First: Before we left Ojai, we prepped the house for its summer hibernation. We hauled in most of the outdoor furniture that felt as if we’d just put out weeks before. We lowered the window shades and the AC. And we turned off the water filter. The house was ready to rest peacefully.

However, the local fauna caught wind of our departure. Within weeks, both a black widow spider and a rat had snuck into the garage—the rat by gnawing a giant hole in the garage door’s weatherproofing strip. And moles—tiny, cute, deviously destructive moles!—had tunneled labyrinthine trails beneath our native-planted front lawn. An exterminator and mole expert are now evicting the miscreants.

Second: asked me to do a feature on a home design object that I pay a lot of attention to. My friends, where to begin!? We settled on small lamps for kitchen countertops, which I feel are a lighting design necessity so that you have a warm glow at counter-level to balance ceiling lighting, pendants, and sconces. You can read all about my small lamp finds here! And subscribe to Secret Strategist while you’re at it; you won’t be sorry.

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Now to the main event:

My sister Rhonda recently decided to sell her home outside of Denver. It was filled with furniture and belongings that she and her family had collected over decades. Getting her house ready was a lot for one person, so our brother Dean, his wife Leslie, and I flew in to help her pare down her stuff and get the house staged for sale.

This was extremely hard for Rhonda; I could see that letting go of her things was somehow letting go of parts of her life. It was almost physically painful. With a few tears but mostly a determined smile, she soldiered through. I’ll share more on that front soon. But today we’re digging into a related note: organization.

Days after leaving Denver, I was back in New York to do The Great Saunter, and ended up walking 32 miles with Shauna Yule Brasseur, a professional organizer from Hingham, Massachusetts. We had a lot to talk about, and 11 hours to do it.

Shauna was incisive and nuanced about the way she approached home organization. She has built a robust business, Lovely Life Home, within just a few years and has a growing number of recurring clients, who see the work she does with them for their homes much like the work a trainer does for their fitness. After the Saunter, Shauna agreed to have a follow-up conversation, so I could share her insights and advice with you all.

If there is anything you want to know that we don’t cover below, please dm me, or share your questions in the comments or here, and I’ll do a follow-up post with answers from Shauna.

Yours in neat rows of socks, and just the ones I need,

Amanda

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Today’s post is free. I hope you enjoy it, and if you do, please share it with a friend!

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Last week was Design Week in New York, which means thousands of design-heads trek all the way west to the dreaded Javits Center for ICFF, then spend the rest of the week at smaller design events and showrooms complaining how the show has lost its mojo. People like complaining, and for that alone ICFF is providing a public service. I, too, thought it was pretty ho-hum except for two designers. Virginia Sin has a clever new sconce system that packs flat (less expensive shipping) and that allows customers to mix tile bases with a variety of shades, including a paper-thin cork shade. Cool.

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The other highlight was Tala, a business I wish I’d thought to start. Tala makes high-quality specialty lightbulbs. Such as wobbly shaped Edison bulbs. Cute round E26 bulbs. Even oval bulbs. Take a seat before you look at the prices. These are bulbs for fixtures where the bulb is part of the fixture’s presentation. Tala also makes lighting, and I was pleased to see that they released an updated version of Muse, their portable lantern, in new colors, including “claycourt orange.” I’ve had this lantern on my wish list for Ojai, but was waiting for the update!

I stopped by Apparatus Studio, which is the closest you may ever get to feeling like you’re in a Bond film. It may also be the closest you ever get to seeing how billionaires shop. I like that they let non-billionaires like me make appointments. This year they had a “peep-show”:

Not to be outfoxed, The Future Perfect and Dudd Haus hosted a show of 120 nightlights made by artists; scroll down to see the catalog. I had two favorites: this Victorian era-inspired glass cube by Alexis & Ginger, and this ramen light by Warren Young (for $10!).

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My friend Jojo and I also stopped by Afternoon Light, whose entranceway, designed as an homage to the old Halston offices (see up top), nearly upstaged the show. There are smart developments happening in tile finishes. Get ready for stripes from Parmatile (not on their site yet). I finally got to try out the RAD Furniture x Studio Sam Klemick chair that pops up on Instagram design accounts every few days, and I’m happy to report that its cozy and chic factors are aligned. There’s a company called Dimwit making dimmers that look like pieces of candy. And houndstooth showed up in a new way.

All that browsing and hoofing required a hearty lunch from Daily Provisions. This is my avocado toast with its bacon roof:

Yours in Bond and bulbs,

Amanda

Before I left Ojai, I made some kumquat preserves, a recipe I learned from my friend Genevieve Yam, a senior editor at Serious Eats. She’d halve the kumquats and blanch them 3 times before simmering them with sugar. I shortcutted a bit, but next time I’d halve the kumquats, a good task to take on while listening to, say, Famesick. Here’s a loose how-to and some tips on how to use them (including dropping them on top of the Maialino Olive Oil Cake):

A few months ago, a company called Typical reached out to see if I wanted to try their towels. I was skeptical: the colorways seemed too Instagram-ready, their sales pitch was about the towel being stretchy. Who needs a stretchy towel? “It’s a subtle innovation, but it fundamentally changes how a towel feels and performs,” wrote Sean, their head of communication. The company was started by a co-founder of Herschel Supply Co., maker of high-quality backpacks. I was just curious enough to say yes.

I used the towels for two months. I had guests use them. Kara, who works with me, tried them, too. Everyone liked them, especially those with long hair—having a little stretch helps hold a wrapped towel on your head. It also helps hold it around your body and makes it easier to dry off your back. The towels are thin but not ungenerous in feel. They also dry swiftly. The only issue I had was that the towels in darker colors felt less absorbent, so I asked Sean if dyes changed the nature of the textile. “You’re right that it comes down to the dyeing process,” he explained. “Darker colors require more dye and higher heat, which slows down how quickly the fibres can take on water straight out of the packaging.” It’s not a drastic difference, but keep it in mind if you’re choosing colors.

Last year, I did a towel round-up. My only edit would be to add Typical to the list.

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Every year, founders Karuna Scheinfeld and Mae Fatto of the B-corp fashion brand Four Objects send their Work Shirt to women whose work inspires them. This year, they teamed up with my friend Libby DeLana, a creative director and the author of Cold Joy—and I was one of the lucky ones on their shirt list.

With the shirt was a note from Libby, “There is a photograph of Georgia O’Keeffe that I keep returning to. She is standing in the New Mexico desert, wearing a plain black shirt with the collar buttoned to the top, the fabric loose and honest against the landscape. She does not look like someone who got dressed. She looks like someone who got to work.” It’s a beautiful work shirt, soft but mildly structured. Four Objects uses chemical- and plastic-free fabrics from organic mills and Japanese deadstock. I plan to cook and write in mine. I thought you’d like to know about the brand, which was new to me.

