Our Favorite Things From 2024

The things we bought, ate, wore and generally enjoyed this past year

Hi Friends,

Whether you’re able to write the correct date or not, 2025 is, in fact, here. And though we’re not much for resolutions, we’ve decided to round up some of our favorites from this past year—everything from culinary discoveries, to the books we (and our kids) loved most, the best dining accessories for babies and toddlers, our favorite articles and podcasts, non-judgy sweatpants, family-friendly activities, non-toxic kitchen gear, and more.

Happy New Year, everyone! Let’s hope we can find some calm amid the chaos. We’ll see you later this week with our first recipe of 2025.

Fanny + Greta

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Two years into motherhood, I have still not recovered what I wistfully think of as “my body,” so I continue to enjoy the finer, more elasticized things in life. In other words, let’s start with…

Clothes

I live in these very comfortable sweatpants and this flattering, looks-more-expensive-than-it-is oversized button-down shirt. When I have to wear something slightly more elevated, I turn to my favorite pant discovery of 2024: the Janus pants from Verity & Daughters. Up top, I pretty much only wear a cozy OZMA sweater. My favorite socks are from Hansel from Basel. If structured pants are (temporarily) off the table, at least one can indulge in an accent sock, no?

When it comes to my toddler’s threads, I’ve been trying to strip as much synthetic material from her wardrobe as possible. We’ve been loving the wool fleeces and merino leggings from Mama Owl’s in-house line called Siskin and the German company Engel. Lots of our adorable cotton basics come from Roux with the occasional extravagance from Misha & Puff, whose designs are the tops. I also scour Etsy for cute (and cheap) vintage 100% cotton t-shirts in toddler sizes. Unrelated to clothing, but very related to happiness and sustainability, the best gift C. got for Christmas was a bird mobile handmade from salvaged redwood by the Point Reyes-based artist John Gnorski.

Kitchen

I’ve been trying to move my kitchen tools and appliances in the same direction: more wood and ceramic and iron and other natural materials; less plastic, silicone and synthetics. I’ll never give up my beloved mini rechargeable Cuisinart (thank you Greta, for the priceless rec), but I do love to use a Japanese suribachi mortar & pestle for low-stakes pulverizing needs. Feels good to pound things vigorously every once in a while! I’ve also recently acquired a Field Co. cast iron pan and I love it. It was advertised to me relentlessly on Instagram as a non-toxic, non-stick alternative to Teflon or “ceramic nonstick” and it really delivers. I bought the very versatile No.8 size and use it constantly. I also, finally, after many years of brazenly naked-slicing vegetables on my treacherous mandoline, bought this glove, and my fingertips thank me daily.

Please do me a favor and throw away your plastic cutting boards! They’re less sanitary than wood (a fact!) and they’re a very good way to get microplastics into your food. Even though wood can't go in the dishwasher, it’s naturally anti-microbial, whereas the cuts and crevices on the surfaces of plastic boards offer plenty of hiding spots for bacteria. Solid wood is preferable because it doesn’t involve any potentially hazardous laminating glues containing formaldehyde or other nasties. Shameless but relevant plug for my company Permanent Collection: these maple and walnut semicircle cutting boards are truly great. I use mine every single day.

Dining-ware

As for dining, my daughter is old enough now to be trusted with a ceramic plate. The best plate I’ve found for the way a kid eats (a lip or slight vertical edge being essential for maneuvering) is made by the ceramicist Colleen Hennessey in Mendocino (who is one of my favorite of the Permanent Collection artisans). The “Shallow Dinner Bowl” is essentially a plate with low sides, and it’s all my daughter eats out of. Thanks to a rec from Hannah Goldfield, we transitioned our out-of-home drinking vessels to the 100% plastic-free water bottles from Planetbox (most other glass or stainless steel bottles have a sneaky piece of plastic in there somewhere). At the dinner table, C. uses an Ahimsa stainless steel cup and fork and spoon from Avanchy. She also insists on having her own napkin—our everyday linens come from the sewshop SUAY, based in LA. Every night C. asks that we light the beeswax fruit and vegetable candles that her Nonna brought us. We’ve found extra veggies and fruits, including these ridiculous but great heirloom tomato candles, from this vendor on Etsy.

Pantry

In the pantry arena, I dove headlong into the spice world of Burlap & Barrel this past year and—WOW—so many hits! You won’t find a more fragrant, sweet or delicious cinnamon than their Royal Cinnamon, and their vanilla powders are transformative. Rather than buying sugar-sweetened vanilla yogurt, I buy plain yogurt and swirl in some of this vanilla—it’s heavenly. I’ve also been loving their non-spicy chilies (since C. isn’t ready yet for the preferred Scoville level of our household: ~300,000) including the Silk Chili Flakes, the Noble Sweet Paprika, the Jimmy Nardello flakes and the Smoked Pimentón Paprika. I have fallen even more deeply in love with Botanica’s Magic Spice, dreamt up by one of my favorite culinary minds, Heather Sperling. C. and I drink this organic blueberry juice mixed with water every morning—a bottle lasts us for weeks. We also discovered THE BEST EVER “spicy water” flavor, Spindrift’s Passion fruit, Orange & Guava “Island Punch” thanks to (another) tip from Hannah Goldfield. Our post-Banza legume-protein-enhanced pasta of choice is Brami: an Italian-made lupini-bean & wheat pasta that has great flavor and texture and whose representatives assured us is not laced with the chemical herbicide glyphosate. Last, but not least, I have become someone who believes that good rice vinegar is worth the (relative) expense.

