Some Mother's Day and Father's Day gift ideas

When it comes to smaller holidays, I really like letting the theme inspire the gifts; for example, I love a Valentine’s Day present that also happens to be pink, red, or lavender. For Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, I’m all about pretty, springy things that either nod to or inspire time spent in a backyard or garden. (And yes, I’m putting moms and dads into a single list, because I’ve personally always found the way that gifts for the two are gendered to be extremely alienating! Some moms like to grill and some dads like flowers!!!) 

So if you’re hunting for something to give each of your parents (or the parent of your kids, or honestly whoever) for Mother’s Day/Father’s Day, here are some ideas that I hope will spark something!

Nocs zoom tube

I’ve been gifted several pairs of Nocs by the brand over the years and wholeheartedly recommend them; they are very nice starter binoculars that don’t feel like heavy-duty “gear.” I’m a fan of the singular zoom tube ($75), which can easily be tucked in a jacket pocket on a morning walk for impromptu birding.

Tree Finder and Flower Finder

I love these classic paperback books, which were first published in 1955. Both are currently $5.53 from Bookshop: Tree Finder and Flower Finder. (I also think they’d pair so nicely with the Nocs zoom tube!) 

Fellow travel mug

After drinking coffee out of a standard mug for my entire adult life, I’ve seen the light: An insulated vessel keeps coffee so much hotter (especially if you’re a slow sipper, like I am) and has improved my quality of life considerably! When people stay with us, they always comment on how nice these Fellow mugs are, and we’ve gifted them to a few people (including Kiyana’s mom). Also, the Fellow’s splash guard really works! It comes in several different colors; get one from Fellow or Amazon for $35.

Devotions by Mary Oliver

Mary Oliver just writes so beautifully about nature, and reading this anthology while sitting in a park or on the beach is pretty sublime. Get the hardcover for $29 from Bookshop. 

Toyo steel toolbox

I actually have two of these—a smaller one ($44 at the Container Store or $35 from Amazon) that I use for actual tools, and the bigger cantilevered one ($135 at the Container Store or $129 from Amazon), which Kiyana gave me for Valentine’s Day to use as a sewing box. I love the bigger one—it’s really practical, and the creamy white is quite striking. (Note: If you are willing to do some Googling, you can find additional color options across retailers!) 

Cadence toiletry kit

I own and love these customizable magnetic toiletry containers, which are ostensibly for travel but are also great for other forms of storage. (For example, when I was juggling a bunch of different meds, I used mine to mete out doses and keep track of what I’d already taken.) You can choose any combination of colors, adjust the sizes, and have labels made or keep them neutral. The bottles are leakproof, easy to clean after a trip, and just genuinely very convenient. A seven-piece set of 1.32-ounce containers is $168 from Cadence.

Meyer lemon phone wristlet

Kiyana gave me one of these cases along with two different beaded cords for Christmas last year and they bring me so much joy; I use them whenever we’re going out to do something that feels a little fancy. There are a bunch of different styles, but I’m partial to the fruits. Get the strawberry cord + case for $75 or the Meyer lemon cord + case for $110 from Ossa. 

Wingspan board game

I’ve been extolling the pleasures of this game for years and actually taught Tom and Danny to play when we saw them earlier this month. (They loved it and bought it for themselves immediately.) It’s so mellow—it has beautiful art, and is just a treat to play. Get it from Stonemaier Games for $59. (Note: I’ve heard of people accidentally buying counterfeit versions on Amazon, so I’d recommend buying directly from Stonemaier or at a local game store.) 

Crepe paper flowers

Flowers are a classic Mother’s Day gift, and I love a version that will last for years. I have tulips (in the living room) and peonies in the bedroom, and both bouquets are really beautiful! (The peonies actually look real at a glance.) A set of three tulips is $76 from floresparasiempre on Etsy, and the shop offers a bunch of other flower options as well. 

