Essays on slow living.
Travel, mornings, long tables, and the kind of days that become stories. Updated most Sundays.
Saatva Classic: the mattress I stopped thinking about. That is the whole review.
I bought the Saatva Classic after three years of waking up stiff and telling myself it was probably stress. It was not stress.
The table I didn't plan for, and the meal I keep going back to.
There is a kind of restaurant you only find when you stop looking — the handwritten menu, the bread from that morning, and the table you book again before you've paid the bill.
Three days, two trains, and a perfect plate of clams.
There is a kind of travel that asks for almost nothing — a window seat, a paperback, a town small enough that the baker recognizes you by the second morning.
An hour before everyone else wakes up.
On the strange luxury of a quiet kitchen, an old kettle, and a notebook still mostly empty.
The thirty-person dinner that started as four.
A guide to throwing the kind of table where no one looks at their phone, and the candles stay lit until midnight.
The mug, the window, and the hour that belongs to no one else.
On the small, renewable luxury of a slow morning at home — before the calendar has opinions and the plants are the sharpest green they will be all day.
Lagos, by accident, on the way to anywhere.
We meant to stop for coffee. Six days later, the laundry on the line was almost certainly ours.
The five-ingredient pasta worth buying a plane ticket for.
It's a recipe, but mostly it's an argument for cooking the same thing on Tuesday nights for the rest of your life.
A field guide to taking the train, even when it's slower.
On the magic of arriving somewhere with your hair done and your nervous system still attached.
Three books for the kind of week that needs a slower one.
Including the one I keep buying and giving away, and the one I refuse to lend to anyone, ever.
The coastline in October, when the tourists have left.
A case for travelling just after the season ends, when the restaurants are still open and the light is better anyway.
What I actually pack for three weeks in Europe.
A ruthless edit made over twelve years of over-packing, under-packing, and everything in between.
The village that does not appear on any list.
In defence of the places no one has written a newsletter about yet.
How I find the best places to eat before I've left the house.
On the slow pleasure of researching a city's food before you arrive — and why the notebook matters more than the algorithm.
On bread, and the particular pleasure of buying it from someone who made it.
A small argument for knowing where your breakfast came from.