(By the way, you may be thinking that I was paid to write about the towels and shirt. Or that I write about anything people send me. I can assure you I do not. The great majority of the foods and products that are sent unsolicited don’t get coverage. I only recommend products that I like and believe in.)

Now that we’re on the edge of June, here’s a preview of what’s ahead: I’ll be covering more on renovation budgets, organization (I recently helped to clean out my sister’s house and have lessons to share), and fun design stuff, like every wallpaper we chose for the Ojai home—a big departure from our Brooklyn apartment. Have a great weekend!

Chloe Redmond Warner is a joyful person. It comes through when you meet her. She lights up when she sees you and makes you feel like you’re the best part of her day. Her humor and enthusiasm shine in her writing, which you can enjoy on her Substack RAD Minimag or in her glittering new book, This Must Be The Place: Homes With Atmosphere. On bedroom design, she wrote, “Did you know some colors make people feel energized and hungry? Burger King did the research on this and their selections are the opposite of what you should choose for your bedroom. No reds, no yellows, don’t do high-contrast, don’t make it smell like beef.” It also radiates from her interior design work at her Berkeley-based firm Redmond Aldrich. An unhappy mind could not create a room like this or a design brief called “Little Women on Acid.”

Chloe calls her firm “a purveyor of aesthetic intelligence” or “AQ.” There’s so much cultural emphasis on IQ and EQ, but I’m with Chloe on her quest to bring AQ into the conversation. Life would be pretty dull if there weren’t people with a strong AQ.

For Chloe’s book launch—copies are now out in the wild!—she kindly took time to answer my questions about her own home renovations, and to dive into the tension that designers face in reconciling with their own homes versus their often more lavish client projects.

On that note, chime in to this week’s Chat (or in the comments below) if you have any insights on the when and how much to renovate.

Yours in house snooping,

Amanda

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I feel a little bit shy talking about my own home. Like, I shouldn’t share until it’s better: a perfect reflection of my inner life that also, tastefully, reflects every single thing I am capable of. Ha! That amount of pressure probably isn’t serving me sanity-wise, but it did give me pause when Amanda first asked me to contribute. When I thought about it, though, I realized a big part of what I believe in is the quest. I believe it’s worth paying attention to what makes you happy, to make an effort to improve your surroundings and that will improve your life. It doesn’t have to be all at once. I sense if it did happen all at once I would find something else to improve.

When I started my firm, the first project published was my newlywed apartment, and I remember feeling a huge sense of alignment between my home life and my work life. Fast forward 15 years and now the projects we do for clients have outpaced what I’m able to do for myself, and I don’t always feel aligned when I come home at the end of the day. Some of the choices I made when we moved in now feel deranged to me: I went ham with decorative painting, I basically bedazzled stock paneled doors, I had a corny chevron pattern applied at the back of the bookshelves I look at the most. I hate these choices now, but because I know how much work and money it takes to bring things up to snuff, I just ignore them! Other choices are so good I feel sorry my clients will never get to have them: the tension between the vintage wicker lounge chair that sits in front of my sofa and two huge Landon Metz paintings, or the kooky pair of side tables with built-in plant holders. These things are wonderful but were unplanned. They are the result of accidents and scrappiness and a tiny bit of laziness, and those traits just don’t come to work with me.

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• Considerations for our outdoor shower (hint: always keep sight lines in mind)

• Nathan Turner’s new design book

• A south Indian egg recipe

• Art Deco lamps

• A tour around the Future Fair in NYC

But first, thanks to the many of you who responded to the short survey in last week’s post. There was one comment that I’d love to hear the group’s thoughts on:

“Truthfully, it would be fine with me if you produced less content. I think a lot of Substackers try to make subscriptions ‘worth it’ by posting a ton, but I don’t have time to read everything.”

Do others feel inundated? If so, please let me know in the comments.

Another reader wrote:

“Are you actually doing the promised 1 free post a month?”

I am, but maybe I’m not making it clear enough which ones are free. From now on, I’ll note *Free Post* at the top of these posts.

There’s still time to answer the 3-question survey here. I’d love to hear from you!

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Now, to outdoor showers…

I was not raised with outdoor showers. I hear from Tad and other friends who grew up going to East Coast beaches and summer camps that showering with the open sky above and fresh air all around you is magical. It sounds a lot like camping to me. One of my life goals is to become a camper, but I’m not there yet. Having an outdoor shower in Ojai may be the gateway drug.

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Everyone has a short list of menu items that their brain scans for. For Tad, it’s the words bolognese and beets. For my friend Merrill, it’s ricotta and rosé. For me, it’s anchovy, tonnato, and zucchini when it’s in season. So local Ojai favorite Rory’s Place had me defenseless with its “Romanesco zucchini tonnato, anchovy bread crumb, pickled mustard seed.” I will be working on a recipe for it to share this summer.

In other summer prep news, my friend Anna told me about this amazing bug catcher (and releaser). There are a lot of bugs everywhere in summer, so stock up on this humane and well-designed tool, which is Tad-approved. Ojai is full of spiders, and he’s the spider-catcher in the family. I’m the shrieking spider-spotter. The catcher tool even has a built-in magnifying glass should you want a close look at a spider’s pedipalps.

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More scintillating inspo in this week’s Homeward:

• Our return to NYC

• A guide to outdoor furniture: what we did for outdoor “rooms” and seating areas in Ojai; which products we chose; and why outdoor furniture feels so disconnected from the rest of the design industry. (There wasn’t enough room here to include my 50+ picks, so head over to Rec League to see them all. A reminder that free subscribers get 15% off with this code. Paid subscribers, scroll down for a special discount.)

• Some questions for you all just below!

• If you haven’t yet picked up a gift for Mother’s Day, here is my list from a few weeks ago (also, Ode à la Rose roses or Farm Girl Flowers peonies are a great back-pocket save).

Homewardians! I would love to hear your thoughts on these two quick points:

Start Survey

Ok, let’s get to it.

We returned to New York for the summer. To pigeons nesting on our bedroom air conditioner, loudly cooing every morning. To fireworks awakening us at midnight (a special feature of living in Brooklyn Heights). To a bathroom that needs major wall and cabinetry repair due to a leak while we were away. And to a kitchen drawer that refuses to stay closed and sneaks out to stick at 7 inches open (I measured).