Popsmith popcorn maker

I never really cared about stovetop popcorn—I’ve always been fine with a bag of Orville Redenbacher—until I was sent a Popsmith to try out few years ago. The popcorn is delicious (I recommend getting the popping kits—they are worth it), and the process of making it feels like an event (in a good way!). The starter bundle is $213 from Popsmith or $249 from Amazon. (Note: It comes in three colors; I have the cream one and I think it’s really pretty.)

Stanley water bottle

I’ve already made my feelings on this water bottle known! Get it from Amazon or Stanley for $35.

Moccamaster 53921 KBGV Select 10-Cup Coffee Maker

If you’re willing/able to really splurge, this coffee maker is pretty life-changing; it simply makes the best (and fastest!) cup of drip coffee I’ve ever had. It’s also really aesthetically pleasing and available in several colors. I actually bought my mom one on Black Friday as a Christmas last year because she kept talking about how good our coffee was when she visited. Ranges from $319–$380 from Amazon, Williams-Sonoma, and Moccamaster.

That’s all I’ve got, but let me know what you’re gifting this year! 🌷

I have to give it to the Stanley water bottle

After seeing the Stanley water bottle craze all over social media for the better part of a year, I finally gave in because I wasn’t drinking enough water during the day and I knew my vessel was part of the problem. (Look, I’m as susceptible to hype as anyone—that’s how I ended up at the Wicked movie.) The Stanley (sorry, the Quencher H2.0 Flowstate™ 30-oz. Tumbler) checked all of my boxes: I wanted something dishwasher safe and insulated, with a hard straw, and not too sporty.

You guys…I’m here to tell you that I love this water bottle. So much that I now own two identical ones, as well as a Stanley-shaped ice cube tray that you definitely don’t need and a straw cleaning kit that you probably do. 

Kiyana was anti-Stanley, but even she has had to admit that it’s pretty convenient and keeps water so cold throughout the day. She even borrows it from time to time when she’s working out! Her one complaint—that I think is completely fair—is that it’s kind of top-heavy, meaning it tips over easily if you set it on the floor next to the couch and then your partner doesn’t see it when she stands up. (My guess is the bottom is narrow to fit in a car’s cup holder.) 

I was surprised to learn that you can also put hot drinks in this bottle and sip through a different hole on the lid that stays covered most of the time. That’s not something I have any interest in doing (honestly, I can’t even imagine putting any other cold liquids into it) but I figured I’d mention it in case that’s a selling point for anyone else! 

Get it from Amazon or Stanley for $35. The ice cube tray ($12.99) and straw cleaning kit ($3.59) are also both on Amazon.

Also, I ended up really enjoying Wicked! Sometimes things are annoying on social media and also worth it. 💧

I think I’ve finally cracked lunch!

Lunch: Ugh! I find it weirdly overwhelming and annoying to have to consider it every single goddamn day. I’m very happy to eat leftovers for lunch, but they often run out faster than I expect. And even if takeout didn’t cost a million dollars right now (see also: this perfect TikTok), I don’t live in an area with a ton of great options. And because my energy levels aren’t amazing, I’ve been avoiding buying a ton of ingredients for meal prep that I then don’t end up using—or, at the opposite end of the spectrum, getting way too ambitious, not being able to eat everything I make before it goes bad, and ultimately wasting time and money before falling off again. 

You know how it goes! 

But last week, frustrated yet again at lunchtime and craving a big bowl of healthy slop, I decided to dip a toe into meal prepping…with guardrails. I made a plan that prioritized conserving energy (and saving money) via lots of shortcuts, plus foods that wouldn’t go bad too quickly. 

