You may or not be surprised to hear this, but majority of the food writers (especially in the blog world) that I’ve met have never worked in a restaurant or any kind of service position. They have absolutely zero knowledge of what goes on in the back of the house. 

I miss Trader Joe’s so much! I moved to Hawaii where they don’t have them :-( or any decent furniture stores. It’s the price I have to pay, I guess.

It is!

Was just at SeaTac a few weeks ago and really bummed that I didn’t have time to go to Beechers before my flight! At least Alaska serves their cheese plates on board.

HNL is such a dreadful airport in general, and on top of that I can’t think of a single decent place to eat there. 

Same. If I’m not familiar with a place/haven’t researched the restaurant, I like to know what drink is their most popular, their best known dessert — basically what’s the draw that brings customers back — that way I don’t miss out on anything.

Thanks for posting this. I got totally engrossed in this piece, it was exactly the escapism I needed at the moment. 

My mother is a narcissist, and I thought the same thing about him. And holy shit, if I was a public figure and my mother had a platform to drag me, she would do the same thing he’s doing.

I am SO stealing this term because I live in a place where this is rampant

I’m so stealing this! It’s a lot better and more concise than “I was old enough to like Nirvana, but too young to see them in concert.”

I read the New York Magazine piece about this over the weekend — it was so well written! But I feel like what’s getting buried is the fact that it wasn’t just the wealthy who got majorly screwed over — this woman used everyone and anyone she knew. She stuck a photo editor at a magazine with the bill for a luxury hotel…

I feel your pain. When I worked as a writer at a city magazine, which had paid subscribers and was sold at a grocery store, blogs and even some companies reached out to me asking me to write for them unpaid for “exposure.”

Oh wow, I was just wondering about this too. I recently got back from a trip where I spent the first half of it at a boutique hotel that cost $150 a night, then the second half at a sprawling, oversized resort.

I am so sorry this happened to you, and am glad you’re no longer dating that person.

I totally know what you mean. The nylon Kate Spade bag was the it bag when I was in college in the early aughts, and it was the first upmarket bag that I bought on my own. I was waiting tables while going to school, and when I bought that boxy bag after saving for it I felt so proud. When I saw the news this morning…

I’m all the way over in Honolulu, and definitely not living in a beachfront home since I don’t have millions :-) One bummer about living out here is that my travel dreams are even that much more unattainable: I’m SO far away from London, it would be such a trek to get there vs. when I lived in SoCal and could fly…

Reading this made me so happy! I’m so stoked for you!!! It takes a lot of guts to do what you did. Thank you for sharing this with us!

For me since I live in the tropics where it’s hot and humid all the time, I’d take a trip to Iceland and the UK. They are also two bucket-list destinations for me that I have not managed to get to because of life, work, and not having the time to as I’ve gotten older.

Have not tried Supergoop. The newest sunscreen I tried last weekend that I really like is Neutrogena’s sport sunscreen with the redesigned spray bottle. How they simply changed the dispenser/added a handle made such a difference — you can easily spray your back, and the mist comes out nicely. This worked great for a…

That looks amazing! I really need inspiration to cook. I used to love doing it and trying out new recipes, but nowadays it’s such a slog for me to even go to the grocery store. I’ve seriously been living on prepackaged greens, shakes and rotisserie chicken.