You spoke, I listened! Last week, I invited you to give me feedback on what topics would make your visits to my site a more auspicious, useful one. Many of you requested makeup tips, tricks and how to’s, and since the extent of my cosmetic application knowledge comes down to applying press powder and red lipstick, I decided to turn to the experts. Over the next few weeks I’ll be featuring makeup artists, prominent bloggers, and cosmetic experts, who will dole out sage wisdom on sorting out your makeup bag to creating the perfect holiday eye to getting your five-minute face. The idea is to not push product, but knowledge. -Ed.

Galit Strugano, creator of Girlactik Beauty makeup and celeb makeup artist explains the techniques of applying makeup with your fingers and applying with tools to achieve the perfect makeup look. To use your fingers or brushes when applying makeup? The answer to this question is simple: it’s a matter of preference! Both methods can be equally effective depending on what you are most comfortable with (or depending on whether you have brushes on hand). Below are her tips:

FINGER APPLICATION: Mind your pressure points!
Each of your fingers has a different pressure point affecting the pressure of touch. Knowing them can be useful in applying makeup. A bonus with finger application is the oils and heat from your skin melts the product better when it transfers to your skin and provides the coverage you want!

BRUSH APPLICATION: It’s all about the texture!
When it comes to brushes, it isn’t about synthetic vs. natural but rather the firmness of the brush that affects your makeup look. A rule of thumb:

Think about it this way. You can be using the same exact blush and end up with 2 different colors depending on whether you are using a firmer or lighter brush. Switching up brushes is a great way to use your makeup in fun, different ways!

Images courtesy of Galit and Sephora, respectively

I’m an alcoholic. Even after three years my hands still cringe before I type, my heart gives way when I open my mouth to speak. But I stutter and kick the words out of my mouth, pound them on the page, because I need to. I refuse a whisper, to have my mouth swallow words like waves. So I’ll play fakir if I have to. I’ll jackhammer. I’ll break barren ground. I’ll ferret because they — I am an alcoholic — are only words, shapes, sounds, air.

I will not go quietly.

I remember those first few months. I was a shivering mess of a thing. I kept fidgeting; I was prone to hysterics and bursts of rage, because this what you do when you suffer unimaginable loss. This is how you feel when you’ve lived the whole of your life married to an anesthetic. And suddenly you find yourself reduced to a slab on an operating table, ready for the cutting. There is no ether. There is no sweet pill dissolving on your tongue. This is you, done to the bone. And you realize you can feel yourself bleed, that there is actual pain associated with living that you couldn’t smother and snuff out. You tell anyone who will listen that there is no pain like this. But something made you bite down. Made you keep going.

Maybe it was that morning after when I collapsed into tears. On the phone my best friend told me that it wouldn’t have been so bad had I not drunk those last two glasses of wine. If I had only stopped. The words hung there, desperate to cleave to something, but instead my body convulsed and shook. And it was if I opened my mouth and moth balls fluttered out when I said I couldn’t stop. I remember how saying those small words shocked me, because I had convinced myself that I had a “drinking situation”, “a problem”, “a momentarily lapse in reason” – I never wanted the finality of those three words: I’m an alcoholic, because who wants that? An end, a fade to black, a business of leaving.

And then six months passed and I tell you this: I could see, and feel and hear and touch and taste. It was as if I had spent a decade asleep and I had suddenly woken up, hurling myself back into life. Imagine yourself the sole passenger on a plane; you’re cruising altitude, complacent. This is your drinking life, your numb, waking life. And then the plane breaks sky, is flung into the ocean, explodes from the inside out, and the seconds before life and other you cry out for time, for your life. This is your sobriety. This is you waking up after a catastrophe.

This is you holding your life in your hands rather than surrendering it to a bottle. This is the time your new life begins.

After those first six months, I coasted. I thought this sober life was easy until this year. Until I found myself losing the last vestige of a family. Until I sat for months in front of a computer, staring at a blank page. Going to the bank and seeing my savings fade to nothing. Coming home to myself and only myself. I never felt tested until I felt lost, unimaginably so, and there was a whole month where I had to write down on my hand, on slips of paper, on my goddamn bathroom mirror: You will not drink. You cannot drink. You cannot lose all that you have built. You cannot go through this crash again.

I cannot go back.

Even typing this now, the weight of this, nearly breaks me. Because I have to remind myself that addiction doesn’t go away, it simply lies dormant. It’s a lover begging for reconciliation. It’s a tireless, patient, abusive lover waiting for an in. Waiting for that first flinch. It wants to say, but I am the one thing that has never left you.