This was my grocery list:

• One 5-lb. bag of dried brown rice 

• One 18-ounce container of peeled and cubed sweet potatoes

• One 10-ounce bag of pre-washed broccoli florets

• Two 12-ounce bags of frozen Brussels sprouts 

• Two cans of chickpeas

• 2 lbs. of chicken breast 

• All of the ingredients I needed for two different dressings (creamy mustard and tahini ranch) from What Goes With What by Julia Turshen 

I prepared everything over the course of a few hours one morning. First, I got three cups of brown rice going in the rice cooker. As the Zojirushi worked its magic, I…

1. Roasted the chickpeas using a recipe from The Joy of Cooking. (This one is very similar!)  

2. Roasted both the broccoli and sweet potato at the same time in a 425-degree oven (the recommended temp in The Joy of Cooking). I took the broccoli out after 30 minutes and let the sweet potatoes go for 40ish. (My plan was to save the frozen Brussels sprouts for when the broccoli ran out, but that happened after just two bowls, so I ended up roasting the Brussels sprouts the next day.) 

3. Prepared the perfect chicken.

4. Made the creamy mustard dressing recipe, which came together in like 5 minutes. (You can find instructions for making it in the chart here; the proportions work out equal parts mayo, olive oil, and white wine vinegar.)

All of the above, including the batch of Brussels sprouts, was enough to assemble 10 very generous bowls (and still have some chicken left over), an amount I’m very happy with! The bowls were really filling and delicious, and I loved not having to think about what to eat for lunch every day. And because so much of this was passive cooking time—meaning I was able to sit and chill between each step—I didn’t feel totally wiped by it. 

Better yet, I still had plenty of dressing ingredients and dried rice to work with. On Sunday, I bought two bags of frozen broccoli florets and a bag of dried chickpeas (since dried are cheaper/will go further). On Monday, I made new batches of rice and dressing and roasted more broccoli and chickpeas, and now I’m back in business! (The grocery store didn’t have cubed sweet potatoes so I skipped them for now, but I can always add them later this week if I’m feeling motivated. And I actually think replenishing the different components on a staggered/rolling basis sounds like an even easier way to do this going forward.) 

I’m really relieved that this turned out to be a lot easier and more pleasant than I was anticipating! Buying frozen/pre-cut vegetables and choosing prep methods that all basically amount to “dump this thing on a sheet pan with some olive oil, salt, and pepper” made a huge difference—I find washing, peeling, and cutting produce so tedious, and removing that barrier did a lot, both mentally and in practice. And even though I don’t mind eating the same exact thing day after day, I also think it’ll be easy to make small tweaks here and there to avoid any boredom that does arise. (See also: sauce theory!) 🥦

A shoofly quilt for my favorite cozy gays

I finished my second quilt last week! This one was a gift for my friends Tom (who just sold his first novel!) and Danny; the two of them just moved into an incredible old farmhouse in upstate New York and I wanted to make them a housewarming present. (Also, Tom works for the ACLU and Danny works in international human rights, so I especially wanted to do something nice for them at this exact moment.)

I used Penelope Handmade’s shoofly pattern again, but I made some changes this time that made the entire process a lot more enjoyable; the biggest difference was that I quilted on the diagonal (meaning the lines get shorter as you work toward the corners, which is nice!) and I sewed fewer lines overall. Ultimately, this one was a lot easier and more pleasant to make than my last shoofly.

This was also my first time making a quilt with more than two fabrics; turns out, ensuring everything works together is a lot harder than it looks, but it’s also a pretty fun process. I decided on a blue, green, gold, and chestnut palette, with chocolate brown for the binding/backing. Since Tom and Danny’s house was first built in the 1790s (!!!), I was aiming for something that felt very Classic Quilt but still modern, and I opted for patterns inspired by their life in the Catskills—so, a mix of flowers, tiny stars, and gingham.