That said, we’ve also been reminded of New York’s unparalleled energy. On our first day back, I went to an opening for SIN, a ceramics brand created by Virginia Sin, whose porcelain paper plates I bought back when her business was her side gig. The Williamsburg location is Virginia’s first brick and mortar store, and it’s like a shoebox filled with treasures. We have her square, woven flushmount sconce in our Ojai house.

I joined thousands of walkers for the Great Saunter, a 32-mile (34 with the odd detour) loop around the shoreline of Manhattan, then spent the next 24 hours horizontal. I ate a cardamom bun from Ferrane and a cruller from Daily Provisions. I walked a packaging trade show at the Javits Center, and learned that New England still boasts a number of paper printing companies that were started in the 19th century.

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My neighbor in Ojai texted me a photo of the “moon water” she’d made (moon water is like sun tea but made with water, crystals, and moonlight instead of water, teabags, and sunlight), and I felt very far away from Ojai.

Our Backyard Design

As it’s getting “warm” in New York and many of you are probably starting to think about opening your windows and dusting off your grills, it seems like a good time to show you what we did for outdoor furniture in Ojai. We worked with Terremoto to create a landscape with lots of separate areas and modes. Then we collaborated with Reath Design on clusters of seating areas. Here’s a zone-by-zone lay of the land:

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I am in deep, enduring love with our pizza oven. Cooking with it is so different from a stove. It’s as if you’re the captain of a small ship, feeding it coals to keep the engine running, steering its course, and heeding the whims of the passengers. When you make pizza, people gather around you and peer inside the oven. Everyone likes to play with the infrared temperature gun. And when you serve up a fresh pizza, it’s like bringing a birthday cake with candles aglow to a table. Everyone centers their attention; you can feel the joy.

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The other fun part is that people want to participate. When I’m at my stove, no one asks to brown the chicken. When we had our neighbors over for pizza in Ojai, at one point I needed to run into the kitchen and I asked Marty and Max, a father and son, if they’d mind taking charge of the oven. “We’ve been waiting for you to ask us,” Marty said. Max also brought an incredible dough using his sourdough starter. I will work on getting his recipe for you!

I don’t want to spoil the video below, which takes you from oven installation to oven curing to pizza making, but I want to be sure to share some resources that complement it:

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I’ve spent the last 15 years in the kitchen and home business, and I thought it would be an important exercise as I plan my next business to put myself in the shoes of a customer. Plus, I love shopping, which I guess is like saying, “Plus, I’m American.”

I wanted to experience what it would be like searching for a handmade mixing bowl in what I deem the perfect shape (more on this in a future post), or a good steamer for my clothes, or a reasonably-priced vintage rolling pin.

I plan to continue looking for things when I travel and to support local businesses wherever I can, but when we moved in I was managing two tight book deadlines, some other work issues, this Substack, and the remaining construction on our house. In other words, I was busy like many people, and did a bunch of my shopping on the Internet.

I have a leg up on most people because I know a lot of companies and small makers. I think of myself as someone who’s dialed into where to look and what to look for.

Yet the TL;DR is that it’s been a humbling experience. Shopping online has become a lot less fun. The ad industry has rendered it useless for discovering new products from companies that don’t pay for advertising—namely, individual designers and craftspeople. Internet product search is now a digital version of the Sunday circular: a place for big brands to push discounts and deals.

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People say that online customer reviews have improved the experience of buying mass items (like a vacuum cleaner or a blender), because you can get a read on a product’s effectiveness. But this isn’t true. Amazon, for instance, elevates products with lots of positive reviews, which locks in a product’s position in search results, making it increasingly difficult for a better product to get traction. Often it’s pay-to-play with Amazon, where the only way for a company to get its product on the first page of results is to buy a “sponsored” placement. This makes shopping for the best product even more opaque and confounding.

There are review sites like Wirecutter and The Strategist, but even they have fallen prey to featuring brands that they know they’ll get good affiliate rates with. You rarely come across a brand on these sites that’s a one-person entity without a marketing budget.

Big brands compete for your dollar. Discovery and delight are dead.

But not if you talk to the right people. As has been the case forever. I now know who to ask about pillows, plates, and stoves: you. And for everything else, you can always ask me.

A few months ago, I heard from Grier Stockman, who I knew from Block Shop, a textile company she started with her sister. Grier had left Block Shop to co-found Rec League, a platform that collects the recommendations of tastemakers of all stripes—in shopping, travel, and beyond—which people can join to access.

Grier asked if I’d like to gather up my home, cooking, and travel recommendations. For this born list maker, the timing was uncanny. I had been keeping a huge spreadsheet of the products I was researching for our house. I also keep travel itineraries, book lists, and logs of makers that I like for my new business.

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Today, I’m excited to share my Rec League lists and guides. Some are free, some are paid. (Scroll to the end for a special discount code.) Why? Because this isn’t just something I jotted down. It’s my style and point of view; it’s based on the decades I’ve spent studying home goods, working with makers, traveling, and learning.

While some products have affiliate links, most of the products I like come from makers and companies that don’t play the affiliate game. I don’t recommend with affiliate sales in mind; I recommend based on my taste and knowledge (even the products that are sold through Amazon).

You can think of it as a sourcebook that continually updates and expands—I will periodically add to existing collections and launch new ones (such as Outdoor Living and Tabletop). You’ll get updates (if you want) whenever anything new is added. I hope you’ll enjoy what I’ve shared and find it useful for your own lives.

Btw, paid Homeward subscribers will get a portion of these recs through my posts. But if you want a complete resource with everything in one place—including all my baking tools, glassware research, hosting gift recommendations, and everything I bought for the Ojai house—then Rec League’s the spot.

Yours in sharing the useful, the worthy, the unusual, the beautiful, and the delightful stuff,

Amanda

P.S. Free subscribers, here is a 15% discount that you can share, along with this post!

Paid subscribers, you’ll receive 25% off with this special code:

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As you know, I’m being very selective about what comes into the Ojai house. Everything is carefully researched—either by going down internet rabbit holes or, even better, seeing things in-person and vetting them first-hand. Like I did with pillows recently.

After complaining in a recent post about the bed pillows I’d ordered for Ojai, I sent out a call to Homewardians for their suggestions. You delivered bountifully, sharing a number of brands I’d never heard of and strong opinions about a pillow’s construction, sustainability, and comfort. I have found my people! People who are particular about density, fill, and sleep-style ergonomics.

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After collating your notes, I ordered seven of the pillows to test out. Below are my findings, complete with a video, so you can see the pillows in use and get my analysis. I’m also sharing my ideas for Mother’s Day gifts—things at reasonable price points that hit the thoughtful, practical, and delightful trifecta.

