The 5 Best Wedding Gifts

Trust the New York Times to come up with laughably, ridiculous wedding gifts. I don't know many people who can afford a $609 espresso maker as a wedding gift. I don't know that many people who really need a $609 espresso maker.

I think the best wedding gifts are practical things. They get used everyday, last for years, and have a little flare. Not like the crystal sugar bowls that Auntie Liz gave us, which have remained in a box for ten years. Here's my list of the best wedding gifts:

1. Cash. It never goes out of style. I'm Italian, so this is what we do. $100 if you don't go to the wedding; $150-200 if you go to the wedding. I'm not a big fan of the tradition of the wedding couple walking around the room to collect the checks in a silk bag, but money is always good.

2. The Gift Registry. People put stuff on the list, because they really need it. Get it for them. You can throw in something small of your own to add creativity. A couple of my friends bought us sheets off the registry and then added candles and some Al Green tapes.

3. I'm a huge fan of Tiffany's. They have a quite reasonable selection of wedding gifts. Go for the vases and the serving bowls, because you know that they'll get used. Check out this wicker weave vase for $85. Their Monterey vase is $130 -- cute and reasonable.

4. I adore the Henckel knives that my friend, Sandra, got us.

5. Wine and martini glasses. There have been casualties, but there are still enough in circulation.

Other online sources: Harry b had a good post at Crooked Timber a while ago on this.

Forbes reviews online wedding registries.

Five Best Ways to Beat the Heat Wave

Generally, I am enthusiastic about any conditions that suggest I avoid vacuuming my apartment, but this heat wave is verging on not worth it. Here are 5 essentials for staying healthy and sane til the heat breaks.


1. Avoid strenuous activity. This is a suggestion I can embrace, as it endorses my natural tendency to sit in front of a fan with lemonade and a novel (my current choice is Gilead, which I heartily recommend). If you absolutely must do something more arduous than turning a page, try to schedule it for early or late in the day when temperatures are more reasonable.

2. Dress for the weather in light-weight, light-colored, loose-fitting clothing. The streets of New York City are aflutter with filmy slips of clothing—cool and comfortable. And really, there’s no reason boys can’t wear sundresses. I think we’re nearly there, as a country.

3. Eat small, light meals and eat more often. Forgo the bacon cheeseburger (foods high in protein increase metabolic heat production and water loss) and opt instead for cold chicken breast with taboule or hummus and cucumber in pita.

4. Drink plenty of fluids, but skip the alcohol and the caffeine. Water is best, but juices and other non-caffeinated soft drinks are okay too. If that Corona with the lime wedge is simply too tempting to pass up, take it easy with the quantity and make sure to hydrate with plenty of water.

5. Spend time in air-conditioned places. This is kind of a no-brainer. For those of us who have only a single unit (and some who have none), it’s trickier than it sounds. I’ve got a touch of cabin fever, wherein “cabin” means “bedroom.” For a change of scene, visit the library, a bookstore, a movie theater, or even the grocery store to get in out of the heat.

Oh, and don’t leave Baby in the car, even for a moment. Or Rover or Grandma either. It takes a short time for temperatures to soar inside a vehicle, and every summer there are a couple of stories about kids who died in their carseats while their parents ran an errand.

Check out the Red Cross site for signs of heat-related illness. Particularly in the very young and in older people, overheating can be serious, even deadly.

List Mania

In Today's Times, Virginia Heffernan writes:

Blessed are the list makers, with their sharp pencils, their certainties, their mix of words and numbers. Walt Whitman made lists. Nabokov made lists. Last year, while declaring in Time magazine that “literary lists are basically an obscenity,” Tom Wolfe admitted to having made many in his life, and then introduced a new one, ranking the best novels in the world.

In 1999, when lists featuring the best and worst whatevers of the last hundred or thousand years were appearing all over, A. S. Byatt wrote on the Times Web site that she loved lists. She was defending the Modern Library’s lists of the Top 100 books of the century, to which she had contributed, arguing that the public outcry over the partiality of the lists was in fact a squeal of pleasure. “All list makers enjoy the misery of indignation about the omitted essentials,” she wrote. Lists, in her view, couldn’t go wrong. Near the top of a list of things that she believed would define the third millennium, she put lists themselves.

Heffernan describes our fascination with lists and how the Internet has enabled this addiction. She recommends checking out the lists on Amazon. We recommend this blog.

The Five Best Films for Food Lovers

Fair warning: Make the dinner reservation before you see one of these movies. Otherwise, any one of them is likely to have you seriously overtipping the hostess in your eagerness to get eating. Better yet, order in from your favorite ethnic restaurant and gorge yourself while you are watching.



1. Eat Drink Man Woman. A semi-retired chef in Taiwan cooks elaborate family meals to express the love for his daughters that he can’t articulate in language. Lovely, with luscious-looking Chinese feasts. Another excellent food film, also by famed director Ang Lee: The Wedding Banquet.

2. Like Water for Chocolate. Based on the popular novel by Mexican writer Laura Esquival, this film centers around the struggle to find love and freedom from family tradition. Tita’s desires are channeled into the food she cooks, investing those who eat it with her powerful emotions.

3. Babette's Feast. A refugee from violence in France arrives to live with two elderly sisters and the remnants of their father’s congregation, in this Danish film adapted from a story by Isak Dineson. After fourteen years as the cook, Babette wins a lottery and uses her winnings to thank her hosts with an extravagant French meal that connects the diners in a mystical celebration of gratitude and nurturing.

