The Week In Recommendations 6.26.24

A new book of essays, how to party, "America's Sweethearts," a Doen dress and searching for great shorts.

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Claire has been reading… 📖

Elisa Gabbert’s new book of essays, “Any Person Is the Only Self”! I adore Gabbert’s essays, and was delighted to find out that she has a new collection out this month; her musings on literature, art, and the human condition are always expansive, provocative, and appealingly lucid, leaving me with the pleasant sense of just having had a long, meandering conversation with a brilliant friend. The first essay, about the randomness of the library recent-returns shelf and the sameness of our emotional journeys during the beginning of the pandemic, is perhaps the only essay about the descent of Covid that I needed to read.

And of course, “One-Star Romance” by my dear friend Laura Hankin! I have already read it, but it’s out as of last week, and I want to make sure everyone else reads it too. It’s a true romantic comedy, with characters who not only go from enemies to lovers, but grow together and individually over the course of the novel. To quote my early recommendation from January: “‘One Star Romance’ was a breath of fresh air, rich in character growth, chemistry, and comedy.” Take it to your nearest beach now!

Emma has been reading… 📖

The big NYTimes package on “How To Party (Without Regrets),” and then all of the hilarious discourse that followed. The Times interviewed 43 “highly sociable people, from Ivy Getty to Rufus Wainwright” about how to be a great party guest and host. What many readers noticed pretty much right away is how… dry a lot of the advice was? Like, this was a list of party etiquette for people who attend catered affairs in lavish brownstones or the well-designed backyard of Hamptons estates. IMO, if you have to workshop an anecdote “in front of the mirror” in order to “cut it by 98 percent” before you go to a party, you are not going to a party that will be any fun at all!!!!

One piece of advice that I actually agreed with in the piece? Kendall Werts’ insight that “you can’t go wrong talking about scandals and celebrity.” As someone who regularly connects with people by discussing reality television, I concur.

Emily Sundberg

over at

Feed Me

had a good roundup of different reactions to the original article and summarized well what irked so many people about it:

How to (actually) party 💊🍾

Claire has been watching… 📺

Nothing much, outside of work (we’re in the slow glide path out of the public school year, and summer camp doesn’t start until next week, so free time has been scarce). For work: Amanda Bynes’s modern classic “She’s the Man,” and the end of “Perfect Match” on Netflix.

Emma has been watching… 📺

I somehow binged all seven episodes of Netflix docu-series “America’s Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders” in one day. I found it absolutely gripping; a window into a part of high-femme culture that feels deeply foreign to me as someone who grew up in a mid-Atlantic, Jewish, non-football family. There’s so much to tease out in this series, from the beautiful way that the women within DCC’s rank and file support each other, to the rigid gender and beauty expectations that the DCC reifies, to the way that pro cheerleaders grind themselves into the ground for little pay, to the way that the church seems to hover over almost everything in the DCC world. The filmmakers resist leading viewers to easy conclusions, instead inviting us into a world we would’t have access to otherwise, letting us sit with those who exist in it, and allowing it to linger with us long after we watch. One critique I do have is that I wish there was a more explicit exploration of the racial element of the stringent aesthetic requirements of DCC, something that feels left to the background in “America’s Sweethearts.”

Photo Credit: Netflix

Claire has been listening to… 🎧

A recent episode of Decoder Ring, Slate’s cultural mysteries podcast, about a Canadian journalist who has been dogged for thirty years by rumors that she cheated on her now ex-husband, the Vancouver Canucks goalie, with one of his teammates – and that this alleged affair led to the collapse of the team after their narrow loss to the New York Rangers in the ‘94 Stanley Cup. I listened with a little extra interest because the ‘94 Stanley Cup is invoked frequently and reverently in my home (Greg is from a diehard Rangers family), though the series doesn’t feature much in the story. What does turn out to be central in the episode is one of my great interests: the way women are villainized in order to explain the failures of men. Reporter Acey Rowe unpacks all the evidence that the rumor was baseless – the woman who has been targeted by the rumors, for example, never met the alleged affair partner – and traces a pattern of similar rumors around NHL teams, generally put forward to explain rocky seasons. She talks to the woman targeted by the rumors about how they have plagued her for decades, and, in a final cruel punchline, she talks to the men involved, who admit to being unaffected by them. 

I’ve also been listening to Gracie Abrams’s new album, because I heard that Taylor Swift was on one of her new songs (and yes, I’m easily marketed to). I don’t particularly love their song together, but Abrams’ whispery indie pop gives me such deja vu that I have, unsurprisingly, gotten sucked in by the album. I keep rummaging through my Apple Music library for singer-songwriters and folk-pop artists I listened to in the late aughts – Meiko, The Weepies, Thao & the Get Down Stay Down, Gregory and the Hawk – hoping to find the reason why Abrams’ songs feel so familiar. I never exactly found the reason, except that the general vibe is familiar, and it’s been a pleasant excuse to relisten to some forgotten favorites. Several songs from the album, “The Secret of Us,” have gotten their hooks into me: the bittersweet good-riddance anthem “Blowing Smoke”; “Tough Love,” which alternates half-whispered verses with a soaring girls’-girl-power chorus; “Risk,” a raw-edged ode to new love; and the rueful “I Love You, I’m Sorry.”