Art, etc.

Our favorite shows we saw this year (and which C. liked as much as I did): Olafur Eliasson at MOCA (on thru July 6, 2025) and the exhibition of paintings by our friend Patricia Iglesias Peco at François Ghebaly gallery in LA. We also got a very cost-effective membership to The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens this past year and, well, we live there now. It’s the best place to take a kid—abundant nature, extraordinary architecture, great art and a very darling “Children’s Garden” whose water features are a lifesaver in the summer months.

Reading

I successfully read one entire book this year! My first novel since C. was born! It was Sally Rooney’s Intermezzo and it was a delight. A handful of favorite books that C. (and I) love are Over & Over: A Children's Book to Soothe Children's Worries by M.H. Clark (essential reading for 2025 and beyond IMO), the sweet little Japanese ode to friendship My Friends by Taro Gomi, the gorgeously-illustrated Bedtime for Bo by Kjersti Annesdatter Skomsvold and Mari Kanstad Johnsen, the ingenious parable of differing perspectives They All Saw A Cat by Brendan Wenzel, the very-good-for-a-car-trip Ketchup on My Sundae by Nelleke Verhoeff, Our Little Kitchen by Jillian Tamaki which teaches the importance of mutual aid, and the best book to keep in the kitchen, Spaghetti!: An Interactive Recipe Book by Lotta Nieminen.

Cookbooks, on the other hand, I did look at for more than 35 seconds at a time. Two of my favorites from 2024: Anna Jones’s Easy Wins: 12 Flavour Hits, 125 Delicious Recipes, 365 Days of Good Eating and Sonoko Sakai’s Wafu Cooking: Everyday Recipes with Japanese Style (Sonoko is also the author of a charming children’s book called Mai and the Missing Melon).

The food-related article that blew my f’ing mind was this piece in the NYTimes. I won’t spoil it. Just read (or listen) to it.

Personal Green Spoon All-Stars

The recipes we’ve published here that my family makes the most? The Best Lentil Soup, truly the ultimate vehicle for inserting all of the most healthy and delicious ingredients into my daughter’s body with zero resistance; Back To School Banana Bread, which I make as muffins every couple of weeks; Greta’s absurdly perfect ‘Best Chickpeas Ever’ and our very first recipe for Broccoli Pesto; and, in the summertime, the Three Sisters Succotash—it is a perfect dish—and the indispensable Easy Tomato Confit.

Substacks

Since we’re here, favorite Substacks?

Haley Nahman

’s incisive, funny, intelligent Maybe Baby and

Clare de Boer

’s deliciously written and often cooked-from The Best Bit. I’m also a huge fan of

emily nunn

’s Dept. of Salad (which is very on the nose for someone who is currently writing a book about salad, but Emily would be a joy to read even if salad were not eternally top of mind).

Ok, that’s it! On to Greta!

I will lamely start by saying “SAME” to basically everything Fanny wrote above. (As close friends and co-authors who live on opposite coasts, we deal very heavily in link-sharing and Old-Navy-shirt-recommending.) But in addition to all of hers, I add:

Books

My fiction reading skews Italian-woman-author in a normal year, but I’ve really ramped up as my family and I prepare to spend the first six months of 2025 in Rome. (No, I have neither started nor finished packing. Yes, we’re leaving in 10 days.) I loved Claudia Durastanti’s Strangers I Know, Lost on Me by Veronica Raimo, the fascinating and excellent two-part WW2 diary by Iris Origo (this is a cheat because she’s only Italian by marriage). I have long been a Natalia Ginzburg-head (first timers: start with The Little Virtues) but I surprised even myself by enjoying her book about the Manzoni family. I also enjoyed Her Side of the Story by Alba de Cespedes, Cosima by Grazie Deledda, The Iguana by Anna Maria Ortese (recommended to me by Jenny McPhee whose translation of Elsa Morante’s 900-page tome Lies & Sorcery is so good that you’ll read it in a few giant gulps).

Some more wonderful reads from this year: Mrs. Caliban—a perfect novel!—and the sad and beautiful Loved and Missed by Susie Boyt (both given to me by the great Matthew Schneier whose recommendations I would follow anywhere). Also a perfect novel: The Vet’s Daughter by Barbara Comyns, recommended to me by my friend and perfect novelist herself, Katie Kitamura, whose forthcoming book Audition will knock your socks off.