4. Big Night. Brothers Primo and Secundo, partners in an Italian restaurant, are near bankruptcy when their competitor agrees to help them by arranging for Louis Prima to dine at the restaurant, thereby drawing in crowds. The brothers invite dozens of friends for the big night, spending hour after hour and all their available cash planning a magnificent dinner in one last hope of fulfilling their American Dream. Great cast, including Stanley Tucci, Tony Shaloub, Isabella Rosellini, and Minnie Driver.

5. Tampopo. A truck driver decides to help a widow turn her roadside noodle stand into the ultimate fast-food success, in this Japanes film billed as “the first noodle Western.” The main narrative and numerous subplots, all highlingting the importance of food, play with the associations between food and sex and deftly use food as a metaphor for both the joys and trials of life.

Honorable Mention, dessert category: Chocolat. Have a box of gourmet treats handy before you pop this one in the DVD player.

The Five Best Father’s Day Gifts—Sports Edition

Dads are spectacularly difficult to buy gifts for, at least mine are, and I've got two (a dad and a stepdad), so I have extra experience with this. If your father has a hobby or an interest, seize on it and look for something in that genre. Here are a few ideas for those whose dads love sports, armchair or otherwise.

1. Tickets to the game. Go together. Drink beer. Throw peanut shells on the ground. Curse the batters. Or the pitchers. Or the outfielders. Or the whole lot of 'em. Hold your glove in the air in the fruitless hope of catching a fly ball that is headed nowhere near your seat. Fun times.

2. If your dad’s got the paralyzing dread of stadium traffic that afflicts
mine, you could go the couch potato route and get him the new Xbox 360 version of Major League Baseball 2K8, released in March (also available for Nintendo Wii, Playstation 2 and 3, and Sony PSP). For lower-tech guys, maybe Bull Durhamor Field of Dreams DVDs (a bonus for Mom, if she’s a Kevin Costner fan) or the book Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, a great read by best-selling author Michael Lewis, about how Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane used careful analysis of stats to put together a spectacular winning record despite a relatively low payroll.

3. Cool golf stuff. Useful gadgets (along with an alarming array of crap) abound: The laser putter is a lightweight clip-on (which attaches to most putters) that provides instant feedback to help improve your golf score. I am a fan of anything Swiss Army, and the Victorinox Swiss Army Golf Tool is a great addition to the avid golfer’s pocket. It comes in low-key black as well as the classic red.

4. I know people who plan their whole vacations around the quality of nearby golf courses; if your father is one of these, opt for a solid guide to the top golf courses—either the Zagat's (2007/08) or the one by Golf Digest. Throw in some personalized golf balls and you’ve got yourself a theme gift.

5. A tennis ball machine. These are great for the tennis enthusiast who wants practice and/or exercise but doesn’t always have a partner available when he’s free. These models are portable; the most affordable, the Tennis Twist Ball Machine, holds 28 balls and lobs one every 5 seconds. Because the range can be adjusted, you can practice in the driveway or even in the basement. The more deluxe model, still portable, holds 125 balls and boasts a plethora of optional accessories. And of course there's one that's even higher end: it's more powerful (shoots balls up to 85 mph, ouch) and adjustable (will delay the shooting to let you get to your side of the net), plus it has a remote control. I have to confess that my family would only spend this much for a very special occasion, like maybe a 250th birthday. But maybe y'all are dividing the gift fifteen ways? Don’t forget the big bucket o' balls.

Time's Five Best Blogs List

Time Magazine's list of the five best blogs:

Want to get into the blogosphere but don't know where to start? TIME.com sorts out the signal from the noise with its first blog index (time.com/bestblog) The Top 5:

1. THE HUFFINGTON POST The political blog against which all others are measured, it has an absurd mix of writers--from political visionaries to celebrity dimwits--that's proved to be the Web's killer editorial model.

2. LIFEHACKER Full of tips, shortcuts, downloads, websites, do-it-yourself projects and how-tos for getting small things done and moving on with life.

3. METAFILTER Still one of the best "you never know what you'll read today" destinations, it lets users contribute links highlighting interesting stuff he or she finds on the Web.

4. TREEHUGGER The most complete of the hundreds of grassroots green blogs, it ranks among the top 20 blogs in traffic worldwide.

5. POSTSECRET People mail in postcards with secrets. It's that simple, and that compelling.

The Five Best Father's Day Gifts -- The Bird Theme

Why are men so hard to shop for? Me? I'm easy. Get me a nice book or a sweater from the GAP and I'm happy. Men are a little trickier. Here are our top five gifts for dear old dad with a birding theme.



1. My husband talks walks with the kids in the park with The Sibley Field Guide to Birds of Eastern North America in his back pocket.

2. The little birds go wild for the Cupola Feeder hanging from our garage roof. The mean Blue Jays get nada.

3. My dad has the Audubon Singing Bird Clock in his offce. The clock cheeps on the hour every hour. He finds it very festive.

4. An audio field guide of bird songs -- Bird Song Identiflyer. Susan's stepdad sits in his backyard in Maryland learning the bird's songs. It must be good to be retired.

5. Binocularsare a must for any bird themed gift.

Websites of interest:
Birds.com
Cornell Lab of Ornithology