Emma has been listening to… 🎧

A new podcast I found via

Jo Piazza

, You Probably Think This Story’s About You. Brittani Ard excavates her own experience with a man she initially thought was her soulmate, and ends up being more akin to an emotional scammer. What starts as a love story, and then veers into a harrowing tale of dating culture for straight women, eventually morphs into a larger exploration of Brittani herself, including her tumultuous childhood and relationship with each of her parents. Four episodes have been released so far, and I found them all very compelling! Will definitely keep listening.

Claire has been buying… 🛍️

A bunch of cute cookie-cutters to make sandwiches and cucumber slices more appealing to my children. The cutters are more finicky to use than I was led to believe by the momfluencers who make themed bento lunchboxes for their brood every day, but I did convince my preschooler to eat a whole bunch of cheese and fruit by turning them into tiny dinosaurs. The main issue is that I currently can’t eat all the discards, since, as much as I’d love to shove a handful of mangled cheddar into my maw, I’m still off dairy. It felt a bit wasteful. The biggest success was a sandwich cutter and crimper, which finally got him to try a turkey sandwich (more on that below). Hey kids, eating protein is fun!

I also made the mistake of browsing Dôen’s new summer drop. Naturally I became obsessed with a dress that looked irresistibly summery and nursing-friendly: the Quinn in dahlia ikat, a blurred blue and pink pattern. So I bought it, and now I’m trying to decide whether to keep it. The pros: I feel beautiful in it; I love the cap sleeves and don’t have a similar style in my dress collection; the keyhole neckline with an adjustable tie is perfect for nursing; it’s super light and heatwave-friendly. The cons: It’s not just super light, but actually quite sheer, which is somewhat disguised by the busy pattern but might require a slip instead of just nude underwear; oh, and I’m not supposed to be buying more dresses. I haven’t decided what to do yet, but here are try-on photos for fun.

Emma has been buying… 🛍️

After all of my fretting about wedding outfits in last week’s newsletter, I walked into a random Cara Cara sample sale in SoHo two days before the wedding and walked out with a lovely, deeply-discounted matching set! Thank you all for your moral support as I went on this sartorial journey. (Now time to start stressing/thinking about what to wear to the wedding I have in Barcelona at the end of the summer…) The set I bought is no longer being sold on the Cara Cara site, but I think that the Chase Skirt and its various matching top options achieve a similar effect. I also really like the Perla Skirt (currently on sale) and the matching Elsa Top (also on sale).

I’m also on the hunt for easy, breezy (but not sloppy) summer shorts and pants. Some that are currently on my radar:

• J. Crew boxer shorts

• J. Crew airy gauze beach shorts and airy gauze beach pants

• A&F linen pull-on shorts

• Donni linen crop stripe pants

• Donni stripe eco-terry short (the red!! I love the red!)

• Donni pop boxer shorts

Any other suggestions? Help! (I’m not super into jean shorts — they rarely fit me right and I want to be wearing the most breathable fabrics possible.)

Claire has been making… 🧶

Turkey dinners, hot summer night style. We’ve been so busy and, honestly, so sweat-drenched and exhausted by dinner time this week that we’ve been leaning on cooking-free dinners. I’ve been making snack plates for our older son (wads of deli turkey, cheddar dinosaurs, hummus, crackers, cucumber slices and half cherry tomatoes, lots of seasonal fruit), and Greg and I have been making ourselves thick turkey sandwiches with this pesto aioli, butter lettuce, chopped cherry tomatoes, and, when we’re lucky, the nice rosemary herb bread from our farmer’s market. Last summer I couldn’t even eat a deli turkey sandwich, and I think it gave me a greater appreciation for this humble meal option than I ever had previously. Aside from the fact that sliced deli turkey is about $15 a pound right now at our grocery store, this is an unbeatable summer dinner.

Emma has been making… 🧶

I’m back on my bullshit — a.k.a. cobbling together summer salads and tuna salad sandwiches and spicy, tomato-y bean dishes from whatever we have left in our fridge. Classic summer frenetic energy as expressed through food! I’ve been running to Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods whenever I pass by, grabbing 2-4 items, and leaving the rest of the week up to chance.

When the weather gets this hot, I also find myself craving watermelon, by the pound. I keep buying these containers of pre-cut watermelon from TJ’s, and smothering it with Tajín. The sweet, watery texture of the watermelon pairs perfectly with the acidic, salty, spice and I am not exaggerating when I say I’ve been having a bowl of this daily.

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