I’m also excited to soon share a shopping resource I’ve been working on that will compile my many, many sourcing lists—from cookware to cookbooks, kitchen tools to pantry storage, travel guides to paper goods that support my list-making in style. I’ve always wanted to have everything in one easy-to-navigate spot (think: not a spreadsheet).

Yours in memory foam and buckwheat,

Amanda

And now, onto your recommendations. After going through your many great suggestions, these are the seven I ordered to test out. I included capsule info on each pillow, followed by a video review of my slumber series:

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Today, we’re going to hang out in my kitchen. I’ve renovated home kitchens and test kitchens, but this is the first space of my own that I’ve been able to design from the ground up. Disclaimer: my kitchen is not as filled out and complete as I’d like, but I really wanted to show you its progress.

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After we bought our house, the old kitchen was taken down to the studs, its roof was removed, and we added on a pantry, so it’s the most radically transformed room in the home. I previously showed you how I thought about the layout of the space and how I wanted it to accommodate various use cases (I call them “flows”), such as making lunch, baking, entertaining, and cooking dinner. Once we had the flows in place, I then focused on the kitchen storage.

Some Storage People are into systems that look uniform, or labels that are color-coordinated, or boxes that match. Fine if that’s your thing. Those Storage People do well on Instagram. I come from a sect of less aesthetically-oriented Storage People. We get off on function.

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Don’t get me wrong: I want good looking jars for my pantry and attractively arranged tools, but the jars need to be square in order to maximize space and the tools have to live within arm’s reach of the place you’re going to use them. A garbage drawer and stacks of kitchen linens should be close to the sink. Measuring spoons are best located in drawers right beneath your work station.

While I thought all of this through in advance of the build-out, I had our wonderful millworker, Tony (more on him in an upcoming post), hold off on installing any of the in-drawer features like dividers, knife holders, and paper towel rods. I wanted to be living in the house and verifying our actual needs before taking this last step.

A kitchen should feel personal, and layered, but it should also reflect the workshop that it is. When you’re cooking in a well-thought-through kitchen, it should feel as though the space has read your mind. You shouldn’t have to root around for a juicer or a knife, it should lead you intuitively to where they are, within reach.

I’m going to leave it to this drawer-by-drawer video tour (with a few cabinets and a multitasking sink in the mix) to show you the rest:

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As we enter year two of Homeward, here’s what I’ve learned about what you’re looking for—based on posts you’ve opened/engaged with and your comments and emails:

• Home/cooking/food product sourcing tips and deep dives

• Personal essays about topics like navigating renovations with my husband Tad or making a big change in my life

• A place to share your own opinions and experiences around everything home-related

Anything important that I’ve missed? Please tell me in the comments. In the meantime, here’s what I have planned for the next few months:

• Detailed new updates on the house renovation (kitchen layout and storage, laundry features, millwork detail, textiles!)

• Deep dives on the home essentials (and some non-essentials) I’ve purchased so far (+ a place where you can see all my home product sourcing in one spot)

• More seasonal recipes and recipe videos

• An inside look at the new business I’m starting; it centers around the home

• Two other exciting projects; for one of them, I’d love to hear more about your own homes and renovations

Sound good? If not, tell me why. I want to know! And for those considering an annual subscription to Homeward, snag a 15% discount—only until Sunday, April 5—through this special link. Now back to regular programming…

I learned last week that a lot of people in Ojai keep their washer and dryer outside. This blew my mind. I know that California is known for its indoor/outdoor lifestyle, but running a washing machine outdoors seems so radical. Maybe a little weird, too, even if it does save a room in the house.

Or is it just that people would do pretty much everything outside if they could? Many people wax on about sleeping outside under the stars. Others, like Tad, crave an outdoor shower in summer. People love cooking and eating outside. There are those who enjoy going to the bathroom in the woods. And especially peeing in the snow. Are houses merely a construct? Is that what Californians have been telling us all along?

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As Brooklynites with a narrow terrace that’s been commandeered by pigeons, we knew nothing about outdoor living. And yet, we were insistent that our Ojai house emphasize an indoor/outdoor layout. Sometimes if you don’t know better, just jump in the deep-end and figure out how to swim.

Or wear swimmies: with Bestor as our architect, Terremoto heading up the landscape, and Reath Design overseeing the outdoor cooking area and furnishings, we were in great hands. Bestor has designed lots of homes with outdoor spaces and large openings between the interiors and the exterior living areas. (This house, also by Bestor, enamors me.)

The house we bought had two main features on the back half of the property: a 1,000-square-foot roofed terrace, containing an outdoor kitchen on an upper level and a seating area and stone fireplace on a lower level, with a swimming pool further down. In between and all around were lots of flowers, boulders, and trees.

We had a full acre of land to work with, and by the time we were ready to do the landscape, it was an acre of dead plants, vines attacking trees, rats’ nests, and a crumbling pool. Here’s a video of the evolution:

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For anyone who’s new to Homeward, here are a few posts that you might enjoy:

• How I Knew It Was Time For a Major Life Shift

• A Roadtrip Led Us To Our New Hometown

• Our Bright-Eyed, Pre-Budget Mood Board

• Renovations Can Be Hard On a Couple—Here Are 3 Ways We Resolve Tension

• How We Cut 30% From Our Reno Plan—And Found Silver Linings

To celebrate this milestone, you can get 15% off an annual membership ($51/year) with this special link now through next Friday. I hope you’ll join me on this new life journey! To those of you who have already been following along, offering advice and encouragement, thank YOU! Last thing before we dive in: This week’s post is free, so please share widely if you enjoyed reading it.

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Back in the fall, when we drove across the country from New York and began our first sustained period in Ojai, I jotted some notes on the experiences and impressions of these early weeks.

• I had a cranial sacral massage, during which I learned that my yang and yin were not connecting well. My massage therapist recommended the book, Craniosacral Chi Kung: Integrating Body and Emotion in the Cosmic Flow.

• I wandered around Ojai Day, an annual street festival, which was endearingly folksy. There were local arts and crafts, as well as a music tent, in which I saw a man teaching a child how to hold a violin. There was a gardening club that signed people up to order wreaths, with the funds going to a local college student majoring in horticulture; and a forest ranger getting kids to spin a wheel and answer questions about water preservation.

• I lost my sunglasses in the grocery store parking lot, and passersby helped me search until we found them.

• Tad and I took a “flexibility class” at the Ojai Valley Athletic Club with what felt like the cast of Cocoon. After class, I went to the locker room to refill my water bottle and found an older woman on a bench, completely naked, reading on her iPad.

• Tad and I shopped at the two weekly farmers’ markets, where I learned about pineapple guavas and the local olive oil season.