As I rounded the corner on finishing the quilt last week, I panicked a little bit; I suddenly got worried that they weren’t going to like the fabrics I had chosen—like it would feel like my idea of them and their aesthetic versus their own idea of themselves. But they really loved it; Danny had apparently already told Tom that he was hoping to convince me to make them a quilt when Kiyana and I visited, which made me so happy to hear. And we had a great time hanging out with them this weekend; their home is beautiful and they are great hosts, and I just think the world of them! 🧵

Dinner party trick: Pizza dough focaccia

Ever since watching With Love, Meghan* on Netflix a few weeks ago, I’ve been in the mood to make focaccia bread. Unfortunately, several of my previous attempts over the years have turned out badly. I truly don’t know why—I’m a decent cook and it’s supposedly very easy to make!—but it’s come out cracker-like or fully charred on multiple occasions. Still, I have some time on my hands at the moment, so I figured it was as good of a time as any to try to get it right!

When I looked for a recipe to follow in two different cookbooks I own, I discovered that both Joy of Cooking and Julia Turshen’s Small Victories base theirs on pizza dough. And yeah, I could have made the Joy of Cooking pizza dough from scratch first, as they instruct…but then it occurred to me that Trader Joe’s sells pre-made pizza dough for like $2, and going this route would mean I wouldn’t get flour all over my kitchen, and would increase the likelihood of success. So that’s what I did and it’s turned out perfectly all three times I’ve made it!

I topped mine with Parmesan cheese, herbs de Provence, and flaky sea salt. It was a big hit with the Bolognese this past weekend. My ultimate goal is to serve it in my garden with lemonade, as Meghan does, but I’m taking things one step at a time. 

Like I said, the recipe is from the Joy of Cooking, but this one is extremely similar/should work! (Note: I used an 8 x 8 glass baking dish as opposed to a baking sheet, and only put it in the oven for 20 minutes even though my recipe called for 25.) 

*All of my thoughts on With Love, Meghan are perfectly summarized in these two Substack posts: Spoiler: Meghan’s show isn’t what I thought it would be and Let Her Cook. 🥖

Cozy little iPhone games

As part of my ongoing quest to be on social media less, especially since last November, I’ve added a bunch of games to my phone—because sometimes you want to zone out for a bit or are bored waiting in a line, but you’d prefer not to open Instagram or be bombarded with the day’s latest horrors.

Here’s what I’m generally looking for in an iPhone game:

• Something that is played vertically. I’m not looking to turn my phone into a Nintendo Switch when I’m sitting in a doctor’s office waiting room, so this list doesn’t include any games that are super immersive or time-consuming. 

• Beautiful art, good music, and satisfying haptics. A lot of mobile games are just Not It for me, aesthetically speaking. I want to play games that feel elegant and nice. 

• Something that offers infinite lives, without a lot of microtransactions, ads, or attempts to upsell you. I’m not opposed to paying for mobile games, but I’d rather do it once versus constantly being compelled to buy lives or upgrade. The exception to this is games that you can only play once per day (like Wordle). 

• Gameplay that is challenging but not impossible. Anything that is too difficult gets boring after a while! 

Puzzle Gods. This is actually a game from Netflix—they have a bunch of them, both for mobile and within the TV app—and it’s free with an account (though you can also buy it for $1.99 if you’re not a Netflix subscriber). The best thing about it is that it’s essentially all-you-can-eat: It’s ad-free, there are no in-app transactions, and you get unlimited lives. In terms of the game itself, it’s a classic match-three with very cute art and fun sound effects. You can also skip levels that are too hard after a certain number of attempts, which I like. And with 1500 levels, it’ll take you a while to get through all of them. 

whPsh! This is a match-three game that I downloaded after playing my way through Puzzle Gods. It does limit the number of lives you have in a given session, but I liked the vibe and how the developers talk about the game, so I was willing to pay the $9.99 for unlimited access. Pro tip: Change the music to “vox machina” and the “item theme” to the round flat circles and turn the music off entirely for the nicest experience.

Monument Valley. I’m usually not into mazes or spatial puzzles, so I was surprised by how much I liked this game. The graphics are beautiful, and, coupled with the music, mechanics, and story, make for a kind of magical experience. There are currently three editions (all available as separate apps). The biggest con is that there aren’t a ton of levels/I was able to play through all of it very quickly. This is another game that you can access for free with a Netflix account, and that also has a paid option. 

