Quaintrelle Weekender
A few changes, ideally for the better.
If you follow the Rich Roll podcast, or at all engaged in the Roll-osphere, you likely know of a semi-famous clip where someone asked how many more times will you see your parents.
If you visit your folks once or twice a year, and they are of a certain age or in certain health, what might that be? Two, six…10?
Luckily – gratefully – I have no worries around that. My parental dance card is full.
As you might remember, I’ve just returned from a 12-day trip down south with my entire family. We weren’t chained together every moment of the day, I would lounge by the pool with margaritas while my parents would read in a shady spot. Some of us would snorkel in the ocean, while my parents toured the island. But we would meet through out the day over breakfast or lunch, cocktail hour or dinner. I saw my parents for hours a day, every day, for 12 days.
Now home, and all of us in our respective dwellings, we have my niece’s birthday this weekend, my father’s birthday the next, and my mother’s birthday a week later. Then it’s Easter.
It’s a little intense, even for a family as close as ours.
My niece lobbed the idea that we simply combine all four events into one, gigantic rager. Either that, or a nice dinner that will involve good wine and Scrabble or the Train Game.
Despite truncating the four celebrations into one, we will still get together this weekend for a low-key dinner for my niece. Not a real knees-up, but everyone deserves a toast on their special day.
I’ve requested – several times – my sister, who is a magnificent baker, make Nicola Lamb’s cherry karpatka (gift link from NYT Cooking.) So far this request has gone largely ignored and I’m starting to feel offended.
It is a rule in our family that everyone gets to pick the menu for their birthday dinner. Years ago, when still in the single digits, Sienna (the niece in question) asked for hamburgers and German potato salad; a menu probably better suited to her brother’s summer birthday, but the heart wants, what the heart wants. Though now that I think of it, one year her brother did something similar requesting hearty rouladen for his June birthday. What can I say…? Kids.
So everyone gets what they want on their special day. Clearly, I don’t get what I want on their birthdays, but that’s a conversation between me and my therapist.
Hello and welcome to Quaintrelle Weekender, my weekly postcard of what’s on my mind this week.
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You may notice (probably not, but let my ego think you do), that this Weekender is coming out a day early.
I’m playing around with new dates for sending these little communiqués. Like any titan of industry, I’m trying to maximize open rates (like fibremaxxing, but with email. Openmaxxing, perhaps) which means not annoyingly sending you another thing to land in your inbox on top of all kinds of other things. I worry (because I do the same), when it all piles up, it’s just too easy to hit the delete button, leaving my carefully crafted prose unread. And that makes me sad for you because you really should hang off my every word. You will be a better person for it, and I want you to be better.
So for the next little while, I aim at sending a Weekender on Fridays which will hopefully offer a little timely inspiration for your weekend hosting, and the weekday note will move to Mondays. Hopefully this will work nicely with everyone’s reading load, but if the new schedule really shakes up your world, please let me know.
This Week’s …
Read: Designing Your Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans. I just picked up this book after listening to an interview on the Mel Robbins podcast. This will likely provide much conversation for future Quaintrelles, as the premise is really compelling: the Stanford engineering professors created a wildly popular course about designing your life the way a designer would engineer any challenge from creating laptop hinges to a sports car. They wrote a book about it, published about 10 years ago, which remains a bestseller. I’m embarking on the exercises in tandem with a friend and excited to see where it leads.
Watch: I am the worst for these recommendations, I don’t know why I’ve gotten myself into it. I may have to stop as I’m pretty sure I’m embarrassing myself. The TV hasn’t turned on in three days and I’m still working my way through Love Story, which at this rate, will take another month. Believe it or not, The Crown, which has remained unwatched despite ending three years ago, is on my “next up” list! I’m so hopelessly out of fashion.
Listen: Another leveller I may have to reconsider. I’m literally the person who turns down my music, despite listening on headphones, when I pass cool-looking people on the street. However, I’ve created a dinner party playlist of instrumental jazz and one song I absolutely adore right now is ’Round Midnight by Miles Davis. Other fantastic songs include Park Avenue by Blue Mitchell, and a very, very cool (at least to me) version of Have You Met Miss Jones by the Alvin Queen Trio.
(When it comes to dinner parties and conversation, I can not stand lyrics or the frenetic energy of Top 40 hits (or whatever) pounding over the party. I just get way overstimulated and anxious. I’m out.)
The Weekend Menu
Last Night’s Dinner: 15 minute pasta carbonara
Tonight’s Dinner: Tartiflette and roast chicken
The Weekend Cocktail: Cucumber-Basil Gin Smash
The Weekend Wine: Cellier Du Chateau “De La Chaume” Chablis, Burgundy, France $37 (Ontario pricing)
Back on Monday…
Let’s give this a whirl, shall we? Who’s excited!?
I’ve just wrapped up my latest Wine, Women & Wealth event and there were loads of golden nuggets to be mined.
I’m putting together my top financial learnings for the last three events and sharing with premium subscribers in a few days.
I hope to see you there.
Until then –
xo –Erin
Thank you for reading Quaintrelle.
This newsletter is written by me, Erin Henderson, journalist-turned-sommelier-turned-entrepreneur. I literally drink and throw parties for a living, and on the weekends, I share some thoughts on stylish living.
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Fridays sound good. Cute parents by the way!
Such a nice way to kickstart the weekend.