Great advice for stocking your home bar can be found in the Case for Cocktails.

Start with the ingredients for your three favorite cocktails and build from there.

I agree with The Trad that I prefer my possessions to have a story.

Imagine you’re walking in London. And it starts to pour. You run into a shop just to escape the rain and as you brush off your coat you see a Swaine Adeney Brigg umbrella. It’s 200 pounds and the exchange is nearly 2 to 1 but you gotta have it. Hell, it’s raining.

So you buy it and crank it open as you step onto King Street and head for the Red Lion Pub to meet an auctioneer about a Monet panel that you buy for 20,000 pounds and sell for $200,000 in the states.

For 20 years you manage not to lose that umbrella. You loan it to no one. You run back to several restaurants knowing you left it by your table and you know it’s gone for sure. But it’s always there. One night a waiter chases you down the street and taps you on the shoulder, “Sir, you forgot this…”

It’s a story. And you tell it over drinks where your friends shake their heads in disbelief — but it’s all true. Every word of it. Almost. Or, you can tell people you bought your umbrella at J Crew.

Shop around and at different places. Makes life more interesting and adds to your personal style.

Here’s another salad recipe from my Grandma Smalley. Again, word-for-word from her. I’ve tried making this before and it never tastes quite as good.

…

I used to shred the carrots but it took so long. I started dumping chunks of them into the food processor and chopping them – not too fine, but it’s much quicker. If I do it that way, I try to remember to dump the peanuts in first and get them chopped up a little, then add the carrot chunks and process to the size you want it. Then add however many raisins you want.

Dress with mayo, with a little sugar and thinned with milk. (If you don’t use salted peanuts you’ll probably need to add some salt)

…

Source: Grandma Smalley, 7-20-2010

Keeping it simple is harder than we think.

More than just style advice. Life advice.

I’ve been saying this for years and never thought to put it on a blog: khaki is a color, not a type of pants.

I’ve told people the last 6 or so years about how Detroit is a great place. There’s so much potential there and it has so much to offer. Seems Johnny Damon feels the same way about Detroit as I do. Damon is exactly the sort of player I want in a Detroit Tigers uniform

That’s the thing that people everywhere are going to think of. They’re going to think of Boston as this great city, which it is, and Detroit gets a bad rap,” Damon said. “I love it here. My family loves it here. A bunch of the players that have been here a while love it here. The new guys love it here. There’s a lot to offer here. Yeah, we know the auto industry and the economy takes a beating here. But you know what? It’s up to us players to keep people excited, to entertain people, to have people enjoy their lives and have people enjoy watching the Detroit Tigers.

The Awl is back again with How to Cook Bolognese Sauce. I really wish they’d start a cook book.

you are REQUIRED BY ME to be using a 28 ounce can (or cans) of whole, peeled San Marzano tomatoes. In this matter there can be no dispute. If you find yourself unable or unwilling to use San Marzano tomatoes I refuse to allow you to make my Bolognese. Seriously. Get out of the kitchen and go take a good, hard look at yourself in the mirror.

I’ve looked at my iPhone screen more than I care to think about. A nervous habit of mine is to pull out the phone and just check the time (email, twitter, weather, you name it). As I was doing this one day, I thought, “if I put a mantra on the lock screen, maybe it will help me to stay focused.” So I took that thought and ran with it and am now sharing my iPhone Lock Screen Mantra.

To use, pull up this page on your iPhone. Select the above image and hold. Save image upon prompt. Then go to “Settings” > “Wallpaper” and select which screen (Lock or Wallpaper) you want it to be on. I use it as my Lock Screen Wallpaper so that when I turn on my phone I see these keywords to help put me in a good place mentally.

Let me know if you use it. And, if you don’t, what do you use as your iPhone wallpaper?

She asked me why I’m so dressed up?… I told her, ‘cause I’m not headed to the gym right now.’

– Kanye West

Monocle magazine is the pioneer of the brand-fueled content. They have reconsidered the advertiser-publisher relationship and created engaging branded content throughout their magazine and into online media like podcasts. It works very well.

Brand-fueled content is content such as articles, videos and events where a brand’s values and briefs on a product where editorial control is given to the site owner (goal being a conversation started, natch). It seems to be the future. Let’s look toward the Old Spice campaign and “the Response Campaign”. Major success.

Beau Colburn captured my feelings on brand-fueled content (and the Old Spice campaign, more specifically) perfectly.

these video responses feel like a dramatic shift in “advertising.” Putting the word in quotes was intentional because I’m not really sure what this is. These responses aren’t ads. I suppose there’s a proper term like “brand extension” or the like for something like this, but this feels new.