And although I’m at such a grounded, good place in my life, I can never be complacent.

Come December I will be 34. Come February I will be 3. And I treasure this — all that comes before and all that is now, and all that is before me.

And after I hit “publish” on this post, I realized this: alcoholic is just one word. But there are other words! Strong, smart, funny, effusive, creative, passionate, kind. And those words are loud, beautiful, and brave.

Obviously, it’s Friday and I wouldn’t spend it any other way than writing out my thoughts, lighting candles (right now it’s James Boyce Candle in Chef’s Special by Voluspa), and clutching a hot cup of tea.

As a teenager, half a lifetime ago it seems, I was secretly obsessed with malls. Having grown up in Brooklyn where you slipped in and out of shops, plucked sweaters out of $1 bins, and the fitting room was a water closet, the shimmery lights and Grecian fountains of Long Island malls mystified me. Pristine parquet floors and women with perfectly-coiffed hair greeting me with a crystal bottle clutched in their hands, waiting for their spritz moment, was a near ethereal experience. I spent most of my weekends traveling on buses, roaming Green Acres, Sunrise, Walt Whitman and Roosevelt Field malls. These were the days of A&S, of cruising the food courts and chatting on payphones. It would be almost a year before I would make a purchase.

By the time I left for college, malls had lost a little of their luster, but I still made my occasional, private sojourns. I still munched on a Johnny Rocket cheeseburger and combed the Banana Republic, The Limited and J Crew sale racks. During winter break my freshman year, I made my first “major” fragrance purchase: Prescriptives’ Calyx. I remember the holiday box set and the sumptuous body cream and foaming gel, which accompanied my fragrance. At eighteen, it felt oddly grand to own something so luxurious, something from a counter in a store that sold sapphires and shearling coats, and I think I might have savored my fragrant indulgence, used in sparingly, for the months after.

And although it’s been years since I’ve worn Calyx, when I learned that Prescriptives plans to discontinue distribution at the end of January 2010, I was a bit sad. It was as if another door in a long list of memories had quietly closed. If the things you remember, albeit minor, were slowly being replaced by shiny, new things. Call me old. Call me sentimental, but when I return to my old neighborhoods and haunts and see the replacements — I cringe. Because part of me wants to know that things will continue to quietly exist.

So I’ve decided to hold onto a memory, even for a little while longer. I’m checking out their swan song on Twitter, picking up some shimmery colors from their holiday collection because their makeup is that fantastic and I crave a little nostalgia, and connecting with a brand that held a sweet memory.

There’s something wholly magical about entertaining. About laying out mismatched bowls that have a patina, a rich history. There’s something joyous in presenting the ones you love with a delicious meal. My best friend and I often talk about how we love the whole ritual of hosting a dinner (regardless of size) – from planning the meal to folding the linens to listening to the steady hum of water as you wash all the dishes. I never want to own a dishwasher because I still want to be connected to the complete tactile process of feeding someone else.

That having been said, I even consider a simple salad dish special. One could certainly toss in a bag of pre-washed greens paired with a divine provencal dressing — I’ve done it. However, I love combing my some pantry and throwing together disparate ingredients to make something truly tasty. This past weekend I fixed the following salad, and it’s probably the best I’ve had in quite some time.

INGREDIENTS:
1 bag of pre-washed spinach
1 cup of sundried tomatoes, packed in olive oil
1/4 cup of sliced gruyere cheese
1 cup of basil, packed
2 tbsp of sundried tomato-infused oil
1 clove minced/shaved garlic
1/4 cup toasted slivered, blanced almonds
Salt/pepper, to season

DIRECTIONS
Toss all ingredients and serve!

Recipe Notes: I adore the nutty taste of gruyere, so instead of using a box grater, I slice large shards with a vegetable peeler (alternatively, you could use a microplane). For the olive oil, I simply used the oil in which the sundried tomatoes were packed. I toasted the almonds in a dry skillet.

Sophie is the queen of the manor, the imperial princess, her puffiness. She is the wanton hussy with the diamond belly and angelic whiskers, the kitty with a little shimmy in her shaker. Sophie must be the center of attention, always. And she must have the finest food with all the trimmings. I blame her, in part, for the Petco Incident of 2006, where I terrorized employees at an Upper East Side location when they failed to stock Wellness cat food. I vaguely remember a rant about “crushed squirrel” and “canned roadkill” while my best friend strong-shouldered me out the door.

