Today is Book Club, and this month we read Delicious! By Ruth Reichl . The book tells the story of Billie Breslin, who learns at a young age she has an impeccable palate. Years later she drops out of college and moves from California to NYC to work for Delicious!, the country’s most prominent food magazine. Her life changes drastically as she forms new relationships with colleagues at the magazine, chefs, and shop owners. When Delicious! is unexpectedly shut down, Billie is kept on board to hono...
Apr 28, 2021•1 hr 11 min•Ep 174•Transcript available on Metacast In today’s episode we are joined by Francesco Clark, the founder of the clean beauty brand Clark’s Botanicals. Francesco shares the origin story of Clark’s Botanicals: When he suffered a devastating spinal cord injury, he found himself paralyzed. One unexpected side effect of his paralysis was that his body could no longer sweat… and as a result, his skin changed dramatically. Together with his father (a doctor trained in homeopathy), they created Clark’s Botanicals. Francesco explains the chemi...
Apr 21, 2021•1 hr 8 min•Ep 173•Transcript available on Metacast Grace has made it safe and sound to Charleston and we were due for catch up! We put a call out in the Facebook group for questions, and we tackle them all in today’s episode. We share our favorite book podcasts, how we choose what to read next, how we manage our day, and give advice to a listener on a big life decision. We also answer questions about if job hunting is all who you know, how to make friends in a pandemic (or in a new city), managing zoom fatigue, and the age-old question: is NYC w...
Apr 14, 2021•1 hr 20 min•Ep 172•Transcript available on Metacast Today’s episode was the last one we recorded together while Grace was living in Brooklyn! As we embark on a new (remote) era of the podcast we thought it would be fun to take a walk down memory lane and talk about all of our childhood favorite things. As two weird kids (and now, weird adults), there were a lot of fun and silly memories to share. We share the things that we collected, the foods we coveted (and our strange bagged lunches), our love for the mall and our favorite childhood books. Be...
Apr 07, 2021•1 hr 1 min•Ep 171•Transcript available on Metacast TRIGGER WARNING: Suicide National Suicide Prevention Hotline: 800-273-8255 Our March Book Club pick is The Midnight Library by Matt Haig. The book follows 35-year-old Nora Seed, who is full of regrets over how she lived her life. In between life and death she is given the chance to explore how alternate lives would have played out had she made different choices thanks to the magic of The Midnight Library. We also share our own regrets and wrong turns that ultimately led us to where we are today....
Mar 31, 2021•58 min•Ep 170•Transcript available on Metacast Between Grace’s upcoming move to Charleston and Becca’s immersion in RomComPods Season 3 production, we realized we haven’t had much time to catch up! So this week is a little off the rails grab-bag episode where we embrace all of our most unpopular opinions on popular things, and the other way around. It’s always fun to unearth more things that we don’t know about each other. This includes but is definitely not limited to our trash people tendencies, lowbrow loves, overrated beauty products... ...
Mar 24, 2021•1 hr 8 min•Ep 169•Transcript available on Metacast Home chef and New York Times bestselling author Julia Turshen joins us to talk about her journey to writing cookbooks, her relationship with her body, and her personal, new cookbook Simply Julia . We also hear the adorable story of how she met her wife, Grace (a true Internet meet-cute!) and discuss her inclusive food database, Equity at the Table. More Julia: Simply Julia - Cookbook juliaturshen.com @turshen on instagram Equity at the Table Julia Rec: Maintenance Phase Podcast Instagram: @opalv...
Mar 17, 2021•1 hr 2 min•Ep 168•Transcript available on Metacast It has been a year in pandemic purgatory and if you are like us (which we assume you are, because you’re here!) then you might be running out of ways to entertain yourself at home. We have both been recently watching and listening to a lot of great content and thought we would share a roundup of our favorite movies, tv shows, podcasts and more. Consider this your to-watch list! Join us in the Facebook group and give us your recs! Movie Recs: Minari Promising Young Woman Nomadland Fake Famous The...
Mar 10, 2021•1 hr 4 min•Ep 167•Transcript available on Metacast Today we spoke with Frances Cha, the author of our February book club pick - If I Had Your Face . Frances is a NYC-based author who splits her time between the US and Seoul. She shares her experiences researching plastic surgery, room salons, and mental health for the book. We discuss the way she developed her characters to each embody a different theme of Korean culture, the journey to finally releasing the book during the pandemic, and what she’s working on now! More Frances Cha: @franceschawr...
Feb 25, 2021•35 min•Ep 165•Transcript available on Metacast For this month’s book club we read If I Had Your Face by Frances Cha. Just 30 pages into this book, we both knew it had to be our book club pick. Neither of us haven read anything like it before and there is so much to talk about. The story revolves around 4 women who all live in the same apartment building in contemporary Seoul, South Korea. The book explores impossible beauty standards and strict social hierarchies, fangirling over K-POP bands, jealousy, relationships, sex work and room salons...
