The October Diary: personal life update, recipes & fall favorites.

Lots of change this month...

Good morning! Fall is fall-ing here in NYC, and it’s my favorite season to live here. (Lately, it’s also the only season I live here, since I bust my beans to spend summer elsewhere and winter elsewhere.)

This is how your email finds me lately.

I am navigating a major career shift—for privacy reasons, I will write a bit more candidly about this transition below the paywall. (If you are interested in reading, I am doing 25% off subscriptions here, through Halloween only.) Part of this transition means my time is entirely my own these days. I’m reacquainting myself with what that means… I’m not sure I’ve experienced it since Covid, which was a radically different experience of “down time,” as we all know.

The other plot line in my life: after deeply, deeply resonating with Ina Garten’s audiobook, which I’ve now listened to three times in 2 weeks, I decided to cook my way through 30 Days of 30 Ina Garten Recipes. (Not a thing or a challenge that exists, I’m making it up!) I’m told her audiobook is available for free on Spotify, and I highly recommend it.

You may or may not know that I am a deeply passionate home cook— I already tend to spitball a new recipe at least five or six nights a week— and my efforts have grown increasingly more involved and elaborate now that I have the time… and a willing third party who will eat what I cook! (This was an expensive hobby when I was single and lived alone, cooking for one is so hard! People don’t talk about that enough.)

I’m TikToking it, which is so unlike me. I hate to be perceived and am much happier as a writer who can connect with you this way— but I find that food writing on Substack can be a bit challenging to effectively consume. It’s hard to save the recipes that arrive without warning in your inbox via Substack creators in a way where you can easily organize or access them when you’re planning your grocery shop. (Does anyone else feel this way? Has anyone else troubleshooted this?) Also, there’s no way that all of you give a shit about what I cook. This is my way of neatly bifurcating as best I can and finding “my people” online, though I may write about what I learn from my 30 Days of 30 Ina Garten Recipes experience, of course.

If you care to follow along, join me here!:

@azorazoeCooking for jeffrey? More like cooking for ina herself 🫡🔪 #barefootcontessa #inagarten #homecooking #30daychallenge #cheese

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• Thank you so much for the love on the pumpkin spice edit I put out this week. That was my magna carta. As an aside, to my fellow pumpkin spice heads, check out Anthropologie’s clearance section, there is some fall candle magic happening. My HEROES over at Snif sent me more of my favorite, plus some new scents to try, and now I’m deep in a Snif hold and I’m obsessed. (Fwiw, I have been a paying customer for years before this!) This was my first time trying their perfume and I really loved it… more than my much-more-expensive DS & Durga 🫠

• Power to all of you who can walk 15,000 steps in your loafers, but mine make my feet gush blood, and NYC is about mobility! I have two pairs of shoes I call my business shoes, for catch up coffees, networking, interviews, and just wanting to dress like an adult woman and not a little boy (not derogatory, this is how I would often describe my personal style).

  • This pair from Sam Edelman looks fancier than they are and they are so comfortable. I walked 12,000 steps in them on the first day I wore them, not a blister in sight. I’ve since put another 50,000 (!) steps on them the last few weekends, still no pain or blisters to speak of. They are honestly more comfy than sneakers!! I have been trying to find ways to wear them every day. (Some sizes are more affordable via Amazon here.)

  • The second pair are similar to some I fell in love with at Massimo Dutti in Portugal, and the Miu Miu boat shoes. I snagged this Steve Madden pair in dark brown, but I’m seeing now they have suede and silver, both of which I love! Darn it. Like the ballet flats above, they’ve handled 30,000 NYC steps with complete ease. It feels like wearing slippers.

• I wrote about my favorite sweater and belt in my Portugal edit and you guys loved it! These are the kingmakers of my fall wardrobe for sure. (The sweater was the most clicked link I’ve ever put in First Rodeo, which tells me we all have great taste…)

• I love barn coats and the trend that’s sweeping the nation Substack, but I’m trying to really not shop unnecessarily. When I was unpacking from our 4 ish months of not living in our apartment, I found— well, what do you know— my boyfriend happens to own a flannel-lined Orvis barn coat with corduroy accents (this one, I think) that he 1.) never wears and won’t miss! and 2.) looks perfectly oversized on me. Score! Has this stopped me from coveting, keeping tabs on or saving other ones I love? No!

I’ve been doing a lot of unsubscribing and purging of newsletters this month. This is not shade— I just subscribe to over 150 Substacks, and I pause or prune my paid subs a few times a year. I will likely come back to the ones I miss!

True to fall’s form, I’m finding that I’m less interested in the cadence of daily round ups or link aggregation and more interested in longer essays or more personal reflection.

Here are a few I’ve really enjoyed this month:

• Anna Fusco
  (my favorite artist!) wrote beautifully about being friends with your exes, living alone, living with others, and loving love. Her writing often lingers with me for a while afterwards, a feeling I love and have been savoring as often I can lately.

• Olivia Muenter
  wrote about fall coziness and how revisiting her habits has changed the way she metabolizes her feelings and experiences, good and bad. I could viscerally feel the feelings she was describing as I read— another read I thought was perfectly timed for this season of life.

• I’ve shared this before but

  Danya Issawi
  ’s essay, “Posting from the cocoon of privilege”, puts words to everything I’ve been feeling lately and haven’t quite heard enough about from the Substack peanut gallery.

• Emilia Petrarca
  ’s journey into a Sicilian convent in pursuit of a boob shaped pastry and all else that she discovered inside is my favorite kind of writing these days.

• Leslie Stephens
  recent issue on being a “satisficer” and getting over the idea that if one “just” changed their morning routine or “just” had that one missing thing (you get the drift) life would finally be better/balanced/right. I deeply related.

How my work situation felt the last few weeks.

As I mentioned at the top of the letter, I am navigating a major career shift— I no longer have a “full time” job, and I have absolutely no idea what is next.