• We went hiking on Lucy’s Trail and others.

• We saw “The Player” at the Ojai Playhouse.

Everything felt completely different from our life in Brooklyn.

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We also finally met our neighbors in person. (As you may recall, two of our neighbors saved us during the construction—one turning off our water late at night during a big leak, and another noting a design issue with the cladding going up on our house!). Ann, who lives across the street, invited me to a ladies night. “We are going to have some wine and snacks and make fall wreaths with native plants,” she texted. You can’t get much more California than that!

People often think New Yorkers aren’t friendly. Untrue—they just don’t lead with friendly. But the opposite can be just as off-putting. Ladies night was neither. Everyone was welcoming and curious. I learned about the Thomas Fire in 2017, which destroyed more than a thousand structures, including a number of houses in Ojai, and for several days threatened the entire town. All the people on our street evacuated when the fire came over the adjacent mountain; they assumed they’d return to ash. But the fire department tried a risky strategy: it lit a backfire on a mountain road aimed to spread up the mountain to combat and eventually extinguish the encroaching fire. Miraculously, it worked. Fire seasons come in cycles, one of the women told me. “You’re lucky because we probably have another 20 years until the next big one.” Fingers crossed!

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I also learned about Earth Friend Jen, a local character who used to rollerskate through town wearing nothing but pasties and a bikini bottom. She’d stop traffic doing pirouettes. “I had to teach my kids what the word pasties meant because of her,” one of my neighbors said. EFJ moved away for a while, but she’s back now and still skates—alas, somewhat fully clothed. I’ve seen her rollerskating in a spiral position through town. EFJ is real.

There was talk of a young group of nudists that some of the women knew; this seemed accepted and normal, like talking about a vacation. As is required at all female gatherings, we also discussed a painful procedure that removes blemishes; I’ve unfortunately forgotten the name of it! The biggest scandal in town was the “wheelie kids,” gangs of kids on bikes who stop traffic because they’re doing wheelies. (As everything in 2026 gets branded, I later saw a kid wearing a t-shirt that said Wheelie Kid.) Not a single person asked me what I do, which is often the first question you’re asked in New York.

In December, a few weeks after we moved in, we invited a few of our neighbors over for drinks on a Sunday afternoon. There was another neighborhood party earlier in the day, so we figured they might only want to swing by our place for an hour or so.

Everyone piled in on time and explored the house. As I was pouring drinks, Marty, who lives next door, leaned in and said, “I’m going to come clean, I’ve been in your house A LOT.” During construction, he’d chat with Evan, our contractor, and come by to see the updates.

That night, we learned that our house used to be the gathering spot for all their kids. Our neighbors’ children, now adults, pointed out the place on our property where they’d once constructed a skateboard half pipe. Matt, who had built his family’s house across the street, asked about the wood finishes.

We ran out of wine. They went back to their houses and got more. The party went on for more than four hours.

We went to bed that night feeling lucky.

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It’s several months later now, and I can feel the roots taking hold. I’ve borrowed a pot from Marty and Michele, and a rolling pin from Ann and Matt. I’ve gone to a silent tea ceremony with Tegan, another neighbor from ladies night, and will be attending a garden tour with Ann and her son.

Tad and I have met dozens of lively people, a lot of them expats from LA and New York and many of them writers, actors, artists, and makers. We have found our regular exercise classes at the Athletic Club; we go to the farmers’ market; and we get California burgers at Zaidie’s every couple of weeks.

I love our house. I love hearing the owls “hoo”-ing at night. I love the natural beauty and fresh citrus. And I love spending more time with Tad. I have been happier here over the past few months than I’ve been for most of my life.

A few weeks ago, Ann sent me a photo of an egret that was on the roof of our house.

Egrets, Google tells me, “signify independence, self-reflection, and good fortune,” and “are widely regarded as messengers of divine guidance and peace, appearing during life transitions to encourage patience and harmony.” That sounds about right.

Yours in new chapters,

Amanda

This year on Pi Day, I learned from my Ojai friend Franz that Albert Einstein was born on March 14, 1879, and Stephen Hawking died on March 14, 2018. I also learned that Ojai really knows how to celebrate Pi Day. I’d heard early on in our Ojai journey that a group of people exchanged pies on Pi Day, but that was a fragment of the more glorious reality. At a dinner party, I luckily sat next to one of the founders of Pi Day and scored an invite for this year’s celebration.

As local legend goes, students at Thacher, a boarding school on the east end of town, named one of their running loops “Pi,” because it was (more or less) 3.14 miles long. They would “run Pi” or “go walk Pi.” Some local adults decided to make an event of Pi on Pi Day. The invites that went out said: Bring Pie. Walk Pi. Eat Pie.

Now, 15 years later, 40 or so people arrive at Churchill Farm, pies in hand, at 8:30 in the morning. At 9 a.m., everyone sets out to walk Pi. This year, there were kids in strollers, dogs, groups of friends, and people of every age, walking along the citrus orchards and ascending the hill toward Thacher. Back at the farm, the pies were laid out on oilcloth-covered tables. There were apple pies and blueberry pies, key lime and lemon meringue, quiches and crumbles, even chocolate pies. Pi Day organizers provide plates, forks, napkins, and coffee.

You learned quickly which crusts were the most tender, based on how much people struggled to carve out a slice with a plastic knife. And I got my hard-knocks lesson: when your pie is competing for attention with 30 others, you’ve got to make it visually distinct. I’d made one of my favorite pie recipes—Lazy Mary’s Lemon Tart (baked in a pie dish)—with a Meyer lemon from Franz’s and his wife Maggie’s tree. The filling gets blitzed in a blender with the entire lemon, skin, pith, and all—and is a beautifully balanced yet direct lemon tart. But it looks like a yellow blob. Barely anyone touched it. Next year, I’m bringing a pie dressed for a parade, with whipped cream, maybe some shaved chocolate, and cherries on top.

Ben went to RISD, styled for Martha, and edited at Architectural Digest, among other interior design publications. Most recently, he released The Layered Home, a book that celebrates the unique collections and spaces of creatives who each have an eye for curating everything from art works to pottery, books to figurines, in clever ways. And still, even Ben finds himself experimenting with new looks, searching for what feels true and comforting to him.

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I think you’ll appreciate his paint tips. I liked the bedroom he designed in collaboration with my new Ojai neighbor, Nathan Turner. And I’m grateful to have his list of markets to check out (his roving brocante-style market, The Ticking Tent, is also worth following)—thank you, Ben, for giving me an excuse to plan a trip to Italy next March!

