Discover more from All's Well by Nadine Zylberberg
Hi friends! I missed you last week. I did mean to meet my self-imposed weekly deadline, but a sick baby threw that plan out the window. (He’s good now!) So here we are, with a smattering of reads and listens and buys. Send me what you’ve been liking too!
Well Read
I enjoyed Haley Nahman’s essay on Substack in which she picks apart that often-heard advice to “Enjoy it, please enjoy it, because this time goes by so fast!” It’s a piece of advice often rooted in nostalgia, but as she embarks on new motherhood, she feels it in real time:
“I felt it right away, that parental longing to freeze time. For weeks post-birth, as I watched my baby’s weight tick up, I made note of whether, technically, she could still fit in my body. At the time this made sense as a measure of her personhood: the more she grew, the further she grew from me. An extremely hormonal thought, but somewhat prescient too. As Rachel Cusk wrote of the first days with her daughter in A Life’s Work, ‘We are still so close to our sundering that neither of us seems entire: the painful stump of our jointness, livid and fresh, remains.’ If childhood is a plodding journey away from the mother, birth is the first step. So long as my baby could still technically fit inside my body, there existed a hypothetical in which the step had not yet been taken.
In her book Ongoingness, Sarah Manguso reflects on her obsession with documenting the minutiae of her life in a journal. ‘I wrote so I could say I was truly paying attention. Experience in itself wasn’t enough. The diary was my defense against waking up at the end of my life and realizing I’d missed it.’ Eventually she has a child, is forced to allay her preoccupation in favor of more urgent needs, and eventually comes to understand ‘that the forgotten moments are the price of continued participation in life, a force indifferent to time.’”
As it turns out, life is all about this duality: the desire to enjoy experiences and the acknowledgment that wanting to hold onto them forever is what potentially keeps us from enjoying most fully. It’s the idea that, as Haley says, “forgetting is the price for presence.” You can find her full essay here.
Well Heard
I came across this 2020 video of Maggie Rogers singing a bedtime tune on Sesame Street and, I’m not gonna lie, it’s fantastic. I’m humming it as I type. Pella now asks for “Mommy Rogers Elmo” before going to sleep. She’s two and she’s cooler than me. I’d love to know if any readers who aren’t using it to lull their kids to sleep enjoy it, too…
Btw, Maggie’s third album, “Don’t Forget Me,” is out now.
Well Fed
A couple of weeks back from Paris, I came across Lauren Collins’ New Yorker piece on the most American dining option in all of France, but also the most exclusive? (Fine, I’ll go back, twist my arm.) It’s an all-you-can-eat buffet with four dining rooms in a municipal rec center outside Narbonne. Collins waited five months to eat there. But before your mind goes to Golden Corral, think again. It’s the “Louvre of dishes,” says Les Grands Buffets’ proprietor, with a focus on French fare alone. Here’s a better picture of the place:
“Last year, more than three hundred and eighty thousand people paid fifty-two euros and ninety centimes for the pleasure of visiting Les Grands Buffets. Drinks cost extra, but they are sold at a minimal markup, so a bottle of Mercier champagne costs twenty-five euros, about the same as it does in the supermarket. Everything else is unlimited, from caviar to stewed tripe. There are nine kinds of foie gras on offer, and five pâtés en croûte, including one known as Sleeping Beauty’s Pillow, which involves a panoply of meats (chicken, duck, wild boar, hare, quail, sweetbreads, ground pork) and is considered by connoisseurs to be “charcuterie’s holy grail.” The chef Michel Guérard has called Les Grands Buffets “the greatest culinary theater in the world.” Guinness has certified its cheese platter, featuring a hundred and eleven varieties, as the largest known to restaurant-going man. It’s more of a cheese room.”
Collins goes on the explore the history of the buffet. (Did you know the Swedes brought it to America via 1939 World’s Fair?) I particularly loved when she writes, “Buffets are the culinary version of your wedding day or a big birthday—a bunch of foods that don’t belong together all in the same space, somehow getting along.”
Admittedly, I held on to my Soho House membership years longer than I should’ve simply because they have the best weekend brunch buffet in the city. I feel the same way about my parents’ Delray Beach country club. Buffets are where the heart is. Even a global pandemic couldn’t stamp out the beloved (Swedish?) American tradition.
Well Worn
Trench coats have been on my mind lately. I’ve been stopping women on the street, asking about their coats, and searching all over the Internet for the perfect one. Naturally, my two favorites—a vintage YSL one that someone was wearing at a vintage fair last weekend and an old Rebecca Taylor style—are nowhere to be found. BUT. Good trench coats still abound and I’ve rounded up my (available) favorites.
Cos might have the best one at the intersection of design, material, and cost. If you don’t love the prominence of buttons, Banana Republic makes a great, light one. (Don’t sleep on the brand’s cape-coat either; I probably prefer it.) Zara never fails in this department either; I like the linen option too.
I like how the one from A.P.C. x Natacha Ramsay-Levi collaboration has a motorcycle jacket element. And I love By Malene Birger’s wide sleeves. Uniqlo’s Clare Waight Keller collab also has a great classic option.
K-Way had a collaboration with Soeur last year (another one that got away!) but it did introduce me to the Parisian rainwear brand, so that’s a silver lining. This style looks good too, and it packs up into a tiny pouch.
Even though trench coats thrive in their classic design, sometimes there are exceptions: like this gathered belt one by J.W. Anderson, this short-sleeved Mille one, this blurred-effect one from Loewe, and this amazing Puppets & Puppets one with a curved back.
Trench jackets are having a moment, too. Favorite Daughter has a classic belted one, Rosie Assoulin makes a minimalist version, and one with some great striped lining from A.P.C. x Natacha (again). Speaking of lining, I like the plaid peeking out of this Acne jacket. Zimmerman has one that’s somewhere between a coat and a jacket; let’s call it a cape.
And some one-off styles from the second-hand universe… an Issey Miyake parka from the ’80s, this Prada one with a bit of shine, a Bill Blass one with perfectly cropped sleeves, and cropped trenches from Lemaire and Huishan Zhang.
Didn’t think there could be so many variations of a khaki trench coat, huh?
Signing off with this photo of jeweler Irene Neuwirth feeding her horse a carrot through her kitchen window. It’s from this Town & Country profile, but frankly, the photo alone does it for me. The perfectly groomed Dutch Warmblood. The turquoise jewels. The overflowing bowl of sugar cubes.
Happy Wednesday. Until next week!
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Going to play that song for my 16 month old - he will love!