Exhaling Life

A few years ago, I worked as a Project Manager for a marketing agency. What most people did not know was that I wasn’t simply managing marketing projects. Part of my job was to conduct root-cause analysis and privately address what I found with the VP of Operations. The agency was losing clients, and part of my assignment was to conduct root-cause analysis within the PMO. No one ever told me the two were connected, but I wondered whether leadership believed they might be. Ganna Walska Lotusland I worked alongside another Project Manager, a smart guy with a project management certification whose vertical happened to be one of the problematic ones. He didn’t know that evaluating his project pipeline was part of my assignment. His failure to follow project management best practices had already been escalated. He also had reluctance to escalate problems early enough to keep them from affecting clients. One Client Success Manager was a recurring problem. She routinely failed to turn in ...

Walnut shrimp is decidedly Chinese-American, with roots in Cantonese-style restaurant cooking. Crisp fried shrimp dressed in a sweet, creamy mayonnaise-based sauce and paired with candied walnuts became a Chinese restaurant favorite by the late twentieth century, particularly in California, before making the leap from banquet tables to the mainstream. I was introduced to walnut shrimp as an adult at a wedding banquet and did what any reasonable person who dislikes walnuts would do: I picked around them. Years later, I discovered that I am actually allergic to nuts, though thankfully not in the dramatic, call-an-ambulance kind of way. Apparently, my lifelong walnut avoidance had been onto something. So this is my version: nut-free walnut shrimp, which admittedly makes the name a little ridiculous, with Sriracha added for a kick because I’m that kind of gal. INGREDIENTS [serves 2 with rice] one pound large shrimp, peeled and deveined a half teaspoon kosher salt one egg white a third cu...

Autumn has a way of making getting dressed feel interesting again. Perhaps it is the cooling air, or simply the relief of no longer negotiating with heat, but suddenly there is room for texture, layers, and a little more intention. The closet does not need to be reinvented for the occasion. As I wrote in Curated: Summer 2026 Style Makers , style is about curation: knowing what belongs, what still works, and what deserves the occasional addition. at LACMA There is confidence in that kind of restraint. It is the difference between wearing what fashion tells us is new and knowing ourselves well enough to decide what is worth bringing home. A beautifully cut jacket, an unexpected shoe, or a sweater with just enough personality can shift pieces we have owned for years into something that feels entirely current. The point is not to become someone new every season, but to become increasingly certain of the person already standing in front of the closet. And then there is color. Summer’s white...

Weddings are overrated. A friend once reminded me that I can afford to say this because I had a beautiful one, nearly two years in the making. Fair enough. Perhaps experience, and the aging that follows it, has a way of bringing certain things into focus, particularly what actually matters in a life. Amsterdam, Netherlands We are often told that what matters in the end is who surrounds us. I never drank that Kool-Aid. Perhaps the better measure is how we live: not how our lives appear through the eyes of others, but how we feel when left alone with ourselves in a room. The preciousness of a life is not found in the lifestyle built around it. It lives in the way we treat those whose lives we touch and those we simply encounter, including people who can offer us absolutely nothing in return. After all, can someone who does not recognize the preciousness of others, even total strangers, truly understand what precious means? And if they don’t know what precious is, how can they possibl...

Did you know that linguine comes from Liguria, in the northwestern region of Italy? It means “little tongues” in Italian. Nearly identical to fettuccine, I've been cooking with linguine more often lately. In part, this is because I've transitioned to eating more shrimp than salmon with pasta, somehow associating fettuccine with salmon and linguine with non-fish seafood, such as squid . Call it culinary logic of the highly personal variety. Ceramic bowl was wheel-thrown and glazed by me. This Lemon Shrimp Linguine was developed out of necessity: weekday hunger after a long day, when ambition is low but standards remain inconveniently intact. It balances the brightness of lemon and shrimp's gentle brininess with the creaminess of milk, the sharpness of salt, and zucchini's melancholy sweetness. Easy to assemble on the stovetop in a nonstick pan , this linguine is destined to become one of those recipes you return to over and over again. ING...

The trench coat began, quite literally, in the trenches, which is not usually where one expects a fashion classic to be born. Its roots reach back to nineteenth-century British waterproof outerwear, but the version we recognize today took shape during World War I, when British officers needed something lighter and more practical than the traditional greatcoat. Burberry and Aquascutum helped define the look: weather-resistant fabric, belted waist, storm flaps, epaulettes, deep pockets, and enough military hardware to suggest there was once a purpose beyond looking exceptionally good in the rain. at MOCA on Grand Avenue Women began wearing versions of the trench during the war itself, as they took on new roles in the workforce and military-influenced clothing entered everyday life. By the 1920s and 1930s, the coat had escaped the battlefield and joined the modern woman for travel, motoring, and city life. Then Hollywood intervened, as Hollywood tends to do. On-screen, the trench became l...

Somewhere between my failed attempt at Chef Eric Adjepong's Piri-Piri Shrimp over Coconut Grits recipe, published in The World Central Kitchen Cookbook to benefit Chef José Andrés's World Central Kitchen, and Bar Santos's Piri Piri Chicken, this Piri Piri Shrimp Orzo found its way into existence in my kitchen. Ceramic bowl was wheel-thrown and glazed by me. Which, in a way, feels entirely appropriate. Piri Piri itself is the product of culinary exchange. Chile peppers native to the Americas were carried to Africa by Portuguese traders, where they took root in places including Mozambique and Angola. There, the fiery peppers were combined with ingredients such as garlic, citrus, vinegar, and oil, creating the family of sauces now associated with both African and Portuguese cooking. Its precise birthplace remains debated, but its history is unmistakably one of movement, adaptation, and cultures influencing one another across continents. INGREDIENTS [serves 2] twelve medium-si...