Feb 24, 2021•1 hr 5 min•Ep 164•Transcript available on Metacast One of the things we get asked about most is how to read more. So we tackle that during the first fifteen minutes of this episode. (Spoiler alert: being single and childfree during a pandemic helps!) When we read, the advantages of audiobooks, and how to find books you truly love reading, and more! For the rest of the episode, we dive into our favorite hidden gem books. We each brought our five favorite hidden gem books to the table, peppering them in with recommendations from YOU! So this episo...
Feb 17, 2021•1 hr 19 min•Ep 163•Transcript available on Metacast Today we are joined by Caroline Owusu-Ansah, the founder of Luv Scrub! If you have been listening for a while you know that Grace is obsessed with her Luv Scrub—and rightfully so. This exfoliating cloth was awarded Allure’s Best of Beauty Award, leaves your skin baby soft, and replaces your old loofah or pouf - for good! Caroline shares the journey to build her business and her lessons learned, from ways to avoid burnout to finding a mentor to taking care of your mental health. More Caroline: ww...
Feb 10, 2021•1 hr 14 min•Ep 162•Transcript available on Metacast With almost a full year of quarantine life under our belts, we’re checking in with each other on how we’re feeling, what’s giving us hope, and how we are staying motivated to do anything more than watching Netflix. Grace shares more about her season of self-improvement and Becca talks about how big projects are giving her quarantine a sense of purpose. We’re also talking about the activities that are keeping us busy (puzzles!) and what we’ve been watching during our nights in. We want to hear ab...
Feb 03, 2021•1 hr 2 min•Ep 161•Transcript available on Metacast Today we are joined by Elizabeth Gilbert the New York Times best-selling author of Eat, Pray, Love, City of Girls, and (of course!) our January Book Club pick Big Magic. We talk about her decision to write Big Magic and the writing process behind it. She shares her unique perspectives on creativity and how every person can find and grow in that space. She talks about staying actively (and not-so actively) creative during the pandemic, ditching social media for the greater good, and learning how ...
Jan 28, 2021•1 hr 2 min•Ep 160•Transcript available on Metacast We found it fitting that Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert was our first book club of 2021. Becca reads this book every January to jumpstart her year, and we wanted to include you on her tradition. Reading this book is the creativity pep talk we all need so badly right now. Elizabeth approaches creativity with lightness and joy. Even if you don’t consider yourself a creative person, you will take so much away from this book. We touch on each chapter and our biggest takeaways and share our own journ...
Jan 27, 2021•1 hr 14 min•Ep 159•Transcript available on Metacast In today’s episode we are joined by Azora Zoe Paknad, the founder of Goldune. Before starting Goldune in the middle of the pandemic (in the short span of 5 months!), Azora Zoe worked for Food52 and before that, she was Grace’s social media intern at BaubleBar! She has worked in the ecommerce and content space for years and when quarantine started she got to work and started her own e-commerce site, selling the best sustainable homewares. Azora Zoe shares the intense process of building a company...
Jan 21, 2021•1 hr 23 min•Ep 158•Transcript available on Metacast It’s the time of year where we reflect on past resolutions and create new ones for the new year ahead. As we look back on the insanity of 2020 and the way that it affected our goals and ability to achieve them, we found some silver linings! Although we are definitely cautious as we set our 2021 goals, we’re also optimistic. We talk about our personal, business, and mental and physical health resolutions and the steps we are taking to get there. Whether you like to make resolutions or you just li...
Jan 13, 2021•1 hr 14 min•Ep 157•Transcript available on Metacast We’re back with our first episode of a brand new year! To kick off 2021 we are joined by Kelley Knight, author of Spells for the Modern Mystic Ritual Guidebook and Spellcasting Kit. Kelley is bringing mysticism into the mainstream, and we are here for it! We chat about her own psychic awakening, building her business, and her freakiest predictions. She does a mini tarot reading for each horoscope sign to see what lies in the year ahead. We also have a bonus January reading for those Virgos and L...
Jan 06, 2021•2 hr 32 min•Ep 156•Transcript available on Metacast For the last book club of 2020, we chose The Cousins by Karen McManus. This is a twisty YA thriller, sans murder - making it kind of the perfect book for both of us! This is the tale of Milly, Aubrey, and Jonah Story: three cousins who barely know each other but are invited to work at their estranged grandmother’s resort. All of their parents have been disinherited and the cousins learn more and more about the dark secrets of their family’s past. We chat about which cousins we relate to most, ou...
Dec 16, 2020•1 hr•Ep 155•Transcript available on Metacast 2020 is coming to a close and we are not going to let this year end on a negative note. There were really some great things about this year (politics and pandemics aside, of course). In this episode we talk about our biggest professional and personal accomplishments this year and all of our favorite purchases. We reminisce about our favorite episodes of the pod this year, our favorite books, clothing and beauty purchases and all of our favorite ways that we self-cared our way through 2020. Grace...