We had to regroup at Burger Heaven. The coda to the story: I no longer drink and Petco presently stocks organic cat food.

Suffice to say, Sophie’s every whim is indulged. There is none of this “sleeping on the floor” or lounging freestyle on some “kitty bed” nonsense. It’s Loro Piana cashmere throws, down pillows, and proseco in crystal globlets. NO! WIRE! HANGERS! It’s as if she was born watching Robin Leach’s Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous; no one told her that she’s living in Brooklyn with a mom climbing out of debt (but that’s a whole other post).

One day when Sophie sniffed at a can of inferior cat food, I screamed: BITCH, GET A JOB. And then naturally I went out and bought her Wellness. So believe me when I say that I was shocked when my little minx became enraptured by the Soft Hugwear Blanket ($20). I found my cashmere throw (ah, the flush dot.com days) rejected in favor of a plush, pink blanket.

Clearly this travel set isn’t meant for pampering pets, however, the products are unbelievably soft and insanely affordable. We’re talking luxe on a budget. Eye masks give me vertigo with its claustrophobic feel and tight elastic that leaves an indelible mark, yet the Soft Hugwear is delicate. And the neck pillow will accompany me on future sojourns. So whether you’re enduring a frigid flight, a car ride through the back country or de-stressing on the couch, swathe yourself in pure comfort.

When I think of Jo Malone I think of white lilies in glasses vases, damask, a home elegant and severe. Whenever I step inside a boutique I breathe what could only be perceived as modern ladylike opulence with a touch of the coquette. From luscious candles to lotions that feel like cashmere to the skin, Jo Malone always offers lavish, highly-personalized, divine floral scents. Although I abandoned fragrances when I was younger, as I grow older I feel naked without them. Whether it be lightweight after-shower creams or a spritz of perfume behind the knees and ears, I always leave the house with a touch of blooms. And right now I’m coveting Jo Malone’s Orange Blossom Body Crème.

A delightful brew of clementine leaves, orange blossoms and water lilies, the exquisite, lightweight lotion evokes images of the idyll — a frolic through morning grass, waking under shimmery dew-dampened leaves, summers in Provence with a flock of birds taking shelter on the eaves. I adore this scent because it’s at turns fresh, clean and sumptuous. This is the kind of cream that requires no perfume – just a hot shower and a cotton shirt. Your skin is left perfumed and moisturized for the whole of the day.

Long-time readers of my site know that I’ve spent years perfecting the chocolate chip pumpkin loaf. And I’ve learned over the years, the real magic happens in the kitchen when you make mistakes and take risks. Today, I can say with conviction that this chocolate chip pumpkin loaf is the best I’ve made. Here are my tweaks:

Enjoy!

Note: As I relayed in the video, my experience should inspire you to think about the choices you make in relation to food. After I elected to really examine what I was putting into my body, my world really opened up. However, please discuss all diet modifications and lifestyle changes with your doctor.

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It’s no secret that I’m mad for a harvested, vine vegetable. Whether roasting a whole squash and dressing it with buttery, spicy sausage or creating a velvet cream sauce for a pasta dish, the versatility of this divine vegetable continues to astound me. And not only is squash incredibly healthy (winter squash is high in fiber, beta-carotene and vitamin C), it’s delicious and very filling.

A few years ago, I made butternut squash lasagna, and I was immediately surprised with how easily I was willing to abandon my traditional meat and mozzarella mainstay. This dish is at turns delicate and hearty. The pesto béchamel is liquid satin and the saltiness from the pecorino adds a bite. I love pairing this dish with a peppery arugula salad.

And although this recipe appears tough at first glance, it isn’t. It’s just quite a few steps. But if you have any questions about technique or otherwise, drop me a note in the comments and I’ll reply either by video or by a comment.

INGREDIENTS: Recipe comes courtesy of the fabulous Giada de Laurentiis’ Everyday Pasta
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 (1 1/2 to 2-pound) butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and cut into 1-inch cubes
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup water
3 amaretti cookies, crumbled (optional)
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
3 1/2 cups whole, room temperature, milk
Pinch nutmeg
3/4 cup (lightly packed) fresh basil leaves
12 no-boil lasagna noodles
2 1/2 cups shredded part skim-milk mozzarella cheese (I’ve also used goat cheese instead, and it was EPIC!)
1/3 cup grated Pecorino Romano cheese

DIRECTIONS
Heat the oil in a heavy large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the squash and toss to coat. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Pour the water into the skillet and then cover and simmer over medium heat until the squash is tender, stirring occasionally, about 20 minutes (or until you can easily cut through the squash). Cool slightly and then transfer the squash to a food processor. Add the amaretti cookies and blend until smooth. Season the squash puree, to taste, with more salt and pepper.

