Place settings, historic glassware and double movie features.
It's not a gift guide because this entire newsletter series is basically a year-round gift guide.
Hello, it’s great to
see you here
Editor – Phoebe Tully
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Welcome to those who have joined in a mass influx this past week.
One of my goals recently was to grow my business newsletter database by 50 new subscribers – and I clearly wasn’t being specific enough, because this newsletter grew by 50 people over the weekend! I’m not sure if I believe in manifesting, but that did make me laugh.
I hope you find a bit of joy in the ridiculousness of this newsletter. Every week it brings me so much joy to think of small ways to inject fun, glamour and a whiff of the esoteric into my life – and hope that you may enjoy the injection into your own.
This week I share a cheap but very cheerful addition to your Christmas table, some new glassware with a mini history lesson (of course), and a rapid fire round-up of things you may enjoy exploring this summer. Cheers!
Feed yourself, feed the bees.
Instead of a cracker full of plastic crap on your Christmas table, how about a sachet of seeds in cute home compostable packaging on each place setting? (I absolutely do not mean to pull open at the table – can you imagine?!)
Settler Hives has just collaborated with the poet Tess Guinery on a special edition sachet for their cosmos seeds ($) and it would be such a sweet, colourful addition to the table.
Full disclaimer here: Settler Hives is a client of mine, although I receive no incentive to promote them. I just thought this was such a nice little gift idea!
Who are Nick and Nora?
You may be familiar with these dainty cocktail glasses without realising they have their own name: a Nick & Nora.
The bartender Dale DeGroff was developing a cocktail list in the late 1980s, and wanted the small, delicate style glasses seen in old films – like The Thin Man films of the 1930s, whose main characters are detectives named Nick and Nora Charles.
It’s similar to a cocktail glass or a martini glass, but smaller and a bit tighter. A martini glass typically holds 250ml of liquid, while a N&N holds only 150ml. I think they’re just nicer to hold, but then I have tiny hands…
Chain-stitch “cheers” onto some simple white cocktail napkins with gold thread (like this), and you have yourself just the sort of esoteric gift suggestion this newsletter is becoming known for.
Some Nick & Noras I would display on my drinks table:
Riedel offers a chic duo set ($) in a gift box.
I’m a sucker for etched glass, and this set of six ($$) is just so pretty.
This Gatsby-feeling faceted set ($$) is screaming your name.
This modern set ($$) is much more angular, but just as elegant.
And of course, op-shops, Etsy and eBay are full of vintage N&Ns!
DO | see the city’s lights come up at night from the (dis)comfort of a kayak. If you live in a water city, this is a truly unique vantage point!
MAKE | iced chai lattes with chai ice cubes. Genius.
READ | Provence, 1970 – Luke Barr
WATCH | a double feature of It Happened One Night (1934) and Two for the Road (1967)
LISTEN | Keep Me In Mind – Miriam Makeba