Carla Lalli Music Is Living for Beans and Blankets Right Now
BA editors love to shop as much as we love to eat. In our new column We’re Into It, we share our favorite recent finds. First up: food director Carla Lalli Music waxes poetic about fresh figs, cozy wool blankets, and the coolest clogs.
We’ve finally entered the ideal season for entertaining at home. The transition back to work/school reality has evened out, and everyone is settled into their fall routines. Even though the holidays are just around the corner, I love dedicating my weekend days to cooking projects that feed a crowd—braises, slow-roasts, and Sunday soups, or any recipe that I can start early on Sunday afternoons and continue working on into the cozy evening hours.
Photo by Alex Lau1/7The Blanket
Throw these Faribault Revival Stripe wool blankets onto deck chairs to make them more comfy or around the kids’ shoulders when it gets chilly. (Or take them to fall sporting events, if you’re into that.)
Photo by Alex Lau2/7The Best Beans
I am obsessed (obsessed, I tell you!) with the slow-cooked, brothy butter beans that chef Patch Troffer is making these days at Marlow & Sons in Brooklyn. He told me how to make them, and it’s not like I can’t follow the recipe, but getting these right will take practice. Lots of practice.
Photo by Alex Lau3/7The Bowl
Once I get those brothy beans right, I’m serving them in these Sarah Kersten Salad Bowls in Quail Egg. They are the perfect wide-but-also-a-little-deep size for soups, pastas, grain bowls, and (of course) brothy things.
Photo by Alex Lau4/7The Tool
When something is perfect, it’s worth treasuring. And hoarding. And finding even more reasons to keep it in your life. That’s how I feel about the Kunz spoon: the world’s greatest kitchen spoon. Chef Gray Kunz recently released a Special-Edition Copper Spoon with a copper satin finish that comes in its own box. It’s only available while supplies last, so I’m getting myself one.
Photo by Alex Lau5/7The Finger Food
Fall is fig season. When they are at peak, I will make one of the easiest finger foods in existence—figs, on a platter, with good olive oil, flaky salt, crushed red chilies, and lemon juice squeezed all over.
Photo by Alex Lau6/7The Hostess Gift
Generally speaking, I’d rather make a hostess gift than buy one—that goes for caramel sauce, granola, and most cookies. But the buttery Bunches & Bunches Shorties shortbread cookies that come in this beautiful box are the worthy exception.
Photo by Alex Lau7/7The Footwear
Clogs, a.k.a. “Mom Shoes,” are officially cool (uh, again), as evidenced by the wealth of amazing content on the Clog Life Instagram. My kitchen uniform calls for white Danskos. But Clog Life creator Lauren Mechling says the Beklina clogs in Matisse Blue are the move after-hours.