Yours in house snooping,

Amanda

I’ve always wanted to find a home that my husband and I could enjoy on the weekends, where we could entertain friends and family, and express our own personal style. We’re based in a 1,000-square-foot apartment in Jackson Heights, Queens, so we set a 2.5 hour-by-car radius from New York City—and, low and behold, these incredible old properties kept popping up in Wilmington, Delaware, that were listed for a song. Intrigued, we drove down and fell in love with the Victorian and Federal architecture, incredible private gardens, and the feeling of being in an old New England town, similar to the one I grew so fond of during my university years in Providence, Rhode Island.

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Do you like our new boulder fountain and outdoor bathrooms?

I want to start with a shout-out: Katie Elliott, the former head of design at Schoolhouse, celebrated her first year writing Design School. I think the world of Katie and I’ve learned many things from her—like how to translate inspiration into product design and how to blend practicality and surprise when designing home goods. With Design School, she invites us to come along for the ride as she gathers up inspiration from her day-to-day and lets us see what it’s like to be a designer. (Katie generously called out Alex Redgrave, who also edits Homeward!)

And now, let’s pause for a sec to discuss last week’s post. Thank you for the many encouraging comments. I want to clarify that Evan, our contractor, didn’t totally vanish, but he did move us to his back burner the day we moved in. We’re getting our punch list done, it’s just taking forever despite my persistent follow-ups. At some point, when I’ve stopped feeling annoyed with Evan and he has stopped feeling annoyed with me, I’ll ask him why he didn’t try to disguise his change in priorities, so I can better understand it/get over my hurt feelings/have closure. (I’m pretty sure he’s not a subscriber.) Stay tuned. In the meantime, keep an eye out for a chat asking for your contractor tips and stories.

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Today, I’ve got lots more updates and finds for you—including my new water carafe with just the right amount of wabi sabi, some key kitchen tool additions, and a calming ritual I’ve discovered in Ojai. You’ll find them at the end!

But first, I’m excited to introduce you to Rebekah Miles, an artist who produced two special pieces for our house. (Raina Lee, who designed our house numbers, was the first collaborator I featured.) Rebekah lives and works at her family’s ranch in nearby Carpinteria, where she hand-builds and paints ceramics for her online shop, as well as for the store Nickey Kehoe. Frances Merrill, our designer, commissioned Rebekah to make a pair of lamps for one of our bedrooms, and Tad and I asked her to cover them with Pixies, a tiny, sweet tangerine that Ojai is known for.

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Every weekday, Tad and I have had to be showered and dressed by 6:50 a.m., lest the landscape crew passing by our bathroom’s floor-to-ceiling window get a show. And probably not one they’d like.

Our punch list is finally down to the dregs, and while we are mostly more amused than annoyed by the circus we’ve been living in, we really look forward to enjoying our house by ourselves. Maybe sleeping in until 7:15 a.m. Showering with no fear of flashing an innocent worker. Zooming with no interruptive knock on the front door that makes Fiver lose her mind over yet another intruder.

I expected the detail work and the repairs. What I didn’t anticipate was the psychological pinball that kicked off back in December.

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Following up from my dinnerware deep dive, get a load of our new plates that arrived yesterday from Kati von Lehman. Aren’t they beauties? Kati makes brown stoneware feel elegant with precise glazing and a dense clay that she works to a thickness that teeters between hefty and fine. (We decided to get 8 plates, rather than 12—how do you feel about set numbers? Let me know in the comments.)

This week, I wanted to get back in the kitchen—because our new kitchen is super fun to cook in! I made a Citrus Risotto recipe from Zuni Cafe in San Francisco that was featured in Simply Genius by Kristen Miglore. Judy Rodgers, Zuni’s chef and owner, insisted that all the fuss about having to constantly stir risotto was bunk. She said you can stir it here and there, while doing other kitchen tasks, and you can use any temperature broth you want. No need to keep a pot of carefully simmering stock next to your risotto pot.

Risotto chefs: we are now free of all those stodgy old rules! Whoopee!

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While we’re at it, I’m going to add my own debunking: I learned from a born-in-Italy chef that you don’t need a deep pot for cooking risotto; a shallow braising or frying pan gives you more control over the texture.

As you’ll see in my video, I happily flouted all the rules and swerved off course with the risotto (doubled the citrus, and the onion, too)—and it turned out great. I do say so myself. Hope you’ll try it with whatever mix of citrus you have on-hand. Doesn’t this winter need a little brightness?

One-Pot Citrus Risotto

Adapted from Judy Rodgers

Serves 4 to 6

Ingredients

2 tablespoons unsalted butter
½ cup (55g) finely chopped yellow onion
Salt
2 cups (360g) Carnaroli or Arborio rice
4 to 5 cups (950ml to 1.2L) chicken stock
¾ cup (165g) grapefruit segments plus juice, from 1 to 2 medium grapefruit
A scant ¼ cup (50g) lime segments, from 1 lime
¼ cup (60ml) mascarpone

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Instructions

1. Sauté the onion: In a 4-quart (3.8L) saucepan or another medium pot over medium-low heat, melt the butter. Add the onion and a few pinches of salt and cook, stirring regularly with a wooden spoon, until the onion is tender and translucent, about 6 minutes.

2. Simmer the rice: Add the rice and stir until the grains are warm and glossy. Pour in about 2 cups (475ml) of the stock, adjusting the heat to let it gently simmer, then stir occasionally until it has been mostly absorbed. Add another cup (240ml) or so of stock and repeat. The risotto should be starting to look like a porridge. Taste and adjust the seasoning—the rice will still be hard and a little raw tasting. Add another ½ cup (120ml) or so of stock and stir as needed until just absorbed. Taste and adjust the seasoning again.

3. Stir in the citrus: Break the citrus sections into irregular chunks as you add them to the risotto. Add the grapefruit juice—if your grapefruit was very juicy, you may not need much of the remaining stock.

4. Beat in the mascarpone and eat: Taste again: If the rice is still quite firm, add more stock, a tablespoon at a time, and cook until the rice is still just a little firm in the center (al dente). Turn off the heat and aggressively stir in the mascarpone until the risotto is creamy and the citrus is broken down into pretty flecks. Serve immediately.

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Wondering what knife I used to trim the citrus (and my fingers)? It’s Material Kitchen’s 6” Serrated Knife. I have an obsession with tomato knives and have been eyeing this one for months!

And for those seeking more spring-is-so-close recipe ideas, here are some greats from the Homeward archives:

• Cardamom Cold Brew (+ Whiskey Rye Choco Chip Cookies!)