Melt the butter in a heavy medium-size saucepan over medium heat. Add the flour and whisk for 1 minute. You’ll need to whisk vigorously to cook the flour and remove all the lumps. Gradually whisk in the milk. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Reduce the heat to medium and simmer until the sauce thickens slightly, whisking often, about 5 minutes. Whisk in the nutmeg. Cool slightly. Transfer half of the sauce to a blender*. Add the basil and blend until smooth. Return the basil sauce to the sauce in the pan and stir to blend. Season the sauce with salt and pepper, to taste.

Position the rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 375 degrees F.

Lightly butter a 13 by 9 by 2-inch glass baking dish. Spread 3/4 cup of the sauce over the prepared baking dish. Arrange 3 lasagna noodles on the bottom of the pan. Spread 1/3 of the squash puree over the noodles. Sprinkle with 1/2 cup of mozzarella cheese. Drizzle 1/2 cup of sauce over the noodles. Repeat layering 3 more times. Warning: Do not over-layer your noodles. You may be able to build the Tower of Pisa when making a traditional lasagna, however, since this is a lighter layered dish, adding more than three layers will take away the delicate flavors of the dish, and all you’ll taste is a pound of pasta.

Tightly cover the baking dish with foil and bake the lasagna for 40 minutes. Sprinkle the remaining mozzarella and Parmesan cheeses over the lasagna. Continue baking uncovered until the sauce bubbles and the top is golden, 15 minutes longer. Let the lasagna stand for 15 minutes before serving.

RECIPE NOTES: For the love of god, do not use skim milk to make a béchamel. Although you can use parts skim and whole to create a thick sauce, you won’t get the same lusciousness and consistency of a proper cream sauce using skim milk. This is a healthy dish, splurge a little. Also, you can use fresh lasagna noodles or whole wheat noodles. I’ve fixed the recipe with endless variations and all are divine.

Note that you don’t have to actually boil the noodles to cook them. You can opt to buy the pre-made noodles, or use dry for the dish. You’ll actually garner a crisper texture against the cream, which works well for this particular dish.

*When blending hot liquids: Remove liquid from the heat and allow to cool for at least 5 minutes. Transfer liquid to a blender or food processor and fill it no more than halfway. If using a blender, release one corner of the lid. This prevents the vacuum effect that creates heat explosions. Place a towel over the top of the machine, pulse a few times then process on high speed until smooth.

This week marks my return to the full-time world. This world is rife with meetings, conference calls, budgets, mounting emails and brainstorming sessions, but what makes this return to an office markedly different than what came before is simply this: I believe in the company in which I’m working and I’m finally surrounded by people who are as smart, if not smarter, than me. Believe me when I say that this is a far cry from the days where I literally wept in my office with the door closed. A time where my ideas were smothered, and I was admonished for not being a “team player” whenever I questioned the nonsensical, archaic strategies implemented by executives who held onto their DRM-protected books as if they were children desperately clinging to their security blankets. After two and a half years of holding my head in my hands, I swore I’d never return to corporate life, never set foot in an office, never swipe a passcard. Until now. Until I found a small company where creativity is at the fore, work/life balance is paramount, and side projects are encouraged.

So perhaps I’ve taken a year off to prepare myself for this. Allow myself to think with a clear head, free of bitterness. Allow myself to find my way to where I am now.

What does this have to do with you, you so sagely query? People. I’m happy, deliriously so, so I’m sharing the proverbial LOVE. I’m spring-cleaning during a rainstorm, and I’ve stockpiled a ton of goodies for you. Check out what I’m giving away to one lucky winner:

…and tons of free samples, unused cosmetics from Avon, Lancome, Lipstick Queen, make-up brushes and more. New items will be added to the pot daily. In the last hour, I’ve added ten secret goodies.

Note: After my last two giveaways, the winner failed to respond. If you do not reply with your mailing address a week after the contest closes, I will offer the prize to the next randomly-generated winner.

UPDATE: I’ve decided to address a lot of your amazing! amazing! recommendations in the comments field below. Check out my responses to some of your suggestions.