Queens. I learned about this game from Terri, as I was not previously aware that LinkedIn has games. You can only play once per day, which is a bummer because I really like it! 

Honorable mentions (a.k.a. games I like, but that I’ve either fallen off playing or that don’t meet all of the criteria above): 

• SP!NG

• I Love Hue and I Love Hue Too 

• SimpleMatch3

• Two Dots

• Threes

• CozyMahjong

Let me know if there are any other games in this vein that you love that I should check out! 📱

I can’t recommend this rice cooker enough

Lately, I’ve been thinking about all of the good shit I haven’t gotten to blog about in the past two years—the stuff that I’ve used super consistently, and that really stands the test of time. This Zojirushi rice cooker ($172 on Amazon) is one such thing!

I wasn’t a big consumer of rice for most of my life, but Kiyana had mentioned wanting a rice cooker several times, so I decided to buy this one for her for Valentine’s Day a few years ago. She now says it’s one of the best gifts she’s ever received, and I have to agree—this thing is amazing! It just makes extremely delicious rice literally every single time with minimal effort on our part. It’s fully turned me into a rice person…like, I will now sometimes just eat a bowl of plain white rice straight out of the rice cooker because it’s that good.

This particular rice cooker also has some additional features (including a vegetable steamer and the ability to bake a cake) that we haven’t taken advantage of. My only real complaint is that there are two components that aren’t dishwasher safe, but it’s also not that big of a deal because they are very easy to clean (especially compared to burned-on rice that’s glued to a pot). 

A few items I recommend to go with it:

• Rice washing bowl with strainer ($8 on Amazon). Washing the dried rice before you make it is the most tedious step in the process, and while it’s truly not that big of a deal, it’s significantly easier now that we have this tool. Pro tip: Use a whisk to swish the rice around in the bowl when you’re rinsing it! 

• Tamaki Gold California Koshihikari Short Grain Rice ($22 for 4.4 lbs. on Amazon). I think the Zojirushi could make any rice taste good, but this rice is excellent.

• Rice storage container with measuring cup ($15 on Amazon). This is definitely just a “nice to have” item, but I do think it’s helpful, given that our go-to rice comes in a 4-lb. bag that is a bit unwieldy. And the built-in measuring cup makes the whole process that much easier. 

There are a lot of different Zojirushi models, and I have no doubt that they are all fantastic (especially after seeing what other people are saying about the brand online), so if a different model is speaking to you, I’d say go for it! 

Please share your favorite rice-centric recipes in the comments if you’re so inclined! Our go-tos are slow cooker chipotle-honey chicken (great over rice instead of in tortillas), miso honey chicken and asparagus (we do green beans), and a sticky miso salmon bowl, but I’d love to add some new ones to our regular rotaysh. 🍚

A red and white shoofly quilt for my valentine

I finished my first full-sized quilt earlier this month! I made this one as a (belated) Valentine’s Day gift for Kiyana; she asked if I’d make her a red and white quilt (a very common combination, historically!), and shoofly quilts are supposed to be fairly easy and beginner-friendly.

Pattern: Penelope Handmade (though this one is no longer available)

Fabric: Kona cotton in tomato, AGF Studio in creme de la creme, and starfall satellite tan yardage (for the backing)

To be honest, this particular quilt felt a little cursed—a bunch of things went wrong/were annoying, but in the end, it was all fine! I’m happy with how it turned out, and I learned a ton when working on it, which I’m currently applying to my second go-round with this pattern.

One of my biggest takeaways was that I should put on music if I’m struggling with a particular step. I generally don’t have music on when I’m doing stuff around the house (I kind of just…forget that it’s an option?) but I was fighting for my goddamn life when I was quilting this. (The difference between quilting something small and something large is…significant!) Then I remembered that there was music playing when I went to “social sewing” hours at my local quilt store—a fun mix of ‘50s, ‘60s, ‘70s, and ‘80s. With that in mind, I started blasting oldies (beginning with the Now & Then soundtrack…perfect, honestly) and it helped so much! My lines still came out pretty wobbly, but I felt much less stressed the entire time. I’ve since made a full playlist that I will be utilizing when I quilt my second shoofly this weekend.