• Tonnato Salad

• Lemon Marmalade

One of the best parts of starting a company is that you get to hire all sorts of talented people, and then watch their careers blossom. Here are just a few of the stars from my Food52 days:

• Kristen Miglore, who wrote Simply Genius (featured above), was our Founding Editor and stayed at the company for more than a decade. She also wrote Genius Recipes, a New York Times bestseller, and Genius Desserts for Food52, and now she’s working on a Montessori cookbook.

• Mayukh Sen was a standout writer who won a James Beard award for a piece he wrote while at the company, and has gone on to publish Love, Queenie: Merle Oberon, Hollywood’s First South Asian Star, a finalist for the 2025 National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography, as well as Taste Makers: Seven Immigrant Women Who Revolutionized Food in America. He also teaches film and television reporting and criticism at New York University.

• Kenzi Wilbur, who was our longtime Head of Editorial, opened Freaks’, a vintage furniture and design store in Hudson, displaying her exquisite taste.

• Kristina Wasserman, who headed up our best-selling product line Five Two, is now VP of Product Development and Design at Our Place.

• Leslie Stephens created Morning Person and published her first novel, You’re Safe Here.

• Ali Slagle, Eric Kim, and Ella Quittner have all gone on to write books (here, here, and here!) and work for other great publications.

• Coral Lee is another dynamo. She came to the company as a writer and was soon launching our podcast network. After she left Food52, I reeled her back in to test 100 recipes for the update of my book, The Essential New York Times Cookbook. Coral now lives in Joshua Tree, California—where, during Covid, she and her partner Trevor started an ice cream business called Nice Dream. This nice dream has expanded into a dreamland with a retail location that will include, as Coral recently wrote, “a robust matcha program, Japanese seasonal cooking menu (think onigiri, farmers’ market-driven sides, and a musteateveryday Faroe Island sticky miso salmon bowl), small-producer biodynamic wines, and a cocktail + audio-visual experience in the evening.” You can read all about it on her Substack, and then get planning your next trip to Joshua Tree!

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My efforts were like doodling compared to Leanne’s fine art. A few years ago, she and her husband bought a down-at-the-heels Victorian home in London—and, while raising her first daughter and having two more children, they crammed into an upper floor of the home while tackling the rest of the house with the blend of ingenuity, grit, and insanity that all DIY renovators possess.

Leanne is so great at it that she now runs her own design firm, and has just released her first lighting line, a sweet and handy collection of sconces and pendants designed in collaboration with Plank Hardware. (The line is not yet available in North America but if you’re interested, send her a note—this will help make it happen!)

Scroll to the last photo to see some of the lighting in her home, but don’t miss her list of wise and practical tips along the way!

Yours in house snooping,

Amanda

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This turned out to be a good instinct because she showed us the importance of a paint color’s luminescence, the gravity that a deep color gives to a space, the jolt that an unexpected hue can lend to a quieter room. She unearthed my childhood love for a green kitchen (I had a great aunt who had one, and I would visit just so I could stand in the kitchen) and transformed my suspicions about reds.

For years in Brooklyn, we’d been tamping down color in our home as a way of psychically taming the chaos in our lives (2 busy jobs, 2 kids, a dog, life in NYC), but Ojai is about re-emerging and unleashing as we enter a new phase of our lives. The first two friends to visit the house described it as “happy.” The palette has a lot to do with this.

Frances doesn’t create a color palette with paint chips, rather she works the palette into a project’s mood board. I asked about her intuitive color process and she compared it to making soup: “I tend to make soup without a recipe, putting in a little of this and a little of that, while tasting to make sure it is balanced.”

I hope you enjoy our conversation (and another of my color inspirations at the end). To kick off, here’s a video of us playing mix-and-match the swatch.

Yours in room anchovies and food anchovies (read on to get the reference!),

Amanda

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A bit of housekeeping: If you signed up for a Founding Member subscription after November 25, 2025 and have not received an email from me about sending you a signed copy of my book, The Essential New York Times Cookbook, please DM me so I can get you a copy! (And for anyone who doesn’t have a Founding Member subscription, you can upgrade here if you’d like to get a book, too.)

And a “D’oh!”: Last week, I spent the afternoon with my new neighbor, the designer Nathan Turner. We made tangerine and orange marmalade on the Vulcan gas stove he has in his outdoor kitchen (a smart move in a warm climate)—video here. One of my jobs was to retrieve the processed jam jars from the simmering water, and I used jam-jar tongs to do so. A kind viewer wrote in to let me know I was doing it wrong: I had the tongs upside down. As they explained, “Flipping them over will make your life easier! The grippy, rounded, silicone portion is made to grab the jar top. The rolly, hard plastic helps your fingers slide with the handle.” Erp—next time.

As I wrote in my last post, I’m discovering that moving in and filling this house with personal touches and all the small goods that I love is going to take time. Turns out, there really is no dramatic before/after, even for the people moving in. While those “quick” transformations are fun to look at, I’m more interested in the human dynamics, design details, and craft that go into making a beautiful home—and making it your own. I’ve been insistent that we don’t rush into acquiring all of the utilitarian objects in our house, but I quickly learned there are some items I’d need to prioritize: scissors, wastebaskets, and everyday dinner plates, to name a few.

When we moved into our house, all we had was a stack of vintage cabbageware plates that I’d shipped out from Brooklyn. The best vintage cabbage plates have a finely webbed surface covered with crevices and ridges. These details make for a beautiful plate and, as we learned after using them for a few weeks, make them a nightmare to navigate with a fork and knife! Your fork feels like this.

We were looking for something low-key and hand crafted, maybe a little earthy but not rustic. I wanted a solid hue that I could then mix with patterned salad plates and bowls. I’d ordered samples of Heath’s Chez Panisse main plate in sorrel; the Commune for Heath dinner plate in barley; Sarah Kersten’s Coupe main plate in both garnet and klamath wheat; and Kati von Lehman’s Place Setting No. 1 in the charcoal glaze.

Tad and I were considering the above plates when I hosted a chat for Homewardians, asking them for their picks. Let me tell you that you are surrounded by a very sophisticated group of plate aficionados. Thank you to everyone who joined the discussion and shared their plates of choice.

If you check out the chat, you will notice that nearly the entire discussion centered around stoneware. But then Shawn L., a reader who recommended Caskata porcelain, jumped in to say, “Porcelain is so much easier to live with. Much more chip-resistant (3x) than stoneware and half the weight. I’m a pattern person, so I love mixing and matching pieces to tell an eclectic story. But I’m an outlier I guess.” Cheers to a contrarian view!

