The Second One 💌

sweatpants, chicken, house shoes, yogurt, and the soho house of vets

Happy Saturday! Here are five things I love right now:

#1: Joah Brown Oversized Jogger

$148 for a pair of sweatpants is ridiculous. Disgusting, even. I recognize this. I also own two pairs of these.

As a staunch proponent of the big-pants-tiny-top lifestyle, I am in sweats a lot. I like them loose and scrunchable, but in a way that is Very Cool and doesn’t make me look frumpy. There’s love in my heart for many brands of sweatpants– Alo, Skims, Champion (via the Em*rs*n C*llege bookstore) - they’re all good. The Oversized Joggers from Joah Brown, though, are exceptional. I wear them around the house while I do chores and hate-watch And Just Like That. I wear them to Whole Foods as I cosplay the effortlessly chic girl taking her time selecting a Japanese yam. I wear them to the gym (not while I work out - just for the trip there). They are my cool-girl armor, which I need because the people working at the Equinox front desk scare me.

The Oversized Joggers are true to their name, ie: very oversized. When I wear them in front of my mom, she says it makes my crotch look like it’s a foot long. Kind of a serve if you ask me! The insides aren’t too fuzzy, the drawstring does its job but isn’t so long that you’re like,“how am I supposed to tie this???”, they have the perfect scrunch at the bottom but it isn’t too tight around your ankles, and all of the colors are cute.

I’m not saying you should drop $148 on sweatpants, but I am saying that if you’re having one of those moments where you feel like the only thing on earth that will turn your day around is spending money that you maybe shouldn’t be spending, these are a great thing to spend that money on. Obviously I’m speaking from experience.

#2: Breakfast Chicken

I go through breakfast phases. I do not switch it up. Violently committing to the same meal every single day, for often what amounts to about six months, until one morning I am suddenly overcome with disgust the likes of which I will swear I have never felt before is…just my thing, baby! This happened about six weeks ago and I had to send my sourdough toast with avocado, eggs, harissa, and feta to the ash heap of history. Sad. While I hate to see her go, a hot new bombshell has entered the* villa**. And her name is breakfast chicken.

*my

**tummy

If a friend had told me they were eating chicken breasts for breakfast six weeks ago, I would have been, at the very least, mildly concerned. It would have evoked images of those very disturbed people who meal prep chicken and rice and broccoli with no seasoning in the name of #health and #gains and #optimization. But Breakfast Chicken is different. I’d like to introduce you to all of her elements:

1. Shredded chicken breast. I roast a few on Sundays so I have them for the week.

2. Sweet potato. The addition of these, to me, makes it hash.

3. Avocado. Mashed up in the bottom of the bowl you’re going to eat out of - it’s the base layer.

4. Cheese. I like feta. Use whatever.

5. Something pickled. This is, in my opinion, completely non-negotiable. I flip between red onion and purple cabbage. And I pile it on.

6. Hot sauce. If you wouldn’t put hot sauce on this, that is honestly weird.

You may notice that I don’t add eggs. You certainly could. I’m however still recovering from the ick of my last breakfast fixation. We’ll see how long the Breakfast Chicken lasts.

#3: Small Door Vet

Small Door is a chain of veterinary offices with locations in NYC, DC, and Boston. It is also, I hate to say, the Soho House of vets, the one difference being that their app actually works.

We loved our previous vet’s office for a number of reasons, the biggest one being a specific tech who always went above and beyond with Pickles. She was instantly calmed by her presence, and so we were we. When the vet we saw at that practice retired, the tech left to go work at Small Door. We immediately followed suit.

Our first visit was a few weeks ago, and I’m still not over it. It looks like the Public Hotel inside. Soft lighting. Minimalist furniture. Is Ian Schrager behind this? He could very well be. But what I really love about Small Door is that it works off of a membership system, which sounds annoying but actually isn’t. For $169 per year, you receive one annual exam, are able to make same day or next day appointments (guaranteed), and have access to 24/7 telehealth for your pet.

Veterinary offices, especially in cities, are so swamped right now– most of them are booking weeks, if not months out, even for issues that need swift attention. The peace of mind knowing that we’d  be able to get Pickles seen without having to go to the emergency vet, which costs approximately one million dollars even if they just kiss her head and send her on her way, was enough for me. We sprung for a Plus membership which includes all vaccines, an extra wellness exam, poop testing (slay), blood tests, nail trims, flea/tick/heartworm meds, and more. It’s already been worth it for us.