Kiyana loves the quilt, which is all that matters…but no one loves it more than Valentina.

I actually ended up teaching Kiyana to sew a couple weeks ago, and she used the leftovers from this quilt to make some shoofly blocks of her own, which she then turned into a dog coat—her first project.

So now Valentina has a quilt of her own to wear (but still prefers ours, naturally). 🧵

Let’s yap!

Comments are officially ON on Just Good Shit (for all posts starting today, that is)!  

This was actually my plan from the get-go, but when I made the move to Squarespace and Kiyana was customizing this template for me (no small job!), we both kind of lost steam when it came to designing the comments. I was planning to look into a third-party system (like Disqus) and then I just…never got around to it. We still haven’t gotten around to it in the sense that, for now, I’m just toggling on the Squarespace option and not doing anything special to them, but I think that’s fine for now! You guys are smart and thoughtful and I like hearing from smart and thoughtful people, so I think it will be nice to have them on. 

I want my blog to be a nice place to hang out and yap, so here are my ground rules to foster good conversation: 

• Don’t be racist, sexist, anti-fat, anti-trans, ableist, or otherwise bigoted. 

• No body shaming or diet talk. 

• Don’t be a dick. 

• Don’t be weird. 

• Any criticism/pushback/etc. needs to be sincere and offered in good faith. 

• Just…be cool, guys! 

I’ll add more rules to this list if necessary, but I feel like this kind of covers how we should all act in public spaces! 

Any comments that break the above rules will be removed. I’ve also turned on the option to flag comments; if any comment gets flagged twice (by other people reading), it’ll get sent to moderation automatically and then I can deal with it from there! If comments are getting out of control on a particular post, I’ll shut them off on that post. I’m also setting it up so that comments on each post will automatically close after two weeks to help cut back on spam.

Looking forward to chatting with you guys again! 📣

Just a really good Bolognese recipe (+ a weeknight red sauce!)

For the past several years, Kiyana and I have been making the pinwheel lasagna from Don Angie to celebrate various holidays. (Our tradition is to have it on Christmas Eve, New Year’s Eve, and Valentine’s Day.) It’s a time-intensive but very special recipe that is totally worth the effort.

To make it, you have to make three separate sauces, one of which is a Bolognese. And because you end up with a lot more of this than you need, we’d freeze the extra portion to eat with pasta a month or two later…and that’s how we realized it’s totally worth making on its own, separate from the lasagna entirely!

This Bolognese is really rich and hearty, and kind of a showstopper—Kiyana’s been making it whenever we have friends over for dinner (with the Via Carota house salad as a side) and it’s been a huge hit. It feels fancy but it’s not overly fussy, which is ideal for guests.

The recipe is available for free on Cherry Bombe, and it’s in the Don Angie cookbook (which is great and I also recommend!).

Some additional notes if you’re thinking of making it:

• We use beef instead of veal because it’s easier to find

• We don’t prepare the Bolognese in a single day anymore—Kiyana usually combines the meat and makes the mirepoix a day or two in advance, just to break things up a bit

• If you have a tea ball, put the star anise in that when the sauce is simmering so it’ll be easier to fish out at the end

• This recipe makes a ton of Bolognese; we’ve been sending friends home with a portion and we still have plenty left over for ourselves. It also freezes/reheats very well!

Also! While you’re getting the Bolognese recipe, it’s also worth grabbing the one for red sauce that’s also prepared as part of the pinwheel lasagna. This has become our go-to weeknight pasta sauce; it’s ridiculously fast and easy to make and really upgrades a bowl of plain spaghetti! 🍝