The takeaways, followed by the full list of 39 recommendations:

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We had a plan for how it was all going to unfold. The construction and all dust-producing punch list items would be completed. We’d get the house cleaned top to bottom. Reath Design would do a two-day install of the furniture and lighting. We’d move in. And at last we’d be at home in Ojai! And I’d get back to work on my new business and my book deadlines, all of which I was Very. Behind. On!

You may recall that we were supposed to move into the house last March. Then July. Then October. Then November. And finally, December.

When we returned from spending Thanksgiving in New York, the house was done—in the sense that a layer cake is done when the layers are baked but not yet assembled, iced, or decorated. Some patches of our cake had stuck to the pan, and there were a lot of crumbs around the edges.

But the cascade of cleaners and movers were scheduled. We were going to move in.

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Two housecleaners and I vacuumed, scrubbed, and wiped every surface (a few glugs of white vinegar, a drop or two of dish soap, very hot water, and cotton cloths), while navigating around construction workers who were still installing countertop, painting trim, and wiring lights.

The thing about wiping down surfaces is that you learn a lot about the quality of the finish work.

After 10 hours of cleaning, I was, on the one hand, ecstatic about the design and proportions of the house, and on the other, infuriated by all of the small issues we were going to have to fix. But mostly, I was just sweaty and tired.

The next day, we picked up lunch for Reath and the movers. When I went by the house to drop it off, Mariah, one of Reath’s designers, was unpacking lamps on the kitchen island. I felt a little flutter of excitement.

Tad and I had been asked to stay away (a.k.a. out of their hair) until they were finished. We hunkered down at our neighbors’ guest house and waited it out, answering emails and distractedly working. We’d been unsettled since late September. Moving in would solve this. We’d finally have our mooring.

Late in the afternoon on the following day, Frances texted to say they were ready: we could move in! We packed up our carry-on bags and Fiver, and drove down the hill.

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As we walked into the house, Frances, Mariah, and Danielle from Reath were standing in the kitchen, beaming. The house, now furnished with items we’d been selecting over the past two years, was sublime. But seeing how pleased they were is what made me feel giddy. I understood for the first time that this is their moment. They had spent far more time working on the house than we had. They had labored over welting details, the translucency of shades, the wrapping of sofa feet. They had put together a complex matrix of color and texture—and just as a director won’t know exactly how a play will work until the curtain is lifted before a live audience, the same is true for an interior designer. Will their risks pay off? Will details be perceived? Will the natural light cooperate with the paint?

Similarly, for Bestor, all of the careful thought they’d put into how a horizontal line of trim would carry through the house, or how the finish of the floor boards would sync with the wood paneling now made the leap from theoretical to actual. They had pushed for skylights in every bathroom and in select hallways; we were neutral on skylights, having lived through the ‘80s when roofs everywhere were pocked with them. But as we walked around we could see and feel their power as light flooded what would have been a dark entranceway, and as a natural glow filtered through the ceiling and onto a shower’s tiles.

After living in an apartment that has “character” for 23 years, moving into a house with bigger scale, a unified aesthetic, and distinct furnishings was sensorily overwhelming. And also a little jarring. The renderings of the rooms had magically transformed into their real-life versions, but they were at this point still objects, not belongings. We had no relationship with them. I wandered around, drunk on the details (like the faceted sofa in our TV room), feeling a sense of wonder that we would get to live here. At some point, I expected (soon, I hoped), it would come to feel like home.

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Frances and her team helped us unpack the vintage cabbage plates, Ed Langbein cantaloupe bowls, and Dansk boards I’d squirreled away. The movers folded up their drop cloths, Reath packed up their install tool kit, and off they all went.

As soon as the front door shut, Fiver (who we joke is not the sharpest tool in the shed) took off, sniffing the perimeter of every room, leaping onto the furniture, rolling and scratching on the rugs. It was so unlike her and so startling. She’d only been to the house a couple of times while it was under construction, but somehow she knew it was her new home. She settled right in and made it her own.

Humans, I would learn, are much slower to adapt. Here’s a look back at the last six months (er, two years):

Yours in home-making,

Amanda

• Jessica Swift, an artist and fabric designer, writes a newsletter called Studio Notes (you can sign up here; just scroll to the bottom of the page). In a recent email, she shared an idea from artist Ana Bianchi: have a friend or family member wrap 12 of your cookbooks and label them for each month of the year. Then each month you open a cookbook and make something new from it. I love the sense of surprise and seeing your cookbooks with a fresh eye, because who hasn’t felt cookbook inertia? (Hat tip to my sister Rhonda, who shared this with me!)

• My friend Liz, who regularly sends me her shopping finds, alerted me to Shorthand, a paper store in Highland Park, L.A. Browsing their site, I learned that they sell notebooks designed for lefties—let us rejoice!

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• A highlight of an American road trip is when you come across a niche cultural experience. Like the Lakota Wolf Preserve in New Jersey, the Mammoth Site in South Dakota, or the Luray Caverns in Virginia. The New York Times recently covered an Apron Museum in Iuka, Mississippi that houses more than 6,000 aprons dating back to the 19th century.

• Last Thursday morning, Clare de Boer’s substack landed in my inbox. By evening, I was baking the Toffee Almond Torte she’d featured. I didn’t have almond flour so I used hazelnut flour. The torte, which takes about 8 minutes to assemble, is salty, chewy, dense, crunchy, and in every way my idea of a perfect dessert.

Paul and Nick have a knack for knowing where to be, and as I’ve learned since then, that extends to their homes. First it was a brownstone in Crown Heights and a house in Hudson. Then a bungalow in L.A., followed by a Spanish Colonial in Glendale, then a house in Sea Ranch, and more recently a home in Gers, in southwest France. A friend and I joke that we’d like our next careers to be Paul and Nick’s house sitters. As you’ll see below, Paul and Nick make their spaces as relaxed and welcoming as they are.

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Once, when visiting their house in Hudson, my then 8-year-old daughter disappeared while we were chatting; we later found her nestled in a reading nook they’d created at the top of the stairs. They just know what the people want! Fortunately for us all, their Sea Ranch home will soon be available for short term rentals. I’ll share the link when it becomes available.

In the meantime, have a look through the extraordinary Sea Ranch Design Manual. So much of the text is focused on consideration of the land and your neighbors. Under a section called “Design Process,” the first topic is “Sensory Awareness.”

Yours in house snooping,

Amanda

We first discovered The Sea Ranch accidentally in 2011. Driving up the PCH from San Francisco to a wedding we were attending in Bandon, OR, we started late and hungover. Two hours in, we were nauseous and “hangry.” To avoid a meltdown, we stopped at the next available sign of life: The Sea Ranch Lodge. After a meal and some fresh air, the Sea Ranch effect took over; we felt satiated and calm.

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