Dec 09, 2020•1 hr 13 min•Ep 154•Transcript available on Metacast How is it possible we’ve never done a holiday episode?! Let’s fix that starting… now! In this episode we talk about our favorite holiday traditions, how we decorate, our fave holiday foods, and, of course, the best movies and books to get you into the holiday spirit. We also share our favorite small businesses that you should know about for gift shopping this holiday season! Join us in the FB group and tell us your favorite small businesses! Holiday Movies: Elf The Christmas Contract A Christmas...
Dec 02, 2020•1 hr 21 min•Ep 153•Transcript available on Metacast Today we are joined by Diksha Basu, the author of our November Book Club pick, Destination Wedding. We are so excited to get the inside scoop on this book! Diksha is an author, former actress, and academic from New Delhi, India, and she now divides her time between New York City and Bombay. We explore what ‘home’ means to her, and how that influenced this book. She shares her unique writing process, starting with character development before plot. We also talk about our favorite character (Tina,...
Nov 27, 2020•39 min•Ep 152•Transcript available on Metacast For our November Book Club we read Destination Wedding by Diksha Basu. This book is exactly what we needed as we are both missing travel, meeting new people, and big events like weddings! The story follows Tina Das, a Brooklynite who is traveling to India with her divorced parents and her best friend to attend a cousin’s lavish wedding. Both Tina and her father are looking for love while on their trip, with some pretty mixed results. This book was such a fun read that will have you laughing, and...
Nov 25, 2020•1 hr•Ep 151•Transcript available on Metacast Welcome to our holiday gift guide episode with Caroline Moss. Caroline is the host of “Gee Thanks, Just Bought it,” a podcast about all things shopping. Her podcast explores the fun things she and her guests have found on the internet, bought, and loved. We are big fans and think you’ll like it too! We talk about what we’re eyeing on Black Friday, plus gift ideas for moms, best friends, kids, and the office secret santa. We hope this episode gives you some great gift ideas (we certainly checked ...
Nov 18, 2020•1 hr 8 min•Ep 150•Transcript available on Metacast Elizabeth Holmes, the author of HRH: So Many Thoughts on Royal Style joins us to talk about royal fashion moments and her new book. Elizabeth shares the analytical lens she uses to observe and report on royal style, thinking about the message behind the clothes just as much as their glamour. We dig into the writing process, photo selection, and her favorite royal outfits (and missteps!). She also shares how recent conversations around race and racism have impacted how she covers Meghan and royal...
Nov 11, 2020•1 hr 23 min•Ep 149•Transcript available on Metacast For today’s episode, in honor of the cooler temps coming our way, we are sharing our favorite TV shows and movies. Hopefully this list will make your winter quarantine a little more entertaining! We have both found that being inside more has led us both to watching a lot more TV than movies. We still stick to our fav genres- Becca almost exclusively watches Rom Coms, and Grace likes anything with secret agents or lawyers, and of course documentaries! Differences aside, we can both agree that we ...
Nov 04, 2020•1 hr 24 min•Ep 148•Transcript available on Metacast Alexis Daria is a native New Yorker, award winning author, celeb sighting specialist, who wrote our October Book Club pick, You Had Me at Hola. We get the inside scoop on her choice to write about the world of telenovelas and the ways that her own family mirrors the characters in the story. We learn more about the changes happening in the Romance genre from both the publishing and the consumer side. We get a peek into her writing process and how she writes such steamy sex scenes! We also get her...
Oct 29, 2020•52 min•Ep 147•Transcript available on Metacast For this month’s book club, we read You Had Me at Hola by Alexis Daria. This is the story of Jasmine Lin Rodriguez, the lead actress of the telenovela “Carmen in Charge.” She plans to swear off men and follow her Leading Lady Plan, but her plan is compromised when she falls for her co-star, Ashton Suarez. They want to keep things private, but the paparazzi makes this impossible, causing a lot of strain on their budding relationship. This was essentially a RomCom about a RomCom (peak Becca genre)...
Oct 28, 2020•1 hr 2 min•Ep 146•Transcript available on Metacast This week it’s Grace’s turn in the hot seat. Becca is getting the answers to all of your most burning questions: will she get another cat? What are her trash person tendencies? How does she find new artists? What was working with Amazon the Drop like? We also learn more about her life as the oldest of three sisters, dealing with being laid off, saving habits, her fall skincare routine, and more. Grace’s Fall Skincare Routine: Farmacy’s Green Clean Cleansing Balm Klur Gel Cleanser Farmacy Green T...
Oct 21, 2020•1 hr 17 min•Ep 145•Transcript available on Metacast Disclosure: This episode is NOT sponsored by Bath & Body Works. We wish it was, but sadly that is not the case. This week, we are joined by our “fall correspondent,” Olivia Muenter. A Fall themed episode was highly requested, and we knew Olivia would be the perfect person to join us! Olivia is a writer, editor, and digital content creator. She’s also a massive B&BW candle aficionado. We talk fall recipes, getaways, decor, movies, books and of course.. CANDLES. If you are wondering what all of Ol...
Oct 14, 2020•1 hr 24 min•Ep 144•Transcript available on Metacast 