When I reached out to their team to ask how they wanted me to deliver Pickles’ medical records, they informed me that they had already called her previous vet and retrieved every single document. When we arrived for our appointment, they greeted us by name, there was no wait time, and five people offered us coffee and tea (from a VERY chic machine with VERY chic cups!).

Our vet was superb, having already reviewed all of Miss P’s history beforehand– so she was able to jump right in and ask relevant questions without me having to spend 20 minutes regaling her with Tales from the Dumpster. Pickles is notoriously scared of everything (just like her mama), and didn’t want to leave my lap, so Dr. Beth got on her hands and knees and did everything she needed to do from the ground. The best part was that we had our favorite vet tech from our old office right there the whole time. I cried three times because I was so happy. They also gave Pickles a million toys to take home, showered her with compliments, and gave her plenty of Churu. I’ve never seen her so calm anywhere else except our own home. I say this earnestly, which is rare: take your pets here!

#4: The Coconut Cult Probiotic Yogurt (Chocolate Mousse Flavor)

Hating yogurt was an integral part of my personality until I was about 26. I actually still gag when I see people eating Fruit-on-the-Bottom. It’s remains unfathomable to me that there are adult citizens of the world who will open one of those single-serving yogurt cups and simply…go to town. Have you ever seen a grown man do that? It’s deeply upsetting.

I only say I stopped hating it at 26 because that’s when I accepted Greek yogurt-based dips and sauces into my life. Tzatziki? I would eat it by the gallon. Blueberry Chobani? I’d rather die.

Do I know what caused me to add a jar of chocolate mousse Coconut Cult to my cart? Not really. I had eaten some of their gelato before and really liked it, and had also been following them on Instagram for a while. I knew that there was…an extreme amount of probiotics in their yogurt (sixteen different strains, which is…crazy fr). It can be used instead of a probiotic capsule, which I used to take (remember, I am not ugly, and therefore have a cornucopia of stomach issues) until I started eating this. While many yogurts claim to have probiotics, most of them are dead, i.e.: the probiotics aren’t active. They’re not doing anything for your gut. The CC yogurt is almost…effervescent? If you hold it on your tongue you can feel those little guys moving, I swear. 

The most important thing, though, is that this tastes like chocolate ice cream. It’s texturally elite, too, which is a weird thing for me to think about yogurt because the texture is what repelled me for so many years. It reminds me of cannoli filling; if you take a spoonful of the stuff and flip it upside-down, nothing is falling off.

It’s also organic and vegan, if that’s important to you. Idk - I just can’t get enough. I literally look forward to eating it every day. I buy it at Whole Foods, but you can also get it through their website.

#5: House Shoes

If you’ve been to my apartment in the last three years, you’ve seen me in my most prized possession: hot pink Birkenstocks. But this isn’t really about the Birkies, this is more an ode to house shoes as a whole. I don’t recognize myself B.H.S. The fact that some of you are just…walking around your apartments in socks, or even worse, with your dogs fully out and touching the ground….no barrier between you and whatever civilizations of funk are being built on your floor….it’s just obscene. 

I bought my Birkenstocks (the Eva Sandal, in case you were wondering) early in lockdown; maybe in April 2020. I knew I wasn’t going to be needing shoes any time soon, but I think I probably just wanted to spend money on something, and the color was fun. I had never worn Birkinstocks before (real ones have seen the video) so when they arrived I immediately tried them on. And then I just…never took them off. My life was instantly better with half an inch between my body and the floor. I was finally free. 

Let me be clear: slippers do not count as house shoes. Stinky! You need something that COULD be worn outside, but probably shouldn’t be, because of either fashion or functionality (in the case of the Eva sandal, both). I also prefer to wear my house shoes with socks, but that’s just a personal preference. Finding the pair that’s meant for you is a private and intimate journey, so I won’t interfere, but I will drag you to the starting line. Cage those dogs! Or else!!

That’s all for today! The next one might not be until September 🍂, but for good reason. If you have any London recs, let me know 🥲.

Thanks for being here.

Love,
Cap

PS: if you haven’t already, maybe ⬇️

or, if you really liked this one, ⬇️