Are you Cora? Are you the child killed by the cold cart? Did you die in this house? How did you die? Is there someone here you wish to communicate with? Help…Help…Help… We left scissors and an inverted coat by your bed. We thought you were an enchanted piece of wood that would grow diseased and die. We were suspect of your nature, your pale green skin, the spindly arms and legs that refused to grow. Your love like a barnacle. On the pyre we left tufts of your hair, offerings, and watched it burn. Praying we’d cinder out the strange in you. I remember the day the cruel, blind doctor who had pearls for eyes held you up by your legs as you slid underwater. You beat the tub with your tiny, determined fists and it made a sound louder than bombs. A metronome of your last breaths. We covered our ears and fell to our knees for we knew then that your passing would be our ticking clock. Time became a thing we were desperate to avoid. We spied you and your balled fist unwinding, the pounding paled down to submission. Surely you were meant to meet your real family in the afterlife.

You were always different from the others.

We knew this when we spied you silent in your crib. And while the town poked and prodded and schemed, you wondered if they were the changeling. If they were the weak mess of flesh birthed by fairies and minotaurs, while you were mythic, Greek and golden. The blind doctor who was your father and the mother clinking needles. Knitting a scarf that wound like a noose around her neck. You told yourself that your real parents had been locked in a box, buried down by the ravine. They warned you about the water and the drowning, don’t go down to the river, but you dared to wheel in your wooden chair just to touch the molten rocks. Just to feel the cool water cover your feet. You stuffed coins in your mouth, soothed by the salty metal. It was always about money and the water.

They would mark the end of you. Stay low to the ground. The trees will stand guard, the leaves will curl and fold you into an embrace. The land will keep you safe.

As you guys know, I need a straightjacket and a crowbar to pry myself away from a bar of chocolate. Dark chocolate flaked with sea salt, semisweet chocolate with chunks of toasted almonds, and the Vosges’ revered bacon and creamy milk mix, slay me. I’ve been known to have chocolate tasting parties. It’s been said that I’ve howled over a Kee’s white chocolate truffle dusted with toasted pistachios. I will admit that my tastes are of the snobbish variety (although I’ve been known to smuggle miniature Snickers in my bags); I demand a minimum 60% of cacao (cocoa) content.

That having been said, this week a coworker changed my life when she slipped me a piece of Organic Moo Kids Chocolate Bar ($4.50). Mixed with granola, graham crackers or chunks of fruit, the semi-sweet options are luscious and divine. This is the kind of chocolate that melts on your tongue. Discard the label, swipe this from your kids, you will need to secure a bar in your purse at all times.

As you guys know, I’m dealing with an apocalyptical bathroom situation. It’s pink. PEPTO PINK. A pink on the level of scratch ‘n sniff. Many have told me that I’m overreacting, that it’s perfectly normal to be surrounded by floor to ceiling pink tiles. That I’m not in constant fear that I’ll walk into my bathroom and find a pea-green vinyl chair or a plague of yellow sunflowers etched on glass. Sometimes I’ll find myself staring up at the pink tiles, wondering why the seventies insist on tormenting me. It’s true there exists a photograph of me sporting emerald-green bell bottom cords coupled with a brown shirt, but I must remind you (clenches fists! stomps feet!) that I was born in 1975 in the midst of a cruel, sartorially-deprived decade. We’re talking the Sahara of fashion. The age of polyester, super-fly, and color combinations no human should ever wear.

But I digress. Until I can live in world where my bathroom is austere, white and completely remodeled, I make do with what I have. I’ve invested in chocolate curtains from Crate & Barrel, plush bath rugs and cotton towels from TJ Maxx, and a host of delicious, deluxe, delovely bath salts, gels, scrubs, what have you. If I can mentally erase, albeit temporary, my unpleasant decor, showers are that much more luxurious. My current fixations include:

Body Conscience: Body Veil: Renew Dry Oil Mist – White Orchid Vanilla, $75: Harkening back to the decade of Ban de Soleil and baby oil, I remember me pale and morose. My skin was the color of parchment and I envied those who seemed to magically glow, those who were bronzed and golden-haired, while I stockpiled on Noxzema, Calamine and Vaseline to temper the scalded, deep pink burns. For years, I shied away from oil until I discovered Body Conscience’s eco-friendly line and their luscious dry oils. Instantly absorbing, you won’t channel an Exxon situation. Highly nourishing without leaving a film or a lackluster finish, your skin will feel like spun silk.