s a bit darker and the wood has more variation in color and grain that what appears in the photos, but it’s so beautiful and actually fits in with the apartment better than maybe a lighter table would. I think the chairs really work with the table too. The old dining set was too much of the same beech wood color and it was too close to our floors. This new set gives the space more texture and variation. It’s just rustic enough to work with our not so rustic looking apartment. The vintage George Nelson lamp works much better with this set up as well. The longer table also defines the kitchen area from the living area in the open floor plan so much better.
 

I don’t know…can a new dining table feel life-changing? Because I kind of feel like it does! And if our old dining table made us feel like adults then this table makes us feel like grown ups even more. I mean, we can have placemats! I have all these beautiful placemats that my friend from Dwell Studio gave me a few years back but we could never use them because they didn’t work with our round table. Oh, and centerpieces. Woah. This is like a whole new aspect of decorating that I have never even considered. A fruit bowl? Candle sticks? Maybe we need a candelabra! I’m thinking back to that epsiode of Ellen when she first came on the TV scene with that sitcom, remember? She was responsible for getting table decorations for Thanksgiving (or was it Christmas?) but she ended up dragging palm fronds from the street because nothing was open and the whole table was piled with palm fronds (does anyone remember this or did I just totally make that up?). I don’t know…the centerpiece and table setting possibilities are endless.
 
And so we are selling our beloved old table. Maybe you are interested? We have so many good memories so it’s a little bit sad, but since our apartment looks like a furniture showroom right now with 2 dining tables, we need to let it go. It’s been well loved – the table top has a few light scratches in it – but it’s still in great solid condition and it needs a new home because…new table NEW TABLE!
 

I love our Valentine’s Day Gift Box for this year. We have all new cookies and a new flavor marshmallow too. Mark’s been making passionfruit marshmallows for years, even before we started the business and I think it was actually the first flavor marshmallows he’s ever made, but we’ve never sold them before.

The chocolate hearts are made with chipotle so they have a spicy kick and then it’s topped with coarse sea salt. The sandwich cookies are lemon rosemary shortbreads and filled with a Meyer Lemon icing.

Order deadlines are February 5th.

Did you have a good 3 days weekend? The girls are back in school today, but we mostly stayed at home this weekend while Mark worked all 3 days. It was cold! The first string of frigid days we’ve had all winter, but despite snow falling everywhere else in the country, we are snowless so far this winter except for that freak storm back in October.

Much of what we did all weekend is what you see above: lots of coffee, looking at books, playing with all of their little calico critters, and drawing pictures. Mia drew the picture in the 2nd photo, but both girls have been drawing these houses on top of hills with these elaborate paths and mazes. Another favorite subject of Claudine’s is our family (last photo). We have endless sheets of paper with portraits of our family and in every drawing, she never fails to include Tobi, our cat who passed away last summer. The girls still miss and talk about him all the time. You gotta love the heart pointing to his butt.

It’s been awhile since I uploaded a new family on The Mixed Race Project, but I’m excited to share a new family with you today. Annie & Michael live right here in Brooklyn, New York and are raising a 7 year old girl and a 3 year old boy. Annie is from Colombia and Michael is a born and bred New Yorker. Annie is a Pastry Chef who runs her own business called PicklePetunia Made and she’s been super nice enough to help out a few times in the kitchen when Mark has been slammed during the holidays.

The Mixed Race Project has been hard for me to keep up because scheduling shoots, interviewing the families and editing the photos have been a time management challenge, but I don’t want the project to slide. I’m looking for a few families to shoot when we’re out on the West Coast this year: LA, Portland and Seattle. If you would like to participate and we can coordinate timing, send me an email at info@themixedrace-project.com