I read a lot more and can remember basically none of it. Is this the year I assiduously keep track?

Kids’ Books

Not to be this parent, but my daughter is a truly voracious reader. (I buy most of her books used on Thrift Books. If anyone has a better, equally well-stocked source for used books online, please let me know!) We are big Chris Haughton fans—as a family that is no stranger to terribly-behaved, emotionally complex dogs, Oh No George! is a particular favorite, but they’re all wonderful—and we get a ton of mileage out of big-format, packed-page books like the Richard Scarry classics (I personally redact all of the garbage about mother cat baking pies in her apron etc.) and the truly fantastic, equally large titles from Marianne Dubuc (1, 2, 3 Off to School, Your House, My House). We are, of course, big Buffalo Fluffalo fans, and have recently fallen for Me…Jane, Hot Dog (another dog with a complex interior life) and Invisible Things. Also, A Hole is to Dig, the Ruth Krauss/Maurice Sendak classic—I truly never tire of reading it out loud. And though its not a kids’ book, my kid is starting to get a kick out of the Bruno Munari classic Speak Italian—what two year old doesn’t love to gesticulate wildly?

Travel Toys

I (feebly) try to not acquire an infinite amount of crap for my kids, however that virtuous intention goes out the window when there is a travel day on my horizon. On a recent flight to California, during which I absolutely did lose my phone, my two year old successfully and not-messily concentrated while playing with this fantastic Lite Brite and this sticker stamp and accompanying book. Maybe they’ll give you a total of 22 somewhat peaceful travel minutes, too?

Substacks

So many of

Clare de Boer

’s recipes from The Best Bit go straight from her directly into my regular cooking rotation. I have made that chocolate cake about 14,000 times and will never not long-cook a green bean with garlic, basil and tomatoes ever, ever again. And because Buffalo Fluffalo is simply not enough

Bess Kalb

for me, The Grudge Report makes me laff and laff.

Cooking + Dining-ware

Unlike Fanny’s, my daughter is not done throwing things! And the only thing she loves more than a throw is a throw and a break, thus I am sticking with these enamelware plates and these stainless steel cups (that were also recommended to me by the great Hannah Goldfield). Otherwise, I’m happier than ever with my trusty kitchen all stars: the Green Pan, the air popper for my popcorn habit, the mini Cuisinart, the sharp-yet-not-exorbitant Japanese knife, the cheap and perfect paring knife that Fanny brought into my life. One special splurge, though, is this gorgeous ceramic berry bowl that my brilliant friend Hannah Johnson made for my other brilliant friend’s company, Permanent Collection. I have a huge amount of guilt around the tonnage of off-season berries I buy, so being able to keep them in this and not a sad Driscoll’s plastic clam shell is a small win.

Cold Season Panic-Buys

Even after years of hearing about the havoc that is wreaked upon one’s household by a child starting school and entering into an overactive germ community, I was genuinely shocked by how OUTRAGEOUSLY sick we’ve been all. the. time. As a result, I started taking and giving more immune-supporting stuff in an attempt to alleviate symptoms even a little bit—and I think they’re maybe working? I don’t care if they’re placebos. Samin Nosrat swears by these mushroom pills and now I do, too. Cristiana Sadigianis, proprietor of the magical Oracle Oil, recommended this herbal cold & flu tincture for kids that really seems to work! I also got this elderberry immune-supporting syrup which is delicious enough that my daughter jumps at the chance to lap up a spoonful. Can’t hurt, right? I also discovered Genexa, a brand that makes the same medicines we’ve always taken (Acetaminophen, cough syrup, etc.) but without any artificial additives, harmful dyes or high-fructose corn syrup. They have clean medicines for infants, kids and adults, so I’ve transitioned as much of our medicine cabinet to Genexa as possible.

Personal Green Spoon All-Stars

Which recipes force me to overcome the deeply humiliating experience of googling one’s own Substack + recipe name? Fanny’s miso honey dressing for her kale salad, which my willful daughter eats by the fistful (and, for some reason, refers to as “seaweed”). Back to School Banana Bread, into which I’ll sub whatever combination of flours I have lying around. I’ve made the lentil soup almost as many times as I’ve made Clare’s chocolate cake, and have turned to our pumpkin spice overnight oats on many a night when the next morning is fixing to be particularly busy.

The Other Stuff

And what about articles? Podcasts? A few months ago, I had a come-to-Jesus moment with myself and realized that I had to take a real break from rapacious internet consumption, so I got a Brick, blocked safari from my phone and my screen time went down 80% in one week. I’m still a zombie, screen-addicted mess—I look at Instgram on my laptop, for Chrissake!—but I have felt an enormous amount of psychic relief in the months and weeks since I more or less stopped reading the news constantly. Let’s see how long it lasts, but I’m feeling hopeful.